[#981108] Artist Bros. Enterprises presents... A Dairenn Lombard Production It was humid from the hot sun shining in the cloudless, blue sky above Mason Garrison, just north of Cape Canaveral in Florida, United States of America. A ten mile by 34-mile area excluding the operational portions of this region was home to more than 500 unique species of bird, reptile and amphibian. Meanwhile, the Canaveral National seashore was home to swimming, bathing, surfing and fishing. And, in an open field below the sky was 400 feet of steel. Using 1,000 kilowatts of diesel-generated electricity to give 2,750 horsepower was a massive platform vehicle on eight tracks rolled by 57 wheels. It alone weighted over 2,700 metric tons measuring 131 feet by 114 feet, rolling one mile per hour via the crawlerway, burning 150 gallons of oil per mile. It can move twice as fast when unloaded but with a total weight of 18 million pounds resting on the double tredded-tracks just 20-26 feet to the crawlerway, it lived up to its name. On a 140 foot-wide road 7-feet deep, the specially built crawlerway supported a massive white rocket standing on the crawler as it made its way to Pad A. Beneath the Saturn VI rocket on top of the mobile launch platform were shafts to accommodate the thrust provided by the newly perfected atomic engine aboard the newly redesigned version of the Saturn V rocket, abandoned by NASA decades ago. The mobile launcher had multiple umbilicals plugged into the rocket, supplying fuel, electricity and communications. All disconnected by pyrotechnics at launch. And just days ago, pad 39 was the launch site for the space shuttle Enterprise now in orbit above Earth, where a crew of five were destined to board the cargo about to be jettisoned into orbit from Apollo 18. SkyLab 6, a space station testing the first artificial gravity generator. The space station would discharge from the battery-shaped cylinder within the rocket's third and final stage. Computer software would then cause the space station to transform into a indescribable shape to support the five-man crew conducting their experiments for a planned duration of six months. Meanwhile, in a huge, brightly fluorescent-lit chamber within the blockhouse at Complex 36, Cape Canaveral were dozens upon dozens of men and women wearing headsets seated before television monitors and keyboards. Screens gave multiple views of the 40-story tall rocket ship along with several lines of information regarding fuel and electrical systems. This high-speed digital network allowed the NASA launch team to conduct countdown operations. Cross-talk from dialogue bleeding over from one person to the next created a chaotic sound from mathematicians to scientists giving verbal data while typing even more information to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Via a satellite dish, the spaceport in Florida communicated over a wide bandwidth signal directly to Houston. At the massive building there in the open plains of Texas, communication by radio was received by the men and women reading monitors and typing data at their terminals. There were rows upon rows of these people as the projector screen on the wall ahead of them gave a remote camera feed of the Saturn VI rocket about to launch. "And Apollo 18 is now T minus 600 seconds," a voice spoke out of the many. A man nodded and held his headset's microphone. "I copy that. All systems aboard unmanned ship reading normal. Nuclear engine status is active." In Hartford, Connecticut in the northeastern United States' new england states was a victorian house enjoying mild temperatures despite the high humidity. This wooden-colored home featured a modest garage with traditional features such as a flagged mailbox and brass door knocker--among other things. Inside of the dinning room adjacent to the living room, an older but still hansom, clean-shaven man with a full head of hair sat in a sweater was watching their High-Definition Television, or digital TV set. Next to him was his oldest child, 17 year old Rebecca Laughlin. Across from her was 12 year old Andy. "And now, just ten minutes away from the launch, let's turn now to our correspondent at Kennedy Space Center," said an UBC news correspondent. The new television network, United States Broadcasting Company, featured its transparent logo in the lower right-hand corner of the screen as the anchor was on the left side of an image split with an anchor holding a microphone outside the field. "NASA public relations have expressed their anxiousness to see Apollo 18 launch because after extensive testing and the painstakingly difficult task of recovering Saturn V rocket schematical information, the new Saturn VI ship is ready to launch. It features an atomic engine aboard the second stage that will allow the Saturn VI to proceed on to Mars. This will not happen during the Apollo 18 mission but will be tested after SkyLab VI is released. Typical engines using synthetic, environmentally friendly fuels will be used to provide thrust for this spacecraft." "Now, tell us a little bit more about SkyLab VI," the news anchor in the studio asked. "Essentially, the SkyLab program had been discontinued by NASA because the lack of funds and its unsatisfactory track record. And now, due to the venture capital invested by aerospace billionaire Robert Laughlin--NASA was able to construct this new space station." "Exactly," the correspondent confirmed. "And now, the most amazing experiment this station is attempting to achieve is artificial gravity with the untested devices embedded on platforms which will try to retain empty containers to their surfaces at exactly 1 G of force." With the television's lights reflecting from his glasses, Robert nodded affirmatively with a smile on his face. "And, by the way, I have just now received word that mission control is about to begin the final countdown sequence for Apollo 18 so let us provide to our viewing audience the audio feed for this countdown," the news anchor in the studio said. A remote camera positioned outside tall fences surrounding the octagonal shaped launch pad faced the tall, stiff shaft of steel pointing up the sky majestically. With gasses flowing away from its rigid surface about to burst forth in a powerful display of pure energy. And in front of it was a large LED display screen reading: 07-21-2007, 10:08:09 (eastern time zone, military time code) and counting. Other remote cameras pointed at people visiting the spaceport, looking past a fence far from the fenced off launch pad. Elevated on a 5% incline from the crawlerway road, three miles from the Vertical Assembly Building; a large steel structure near the beach where orbiters are refurbished by large, sliding platforms lining up around the vertical length of a shuttle. Switching back now to the Saturn VI rocket with UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and the red white and blue flag printed on its white hull, audio from mission control broadcasted a man speaking. "Countdown to lift off now T minus 20." Another voice spoke up, "Onboard computer responding and launching systems. Electrical network responding to software queries. Safety interlocks engaged. Sensor status indicating heat shields intact. Skylab power status on stand by." The first voice then said, "T minus 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two . . . T minus 1 and--lift off." The foggy gasses beneath the bells were burned away by the pre-burners before three fireballs unrolled out of the rocket afterburners. Fifty foot deep flame trenches almost 60 feet wide, extended 450 feet long below the mobile launch platform were filled by a wave of fire blasting forth. Pyrotechnics blew off hoses attached to the side of the rocket's hull as the space ship began to rise vertically into the air. The crowd watching, brightly illuminated, felt a warm rush of air that blew their hair back while some donned sunglasses to safely perceive the lift off. As the impressive Saturn VI rocket ascended from the mobile launch platform, the thrust from the afterburners was as bright as the sun. Smoke leaving the flames launching the Apollo 18 space ship into the sky rushed out of sight as the tower of steel being hurled hundreds of miles per hour into the sky left the top of the launch platform tower. "Houston copies that," another voice said. "We have lift off." ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜ ÜÜÜ ÜÜÜ ÜÜÜ Û ÜÜÜÜÛ Û ÜÜÜ Û Û Û Û ÜÜÜ Û ÛÜßÛßÜÛ ÛÜßÛßÜÛ Û ÛÜÜ Û Û ÜÜÜ Û Û ÛÜÜÜÜ Û ÜÜÜ Û ÜÛßÜßÛÜ ßÛ Ûß ÛÜÜÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÛ ÛÜÛ ÛÜÜÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÛ ÛÜÛ ÛÜÛßÛÜÛ ÛÜÛ ßßßßßßßß ßßßßß ßßßßß ßß ßß ßßßßßßß ßßßßß ßßßßßß ßßßßß ßßßßßßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßßßßßßß ßßßßß ßßßßß ßßßßß ßßß ßßß ßßßßßß ßßß ßßßßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßß ßßßßßß ßß ßß ßß ßßßßß ßß ßß ßßßßß ßßßßßßß ÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÍͼ ÈÍÍÛÛÉÍͼ ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛº ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛº ÛÛÛÛÛÛɼ ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛº ÈÍÍÍÍÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÈÛÛÛÛÛÛɼ Èͼ Èͼ ÈÍÍÍÍÍͼ Èͼ Èͼ Èͼ ÈÍÍÍÍͼ ÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛ» ÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛº ÛÛÉÍÍÍͼ ÛÛÉÍÍÍͼ ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛɼ ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛº ÛÛÉÛÛ» ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛÛÛÛÛɼ ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛº ÛÛºÈÛÛ»ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛÉÍͼ ÛÛÉÍÍÛÛ» ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÛÛº ÈÛÛÛÛº ÈÛÛÛÛÛÛɼ ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ» ÛÛº ÛÛº Èͼ Èͼ Èͼ Èͼ Èͼ ÈÍÍͼ ÈÍÍÍÍͼ ÈÍÍÍÍÍͼ Èͼ Èͼ Starring Sheratan Kasei, a.k.a., Dave Marcello. Australis Mokusei, a.k.a., William Richards. Nashiran Dosei, a.k.a., Thomas Nevison. Messuta Suisei, a.k.a., Ron Michaeli. Lotia Kinsei, a.k.a., Amy Leven. Officer Beverly Tenmei And Commander Leto, a.k.a., Professor Aaron Hanson. Co-Starring Agent Franklyn Mahoney Agent Katherine Sanchez Chief John Madison and Andromina Tenbinza Written By Dairenn Lombard Sarah Bewley Kristen P. Fallon Music By Dairenn Lombard for Artist Bros. Music Story Editor M. Hideo Miyake Creative Consultants Makoto Yokoyama Kouichi Sakamoto Hitoshi Doi Technical Consultants Takeuchi Shouichi Peter Bell Pat Johnson Vic M. Armstrong Peter Diamond Jim Dumoulin David Dickinson Kay Grinter Hugh Harris Executive Producer Valerie Lombard Produced By Artist Bros. Productions Art Direction By Ondre Lombard Based on Super Sentai Century Toei Group, Limited The sparkling stars in the navy blue sky were just beginning to twinkle as the orange glow from the sun that had just set beyond the horizon dimmed. Down the quiet neighborhood road, lined with large trees full of leaves was where Robert McLaughlin lived. Inside of the house, Robert stood by his telescope on the balcony of his bedroom with the door open. There were pens and pads of paper handy with a cordless telephone and the observatory telephone number in the back of the telephone indicated he frequently reported unique findings that he observed with his multi-hundred dollar telescopic equipment. Distracted by just the view, Robert was left oblivious of something walking inside. A knock was heard on the door and he turned around. Short, brownish blonde haired Rebecca stood in a turtle neck sweater and jeans smiling at her father. He smiled and stepped away from his telescope. "Why--hello..." "Hey, Dad--I just thought I'd come see how you were," Rebecca said, bearing the voice a matured adolescent. After she stopped walking up to him, Robert sighed and shook his head. "I still can't believe it." Smiling with joy, Rebecca nodded slowly. Robert shook his head while looking away. "I've spent the better half of my career collecting the money and talking to all of the right people to get our space program _back_ on its feet again." Rebecca walked closer to him with her hands in her pockets. "And now it's finally happened." "Yeah," he marveled. "I mean, it's almost like death. You know it's going to happen some day but it's never quite real until it's about to happen and even when it does, you still wouldn't believe it." "Dad," Rebecca said before taking his hands into her own, "we're really proud of you." Robert sighed joyously. "I can't ever forget this. I was just six years old when I saw Neil Armstrong stand on the moon on television." His eyes glazed, he thought back to that moment. In a living room, on a wooden floor--a small boy with a ducktail hair style watched a oak television cabinet and a black and white picture tube. Robert was spell-bound by the images he saw and the sounds he heard. On the screen, a man in a big, mostly white looking space suit took a step down off of the ladder that was on the surface of the moon with nothing but blackness beyond the horizon. The audio being the noisy, telephone-quality radio feed of Armstrong's first words while on the Earth's only natural satellite. Once his large white boot landed on the dusty surface of the lunar object, a beep was heard prior to his voice. "One small step for--man, one giant leap for mankind." "I knew then that the human race was capable of accomplishing anything his mind had concentrated on," Robert said. Rebecca smiled. "That and a little luck doesn't hurt," Robert joked. Rebecca nodded and chuckled. "Yeah, that's true. I can't say everyone who saw that was so moved they spent years tracking down the original Saturn V rocket schematics." Robert nodded but then sighed solemnly. "I only wish that your mom lived to see this happen." "Me too." "Caroline was so understanding it made me guilty I spent so much time on the project," he regretted. "I almost wish I had've been there more often. She was the one lady I could communicate with on the same... The same wavelength." "She knew you were following a dream, Dad," Rebecca replied. She sat down on a chair and looked up at him with her hands folded on her lap. "Sometimes, the needs everyone else has is more important than just two people." Robert nodded deeply. "Yeah, but before that one business trip to Los Angeles ten years ago--she was everything to me. When I saw the war in that city end, I was happy and sad all at once." Rebecca looked at him as he walked back up to the balcony, closing the glass doors. "I was happy it was all over, finally. After a year of this unreal conflict." Rebecca nodded. Robert looked out into space with his head up against the closet door. "But I was also sad that it had to end after Caroline had to die because of it." The bright blue sky was clear while a disc of yellow provided an overabundance of 90-degree fahrenheit temperatures to the city of Los Angeles above Temple and Main Streets. City Hall, in its multiple stories of white-clad height stood capped by its pyramid top while standing near a tall, box like office building with a white delimited, complex grid of windows. And at Parker Center, Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, black and white Ford Crown Victoria automobiles and some classic Chevrolet Caprice cars were parked in the underground lots. Cars drove into and out of the parking garage while, along the pavement in front of the high-rise was the long, concrete walkway to the entrance. A pair of glass doors with the City of Los Angeles insignia branded above the handle. Below which was their slogan, "To Protect.. And Serve". An officer in uniform was wearing an extra stripe on her shoulder as she walked through the hallways. Wearing significantly less on her black, leather utility belt, the policewoman encountered several officers' smiling faces. "Hey Congratulations!" "Thanks," her small-sounding voice chirped. "Oh man, way to go!" another officer congratulated. She nodded at them. As she passed between the halls--the Japanese woman in her late twenties smiled as she past more people smiling back at her before walking back into the offices. A golden, engraved plate read the name: Beverly Tenmei before she sat down behind the desk it was mounted on. She rolled up to her computer system before the black, touch-tone telephone rang. Tenmei picked it up, answering, "Lieutenant Tenmei." "Hey, Beverly," a deep sounding voice said. "Frank??" she asked. "Frank Mahoney? Man, I haven't seen you since you left to work for the FBI a couple years ago! Oh my God, how are you?" "Pretty good, I guess," he answered. "I heard about your promotion, Lieutenant Tenmei." "Hehehehehe," she'd giggled. Frank chuckled on her phone. "Kathy offers her congratulations too but she's kinda busy." "How's Sanchez doing these days?" Frank sighed audibly on the telephone. "Oh, I hear she's engaged." "Ooh, wow! Really?" Beverly asked. "My goodness." A hispanic woman in a green crop top and black hiphuggers wearing sandals came beside her. She looked behind herself at Sasha Castillo and waved at her. Sasha waved back, smiling brilliantly. "Uh huh?" Beverly replied. "Okay, Frank--well, I need to head out, all right? Hey, what's your number. It's been a long time since we've talked. We need to catch up! Okay, hang on a second." Beverly took a fountain pen from the wooden and gold pen holder on her desk and started cursively handwriting a number in the 310 area code. "Okay, I know where that's at. Thanks, I got it. All right, well, you stay in touch, okay?" "All righty, Beverly," answered Frank. "Okay, b'bye," Beverly told him before hanging up. "I'm almost ready to go, Sasha. It's just that I'll need a couple hours to change and take a shower." "That's okay, the dance club doesn't open until eight anyway. We've got three hours." Beverly stood up, grabbing her keys and plastic electronic time record card. "Oh, Sasha--did you catch the subway over here? I'm only asking because I could probably take you to my place or yours before we get going." "Good thinking and yeah, I took the Red line," Sasha answered. Beverly walked away from her desk. "Great. Can you do me a favor and go to lot E8 in underground lot? I need to sign some paperwork and then I can go." Sasha shook her head and waved her hand. "No problemo, Beverly. I'll see you at your car, okay?" "'Kay. Bye!" Sasha headed for the hallway and looked behind herself to wave at her. "Bye." Beverly paused while smiling, looking at Sasha as she left--actually frozen that way because of something she'd been thinking about. The brass handle of a drawer in her desk was pulled by her yellow, fingernail polished fingers bearing a green Jade stoned, gold-encased ring. Inside was a framed picture face down in the drawer. Beverly picked it up and held it by both hands before gazing into the picture within the frame. Her thumbs were beside a picture taken slightly less than ten years ago with herself, Dave Marcello, William Richards, Ron Michaeli, Tom Nevison and especially Amy Levin--her younger half sister. Beverly's angular eyes looked down onto the picture with a now expressionless look upon her made-up face. Silently, she spoke to herself, "I wonder--where are they now?" Up from the red bark of a tree--unlike any shape documented on Earth featured branches with pink, egg-shaped leaves in the yellow sky. The sun, a bright green disc of light, was shining brightly with only a few puffy white clouds above. The sphere-shaped city block below featured pathways for pedestrian travel with silver railing leading down brightly lit, metal steps to underground magnetically propelled vehicles. Between the pathways were the top halves of domes. These two-meter height structures of varying color were in all actuality, more sphere shaped as their tops were slightly flatter than their edges so that they would be long enough to provide enough internal room. Aside from the automatically sliding, black, tinted glass doors leading to the walk paved in stone between the lawn of blue grass, the buildings were covered in panels of two-way mirrors naturally made out of a crystal that naturally grows here. This structure design was chosen to best weather storms, absorb the most sunlight for energy and heat for heating and water heating. Inside--an aluminum-like table sat against one wall with a centimeter thick, silver pad on it. Hand written notes were seen in its touch-sensitive display, in another language--in non-roman characters. Next to it was a picture of Australis Mokusei and a woman--only, she wore a pantsuit while he was in a long, straight robe, reaching to black boots. The highly decorative nature of the clothing suggested formalwear or business attire, if not some kind of uniform. More casual, but equally unusual clothing were hanging from the wall of a glass booth in the corner. In this room--a mattress in a brass frame with poles extending a meter and a half up from the mattress was draped by shiny cloth, all navy blue, including the top. Suddenly, a harsh buzz was heard all around; light sticks in ceiling inside of frame grid above changed from white to red while flashing brilliantly. "UH!!" a voice grunted. Two humanoid hands reached out and pulled the curtains apart, showing Australis sitting up in his bed with the covers over his lap with his hair a mess. He looked over at a panel that extended from the glossy, white wall and observed a yellow display ticking characters one second at a time. It was in non-roman characters as well but must have indicated the time. "I knew I was gonna regret last night," he groaned to himself in his own language while grinning to himself. He looked behind himself and grabbed the covers that his legs were under and flipped them back onto the matress. It was filled with unknown material to provide the best rest achievable and he was dreading leaving it but stood up anyway; and, not having worn anything to bed, his unclothed backside came into view. He walked out of sight after passing the curtains of his bed to shield himself from the sunlight. He walked up to a glass door and it pulled itself down into a wall panel downstairs while he walked inside of a small white chamber. Compared to all else, this was a typical bathroom arrangement, although toilet seemed to use recyclable disinfectants after a vacuum system sucked the contents out of the bowl. Australis pushed a backlit button in the wall and the lid irised shut to restrict free germ backflush and the silent vacuum was only slightly heard before sprays went to work. Meanwhile, he walked over a small barrier in the floor and pulled up a slider. Warm water with temperature adjusted by the 10-key numerical membrane keypad outside flowed from the grill in the wall, mounted at an angle for full-body coverage. A hole in the wall ejected a deodorizing, disinfectant, anti-bacterial solution onto his naval-less stomach and all he did was massage the oily fluid into his skin. Meanwhile--downstairs, another humanoid hand closed the handle on a steel door while, above, a mobile platform one third of a meter long by a half meter wide held steaming consumables, deemed edible by their aroma. Above this cubby hole in the wall were various backlit membrane keys and digital displays. A woman with her hair decorated by purple highlights wore makeup that sparkled on her face. She was facing a counter using a knuckle-worn knife to safely cut an undescribable vegetable in a unique metal container. In the corner, a tube allowed a platform to descend from above and Australis walked into the kitchen wearing a gray body suit with his hair wet. The lady looked at her with her eyebrow arched from confusion. He shook his head. "The de-humidifier is broken again," Australis told her. She merely chuckled through gasps in her nose before shaking her head. In the den, a cage in the wall had a hole in it where a rectangular slot ejected envelopes of paper--postal mail arrival. The tube in the wall was curved so that the underground tube carrying their mail would push it up with air pressure. It was curve around the top and fall into hole before the air pressure kicked it into the cage. This worked for parcels as well. Larger deliveries used the fireplace-like terminal next to it in the corner. Mere documents were simply printed out by a slot above the cage such as a facsimile machine would. All communications (private data and voice, public audio and video broadcasts, energy, water and most all other services) were provided by underground cables and pipes. Sensors detecting a new object in the cage caused a small, green light stick to fly up and glow as a soft bell chimed. Australis looked over before looking at the wall clock and sighed. "I don't know whats wrong with the central distribution office. They keep getting the mail here, like, two centicycles behind schedule. It's a good thing I'm not waiting on anything important." "Try to relax, Australis," his mate spoke. Australis nodded with a frown and looked down at his food and used finger ladles to scoop up his meal. "I'm just a little high strung because the Uton Defense board of directors have asked me to train a new squadron downtown. It's a lot of pressure, Himalia." "I know, Australis," she replied before sitting down at the table with him. "I thought you'd be a lot happier about this now? You haven't been doing any action for years." Australis looked up at her. "There's a reason for that. I missed you when I was gone for a year. I thought it wouldn't be too tough but the five of us came close to losing our lives several times and each time, I was strong to the others. I always was the one to help maintain our sanity back then but because I feared dying and never getting to see you again, I was reluctant to return to active duty since then." "You always hated the office," Himilia said. "I remember when you first went to Earth--I didn't care you were going off to fight a menace to the solar system so much as I was you would want to stay because of falling for another woman." "That was the least of my problems but sadly that was one of the things that almost brought down everyone else," Australis replied. "I know this isn't the same but somehow I feel like--to myself--I'm breaking a vow I made to stay away from that stuff, for good. I can understand the Uton Government wanting me to return to defense in some function or another because of helping to protect us all but psychologically--saving the galaxy is obviously very taxing." "This isn't the same, though" Himalia told him. "I'd be the last one to disagree with you, Australis--especially about this; but, you'd be helping other people without really having to do it yourself this time." A quick, two-tone signal bell beeped from the wall speaker grill up by the ceiling before a recording said, "Incoming Communication from Messuta Suisei at 192.128.196.200 regarding:" then Messuta's voice inserted said, "you know..." Australis shook his head and groaned. The recording continued, "Accept?" "Yes," Australis groaned. Another two-tone signal indicated the call was connected. "Messuta, what's going on?" Over the speakers, "pick up the hand set or go to your terminal," replied Messuta. Australis sat down in front of a flat, active matrix display screen and picked up the hand-set, talking into the mouthpiece. "Why are you calling me private like this?" "I had some bad news and I didn't want your wife to hear the flames pouring out of your mouth after I get through telling you about what's going on but, we already have a drop out," Messuta replied. Australis shook his head and sucked air between his teeth and cheek. "Ugh." "Yeah, you might wanna get here quick," Messuta replied. Sighing, he nodded. "All right, all right--I'm on my way." "Okay, bye." The screen powered down after Australis hung the receiver on the wall next to the speaker. He stood up and walked away, and Himalia watched Australis walk back into the kitchen by the rear exit. In the kitchen, Australis approached another lift that, instead, only went down. "I haven't called your tram yet," Himalia told him. Australis stopped and sighed, realizing he's been less than pleasant to be around. "That's okay, Himalia--you just catch up on some sleep and maybe take the rest of the day off. I'll worry about the chores," Australis told her. "You deserve it after having to put up with me." Himilia chuckled. "Oh, Australis." Walking up to him, she wrapped her hands around his waste while wearing the next best thing to a kimono and kissed up on the lips. "After the year you came back to me, there's nearly nothing you can do to make me stop wanting to be with me. You gave me more attention than I knew what to do with." Australis smiled. "That's the way I plan to keep it too." He kissed her on the lips again and then turned around. The tube's glass cover rolled around behind the booth and into the shaft before the platform was lowered. From the ceiling, the platform was lowered by a hydraulically powered steel pole with Australis descending on it. It became even with the floor level in the black chamber and so he walked away from the shaft in the wall. Its door closed and ceiling spotlights came on, illuminating the concrete floor while a row of lights along a black walls were also lit up the underground garage. Australis walked towards a floating vehicle with a duck-head shaped body in a groove built into the platform. He pointed a small device at it while pushing the button, disarming the anti-theft systems and causing the door to unlock and open. The door, being the side of the tram, raised itself by hinges in the T-top. Australis sat in the seat before the automatic restraints lowered themselves onto his body, the door automatically closed and inside lights from the floor activated themselves. The bar of light around the front of the highly aerodynamic vehicle came on to illuminate the path ahead. In front of him was a membrane keyboard while beside him was a lever that looked like the stick for the automatic transmission of an automobile. The onboard computer was a router with a database record of the city. The display between the simple keys on the side could display maps and output from the computer including his own entries. The router software charted the fastest path to a programmed destination and compared it against known stopped movement on magnetic tracks throughout the underground transit network. They were detected by the sensors throughout the network that noted vehicles that had stopped in the middle of the magnetic railroad. So, collisions and other accidents were accounted for in map calculation and were so throughout the journey. And since the maximum speed was accounted for in its calculation, an ETA could be given with millicycle accuracy. With the membrane keys, Australis recalled memory setting number 1, a pre-set destination that he'd programmed into the magnetically levitated vehicle to take him to work. A new feature in this model maglev. The accelerator lever in the floor was in brake mode (with its handle turned parallel to his body. Australis grabbed it and twisted the handle to be horizontal to his hand before pushing it. His vehicle slid silently out of its docked location and rotated on its center axis before a whirring sound from its power engines indicated it was about to accelerate suddenly. The programmed speed was set for the equivalent of 100km/h. on the computer and Australis sighed. Even though the conveniences of Terrania were much greater than that on Earth, he had remembered the most exciting times of his life on the primitive world. Suddenly, the vehicle just suddenly pushed itself through the cavity in the ground at high speed with little sound and no exhaust. The dashboard indicated the actual velocity versus, the speed limit and the user defined velocity by bar meters in the color of blue, green, yellow and red. A whistle was heard if traveling beyond the speed limit by 5km/h. Below the vehicle was a pair of continuous white lights embedded in the ground. These bars under the glass panel, four inches below the vehicle, were the magnetic guides that navigated the vehicle while the side panels maintained initial levitation. However, above the equivalent of 70 mi/h., the vehicle's aerodynamic design allows it to coast on a jet stream of air as the magnetic guides held the vehicle's electromagnets in place. The onboard computer software could switch which magnets it would use to navigate from one set of magnetic tracks to the next with a third bar of usually inactive electromagnets. Meanwhile, the reflection of the tunnel lights rolled over the slanted windshield of the maglev vehicle Australis drove. And, from his point of view, all he saw was his tunnel until the tunnel left him and joined a yard many kilometers long of magnetic tracks. This black chamber, illuminated by the magnet tracks resembled a freeway with a meter-tick, transparent wall separating these lanes from traffic traveling in the opposite direction. The vehicle directly ahead of Australis' maglev signalled to his computer it was about to slow down in 1 microcycle so his did so automatically to maintain the calculated safe distance from their vehicle--the distance need it to stop. Meanwhile, text that would read in English, "ALERT: 12 O'CLOCK VEHICLE BRAKE -- CURRENT SPEED: 88km/h." appeared on his dashboard. Australis hadn't even payed attention because his mind was on other things. Automatic track changes were made by vehicles in order to turn right, left; doing so by rising higher using the magnetic guides to go over the barrier to on-coming traffic and either cross it and onto other magnetic guides, or join the traffic, effectively maneuvering a U-turn. All controlled by computer software running from ROM memory to avoid hardware-related downtime caused by commands issued to quickly. Turning signals were never used since the information about traffic conditions were constantly being transmitted by radio to other vehicle computers. Some teenagers customized their trams by re-programming the software to send messages--which is illegal. However, that didn't stop some boys from sending old ladies lewd messages. Naturally, they took the liberty of disgusting the header information that indicated where the message came from. Signs on the walls indicated current location, which were also reflected by the dashboard display screen, as well as business parking yards where visitors and employees were authorized to park. Unauthorized visitors could simply not enter if their vehicle's license barcode was not entered into the yard barrier database. Pedestrian traffic on the underground MagWay--as this city-wide network was called, was prohibited. Only the edge platforms for users of the iron-track based electric trolly could stand underground for public transit. Long distance transportation and goods hauling were provided by above ground mag-lev trains that departed from massive stations outside of town. Some were coaches designed for transportation services while others were cargo magnetic trains. They used independent tunnels built halfway into the ground to connect all major cities of the Uton continent. Australis had manuevered into the right-turn only lane and came to a complete stop comfortably--as calculated by the software. The hovercar turned on its center axis and sped inside of the tunnel in a wall. This short tunnel ended before he entered the pool of maglev vehicles anchored to polls--also levitating by magnetic repulsion. His vehicle entered a stall before coming to a complete stop. It was anchored by a beam of light that attached itself to his front bumper and--inside, Australis shut down his vehicle. On the plank next to his tram, Australis walked away from it before striding along the platform. "S'a good thing I always keep my uniform in my locker. I never have time to get dressed," he mumbled to himself. Patiently, he waited for one of the six platform tubes to slide open its shaft panel for his use. Outside, a much larger building on a block sat in front of sign reading, "UTON DEFENSE BUILDING: G6" in Terranian characters. And, inside--a long hallway of white, steel walls led to a heavy, metal door. Approaching it, Australis looked into two eye cups, put his hand on a plastic panel jutting out beside the door and said, "password: koritsu". A soft bell chimed and a voice replied. "Identity authenticated. Access granted. Persons permitted: one." The sound of compressed air seeping out was heard once the huge door rolled away from the long slot in the side of the doorway. Inside of a floor-lit chamber, the door closed again. Australis turned around, facing the door again with a blurred window in the wall behind himself. It was lit with a symbol representing the first level. "Level nine," he said and another bell chimed. By hydraulics, the elevator ascended rapidly, causing the light in the window to change numbers. On an elevated walkway above the floor with railing around the chamber, a lighter door slid open, allowing Australis to walk out and into one of the monitoring centers. He walked wearing a sleak jump-suit of navy-blue color with a green gem in the center of a golden frame pinned above a rank bar, bearing a silver triangle. Messuta was reading information someone was showing him on a pad and noticed Australis was standing behind him. "Hey, Australis. (Thanks, Socata.)" The other Terranian nodded and walked out of view before Messuta joined Australis who continued to walk towards his office. "So what's this emergency about, Messuta?" Messuta shook his head. "I was surprised to hear about this since I'm the defense systems programmer and not in tactical anymore. But a new member was kicked out because of lack of discipline." "What did they do?" Messuta sighed. "They said she can't be trusted--not because they think she'll defect or sell out top-secret information to terrorists and other rebels but because of the consistency of which she accepts the orders she's given. It is pretty irregular and a lot of the time, she takes risks and too many as well so they think of her as the type who isn't that much of a team player." "I don't know if I agree. I mean, Sheratan was as volatile as they came and if Uton Defense had the kind of standards it does now then, he wouldn't have ever become leader of the Astrorangers and who knows what would've happened on Earth ten years ago," Australis replied. In a dark chamber, a soundproof transparent wall faced an acoustically adjusted booth with musical instruments that resembled a set