A/N:
Time for another writing experiment and brief change of pace to a slightly more serious crime drama. Credit also goes to the great cop show Blue Bloods for some of the inspiration. With that said...

I do not own Power Rangers, its characters, or any of its related intellectual property. I'm just a humble fan trying his best to salute the show.

New Tech City: Industrial District
19:45 hours

Sergio Torres nervously fidgeted as he glanced out the high windows of the old abandoned warehouse. The sky was already turning dark as night began to fall over New Tech City and Sergio pulled his coat a little tighter to ward off the cool air. Nearby, a group of his "fellow associates" were busy paying more attention to the deal about to go down at the makeshift table that had been set up. Perched atop a crate full of illegal weapons sat his well dressed boss Roderick Vale, who calmly took another drag on his cigarette. Dim lights flickered from a few portable lanterns as another group of tough looking people quietly made their way into the dingy warehouse. No doubt this was the street gang they were waiting for. Each wore assorted articles of leather clothing and a red bandana on their head marking them as members of the Red Moons.

Roderick looked up slowly with a grin as he tossed his cigarette and rose to meet the leader of the gang, a scarred young man by the name of Vincent Pierce. "You made it Vinny. Right on time."

"We're both in a hurry." Vincent growled tersely, "Let's just get this deal over with Rod."

Rod eyed his customer and his hired muscle for a moment, "Did you bring the money?"

Vincent gave a quick nod to one of his men, who approached with a large briefcase. Putting it on the table, he opened it to reveal large stacks of money inside. "2.5 million, like we agreed."

Rod nodded and ambled over to the crate before slowly pulling out a small laser rifle. Vinny's men immediately reached for their weapons, but their boss gestured for them to stand down.

"Your men have gotten really twitchy Vin." Rod laughed holding the gun away and offering it to the leader of the Red Moon gang.

"Can't be too careful these days." Vinny replied looking the gun over, "SPD's been cracking down on the rivals recently. These are the guns we agreed on?"

Rod nodded, "It wasn't easy, but that's the largest cache of Troobian weapons I was able to smuggle in recently. Should be enough firepower to keep the other gangs away."

Sergio's attention on the illegal arms deal was suddenly torn away as he heard several footsteps quickly echoing in the dark warehouse. Before he knew it, a flash grenade went off nearby and Sergio stumbled over as the garage door flew open and several masked men in grey colored tactical gear burst in with energy rifles.

"SPD! Drop your weapons and put your hands up!"

The disoriented criminals stumbled to their knees and several of them put their hands up in surrender. Amid the confusion, Sergio crawled into the shadows and hid behind an old indoor dumpster, trying to slow his racing heart. What was going on here? SPD wasn't planning a sting tonight. He of all people would have known. He was their informant!

"Well well, Pierce and Vale. I didn't think we'd actually be seeing you two in person tonight." one of the masked SPD officers laughed triumphantly holding them at rifle point.

"You cops think you're so tough." Vinny spat defiantly, "Well guess what? I ain't talkin."

"That's right," Rod chuckled, "I've only got one word for you... lawyer."

"Shut up!" the officer growled, giving Rod a vicious kick in the side. "We're not here to listen to you lowlifes lie through your teeth."

"What the hell?" Vinny shouted angrily, "You're cops! You can't do that!"

The officer whirled around on Vinny and put the laser rifle to the gang leader's nose, "I'm the guy with the gun pointed at your mug right now dirt bag. I can do whatever I want."

Nearby, two other SPD officers secured the weapons and money before one checked his wrist watch. "We're a minute ahead of schedule boss."

"Good," the leader of the officers replied thumbing off the safety of his weapon. "More time to make this look like an accident."

Sergio curled into his dark hiding spot in terror as he heard a barrage of automatic laser rifles being fired, followed by a few muffled cries of the dying criminals. He waited for several tense minutes after he heard the masked SPD officers gather their things and hurry away from the warehouse with the loot. As nervous sweat continued to pour down his brow, he reached for his communicator and dialed the direct line. "Hello? This is Sergio Torres. Route me to SPD headquarters. This is an emergency!"

