It was a quiet day at Colonial Heights Jr. High School as Amelia Cummings was taking notes while sitting on top of the lab bench in her Planetary Geology Class. Her close friend Marsha was sitting at a normal table but Amelia didn't mind sitting on the lab bench. Today they were taking notes on the geological structure of the land under Settlement 14 specifically about the Zordoniam.

"Amelia, you still with us?" the teacher asked.

"Yeah I was concentrating on something," Amelia asked.

"The reason I was wondering is I wanted to know what the level of purity is for Zordoniam?" the teacher asked.

"Most crystals are only about 60-70% pure Zordoniam and the rest is other types of quartz along with a maybe ½ percent Zeo. It is rumored that some crystals might have purity levels of as much as 95 to even a hundred percent Zordoniam and that those are the most powerful. Also it is believed that the crystals might vibrate according to specific frequencies which would result in the emission of various colors in the spectrum," Amelia said. Those being the ones I’m after since the chance of their being used for ranger powers is enhanced.

Soon as class was over Amelia and Marsha headed for lunch.

"Marsha, if the field trip goes well I may try to arrange a small field team to do some independent studying," Amelia said.

"Where would the field trip be?" Marsha asked.

"Settlement 14. I want to try to locate some Zordoniam for a small project,’ Amelia said.

"Marsha, who is your friend?" An Asian male asked.

"Bobby, this is Amelia Cummings she started here last Monday. She’s my partner for a Planetary Geology fieldtrip tomorrow," Marsha said.

"What settlement did you live in before?" Bobby asked.

"Chicago on Earth," Amelia said. "My parents and I moved here over Christmas. I happen to live next door to Matt Connorson."

"The guy from the Youth Center," Bobby said.

"Yeah. My cousin Fran is good friends with his partner Kim," Amelia said.

"What’s your opinion of Planetary Geology?" Bobby asked.

"It’s interesting. I manage to get a pretty good view of things from my vantage point," Amelia said.

"It’s no wonder since you sit on top of a Lab table and use that silly clipboard," Marsha said.

"Hey I manage all right," Amelia said.

That afternoon Marsha joined Amelia in the pool at Amelia’s house. As they were swimming along they noticed Michelle slide on in.

"I figured I’d join you," Michelle said.

"You’re welcome to anytime," Amelia said.

The next day Amelia walked to school and met up with a School Shuttle. She made sure to sit with Marsha and Bobby. Soon they left for the trip location.

"This will be interesting. The Mountain Dome is said to have some of the finest geological formations," Bobby said.

"Bobby, when you find a girlfriend I hope she can handle your way of looking at things," Marsha said.

"I’m sure they will," Bobby said.

They remained silent until arriving at the field trip site. Professor Damon and Stephanie were on hand and waiting along with I/Oca..

"Welcome to the Mountain Dome. Your challenge today will be to locate some interesting rock formations and to collect them for later analysis," Powermatic said.

"I wonder if I should simply teleport us off to the Zordoniam mines," Amelia said.

"Not today you won’t," Stephanie said. "What would you do with it if you had any?"

"If it was good enough I would take some to the lab at the Bunker and work with it," Amelia said.

"I can tell you have a plan," Stephanie said.

"I do but it’s highly classified," Amelia said.

The class worked hard and had some real interesting rocks. Soon as they got back to school Amelia, Marsha, and Bobby headed for Amelia’s with their specimen boxes.

"Think about we have all weekend to get a jumpstart on the lab analysis from today’s fieldtrip," Bobby said.

"I know. I reserved some lab space at Rangertech for our analysis. Figure why waste time using the equipment at school if we have some real fancy stuff at the Bunker. Also tomorrow I have a different trip planned," Amelia said.

"Not the Zordoniam Mines," Bobby said.

"Of course," Amelia said. "If we are careful we should have a few good crystals by nightfall.."

"So what now?" Bobby asked.

"Time to get wet and wild," Amelia said.

"I didn’t bring my trunks," Bobby said. "Maybe I’ll do some preliminary work on the Analysis while you two get wet and wild."