for percussions, a low-toned string instrument, another type of string instrument, microphones and head phones hung from hooks beneath the sheet music stand facing each microphone on a stand. And, behind one of the heavy doors with a window was the control room where the engineering console faced Nashiran Dosei. Sitting on a stool he was faced a multi-channel sound mixer with several faders, knobs and buttons. Behind him were uniquely design speakers that had a smooth, flat surface that provided a perfect representation of the music as recorded by the musicians that were standing in front of the exit door listening. Nashiran took off his headphones after hitting the equivalent of the stop button on the removable digital media machine to his left, he nodded. "That sounds pretty cool but let me change the effects on your vocals, Kayn," Nashiran replied in the Terranian language. "Whatever you want, Nash--you know your stuff," the vocalist replied. Nashiran turned to a tall rack of 19"-wide machines that served multiple purposes--compression, noise reduction, effects processing, MIDI synthesizers, equalizers, digital audio recorder, multitrack digital audio recorder and so forth and adjusted one of the programs on the effects processor by turning a dial. Nashiran leaned over to pull out one of the 1/4" jacks in the patch-bay to route a track from the original recording through the different processor he was using. However, he suddenly got a tone over the grill speaker in the ceiling above and Nash looked up. The intercom, amplified because it was often 90 decibels in the studio, featured the receptionist's voice for the recording suite he owned. "Administrate Dosei, Daria is here to see you. Should she continue to wait in the lobby?" "Daria??" he gasped to himself while looking down and around on the floor. He rolled back in his stool on the flat mat covering the carpet so the caster wheels could roll and looked back at the equipment rack before glancing at the mixing console. "Uh--yes, Kyara. Thanks." "You're welcome," his receptionist replied before a click indicated she'd turned off her microphone. Nashiran stood up and smiled for the benefit of the musicians. "Hey, listen guys, let me keep working on this a little while longer and call you back in, okay? No need to burn your money, guys." "That's all right. The Music Publisher's paying for it," the guitarist replied, "but, I'm hungry. I wanna go get somethin' to eat anyway." "Yeah, me too," said the percussionist. "We'll call you on your remote communicator, Nash." Nashiran nodded. "Sounds great, seeya guys." While the door was already open, the music group members were already walking out while moaning their goodbyes. The man holding open the door waved before walking out into the, much brighter hallway. The air pressure from the door slowly closing was heard before Nashiran started frowning with confusion. "Why is she here?" In the round lobby, Nashiran walked in past the reception desk and she saw him before looking at Daria. A girl with red, highlighted hair was sitting on the couch before suddenly standing up. "Nashiran..." "Hey, um," he replied. "(Wow.) Come with me." Nashiran directed while she walked towards him. Daria stepped ahead of him before they walked down another hallway. In the hallway, framed documents listing successful accomplishments hung on the walls as Nashiran walked with Daria. The hall could explode if a match were lit, there was so much tension visible. Daria found it hard to breath as anxiety made it difficult to piece together thoughts to form a single sentence. Nashiran sighed. "Daria, what happened when I came back from Earth? We were slated to become mated by the Marshal of Courtship." "I know, Nash. I felt so bad about it that I had to leave you that message at Defense headquarters instead of telling you face to face because I'd crack," Daria explained. "I was torn between you and my lover." Nashiran shook his head, looking confused. "So why did you ever want to find me?" "Because it took two years for me to remember why I loved you. In 4993, I left my lover and tried to find you off and on. Sometimes I gave up and tried staying alone. I tried being with someone else. But they weren't anything but insignificant love-affairs," Daria explained. "Nashiran, it's hard for me to say this because I almost know what you're thinking." Nashiran inhaled before sighing. "What are you trying to tell me, Daria?" "I wanna be with you again, Nashiran. You were deep, man. You had this unmistakable depth that was so serious, it reminded me of my own mortality daily and I like that." "Wait a minute, what are you talking about?" Nashiran asked her. Daria stopped walking with him and turned around to face him. She looked up at him, hardening her lips, conveying the intensity of her feelings. "You've got the touch. You have the power to make me see things clearly when all hell's breaking lose." Nashiran looked away, unable to believe her. Daria's eyes tried to follow his. "Nash, I was lost without you and had a failure in judgement when I left you while you were on Earth. I needed somebody who could support me by being understanding and taking care of me while I tried to make a life for myself." "You were very young when I met you," Nashiran mentioned. Daria nodded. "Most people aren't as dedicated as you are and most people weren't willing to go through what you did for my sake. Dealing with all of my problems both physical and psychological." "Since then, I understood one very important lesson that I learned from those three years we spent together," Nashiran replied. Daria was almost too afraid to hear what he was about to say. Nashiran took a step towards her and let go. "I've learned that you can't change a person, no matter how much they can love you. And even though I know you wanted to make life easier on me by helping me help you, it makes it feel like it's all for nothing when the years you spend helping somebody mature, mentally end up wasted. When you left, the--pay off, for lack of a better expression, was washed down the drain after that being one of the few sole reasons I ever hung in there for you." Daria nodded, regretfully. "It was in the idle hope that someday, you would be on my level of passion and could see life the way I could and appreciate the things that I could appreciate like I tried to do for you. And we were almost there but you got impatience, you got scared or something told you that what we were doing was nice as a fantasy. But, it's time to settle down and start doing things the way everybody else does it." "For that I'm sorry, Nashiran but that's all the past," Daria immediately replied. "I'm a new woman, Nashiran." Nashiran took another deep breath. Daria stood close to him and looked at him, face to face. "Tell me honestly you're happy and not alone." Nashiran knew she could sense his mind if she concentrated hard enough and he weren't. Terranian's telepathic sense worked far better on humans who hadn't developed their psychological abilities to this advanced level yet than it did on Terranians. "I'm sorry, Daria," Nashiran replied. "I can't be with you again." Daria was frozen by the surprise that the lonely, miserable mind she felt could say that to her. He was even stronger than she thought. "I can't take the chance that we'll go through another three, six, nine or whatever years just to see all of that progress go away again," Nashiran told her. "I need to meet someone of like spirit, Daria." "But we are!" Nashiran shook his head. "We shared a lot of great ideas but..." "Dosei!" a voice shouted from down the hall. Nashiran looked to his right as did Daria and an older person decorated in business attire was smiling happily. "Congratulations. I just got the news. The last score you composed for that show that almost didn't want you writing the music is now going to be sold to a recording group to have distributed as a music disc by itself, since the show is doing so well," he told Nashiran. "We are going to earn a great deal of money! Finally, Nashiran--it's all finally beginning to pay off." "Oh yeah," Nashiran unenthusiastically moaned before starting to walk off. Daria and the man watched him quickly walk away. "I'm so happy, I could just die," he added with his back turned to them. The older gentleman looked at Daria who looked back, slightly shrugging. He looked back to Nashiran and watched as he passed out of view. "What's eatin' him?" Over a thousand meters below were tall trees beneath the yellow sky that met the crest of the mountain peaks on the horizon. And on one of the cliffs in this forest was a trail of Terranian clothing. Doffed, Lotia sat up as Sheratan sat down behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. They leaned back together while he embraced her, using his fingers to explore Lotia's smooth skin. "This was the perfect way to celebrate the fifth millennium," she replied. "The way we all came into being." The calendar next to Sheratan read the year 5001 as he smiled. "I just can't believe we've been together for ten years. I mean, after that rough start back on Earth, it's a miracle we're still alive." Lotia laughed. "It's so warm and vast up here, I almost don't want to go home," Sheratan said. Lotia looked away and smiled. "I know we keep talking about this and what your feelings are about it but I was just curious if you still felt this way." "Felt which way about what?" Sheratan asked. Lotia leaned back and rested her hand on his, which was on her chest. "Starting a family." Sheratan was no longer distracted by the sensation of her bosom in his hand before looking down. Lotia looked behind herself breifly. "Sheratan?" Sighing, Sheratan replied, "Lotia, I haven't changed my mind, you know." Lotia rolled her eyes and leaned up. She turned around to look at him. "Sheratan, you said that we didn't have the time or the money to raise a child. We couldn't spend all of the bonuses we got from the Uton Government for our year back on Earth if we tried and that means we have all the time in the world to raise someone." "It's just an enormous responsibility and I just want to guard against making the same silly mistake most people make in bringing another life onto this world without taking everything into consideration." Lotia dropped her head down before looking back up at him again. "Sheratan, there's a difference between being careful and being paranoid. I'd hate to think that you're too scared to raise a child after what we'd been through." "Lotia, relax," he told her with a smile. "We've already talked about this before, and..." "...And we never get anywhere. We just stop talking about it and every now and then, it comes up and gets dropped all over again," Lotia interrupted. "How can you possibly get all bent out of shape over something like this but then go through battle after battle with aliens from the far reaches of the galaxy?" Sheratan sighed. "You know, that's not fair." "Never mind," Lotia replied. "I never wanted to discuss it anyway. I was just curious, that's all." "Any particular reason why?" Sheratan asked. Innocently, Lotia shrugged and stood up. Dusting off her legs, she strolled away from Sheratan who laid by himself on the sheet, leaning back on his hands to stare off into space--pondering what's going on anyway. The giant blue sphere in the black vastness of outer space was beneath the metal contraption above the massive, glowing celestial body. The planet Earth dwarfed the saucer shaped space station, SkyLab VI and, on the observation deck, an astronaut floated up against a console with screens facing up from within the terminal. However, the black rookie looked above the terminal and out of the slanted back windows that overlooked Earth. To himself, he gasped, "I've been up here for six months and spent a quarter of 2008 aboard this station. Still--she never loses her beauty," he remarked about the magnificent planet below. Earth. "Commander," another astronaut said. He looked behind himself at her as she floated by a doorway. "Come to the cockpit. Lieutenant Yoshido saw something weird on digital telescope 2." He squinted. "The one watching Mars?" "Yeah, Commander Martin," the older woman told him. "We don't know what it is and we were hoping maybe you could figure it out." Seven small, shiny things were in front of a red planet in the blackness of outer space as seen on the monitor built into the console. The glow from the screen illuminated their three faces. Yoshido shook his head. "They're getting bigger, sir." "It looks like a satellite that got destroyed by a meteorite shower but that happened back in 2004 and it was in orbit of the moon. Not Mars," Commander Martin said. The third Astronaut nodded. "Yeah, I know. Our Mars probe is still out there." "Is there anyway we can tap into it?" Cmdr. Martin asked. She shrugged. "I don't know. It'd probably give us a closer look at what those are." "Captain," Lt. Yoshido said to her. "Better request for communication with Houston and get them to find some observatory that can check this out for us. If this stuff's coming this way, we better figure out how much time we'll need to get out of the way." "I'll send out the RFC," Cmdr. Martin interjected. "You two get this stuff on VDAT." "The Visual Data Audio Tape recorder is still off line," Lt. Yoshido replied. Cmdr. Martin stopped himself from floating away. "Then use whatever we have and start getting this on film just in case the observatory needs to see a video feed of this when they get back to us." Yoshido nodded affirmatively. "Okay." He floated over to an adjacent terminal and started typing on the keys. At seven o'clock in the evening on a Summer day in Southern California, the sky was a light navy blue above the San Gabriel Mountains in the Angeles National Forest. And on Mount Wilson was its observatory at an elevation of greater than 5,000 feet above sea level. A large white building with a dome top featuring a huge tube pointed to the sky. And, inside of the dark observation room, a long station supported a long row of television-type display monitors. Each screen delivering the high resolution picture from the digital cameras watching through the powerful telescopes. One of the astronomers was holding a black telephone's receiver with his hand over the microphone while looking behind himself. "Dr. Hanson." Reading notes from off a clipboard was an older man wearing a lab coat, standing next to a similarly clad woman. He looked behind himself when the other astronomer called his name and said, "(Thank you, Dr. Garfield.) Yes, Dr. Manahan?" The man holding the phone answered, "It's JPL in Pasadena. They got me on a conference call with NASA in Houston. They need us to check something out." "(Must be important anytime they're going through this much trouble.)," Aaron mumbled to himself. "Thanks a lot, Manahan. Let me get that." Over by Dr. Manahan's desk, Aaron walked over and took the phone as he rolled back in his chair. Aaron stood their and said, "Dr. Hanson speaking, can I help you?" "I need to you tell me what you see when lookin' at Mars," a man said. Aaron folded his hand under his other arm holding the phone and looked down. "This is..." "Cy Steinberg, NASA Control in Houston," he announced. "The crew aboard SkyLab VI told us they saw some debris or something rapidly moving away from the planet Mars and beyond. That probe we've got in orbit of Mars must have just missed whatever that stuff is leaving the planet." "This is Stacy Edwards at Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena," another voice announced. "We've been trying to calculate how much time SkyLab VI has to manuever out of the path of those objects but we'd still like to know what they are." Aaron nodded. "If you can hold on a minute I can check this out." "Whatever you need to do," Cy told him. Aaron looked over at Dr. Manahan and asked while moving over to his chair, "(May I?)" "(Oh, sure sure)," Dr. Manahan said upon getting up. Aaron had a seat and pulled the black-keyed keyboard towards himself and began to type. The keys had extra loudness per click because of a device inside of the keyboard to give a physical confirmation the keys were pressed. This reduced the chance of a typographical error. On screen, the co-ordinates were reading the X, Y and Z numbers that the telescope was targetting as the database indicate what areas of the galaxy were within range of the scope. "It's coming within in range now," Aaron described on the phone. He put his hand over the receiver's microphone and looked behind himself. "Jason, can you get VDAT 23 recording camera 10 please? Thanks." Aaron held the phone by his shoulder and replied. "Yeah, just had them record this. I'll stream the video into a file and e-mail it to you." "All right," Cy replied. Stacy said on the phone, "What do you see?" "I'm scanning the surface of Mars facing Earth right now," Aaron replied. "I got another camera going and... Woah, what the?" On monitor 43 and 16 were two different motion pictures of a silver arachnid with its abdomen's rear section glowing along with its eyes, only with less brilliance. Cy asked, "Dr. Hanson, what are you looking at?" "It's hard to say; those shiny objects aren't debris but rather spider-shaped creatures. The computer is calculating some to be around eight feet high by 20-feet long while others are 20-feet high and forty feet long. "What??" Cy asked. Stacy asked, "Are they just drifting or what?" "Well, it's space so if they were blown out of something that exploded, they'd travel just as fast because in space, there is no resistant atmosphere to provide a wind drag on their inertia," Aaron answered. "However, I think I see its legs moving." The light breeze in the crisp air was cool as it blew the leaves in the large oak trees along the block in that neighborhood. Below the cloudless sky was the small-looking victorian house. Robert McLaughlin was taking his coat out of his closet inside of the second story bedroom where he and his daughter, Rebecca were. She was following him between the bedroom and the bathroom, passing suit cases each time. Rebecca asked. "Why do you have to go to Los Angeles this weekend though? Can't it wait until Monday? I need to be out tomorrow and you can't get anybody to watch Andy on this short notice since tomorrow is Saturday." "No because they said that they needed my authorization to move the SkyLab since the contract stipulated the crew had to be in orbit for eighteen months. It has only been eleven so they can't move it but since they're almost sure the space station is in danger of being in the path of something flying towards Earth, they want to move it before trying to shoot the stuff out of the sky with missiles," Robert answered. "I also need to be in Pasadena to give a statement on what's going on. Hopefully they've already written me something to say because I don't know what's going on anyway." Rebecca frowned. Robert stopped and looked at his daughter. "Look, Rebecca, hon--I'm sorry I'm leaving like this but three people are depending on all of us to keep them alive. The least I can do is make NASA's life a little easier and be there for them when they need information about the Saturn VI rocket and that space station." Rebecca nodded. "I'll be back as soon as possible, sweetheart--but, for now, call my driver and have him pick me up in a half an hour. My flight leaves at nine," Robert told her. An unmarked building on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles was the Southern California headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The close sea air from the ocean provided a cool breeze to sway the palm trees as observed through the blinds of an office window. "Chief Madison," Agent Sanchez said, "why do you want us to find out about the unidentified flying objects headed to Earth? Isn't something the Pentagon should be more interest in?" The caucasian in suspenders over a dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up turned around and nodded. "Oh, they're definitely interested, Kathy. However, I need you two to stress the importance of confidentiality to NASA, JPL and especially Mount Wilson Observatory who found the things. The media will feast on this story like jackals the second they get wind of it. We can't let that happen because mass hysteria from that would make Los Angeles 1997 look like a schoolyard confrontation." "Is that it?" Agent Mahoney asked. Madison shook his head. "Not on your life. You need to make sure they give up one hundred-percent of the information they have to the department of defense. They don't have anybody but us to make that happen since we deal more with the law than national security. That's their business." "All right," he answered, to head-off his long-windedness. "Who do we see at the observatory?" Chief Madison picked up a business card up out out of his rolodex. And, after donning a pair of small reading glasses, he looked down at it with both eyes fixed on the paper. "An Astronomer--by the name of... Aaron Hanson." Upon hearing the name, Kathy and Frank looked at each other instantly. WELCOME TO MACARTHUR PARK was on the brown sign posted on the concrete below the sculpted top. Styled iron supported benches in the park where there were many people engaged in a variety of activities. Picnics, a game of frisbee, a soccer game, a mime and a clown with tip cups on the paved walkway, entertaining children. Elsewhere, there were hotdog and ice cream vendors and at the center of the field of small hills was MacArthur Lake. A pond just south of Wilshire Boulevard that led to downtown Los Angeles that reflected the overcast glow of the sunlight behind the June-gloom clouds. On the far side of the banister-railed lake, one could see her in a navy-blue uniform as the Los Angeles police officer, Beverly Tenmei, strolled along side the turf on the paved walkway. Meanwhile, across the street on Alvarado--the Metro Red Line subway plaza was filled with persons both entering and exiting the station which featured a wide variety of art work donated to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Agency known as the MTA. Below the ribbed cage supporting the ceiling were also pillars where television monitors and close-circuit television cameras were mounted for security and informational purposes. Accompanying these electronic devices were red, scrolling LED signs displaying the date and time as well as miscellaneous information. People were standing in front of the white strip of bumps on the edge of the platform leading to the three tracks, one of which provided electricity for the subway train. Above, the red sign cleared itself before immediately displaying: TRAIN ARRIVING. Suddenly, a subtle rumble rapidly became much louder, echoing throughout the underground platform. An eardrum-pounding horn blared out before all the passengers watched the front of the silver-steel bodied train come out of the concrete tunnel, its forward white halogen light illuminating the path ahead. In front of the many passengers, windows flew by faster than perceptible causing them to all blur together until the train's brakes slowed the vehicle to a complete stop as indicated by the squeal on the iron track. Then, the high-pitched tone alerted everyone the doors were about to open. And, in unison the multiple doors parted simultaneously as a mass quantity of angelenos poured out of the several cars joined together. Out of one of the doors walked Mr. Robert McLaughlin, hauling with him a slender traveling suitcase with his brief case in the other hand. He walked up the concrete stairs as the train on the tracks below whistled again prior to closing its doors. Its round of passengers had been picked up and suddenly pulled itself out of sight. The whirling noise of the engineless vehicle was all that was left echoing throughout the station as Robert walked out onto the floor above. In this huge underground hall above the platform, McLaughlin hurriedly moved past slow-walkers trying to find ticket machines before rushing towards the elevator. The doors were already closed by the time he got there so he soon moved towards the escalators instead. The grind of a natural gas engine from a gold-stripped Metro bus followed cars moving through a yellow light as Robert McLaughlin waited on the corner of Wilshire and Alvarado to cross the street. The light turned green and the walk signal appeared as the white walking man so he, among others, began to step out into the crosswalk from off the curb. On the corner of Alvarado next to MacArthur Park, Robert continued to walk along Wilshire. A waif-like man wearing a knit cap with a wind breaker, jeans and dirty white tennis-shoes of no known name brand was standing up against a tree with a toothpick in his mouth. Out the corner of his eyes, shaded by his brown sunglasses, he spied a white man in a business suit hauling a brief case and luggage. He twirled the toothpick in his lips before flipping it into the grass with his fingers and walking off. Robert looked at his watch and shook his head. "Ahhh, I hope I'm not lost. Where is Vermont?" He got off the subway too soon as Vermont was just a couple of stops more on his westbound journey that terminates in Santa Monica, as of 2004. Nevertheless, he walked on--now halfway through the park. However, a yard behind him was the skinny guy with his motorcycle-gloved hands in his jacket's pockets. Robert didn't hear him walking because the suspicious man was wearing sneakers. Obviously given their name for the sound they make, none. However, he started jogging towards Robert and this eventually caught the attention of Officer Tenmei. She was taking a walk back to her black and white police car parked on the outside of the park when she'd had turned around and leaned forward to get a better look at what was happening, to confirm her suspicions. Robert's face was contorted with frustration because of never having been to Los Angeles before. "NASA's in Houston, for Christ's sake. Why do I have to come out here? Why not Florida, if some weird location." Right behind him was that slim man who jumped after him. Robert turned around and his eyes opened up wide before a shadow appeared over his face. On the turf, Robert dropped his belongs before he hit the grass with the slim man on his shoulders. They rolled over and over until the anonymous citizen stood up. Standing alone, Beverly's eyebrows pointed down as she frowned and then moved ahead. In the park, she started running down sixth street before finding an entrance. In the grass, Robert shook his head and grunted. "Goddamn it! My suit!" All of a sudden, his head was pointed up and he saw his brown wallet in the mugger's hand. Robert reached up shouting, "my wallet!" He suddenly turned around and his legs stomped away with amazing speed--this is because right behind him was Robert, running after him. Along the paved walkway, the mugger huffed and puffed his breaths while Robert hauled himself after the thief. "Come back here!" The man looked behind himself before dashing off to his right so behind him, Robert suddenly stopped running because of what he saw. Right over the white wall, this man's two legs rolled over the top of the ledge through the air in his jump past the bushes. He landed on the sidewalk on the other side and looked behind himself, smiling proudly. "Yeah," he grunted. He turned around and looked a black steel tube attached to a .45-caliber pistol pointed between his eyes. Officer Tenmei was holding it with both hands and one eye behind the target pin at the end of the gun. "Put down the wallet, sir." Without moving, the thief dropped the wallet shortly before the plop of it hitting the pavement was heard. Behind the ledge, Robert jogged up to the sidewalk, breathing deeply with his brief case and luggage in hand. The thief's hands were up against a wall and she took down one of his arms by the wrist before locking it and his other wrist in a pair of handcuffs. "Don't move." she told him before walking away. She knelt down and picked up Robert's wallet and gave it to him. "Thank you," Robert said before reading her golden name tag. "Beverly... Tenmei?" She nodded with a smile. "Yes. All you all right, sir?" "I am now--I mean... I think so, it's just that this is one of my best suits and now I gotta spend money on the brunch I was about to go get on dry cleaning (and why am I babbling about this nonsense to you)? Uhm, hey, listen, thanks a lot. I really appreciate it." Beverly nodded. "You're welcome..." "Hey, wait, uh," Robert's mind become a void since all he knew was that he wanted to keep talking to her. "Uh, how do I get to the Hilton downtown from here?" "Call information to the number to Metro," Beverly answered. "They'll give you directions. Anyway, I need to be going." "Yeah... Oh, by the way, I'm Robert. Robert McLaughlin. I'm in town for the JPL press conference so maybe after that, uh... I don't know," he started to say. "Tsk. Never mind. Thanks again, Officer Tenmei." Beverly nodded again. "You're welcome, sir. Good meeting you." She walked away and while Robert stood where she was, he watched her pick up the handcuffed criminal and seat him in the back of her police car. Behind a door marked Administrative Offices - Private, Aaron sat down at a chair behind the oak desk surrounded by bookcases and potted plants. On his desk was a Toshiba notebook computer with a credit-card sized device in its side hooked up to a converter that connected a thin wire up to a telephone cord that plugged into the mall. In a window within the graphical user interface on the activate matrix color display screen, plain text appeared and Aaron typed in a number and then a passcode that was not echoed to the screen. The screen blanked and then information that came through in non-roman characters indicated that he was connected. "Voice authentication Commander Lyonix Leto," he said. His laptop computer chirped and he was suddenly looking at a new graphical user interface. "Now, let's see what the scanners aboard the SpaceBase say." The planet Mars in the black space within one window was magnified several times before its color was replaced by a grid of green lights. Various other graphics became animated as Aaron watched. "Looks like some kind of a forcefield collapsed and then these creatures started lifting up out of the surface of the planet. Why did this happen?" There was a knock on the door and Aaron looked up after closing the top of his notebook computer. "Come in?" A black woman in business attire opened the door. "The FBI is here to see you, Mr. Hanson." "Really," Aaron replied. "Let them in." The woman nodded and stepped out of the way; and, Aaron put away his computer before standing up to take the lab coat from the coat rack by the window. Agents Mahoney and Sanchez walked inside and Frank closed the door behind himself before Sanchez took a seat in one of the two chairs facing Aaron's desk. "Uh, have a... seat," Aaron was starting to say just as Frank sat down himself. He tugged at his coat's lapels and cleared his throat. "Well, okay. What can I do for you?" Kathy exhaled. "Okay, Dr. Hanson. We're here to get information from you guys at the observatory and deliver it to the department of defense and NASA." "And we need a signed statement from the director of operations declaring the absolute confidentiality of all such communications," Frank amended. Aaron looked at Kathy speaking next. "Now, Hanson--given our past, I know what the rhetoric is going to be," Kathy prefaced. "`We don't know anything.' This time, we have direct orders from the federal government to find out what this place knows, regardless of..." "You don't need to go through all of this," Aaron interrupted. "We'll prepare the necessary documents for your purposes and provide you with accurate information as soon as we have put the data together in an intelligible form." Slowly, Frank and Kathy looked at one another, surprised at the ease at which they managed to obtain an agreement. The black sky above a red, mountainous horizon led to a deserted land of red dust on the surface of the ground. The powdered dirt began to slide down into a shallow black crater with walls sparkling as if there were mineral deposits in the scooped up stone. Elsewhere in this desert, a crack in firmer ground popped before rapidly leading a crooked trail some several meters ahead. Once done, a second crack completed its run within the ground. These two cracks in the dirt joined a third previously established before were pushed up like the sheet of a tent being raised. Like an earthquake, the ground began shaking as the massive chunk of now black dirt under the red top ascended into a small hill. The small mountain rising began to lose its soil covering as, when the crumbs of dirt on its sides began to fall a way--a shiny bar of steel shined brilliantly. On the other side, a round shell the same silver color shined upon being exposed to the light. It was studded with bolt-tops between fins of reflective metal upon the ridges of its vertebrae. And it extended into a ribbed tail of metal caged in a black, steel frame leading to a fork of pins at the end. More debris fell away from the ends of its singular-clawed legs with two joints in all six legs. And, this structure, finally uncovered by all of the rock and soil falling away, had come into full view by all as its oval, antennae bearing head rising up. Three, eyes blinked and its two steel jaws in front of its oral cavity bent as it bent stretched every joint in its body. Two flaps behind its back suddenly unfolded from out of two slots in its shoulder blades, become two arched bat-like wings. On the planet from below, the creature jumped from its feet, and continued to ascend upwards. In the black sky above, it began to glide over into a straight line. And as it began to use inertia to carry itself away from the planet Mars behind, the creature began to join a fleet of others. A group composed of many dozens similar to itself. And in front of themselves was the planet Earth. Below a sign on a tall poll in red on a gold logo was the word "MacDenny's" was a restaurant with a retro-50s style to its look sitting on Vermont Avenue and 6th Street. A black and white Chevrolet Caprice with a red and blue strobe light on the roof approached a ramp before its yellow right turn signal began flashing. The car turned 90-degrees into the lot before its brake lights had glowed. Meanwhile, a rented Ford Aspire drove southbound with its yellow turn signal flashing. The silver car turned right and slow downed after entering the parking lot. After the Aspire drove forth, Officer Beverly Tenmei pulled open the glass door and walked inside of the restaurant. And, from the parking lot, Robert McLaughlin saw her standing inside while looking through the window, so, he unlocked the door and popped his seat belt prior to opened the door to stand up out of the car. Outside, he closed the door of his car and used the keys to remote-control lock the silver Aspire. A waitress standing inside of the restaurant said, "I'll be right back and then I'll take you to your table." "Thanks," Beverly smiled. Her black, leather utility belt's radio started blaring so she turned it down as to avoid annoying other customers since she was on lunch and off duty. Meanwhile, a bell rung as the door was opened again and walking inside was Robert in his black slacks and jacket over a white dress shirt and red tie. It was unbuttoned since the afternoon sun burned off the clouds from earlier that day. Robert prayed she hadn't noticed him and she was apparently preoccupied with thoughts so he played it off as cool as possible. He approached the counter and then started talking to the cashier. "Ah, yes. Table for... Hey, Beverly!" She turned around and looked at Robert and smiled. "Hi! Wow, twice in one day." Robert nodded. "Yeah. Taking lunch?" "Mm hm," Beverly answered. Robert looked over at the cashier looking at the two of them and said. "Table for two, please." She stepped out from behind the cash register and had walked them over to their seat. A table connected to the wall separated two seats also built into the wall below the window with half-shut blinds. Beverly sat down before Robert did and the lady passed out two menus. "I'll be back to take your order." Beverly looked up at her and smiled while nodding. "Thank you." She picked up her menu and opened it to read the contents. "Beverly," called Robert. She looked up from her menu asking, "Yes?" "I hope I didn't seem too weird after you got that guy who tried to rip me off..." Beverly grinned. "I wouldn't worry about it. Most people get unnerved when someone tries to pull a stunt like that." "Oh, well, I know--it's just that, I was more 'un-nerved' trying to talk to you," Robert replied. "The truth of the matter is... Well, call me old fashioned, but, I'm not used to a woman in your position. I know that there're plenty of ladies in law enforcement but to have that knowledge become a reality was--electrifying." Beverly looked at him and said, "What an odd thing to say." Robert chuckled and smiled. "I'm sorry if I'm coming off like a goober, but, officer.. It's just that, well, ever since I can remember--I have always liked the idea of a woman in uniform." "Really," she replied. Robert opened his menu and started skim-reading the choices therein. "Eleven years ago, I was working for my parent's corporation before they passed away in the violence that rendered Los Angeles a war zone. I was out of town, in Washington, D.C., trying to get the government to keep from cutting funding to NASA. During my stay, I heard it on the news: Building destroyed by giant alien monstrosity. I was the only McLaughlin left to run the company and it was up to me to keep us going. And when I returned to Los Angeles, the war was still going on and while others wanted us to leave and re-locate our new headquarters, I wouldn't go. I saw a woman in a shining suit of yellow slay these monsters with daggers that could cut steel like butter. Her masked face relentless in its never ending resource of energy was powerful like a cat fighting, dangerous as razors but as petite as a pillow of cotton balls. The emotions in me were so strong I began to feel desire for women of strong conviction. I don't know why. I just know that when I saw you stop that lowly thug trying to get something for nothing, I saw the warrior lady in yellow all over again." The depth of