New Tech City: Market District
09:30 hours

"After him!" Schuyler Tate cried as the blue skinned alien drug dealer took off into the crowded marketplace district. Friday morning shoppers looked up in surprise and stepped aside quickly as they saw four SPD officers in colored uniforms take off running. As they dashed after the suspect, Sky gave a quick hand signal and the 4 officers split up. While the dealer wove through the crowd, he skidded to a halt when he ran face to face with a brunette female officer dressed in yellow. Turning to dart left, he froze as he was met with an identical officer, and then another copy, cutting him off to the right. "Nowhere to go buddy." Officer Elizabeth "Z" Delgado smiled putting her hands on her hips.

To her surprise, the suspect turned around and ran back the way he came, prompting Z to quip, "Except that way."

Backtracking through an alley, the dealer slipped into another crowd milling about a smaller plaza. However, when he looked up, he spotted an SPD officer in a blue uniform from a nearby 2nd story terrace waving his hand about with rippling energy, as if scanning the area. Reaching for his comm, Officer Bridge Carson called out, "I have a visual on the perp! He's headed westbound from the Coventry Lane plaza! All units respond!"

As the exhausted alien drug dealer took off running again, he came to a thicker crowd of people and tried shoving through them. Upon shoving several startled shoppers aside, the blue skinned alien ran headfirst into a solid force field of energy and tumbled backwards into a heap. Standing before him with a stern look and a hand on his pistol was an SPD officer in red, Schuyler "Sky" Tate.

Before the dealer knew it, he felt a cold metallic hand grab him from behind the scruff of his neck and roll him over into a restraining position. To his shock it was the strong iron hand of an officer wearing pink. With her knee upon the alien's back, Officer Sydney Drew slapped a pair of handcuffs on him and brushed aside a loose strand of her golden hair. "Elphias Kino, you're under arrest for smuggling, illegal possession of drugs, and resisting arrest."

"Nice collar Syd." Sky grinned to his teammate as he helped to hoist the stunned criminal to his feet.

"Thanks!" she replied brightly putting away a piece of iron in her pocket, "But I still had a little help from the rest of you."

As she said that, the two were joined by Bridge and Z along with a few more SPD patrolmen. "You're darn right we're not letting you hog all the credit for this arrest." Z smiled while Sky and Bridge exchanged a victorious fist bump. "Maybe if I work my tail off and make a few more collars, Cruger will bump me up to a green uniform."

"Now Z, let's not get ahead of ourselves." Bridge laughed, "I still think I looked best in that color." Glancing to Sky, he quickly added, "Err... not that blue is a bad look either.

"Bridge is right Z," Syd chimed in and waggled her fingers, "If you did put on the green, the next thing you know, you might start to get hankerings for some buttery toast."

Z simply rolled her eyes and smiled at Sydney's gentle teasing.

"Listen, you guys can eat all the buttery toast you want later, but first we've got to report back to Cruger for a full debriefing." Sky interjected dutifully as he handed the alien drug dealer over to the other patrol officers.

"Aww, Sky! Do we really have to?" Syd groaned with a childish pout.

Sky gave his petite friend an expectant look and gently turned her around by the shoulders toward their car. "Start marching Officer Drew."

Turning to Z, Bridge gave a shrug and began walking too, "He had me at toast."

"Well, at least we know that wearing red hasn't changed Sky one bit." Z sighed to herself as the four Rangers began walking back to their patrol car.

SPD Headquaters
11:45 hours

Later that morning at SPD headquarters, the Rangers stood assembled at rigid attention while they gave their report of the morning's arrest to Commander Anubis Cruger.

The dog faced commander sat behind his desk and gave a satisfied nod, "Good work on the clean arrest Rangers. We've been trying to catch that dealer for some time now, but he'd always slipped past the local patrols. I trust you'll prepare an official written report of the incident?"

"I'll take care of it by tomorrow, sir." Sky volunteered, deciding to be a good leader and spare his teammates the tedious task of extra paperwork.

Before the other three Rangers could nod their thanks to him, Cruger reached into his side drawer and put a file on his desk. "I'd rather you hold off on the report for now Tate. I've got a matter that requires B Squad's immediate attention."

The Rangers exchanged questioning looks as Commander Cruger continued, "Last night, an SPD informant reported that an illegal weapons deal between a smuggler and gang boss was raided. The ones who conducted the raid identified themselves as SPD officers."

"What's so strange about that, sir?" Z asked curiously, "We do sting operations like that all the time."

"Except this raid was not authorized," Cruger answered with a grave look, "The men who posed as the SPD officers made off with over 2 million credits in cash as well as several crates of smuggled Troobian weapons."

"What about the criminals conducting the deal, sir?" Bridge interjected hopefully. "Did they recognize anyone, or have any information?"

The Commander shook his head, "I'm afraid they won't be talking Bridge. They were all killed. But that's where B Squad comes in. I want you to investigate the site for clues and get to the bottom of this case. The last thing we need is for violent crimes to be committed by people wearing our uniforms."

The four gave a crisp salute as Commander Cruger rose slowly. "Before I dismiss you, there is one other thing. Officers Tate, Carson, and Drew… the three of you are familiar with Detective Marcus Bailey?"

The three looked to each other and nodded tentatively as Z hesitantly asked, "Umm, excuse the new girl's ignorance but, who is that?"

"Marcus was a friend of ours who was also in our Academy's graduating class." Sky answered. "He was a good guy, and an even better cadet."

"Bailey was really smart too." Bridge chimed in. "He'd sometimes help me study for exams, and was always one of the highest scoring test takers."

"I totally had a crush on him when we entered the Academy." Syd added, making her two male teammates turn and stare at her.

"What?" Syd huffed indignantly, "I did! Besides, I know he's already married now."

"So... if he was such a great cadet, why didn't he become a Ranger?" Z asked curiously.

Sky simply shrugged, "He didn't want to. He was happier working investigations with the local force and opted to become a detective instead."

At this, Cruger cleared his throat and silenced the Rangers, "Officers, I'm afraid I have some bad news to report. Your friend Detective Bailey was critically injured yesterday and is currently in the hospital. Presumably, he was working undercover on an unrelated case and took several blaster shots by an attacker."

The three Rangers gasped and stood dumbfounded for a long moment before Syd found her voice, "Can we go to see him Commander?"

Cruger nodded somberly and let out a sigh, "Of course. His wife should already be there staying with him."

Sky frowned in thought, "Sir, with permission, I'd like to request that we take on the case Detective Bailey was working and do it on the side. The three of us owe it to Marcus and maybe we can find out who did this to his him too."

"Sky is right." Bridge nodded, "Is it possible Marcus would be able to ID his shooter?"

Cruger frowned and shook his head, "I'm afraid Detective Bailey won't be much good to you right now. I was told he's in a coma."

The Rangers stopped a moment before giving crestfallen nods. As they did, Commander Cruger turned his back to look out the office window. "As for the request to take on Detective Bailey's case… permission granted."

"Thank you sir." Sky said as the Rangers saluted again and filed out of the command room. As they walked down the busy main corridor toward the mess hall for lunch, Z turned to see the worried look on her three teammates' faces, "Hey, I'm really sorry about what happened to your friend. If there's any way I can help… maybe I could get started on the murdered arms dealer case?"

"Thanks Z." Sky nodded, as they entered the mess hall. Before getting in line for food, he stopped a moment to regroup his team, while trying to show a bit of stoic leadership. "Ok, after lunch we split up and get back to work. Bridge, you go with Z and look over that crime scene to see what you two can find. Syd and I will go to Marcus's commanding officer and recover all the records of the case he was working."

Bridge and Syd reluctantly nodded and got back into the lunch line, the euphoria from their arrest that morning, now darkened by hints of concern and melancholy for their old classmate. As Z gave the Red Ranger an encouraging pat on the shoulder and joined the others, Sky couldn't help but wonder for a moment what his father would have done at a time like this. For the time being, it looked as if he was going to need all the old police wisdom and motivating words he could get against these new shadowy threats to the city, and to SPD itself.

To Be Continued...