At that moment Patricia came out and climbed onto the Diving board and did a modified cannonball into the pool. The water from her splash shorting out Bobby’s computer.

"Amelia, your sister is deadmeat," Bobby said.

"Bobby, just leave it with I/Oca when we go over to Rangertech tomorrow," Marsha said.

"I might need it in the mines," Bobby said.

The next day they headed for the Command Bunker. Kelly and Sylvia were in the snack bar when they walked in.

"So what brings you three here?" Kelly asked.

"I borrowed lab space for a project for school," Amelia said. "Is I/Oca around we need his expertise on something vital."

"He is at Teri’s today helping her mom with some stuff. Jim went with him. Probably follow up on the repairs they made right before Christmas," Sylvia said.

"Well Amelia’s little sister caused water to get into my computer when she was attempting a dive yesterday and splashed me with the water that came out," Bobby said.

"Not good," Kelly said. "He should be back soon."

"Kelly, if I wanted to do any special research here that wasn’t school related how would I go about getting permission?" Amelia asked.

"To start out you would probably talk to Stephanie since she is down as lab director. In her absence Tyra as chief laboratory intern might be able to authorize it," Kelly said.

"OK, Marsha, you and Bobby start setting things up which I talk with Stephanie," Amelia said.

Stephanie was in the War Room.

"Morning Amelia, what brings you by?" Stephanie asked.

"My team and I are working on the analysis from yesterday. Stephanie, if I wanted to do some research on Zordoniam how difficult would it be?" Amelia asked.

"Depends, what type of research did you have in mind?" Stephanie asked.

"Well I’m looking ahead to when I turn 15 and become eligible to actually become a ranger. By that point the Demona Powers will probably be ready for retirement. I was thinking that if Zordoniam was as powerful as they say then it might be a good source of ranger power," Amelia said.

"It’s a possibility but while we know a lot about it from Geological surveys we don’t know how stable it really so until we know how stable it is I wouldn’t want to use it in a morpher. For all we know it could be toxic to human life," Stephanie said.

"Stephanie, there is evidence if you ask me that it isn’t toxic to human life," Powermatic said.

"Like what?" Stephanie asked.

"Easy Settlement 14 which is right over the Zordoniam is thriving. If it was toxic we would have known something before now. Amelia, what is your Planetary Geology Group doing right now?" Powermatic asked.

"Working on the analysis of the samples from yesterday. I figured on doing it here since the lab has better equipment then the Jr. High for this type of thing," Amelia said.

"If I remember correctly you have Monday off," Powermatic said.

"Yes we do. It’s because of an Earth Holiday," Amelia said.

"Alpha, go into the lab and get the others. We are deploying," Powermatic said.

"Who exactly do we need?" Alpha asked.

"Marsha, Bobby, Kelly, Sylvia, and any other Airedales you see," Amelia said.

"Well we might need Air Support," Powermatic said.

Amelia then went over to her locker in the War Room and grabbed some special scanners.

"We can use these to check the purity among other things. I have a feeling that for the purpose I was proposing we would need extremely pure ones with certain frequencies,"

Shortly after that the team met up by the Front Entrance.

"This should prove interesting," Kelly said.

Mechinack meanwhile was watching the rangers

"Very interesting. You plan well Powermatic that is for sure. By stationing the Rangers there you insure that I can’t attack the science team," Mechinack said.

"Boss, this might be a good time to attack," Hankoid said.

"I agree. There are only two Rangers deploying," Goldar said.

"The minute I do attack those two rangers would summon their friends. I can’t risk it. We will attack again but not today," Mechinack said. "Much as Dark Lord wanted that mineral I’m not too concerned about it. After all I doubt they will find enough of sufficient purity even if those mines contain almost the entire supply in the known universe of the mineral."
Amelia and Stephanie went into the mine and looked around.

"This place is something else. Man there is probably fifteen tons of crystal here and I’m looking for a few crystals with the right properties," Amelia said.

"Thankfully you brought the spectral analyzers along with the composition scanners. What say we spread out. Does your cousin have much planned tonight?" Stephanie asked.