his message once he had time to articulate his thoughts had stunned Officer Beverly Tenmei, freezing her solid upon her seat cushion behind the table. This afternoon, the bright blue sky had no clouds above the San Gabriel Mountains in the Angeles National Forest. On Mount Wilson was its observatory at an elevation of greater than 5,000 feet above sea level. It was a large white building with a dome top featuring a huge tube pointed to the sky. And, inside of the dark observation room, a long station supported a long row of television-type display monitors. Each screen delivering the high resolution picture from the digital cameras watching through the powerful telescopes. One of the astronomers saw close visual images on one screen and looked behind himself. "Dr. Hanson..." Aaron was already walking towards him and the astronomer pointed to his screen. "Those objects are apparently alive. Look at this." Backlit buttons on the console in front of the terminal display screen had a circle, arrow, an arrow pointed in the opposite direction and another one in the same direction, two lines and a square. The astronomer pushed the first arrow button and the blank display of outer space changed to footage of one of the creatures' heads moving. "That isn't debris," he said to Aaron. He nodded. "I know. Keep that tape handy," Aaron replied before walking away. Aaron walked up to a vacant station and picked up the black receiver of a telephone and started dialing ten digits. After waiting a few moments, he said, "Hi, I need to speak with either Agent Mahoney or Agent Sanchez... Yes, I'll hold." An unmarked building on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles was the Southern California headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A black Ford Crown Victoria was begin driven into the garage after the security guard walked back inside of the lot booth. Above a pair of doors, the up arrow indicated an elevator arrived and moments later, Frank Mahoney and Kathy Sanchez walked out, and into the hallway. Inside of the offices therein, Chief John Madison was on the phone and turned around, looking at the two agents approaching their desks. Madison turned around to talk back into the phone. "Hold on a second, I need to find out the answer to that very question, sir. Okay? Hold on." Madison pushed the red hold button on the black phone and hung up the receiver. He hurriedly rushed away from the desk and started to walk towards Frank and Kathy who just passed by. "Hold it, you two." Frank turned around with Kathy to look at him. "I know you're not going to like this but we just got a phone call from the observatory again and you have to go back there to secure the data," Chief Madison said. "But we were just there!" Kathy replied. Madison nodded. "I know that! But we can't take the chance the public'll get ahold of this information. Otherwise..." Frank sighed. "We know. We'll go." "And another thing," Madison replied. "If anybody asks, just say its space debris." Again, Frank and Kathy looked at each other highly confused. The depth of outer space was infinite, making it hard to see which direction one were looking in while panning across the star field. Bit by bit, silver objects sailed into a dip before curving up. This stream of silver bits banked out in front of the moon hundreds of thousands of miles from the Earth ahead. And as they coasted in the vacuum of space on inertia, one of them had cruised a little faster than the rest before slowing to join the largest at the front of the pack. Using a clicking noise actually not transmitted in the form of sound within the pressure of an atmosphere, the creature spoke. "Zaon, the Xyrth have communicated the society has arisen from hibernation and are joining us very soon." "We must reclaim Earth as soon as this happens," said Zaon. "We must recover our queen, regardless the cost. She will restore the empires on all planets in this solar system from their five billion year rest." The leaves of the palm tress above the one store house on a residential street were swaying in the clear blue sky. And, making a left turn from the intersection near by was a blue EV-1. The silent electric car was being parked beside the curb in front of the house and inside, Sasha turned of the ignition, also turning off the music from her MiniDisc player. After unbuckling her seat belt, Sasha opened the door and got out of her car. Rays of sunlight illuminated the living room with a golden hue from the wooden floor that led to a fire place, bookshelf, an entertainment center, a coffee table and a black, leather couch. Behind it, the front door next to the big, curtain draped windows was clicking from the sounds of a key turning the locks. Once the door knob was unlocked, Sasha turned it to open the door and walk inside. Briskly, she approached her coffee table--casting her keys to the cloth-topped furniture while grabbing the remote in almost the same movement. Sasha dropped herself upon the soft couch from exhaustion and pointed the remote control at the television set in the entertainment center. "...and according to the Associated Press, all observatories contact seem to have been unable to provide any information about these objects. It was discovered from Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, British Columbia Canada reporting it to YTV. Again, the pictures you see here are a live feed coming from DAO in Victoria..." On television throughout the news anchor's report was a motion picture of the silver, arachnoid-like creatures with moving legs. "Woah," Sasha gasped. She picked up the receiver of her telephone and dialed seven digits. It rang and rang again before ringing once more and ringing still again upon a final ring. Eventually, the last ring quickly followed another ring led to a click. "Hi, this is Linda..." said her voice mail greeting. "Argh," she spoke to herself, "probably driving the bus right now." "...after the tone. Thanks," played before a tone beeped. "Hi, this is Sasha. Listen, when you get this message, hurry up and turn on the TV. You're not going to believe what they're saying on the news but there's something weird going on in space according to some Canadian observatory. Anyway, call me when you get home, okay? Bye." Sasha hung up and took a deep breath while looking at the television again, spellbound. "I've gotta call Beverly." The giant blue sphere in the black vastness of outer space was beneath the metal contraption above the massive, glowing celestial body. The planet Earth dwarfed the saucer shaped space station, SkyLab VI and, on the observation deck, an astronaut floated up against a console with screens facing up from within the terminal. However, the black rookie looked above the terminal and out of the slanted back windows that provided a view of the full moon. "Uh oh. This looks bad." One of the astronauts aboard hung onto the doorway while floating off of her feet. "What is it Commander Martin?" "One of those things out there just moved." She looked confused. "Moved?" His face was reflected in the window as he looked at the arachnoid-like creatures. "Hard to describe but, their legs are moving sequentially. I don't know if they're machines or what." The SkyLab captain looked to the side, pondering what it could be. Behind a window next to the office door, a man in a secretary's chair sitting in front of a steel desk was on a black telephone. The white Texan wearing a crew cut lit a cigarette and started puffing on it, despite the signs warning not to. "So fire the damn thrusters! I don't care if you'll be moving it out of alignment for that observational project, I don't want dead astronauts on the news because we refused to abort whatever mission we had in mind when sending them and the new SkyLab up there! Uh, huh? Well, fine then." He hung up the phone, stood up and got out of his office. The dozens of people sitting at their terminals observing the monitors at Mission Control suddenly heard a bang. "All right people, thanks to some Canucks who can't keep their mouths shut, we have millions of people's eyes glued to the T.V. set. They know SkyLab will get turned into balled up tin foil at the speed those silver UFOs are approaching. Now, we just got a call from Captain Morse and she said they saw these things legs moving. If the press calls, we don't know that but we need to get Robert on the phone now because without his O.K., we can't fire the thrusters and move SkyLab out of the path of those things." Someone wearing a headset turned around and looked up at the mission supervisor and said, "Wait a minute sir, Robert McLaughlin is at a press conference in Pasadena at the Jet Propulsion Lab issuing a statement on the situation." "Oh, well, so much for pretending like we don't know anything," he mumbled. "Call JPL and tell them that when he's done giving the public the warm and fuzzies to give us a buzz back. We've got less than 30 hours to move this thing, otherwise those three people up their are road kill." In the parking lot of a building facing the San Gabriel Mountains, dozens of reporters with cameramen were gathered in front of a podium surrounded by Los Angeles Police Officers. Facing microphones from several broadcasters, Robert McLaughlin's face was flashed by white lights coming from newspaper photographer's cameras. Meanwhile, the crowd was shouting out questions all at once and Robert pointed at somebody. "Yes, you there." She said, "Sharon Wilkes for KFWD News 98, Mr. McLaughlin--what plans, if any are there to safeguard the crew aboard SkyLab and protect them from the objects about to pass by Earth?" "Currently, our dedicated astronomers and mathematicians in Houston are hard at work on coming up with a solution to move them out of the path of the things that have been seen coming this way. It is hoped that once we have a solution, we can proceed with alacrity." More reporters started shouting out things and, on the sidelines, a bearded man in glasses, apparently from JPL based on his identification tag, approached the podium. He briefly spoke to one of the policemen before being allowed to step through. Robert saw him and leaned over to let the man from JPL say something in his ear. And, as a reporter screamed out, "how come Mt. Wilson Observatory had no information about the UFOs when the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory reported it the day they said that?" "I'm sorry, I have to help the crew come up with a way to protect the SkyLab crew, I can't answer any more questions," McLaughlin said as he stepped down. The crowd of reporters got louder as he walked out of sight, followed by the man from JPL and a pair of police officers. At One Park Plaza on New Hampshire and Wilshire Boulevard, a pair of elevator doors opened up and Sara Berg stepped out in a black coat and skirt with a white blouse. With her was a co-worker, similarly dressed. "I know you usually hate it when I set you up but you've had a ten year long hiatus from a serious relationship." The two of them approached an elevator to underground parking and Sara pushed the down button. "The longer you wait, the harder it is to get that," she told Sara before the elevator chimed and the doors opened. They both walked in before she continued, "Don't you want someone to eventually support you?" "Mmm, I don't know. I mean, I'm looking for somebody in particular," Sara replied. Quickly, the elevator chimed again and the doors opened out into the parking lot. The two of them walked out and walked by the parked cars. "Sara, stop and listen. I said it has been ten years, whoever that guy is you keep talking about isn't showing up." "Yeah, well, I might've gone on a hundred or more dates since then but all of them put together wasn't as amazing as when I was with Tom." "Well, okay," she replied as they'd stopped next to Sara's green Toyota Civic. "Anyway, my car's parked a bit from here. See you later?" Sara nodded. "Yeah, have a good weekend." "Thanks," she replied, "you too. Bye." "Bye, Kristen," Sara said. As she walked away, Sara opened the door to her car and got inside. After closing the door and strapping on her seat belt, she started the ignition with her key and backed out of the driveway. The mechanical arm lifted from in front of the automated attendant that printed information on her barcoded ticket before the green compact automobile drove up and out of the ramp. After turning, Sara approached a red light, with the intent to turn again. While she waited, Sara pulled open her glove compartment and pulled out a photograph. On it was a picture of Tom Nevison from ten years ago and Sara was oblivious to everything around herself but the memories she had of his brief time within her life. The worst times she'd ever suffered were spent in the support of this stranger; a person unlike anyone she'd ever met before. Suddenly, her digital mobile telephone rang, so, Sara blinked and shook her head. She pushed the talk button on the speakerphone and accelerated into her right turn. "Uh, hello?" "Hey, this is Debbie. Do you have your radio on?" "No," Sara answered. "Why?" Debbie said, "silver objects are stumbling out of control through space towards Earth according to the news." "HUH? What the... Are you serious?" Sara asked. "As a heart attack, Sara" she responded. "they're trying to get everything ready to get rid of them as fast as possible." Sara shook her head. "Oh my God, this is horrible!!" In the four white walls of the fluorescent lit room, an analog clock on the wall was above the water cooler in front of a long table faced with fold up chairs. And seated here were staff from JPL and on the table were pencils, pads of paper and a speakerphone. Standing in the middle with his coat off was Robert in his suspenders with his tie loosened. "I'm sorry about that, but there was nothing we could do once that observatory in Victoria told YTV about it. I guess their Government really as interested in covering up this sorta stuff as ours is." The Texan from Houston replied, "either that or they didn't think this was worth covering up because they had no clue what this stuff is. Anyway, I'm sorry for bring it up, it's too late to get the pee out of the pool now." "My sentiments exactly, sir. I say we reschedule that pending shuttle launch for tonight and change the mission to rescuing the two men and one woman aboard SkyLab." A young blonde from JPL replied, "There's no way we can do that. The soonest shuttle scheduled is two months from now. In order to catch up, they would have had to have finished the refurbishment to survive take-off and landing, fuel it up and get a crew ready. Right now, we have no men. It's just not possible right now." "That's why I said we should fire SkyLab VI's thrusters," the guy on the phone said. "I know that wont get enough distance between the UFOs and the space station but at least it's out of the right wing of those thing's approach." "Okay, wait--how is this going down again?" Robert asked. A woman at JPL stood up and pointed to a map of Earth, the trajectory of the silver arachnoid-like creatures and the location of SkyLab above the planet. "Okay. This is SkyLab, these are the UFOs approaching and their current flying formation--maintained for approximately six hours now according to Aaron Hopkins at Mt. Wilson Observatory. The whole fleet of these things approaching is approximately an eighth of a mile wide. If you split them up the middle and just look at the right side? In the middle of that is where they will impact SkyLab." Robert sighed. "How far can the thrusters move them away from those things?" "Our calculations say that if they burn for about ten minutes, they can get a distance of about a mile." The man at Mission Control added, "But, unfortunately, SkyLab was only given emergency maneuvering thrusters and were not intended for propulsion purposes. They can't burn for more than twenty seconds at a time and what's worse, there's only three minutes worth of fuel." "It's all we've got. That should still move it far away from those UFOs," Robert replied. Graphics of blended color for a national broadcasting company came together in a varying montage of history-making news events captured on video before the logo for the news formed above the words SPECIAL REPORT. A dramatically deep voice then announced, "This is a special report." Standing inside of a plush, white room filled with men and women in business suits wearing press badges on necklaces was one facing the camera holding a microphone. Flashes of light lit up the room from the hundreds of photographs being taken by newspaper photographers. "Good evening, this is Jim Wylie coming to you live from Washington, D.C. at The Pentagon where we have just received word from the Department of Defense that Naval, Marine, Air Force and army military forces nationwide have been deployed to ward off any threat that might be posed to American cities. And now, I have just received word that our spokesperson will be returning to give us an update as to the progress of the United Nation's efforts to assist defenseless countries against whatever menace might be facing them." Through the valleys of one area outside of a village, big brown tanks began to drive in in a caravan of armored battle vehicles while at sea, huge battleships, destroyers and aircraft carriers were leaving the coast. Fighter jet plains on the decks of aircraft carrier ships were being towed into position as pilots ran across the deck, preparing to board the flying machines. Below the sea were submarines closer to the coast to stop any threat approaching in the ocean. The glowing blue sphere known as Earth beneath the metallic space station in the blackness of space was reflected from its solar panels. Aboard SkyLab VI, the pilot, Captain Morse had her hands on the joystick of the flight controller within the command module. In this three-seat cockpit, the other two were strapped into the cris-crossing seat belts inside of the capsule. Morse pushed one of the many backlit buttons, some blinking--all a rainbow of colors. Speaking into her headset, she said, "Houston, this is Captain Morse. We're ready to fire the thrusters as calculated." "SkyLab VI, we copy; you may fire when ready." Captain Morse looked out of the sides of her eyes at the Commander and Lieutenant. "Okay, guys, this is it." Lt. Yoshido nodded and looked at the meters indicating electricity, air pressure, temperature, sensor status and other indicators while Commander Martin kept his thumb over the red abort button. Once fired, there is nothing preventing the station from drifting into space if anyone's calculation was in error. "Fire." Captain Morse's thumb hit the red, button topped joystick. In space, an afterburner tube on the side of the space station's hull suddenly fired a yellow torch, flaming from a bright blue source. Another thruster fired on the other side, facing Earth. Two more on the top, aft section suddenly gave their thrust to boost SkyLab VI out of the path of the Xyrth arriving by the dozens--visible from the length-wise perspective of the space station. It gradually moved itself to the left. Aboard SkyLab VI, within the cockpit--the astronauts were being rattles somewhat by the kick back or recoil from the propulsion. Lt. Yoshido said, "Full throttle achieved. Eight seconds of fuel remaining." "We're on course," Commander Martin confirmed. "Velocity 7.5 kilometers per hour and increasing." "Three seconds, Lt. Yoshido said. Captain Morse spoke into her headset. "Houston, this is SkyLab. We have now completed the burn and achieved approximately 9 kph of speed before fuel depletion. Cruising velocity, still 9 kph." "Good, SkyLab," replied Mission Control, "at your current speed, you should drift about three quarters of a kilometer from your original location before the debris passes by." Trouble, Captain Morse spoke more intently over their radio link. "Houston, what about Earth?" "ICBM missiles have been targeted on each object before it enters our atmosphere and it should destroy them before doing any damage to the planet surface," Houston answered. "We're just glad you're okay." Captain Morse nodded. "Captain look!!" Commander Martin shouted while pointing out of the window. The space station was beginning to slow down to a complete stop for no apparent reason as the Xyrth were became ever closer to SkyLab VI. Looking at the cockpit console, Lt. Yoshido shook his head. "I don't understand this! We--just dropped down to 0 kph in less than two and a half seconds." "How did that happen? We were coasting on inertia," Captain Morse asked, "there's no gravity or reverse drag from an atmosphere up here." "THEY must've done that," Commander Martin replied, looking out of his window. Yoshido looked at Morse and asked, "Well, what are we going to do now? There is no way we can move this thing any farther and we still seem to be within the span of their approach." "Hope that we can't see how many inches away they'll end up being when passing us," she answered. "Commander, perform an emergency data core dump to Mission Control now. Just in case we lose this thing, we wouldn't have lost everything." Martin nodded and turned around before typing on the black keyboard. The space station hovered in front of Earth as one of the many Xyrth sailed freely towards the world ahead, flying straight for SkyLab VI. Yoshido turned around and looked at Captain Morse. "Captain... One of those things on the outside! It's--headed straight for us!" She left her seat and floated over by the window. On the outside, she saw it as its reflection materialized in the glass in front of her face. After one of the silver, metallic creatures of multiple legs had flown down, past the space station, more followed, like drops of water from heavy rain. One Xyrth's legs sliced through the middle of the aft section of SkyLab, blasting sparks from out of the inside. From a far, one could see the descent of the insect like creatures swarming down towards Earth as the fleet passed the metal space station. One of the many shiny objects sprayed close enough to SkyLab that, suddenly, there was a fire ball that had suddenly ripped the station apart. Casting millions of steel fragments away. And as the creatures flew through space, sheets of aluminum and other alloys were hanging in space as they sailed by. A yellow Chevrolet Metro drove around a round street before turning right, into the drive way of a small, stucco-covered house. In front of the garage, the car's brake lights glowed before it stopped. Once the engine finished humming, the driver-side door opened before Beverly Tenmei stood up, wearing her police uniform before closing the door. Inside of her house, she walked in through the screen door on her back porch leading to the driveway. Beverly closed the door and turned on her kitchen television before walking towards the refrigerator. "...that is, like, so uncool!" finished the line of an actor on a twenty-something sitcom on network television set in New York with three guys and three girls. Suddenly, the screen froze on: ABC 7 EYEWITNESS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT and the logo for the television station. A voice over bellowed from the announcer, "We interrupt this program for a special report." Then, a man wearing glasses with a dress shirt and tie in the newsroom looked up all of a sudden at the camera. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, we have just received word from NASA that the space station orbiting Earth, SkyLab VI has been destroyed from the shower of unidentified flying objects approaching at a rapid velocity. There were two men and one woman aboard the space station that was in orbit for a year. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena in cooperation with Mission Control in Houston attempted to rescue the crew by using emergency thrusters, however, according to a NASA spokesperson, that plan had failed. Again, SkyLab VI has been destroyed, killing two men and one woman..." suddenly the station was changed. Beverly held the remote control of the small television set without certainty because, for some reason beyond her knowledge, she needed to see more about this tragedy. Another network affiliate in the county of Los Angeles was also talking about it and, patiently, Beverly watched. "...live coverage from Mount Wilson observatory, but now we have, at this time received word of video footage from aboard SkyLab VI, for this now, let us take you to our east coast NBC affiliate for more information," said the news anchor on this station. "Thanks, Bill," the anchorwoman replied. "This tape was received from Houston by CNN just moments ago via satellite by special request and we're now simulcasting our broadcast with them, you'll hear their reporter Will Blizter now..." "...pictures are horribly graphic and we strongly caution you to excuse any younger members of our viewing audience from the room..." the CNN reporter narrated as surveillance video played back of the event from within the cockpit. On the screen, Beverly watched intently as the three astronauts all began to crowd around the window, as the silver creatures came into view. Above it all was a black bar, stamping the time in real-time, by the millisecond. All of a sudden, on of the Xyrth became really visible, showing the details of its merciless face upon its cold, steel legs. The sheer speed at which this creature allowed its pole-like legs to impale the window, shattering the glass. It jabbed the floor--causing the video's horizontal and vertical alignment to go haywire. Meanwhile, the astronauts all grasped onto bars and control panels as they were apparently being drawn out into outer space by the deck's air being sucked out into the vacuum of space. Xyrth's leg carved up through the deck further distorting the image. However, one could barely see as it pulling up wires, causing sparks to blast out and a fire ball to erupt from behind the camera. The picture was almost lost before the picture showed Lt. Yoshido's torso with a deep slice through half his torso and Commander Martin's back on fire. However, the camera was either smashed or the transmitter was severed from the station or surveillance system before snow was the result of the picture. Eventually, the screen turned black. Looking down at his display monitor, the CNN correspondent looked up and paused for just a moment. "Frightening pictures. The, uh, NASA plans to release a statement within the hour." "Meanwhile, I was just informed that the President has just signed an executive order, declaring the entire country in a state of emergency and ordered all stand-by military rescue forces into active duty," continued the correspondent on another television set in his apartment bedroom. Peter was wearing a college jacket while sitting on his bed, reading a book. Or at least was. He looked at the television as the correspondent continued, "for this now, we turn live to the White House where a press conference has already been called." As the noise of the television echoed as only noise in his mind, the television reflected in his eyes. It was beginning to dawn on him that after waiting years to find Amy again, Peter would have lost her forever if this--is it. His mind began to remember the past... "What's your name?" Peter asked. The question caught her off guard, but, she turned to glance at him. "Amy." "I'm Peter," he replied. "It's good to be able to give a nice name like that to one of the better memories I'll have for a while." Amy smiled at him and he smiled as well. Within the tunnel--the subway train pushed through the dark tunnels when shaking of the ground and the walls had begun. "Damn," she said sitting down with her back against the wall. "That is _not_ good." Peter looked at her. "Amy, what's happening?" "The train operator," she answered, trying to catch her breath, "he's knocked out--unconscious. We'll have to wait until rescue teams can haul the subway out of here or break in somehow to get us out." "Got any friends in school?" Amy asked to make for small talk. "A couple of guys who I like to chat with but it isn't as serious as I'd like it so I wouldn't say so," Peter answered, guarding against rambling. Amy grinned at him. "Not even a girlfriend?" Peter looked at her immediately. "NO. Uh... Uh, I mean..." He'd tried to correct her to eagerly, Peter thought. Being the self-perfectionist, he tried cleaning up after that. "I'm not seeing anyone right now." Amy smiled nodded and looked ahead. "I see." Peter looked down as his mind began to wander. "Actually, that's not because nobody is interested in me but it's because I like older women." Amy looked on the floor and raised an eyebrow. A gentle rumbling built up quickly that which resulted in a strong vibrating rocked the subway again; loud screams were heard by the women aboard while Amy reached over and secured Peter's body against the wall with her hands. "Don't worry, Peter, I got you." "This is one strong after shock!" Peter complained. Peter closed his eyes to take a deep breath but his heart kept thumping rapidly and strongly when he opened his eyes. Regardless, he could not afford to let more time pass so he spoke up. "Hey, uh, I never had the chance to thank you--for sticking with me when the... The, uh--you know, uh, subway got trapped..." Amy smiled. "In emergency situations, the best thing to do is help others in panic or distress. Vulnerable circumstances force people to rely on each other since that's all you have at times like that." "I know. I just wanted to express my gratitude with this gift," Peter said handing her the pink and silver wrapped box with a red bow attached to the top. Amy was surprised at this show of appreciation. "Uh, Peter--I can't..." "It's okay, I didn't buy it, I made it," Peter said. He gave her the box and said, "Go ahead--open it..." Amy shook her head, using her hands to push the package back to him. "No, it wouldn't be right." "Don't you even want to see it?" Peter asked. Amy pondered. "Well... I..." she started to answer before her cellular telephone rang. "Just a sec." Peter nodded when it rang a second time. She removed the phone from her purse while it rang a third time and pulled up the antenna. Amy put it up to her hear and said, "Leven here." "Does Doctor Hopkins know where he is?" Amy asked over her telephone. She looked at Peter. "Oh great, I'm on my way," she replied before hanging up. "Peter, I'm sorry, I gotta go. It's an emergency." A Metro bus was stopping in front of a bus stop on the corner of the station. "Hey, wait a second!" Peter replied. "How will I find you again?" Amy ran down the steps towards the bus when she stopped to turned around and looked at Peter. "Try the white pages!" Amy climbed aboard the bus when the doors closed and drove away. Peter watched the orange-striped bus drive into traffic and then looked down at his box. "Yeah, thanks," Peter replied; suddenly, the sun shined off Dave's badge and his eyes darted to avoid the sunlight. What he saw was "Dave Marcello" engraved on the name plate. That rang a bell; in the white pages--he and Amy Leven had shared the same telephone number. "Hey, wait a minute, sir--is that your box?" Dave grinned. "Who's asking?" "I'm sorry, my name is Peter Lum--you've probably never heard of me, but, I'm a friend of Miss Leven's." "Amy?" he asked. "You're right, I haven't heard of you. How are you friends?" "Well, we're not really 'friends'-friends but... She and I took the subway home together and bailed me out of some deep trouble with a couple of losers so I thought I'd write her a note thanking her for helping me out," he answered, "especially when that earthquake messed up our subway." That rang a bell; when he was MarsAstro, Dave had seen her and Peter together. "Well, listen--you can send it to this box right here. We've stopped having a lot of our mail delivered at home and--actually... You could just give it to me. I'll make sure she gets it." "No that's okay, I'd rather she be the only one who reads it. By the way, I don't mean to pry but, how come you and her have the same phone number? I know this 'cause she asked me to look her up," Peter explained. "Well, me and four other people share the same house to split the bills. We were friends in high school so now we've got different jobs to save up for university tuition," Dave answered. "How's that?" Peter looked over and noticed the genuine diamond ring on Dave's finger beside his ruby stoned ring. "I guess those rings are heirlooms then; no way could you afford it trying to save up for college." "Well, not both of them," Dave said. "One of them is an engagement ring." "Really?" Dave smiled and nodded. "Yeah, you know--speaking of Amy, she's the one I'm engaged to." He sighed; "I just hope we do get married. We got into a little disagreement over how we were going to get married." Peter's forehead wrinkled while he squinted, his mind became very preoccupied. "Peter?" Peter blinked and shook his head. "Uh, yeah..." Dave sighed. "Oh well--things will work out in the end. Well, at least, I hope so anyway." "Well, I know it's none of my business but Amy seems like a woman that you'd have to be a fool to take for granted," Peter commented. "I'd gotten more out of spending less than an hour with her than years with any given girl at my school. Don't let go of that--they just don't make 'em like that anymore. She deserves a good man and it seems like you'd have to be in order for her to want to want to spend the rest of her life with you. If not yourself, make her the happiest person in the world." Dave was silenced by surprise over his mature commentary. "I dont know what to say... You're right. She's worth it--whatever it may be." During Dave's pause to cogitate on his words, Peter began to realize the reality of the situation. "Anyway, I need to be going..." Peter said while he moved backwards towards the exit. He dropped his papers on the floor and left. "Hey, uh, Peter, you left your..." Dave called out the door to him. He'd purposefully left the letter behind while getting on his bike and riding away. Dave closed the door and appeared confused. He looked at the paper in his hand and slowly unfolded the sheets. ``Dear Amy, I know that you hardly remember me but in case you forgot, I'm the one on the subway when it derailed because of the earthquake. Anyway, I can't think of much to say except thanks for being there for me. Out of all the people I've ever met in my life, you are the only who I've yet to forget about as soon as I've stopped seeing you. I guess you could call it a crush but whatever it is, I know it's real. You probably don't feel the same way, I know, but if there's any chance we could be together in the future, I'd be willing to wait.'' Dave skipped a page, not feeling right in reading it all. ``In any case, I know this seems strange and that it's pretty shocking but I can't help how I feel--I can only hope that we can be friends even after knowing that I like you, Amy. More than anyone else I've ever known. Love, Peter.'' Dave looked up and began to realize something. That there are no guarantees in life and that he could lose Amy. It would be a mistake to not do everything in his power to make sure that his fiance would be his forever. Now 21, Peter sat in his bed looking down in his bedroom while the television was still on. "Even though I never got a photograph of her, I still can remember her face." The setting sun was hidden behind two story business buildings below the Hollywood Hills and rolling thunderously down the street was a white, gold-striped Metro bus. The grind of the New Flyer bus's natural gas engine hauled the coach that was filled to capacity. Dozens of people watched the bus rock front to back from its high velocity before squealing to a halt. The Line 1 bus stopped on Hollywood Boulevard and while nobody disengaged the coach, the crowd on the street corner tried to squeeze onto the low-floor bus. Meanwhile--a supermarket on Vermont Avenue and 3rd street was also at capacity. The check stands had lines so long, they spilled into the grocery aisles. People had carts full of bottled water, canned goods, medicine, batteries, radios, flashlights, prescriptions, bandages and other emergency supplies. Shelves were bare as more people than could fit in the aisle slid between one another, exchanging "excuse me" phrases in an aggressive tone. A courtesy clerk was being harassed by a shopper, demanding to know where their water is as he attempts to explain to her they're all out. At Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue, black and white Ford Crown Victoria police cars were parked on the premises of the Metro Red Line subway station. Underground, people were in line to buy tickets while packet elevators carried over a dozen men and women at a time below onto the platform level. The subway arriving rumbled as its horn echoed off the concrete walls. The hundreds of heads seen below watched the subway approach, each car filled with seated and standing passengers, completely full up to the door windows. The doors opened and people tried to enter with little luck. Meanwhile, a hispanic gentleman was being held by a MTA Police officer. "I can't let you on the subway without a ticket!" "No, man--I gotta go!" the man said, trying to free his arm of the officer's grip. The black MTA policeman replied, "If you don't cooperate, I'm going to have to put you under arrest!" On Washington Boulevard, two Metro Blue Line trains--doubled up to a total of four cars per train crossed each other on the four tracks, with every window showing a passenger standing. At the Wilmington/Imperial Train Station, the rail yards were, again, being monitored by Los Angeles Police officers. The horn of the blue line train honked and the hundreds of passengers standing beneath the 105 Interstate Freeway junction at the 710 Long Beach Freeway watched it approach. Meanwhile, upstairs, people were literally running up the stairs to the station platform of the Metro Green Line. However--they were too late. The LAX-bound train's door whistle had been sounded as the doors closed, barely clearing the backsides of the passengers occupying every square inch of the train. It moved away in a whirring sound of electrical propulsion while the people looked down the train tracks to see if another train was going to come soon. Los Angeles International Airport, as identified by the unique tower structure beside the multiple