"Zhane. Wake up."

"Mmmph."

"Zhane, it's time to get up."

"Lemme alone..."

The lights flashed to their full brilliance, with no consideration for his half-open and still night-sensitive eyes. "If you do not get out of bed this instant," the voice warned, "I will make this room very uncomfortable for you."

He frowned groggily, the stern note in her tone finally registering. He rolled over onto his back and blinked through a slumber-induced daze at the camera on the far wall. "What's your problem today?" he muttered, forcing the words out past a jaw-cracking yawn. "It can't be that late."

"It is 2:11 a.m. in Angel Grove," DECA answered. "Get out of bed."

"What!" Zhane stared at her, not moving. "What are you doing waking me up at two in the morning? What's going on?" His brain immediately supplied the worst-case scenario, and he demanded, "Where's Andros?"

"Andros is asleep on deck one," DECA told him. "He's not the one I'm worried about."

"Then who?" Zhane pushed himself up on his elbows, trying to remember where he'd put his shirt. If DECA was this serious, then something was drastically wrong. She would have sounded the alarm if it involved the Rangers, but there were plenty of demons loose lately that couldn't be fought by morphing.

"Kerone has been having nightmares," DECA said, confirming his suspicion. "She seems to be reliving past terrors in her sleep. I have convinced her to visit the Synthetron for something soothing to drink, but I doubt she will let me do more for her than that."

"And you think she'll let me?" Zhane retorted, climbing to his feet and grabbing his t-shirt from the back of the chair. "In case you hadn't noticed, she's not very receptive to that kind of thing."

"Yet you have comforted her when she would let no one else close," DECA reminded him. "It is you she turns to when she doesn't even trust herself, so you are the logical choice to help her now."

"Logical, my left foot," he muttered, glancing around for his digimorpher automatically. "Since when have you let logic influence your decisions?"

Not deigning to reply, she remarked, "Your digimorpher is under your bed. If you have any spare time while you're in the holding bay, you might take a look at your Glider. The secondary damper on the port side is malfunctioning."

Zhane retrieved his digimorpher and the world went silver before he could utter a word. *Intraship teleportation,* he noted, mildly surprised when the holding bay appeared around him. *She's in a hurry.*

Turning, he found the bay empty except for him and his Glider. "Is this my alibi?" he inquired, amused at her thoroughness. "There's nothing wrong with the dampers, you know."

"There is," she corrected. "You missed it when you ran the maintenance check earlier."

He rolled his eyes. "Right... Thanks for noticing."

Her hologram flickered into being beside him, and he raised an eyebrow. "Going to look over my shoulder, too?"

"I suggest that you do not mention the real reason for your presence here," DECA said, ignoring him. "Past experience indicates that she will avoid--"

"Hey," Zhane interrupted. "If you knew how to get her to talk, would you have brought me here? You just tell me what's wrong with that damper."

"Your inability to diagnose the problem yourself does not leave me with a great deal of confidence," DECA remarked.

"Don't get all huffy," he told her. "Nightmares happen to be my area of expertise. Power toys are yours, remember?"

She regarded him for a moment, probably reading more into that statement than he had intended. But it had the desired effect, for at last she offered, "Check the efficiency ratios for the secondary dampers. The port secondary is misaligned."

"Something you'd think I would have noticed, if it was true," he muttered. But he bent to start the check anyway, setting the dampers to recalibrate before turning back to DECA. "Since when do you wait until half a day after the fact to bring these things up, anyway?"

Again, she didn't answer, but this time she had reason. He followed her gaze toward the door and found a familiar figure frozen there, a resigned sort of annoyance on her face as she stared at him. He tried to look surprised, knowing that DECA had been right: feigning ignorance would be his only defense tonight.

"Hey," he offered tentatively. "Couldn't sleep?"

Without a word, she shook her head from side to side. She wore an Astro sweatshirt with Andros' logo displayed prominently on the front, and the color was gone from her hair for the first time in days. He wasn't sure whether to find meaning in that or not.

"Me neither..." He couldn't stop looking at her as her annoyance began to fade, leaving only confusion and fatigue in its wake. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she answered, making a visible effort to appear less haunted.

It didn't work, and he just shook his head as DECA prompted her to check the Synthetron. Somehow he had become "the logical choice" to counsel an exhausted, guilt-ridden, ex-princess of evil who was throwing out distress signals in every direction but just as clearly was not in a talkative mood. She was back after an unexplained and mostly unaccounted for absence, and even the Megaship's computer was worried about her.

It was going to be a long night.