"Yeah, She and Mark are going to double date with Teri and Scott. Thankfully this expedition isn’t screwing Fran up at all," Amelia said.

Three hours later. By this time the rest of the science team was down there with them Amelia’s Compositional Scanner went off.

"Jackpot," Amelia called out through the scanner. "Ninety-nine percent pure Zordoniam. What little isn’t looks to be Zeo. There look to be about seven crystals here."

Marsha who had one of the two spectral analyzers came over and scanned the crystals.

"I’m picking up several different spectral prints. This one looks to be Red, there is a blue one, a green one, this one is Yellow, a sort of purpley one, this one is a real light almost pinkish color, and this one looks to be pure white," Marsha said. "Interesting, according to this one scanner these seven crystals are kind of joined together into one clump."

"We’ll need a cutting laser of some type to separate these crystals from the others. Marsha, I didn’t expect to find this many. AS it is all the other crystals in this area are 40-60% Zordoniam with the remainder being normal quartz. How did these seven crystals happen to be so pure around ones that aren’t even close to being pure?" Amelia asked.

"I’ll see if Professor Damon has a laser cutter," Marsha said.

Stephanie and Powermatic walked over right then.

"Find something?" Powermatic asked.

"Yes I did. I found what I was looking for," Amelia said.

"Not bad. These are definitely the purest around. Funny thing is the surrounding crystals aren’t nearly as pure," Powermatic said.

"Been there done that," Marsha said.

Stephanie then took a small device similar to a pen and proceeded to cut the block of pure Zordoniam free of the impure Zordoniam.

"We better send this back to the Command Bunker by zord. If we carried it by normal car it wouldn’t be as safe," Stephanie said.

"I agree," Powermatic said.

"Kelly, you have your Zord available?" Stephanie called out.

"Yes I do but there isn’t a lot of cargo room because of the Electronics. I think the Post Zord has sufficient Cargo capacity," Kelly said. "I’ll call Sam."

When the Brown Ranger arrived they loaded the clump of Zordoniam aboard and then proceeded back to the Bunker. Janet was in the War Room monitoring communications.

"Andrew has run into a few problems. Apparently Angel Grove was decimated big time He isn’t sure when he will be returning to Capsilon IX," Janet said.

"Let’s face it Janet we had a pretty successful trip," Amelia said. "Seven Super Ultra Pure Zordoniam Crystals."

"Not bad," Janet said.

The next day Amelia and her team analyzed their samples from Friday and then Amelia set up a few experiments on the Zordoniam. Tuesday she was sitting at a lab bench with Marsha and Bobby when the teacher walked over.

"Not working on your samples from the field trip?" he asked.

"We did that Analysis Sunday in the lab at Rangertech. Saturday we were exploring some crystal fields in Settlement 14 and were going over some data from that expedition," Amelia said.

"Doing some experiments on Zordoniam huh. Soon as you get it written up place a copy in my inbox," the teacher said.

"Sir, the Zordoniam expedition was for fun primarily," Bobby said.

"Yeah but by handing in a copy of your write up I can choose to give you extra credit which is my plan. At the end of class I was going to inform the class that for extra credit they could always select another area of the Colony and take samples from there and a similar analysis to what your classmates are doing today on the stuff collected during the field trip. How is it you three had access to the labs at Rangertech?" the teacher asked.

"I normally don’t wear my jacket to school but I’m a Jr. Ranger and with that status I have access to all areas of Rangertech including the War Room which is off limits to non personnel," Amelia said.

"Very Interesting," the teacher said.

Thursday Amelia went into to school early and stopped by the Planetary Geology lab.

"Morning Amelia," the teacher said.

"Morning Mr. Gates," Amelia said. "I brought the Zordoniam Analysis for you."

"I see you looked into commercial uses for Zordoniam even going so far as to break it down by purity. Whoa you found some almost pure Zordoniam. You have it down as having possible military value," Mr. Gates said.

"The actual uses are classified. Just so you know both Professor Damon and Dr. Collington have seen my results.