arches of the Theme Building, was the ultimate destination of the millions of Los Angeles citizens attempting to leave the area. The Interstate 405 San Diego Freeway was at a complete stand-still with traffic bleeding onto the Century Freeway that connected directly to congested Sepulveda Boulevard. Century Boulevard was in the same condition because inside of the airport, the vehicles that normally circled the terminals were locked solid by taxi cabs and limousines and shuttle vans and car rental busses and personal automobiles. The bridge for arriving flights was actually being used by vehicles to stop at airline terminals so that passengers could take the stairs to go down to the departing flights deck. However, to no avail. the doors were never closed as people were pouring inside. People were actually buying tickets worth hundreds of dollars, even thousands of dollars, instantly, despite reservations and unavailable flights. Airport Police are called in to assist with security for those few passengers able to make it onto flights leaving out of town. The Interstate 5 Golden State Freeway was brake lights and headlights seen for miles in both directions from above as California Highway Patrol cars are parked on the off-ramps in order to keep more cars from adding to the traffic nightmare. CHP officers are standing outside of their cars with red light tubes trying to guide trucks and other vehicles off of the freeway. At the Greyhound Bus Terminal, there are still more lines of many people with their possessions in everything from actual luggage to black, plastic garbage bags, just to hold everything they could grab in the short time they had to evacuate from their home. Agents sold tickets as fast as good before they were actually sold out. Denying customers was not easy as several people screamed obscenities at the counter agents, demanding a ticket to ride for the California border. Meanwhile, the bulletin board listed multiple busses reported either late leaving or cancelled for arrival. In the lobby, vagabonds and drunken people were rampaging about in a mad fit of insanity. His face moist with tears, he screamed out, "there's no where we can go! They will be EVERYWHERE! There is no where we can hide!! The whole world is doomed!!" Below the top of the Gateway Plaza tower, there were more Metro busses there than at a division's yard as passengers ran from their open doors, either heading for the elevator or the escalator, running down the stairs. Meanwhile, other passengers ran across the brick paved Patsaouras Plaza to enter Union Station from the rear by heading down the escalators there as well. In front of Union Station, the parking lot was full of taxi cabs arriving so quickly, they could hardly brake, let alone park neatly. Everyone from Independent Cab, to Yellow Cab to LA Taxi Co-Op to Checker Cab Co. to Bell Cab and Fiesta Cab and Beverly Hills Taxi and other cars barreled into the lot in front of the spanish-styled building constructed as early as the 1930s. Again, the door never stayed closed as people jogged inside of the train station. The huge windows allowed the people who couldn't get in to read the status of the Amtrak trains arriving on the bulletin board. Nothing but inbound cancellations and delays for trains leaving Los Angeles. Meanwhile, men and women in Amtrak uniforms behind the 12-gauge glass welded to the wooden counter were shaking their heads sympathetically to everyone, regretting to inform them that they have sold of tickets for the next several trains that day. The lucky passengers that had sat nervously waiting for the announcer to page the platform number that their train would arrive way. Their attention was suddenly diverted by loud sirens blaring out from outdoors. The strobe lights beamed through the windows, causing everyone to look outside. We can't be having a crisis now?! everyone thought to one extent or another. This is an emergency in and of itself, for goodness sake! However, no matter what anyone thought--a spot light sitting in the parking lot between rows of black and white Police Cars was focused onto the front ledge of Union Station. There, a man in a trench coat with a five-o'clock shadow hung from the fixtures on the face of the building, taunting death with his reckless movements. An officer screamed up through a megaphone, "stay where you are! Do not jump!" Fire fighters drove a rig into the lot between the dozens of taxi cabs and minivans to set-up a ladder to bring him down with. Meanwhile, on 5th on Broadway Streets--more black and white Ford Crown Victoria and Chevrolet Caprice automobiles with red and blue strobe lights spinning was seen after their ear-piercing sirens forced to traffic out of their way. They were followed by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics and fire trucks driving to 7th Street, at the heart of the jewelry district. Here, buildings were set aflame by looters and other thugs. Skinny from their crack and cocaine addiction, these dirt--scantily clad men shattered store-front windows with bricks, cinderblocks and any available blunt objects to bust inside. A man ran down the street with a television in his hand while, inside of a store, an asian merchant tried to shield his wife from a gun-toting lunatic who was covering for his gang friends to steal jewelry by the hand full. Out in the middle of the intersection, a man hurled a molitof cocktail into a car. Lit on fire, the rag finally burned down inside of the bottle where the flammable fluid was and became a fire ball that lit up the inside of the old station wagon. In front of the burned out, damaged storefronts, several men were on their knees hand-cuffed by rope because the police officers ran out of handcuffs. Meanwhile, fire fighters aimed hoses at the historic buildings of Los Angeles to attempt to preserve them from the flames licking up the side of the old buildings. Paramedics lifted up gurneys of bruised men and women--mostly merchants of the local vendors injured in the rioter's hedonistic pursuit of merchandise due to the irrational state of the city. Past the sign reading, Ernest Debs Park, one could see the high rise towers of downtown Los Angeles and a thick black cloud of smoke hovering among the skyscrapers. Yet another hoodlum was wielding a switchblade while Robert McLaughlin took steps backwards. He was on his way back to his hotel from JPL but mass transit had failed him. It was at capacity as everyone in the city of Los Angeles was attempting to escape the epicenter of terror. "This must be my lucky day 'cause outta all this shit goin' down, I happen to run across someone who's probably got money comin' out his ass," he snarled. Robert shook his head. "Look, it doesn't matter if you get what I've got. Where are you going to spend the money if the _world_ is about to come to an end?!" The thug grinned. "Your world maybe, but as soon as I got what you have, I'm takin' the next limo outta town." "You'd never make it. The cops would catch you in the thick of traffic," Robert told him. "Yeah, like the cops'll worry about me with the whole damn city trippin'," he said. Meanwhile, on the sidewalk, Officer Beverly Tenmei ran down the street to approach another policeman, knelt down with a bloody hand. "Rick! What happened?" His teeth were clenched while he growled, "One of 'em shot my gun outta my hand." Beverly picked up her radio. "This is unit JL59, requesting paramedics at Monterey Road at the east entrance of..." Her eyes scanned for a sign and read 'Welcome to Ernest E. Debs Recreational County Park.' but then Robert McLaughlin with someone pointing a knife at him. She hesitantly continued, "...Ernest Debs Park. Hurry! Officer injured." "10-4," dispatch replied. Beverly looked at him. "Rick, they're on their way but I thought I saw somebody trying to attack someone, I'll be right back." He nodded and she stood up and ran out of sight. Through the park, she ran through the grass before her black shoes came together and pounded the turf. In the sky, the police officer somersaulted over head before, in midair, Tenmei rose up, thrusting her fist ahead. A fist punched back the jaw and chin of the thief, and on the grass--the switchblade fell on the grass before he handed on his back, holding his face. Beverly landed in front of Robert and back up to look at him. "Robert! You okay?" "Jesus Christ! I've never seen a cop do that before!!" "Ohhh," the outlaw groaned. He could hardly believe how fast that was as he hadn't even seen her coming. Slowly, he managed to bring himself to his feet before limping away. Breathing deeply, Beverly watched him leave while Robert came up beside her and looked at her eyes. "Officer, how come you didn't arrest him?" "Because there is no point to it right now," she answered. Robert blinked in surprise. Beverly turned her back to him while taking a few steps forward to look at the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles. "There are more people to be arrested than we have handcuffs, cars and jail cells to house them all. And besides," she said upon turning around to look at him. "We obviously have a much bigger problem than them right now." Robert exhaled with anger. "I just can't believe at least five years of research and hundreds of millions of dollars went up in smoke and now, the world's about to come to an end. I just don't know what to feel right now." "What?" He looked up at her. "If I hadn't have put those astronaut up there, they wouldn't have been killed by those things that are about to kill us all." "Robert--if we're going to die, putting them up there wouldn't have slowed it down," Beverly said. Then she smiled. "Don't worry, we'll survive." "Great, but--how?" Robert asked. Beverly looked away and at the ground, thinking. On Wilshire Boulevard and Normandie Avenue--a cathedral here was surrounded by minivans and sport utility vehicles. Inside, benches were seating rows upon rows of families that had evacuated their homes. Supplies were wheeled out on hand-rolled trucks such as medical kits, water, canned food and flashlights, radios, batteries, blankets and more. Across the street, news vans were parked along Wilshire Boulevard with lights mounted behind cameramen holding cameras on correspondents holding microphones. One of the reporters was saying during her telecast, "...and these preparations have not only been made here in Los Angeles but in every major metropolis in the union and probably around the world as well. The big question to authorities is where everybody is headed. Many say to remote locations to where they are likely to be missed by whatever is approaching earth at such a high velocity." On the corner of a street--a red, white and blue sign posted reading: 210 Fwy Entrance with an arrow pointed down. Passing in front of the freeway entrance sign was a black and white police car. It made a right turn, driving down the on-ramp. Making its way towards the rows of cars stretching for miles its siren came on and strobe lights lit up. Carefully, Beverly drove around the cars as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Robert was in the back seat. "I don't understand why we're going to the observatory. Especially two hours after closing time." "I need to contact people who can help us out and keep you somewhere safe at the same time," Beverly replied. Dusk. Shopping centers on Hollywood street corners were facing vacant parking lots. Traffic lights switched from red to green but there were no vehicles on the roadway. The underground parking lot at the Beverly Center was empty and, inside of the mall, the stores were void of activity and the floors were clear. Down by the dock at San Pedro Bay, construction vehicles were abandoned and lifeguard towers on the sands of Redondo Beach were boarded up. Shops up and down the streets in Santa Monica were closed down, with steel garage paneling over the glass front. The bustling Century City business district was now hollow as newspaper and other debris was swept down the street by a stray breeze of wind. Homes in Culver City had "For Sale" signs posted and Apartment complexes in Venice were also vacated with no cars in the underground garage. At the Interstate 110 Freeway and 10 freeway junction, there were no cars for the first time in dozens of decades between all of the towers in downtown Los Angeles. And, at the Los Angeles International Airport, there were no lights. Merely darkening masses from the sun descending out of sight, shading the structures there. The parking space, terminals, theme building and tower were statues instead of a virtually living area of dynamic activity as normal with this location. Looking above the horizon of the coast beyond Vista del Mar, the afterglow of the sun just setting left the sky orange. Objects of silver hue, shaped differently than from a star were increasing in size. The hundreds of objects sparkled in the sky as glowing embers. Over the sky line of downtown Cleveland there were fighter jet in the night sky. In midair, the underside of the trio of jets were illuminated by the glow below. Directly ahead, the pilots could see the crab like, flying scorpion creatures of steel coming down from above. "This is Leader 1 to fleet," said the pilot flying the F-14 ahead of the other jets, "you see the enemy--pick a target and fire at will." Above, the jets split off. One of the pilots looked behind herself. "No need! One's coming after US!" "Make that three!" the third pilot added from his cockpit. As three of the Xyrth broke from the swarm, their steel coils of their tails began to glow before two arcs of lightning bolted from the fang-like ends. One of the jets did a roll over to miss the third beam as the other two bolts of lightning shot past the jets that ascended just in time. Another trio of Xyrth showed up to fly past the six jets in the sky. They turned around to follow them but then the first group of flying Xyrth started following them. "Aw shit!" one of the pilots shouted. The leader glanced behind himself before looking ahead again. Meanwhile, the second pilot looked at her console and then up at the fleet. "These guys are hard to follow!" "They're like making moves that shouldn't be possible in the sky!" the third pilot shouted. Leader 1 replied, "Don't panic!! Just lock on one of them and fire away!" "I can't! They're too fast!!" he replied. On his console, the white and blue graphics chased around one of the Xyrth on the targeting screen before they converged on one point and began to flash. The pilot nodded happily. "YES! I did it. Firing missile one!" Gripping the stick of the rocket launcher, his thumb flipped open the plastic cover of the red trigger and pushed the button. Under the wing of his jet, a rocket fired from the silo and in midair, the Xyrth flew right into a ball of fire that exploded in the night sky. The pilot nodded happily. "WOO! YES!" In front of him, the Xyrth flew through the black cloud of smoke, without difficulty. "What the fuck!?" the pilot exclaimed. As the lead jet flew by, a Xyrth had gotten right behind his fighter plane. Aboard the cockpit, Leader 1 jumped in his seat. "Dude, get out of there! You've got one right behind you!" The pilot looked behind himself before looking ahead. "I can't shake him!" As the jet thundered by, the Xyrth followed him in the sky. Suddenly, the metal rings of that Xyrth's tail began to glow sequentially before the razor-sharp end lit up like a fire fly. It buzzed from the bolt of lightning arching over its back and past its head and as the jet tried to bank up and away in the night sky, a blast of sparks exploded from between its afterburners. Inside of the cockpit, the pilot was rocked inside of his seat. "Mayday!! Mayday! I've been hit! Damage extensive." On his dashboard--the fuel guage needle was falling, while the altimeter was indicating a loss in altitude as several other indicators were flashing red. "My engine's burning up! This thing's gonna blow!" Leader 1 shouted. "Get out of there, now!" Within the cockpit of the shot-down plane, the pilot smashed the emergency ejection box covering the red lever before pulling up but sparks exploded from the handle as it broke off. "Damn it!" "What happened?" the fourth pilot asked. "I can't eject!" The jet began to continuously descend into the night lights of the city now merely hundreds of feet below. In the intersection of the vacant city streets, the jet exploded into a towering inferno upon striking the pavement at hundreds of miles per hour. The fireball rushed ahead as the black smoke poured from the flaming wreckage. In the sky, the fire-filled explosion was seen by all five remaining pilots. Leader 1 radioed to the others. "Retreat!!" In the sky, the five pilots turned around and flew back the way they came. Tanks rolled through the streets of Denver that night between the buildings in the business district while fire balls exploded from the roadway. Soldiers were running through with helmets on while carrying M-16 rifles. One stops to look behind himself at his company while shouting, "Come on! They're almost at the shelter! We can't let 'em get--OOGH!" A soldier jumped on top of him just as a wall of fire torched skyward. As the man's body crashed into him, they flew away from a bolt of lightning striking the pavement before the ball of fire erupted into a flaming explosion. Running up the side of a street on a hill were a group of soldiers in camouflage uniforms before dropping to their belly's and getting behind their rifles on tripods. And, standing next to them was their commanding officer shouting, "Open fire, men!" As flashes began to rapidly shoot from the front of their machine guns, bullet shells were being spit out of the weapon as the magazine was being fed into the firing chamber. The Xyrth down the street were busy firing shape-changing spheres of light from their mouth in one direction as orange flashes glowed on their shiny, silver metallic exteriors from explosions in the distance. As the bullets started bouncing from their bodies in violent strikes, sparks popped from their metallic exoskeletal frame as they turned around. While other soldiers continued to fire, others were reloading magazines. However, what they didn't see was a Xyrth come up and land from out of the night sky on the hilltop. Screaming--the men picked up and ran but they were faced with two additional Xyrth. One of them turned around while its tail had batted three soldiers into the air. In the sky above, they'd sailed out of control before, up against a brick wall, they'd crashed before falling out of sight. A soldier was knocked out of the way by the leg of one Xyrth before looking over at one soldier who pulled the pin of a grenade and hurled from himself with as much force as he could propel it. "Fire Ho!" The Xyrth looked up and fired a pair of red, glowing spheres from its eyes and, in the night sky--the grenade bounced off the gravity pellets fired above. On the street, five soldiers were running from the Xyrth standing behind them but it was as if they could not move quickly enough as a white clouds shot up in a V formation from a tower of sparks bursting from the pavement in front of a ball of fire erupting just behind that explosion. The flaming blast had burst up into a high-rising tower of fire, launching those five men into midair. In front of the sidewalk, they'd all landed again as the black smoke rushed past them. Meanwhile, a pair of tanks were joined by another tank as loud bangs were heard as the armored vehicles continued to blow powerful charges from the canons mounted on their rooftops. The Xyrth continued to gallop through as quick dust clouds exploded from the ground. Through the clearing clouds, bolts of lightning arched from the tips of their scorpion-like tails that reached ahead in a thunderous noise. Tanks standing alone just started bursting into flames as the lightning bolts merely touched them. On a television screen, a sinking battleship was being watched by the few who could see it from inside of the shelter where Rebecca McLaughlin and her brother Andy were being housed. Andy looked at Rebecca and asked, "They haven't shown what's going on in California, Becky." "Don't worry, Dad's gonna be OK," she assured him. The Los Angeles basin and its millions of yellow street lights were visible from the near mile-high altitude of Mount Wilson. In the San Gabriel Mountains, the Los Angeles Police Department Ford Crown Victoria car drove along the crest of the hill on Red Box Road. It was making its way toward the observatory with Officer Beverly Tenmei inside looking up ahead. From her perspective, she could see a yellow Chevrolet Caprice with its rear trunk up. As Officer Tenmei neared, she could see the reflective logo of the Yellow Cab Company painted on. Beverly couldn't understand what was going on nor why, but her curiosity had led her to stop the car as far over as she could once closer to the parking lot. Robert leaned forward and looked at her from back seat. "Officer, why are we stopping?" "I need to figure out what's going on here," answered Tenmei. Once she stopped the car, the officer turned off the ignition with her key, but left the headlights on. Outside, the car door had opened and Beverly stepped out before closing the door again. In the parking lot, Aaron Hopkins closed the rear trunk and walked around the back brake lights to approach the backseat door. However, before he made it past the low rear wheel wells, he heard Beverly. "Hey, Aaron." He turned around and saw Officer Tenmei and his eyes widened. Concerned, she wrinkled her forehead and took off her uniform's hat. "What's the matter? You look like I'm back from the dead or something." "No," he said, "it's just that, I didn't think I'd ever see you again. Especially now." She nodded. "Me either, but, that's why I came. We need your help. We as in, the whole human race." Aaron looked away, giving the indication, she needed to say more. Beverly took a deep breath. "Word has it that the military hasn't exactly scared those things away at all and the Astroranger task force is literally our only hope. More now than ever before." "Miss Tenmei, the Uton Government would never authorize such an expenditure," Hopkins replied. "I'm sorry." "Aaron!" Beverly sniped. "Of all the boneheaded thing's I've ever heard. I am so surprised I just heard that from you!" Aaron shook his head. "What?!" Beverly gasped. "I know our government's screwed up but that's _insane_. How the hell could you think it could possibly be all right to just pack your bags and hit the road when who knows what's going to happen to the rest of the world??" "It's out of my hands--it's not affecting Terrania," Aaron answered. "But... Without at least investigating, it's too hard to tell what they are not capable of. They could pose a threat to our world." Beverly took a deep breath and sighed. "Come on," Aaron said. "Under the conditions, we have no time to lose. I need you to come with me." Beverly put up her hand. "Uh, wait," she immediately replied. "I need to, uh--hide a friend here. At least, until we can do something about what's going on." "They boarded up our shelter in the 1970s, I'm told, but when excavating to remodel and install new telescopes, I saw blueprints of the observatory," Aaron said. "I'll try to see what I can do to set up this guy there but we have to hurry." Beverly shook her head, squinting her eyes from confusion. "Where're we going?" "You remember that story Amy told you about where we came from?" She nodded. "Uh huh." "Well now you're about to get a free trip to see the place," Aaron answered. Steel wheels were spinning on iron tracks nailed onto wooden ties for the railroad that a steel car pained red, white and blue was being pulled over. The train rolled by at speeds exceeding 90 miles per hour as it pulled its way through greener portions of the south in the state of Georgia outside of Atlanta. It was almost about to reach its destination but above, the Xyrth had flown through the sunlight from dawn. Apache Helicopters were after them too, and after missiles were fired from the chopper's silos, they shot one of the Xyrth but after sparks exploded from its body--it continued to fly through. Its tail lit up before a bolt of lightning began to stream from the tip of the Xyrth's tail. The helicopter lifted up before the one behind it returned fire with machine guns. The Xyrth directly ahead that helicopter continued to fly directly towards that helicopter that was still shooting at it. The pilot inside looked at it approach his windshield. "Die, damn you!" In midair, the Xyrth and the Apache chopper made contact in the sky and had burst into flames but the only thing flying out of the black cloud was the Xyrth. The other pilot looked behind himself. "WOAH!" The helicopter he was flying was starting to turn around and fly the other way but six Xyrth were after him. "Oh man, this was a bad idea!" the pilot said glancing behind himself again. Five of the six had fired arcs of lightning from their tails all into one point before it streamed forward in a electric blue beam of light that streamed downward. The entire rear section of the helicopter was blown off in a powerful blast of sparks. "This is NOT happening!" the pilot said. He pushed open the door of his helicopter wearing a backpack and jumped out as his chopper took a nose dive and as soon as it fell below himself, the pilot pulled a cord that caused a white chute to eject from his backpack. Meanwhile--the chopper struck the train tracks below explode just as the train itself approaches it before rolling up into the air and into the fire. From the ground, the train was derailed from the ejective forces caused by the blasting flames erupting from the helicopter wreckage bursting. On the ground, the engine car crashed onto its side before skidding out of control and breaking away from the remaining cars behind it. Below a personal Magnetic Levitation vehicle was a pair of continuous white lights embedded in the steel pavement. These bars under the glass paneling were four inches below the MagLev and were the magnetic guides that navigated the vehicle. The vehicle's sleek, duck-head design allowed it to coast on a jet stream of air as the magnetic guides held the vehicle's electromagnets in place. Meanwhile, the reflection of the tunnel lights rolled over the slanted windshield of the MagLev. The vehicle joined the MagWay, a yard many kilometers long of magnetic tracks. This black chamber, illuminated by the magnet tracks resembled a freeway with a meter-tick, transparent wall separating these lanes from traffic traveling in the opposite direction. Inside of the vehicle, Beverly was riding with Aaron Hopkins while Messuta Suisei held onto the velocity stick shift. Beverly was utterly amazed by everything she has seen. From the interdimensional gateway to Terrania to the various unusual buildings she has seen. Now, on the MagWay, traveling at least 100 kilometers per hour, she watched all of the vehicles they moved around. Messuta looked into the rear view mirror to look into the back seat. "It's good to see you again, Beverly." "You too, Messuta," she said. "I'm just glad we were able to make it to the transporter. The freeway looked like a big parking lot." Leto looked at her and grinned. "I'm surprised that old thing was still working when I turned it on." The sleek MagLev vehicle continued to glide by as it merged seamlessly into the right lane of magnetic tracks. Walking down the white corridor within Uton Defense Headquarters at Juncten, Uton with Beverly was Commander Leto with Messuta. "Suisei, bring the lunar base out of stand-by mode. We need to have a task force man that station due to a new situation on Earth." Stopping, Messuta asked, "WHAT?" Commander Leto stopped as well and looked at him. "I know it sounds strange, after more than a decade, we're leading a public mission to Earth again; but, I strongly believe we need to launch an investigation." Messuta continued walking ahead. "What's going on to make you want to investigate?" Commander Leto put his hand on the glass panel of the hand print scanner in front of the door. Looking at him he said, "less than 48 hours ago, a man-made space station orbiting Earth was destroyed by space-inhabiting creatures on their way to Earth." Messuta was still confused but didn't know what to ask while Beverly looked at Leto look into the eye-cups. "password: himitsu." "Secret?" she asked. Leto smiled. "Nobody here knows English but us at Uton Defense. Let alone Japanese." Suddenly realizing, her eyes opened up. "Oh..." "Come on," he continued. "We're going to need a full tactical analysis just in case these things can cross the interdimensional layer and break into our world." Messuta nodded, now more sure of what's going on. He followed Beverly and Commander Leto into the elevator before the doors closed. In a black chamber with a grid of green neon lights imbedded into the walls and floor, Australis was wearing his jump suit uniform, holding a bamboo sword. He faced a man in an all white suit with a similar belt with a sheath for also holding this type of sword known as a shinai. His head was covered in a hood with a mask featuring a black visor. "Round four," a voice echoed from within the chamber. Suddenly the still man in white became animated as he assumed his battle position. Australis swung his sword back and forth before running forward. Walking into view and into the grid was Commander Leto with Messuta and Beverly, watching. The white fencer jousted the tip of his sword toward Australis who cut across to beat away his opponent's shaft. In a zig-zag motion, his arm returned to strike the fencer high--only for his rapier sword to meet the white swordsman's stick. The fencer cut back the other way to do what Australis did and knock his shinai aside before slicing back, this time lower than Australis did. He jumped over the white fencer's sword as it came towards his abs and tumbled over. The fencer turned around and found his shinai spin-kicked clear before Australis leaped up and struck down his opponent. The strike against its chest launched the man in white from his feet into midair before he landed on the floor. "Round four over. Winner: Player. Score: Player 8, Computer 2," said a recorded voice. "Simulation complete." The white-suited man on the floor disappeared. And, meanwhile, Australis was breathing heavily and with much pride. It has taken him years to reach a level of skill with the sword that Sheratan apparently had come to him early in his life. "That was was impressive work," Messuta replied. Australis turned around and half-heartedly grinned. "Sheratan should see you fight. He'd think you were a man after his own job." Australis chuckled politely. "Oh, heh, no no... That's all over for me. I mainly do this just to keep my qualifications up for a defense officer. I am almost exclusively administrative now." Beverly looked at Commander Leto with a gesture of expectation, hoping he'll be able to talk to Australis. With his hands in his pockets, Leto himself looked at Australis curiously. He approached the wall and laid his shinai sword of bamboo into the rack and looked up at it. "I learned a lot from that amazing year on Earth. But now I'm ready to live a normal life." "Actually... That's why we came." Australis turned around, his two hearts leaping into triple speed, anxious to know what he meant by that. Beverly stepped forward, knowing none of his Terranian comrades had the nerve to approach him with this. "Something very dangerous is on Earth right now and it's more than obvious right now, it's alien." "The Nazitans are back?" Australis asked. Commander Leto shook his head. "Worse." "Unfortunately, we don't know what they are yet but we're scanning the creatures to get more information for a tactical analysis," Messuta added. Australis shook his head. "Sounds like fun," he replied, sarcastically. "I sure hope who ever you have to do this is good. Sounds like quite a mission." "Mokusei," Leto said, "I'm already going to get ironed by the Uton Defense Board for even suggesting we send the Astroranger team back to Earth after the last highly publicized mission we led. If I have to go through red tape to assemble a new task force, it might already be too late for the people of Earth." "If I were Sheratan or Nashiran, I'd ask if the table's were reversed--would the humans do the same for us," Australis mentioned. "But I'm not. I know they can't do what we can do. Not yet anyway, but--there's a reason for that." Beverly shook her head and exhaled sharply. "There isn't anytime for philosophy right now, Australis. Billions of lives are at stake and if anybody can do anything about the situation, it's you--me and the others." She walked towards him and he looked down into her big, dark eyes. She looked up at him while holding his arms by the side. "I might be half Terranian but all I know is my life on Earth, Australis. If you were in my shoes, wouldn't you want, just as desperately, for someone to help you?" With a frown, Australis looked up and beyond Beverly--he saw both Messuta and Commander Leto returning his look with stubbornness. He knew there was no way he was going to talk them out of letting him be. Thirty-five thousand feet above the Earth, a Boeing 767 jet airplane with Canadian Air painted on its hull coasted through the sky. In coach, Sasha Castillo sat next to the left side window, looking out and down onto the land below. She was numb from the prospect that she may be leaving a city she may come to find might no longer be in existence upon returning, if ever there is a time she does--or can. Sasha let her head fall back against the seat of her airplane, sighing from remembering her departure. On one of the four screens indicating flight schedule information were a list of arrivals and departures from all airlines, their flight number and their related gates. Meanwhile, people waited in the lobby facing the window giving a view of the airplane they were about to board and by the public telephones on the wall, Sasha was waiting for an answer to the line she was listening to ring. Eventually their was a click and she heard, "Los Angeles Police Department, Parker Center." "Uh, hi, my name is Sasha Castillo, I'm a friend of Officer Beverly Tenmei, would it be possible for me to be patched through to her car, please?" "Please hold," the operator said. Meanwhile, over the loudspeaker, there was as voice announcement. "Last boarding call for Canadian Air flight 748, non-stop to Vancouver. All passengers with boarding passes should now be boarding flight 748." Sasha looked behind herself and watched a line form next to the counter where passengers were walking through the door to the airplane beyond. "Oh," she moaned in a panic. "I'm sorry," said the operator returning to the line, "she doesn't appear to be responding. Would you like to..." "Uh, never mind," Sasha interrupted, "I need to go. Thank you... Bye." She hung up the phone and picked up her carry-on baggage before rushing forward. And now--in her coach seat aboard the airplane, Sasha sighed wiped tears from her eyes. The sunlight reflected off of the silver, dome building which led down to the lawn which supported a sign printed in symbolic characters which, translated, means UTON DEFENSE CENTER - JUNCTON, UTON. On the eight level in the center chamber, designated numerical coordinates--a operations center similarly to the deck aboard the SpaceBase was seen here. The forward wall featured an active matrix color monitor with five manned work stations on the left and right walls. The whole chamber dimly illuminated blue by the entire ceiling. In the rear wall, two doors parted and Commander Leto followed by Australis, Messuta and Beverly walked out of the lift before the doors closed again and walked down the raised floor's stairs to approach a stand-up console off-center from this location One of the officers seated at the large terminals turned around and stood up to walk towards their console. Messuta was already walking over to him before they both met up. "Is the report ready for presentation?" he asked. The officer nodded. "The address has already been placed within your electronic database reference card, Suisei." "Good work, thanks," he replied. Meanwhile, Australis noticed Beverly's amazement with the complexity of the operations as well as the unfamiliarity of the Terranian language being spoken by everyone communicating at the ten terminals. Australis leaned down to her and whispered, "I know what you're thinking and it's even more amazing than it looks." Beverly looked up, slightly bewildered. "Why do you say that?" Grinning, he answered, "Because as complex everything is, it actually works." With a silent laugh, Beverly smiled. Commander Leto watched Messuta step up back at the console and asked him, "Are we ready?" Messuta nodded. "The diagrams should be appearing shortly." "I gotta say I'm pretty amazed with out quickly you got this information together," Beverly said. "I only just got here and before we went to find Australis, Messuta asked them to check out what was going on and now that we're all here--here it is." "Things go faster when you know the right people who owe you enough favors," Commander Leto said. "Goodness knows, some folks can still never make up for what they put the Astroranger team through on Earth." He looked at Australis when saying and he nodded in agreement and acknowledging that both him and Lyonix Leto were on the same page with this situation. Australis is only doing this out of his unbreakable sense of honor. "Here it comes," Messuta said. Beverly's eyes twinkled when the main viewer began to display the presentation, meanwhile, Commander Leto's eyes looked onto the teleprompted text on the console to read the caption. On the screen, a still frame of the planet Earth was seen with hundreds of the silver, exoskeletal creatures. "Through neurological scans, we were able to detect the creatures communicate on a subspace frequency and patterns in their Earth-based morse-code like speech have allowed us to determine they call themselves the Xyrth," Leto read. "They appear to be of organic design because of preliminary scans indicating all bodily matter being composed of plasma generated tissue." "I don't understand," Beverly said. Messuta looked at her and tried to think of a simple way to explain it. "Blood in humans is used to regenerate tissue in the body's organs. Now, even though the Xyrth are apparently metallic in composition--the metal might be of an organic nature because cells were detected by our lunar laser scanning beams." "They have proliferated throughout the religions known as North America, Asia, Europe and national militaries are being defeated at every front," Leto read. "Preliminary tactical analysis says they appear to be of asomorphic design and are capable of not only shrinking and growing. However, they are apparently capable of matter manipulation. They travel via space using aura-based energy alone and need no air to breath. So far, the source of their energy is unknown." "So we don't know what they eat, drink--what can poison them or what their vulnerabilities are," Australis said. "What about our tactical advantage here?" "Well the only advantage is that their abilities are limited by their energy output. By default, they are only two and a half meters tall but they can grow to become over 30 meters tall for a duration of maybe hours," Commander Leto replied. "So, expending their energy might becoming a losing contest for us." "We'll run out before they do," Beverly reasoned. "What I want to know is where these guys came from. How long have they existed and why now did they show up?" Commander Leto continues to read. "In the crevices of each Xyrth is debris which has been identified on the soils of other planets within the solar system. So the working theory is that they were always here and were never found before." "Really?" Beverly asked. "And their energy signatures, according to these charts, are similar to that of the solar spheres," Commander Leto added. Messuta scratched his head. "Hm. Maybe when the solar spheres were removed from their respective planets, their hibernation ended." "But that still doesn't answer why they're all coming to Earth," Beverly said to him. "Basically, what was know is that the Xyrth could have been here for billions of years. And, it wasn't until the solar spheres were actually released from their respective planets (which hasn't been done since the creation of the solar system) did the Xyrth show up." "Based on that alone, it could be retribution they're after," Australis replied. "Maybe these are space travelers that got trapped within the planets when they got created by the fragmentation of the Infinitum Genesis Ring. Now that they're awake, they might be angry at what happened. And if that's the case..." "...then, we need the Astrorangers," Commander Leto completed. In a park, Sheratan turned around and shook his head. "No." Standing with him was Lotia and the both of them were faced by Commander Leto who met with them in the natural surroundings of the park. "I can't believe that's what you called me out here for," Sheratan said. "I'm not as young as I used to be and since being on Earth, I learned a lot of lessons." Commander Leto nodded. "I knew you'd be the most uncooperative and understood that action speaks louder than words, especially to you." He opened his white laboratory coat and removed an ivory pad that seemed plastic in texture. On the surface were five buttons for play back, reverse, fast-forward stop, pause and slower playback below a small, plexiglass screen. An active matrix color monitor, which, was handed to Sheratan. The PadPlayer was handed to Sheratan and he looked up at him. "What's this?" "Footage of Earth from the last twelve ours as downloaded from our feed from news media broadcasts still remaining in countries that haven't been dominated by the Xyrth." Sheratan couldn't help be curious to see what the Xyrth were capable, mainly because he had to respect anything powerful--despite how it used that power. If he were to fight them, they would have to be a worthy foe. Lotia, standing close to him looked past his arm and watched the black screen display color upon Sheratan clicking a gray button below the display. On the screen, a montage of video clips displayed tanks rolling through the streets of Denver that night between the buildings in the business district while fire balls exploded from the roadway. Soldiers were running through with helmets on while carrying M-16 rifles. Running up the side of a street on a hill were a group of soldiers in camouflage uniforms before dropping to their belly's and getting behind their rifles on tripods. Screaming--the men picked up and ran but they were faced with two additional Xyrth. One of them turned around while its tail had batted three soldiers into the air. In the sky above, they'd sailed out of control before, up against a brick wall, they'd crashed before falling out of sight. On the street, five soldiers were running from the Xyrth standing behind them but it was as if they could not move quickly enough as a white clouds shot up in a V formation from a tower of sparks bursting from the pavement in front of a ball of fire erupting just behind that explosion. The flaming blast had burst up into a high-rising tower of fire, launching those five men into midair. Suddenly, Lotia reached over and pushed the square stop the play back and looked up at Sheratan. He was forced to look into her eyes, once his mind had received the full impact of her emotions coming towards him. Sheratan knew that Lotia would want him to help and he never wanted to disappoint her in a big way if he could help it. So, eventually, Sheratan managed to pull his eyes away from hers to look at Commander Leto. "I'll do it," Sheratan spoke up. Lyonix took a deep breath and sighed, relieved to know they've got their leader back and already almost the entire team back. Standing next to the MagLev vehicle sitting in the suspension groove that led to the tunnel to the MagWay was Australis who paced along the platform. Behind him, Commander Leto walked off the lift in a hurry and Australis noticed before finding himself having to catch up. "Hey, Commander... How did it go?" Leto nodded while rising the driver-side door. "Good enough," he answered. "So Sheratan's in," Australis confirmed as he stepped inside of the rear seat. Reaching down, Leto passed his vehicle permit card in front of the laser reader and the silent sound of the electric vehicle whirled. "Yeah. I'm surprised it was so easy but fortunately Lotia was with him. I get the feeling that he doesn't want to do anything that would lose Lotia..." "Like join us on this emergency mission," Australis said. Leto nodded. "Right," he confirmed prior to dialing in his coordinates and engaging propulsion cells. Suddenly, the vehicle almost instantly thrusted into full speed as the tunnel lights glared over the windows of the sleek, silver vehicle. "But since _not_ doing this looked like a bad idea to Lotia, and Sheratan knew it, he went for it." "Yeah, that makes sense," Australis commented. "I just don't think that Nashiran will be that simple to convince." Commander Leto looked at him through the rear view mirror, nodding in agreement. Australis looked outside of his side window as they left the tunnel and entered the MagWay. "He's never really had much interest in humans to begin with. I really don't know what he'll do." On the MagWay underground, their silver vehicle merged with the hovering vehicles being moved forward by the magnetic repulsion of the light tracks under the glass embedded in the steel pavement below. In a dark chamber, a soundproof transparent wall faced an acoustically adjusted booth with musical instruments that resembled a set for percussions, a low-toned string instrument, another type of string instrument, microphones and head phones hung from hooks beneath the sheet music stand facing each microphone on a stand. And, behind one of the heavy doors with a window was the control room where the engineering console faced a stool. This console was a multi-channel sound mixer with several faders, knobs and buttons. Behind it were uniquely design speakers that had a smooth, flat surface that provided a perfect representation of the music as being recorded by the musician performing opposite the looking window. Nashiran was sitting on a bench in front of a piano keyboard. Terrania had never seen nor heard such a sound until he brought it with him from Earth during his year-long mission in Los Angeles. Due to the profit made by importing this invention, his recording studio was born. Wearing headphones, Nashiran continued to play his melody alone. However, without his awareness, a woman with short but full, wavy, red highlighted hair appeared in the control booth. She was holding a clipboard to herself while looking up nervously to Commander Leto entering with Sheratan, Australis, Messuta and Lotia. Nashiran's secretary knew he never liked to be disturbed when either composing or recording his music. However, their Defense Identification Cards overrode her ability to stop them and was preparing to apologize profusely for their intrusion. A chord he struck was interrupted because of lifting off the foot pedal and Nashiran sighed. A wireless talk button clipped on his shirt was tapped by his hand and he moaned, "It's okay, Kyara." Looking behind himself, he could see them behind himself in the control room. "The situation is quite grave," said Commander Leto. They were passing the Terranian sign translating to: DOSEI AUDIO which was mounted in the lawn outside of the building of his studio. Lyonix and Nashiran walked together with Australis, Messuta and Sheratan with Lotia. They were on the walking path along the building that housed Nashiran's recording facility. "And right now," Messuta was concluding, "many of the major metropolises have become ghost towns with waves of Xyrth approaching by air, swiftly and rapidly overtaking air, sea and ground defenses from every nation acting as a superpower on Earth. For those unable to escape because of congested transit arteries, the injury and death toll has ticked into the millions by now." "The cost in damages has exceeded the ability to calculate due to the high rate at which the fleet has attacked," Lotia mentioned. "Beverly was right when she told us about this. Nobody but us has what it takes to deal with them." Nashiran sighed, "So... Has the logistics of this little venture been worked out? What about equipment? Authorization? Perhaps a plan of action?" "Strategy will be dictated by whatever we learn in battle, Nashiran," Australis answered. "For now, the Astro Shuttle fleet's regular refurbishment schedule includes this week and we have already put in a special request to have them towed out to the lunar crater base." "So... why are you telling me?" Lotia looked at him and expressed the answer strongly. "We were hoping for a little help." Sheratan quietly mentioned, "I wouldn't have agreed to come back if it weren't for..." "Lotia telling you to?" Nashiran said. "Nashiran," Lotia gasped. He sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just that I know Sheratan. If humans dropped off the ends of the other world, it wouldn't exactly bother him." Australis strongly spoke up, "I had my reservations for coming back because that mission almost tore my mate from my life but I can't understand your reasoning. We have entered the fifth millennium. I thought we were doing better _than_ the humans you find inferior." "The reason for my lack of enthusiasm has changed, Australis. Like you, my mate was at risk. Only I actually lost mine." Messuta nodded. "We know. It's why you quit the force." Looking at him, Nashiran said, "And it's why I'll be throwing my next birthday party in our most dangerous prison before I'll come back." "You're overlooking the most important thing here," Sheratan said. "The Xyrth apparently live in space and can achieve interstellar propulsion with their own BODIES. Not to mention the other amazing thing they can do through changing size." Messuta stepped forward. "These guys can probably cross over the dimensional barriers too and that could mean bad news for Terrania." Nashiran looked up. "Well, how many you got?" "What do you mean?" Commander Leto asked. "Who do you have back yet," Nashiran asked, "in total?" Lotia looked up. "Beverly and the rest of us." "So that's five, right?" Nashiran asked. "Yeah," Australis answered. Nash stopped walking and stood in front of them. "Well, that's how many we had the first time. I guess you've got everybody you need anyway." First Leto and then Lotia looked at him. The rest of the looked at Nashiran as he looked away from them and walked away. In the hum of the electrical system within the MagLev vehicle Beverly sat in, she awaited Nashiran with the others while sitting in the florescent-like lit wedge in the tunnel floor beneath the surface. On the platform, the lift from the tube from above descended with Sheratan, Australis, Messuta and Lotia with Commander Leto and when their footsteps echoed out, she looked out of the thick glass windows and didn't see Nashiran. As they walked around, Leto was starting to get a little dizzy and tripped over his own foot. So Australis moved ahead and held up his shoulder. "Commander Leto." "Commander," Lotia said, "is something wrong?" "Uh, no... No," he answered. "I'm just feeling a little faint. I'm tired nd I've been up all day. It's, it's nothing you all need to be concerned with." Moving ahead, more quickly than before--Leto walked ahead of the others and Australis followed him but Sheratan looked fairly concerned. The solid tight sound of the air pressurized doors was lost when the echoing of the underground walkway parking area was heard inside of the vehicle while everyone was climbing inside. Once Sheratan was in side next to Lotia in the front, he swiped his operator license to activate the vehicle's ignition and began dialing a destination as his door automatically resealed itself. Everyone was ominously silent, still taken aback by Nashiran's self-centered response to their request; though a taxing responsibility, a simple request to grant nonetheless. Beverly noticed the silence and was disturbed by this. Nervous to say anything as she was unaccustomed to the ways of Terrania, Beverly still felt she had to say something as the vehicle sped forth, reaching its top velocity. Sitting next to her was Australis, then Messuta to the far left. Theoretically, the most reasonable of the group. Beverly cleared her throat. "Uhm, where's Nashiran?" she asked in an innocent tone. "Sorry to say, he wont be joining us, Beverly," Australis groaned. Beverly frowned. "He didn't know I was here did he?" "No, he didn't," Australis answered. "I don't know if you being there would've helped him make his decision for the better or for the worse. He lost someone very special to him because of the mission in California and now he wants no part of us." "What?" Beverly asked. "I mean, I don't know what his story is, but, this isn't about us. Doesn't he realize that?" With an unusual tone of melancholy, Messuta monaurally responded, "There was nothing we could say." Sheratan glanced into the rear view mirror at Beverly. She looked from side to side, so upset, she was unable to form a sentence. "I, I--I just can't believe... That he would--would just..." "Beverly," Lotia's lower voice said, "it's okay. We all feel the same way. The only thing we can do now is concentrate on what we're about to try to do." Silently, Beverly nodded in agreement. In the blue sky above was the brilliant sun, with heat so strong--the horizon was warped by a hazed view, not obstructed by any hill or mountain to be seen for kilometers. Across the desert plane was a loan road where there was no traffic though this highway brought tourists from kilometers around to see one of the great southwestern attractions in America. This place hours from the outside of Phoenix, Flagstaff or Scottsdale is the widest and nearly the world's most deep pit on dry land. The Grand Canyon. Over the crest of its upper most ledge was a view of the cloudless blueness above as the silver, multi-legged creatures of metal sailed through the sky. Above the land below, the Xyrth began to make their descent while flying into the enveloping view of the canyon below. The hills now sparkled of their shiny bodies that crawled down the sandy stone and boulder covered walls of the canyon. One of the Xyrth brought up their singular-claw tipped arms, the shaft's shiny metallic surface gleaming in the sunlight before its razor sharp tip twinkled in the sky, and drove it into Earth. Like a knife into warm butter, the claw burrowed inside, causing cracks to bleed out from the separated mass of solid rock. The Xyrth's eyes started to glow yellow as did its arm in the Earth before the ground itself became illuminated by this transfer of energy. Next to it was another arm in the ground from another Xyrth. And next to it was another Xyrth as well. Forming a gigantic circle in the bottom of the canyon's uneven surface were the Xyrth, utilizing their unique abilities to raise shelter from matter in the Earth. Creating the walls and roof tops of structures that were just as deep as they were tall. However, the sheer enormity of the building they were attempting to raise would require the output of hundreds of Xyrth. That number matched by the amount of Xyrth there in that canyon below was able to make this glowing ground rise like a cake, baking in an oven. Slowly but surely, the Earth was rising; rising into a brown, rocket-shaped shaft before molding into a point--as just one of many structure coming up to form the castle that would be the headquarters of the Xyrth, not only on Earth--but for the entire Solar System. Alone in the blackness of outer space, the moon's light gray surface was illuminated by unshielded sunlight reflecting from its powered terrain. Within one of its massive craters was a dark cave. In fact, there was nothing visible whatsoever. All that could be sensed was the sound foot steps echoing against the sound of a metallic platform. Their walking stopped and eventually a series of clicks from switches being flipped gained a response from the idle computer, beeping to confirm selections. Suddenly, there was a loud bang and a low hum caused brilliant lights to illuminate the walls, separated by the wall where the six of them were standing. Messuta stepped forward with a great smile. "I can't believe this place still runs," he gasped. Looking around himself was an enormous hanger. In the ceiling were six tubes that were illuminated by lights built into the aluminum-like walls of the corridor leading out of the crater. Below it were six metal slides, angled up and suspended above the exhaust trenches below the platform that surrounded the AstroShuttles mounted on the launch pads and led to the remaining floor of this lunar base. The three-story tall walls were lined with catwalks and stair cases except for the forward wall. There were four elevators in all corners of the lunar base that led to booths behind the walls below the ceiling while over two stories below, the main entrance was in fact a hallway with two large freight doors. Sheratan stepped out ahead of Commander Leto from off the magnetic train tracks where massive hardware was delivered to this location. On the left was a tall closet that housed robotic arms for repairs and other functions controlled from one of the booths. However, on the right wall was not only a massive projection screen but below that was a store-window like display of items. Sheratan stepped out of the way of seeing a rack supporting six weapons. A pink Boomerang on a pair of hooks, a white staff on a narrow, pool cue-like rack, a green bow and arrow on four hooks, a black scythe on a pair of poles, a set of yellow daggers up held by their hilts on a forked stand. And, a red, double-edged, two-handed sword held in a guitar stand-type rack in front of the spot lit display. Sheratan looked at FireSword, his weapon as MarsAstro and took a deep breath. The memories restored provided a powerful array of emotions. Next to them were shiny the red, green, black, white, pink and yellow uniforms on mannequins topped by the shimmering, black-visored helmets with silver mouthpieces. Each uniform bared the A-like insignia of the Astroranger task force on the chest, similar to the color-coordinated logo on the wrist guards of the white gloves and ankle-guards of the white boots. They featured a white belt sporting a golden star belt buckle and holster for a hand-held weapon, the Moleculatom Weapon. In the yellow uniform's case--a second holster for a gray, cellular flip-phone type of device. The PortaScanner. And, in the reflection of the window were Beverly's almond eyes, recalling the dramatic events that had thrust her into the realization of her true identity and the responsibility of man kind's only savior. It almost seemed like yesterday she was protecting her love, Sasha, from the menacing, heartless wiles of the Nazitan Empire. "The HydroCycles are in the rocket launchers of the AstroShuttles because they've been replaced by the new high-power Rayon Cannons on the wings," Commander Leto said while reading at least a hundred different monitors with charts indicating everything from environmental conditions to security and structural integrity of the subterranean lunar station. Upon turning around, he noticed that the five Astrorangers were merely admiring the AstroShuttles and other equipment, realizing that this is what they aspired to be when young. And that things in their lives since then almost pail in comparison to the emotionally challenging events that matured the, then, young heros to such a warrior-seasoned level. Leto smiled softly, he knew where they were but had to press on--but did so quietly. So, walking towards them--passing each one of them on his way to a switchboard that had so many lights, it resembled a Christmas tree. Standing here, he was beginning to enter a series of authentication codes. Messuta looked to his left, around the others to see what it is that he was doing. Visibly, Leto spoke--though he was too far to be heard. So, eventually, Messuta turned away from the window and started walking up to Leto. "What are you doing?" he asked. Leto looked behind himself and smiled. "Oh, Messuta. Heh--don't ask me how I got these but needless to say, the peaceful nature of Terrania in the past ten or so years has left these in virtually mint condition." Lotia also stepped up, followed by Australis and Sheratan. "What's in mint condition?" asked Lotia. She watched a section of the wall wedge out of the front of the silver, steel panel, it's sides black and being lowered by gears. It's front transparent and featuring six raised blocks covered with a velvet-type fabric. Pinned down were six golden rings bearing shimmering stones. Beverly gasped. "The Genesis Gems," Sheratan announced. Commander Leto nodded. "I was not likely going to let you return to active duty with out what helped to make you the most memorable task force in the history of Terrania." Beverly smiled. As he looked at the red ruby, purple amethyst, clear diamond, pink zircon, green jade and then the black onyx gem stones, Australis continued looking with the rest of them as he said, "six of us is what led to the end of the war against the Nazitans." Lotia looked behind herself at Australis. "With that much power subtracted from our combined resources..." Sheratan interrupted, "We will not fail. We've been through hell together but now, we're all a little bit wiser from it all so despite any obstacle, we're gonna do this." His words of confidence left little impact on Beverly, however--because it was her race at stake. A door closing echoed throughout the hanger and, on the fiberglass-like floor, a pair of black work shoes walked inside. Looking low, Australis looked to his side before looking again with his mouth opened. Messuta's shoulders shifted before his mouth opened too. Sheratan's eyes widened from surprise as well and Lotia's forehead wrinkled as a small smile was forming in her face. His legs in the navy blue jump suit leading to the utility belt below the rest of his suit was over his black, service shirt below his head. Nashiran said, "Sheratan's right. Despite any obstacle, we're gonna do this--together." Beverly smiled widely, gripping her fist inside of her hand and taking a deep breath of joy. As the six of them stood together on the floor below, Commander Leto put his arm around Beverly--ecstatic to see Nashiran standing before them next to the docked AstroShuttles. A coyote in the New Mexican desert looked behind itself as a black shadow was cast over itself. Above the blazing horizon and in the blue sky was a black, angular object that was as silent as the dead of night. In midair was a flying machine with a shape so unique it could only be described as the stealth bomber. Aboard the cockpit, a man wearing sunglasses joined by another man both wearing high-quality earphone headsets with microphones observed the land below. There--the Xyrth were marching toward the city of Albuquerque. A small town but with enough people in it to disturb the alien intent for the land. Within the cockpit, the man said, "This is Red Chameleon to base. We see them." "Good," said a small voice in the pilots headset. "What is your approximate distance from city limits?" "Twenty miles," replied the pilot. "Very well. Let us all pray that you will be successful," the voice replied. Underneath the black aircraft, two panels retracted from a center line where the metal hull was divided. Inside of the bomb bay, light permeated into the chamber where a large metal cylinder was loaded. The ground inched by slowly from the view of the bomber's cockpit while the pilot counted down. "Eight seconds until directly above drop site." The digital counter on the black display counted from four to three. "Two and one: Now." The co-pilot and the pilot simultaneously pushed two buttons far enough apart that they had to be pressed with both hands. The nose of a metal cylinder in the dark chamber then became fully exposed to the light of day as it dropped away. The bomb sunk out of sight from the ventral hull of the stealth bomber. From kilometers away, something tiny was falling from the sky. And, eventually--it fell out of sight. However, all of a suddenly there was a sound so loud, it was deafeningly silent after it was heard, exceeding measurable. A light so brilliant, numbers could not count the number of lumens it exceeded. Heat rushed from the site of the detonation causing the gust of wind to blow up to over one hundred kilometers per hour. A circular core of glowing yellow erupted from the Earth in a gigantic mushroom of fire and orange dust that rose up from the ground. Objects were coasting from the wall of fog presented by the radioactive cloud left behind by the destructive force of an explosion caused by Man's deadliest weapon. The objects maintained a steady course before they came close enough to resemble the target of this lethal weapon--the Xyrth. Inside of the cockpit, the metallic creatures were seen as they sailed above the ground. "I don't believe it." The co-pilot looked at him and said, "If that doesn't stop them, nothing will." With the city of Albuquerque ahead of them, the Xyrth flew into the distance at maximum velocity. A large muscular hand had a golden ring with a red ruby within its crown slid onto the right hand by his left hand before a man wearing a green jump suit slipped on an amethyst topped ring. After another pair of hands fitted on the onyx ring, a slim set of hands pulled down his diamond ring. A pair of hands featuring pink finger nail polish pulled on a gold, zircon ring before another set of hands slipped on the yellow ring. Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta, Lotia and Beverly walked out in front of CombatShuttle, below its wing and turned to face Commander Leto. They watched him pace in front of the display window of their uniforms and weapons and said, "Uton Defense Intelligence has just now made me aware of the fact that the Xyrth has just now withstood the greatest attack capable by man kind today. The detonation of a Hydrogen Bomb." Beverly sharply inhaled. The massive projection screen above Commander Leto was seen behind the legs of the Astroranger's standing within their jump suits, displaying still pictures of of a castle made of pure stone. Swarming with the Xyrth like a bee hive. "The Xyrth have recently established their base in Death Valley, California. The heat apparently made the ground its most soluble to manipulate through electrochemical photons discharged via their limbs. This is going to be our first target," Commander Leto said. "They apparently operate on a collective thought process. They know what each other is thinking and seeing at all times and feel what each other feel. However, once they have been hurt by something, their ability to adapt allows them to globally modify their physiology to become immune to it in the future. They have likely survived for billions of years through this approach of self-survival. And the perpetuation of existences based entirely off of the collection of electron particles in the atoms present anywhere in the universe has given them an unlimited life span." "They are nearly unstoppable!" Beverly exclaimed. Leto shook his head. "No they're not. Because of the centralized means of thought, they are highly susceptible to events of forced individuality. Without the knowledge base, they are as helpless as babies." Momentarily, he began coughing for a brief while. "And since their means of establishing their link can be easily disrupted by a Moleculatom Blast, their way of transmitting the healing information to the others will be gone before the others will be able to get that information and adapt." Messuta nodded and looked at the others. "Sounds simple enough." "That's what I'm afraid of," Nashiran replied. Sheratan was looking straight ahead as Commander Leto walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "You men and women did some things that did not seem possible in its day. Prove to us that no being can ever rob from us what we have worked so hard to evolve into." Sheratan nodded affirmatively. Commander Leto took a deep breath and smiled before turning around and walking away. On the floor below--Leto said, "report to me when you are ready to depart, I will obtain clearance from mission control at Juncten when you are." As the six of the them turned around, they faced the AstroShuttles as Sheratan stepped forward. "For a time, I believed I'd never again see the day we would be together," he said. "But now, we're about to show both worlds that a legend has not died." Clenching his fist, Australis nodded affirmatively. Sheratan turned around. "Ready everyone?" Bringing up their left fists in unison, their voice simultaneously echoed out, "READY." "ChangeForm!" Sheratan shouted, bring up his right fight. Australis, Nashiran, Messuta, Lotia and Beverly's fists, bearing their GeneGem rings were raised into position. With the high ceiling above themselves, Sheratan turned around in front of the others as, together--they shoved their right fists to the left before winding both arms to the left to form a circle. And, upon pulling their left fists out and pushing right, ring-bearing fists forth--they called out, "Astro CHARGE!" The red ruby on Sheratan's golden ring flared in a circler glow that shined at its center before a white light flashed like a sun flare. Color coordinated star dust had burst from the amethyst, onyx, diamond, zircon and jade gems as well before five lights shined in a blinding flash. Standing in front of a red grid of light, a tall laser beam scanned Sheratan's still body from his right finger tips across to his left hand, leaving a red, glowing silhouette of his body. At the center of where his chest was, the Mars insignia beamed forward and once the logo vanished, Sheratan had become the mars Astroranger. In white boots, gloves and a belt with holster matching his white neck below his shiny red helmet with black visor and silver lip-plate, he was in a glossy red uniform bearing the white A-shaped emblem on his chest. Australis stood in front of a green grid as a light white beam of light scrolled across his body, leaving a green, glowing silhouette of his body. At the center of his chest appeared the Jupiter insignia which beamed forward. Upon the emblem disappearing, Australis transformed into the jupiter Astroranger--the green, glossy uniform he wore shined as his helmet also gleamed. Appearing in front of a purple grid of lights was Nashiran, standing in front of a white ray that as soon as it touched his body, caused his form to take on a purple glow. As soon as the ray left his right fingertips, the Saturn logo beamed forward of his chest and after it passed out of view, the saturn Astroranger's black uniform shined brilliantly. A grid of white lights behind Messuta was joined by another white laser beam that rapidly replaced his body, atom by atom by pure white energy. And a black-outlined insignia of the Mercury sign beamed forward, the mercury Astroranger appeared within his white, battle suit. Standing with her legs together, Lotia's eyes opened in front of the pink grid over the blackness out of outer space. The tall laser beam came down from above and rolled over her body, leaving behind a glowing, pink silhouette of her body. The Venus insignia came from within her glowing bosom before beaming forward and upon passing out of view, the venus Astroranger appeared. Standing within her protected uniform, her skirt's golden trim boarded the shiny fabric below her belt. Also standing in front of a yellow grid with her feet together, Beverly looked up as a white ray warmly passed through her, from arm to arm, the entire length of her body. She became a yellow silhouette of light before the forked symbol of Earth emerged from her bust. And after the yellow insignia beamed forth, the earth Astroranger stepped out, wearing her yellow, shiny AstroSuit, supporting two devices on her white belt. And after a blinding flash of white light, the red Astroranger stood in front of CombatShuttle before winding his arm around and pointing his left arm at at an angle to the sky to form the Mars insignia. "Sheratan Kasei!" Forming a fist with his left hand and bringing out his right hand like a planet and its sun, he shouted, "MarsAstro!" In front of CommandShuttle, the green Astroranger assumed the position of the archer holding a bow and arrow announcing, "Australis Mokusei!" Striking the team pose MarsAstro did, he finished, "JupiterAstro!" One foot stepping out, his right fist down and left fist up to make the Saturn sign, the black Astroranger shouted, "Nashiran Dosei!" Assuming the team position in front of SolarShuttle, he announced, "SaturnAstro!" With his arms, the white Astroranger formed a plus sign on his left and a circle on the right before creating a crescent above his head and saying, "Messuta Suisei!" Upon taking the team battle pose in front of TurboShuttle, he called out, "MercuryAstro!" With her arms up like the arms of the Libra scales below RescueShuttle, the pink Astroranger said, "Lotia Kinsei!" After striking the group pose, she shouted, "VenusAstro!" "Beverly Tenmei!" she shouted holding out her arms, bent at the elbows in an angle. The yellow Astroranger assumed the team stance in front of her yellow jet, AirShuttle. "EarthAstro!" With the ceiling high above their helmets, they'd brought up their fists and pointed them both out to the sky shouting, "Galaxy Task Force." Striking the battle pose one more time, they announced, "Astroranger!" The red Astroranger stepped forth and looked up. Bringing his glove before his mask, MarsAstro pushed the right side of his helmet with two fingers. "Galaxy Task Force Command: AstroShuttles! Take Off!!" Aboard the dark cockpit of the red CombatShuttle, the backlit lights within buttons on the cockpit were activated automatically as the sound of electric and propulsion systems hummed with a rising tone. The cockpit spotlight illuminated the chair while headlights casted a beam of light up the ejection tube. Below the lamps hanging from the ceiling above, the red Astroranger leaped hands first into the air before tumbling over, and dropping out of the way so that the black Astroranger could jump overhead and flip into dropping out of sight. The green Astroranger leaped after MarsAstro before somersaulting out of view followed by the white Astroranger jumping into a flip to follow SaturnAstro. The pink Astroranger shot overhead before tumbling over and out of the way so that the yellow Astroranger could jump after MercuryAstro and somersault out of sight. As the massive, yellow F-14 type jet sat docked with its cockpit cover up, EarthAstro rose up and landed inside of the pilot's seat, out of sight. Inside of the cockpit, her seat slid forward and locked inside of the bubble-chamber for maximum shock absorption. The front panel came rolling out of the wall into place as she approached as a black screen lifted up from the window giving a view of the yellow tube ahead. As she sat under the lap belt, the yellow Astroranger was looking up at switches she flicked to the on position as the Earth symbol behind her head came on. "This is EarthAstro, aboard AirShuttle. Shuttle Fleet, do you copy?" Aboard the cockpit of CombatShuttle, MarsAstro nodded affirmatively. "I read you, EarthAstro. All aboard?" Simultaneously--the green, black, white and pink Astrorangers also nodded affirmatively. "Yes!" From MarsAstro's point of view, he pushed one of the communications buttons on his terminal. A picture-in-picture window of Commander Leto in the control booth there appeared. "Commander Leto, we're ready for take off," MarsAstro reported. From within the booth, Commander Leto observed the shuttles below while standing in front of the station control board. "Acknowledged. You have clearance." Looking from side to side, MarsAstro said to everyone, "All right then... Let's do it!" On the terminal, his white gloved finger slammed a a red button, changing it to the color green. In a loud "POW!" sound, the afterburners of the red CombatShuttle blasted out three strong streams of bright yellow fire. Below, the six AstroShuttle's clearances lights were blinking with headlights further illuminating their take-off tubes as fire streamed from their aft-sections, sliding them up their launch ramps. MarsAstro nodded affirmatively as he commanded, "Full throttle!" A lever on his console was pushed forth, raising velocity to Mach 10--for Stage 1 burn prior to 2nd and final stage electromagnetic pulse wave, bringing them up to interstellar speed. Aboard the RescueShuttle, modeled similarly to MarsAstro's CombatShuttle--she pushed forth the lever and found her head pulled back into her seat. "Woo! These engines have a lot more kick in them than they used to!" MercuryAstro was riding out the vibration of the initial speed increase. "The transmission on these things were overhauled a year ago so that's why!" In the green tube, the CommandShuttle's nose was barreling forth while, from its point of view, the tube's green, ribbed interior was illuminated by its headlights. In deep space--the moon, illuminated by the sun beyond, featured one crater where a red shuttle, black rocket, green starship, white rocket, pink shuttle and yellow fighter jet plane flew out of the darkness of that crater. Together again, the AstroShuttle fleet flew in unison through space as the stars rolled by and with the Earth below, the five star ships with their engines burning bright zoomed forward to the planet ahead. The green covered hills of the Santa Monica mountains lead to canyons where there were abandoned roads. The picnic areas, barbecues, trees and trails were vacant. The only thing moving here were the trees, swaying in the wind. In the distance, upon a mountain face--six motorcycles drove into view. The red, black, green, white, pink and yellow HydroCycles came around the ben and, from their perspective, they could see the Los Angeles basin from their high altitude. Beverly was normally used to seeing helicopters and airplanes above the skyline of downtown Los Angeles, but it seemed dead as there was nothing in sight for kilometers. Holding up her PortaScanner, the yellow Astroranger looked at an expanding red ring over a grid, mapping out the area. EarthAstro's helmet looked up as her mask faced the road ahead. "The energy patterns recorded by the lunar base aren't present here." MercuryAstro glanced behind himself. "Then we've got to keep searching." Down the road leading back to a wider highway, the six bikes buzzed downward to the on-ramp. Below a sign reading, "Welcome to Topanga Stake Park" - EarthAstro ran onto the turf. As she jogged to a stop, she looked around. The landscaping was similar to the other location they were near. Hills of green grass, trees and space for playgrounds, picnics, barbecues and benches with lamp posts at paved sections for the walkway. The yellow Astroranger cupped her white gloved hands around the silver mouth plate in her helmet's mask. "Lotia!" EarthAstro called out. Surfacing from behind a bush, VenusAstro looked back. "What?" she yelled back. EarthAstro shouted, "Did you see anything weird?" "No," the pink Astroranger's answer echoed. "Let's go back to join the others." The red and black Astrorangers stood together, looking around but MarsAstro took the moment of silence to look at his colleague. "So, Nashiran. How come you decided to return?" SaturnAstro continued looking about. "I've got a lot of problems, Sheratan. I don't need murder in cold blood adding to the pile of things plaguing my mind. It'd be on me if you guys failed because I didn't show up." "I always knew you weren't unscrupulous," the red Astroranger replied. Turning around, the black Astroranger looked at him. "Besides--I've already lost one person important to me because of what we used to do. No sense in losing more of the only people who really knew me for not doing it." MarsAstro held his chin and nodded. "I gotta say, you have definitely changed since last we were together." Jogging up from behind were the green and white Astrorangers. "Anything?" SaturnAstro asked. JupiterAstro shook his head. MercuryAstro clenched his fist. "If there were anybody here, the attack must have been so powerful, there's no evidence they'd ever existed. And there's not a single piece of the Xyrth around anywhere." "No casualties?" MarsAstro asked. Also running down the side of the hill were the yellow and pink Astrorangers. "Hey, guys, what did you turn up?" VenusAstro asked. The white Astroranger shook his head. "Not much. I think the reading we got was a false alarm." "I doubt it," replied the black Astroranger. "Well regardless," MarsAstro spoke-up, "we're needed where the Xyrth are actually causing havoc. We better move..." A rumbling began as the earth started to quake. The female Astrorangers stiffened to maintain their balance while the white and green Astrorangers wound their arms to stay standing. SaturnAstro leaped ahead. "What the hell was that??" Ahead of them, the grass and ground were somehow rolling upwards as a peace of the Earth was literally ascending into a tower of stone. The ground was actually re-shaped into a miniature hill and JupiterAstro's head jerked forth to get a better look. "How did that get there?" SaturnAstro answered, "I think it's pretty obvious." All of a sudden, the hill bursts into a cloud of brown, dust-filled smoke. The explosion causing chunks of earth to fall in on itself, the team used their arms to shield their helmet's masks from the pebbles being cast in their direction. As the dust passed by, the pink Astroranger mask's black visor reflected something shimmering in front of herself as she suddenly looked up. VenusAstro gasped and the yellow Astroranger, jerked back--also gasping. Standing in the vast field were rows upon rows of Xyrth; silver creatures with metallic skeleton bodies. An exoskeletal structure complimented by their utility-equip heads and metal fin-scaled backs leading to a segmented tail ending in a forked stinger. The red Astroranger stood in front of his team while taking a deep breath, watching the fleet of billion year old space dwellers before them. From behind the solid color of their six helmets, one could see the some hundred Xyrth marching forward. The group click of them rising up onto their feet from out of their stand-by position was not nearly as loud as the six-legged steps they took to crawl down the hill they were on top of. "Let's do this right, guys," MarsAstro ordered. Ready, SaturnAstro looked to his side and remarked, "You mean, don't die?" "More like win!" VenusAstro spoke up. JupiterAstro looked off to the side and mumbled, "That's being optimistic." MarsAstro looked on his left and right sides and ordered, "About face and spread out! NOW!" The Astrorangers turned around and ran down the side of the hill to gain some kind of an advantage to control the battle as best as possible as being surrounded would mean certain doom. MarsAstro ran down the hill and while approaching, one of the Xyrth turned around--swinging its hine legs across the red Astroranger's chest. After a blast of sparks from his shiny uniform forced him down, VenusAstro found her abs kicked by one of the Xyrth before two long, metal arms dropped themselves on her shoulder blades. The pink Astroranger fell out of sight and landed mask down on the grass. Another Xyrth turned around, swinging its tail across MercuryAstro's helmet, throwing him into an airborne twirl. After the white Astroranger spun off of his feet, he dropped head first out of the air and landed on his white, gloved hands to tumble over. When MercuryAstro rolled off of his back, he stood up and watched the Xyrth come after him, focusing on its strategy. It swung one of its metallic arms towards him, so MercuryAstro punched it out of sight and turned around, into a spin-kick. And, even though the Xyrth ducked, when it's head came back, MercuryAstro was already into round-two of a reversed spin-kick. Its large, insect-like head got kicked wildly out of place by the white Astroranger's boot before it looked to see MercuryAstro take his arms out of the way for a high front kick. When his white foot shot straight upward, its head was kicked so high, it flipped into circles, in midair, before falling flat on its head. MarsAstro blocked a Xyrth's arm before stopping its other one, high above his own head. Its middle section of legs clamped down on the red Astroranger's sides and held him perfectly still. MarsAstro found his arms knocked out of the way by the Xyrth's arms and once it leg go, it turned around and hoof-kicked at him. MarsAstro's chest caught two of its metal legs' stump-like terminals, punching into the white logo on his uniform and launching him out of sight. His entire body was sent flying into a posted sign for directions in the park and broke through. On the other side, the busted hole in the wooden sign allowed MarsAstro to fall away along with the dust and debris. On the grass, the red Astroranger landed on the lawn from out of the air. Meanwhile, the Xyrth's arms were pulled away from its eyes, allowing it to shoot red and yellow beams of light from its circular head. "Oh NO!" MarsAstro grunted before jumping up and away from the sign which was being fired upon. While he was in midair, the wooden sign had completely burst into a cloud of dust. After the explosion--MarsAstro landed on his side and rolled over and over before standing up. Three more Xyrth had jumped over the flaming wood and crawled towards him. MarsAstro ducked when its hine legs swung towards his body and kicked its head back the other way with a roundhouse. The red Astroranger turned around and spin-kicked the other Xyrth, causing it to flip up into the air and land flat on its back. Jumping over the immobilized Xyrth was another one of its kind which flung a limb towards MarsAstro. His gloved hand blocked the strike before running under a punch swung by the attacking Xyrth. When he wasn't looking, the Xyrth stood on its arms again and swung its rear legs against the red Astroranger's chest. The metal sparked against his shiny uniform as his body dropped away. MarsAstro twirled onto his hands before rolling onto his back. The Xyrth was already leaping into midair to descend on the fallen Astroranger. All of a sudden, a white boot with the mars insignia on the ankle guard was stuck straight up and the Xyrth's upper body was kicked back into midair. Before it fell, its bottom legs flew upwards and MarsAstro stood up, shifting his arms into place. As a Xyrth ran after JupiterAstro, he hook-kicked it at EarthAstro. The yellow Astroranger punched its head back the other way. It tried to swing its metal arm against her but EarthAstro's left arm caught it, pulled the Xyrth towards herself and rolled in to hammer its limb with her right elbow. EarthAstro came back out and upper-cut the Xyrth before releasing its arm and used her left fist to reverse-punch the alien creature out of the way. Another Xyrth landed behind her, locking its limbs onto her shoulders but EarthAstro jumped up and rolled over the top of the Xyrth and landed behind the monster. The yellow Astroranger front kicked its back forward so it turned around and swung both of its long arms towards her. EarthAstro caught the arms again and kicked it in its side before turning around and spin kicking the Xyrth so hard it slipped and fell on its side. JupiterAstro was in midair over a pair of Xyrth coming out of a full-twisting body flip. Once the green Astroranger landed, he leaped up and split kick both of them backwards and stuck out his arm to hook a Xyrth's upper body, causing the force of the creature's approach to backfire and knock itself to the grass. SaturnAstro spin-kicked a Xyrth out of the way at the same time JupiterAstro's tornado-kick tricked a Xyrth into ducking his first foot, but not the second. The black Astroranger turned into a cartwheel to dodge a Xyrth before jumping into a back flip which caused a leaping Xyrth to crash into the turf. After landing on his white, gloved hands, SaturnAstro jumped into a backward somersault. After his two white boots landed on the flat turf, they were lifted out of sight when the black Astroranger leaped into the sky. In midair, SaturnAstro went flying into a somersault before coming out of it and into a half twist. And in front of one of the Xyrth, the black Astroranger was sideways in midair with one foot to the right and the other one to the left. And so before falling, SaturnAstro cross-kicked its face by swinging both legs to opposite positions in front of the Xyrth. The creature's head was kicked so far out of place, its neck yanked its entire body out of sight. SaturnAstro landed on his feet and shifted his arms into place. VenusAstro's punch got blocked so she turned around and reverse punched, however, when her second strike was blocked, the Xyrth held her fist and clamped down onto her limb to pull her out of place. She was thrown into a tumble so she came up and jumped into the air. In midair, the pink Astroranger's legs came flailing wide apart as she hurled herself towards the Xyrth. "Venus V tackle!" On the ground below, the Xyrth suddenly looked up, fearing for her approach. On impact--VenusAstro's legs wrapped around its upper body before she let her torso hang down. Standing on her hands, she used her legs to pull the Xyrth's body over her own and ran out of the way. The pink Astroranger ran away and jumped into a somersault to dodge another Xyrth trying to fall on top of her before continuing to run. Meanwhile, EarthAstro stepped into view and whipped out the weapon in her white belt's holster. "Moleculatom Blaster!" A Xyrth galloping after her found a yellow and then electric blue beam streaming into its shoulder which blasted sparks from its joint, dropping it out of sight. The yellow Astroranger turned around and knelt down to open fire again. A beam of electricity flashed into a tower of sparks in the park, launching a Xyrth into the sky, spinning in midair. With the sky above her, EarthAstro moved her arm to change aim before firing again. And, a Xyrth flipped into a twirling descent from a hill that blew up from a dust cloud explosion. Standing up--EarthAstro held out her Moleculatom Blaster to the side and shot down another Xyrth approaching. VenusAstro's forearm came up and blocked a Xyrth's punch before upper-cutting its abs and then dropping low to sweep kick the beast. When she stood up, another Xyrth swung a punch at her and she ducked before decking the Xyrth that tried to strike her. The punch knocked it into flying side ways out of sight but another Xyrth came in and, with its punch she caught, VenusAstro flipped the the creature onto its back. However, while she wasn't looking, a third Xyrth whipped her in the abs with one of its arms. She bowed over but got kicked into standing up straight with another limb being swung by a Xyrth. Two Xyrth hoof-kicked their hine legs towards the pink Astroranger and the next thing she knew, VenusAstro was flying backwards from off of her feet. Overhead, VenusAstro sailed backwards with her arms reaching out to try and break her fall. Up against a tree trunk, the pink Astroranger's back crashed into the bark before falling out of sight. The green Astroranger shouted, "Jupiter Great Red Spot Kick!" and leaped skyward. In midair, JupiterAstro sailed through the sky, twirling into a corkscrew kick. And one of the Xyrth approaching VenusAstro found two white boots kicking its shoulders out of sight. In a group of Xyrth, the one trying to feast on the pink Astroranger crashed up against them, causing the group to fall. Meanwhile, JupiterAstro somersaulted out of midair and landed on his feet before running away. Next to the tree where VenusAstro was, the green Astroranger knelt down beside the pink Astroranger, lying on her side and grabbed her shoulders. "Lotia, are you all right?" "Yeah, I'm... AH-HAH!" she screamed, clutching her abdomen while bowing over. JupiterAstro caught her before she fell. "Lotia!" Breathing deeply, the venus Astroranger's helmet still hung low. "Don't worry, I'll be fine." "Lotia, you're hurt. I've got to get you out of here so we can see what's wrong," JupiterAstro replied. "No!" VenusAstro demanded. "I said I'm all right!" Meanwhile, SaturnAstro blocked a kick and used his elbow to hammer that Xyrth's shoulder before karate chopping down another front kick before punching straight into its abdomen. The black Astroranger then reverse punched the Xyrth he heard behind himself with precise accuracy to its face. SaturnAstro ducked a tail whip and spin kicked the Xyrth out of the way. The white Astroranger held onto two Xyrth's arms before using one foot to kick in both of their sides one after the other. However--from above, one could see the six Astrorangers fighting the Xyrth, sparks bursting everywhere on the valley below. As the battle continued--EarthAstro stepped into a walkover before turning around and cutting across with her Lightning Daggers. Sparks exploded from the severed limb she struck but two Xyrth jumped on top of the yellow Astroranger and she fell out of sight. "Mgh! Help!!" VenusAstro looked to the side and saw her collecting Xyrth like flies. "Shit." The pink Astroranger started running after her and--while EarthAstro rolled over to get on top of a Xyrth, as soon as the yellow Astroranger stood up a metal tail was wrapped around her white neck. "Ugh!! No!!" she gasped. In the sky, VenusAstro shouted, "Sonic Boomerang!" hurling her pink, metal weapon with the toss of the arm. The spinning boomerang bounced off of the back of the Xyrth that tied down EarthAstro with sparks blasting it out of the way. After the pink Astroranger landed on her white boot, she caught her weapon but a group of Xyrth started firing bolts of light from their eyes and VenusAstro was surrounded by towers of sparks rushing skyward like fountains. She'd began to fall into the white cloud of smoke surrounding herself and EarthAstro reached out, shouting, "Lotia!!" Looking to her side, she gasped, "Oh no!" The black Astroranger held onto the tail of a Xyrth that was wrapped around his neck and took his Battle Scythe and swung the arm holding it down against the metal cord. The sections were blasted apart by sparks once the blade of his Celestial Weapon came through it. SaturnAstro pulled off the section of its tail around his neck and threw it into the grass. "Man! Aw no!" Like tongues of a frog catching flies, two more Xyrth tails caught his arms. "ThunderBow!" shouted the green Astroranger. JupiterAstro released an arrow from the bowstring of his green Celestial Weapon. The middle of one tail was blasted apart by an arrow shooting through the metal section. The red Astroranger was already somersaulting out of the sky, holding his sword with both hands. "FireSword!" The other tail of a Xyrth suspended by its grip on SaturnAstro was blown off by sparks rushing out of the metal cord once MarsAstro's blade sliced threw it. JupiterAstro ran up to SaturnAstro and held him up by his chest and shoulders. "Nash, are you all right?" he asked. The black Astroranger shook his head. "No. There's more of them then there are of us. And we've been here for a long time so everything they send after us has enough energy to keep wearing us out." "You're right," the green Astroranger replied. "We don't have enough man power to finish this fight." "We've got to retreat!" SaturnAstro insisted. MarsAstro shouted, "Eahh!" as he swung his sword against a Xyrth but it was already leaping into the air. Over the red Astroranger's head, the crab like creature sailed through the sky. Up against a tree, it's rear legs pushed off the side of the bark. MarsAstro's chest exploded of sparks as the three legs on the side of that Xyrth triple-cut past his uniform while flying back the other way. Two Xyrth's pair of arms landed on both side's of MercuryAstro's Power Staff and he was slowly losing to their combined strength. "Arrrgh... Sheratan! This is insane--we've got to retreat. NOW!" MarsAstro stood up and shook his head to clear the haze from his vision. "Ugh..." EarthAstro ran forward and shouted. "No!" The black and pink Astrorangers looked at her with surprised. "We can't," the yellow Astroranger denied. "We have to stay. We can't leave the..." "We don't have any choice," MarsAstro replied. "Astrorangers, retreat!!" Standing in front of a platoon of Xyrth, one swung its long arms away from its face, firing bolts of light from its eyes. JupiterAstro ran away from a tower of sparks that exploded where he was standing as another fountain blew up behind him. As the green Astroranger ran down the hill, the others had followed while, up on the cliff--the crest was lined by a squadron of silver, metallic creatures firing on them. Sparks exploded out of the grass and the yellow Astroranger reached out to tumble out of the way. MarsAstro's leg swung over the top of his HydroCycle before sitting in its seat and starting the ignition. "Let's move it!" he said, looking behind himself. While the black and green Astrorangers kicked up their kickstands, the white, pink and yellow Astrorangers revved the hydroelectric engines with the handle-bars. The rear tire of the red bike smoked as it spun rapidly, taking the red HydroCycle into the distance, followed by the black, green, white, pink and yellow Motorcycles. In the park below, the six motorcycles were making their way back to the road leading out of the park but there were more Xyrth that were flying. MercuryAstro looked up all of a sudden. "Uh oh. Bad news." MarsAstro looked behind himself and then at the road again. "We're being followed." In the sky, the eyes of the flying Xyrth approaching glowed before shooting rays of red light below. Dust exploded out of the park as the Astrorangers drove through the bombardment from above. The red Astroranger ducked and looked up behind himself briefly. "Astrorangers, evasive manuevers!" EarthAstro replied, "We can't split up!" "If we don't," said VenusAstro, "if any of us are killed, we'll all be dead at the same time." MarsAstro made a fist while driving and nodded affirmatively. "It's time to take this to the sky! HydroCycle: Jet Mode--now!" A blue button on the handle bar was pushed by his index finger. The rear-wheel guards lowered and then extended at their half-way section on both the left and then right sides. The turbine behind the back seat was starting to turn and, on the dashboard, the digital speedometer began to count upward rapidly. All of a sudden, the road running below the two tires of the HydroCycle began to separate from the spinning wheels and, in the sky, the red Astroranger on his motorcycle banked off as he flew his flying motorcycle. JupiterAstro tried to hold it steady as he looked on his dashboard. On the black screen, a Xyrth's body moving wildly around the screen was trying to be found by one of the three superimposed graphics to lock the target. Eventually, the graphics converged on the outline of the Xyrth's body and flashed between white and red rapidly. "Target locked!" JupiterAstro reported, "Open fire!" The two headlights in the front of his green bike alternately fired rapidly ahead. In midair, the Xyrth flew right into a flash of sparks exploding. As the black and white HydroCycles flew by, the flaming Xyrth left behind a trail of smoke as it crash landed, becoming ball of fire exploding out of the mountain. MercuryAstro glanced behind himself. "That's the first time we've gotten one yet." "If it takes that long to kill one of these things, we're going to be here for a really long time," SaturnAstro remarked. Meanwhile, a Xyrth flew into a loopty-loop to chase the pink Astroranger who flew out of the way, just missing dozens of red beams of light that were fired. While coasting through the sky, VenusAstro looked down to her side while holding her Sonic Boomerang. "Heyah!" she shouted, tossing it with as much energy as she had. The Xyrth was trying to ascend so that it would miss the boomerang but sailed upward into a ball of sparks bursting in midair. Another Xyrth chased after MarsAstro while the other Xyrth, still on fire, plummeted from above behind them. A Xyrth's tail curled up and linked blue and red arcs of electricity, converging on a single yellow bolt of lightning that cracked ahead. The back of the red HydroCycle sprayed sparks as the engine was frayed by the electrical shock. "Oh shit!" MarsAstro explained while looking behind himself. "My tail's on fire! Gotta find a place to land..." The ground was coming close and there were no clear locations. A trio of airborne Xyrth raised their tails and launched arcs of electricity. MarsAstro jumped up to stand on the seat of his HydroCycle and leaped off the motorcycle. A bolt of lightning struck the Earth, causing a ball of fire to explode in a hot rush of air behind the red Astroranger flying out of the control away from the flaming motorcycle. MarsAstro landed shoulder first into the side of a tree before falling out of sight. On the ground--the red Astroranger landed, holding his FireSword, and stood up as a collection of Xyrth had collected around him. Swinging from side to side, sparks blew out of the silver, metallic creatures he was surrounded by. "Get away! Stay back!" Suddenly, towers of sparks exploded around the Xyrth and they scattered away. Running through the fields were the remaining Astrorangers shooting at the fleet with their Moleculatom Blasters. Breathing hard, MarsAstro stood watching as the Astrorangers came to stand beside him. "Okay, so, retreating wont work," VenusAstro said, "now what?" EarthAstro turned around and looked at all of them. "Wait a minute, we've never tried the Cosmic Missile before!" SaturnAstro stepped forward. "That's because there's more than one of them, in case you hadn't noticed." "But what else can we do?" JupiterAstro asked. MarsAstro nodded. "Good point. All right, everybody--let's do it!" In a smokey black background, the circle and right arrow symbol of Mars shined as a bonfire was seen behind MarsAstro. He took his sword upside-down into his left hand and ran his gloved hand the length of the blade causing a red beam of light to follow his fingers. "Red FireSword!" MarsAstro shouted as he horizontally strikes out causing the energy to leave the sword and fly. "Blaze!" A flaming light soared in the sky. Lightning cracked and clouds rolled rapidly upward while JupiterAstro put out his ThunderBow. "Celestial ThunderBow!" JupiterAstro pointed his fist into the air. "Cosmic Arrow!" JupiterAstro shouted when a green beam of light materialized into a glowing arrow. He loaded the arrow into his bow, pulled back and let go of the bowstring shooting the arrow. The flaming light soaring through the sky was joined by the LightArrow. The crescent, circle and cross symbol of Mercury painted themselves onto the backdrop of outer space while the planet Mercury itself faded into view. The white Astroranger rose up holding his staff and held it up. "Celestial Weapon!" MercuryAstro twirled his Power Staff in his hands and then lifted it to the sky as clouds gathered and formed lightning. The PowerStaff became brilliant with electricity as he aimed it for his target. "Power Staff Electro-Charge!" MercuryAstro shouted as he thrust the weapon ahead of himself as the electricity jumped off the tip of his long weapon. The flaming arrow in the sky was electrified causing it to gain speed, leaving a trail of light behind. The pink circle and cross insignia of Venus was large and bright as it spun around. It flew backwards while spinning when it eventually reached the top of VenusAstro's pink helmet above her visor. VenusAstro held up the end of her boomerang. "Celestial Weapon!" She pushed her fingers the length of the weapon causing it to become a pink arc of light. "Sonic Boomerang Thunder Blow!" she called out as she flung it into the air. The flaming arrow with the electric blue trail of speeding light was joined by the boomerang's arc increasing its size. The peculiar symbol of Saturn appeared as the cosmic backdrop revealed a shot of the beautiful planet. Rising from below, the black Astroranger took his battle pose while holding his Celestial Weapon. "Saturn Ring BattleScythe Strike!" SaturnAstro called out as he had cast his scythe to the sky. In the sky, the flaming boomerang and arrow, leaving a trail of light from its speed, was struck by the glowing, spinning BattleScythe. When they made contact, a brilliant flash transformed it all into a missile made up of red, green, blue, white and pink light that streaked out of sight. One of the Xyrth was standing directly in its path and, as the comet came after the creature, it pierced its head, splitting it up the middle. Suddenly, it's legs gave out and it had exploded violently. The Astrorangers ducked from the brilliant flash as smoke came their way. EarthAstro looked ahead and made a fist. "We did it!" Surrounded by smoldering buildings within cities inside of countries where it was night fall, the Xyrth ceased their destruction on streets and roads. For some reason, they looked around before looking up and jumping into the air. Surviving citizens had cautiously watched as the Xyrth had taken flight into the dusk sky by the thousands. Smoke from the thousands of structures on the horizon floated into the sky as the fleet of Xyrth were ascending like birds flocking from a tree. The six Astrorangers held their red, green, black, white, pink and yellow Celestial Weapons while standing in front of their similarly colored HydroCycles. They were facing the flaming carcass of a dead Xyrth before the masses of them that refused to move. JupiterAstro looked down and then up again. "Why are they being so patient?" Down the side of the hill came more of the Xyrth which got VenusAstro's attention immediately. While they came down the side of the mountain, others flew over the crest by air. SaturnAstro pointed to his side. "Maybe because they were waiting for them!" MercuryAstro was looking up the side of the hill as well. "I'm starting to get the feeling that this was a bad idea." Many of them began leaping off the side of the hill like fleas jumping off of the back of a house pet. MarsAstro watched, asking, "What's going on?" As the six Astrorangers stood watching, many of them just simply grew rapidly in total body volume as they landed in front of them, now the size of titans. "Oh my God!" EarthAstro shouted. One of the some dozen at least a hundred feet tall picked up one of its legs and left it fall into the Earth. MarsAstro shouted, "Scatter!!" In the distance, the six of them leaped out of the way as the towering leg stomped into the Earth, shaking the ground tremendously. While the Earth still shook, the six Astrorangers rolled over on their backs and looked into the sky and MarsAstro looked into the sky. "I'm tired of this! AstroShuttles: Take Off!!" The ground moved by at an incredible rate of speed as the skyline of mountains slowly moved by while the red and pink shuttles, black and white rockets, green starship and yellow jet fighter plane flew through midair in the sky. MarsAstro made a fist and ordered, "Let's go!" The red Astroranger leaped into the air and the black Astroranger also brought up his fist before jumping into the air. Overhead, the black and red Astrorangers had rapidly ascended into the sky, followed by the white and green Astrorangers before the pink and yellow Astrorangers jumped up into the sky. In the cockpit of the red CombatShuttle, MarsAstro dropped into his seat and uncrossed his arms to take control of the operations console. "CombatShuttle manned!" Aboard the cockpit of the black and white, pink and yellow, and green ships, the Astrorangers leaped onto their seats before gripping the console. From the ground, one could see the army of giant sized Xyrth above the others that merely elected not to enlarge themselves as they prepared their limbs for carving the pray once gutted. MarsAstro looked from side to side and clenched his fist. "All right, you guys, let's make this quick. There's only six of us and six thousand of them so let's take no prisoners. All right?" The Astrorangers nodded affirmatively as they'd answered, "RIGHT!" The Xyrth below looked up at the pink Astroshuttle flying into a downward spiral before dropping a bomb into the heart of the crowd before pulling up and away. A fire filled explosion blew up as some of the creatures leaped away from the obviously threatening object. Meanwhile, CombatShuttle sailed by dropping another bomb. After that fire ball exploded, one of the Xyrth's eyes fired red lasers beams upward, which CommandShuttle dodged. "HERE we go!" JupiterAstro radioed, "they must be gettin' scared. They're hauling ass to counterattack." The green starship flipped sideways in midair while flying at a 10 degree angle down towards the few firing at the green Astroranger's AstroShuttle. Comet-shaped bolts of green light were pumped out of tubes on its rings in a rapid firing sequence. On the ground below--the Xyrth were running away from towers of sparks blasting other Xyrth into the sky. EarthAstro clapped happily. "Yow! Outta sight! Ow!" she hooted. The yellow AstroShuttle flew really low to the ground as the wind thrust drove some of the Xyrth of the side of a cliff. Meanwhile, another colony looked to its side and then turned to jump into the air as they saw the AstroShuttles flying overhead. On VenusAstro's operations console, one of her screens displaying what the RescueShuttle's scanners were tracking indicated a troop was gaining altitude. The pink Astroranger looked up and said, "Sheratan, they're in the air." "Thanks, Lotia," MarsAstro said from his image in her picture-in-picture display. From his cockpit, the red Astroranger replied, "Your shuttle as well as mine has the best maneuverability so we better protect Nashiran and Messuta, who are making the laser cannon runs to the south side of the park." He saw her in his picture-in-picture display as VenusAstro replied, "Right." As the white rocket, TurboShuttle blasted by, a troop of Xyrth were headed by his side in the opposite direction. Aboard the cockpit, MercuryAstro looked behind himself. "What the?!" In the sky, the gang of Xyrth hung a U-turn in midair and came back. As the fleet returned to their original flying formation, red laser beams bolted from their yellow, glowing eyes. The white Astroranger was rocked inside of his AstroShuttle, "UHN! Messuta to task force, I've got a dozen Xyrth chasing me down." As the black rocket, SolarShuttle flew down out of the air to fly into a lower altitude--SaturnAstro gripped his controls to keep his AstroShuttle steady. "Messuta, when your computer reads nose-to-nose collision, pull up at 15 seconds 'til impact. That'll get me within firing ranger to blow them all away." Aboard the TurboShuttle, MercuryAstro was looking up at the ceiling--pushing buttons. When he looked down again, the white Astroranger nodded affirmatively. "Ready." One of the Xyrth on the outside started shooting stray shots past the white TurboShuttle. The black rocket gained an egg-shaped, blue-tinted transparent dome over its nose when a bolt of red light flew after SolarShuttle. Aboard the cockpit--SaturnAstro was jolted heavily by the last shot but reoriented himself quickly. "Shields holding. Sheratan, Lotia--cover me!" The red and pink AstroShuttles were came up over the mountains and shot through the sky, passing by the tip of another mountain before flying off into the distance. The pink Astroranger pointed her index finger. "We're right behind you." "Good, I just wanted to make sure," said the voice of SaturnAstro over her cockpit speakers. As the black rocket began to fly from the left to the right, the white rocket started to fly from the right to the left. "Okay, Messuta--pull up!" SaturnAstro said. The white Astroranger twisted the dial on his console as hard he as he could. Outside, the TurboShuttle's nose was yanked up into the sky as the Xyrth continued on their course. The white Astroranger took a deep breath. "Open fire!" Holes around the nose cone of the SolarShuttle irised open and fired bits of sparks into the distance ahead. From its perspective, a dozen Xyrth blew up into balls of fire. While smoke was still rising in the sky, the SolarShuttle sailed threw the cloud. Inside of the cockpit--SaturnAstro was looking behind himself before returning to his normal sitting position. "Glad that worked." Once he saw what he saw on the display screen, the black Astroranger jumped in his seat. "Woah!" A Xyrth that had enlarged itself to its full capacity at one hundred meters was flying over the AstroShuttle fleet, casting a shadow over the shuttles. EarthAstro was looking up and moaned, "Ohhh shit." "Break off!" MarsAstro shouted. The six shuttles split off as a wide yellow ray was fired from the Xyrth's enormous tail curled underneath its crab like body. In the blue sky, the red CombatShuttle flew around to return to the others. Aboard the cockpit, MarsAstro said. "I hope they can't get bigger than that because this is all we've got!" EarthAstro looked to her side, asking "What is?" "AstroMan," MarsAstro answered. "Prepare for fleet docking sequence." He placed his white, gloved hand on a large, black lever beside his console before shouting, "AstroMan Unite!" Simultaneously, all five Astroranger's fists pulled back a large black lever. As the Red and Pink shuttles landed on the ground, dust came up as feet came from the cargo bays and the wings had become shins. In the sky, the green CommandShuttle's nose folded under the ventral hull while its afterburners slid onto the sides to become shoulders. The green starship connected to the noses of the red and pink legs, forming the torso and shoulders. "Shuttle Fleet, this is SaturnAstro piloting SolarShuttle; TurboShuttle and I are docking now." The black and white rockets hooked up into the shoulders and gained joints in the middle to form elbows. And, from the afterburners of the rocket ships, big, black fists of iron extended into place. Meanwhile--tubes running throughout the interior of the massive robot allowed chairs on tracks to roll each Astroranger to the main cockpit. AstroMan's head ascended from between its shoulders and, through its red visor above a metal nose and lips, one could see the Astroranger battle team rising into place. On the bottom level, JupiterAstro and SaturnAstro occupied the control bank there while the top bank was manned by VenusAstro and MercuryAstro. The cockpit was brightly illuminated by tube lighting within the ceiling. MarsAstro manned the middle and center station by placing his hands on the controls. "AstroMan robot transformation complete!" Seeing all of the gigantic multi-colored robot, it held its fists' knuckles together and while AstroMan's red visor gleamed in the sunlight, the towering robot brought its fists apart. Appearing behind the giant was a field of stars in outer space showing the planets: Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars. The yellow Astroranger aboard AirShuttle ordered, "Merge to form AstroRobo!" The AirShuttle's console confirmed the jet switched over to auto-pilot mode as the plane began to take a nose dive. AirShuttle flew in and stopped to hover over AstroMan; arcs of electricity controlled the jet craft so that it perfectly landed on the shoulders of the robot AstroMan. In the cockpit of Airshuttle--doors opened behind EarthAstro as her seat on tracks rolled backwards out of the cockpit. The nose of the yellow jet craft came down onto the chest of AstroMan showing a new face on the, now, 175-foot tall robot. Inside of the cockpit, EarthAstro's seat came down from the ceiling against the rear-wall where she was suspended above the five Astrorangers on the three levels below. "Just like old times," she said. "All right everybody... Let's do it!" "AstroRobo Battle Ready!" From above, the iron-clad, red and pink legs landed, feet first on the ground and, with the sky above AstroRobo, it shifted its fists into position. At the middle, center station--the red Astroranger sat behind his terminal while his right two fingers held the pushed of his helmet and his left wrist in front of the silver mouth piece in his helmet's mask. "AstroRobo: activate SunSabre!" AstroRobo drew a bladeless hilt from its left hip and waved it to its right. A beam of light shot out of the hilt which formed the silver, shining blade of the single-sided sword. From its point of view, the maximum size Xyrth standing before itself was perfectly still as AstroRobo charged towards it. The massive robot swung down as the blade of the strong sword sparked from its ribbed chest before cutting across. More sparks blasted out of the Xyrth but it apparently was not moved. When AstroRobo turned around and swung its sword back the other way, the Xyrth's two top limbs caught the end of its weapon. The Xyrth's middle right arm cracked up against AstroRobo's shoulder, blowing sparks out of it mighty robot's metal armor. A wall of sparks rushed up in front of the cockpit aboard AstroRobo as the Astrorangers were rocked in their seat. "Hold it steady!" MarsAstro reminded. "Shields holding!" VenusAstro reported. JupiterAstro looked up shouting, "Watch it, guys! It's firing!" The Xyrth's scorpion like tail bent upwards and with two arcs of red and yellow currents, a blue bolt of lightning cracked its way forth. In front of AstroRobo, a tower of sparks exploded in front of the multi-colored robot again. However, as the smoke was clearing--the robot walked forward in a hurry and jumped into the air. In the sky, AstroRobo was swinging forward while kicking its legs ahead. However, as the giant robot was approaching, another giant-sized Xyrth flipped it head under heals by batting its arm into AstroRobo's middle section. In one mighty loud bang, the gigantic robot came out of the air before crashing into the park, shaking everything like a powerful earthquake. Aboard the cockpit, the six Astrorangers were shaken violently in the crash as the lights dimmed out and red bars illuminated the chamber. "UGH!!!" they'd exclaimed before SaturnAstro looked up. "Where'd that come from?!" VenusAstro screamed, "Structural integrity compromised!!" "Re-route power to the force fields now!" MarsAstro ordered. "Do it!" The Xyrth turned around, whipping its tail outward and while AstroRobo was still lying, face down on the ground, the tail hooked onto its neck. All of a sudden, the other Xyrth snapped its tail and jerked the robot straight back up onto its feet. On AstroRobo's left, green shoulder above the black arm connected there--a claw from the Xyrth's arm dug into its armor, driving inside--spraying sparks from the severed electrical system. On its right shoulder above the white arm, another claw pierced its shoulder, blasting out more sparks from puncturing the electronics within. The Xyrth's fangs then came out and then hooked into AstroRobo's neck. Arcs of lightning crawled all over AstroRobo's body, causing everything to flash brilliantly between normal color and a negative color of the towering robot. Once the flashing stopped, the robot found itself jerking from every spark popping out of its body. Aboard the cockpit, sparks blasted everywhere while more dripped from the ceiling. The sound of energy systems failing resulted in a dramatic downward town as the lights flipped on and off. MercuryAstro looked to his side, gasping, "We've got a problem!" "What?!" SaturnAstro asked. "Power outage?" MercuryAstro answered, "You better believe it. There's an 80% power failure to the arms!" VenusAstro looked down and said, "Use alternative power conduits to restore movement of the arms. We can't lose those now!" The Xyrth socked a punch at the smoldering AstroRobo which spun it around on one foot before it plummeted, face down, into the ground in front of the mountains. "UHN!" the Astrorangers grunted aboard the cockpit while being rattle violently within their seats. While AstroRobo moved onto its back to see what was going on, it gave the Astroranger's aboard a view of the other Xyrth crawling towards them. "No!" MarsAstro groaned. "AstroRobo: VisorRay--fire!" From the ground, AstroRobo's eyes fired two beams of yellow into the sky. A wall of sparks blew up in front of the Xyrth approaching, causing it to stumble backwards from the explosion. Meanwhile, AstroRobo was rising to its feet. And, within the cockpit, SaturnAstro shook his head. "That was close." EarthAstro above pointed ahead and made a fist. "This jerk is startin' to get on my nerves." While AstroRobo stood in front of the mountains with the blue sky behind itself--the first Xyrth turned around and cracked its tail like a whip and sparks blasted out of AstroRobo's chest. The other Xyrth whipped its tail against AstroRobo as well, knocking it into stumbling backwards. Meanwhile, in the sky above--another Xyrth leaped up from behind a mountain, the same massive size as the others and flew towards AstroRobo before landing, up close and personal, in front of the giant robot. The third Xyrth's tail curled up and the hooks on the end of it grabbed the sides of AstroRobo's head. After the stinger hooked inside, sparks were starting to spray out of the robot's head and, inside of the cockpit--sparks were spraying back inside from the ceiling. "Beverly!" MercuryAstro said, "we were winning when the AstroShuttles were separate! If you disconnect the AirShuttle and have it transform into EarthRobo, we could team up against these three and maybe even even out the score!" The yellow Astroranger nodded affirmatively. "OK. AirShuttle disengage!" As the Astroranger's tried to hold on, her booth elevated into the ceiling and out of view. Meanwhile, the yellow jet fighter plane was ascending from the shoulders of AstroMan as the arcs of electromagnetic lightning disconnected the two AstroShuttles. Aboard the yellow AstroShuttle, EarthAstro shouted, "AirShuttle: transform to EarthRobo--NOW!" Pulling back the lever on the right wall, her altitude climbed dramatically. The afterburners became robot legs as the wings turned upside down. The main body of the jet unfolded to become robot arms. The nose of the jet craft came down to form the chest as the head ascended where the cockpit was. Next to AstroMan, the slender yellow robot with wings mounted on its shoulder blades landed feet first on the ground and shifted its silver fists into place. MarsAstro looked around himself at the other Astrorangers before looking ahead again. "Now the power is back in our hands! Let's go!" EarthAstro gave a thumbs up. "Right behind you!" The Xyrth found AstroMan's SunSabre striking its chest before cutting across so the creature tried turning around to tail-whip the mighty robot. Aboard EarthRobo's cockpit--the yellow Astroranger shouted, "Lightning Daggers!" EarthRobo was standing opposite of AstroMan as it took the giant-sized version of EarthAstro's daggers and swung its arms up, in a V-formation. On the left side, the Xyrth's left arm was cut in half by a blast of sparks from the dagger's blade slicing through before, on the right side, the other dagger severed the Xyrth's limb. Sparks sprayed from the ends of the Xyrth's limbs before it tipped forward and, in a loud bang--exploded into a ball of fire that blew up black smoke. And, in front of the flaming carcass--the yellow robot, EarthRobo landed beside AstroMan as they'd stepped into position to face the two remaining Xyrth standing behind the flames. Aboard EarthRobo's cockpit, the yellow Astroranger gripped her fist. "One down, two to go," EarthAstro radioed. "Heh-heh." All of a sudden, a fourth Xyrth just grew, at an extremely rapid speed into the size of the 100 meter-tall Xyrth creatures waging war with the AstroShuttles. On the ground, its six legs pushed up--launching the creature into the air. The robots immediately backed up as, aboard EarthRobo's cockpit; Beverly blurted, "What the fuck?!" In the sky, the crab-like creature hopped up like a bug and landed on the other two Xyrth's shoulders. Then, they opened up a link of electrical arcs between each others head. The trio of lightning bolted forward in a chaotic ray of swirling light. A wall of sparks exploded in front of the two Astro robots but EarthRobo ran forward and jumped into the air. In the sky, EarthRobo's daggers came swinging down with its silver fists crossed at the wrist. As the yellow Robot landed, the fangs in the Xyrth's jaw bit down on the daggers, snapping off the blades in two spark-filled explosions. And then it pushed the robot back with its top four arms. Out of the air, EarthRobo landed on its back and crashed into the ground in front of AstroMan. Inside of AstroMan's cockpit--VenusAstro stood up. "Oh no! Beverly's in trouble!" The other two Xyrth stepped in and turned around before their tails floated away. The hooks at the their tail endings grabbed onto EarthRobo's legs while it was still on the ground. Additionally, the third Xyrth's tail grabbed the yellow robot's neck and, before anyone knew it--EarthRobo was suspended above the ground, in midair by the tail of the Xyrth. Purple arcs of electricity pulsed their way up the length of the Xyrth's tails that were holding up the yellow robot. Light flashed against the cockpit EarthAstro sat in as sparks repeatedly blew out inside of the cockpit. "Oogh!" On her control console, several meters were peaking up in the red and the yellow Astroranger looked up. "My electrical power grid is overloading." MarsAstro stood up inside of AstroMan's cockpit and waved his arm. "Beverly! Get out of there! That thing is gonna blow, you'll be killed!" "Abandon ship!!" VenusAstro screamed from behind. "Uhh!!" EarthAstro moaned before leaping out of her rocking cockpit. Standing near the head and shoulders of the yellow robot, EarthRobo jumped into the sky in front of mountains. The tiny yellow Astroranger free fell from behind its head and towards AstroMan. While the trio of Xyrth held EarthRobo in midair, one of them fired several laser beams from its eyes, causing sparks to blast out of EarthRobo's body. Two robot arms were blown off and dropped into the ground as EarthRobo was hurled out of the air as well. The yellow robot crashed armless into the ground and AstroMan stepped forth, looking down on the fallen AstroShuttle. Aboard AstroMan--EarthAstro, standing next to VenusAstro pointed ahead. "Good night! They ripped that thing apart!" "Looks like we're on our own now!" MarsAstro said. "SunSabre SuperNova!" AstroMan held the sword's guard before its face as the visor sent a slow, wide beam of light into the base of the SunSabre's blade. This caused a yellow beam to flow to the very tip of the sword. While standing in front of a field of stars in space, AstroMan swung the sword around in a 360-degree circle with its blade of light forming an image of the zodiac. And, as the giant, multi-colored warrior robot held the SunSabre high, AstroMan cut straight down through the center of the circle. A checkerboard forcefield was protected by the fins on the trio of Xyrth's backs that the yellow beam of light shot into. After disbursing throughout the shield, it came back from the ends of the forcefield to reunite into a beam of light that shot back the way it came. AstroMan was about to step out of the way but a blinding flash of sparks erupted from the earth and, on the ground, half of the SunSabre's blade hit the grass with its severed in still smoldering. And AstroMan held its sword to look at the broken tip before looking up. One of the Xyrth were flying forward with its legs expanding and AstroMan found its legs and right arms clamped by the Xyrth's two top arms. Meanwhile, two Xyrth from behind were taking easy strike in the back of the tall robot, blowing sparks out of its body. MercuryAstro held on as the Astrorangers were shaken up and down from the blows. "I don't know how much longer it can take this!" While a Xyrth held AstroMan's arms, one of the three used its arms to slash its shoulder. Once the metal limb sliced past the joint, sparks exploded out of AstroMan's shoulder and, on the ground--the black SolarShuttle dropped fist first on the ground before landing on its side. The Xyrth holding onto AstroMan turned around and tail whipped it into falling onto its side. On the ground, AstroMan was not able to get up with only one arm with the other side just loose cables and wires, occasionally glowing and snapping sparks. While the robot was still smoldering, one of the Xyrth landed on top of it. Three legs on the left and three more legs on the right scooped up its body as the creature took flight. In the sky--the one armed AstroMan was dragged through the air while, on the ground, the two Xyrth leaped into the air as well. In the sky, the two Xyrth had split off. From one side, the first one came towards AstroMan as the second one came flying from the other side. MarsAstro looked on both sides and then turned around. "I say we get the hell out of here while we still can." "Basically we lost?" JupiterAstro asked. SaturnAstro answered, "That's putting it mildly." "Let's get outta here!" VenusAstro shouted. MercuryAstro stood up. "Emergency hatch open--let's go!" Up above, the pink and yellow Astroranger dropped feet first out of the sky before the black and white Astroranger's somersaulted out of the air. And finally, the red and green Astrorangers fell feet first from the sky. Meanwhile, in midair--while one of the Xyrth held AstroMan, the other two came by with their arms out and while the first creature's arm carved through its chest, the second had sliced through its lower back. After they passed one another in the sky, the Xyrth holding up AstroMan let it fall from the sky. While the six Astrorangers stood in front of their parked red, black, green, white, pink and yellow HydroCycles--MarsAstro jumped forward, looking into the sky. "AstroMan..." As the six Astrorangers watched their robot descend behind the mountains, fire rushed skyward like an erupting volcano. The explosive fire ball blew up so violently, the blast was deafening. MercuryAstro held VenusAstro's shoulders as she hid her mask in his chest. JupiterAstro shielded his mask's visor with his arm while EarthAstro covered the sides of her helmet. The black smoke was rising stories high into the sky and SaturnAstro turned around to look at the task force. "Sheratan, we'd better get out of here before they find us," the black Astroranger said. MarsAstro nodded. "We'll need to head back to Terrania and figure out what to do now." Taking a deep breath, JupiterAstro nodded affirmatively. "Come on," said the red Astroranger before he turned around and ran down the side of the hill, followed by SaturnAstro. The green and white Astrorangers ran down with them as the pink and yellow Astrorangers stayed close behind. The moon was silently suspended in the blackness of space, reflecting the sun's light from its silver, spotted face. Inside of one the craters, a dark chamber was illuminated by the projection of live coverage broadcasted from one of the cable news networks' satellite. It was hard to believe that there were any journalists left to cover this apocalyptic time on Earth. The audio feed from the studio journalist said, "and this is all that's left of the Brooklyn Bridge after military forces of the coast of Manhattan were unsuccessfully in repelling the unknown objects approaching U.S. territory..." "I can't believe it," said Beverly. She turned to Australis. "I can't believe we lost. After all that we'd been through--with the Nazitans and the creatures on the other worlds where the Solar Spheres were." Taking a deep breath, Australis replied, "It had to happen eventually." "But, why now??" Beverly's cracked voice asked. "Of _all_ the times we've saved the say, Earth's darkest hour..." she was thinking but couldn't bear to say. Australis could see the light shining in her eyes. Beverly's face was growing more contorted as her bottom lip quivered. "It could be--our last." Australis walked up to her and put his arms around her as did she and hugged him dearly. Beverly cried out in his arms and he rubbed her head. "It's going to be all right," Beverly said. Outside, Commander Leto looked through the mirror in the wall of that office. He could feel the critical quantity of pure emotion radiating from her very soul and sighed. Suddenly, he heard a door get banged open. "That sucked," Nashiran replied. Sheratan followed him into the upper deck booth. "You can say that again. Commander, what happened out there? I thought you said those shuttles were practically re-built with today's technology but the Xyrth went right through AstroMan like it was made out of tin foil." Leto replied, "The vehicles were fine. We just had no idea the extent to what they could do." "No shit," Nashiran replied. "I'm surprised we're still alive to tell about it." Leto turned around and walked towards the control booth's monitoring station and looked down on the console's terminal. "In reality, we haven't lost." Sheratan gasped. "What?" "What are you saying?" Nashiran asked. Leto turned around. "We now have very valuable data on knowing how to defeat the Xyrth." "Lotta good it'll do us with no weapons to fight 'em with," Sheratan pessimistically answered. "Every time we blow one of their heads off, they, like, grow about a hundred thousand more of themselves and completely overwhelm us. These dudes might not know how to fight worth a damn but they sure are good at fucking swamping us with as many of themselves as they can manage." Nashiran stepped forward. "And without AstroMan--when those things get big, we'd be a grease mark on the pavement by the time they were done with us." "The only way to stop these things is a new war machine I've heard Uton Defense is about to start testing," Messuta spoke up. "It was built about a year ago but they never authorized testing because they were never able to assemble another Astroranger team since us." Sheratan and Nashiran exchanged gestures but Commander Leto was glad to hear he mentioned it. "So it's build," Leto asked. Messuta nodded affirmatively. Sheratan stepped in between them. "I want to see this new ship. If I'm going back out there, this thing better be so good, it's unbelievable." Commander Leto nodded. "We'll all return to Terrania and then I show you the new battleship." A green planet with only two major continents covered with clouds flowing in a western flow--opposite that of Earth's was being orbited by a large, steel structure with long legs and arms with the same silver architecture, which housed a metallic vehicle within its center. A pentagon-shaped corridor with fluorescent light bars along the corners housed a walkway, a grid platform that led to a hatch with a circular door marked a symbol that meant DOCK 7. It opened like an iris and Commander Leto led Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta, Lotia and Beverly walked through the corridor. Lotia walked out looking pale and withdrawn, with her arms folded up and head down--which Beverly noticed but she was extremely worried. Nashiran looked behind himself, however, and remarked, "That was some tour." Beverly looked behind herself and gasped. "That thing is BIG, Commander. You'd need a moped to drive to the ends of the ship." "I've gotta admit, I've read the blueprints for AstroShip but when I found out it was finished five years later, I couldn't wait to see it," Messuta said. Commander Leto turned around and looked at them all. "I'm glad you're impressed because the Department of Advanced Propulsion, Weapons, Construction, and Science (who wrote the software and designed hardware electronics) spent at least twice as long coming together to figure out how to build it." Sheratan shrugged with his arms crossed. "We saw all the various operations and functions but what can it do?" Commander Leto answered, "The space ship transforms into a robot they've called ShogunAstro. The legs, arms, lower and upper torso are designed to disconnect into the six GunjinShuttles. Which, like AirShuttle, can transform into the AstroBots--armed with the large replicas of the Celestial weapons." "When will Uton Tactical get back to us on a plan of action against the Xyrth so that we can return to Earth with AstroShip?" Australis asked. Commander Leto sighed. "That's the hard part. They didn't care about losing an old Team GMAIV. But if they didn't want to let their own ordinary Security Personnel using it, I doubt they'd want anybody other than elite-picked members of the new Astroranger team." "Oh, that's bullshit," Beverly retorted. "We have to convince them that we should at least make up for the loss they suffered from the Xyrth destroying AstroMan!" Australis sighed. "Unfortunately, they'll throw it back up in our face that if we hadn't have taken AstroMan out to Earth, it wouldn't have been..." All of a sudden, Lotia moaned in pain--clenching her abdomen. Sheratan looked behind himself and knelt down to catch her. "Lotia!" "Oh NO," Australis had panicked. "I knew it! Lotia, how bad is it?" Messuta saw that she was perspiring profusely and gasping. "Can't say for sure--AH!" she cried, stiffening up from the pain in her body. Beverly asked, "What can we do??" "Call a physician," Leto answered. "Nashiran..." Nashiran nodded affirmatively. "Right." He turned around and ran down the corridor. As Lotia layed on the floor--writhing and silently moaning, Sheratan and Australis knelt in front of her while Messuta stood next to Commander Leto. Within the depths of the Pacific Ocean, dark objects flowed by like a school of fish. Bit by bit, silver objects sailed into a dip before curving up. This stream of silver bits banked out in front of undersea plant life on the ocean floor. And as they coasted in the body of water, one of them had cruised a little faster than the rest before slowing to join the largest at the front of the pack. Using a clicking noise actually not transmitted in the form of sound within the pressure of an atmosphere, the creature spoke. "Zaon, she is here, no?" "Yes," it replied. "Our queen is resting here but we shall set her free." The Xyrth landed on the ocean floor before the other joined it as it told Zaon, "Once her great castle has completed its erection from out of Earth, PHYR will lead us to our destiny as it once was before the rising of the Solar Spheres." "So it shall be done," Zaon said. It turned around and faced the other Xyrth under the sea and lifted it two front arms. "Commence resurrection." Underground on the MagWay, oncoming and outgoing vehicles sailed over the metal pavement where the magnetic light tracks under the glass segments held the MagLev vehicles in their own lane. The magnetic repulsion giving the highly aerodynamic vehicles the ability to quickly reach high velocity. The speed limit on the main MagWay's were the equivalent of 100 kilometers per hour. Up ahead was a digital sign which, translated, displayed: BIO-RECOVERY CENTER 119 - NON-EMERGENCY ENTRANCE - VISITOR LANE. This was behind other signs such as EMERGENCY ENTRANCE - VISITORS and EMERGENCY ENTRANCE - BIOTRUCKS ONLY. This way traffic was effectively separated into the triple-layer lots below the dome building above. A groove in the walkway attached to the wall led to the pool of anchored magnetic levitation vehicles in this lot--as if floating on water. Floating through a gap in the hundreds of vehicles here was a sleek red vehicle with Sheratan's hands on the manual controls inside. Australis couldn't wait for Sheratan to park because he had to see how Lotia was doing--feeling guilty for not being more aggressive in taking her out of the fight with the Xyrth. Inside of the lobby for non-emergency visits, the main entrance featured six tubes with a cutaway front. On the right and left side, there were large screens displaying digital video broadcasts from two separate data streams or channels. Below them, there were wrap-around couches that faced transparent platforms holding terminals running old computer games. Finally, a bell chimed from one of the tubes that became illuminated by a glowing light behind the perl-colored shaft. A large round lift brought up Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta and Beverly. They walked out of the cutaway of the tube, one of six and approached a window in a wall next to a pair of heavy doors on the left and right side. Sheratan approached one of the windows and showed a golden rectangle bearing a silver, engraved logo of the Uton Defense department. "Galaxy Task Force Astroranger, Sheratan Kasei. We're here to see Astroranger Kinsei." Below the glass portrait window, the caretaker in a white uniform typed something into the membrane keyboard console embedded into her workstation. Her terminal displayed a table of information that she read and then looked at Sheratan again. "Stand back and place your hand on the scanner," she said through the speakers on the left and right side of the window via a condenser microphone. Sheratan looked down and a plastic-like surface was rolled out of a slot that had opened under the window and a yellow light came on. It immediately changed to green so Sheratan flatly laid his hand on the surface. The status indicator changed to green as a blue light scanned up from the bottom of the pad up to the top. After that concluded, the status indicator changed to red. Sheratan took his hand off of the platform and it rolled back inside of the wall. She looked at the scan appear on her computer and nodded. "Okay, place all metal objects inside of the cabinet once unlocked." Next to the speaker was a door with a handle on it that was below two similar status indicator. The red light beside a word which, translated, meant 'Locked' changed to a green light next to the word 'Unlocked'. Sheratan turned the handle and opened it to put in a hand full of objects. Once he closed the door, it became locked again and the caretaker on the other side within her white booth opened the door to pick up the objects with tongs. She deposited them within a bag and said, "Okay, Kasei--please step into the purification chamber directly to your right. Next?" Sheratan walked over to the large heavy door with the small window in the front and pulled it open with both hands. A loud air-pressure noise hissed as the thick door slowly opened. Sheratan stepped up inside of the chamber as the door closed itself. Facing him was another thick door but it wasn't going to open until the rays from the beam guns above were finished eliminating known germs and bacteria--among other impurities. A long hall became visible with sliding glass doors, blurred for privacy with designated chamber coordinates imprinted on them. That sector's attendant saw Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta and Beverly walking out of the lobby and started to walk up to them. "Which chamber are you visiting?" she asked. "BBV96," Sheratan answered. The sector attendant nodded and turned around. "Follow me." She walked forward and the others walked behind her. A slot next to the door with a red light was changed to green when a silver, credit-card sized card was pushed half-way into that slot. And the ten-button keypad above it was dialed five times before the attendant stood up and said, "You may proceed for ten milli-chrons." "We'll only be a few moments," Messuta assured her. She smiled and turned around before the others glanced at each other, anxiously. They were almost too afraid to walk inside for fear of what they might see. However, Sheratan was more curious than afraid of what he might see and so, became the first to approach that door. Once he walked towards it, it slid back into the wall and--on the other side, the bio-recovery chamber was a room that was brightly lit from above but everything else was blacked out. On the elevated platform were mechanical instruments with organic contents connected to a glass box inside suspended from above by four cables. The box contained a communications interface and a posture-balanced mattress and head-rest for the patient, identified by the information computer mounted on the top of the bio-case. The only way in being through the bottom of this case, all of the sealing utilized through this facility--one of thousands world wide was developed by Terranian's to make sure the patient is not infected by the outside world and visa versa. Commander Leto was standing in the darker corner of the chamber with a physician, talking about what he'd discovered on the bioscan. Messuta noticed and pointed to him. Nashiran nodded but Australis and Sheratan didn't seem interested. Sheratan became interested because he need to know something. Looking at Messuta who was looking at Leto and the physician, he said, "Excuse me, but, can she talk to me?" "Yes," Commander Leto answered. "However..." That word caused Sheratan and Australis great anxiety. Leto looked at them. "I believe there is something that you need to know first." Australis looked at Sheratan, thinking it was worse than he thought. Sheratan walked up to Commander Leto and asked, "What's wrong with her, Commander?" Leto looked down and sighed for a moment. "Lotia was experiencing pain so much because she was developing an egg." Sheratan whispered, "What?" "Your egg," Leto replied. Beverly saw Australis look down and away--realizing what happened to her in the conflict with the Xyrth. But then he knew what Leto was going to tell him next. Commander Leto added, "And now, there is a fifty/fifty chance that, due to her injuries that, normally, Lotia could recover from immediately, she could lose it." The physician spoke up. "Now the normal amount of resources Lotia's body can give it are now going up to critical levels because she doesn't have enough to save both the egg and herself. Terranian physiology dictates that her body will save itself before it'll save the embryo." Sheratan was silent for a long time; he looked down and then turned around. Australis, Nashiran and Messuta looked on with anticipation--wondering what he was going to do. Sheratan's eyes shifted from side to side. "I... have a child?" Turning around again, he looked at the physician and asked, "Is it okay..." The physician immediately nodded and Sheratan bowed his head with gratitude. The blackness behind the glass box contrasted sharply against the case's surface reflecting the overhead light. Below the surface, Lotia's nude body was inside of the conditioned incubator as her eyes fluttered open. She looked up through the haze treating her with organic solutions entering her through epidermal osmosis and heard the flat, telephone-sound of Sheratan's voice. "Lotia, can you hear me?" Sheratan looked through the glass Lotia parted her pink lips and said through the speaker, "Yes." Beverly was relieved to know she was conscious. Sheratan wanted to get to the point. "Lotia, how come you didn't tell me... I'm a father?" Lotia took a deep breath. "I didn't want you to be upset." Bewildered, Sheratan gasped, "What?" "I was," she said before swallowing, "scared you'd want me to abort it." Sheratan immediately whined, "No... Lotia? Why did go with us to Earth in your condition?" "If I did, I'd have to tell you so I tried to fight without getting hurt," Lotia answered. She took another deep breath and said, "I know it was a stupid thing to do. And, I'm sorry." Sheratan immediately replied, "No." Clenching his fist, he looked away with his eyes closed. "I should be the one that is sorry." Behind Messuta--looking at their conversation, Australis was talking with Nashiran while Beverly stood with them. "Well, this is bad." "I know," Nashiran said. "Sheratan really musta let her know that he didn't want a kid all these years." "No, Nash--I mean, we lost VenusAstro," corrected Australis. "Commander Leto didn't look happy to hear about what happened here 'cause now when we apply for operating AstroShip, the Uton Defense Board will wonder what happened and then this'll come out." Nashiran nodded. "I know, we'll be missing a member and so the sixth AstroBot will be idle too." "There's only one thing we can do." Beverly looked up at him and asked, "What's that, Australis?" "We need to replace VenusAstro," he answered. "With who?" Beverly asked. Nashiran sighed and then looked at Messuta. "I know somebody." Under the ceiling of a warehouse where there were many catwalks, lamps hung from the steel beams overhead that lit the paved floor below. Large boxes were stacked against the wall with mobile equipment vehicles such as forklifts, cranes and bulldozers were parked inside. More of them were outside of the open hanger door on the wet lot, illuminated to a bluish white hue by the night street lamps and beacon lights on the front of the warehouse. Inside, someone with shoes, cut to the shape of her feet were bound to her baggy, black pants. They were drawstring-tied under a black, hooded jacket over gloves the same color. Andromina walked slowly while her green eyes looked back and forth, cautiously. Behind a box, someone's black masked head silently rose up enough for his eyes to see over the top. And, from his perspective--the woman in black's arms were out as she stepped slowly through the warehouse. The masked man's head descended behind the box and while she walked, the woman suddenly stopped and looked to her side. Over a box, a man in a black bodysuit wearing the ski mask, gloves and footwear leaped into a somersault below the blackness above before tumbling over and dropping out of the air below the lamp. Another one dressed the same way jumped onto a box and then leaped off again. Falling from the catwalk above was one more in black before Andromina found herself surrounded by eight of them. One of the men landed in front of her so Andromina leaped into a hurricane kick. He ducked and ducked again when--on the floor below, she repeated her flying spin kick. Andromina dropped low to sweep-kick her attacker but he jumped over her leg. When Andromina stood up, the man in black kicked at her side but she blocked the kick. Andromina front kicked him but he wouldn't go away because his arms barely block her foot; but now he was in the defensive. She walked into a pirouette while her other foot swung a back-kick into his chest. He flew off of his feet, and when he landed, Andromina stepped forward and spun around before leaping off of that foot, letting it swing across the attacker's head as she completed her spin. His body was knocked into midair as he spiraled into the floor. Outside, Australis watched from behind the door of the warehouse. Andromina caught a punch and reverse-punched another fighter before front kicking him out of the way. All of a sudden, somebody else appeared and front kicked at her so she used her hands to block his foot before blocking a punch too. Andromina turned around into a spin-kick but the fighter held her foot which she didn't expect. Andromina back-tracked and let her attacker come to her by backing off. He fell into her trap by jumping into another front kick because that gave her time to jump into a high-altitude spin-kick which knocked his head half-way around his neck. Once she landed, Andromina sweep-kicked the back of his heels with her calfs, tripping the fighter onto his upper back. On the other side of the door, Nashiran looked across the opening to Australis and said, "I told you she was good." Australis nodded. "I know." On the floor, a pair of gloved hands landed before pushing off again to complete Andromina's back flip handspring. She watched a fighter come at her with a flying side-kick that she roundhouse-kicked off target. A strong landing kept the fighter right in front of Andromina but she wasn't startled by his quick recovery. His fist punching after her was pushed off by her hands before she caught two punches. Now holding both hands, Andromina front kicked her fighter back. And while he was trying to attack her again, Andromina had already leaped into a hurricane-kick. The fighter's head got knocked so far to the side, the fighter's body somersaulted into midair before landing on his back. Andromina leaped into a tornado kick that another fighter ducked but he ran out of the way to get some distance. So she backed up to see what he was going to do. Which was nothing so Andromina came in and side-kicked at his face. The fighter was actually rather tough--right after he blocked her kick he was fast enough to duck a roundhouse and block a kick to his side with his knee and shin. However, after blocking a higher kick to to his side--the fighter turned around and spin-kicked toward Andromina. She ducked and then walked up onto his knee to kick his chest down. Andromina ducked a reverse punch and caught a punch to her face before front-kicking her fighter back. He turned around tried to reverse punch Andromina again but she caught his fist and pushed that away to block another punch to her face. Andromina pulled her head back to miss getting hit before karate chopping an upper-cut and elbow-punching his face--sending the fighter stumbling backwards. Andromina ran after him and stood on his hip before swinging her other leg over his head before swinging it back across his face. So as he stumbled back into the wall as she jumped off of his body. And as Andromina leaped back, the fighter bounced off the wall and flipped over onto his back. On the floor below, Andromina was once again surrounded--only now by eight men on the floor who slowly stood up. With her hands on her hips, she looked around with a big grin on her face. "Hope I didn't wear you guys out too much." One of the guys stood up and took off his mask. "Man, every time I think I know how to beat you--you always keep surprising me!" "Haha," she chuckled. "You need to pay more attention in my classes." Clearing his throat got Andromina to look at Sheratan standing inside of the warehouse with Australis and Messuta as Nashiran walked inside. Her grin faded as she politely asked with some hospitality, "Who are you?" "I'm Sheratan Kasei," he answered. "You're Andromina Tenbinza, I presume." She nodded while stepping towards him. "My friends call me Mina." "Okay, Mina," Sheratan said. Andromina pulled down her hook to show a head full of thick hair cut short but with a lot of body in a bowl shape. It was black with auburn highlights--common with Terranian women. Messuta noticed her glossy, soft looking face right away. "How did you find me here?" she asked. Australis answered, "Nashiran said we could find you here right around this time." Looking at him, his serious expression unchanged--Mina grinned. "Nashiran? Who are these guys?" "Friends," he briefly replied. "I always knew you had these sessions to let your students see their mistakes in action so they would be further inspired to work harder in learning your techniques." The men behind Mina were too distracted to hear the conversation but knew they were being talked off, even more proud of the legend that followed her around. "You know Nashiran?" Messuta asked. Mina took off her gloves and answered, "Back when I first enrolled in the Uton Defense Academy, he was my teacher. We were both really very busy so we hadn't had the opportunity to--get to know each other better." Nashiran saw her look into his eyes when she said that. Fascinated, Sheratan asked, "How come you didn't become a Task Force security officer, Mina?" "When Nashiran quit, I was about to but I needed the money so I came back recently. The instructor I got was a tight ass so I was thrown out on false pretences. They said I was too unpredictable and couldn't be disciplined." Messuta stepped forward. "That was you?" All of a sudden, it was very hard for Australis to say what he wanted to say. "Yes. So--I decided that rather than to be the only competent warrior in Uton Defense, I opened up a training center so that people can defend themselves for a change," Andromina told him. "So, how did you hear about me getting kicked out?" Messuta answered, "I work for Intelligence Operations at Uton Defense." "Really." she said in realization. Messuta and Australis watched her walk a few steps for a few moments before she started talking, not looking at them. "Why did you come to see me then?" Mina asked. Grinning, she continued, "It couldn't be for business. They'd rather wipe their ass with sand paper than to ever have to deal with me again." Australis sighed and groaned, "I know." "Over ten years ago, though, I was the white Astroranger; MercuryAstro," Messuta answered. "What?" Andromina exclaimed. "Galaxy Task Force Astroranger??" Sheratan slowly nodded in the affirmative. Messuta walked towards her. "I was on a mission to Earth, led by Commander Leto with these others and we were soon joined by a half Terranian female from that world to protect both dimensions from aliens. Now Leto has discovered an even greater force threatens us and we've all had to come out of retirement to go back to old times." "I heard about that war. It was legendary," Mina said. "That is what made me want to enroll under Nashiran's class. The stories I read about SaturnAstro moved me to want to learn how to master his style." Messuta looked confused--how could she know about Nashiran and not about any of us? Or is it a selective memory at work? he thought to himself. Australis interjected, "It appears to us as if your wish had come true, Mina. I knew it when I was told you were removed from active duty, Andromina. Which is why I was disappointed." "Mm," she moaned. "But, I still don't understand. Why are you coming to me then?" Sheratan answered, "When we fought the Xyrth, we basically lost but VenusAstro was hurt badly enough to put her in Bio-Recovery for a week." "Damn," Mina moaned. Sheratan nodded. "Commander Leto and Australis are going to do their best to get us back to Earth to finish the job before it's too late with the help of a new Team Giant Manned Artificial-Intelligence Vehicle but the GMAIV needs six operators. And we only have five." "We need you to become the pink Astroranger, Andromina," said Australis. Andromina looked down and paused for a moment. "Why?" "What do you mean?" Messuta asked. Andromina turned around and walked back a few steps before turning around again to look at all of them again. "I don't know, it's just seems like the Uton Government is just using me, like, whenever they're in trouble--they can call me in but for the rest of the time, they don't want to have anything to do with me." "Andromina," Sheratan said, while walking towards them, "nobody wants to do this. Commander Leto didn't want to ask the Astroranger Task Force to reunite and most of us didn't want to return. Uton Defense probably wont want us using the new GMAIV on Earth against the Xyrth either but... Try to see--we've got to do this because we have to." Mina sighed and looked down. Being a logical person, she didn't want to let hard feelings about the past keep her from doing what Nashiran inspired to do. Which was to put yourself on the line for the greater benefit of everyone else. So, Andromina looked up and saw Nashiran who stared into her eyes. She kept looking until she got a reaction and, eventually--Nashiran gave a shallow nod to indicate, she should do this. Messuta and Australis looked at her with great penetration, hoping she would respond soon. And positively. Looking to them, Andromina sighed. "OK. I'll do it." Messuta closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Australis walked forward and took her hand before laying his other hand on top of hers. Shaking it gently, he said, "Thank you, Mina." Looking back, Mina slightly bowed. The dome ceiling led to the metal floor, housing a high security chamber at one of the Uton Government Business buildings. Rows of chairs on either side of an aisle were behind two podiums that were next to desks that faced a raised desk with seven seats behind it. Seated there were seven High Commanders that surpassed Lyonix Leto's rank and age, in most cases. Australis Mokusei was standing at the podium at the right listening to the one in the center. "After careful consideration of your presentation, Mokusei-master, my dedication to honor forces me to be honest and make you aware of our thoughts." Australis took a deep breath to calm his anxiety of their decision. "We are hesitant to grant the commissioning of AstroShip for a variety of reasons," another High Commander spoke. She said, "The ship has not been tested in simulated combat situations. And given the many variations that it may be configured for in battle situations, AstroShip might not be ready to leave Terrania orbit." The first Commander added. "It would be reckless and unsafe to allow Commander Lyonix Leto's crew to risk themselves on what might very well be an unspaceworthy vessel." Australis nodded and frowned while looking down. "Also, because of the number of years spent developing the AstroShip, allowing it to be destroyed in war (which is the chance Uton Defense takes with all vehicles in service) would not be a chance we would be willing to let Uton Defense take," she finished. Again--Australis nodded and sighed. "However," a third High Commander's voice echoed within the hall. "We must not allow the destruction of AstroMan and the AstroShuttles go unpunished. The threat facing Earth on the other side of the dimensional barrier was great enough that it could have very well become a problem of ours and so, AstroMan's involvement was warranted. However, the outcome was unfavorable due technological shortcomings." "We want you to use AstroShip because, despite being constructed merely three months ago without any real testing, it is technically the most powerful weapon we have," is what center High Commander said to Australis. "And if that's what it takes, then that is what we want the Galaxy Task Force--the best we've got-- to use against the Xyrth to prevent them from doing the same thing they did to Earth to Terrania." Taking a deep breath, Australis nodded happily and smiled. Bowing over while facing them, he said, "Thank you very much, Members of Defense Command." Surrounded by grass and bushes was a large dome-shaped building, standard in Terrania. However, the walkway to this building was gated because it was a security facility. A block sat in front of the building as a sign that read "UTON DEFENSE BUILDING: G6" in Terranian characters. It was dark in the monitoring room where Sheratan, Messuta and Nashiran were standing behind Andromina. Her attire different, she sported brown boots over black, shiny spandex-like stirrups wearing the Terranian-equivalent of a pink sleeveless polo-shirt with wide shoulders and silver trim on the low V-neck front. Mina watched video footage of hundreds of Xyrth slicing and shooting at buildings and other massive objects throughout the world. Her eyes sparkled from the monitor light while the Xyrth on screen were seen running after the Astrorangers. EarthAstro was shooting at them and Andromina turned around, "Is she the half-Terranian?" "Yeah, her name's Beverly Tenmei," Sheratan answered. "EarthAstro." "Ah," Mina replied. "I see." She went back to watching and as she could see, AstroRobo was being thrown to the ground many times by the one then pair of Xyrth that were massive in size. Mina looked confused. "Wait a minute, weren't these oversized bugs fighting you guys, in person, just a second ago? What's with the robot?" Messuta nodded. "They can grow at will so we brought in AstroRobo." On the monitor, EarthRobo was being held up by the Xyrth before torn apart and cast the ground. Then the next clip showed AstroMan's arm being cut down by a Xyrth. Finally, AstroMan was hanging in the sky as two Xyrth flew past each other--slashing through the robot in two places before dropping it. Below, the robot had erupted into multiple fireballs before the screen went black--showing the Uton Defense logo. Andromina turned around and sighed. "Aw man, you guys should o' known better than to send AstroMan into that." "What?!" Sheratan barked. "Oh come on!" Mina said while crossing her arms. "You guys must've been out of your minds if you thought a fifteen year old robot that's been rebuilt more times than I can count on all of my fingers and toes could've taken what the Xyrth were doin' to 'em." Sheratan looked at Nashiran, hoping he would get angry with him. Mina shook her head. "It's a miracle you folks are alive." "Yeah, well, we didn't ask for your opinion, Andromina," said Nashiran, "just your help." Sheratan nodded. "That's right." Nashiran glanced at Sheratan he didn't see briefly before continuing. "We need someone to help us run AstroShip if Australis was successful in getting authorization for us to use it." Andromina looked up and paused for a moment. "Wait a minute. I remember one of my friends in the academy talking about it 'cause it's supposed to be so great." Nashiran nodded. She looked at all three of them and hoped they knew this. "It's untested." "We know," Messuta replied. "I was hoping that once we get permission to get AstroShip, Uton Engineering could run a Level 2 diagnosis on it too." "Level TWO?" she interrupted while passing out her hand. "Messuta--Level 1 says it's running and level 2 gives you a Yes/No response from all systems. You will have no clue if any of the systems will just suddenly freeze up because it was programmed wrong by some helium head." Messuta had no idea she knew anything about any of that and was left speechless. Mina grinned and crossed her arms again. "Damn, you guys really do need my help." "Well, I knew L2D wasn't going to show me much but I figured we could worry about weapons, shields and electronics on route," Messuta said. "It's worth it because this is the most powerful tool we've got, and we're gonna need it if we expect to fight with the Xyrth in the same league as them." "But you won't have enough time to check all that stuff while flying to Earth from the lunar base," Mina replied. "(I can't believe this much lack of planning from out of the most legendary team in the history of...)" "WE didn't anticipating the Xyrth destroying AstroMan," Sheratan interrupted. Mina glared at him before looking at Messuta. "If this is all we've got to work with, then I wanna have a look at this thing for myself." "Easier said than done," Nashiran interjected. "AstroShip's access is restricted to Maximum Security Clearance level personnel only. So, no visitors; not even if authorized by an officer." Mina threw her hands up and looked to the sky. "OH for the love of... Just get me on the God damn ship! Do you want it in one piece when we fight the Xyrth or not?!" Sheratan and Nashiran look at each other. Below the sunlight in the blue sky was the sunbeam being reflected off of the Pacific Ocean from the sun's day light rays. Black rings encased the view of the horizon while panning across the west. Wearing a Lieutenant Commander's uniform, the naval officer, Ross Dole, as engraved on his golden name plate, took the binoculars he was holding down away from his face as his college approached him. "Any sign of trouble?" "No. Ever since we've received word of the Astroranger's sudden appearance, all has been quiet," Lieutenant Commander Dole answered. The other officer nodded. "I remembered when I was just an enlisted crewman when watching the news with the Astrorangers fighting those other things in California once that big metal globe showed up a few years ago. I wonder if this is them?" "I don't know. I just know that this is the calm before the storm because the last we ever heard from Intelligence was that the Astrorangers lost." With the sun illuminating the forward hull of the gray steel battleship, it sailed ahead. On the deck, officer walked about--on their way to their assigned destination, based on their orders when suddenly the boat rocked a little. Lt. Commander Dole urgent asked his peer, "What was that?" "I don't know but we better report that and get everybody on yellow alert now," his fellow officer answered. The two of them jogged out of the way. On the bridge, the captain stood behind the helmsman before the two officers ran inside. "Sir, we felt something out side." "So did we, Lieutenant," Captain Eastman replied. "Get to your normal post. We're going to full Red Alert." Dole exchanged looks with the other officer before they ran out of the way. Holding his helmet, a pilot in full gear was standing on deck outdoors drinking a cup coffee. All of a sudden, somebody with large metal headphones around his neck ran by and knocked that cup out of his hand and shouted, "MOVE IT!" "Hey! What the..." The guy turned around and looked at him. "Quit standing around," he interrupted, "we're on read alert!" The pilot looked up. "I don't see any enemy." In front of the battleship, like a geyser from hot springs, a fountain of water erupted from the ocean; the tower of water hurled droplets for hundreds of feet as a silver mass the size of dinosaur slowly but most obviously rose up in a surprisingly fast pace despite the slowness of its ascension. The men stood on the shaking deck facing the many steel portions of her body as they flew upward as fast as the water gushed from below. Looking behind himself, the man talking to the pilot then looked at him and asked, "Since when has a sea-monster been a friend?" In the ocean, this Xyrth, the size of Tyrannosaurus, finally came into view; her oval, antennae bearing head gave an ominous look down on the aircraft carrier. PHYR's three eyes blinked and its two steel jaws in front of its oral cavity bent as it bent stretched every joint in her body. She was studded with bolt-tops between fins of reflective metal upon the ridges of her vertebrae. And it extended into a ribbed tail of metal caged in a black, steel frame leading to a fork of pins at the end. Singular-clawed legs with two joints in all six legs had fins for faster flight and swimming capabilities. A fighter jet's afterburners propelled the metal warplane along the deck of the Navy aircraft carrier before launching it past the deck and over the ocean before rising up. Two bubbles of light expanded from the pupils of her eyes before bursting forth into lethal red beams of light. The jet craft just exploded into fire in the sky. The men onboard the battleship looked to the sky in horror as the brilliant flash reflected light from everything on deck. In midair, the fireworks left behind a black cloud of smoke. Below the white, glowing dome ceiling was a wrap-around, floor to ceiling display screen with two black columns for audio output. The carpeted floor from the edge of the viewer inclined upward like a ramp leading to a circular platform where there were two seats with consoles and individual monitors attached to the tops. Between them was a walkway with LED lights along the edges that led to three more seats the same way while in the back wall was an elevated seat, suspended by an arm with the same equipment. On the side walls, there were system monitors with backlit, membrane keyboards below each screen which terminated at two lift shafts in the rear corners. Once a platform had ascended in the primary lift--Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta and Andromina surfaced before walking out into the oval-shaped bridge of the AstroShip. Mina looked around and asked, "Is it taking voice commands?" "From authorized users," Australis said. "It'll understand you once we get clearance for dispatch." Mina giggled. "I can get around that. I'm just asking 'cause I wonder how many of the systems are turned on right now. I'd like to get familiar with the ship if possible." Eagerly, Messuta walked away from one of the columns with a system monitor display and approached Mina, looking into one of the console's in stand-by mode. "Um, Andromina, if you want to know more about AstroShip, feel free to ask me." "Okay." Messuta added, "I was on the design team a couple of years ago." Mina looked up and smiled. "Thanks. I'll let you know." "Okay," Messuta replied, finally walking away so that she could concentrate. Nashiran stood under the main chair behind the three seats facing the screen with Australis, watching Andromina read text from the far right side seat and terminal. Shaking his head, he looked at Australis. "I must say, she's a lot smarter than I remembered. I know that Messuta thought she was all brawn and no brain when he first met her, especially because of her interesting personality." "Hehehe," Australis chuckled. Nashiran shook his head. "I wonder where she picked up all this stuff from?" "I don't know, Nash--but I do know that being able to play around with secure systems and get in 'em with such ease is another reason Messuta named why Mina was discharged from the service." Sheratan walked up to them during their conversation and sighed, "Well, guys, Mina was right. Mina ran the ship in simulation mode and she played the role of the opposing vessel and apparently the program crashed when it tried to react to what she did." "With the amount of money they poured into this thing, you would think they'd have perfected it by now," Nashiran commented. Sheratan grinned. "Well, most of it works. It's just that all the bugs have yet to be worked out because only a hand full of engineers and programmers have had a chance to test it out during computer production." "What about everything else? How can we test out non-computer systems like weapons, propulsion, life support, shields and forcefields?" Australis asked. Sheratan shrugged. "Beats me, but, Mina says that by the time we get clearance, we should have enough to deal with the Xyrth--time permitting." Nashiran was again impressed and visually indicated as such. Meanwhile, Messuta finished typing a command and entered it. A buzz indicated that the command failed and he shook his head. "I can't seem to get the emergency gravity systems to notice when primary graviton generators fail." Mina looked to her left and him and stood up. Messuta was reading the source code of the program and Andromina walked up next to him. "Lemme see." Messuta looked up and shrugged before climbing out of the seat. Andromina stepped inside of the seat and put her boots into the braces to keep the person in place during movement. Looking at the code, she shook her head. "No, you're right. This all looks fine. Hm. Let me take a look at the signal the generators send to the power monitor and find out if it's telling it what it expects to hear." "What do you mean?" Messuta asked. Mina looked up and answered, "If the mechanism that is supposed to detect the power failure doesn't say it in such a way as the back-up power supply can understand, it wont know to kick in. I want to know what the back-up system is expecting to get from the power monitor." Mina returned to typing and Messuta nodded. "Oh, I see." "Okay, looks like it was coded out 'cause the engineers were having a problem with this before," Mina replied. "Maybe it's hardware related." Suddenly, she stood up and walked away and Messuta watched her. Andromina walked towards a wall and knelt down to unlatch a panel in the wall. From behind the wall, light came in from the bridge as the panel was moved away and Andromina looked inside. From her perspective, she and Messuta could see an array of yellow boards plugged into black sockets on a blue board. "The jumpers could be in default mode. In which case, that means they never got around to changing it from the factory setting. Which we will do now," Mina said, pulling the card out of the wall and holding it by its edges with her fingers. Messuta watched her push up and pull down various white buttons in a red block on the yellow electronic card. "Okay, now its set for the right communications port." Messuta looked at her and asked, "Wait. What happened?" "Well, obviously the two mechanisms were expecting the same message during a power interrupt so the only thing left is that the power failure message is being transmitted on a port that the emergency system isn't listening on." "Ohhh," Messuta replied. "Hey--how'd you think of that?" "Well, that's just basic device management programming, Messuta," Andromina answered. "I'm surprised you didn't know that." Messuta looked away with a sour expression on his face. It was highly mortifying that an attractive lady so intelligent may think of him has actually less knowledgeable when he used to be in charge of all scientific things the Astrorangers once did. Sheratan was walking towards the lift and Nashiran stepped forward, noticing his departure. "Hey, wait a minute--where're you going?" "I was wondering where Beverly was," Sheratan answered. "Last I knew, she was with Leto but he's not answering his office communicator so I'm going to the hospital." Australis nodded. "All right. Contact us when you'll be returning so we can decide on where to all meet up." Sheratan nodded. "Right." He stepped onto the lift and turned around before descending beneath the floor of the AstroShip bridge. Lotia's bio-recovery chamber was a room that was brightly lit from above but everything else was blacked out. On the elevated platform were mechanical instruments with organic contents connected to a glass box inside suspended from above by four cables. The box contained a communications interface and a posture-balanced mattress and head-rest for the patient, identified by the information computer mounted on the top of the bio-case. The only way in being through the bottom of this case, all of the sealing utilized through this facility--one of thousands world wide was developed by Terranian's to make sure the patient is not infected by the outside world and visa versa. Beverly sat next to the incubator, looking at Lotia resting her eyes through the treatment fog. Organic gassed helped her sleep be more conductive to producing energy for healing but something kept her from resting. "I'm not Terranian, so I can't read your mind but I know you're thinking about Sheratan," Beverly said. Lotia took a deep breath. "I'm so worried that because I hid this from him, Sheratan wont want the baby." "That doesn't sound like him. I promise that he will be understanding in the end." Lotia rolled her head to the side. "He really didn't want to ruin the romance we shared for all of these years since the mission to Earth." "This eventuality was going to become a reality someday," Beverly told her. "The Xyrth's arrival only brought it sooner." Lotia nodded. "You're right." Beverly moved closer to the incubator. "Sheratan really loves you and you are one of the few people that he'd be willing to make great sacrifices for. I believe that if you really need to have this child, he will want you to have it too. He doesn't know it but when he sees his baby born, Sheratan will be too happy to have it to share with you to care about everything he's said before." Lotia smiled. "Thanks, Beverly." Beverly smiled back. At the center of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, was the magnificent castle built out of stone--purged from the Earth, making it as deep as it is tall. And as many Xyrth flew down into the canyon, others were crawling into the dark opening of the castle's main entrance in a single file formation. Inside of the dark chamber, thousands of Xyrth were stationary in the wrap around stadium style positions while, on the center stage-like platform was PHYR herself. One of them crawled up onto the platform and turned around while in front of the magnificent queen Xyrth. Under its tail, a slimy and muscular brown vine of heavy thickness pushed its way out of that cavity. In PHYR's lower portion of her body was a cavity that allowed this cord to penetrate the only tissue visible on her hard-shell covered body. The Xyrth retracted its muscle and crawled past her toward the rear exit as another one crawled up onto the stage to approach PHYR. Again, it turned around and lifted up its tail just like the other--in a slow process of breeding additional Xyrth to replace the ones that were killed by the Astrorangers in battle. In a white office with a door and window, a white table with various small chairs next to them were unused. Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta and Andromina all stood around, wondering what was going on. The door slid open and Commander Leto walked inside. "Well, Australis, you did it. Uton Defense approved our request to commission AstroShip." Australis took a deep breath. "Yes!" whispered Sheratan. "When will it be ready for launch?" Messuta asked. Commander Leto read from his PadPlayer and looked up. "Tomorrow morning." Australis turned around and looked at everybody. "Well, it's already the end of the business day. I suppose we should all take it easy and rest up 'cause this is going to be rough." "Be at the dimensional gateway facility at dawn and be ready to cross over to Earth's dimension to board AstroShip at the lunar SubStation," Commander Leto told them. "Let me know when you get there." Nashiran nodded affirmatively. And, so did Sheratan as he replied, "We will, Commander." Leto nodded and turned around to leave the office, followed by Nashiran, Australis and Sheratan. Leaning on the wall, Andromina pushed off of it to start walking but Messuta caught up with her. "Hey, by the way..." She stopped and turned around to listen to what he had to say. Messuta looked up and down her body before continuing, "I was pretty amazed with what you did on the AstroShip. That really helped. And I didn't have a chance to say that." Andromina smiled. "You're welcome," she politely replied. "I was just thinking," Messuta added, "we've got a whole evening before we need to go into action and we might not ever see each other again. And, it'd be disappointing if I'd never gotten a chance to better get to know the most intelligent lady I've ever met." "Oh... Messuta, I'm sorry. I'm going to be busy working out tonight," Mina said. "I've got to concentrate--on this." Messuta immediately replied, "No, that's okay. No, I completely understand, I should've thought about that, I'm sorry. We're on a mission here and uh..." Andromina was nodding. "Yeah..." "Yeah, it's important that we, uh, we uh stick to, you know--concentrate on the, concentrate on what matters here," Messuta stuttered. Every second that passed was like a needle in the stomach so he immediately gulped, "So, uh, I guess we'd better get going." "Yeah," Mina agreed, "it's a long ride back to my home." Messuta walked towards the door and looked at her briefly. "So, I'll see you tomorrow." "Okay," she said to him. "Bye." Messuta looked down and away before walking into the white hallway. An egg shaped moon in the black sky, dotted by twinkling stars gave a bluish hue to the The sphere-shaped city block below featured pathways for pedestrian travel with silver railing leading down brightly lit, metal steps to underground magnetically propelled vehicles. Between the pathways were the top alves of domes. These two-meter height structures of varying color were in all actuality, more sphere shaped as their tops were slightly flatter than their edges so that they would be long enough to provide enough internal room. Aside from the automatically sliding, black, tinted glass doors leading to the walk paved in stone between the lawn of blue grass, the buildings were covered in panels of two-way mirrors naturally made out of a crystal that naturally grows here. This structure design was chosen to best weather storms, absorb the most sunlight for energy and heat for heating and water heating. It was dark inside with the only source of light coming from a small room next to the kitchen. Bent over to spit out a oral disinfectant and tartar erosion solution, Nashiran looked up into the mirror and used a cloth to dry his mouth. All of a sudden, he heard bells chime and he looked to his left and walked out of the bathroom. "Who could be at this hour of the night?" Nashiran asked himself as he walked barefoot through the kitchen. Looking at one of three small, black and white screens that showed the front and back doors as well as the MagWay entrance stairs, he saw Andromina wearing a tight dark red, low-cut top long purple dress with open toed shoes standing behind his back door. "Wont have to go far to see what this is all about." Outside, Andromina's reflection in the octagonal panels making up the outer wall of the Terranian house allowed her to adjust the bangs draped over her forehead from the short bowl-cut hair she had. All of a sudden, Mina noticed the door panel rolled down into the ground "Hi, Nash?" she greeted, noticing him being naked. Nashiran raised an eyebrow out of his expressionless face. "I was about to go to bed. But since you're here, I guess you didn't know that; hence your surprise." "Uh, no," Andromina replied. "Actually, I came because I knew you were going to bed and I was hoping to join you." Nashiran grinned. "What's wrong with your bed?" "It's empty. Yours wont be in a minute," Andromina answered. "May I come in?" Nashiran chuckled. "Ah... I don't know what this is about." Andromina walked inside and hit the Close Door button in the kitchen. Her shoes clicked on the kitchen floor as she made her way inside. "Is there something that I can do for you?" Nashiran asked. "You need something?" Andromina looked behind herself and grinned. "As a matter of fact, I do." Giggling, she turned around and sighed. "Nashiran Dosei, I watched you on the news and read about you in school. When I learned you were setting up a training school for defense, I had to join." Nashiran crossed his arms and nodded. "Well, I'm flattered." "You have no idea," she replied before walking towards him, standing in front of the kitchen window. Mina put her palms on his hips and pushed upwards, along his ribs and over his rippled abdomen. She looked down as her fingers traced up between Nashiran's pects and said, "I joined Uton Defense last year because I wanted to be at the same level as the master that I'd aspired to become my equal." Mina looked up into his eyes and also softly said, "I agreed to become VenusAstro because I would be working with you." Nashiran put his hands on her shoulders and asked, "What is it about me that fascinates you to such a dramatic degree?" "You're so serious and you have never flinched in the face of death. I finally found someone who re-defined what it meant to be courageous," she answered. "Someone so powerful is irresistible to me." Nashiran raised an eyebrow again. "Really?" Passionately, Mina answered, "Oh, Nashiran; ever since I can remember, adventure has always kept me alive and because of you, I'm alive." Pressing herself up against Nashiran, she more softly said, "I want to show you my appreciation of that." "Make sense; but, I honestly didn't expect--that you... I mean, by the way you were around us when we first met," Nashiran was explaining. Andromina's head flew back as she giggled. "What? Would it have made this a lot easier if I started acting like a blushing schoolgirl when I first recognized you?" Nash smiled and laughed. Mina grinned. "I'd knew I'd get a smile out of you. Let's see if we can make it bigger." Between their bodies, Andromina's hand slide up his thigh and, while she looked at him, Nashiran took a deep breath as he felt her and on himself. "Well, something got bigger anyway," she said softly. Nashiran whispered, "The contrast between you and Lotia is like night and day, Mina." "And you like it, don't you?" Mina asked softly. "I remember in class, you only noticed best and the worst, nothing in between. And I know that you don't like good girls." She stood up on her toes and whispered into his ear. "When it comes to this, I'm not just bad: I'm the worst." With her head next to his, he looked into space--thinking rapidly. So, slowly, Nashiran had began to say, "We might not come back alive from Earth. We'll probably never see each other again anyway." "That's right," Andromina encouragingly agreed. Turning her head, she kissed his neck and behind her back, Nashiran's hands held Mina's lower back, sliding them up under her dark red shirt. They looked at each other again, and Nashiran closed his eyes as he leaned down to press his lips on Mina's. She turned her head to the side to kiss him even deeper. Nashiran's hand slid up her back and held onto her neck so that he could comb Mina's hair with his fingers. Lightly suckling on one another's lips led to keeping them pressed together, as their tongues moved in to each others mouths. Nashiran's hands, meanwhile, pulled Andromina's wide, V-necked top down her shoulders and promptly, she took her arms out of the short sleeves before quickly hugging him again. Nashiran started kissing down Mina's neck as she let her head hang back to the side while breathing very deeply. His lips rolled over her clavicle before descending out of view. His fingers squeezed her bosom with care before licking over nipple. He stopped to look up and she looked down confused. Nashiran stood up to put one arm behind Andromina's back and another behind her legs before lifting her body up into his arms. Silently, he carried her out of the kitchen and into the darkness of the rest of his abode. Behind the curtains draped from the overhead lid on Nashiran's bed, Andromina was lying down on the covers, looking up at Nashiran who knelt in front of her. His eyes caressed her creamy skin, starting with her slender, sensuous feet and long, strong legs and thighs to her hips and tough but flat stomach. Mina's bosoms, dotted with small brown nipples contrasted against her soft milky skin and were complimented by her glossy, full lips and large round eyes. Nashiran placed his hands on Mina's lap and knelt down between her knees. Meanwhile, she looked down for a short while before gasping as her eyes closed. Mina's head pressed itself into the pillow as her back arched up. In front of the glowing blue sphere known as Earth in the blackness of outer space was its natural satellite, a silver lunar body. Within one of the moon's largest craters was an enormous hangar. In the ceiling were six tubes that were illuminated by lights built into the aluminum-like walls of the corridor leading out of the crater. Below it were six metal slides, angled up and suspended above the exhaust trenches below the platform that surrounded the GunjinShuttles mounted on the launch pads and led to the remaining floor of this lunar base. The three-story tall walls were lined with catwalks and stair cases except for the forward wall. There were four elevators in all corners of the lunar base that led to booths behind the walls below the ceiling while over two stories below, the main entrance was in fact a hallway with two large freight doors. Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta, Andromina and Beverly walked off the magnetic train tracks before the cargo doors closed. Walking on the white platform below were the six Astrorangers in black boots, gloves and navy blue jump suits with utility belts. Commander Leto was watching from the control booth from behind the control console through the wall window. As the six of them stopped watching, Messuta was extremely amazed by what he saw. "Woah." Giant jet planes--red, green, black, white, pink and yellow shined from their chrome-like hulls. On the wings were massive turbine engines with, at the wing tips, there were laser tubes. There was a rocket launcher on the top between the two afterburners in the back and a bomb-loader beneath the body. The black tinted cockpit cover was open for loading from six drop chutes from above. Over the speaker system, Leto said, "The SubStation was remodeled to accommodate the GunjinShuttles. Using the cable slides in the six shafts behind you," he pointed out, as the six of them turned around to look at them. "You will be able to board the shuttles immediately." Each door marked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in the colors red, green, black, white, pink and yellow. While Beverly smiled, