A/N- Merry Christmas. I'm not Santa, but I'm giving you guys a Christmas gift…it's called, chapter 66.

Harmonator - I tried to work the battlizer into this chapter, but, it didn't work out, and so, I left it out. sorry.

It was night, but not too late. Everyone was up and getting ready for the attack. Everyone was armed and assigned to assault groups. Thanks to the advanced medical technology, Colonel Johnson was well enough to join the rescue mission.

Andros stood next to Zel on the command platform. They could see everyone below.

"You should give a speech." Zel suggested.

"I'm not one for speeches." Said Andros.

"Don't you remember the Battle of Gero? Admiral Frevik gave a speech to a crowd of civilians and they were inspired enough to fight off the Derum army." Said Zel. "It's good for morale, and, well, morale isn't very good right now."

Andros exhaled. "Fine." He said, agreeing to give speech.

He walked up to the edge of the platform and looked down, towards the crowd, and the crowd looked at him.

Andros stood there, not knowing what to say. The people kept looking at him, hoping for words that would inspire them and give them hope.

"I'm not going to lie to you. This is a dangerous mission with a low chance of success. But that does not mean that our fates have been decided. That does not mean we will fail. Look around at the men and women standing here, around you. These are the people who will fight by your side and be remembered by the galaxy for as long as there is good in it, because they chose to fight, when all seemed to be lost. You will tell your children and your grandchildren of this day, when we rose up defeated the tyrants terrorizing the galaxy. Now let's win a war!"

The crowd cheered, and there was a renewed sense of hope.

"For someone who's not one for speeches, you gave a pretty good speech." Said Zel.

It was morning, and the attack was going to take place in four hours. Andros looked through the crowd and found Ashley. He took her hand and led her away to a private area, away from the others.

"Ashley, if I don't come back-"

Ashley interrupted Andros with a kiss. "You will come back." She said.

Andros wrapped his arms around her waist, and Ashley wrapped her arms around his neck. "Be careful out there." Said Andros.

"You too." Ashley replied.

"I hope you find your family." Said Andros

"And I hope you can finally meet them after all this is over." Said Ashley.

They stood in silence for a moment, in each other's arms, until Ashley spoke again.

"I love you." She said.

"I love you too." Andros replied.

"Come back to me." Ashley whispered.

"I promise."

Suddenly, the base alarm went off.

"What's going on?" Ashley asked as she broke away from Andros.

The cave rumbled. "We're under attack." Said Andros.

An army of Quantrons marched into the cave, shooting their weapons at anything that moved. People fell as they were hit by weapons' fire. The rebels fought back. They hid behind rocks for cover and fired back.

"Get out of here!" Zel ordered. She had just arrived with the other rangers, all morphed in their suits, and ready for battle.

"You heard the Commander!" Kalvados yelled as he led the soldiers deeper into the cave. Zel had prepared an escape route just in case. She had some of the officers create a web of tunnels that would lead out to the river, to be used as a backdoor exit in the event of an attack.

Andros saw the large group of rebels and stopped Kalvados. "What's going on?" asked Andros.

"We're under attack sir." Said Kalvados. Everyone else kept running towards the tunnels. "The rangers are covering our escape, but there are a lot of Quantrons coming, sir."

"Get everyone to safety. We'll hold off the Quantrons." Ordered Andros.

"Yes sir." Said Kalvados.

"Let's go." Andros said to Ashley before running off towards the entrance of the cave with Ashley right behind him.

"Fall back!" Zhane yelled, giving the order to retreat.

The rangers were being overwhelmed by the Quantrons.

"Grenade!" Karone warned.

A small black ball the size of a golf ball rolled towards the rangers. It hit a small rock and stopped moving, then exploded. The explosion caused the cave the rumbled. A few lime rock spikes from the ceiling fell. Two Quantrons were hit and destroyed by the spikes. The force of the blast knocked the rangers off their feet. None of them were close enough to be critically injured from the blast. The Quantrons continued to advance towards the rangers.

Andros and Ashley came running in, shooting their blasters.

"Go! Go! Go!" ordered Andros.

Ashley helped Tanya get up before falling back with the others. Andros, Zhane, and Tommy shot their blasters, covering the others' retreat.

They finally reached the entrance to the web of tunnels. Kalvados and a group of twelve soldiers were waiting for Andros.

"I thought I ordered you to get out." Said Andros.

"We were waiting for you, sir." Said Kalvados.

"Let's go!" said Andros.

"Go ahead, sir. We'll cover your escape." Said Kalvados.

"You're leaving, too. That's an order!" said Andros. Enough people had died. Andros didn't want Kalvados to die as well.

"Sir, we don't have time to argue! Go! We'll be right behind you!" said Kalvados.

Kalvados was right. There was no time to argue, and Andros knew that he wouldn't be able to convince Kalvados to obey his order. Andros followed the other rangers into the web of tunnels, hoping that he would see Kalvados again.

"Get in position!" Kalvados ordered. He and two of the twelve soldiers hid behind some crates that were placed by the entrance to the web of tunnels. One of the soldiers moved up to higher ground, in a little pocket of rock, ten feet above the ground, to the right of the tunnel entrance.

"Hold the line!" Kalvados yelled out his final order. He raised his weapon and aimed at the Quantrons coming towards them, and fired.

The rest of his team fired as well. The Quantrons fell one by one, but they still came like a storm. Some of the Quantrons in the back began to fire at the soldiers.

One by one, the Quantrons shot down the members of Kalvados's team, until finally, it was just him and five others.

One of the five soldiers was Curz. He was positioned in a pocket of rock, above the rest. The Quantrons aimed and shot at him. They blew away at the pocket of rock until they weakened its structural integrity, causing it to break up and drop Curz to the ground.

"Curz!" Kalvados called out. He looked to see if Curz was still alive or not. Kalvados saw Curz barely move his arm.

"Cover me!" Kalvados ordered right before running towards Curz. He grabbed Curz by the collar of his uniform and dragged him back towards the crates, but as Kalvados dragged Curz back behind the crates, a Quantron fired at Kalvados, hitting him in the lower abdomen.

"Sir!" one of the soldiers cried out. He reached over, grabbed Kalvados and dragged him back. Kalvados had only been an arm's length away from the crates. He inspected the wound. It was bad. Kalvados was bleeding out.

"Ka'tor." Said Kalvados.

"Yes, sir."

"You lead these guys out to the river. As soon as you leave, I'm going to count to twenty and then I'm going to toss a grenade into the tunnels, causing a cave in of the tunnels. We can't let the resistance be found again. We must complete the mission." Said Kalvados.

"But sir, what about you?"

"Today is my day to die." Said Kalvados. "Now go!"

Kalvados and his team had held the line for a good ten minutes. It was enough time for everyone else to escape into the river.

"Retreat!" Ka'tor

The three other remaining soldiers complied and headed for the tunnel, while continuing to fire at the Quantrons.

"Goodbye, sir." Said Ka'tor as he headed into the tunnel, right behind the others.

"One, two…" Kalvados began to count. He could hear the Quantrons rushing towards his position.

When the count reached twenty, Kalvados pulled out a grenade and tossed it into the tunnels. The explosion caused a cave-in within the tunnel network, preventing the Quantrons from following the resistance into the river.

Kalvados reached into his side pocket and pulled out a detonator. The base had been rigged to explode.

Kalvados ignored the pain as he stood up to face his enemies. He raised the detonator.

"I'll see you soon, Zarine." He said before pushing the button, activating the explosives within the base, killing himself and all the Quantrons within the base.

The rebels were standing along the river, waiting for Kalvados and his team. He heard some noise coming from the tunnels. Three men emerged from the tunnel.

"Where's Kalvados?" asked Andros.

The ground shook, knocking a few people off their feet.

"He's gone, sir." Ka'tor reported. He lowered his head in mourning of his commanding officer.

Andros also took a moment to mourn the loss of another Karovan before regaining his composure.

"Let's move out! We can't stay here or else we'll be detected." Ordered Andros.

The rebels had been on the run for an hour, away from both the city, as well as their former base of operations. They had to get away from the area, and the path to Angel Grove was too dangerous.

The rebels decided to take a break. They also needed time to rethink their strategy, and see how many people they had lost.

"Okay, I did a head count, and, it's not good. We lost almost seventy people." Zel reported.

The attack group had now been reduced to a hundred and three soldiers, including the Earth soldiers.

"That's almost half of the ground assault team." Said Zhane.

"How many pilots do we have?" asked Andros.

"Twenty." Answered Zel.

"You still want to go through with the attack?" asked Zhane.

"We don't have a choice. This is our only chance." Said Andros.

"I think we need another inspiring speech." Said Zel.

Everyone gathered around Andros for instructions. They didn't know what to do. They had just lost their base, and many of their friends. The little hope of victory they had was almost gone.

"I know you're scared." Said Andros as he looked around, at everyone.

"I know, you don't think we can win, but we can win. They destroyed our home, our ship, and our base, but they still could not eliminate us. If we give up now, we lose, and we die. But if fight, we can save those who are suffering under Darkonda's rule. Your dreams of peace can come true. Just fight for it. Now who's with me?!"

The crowd roared in support. Once again, their spirits were revitalized. They had a relit fire in their hearts, and they were ready to fight.

Zel sat in the pilot's seat of the stealth ship. She saw the Dark Fortress ahead of her.

"Are you ready?" she asked over the com.

"Ready." Andros replied through the com. The rear compartment had been closed so that Zel would not be sucked into the vacuum of space. Andros and Karone morphed into their ranger suits.

"I still think you should have taken Zhane along." Said Zel.

"There aren't enough people in the assault group. You guys will need Zhane down there." Said Andros. Zhane being part of the ground assault team was the only change in the original plan.

Andros and Karone wrapped their waist with a tether.

"Depressurizing the rear compartment." Said Zel. Zel waited for the screen on her console to tell her when the compartment was fully depressurized.

"Opening the door." The door opened slowly. It was split horizontally from the middle. The top half moved up, and the bottom half moved down.

"Twenty Meters from the Fortress. You're cleared to launch." Said Zel.

"Affirmative." Andros replied.

"Good luck."

A/N – I'm expecting you guys to like this chapter, since you liked the last two chapters. Personally, I like this chapter. It's not my favorite, but I still found it to be enjoyable. Now that I mention it, which chapter would you say has been your favorite?

My original plan was to have the previous chapter end with an attack on the base, but then, I had already written the speech scene, and I didn't want to lose it, so I changed the speech time to night, and the attack to morning.

For that Ashley/Andros scene, I was going to have Ashley say that she forgives Andros for killing TJ, but then, I thought it would be a mood killer, so I didn't add it in.

My intention with the attack was to take away what little sense of hope they had, but then, I had already kicked the rebels around enough, and I thought that it might have been overkill, but then, for some reason, here it is, written.

The scene with Kalvados sacrificing himself reminds me a lot of a scene from Starship Troopers. Maybe that's where I got the idea. Who knows. All I know is, Karone and Andros and on a suicide mission, and Zhane is on Earth, leading the rangers, just like the show *wink wink*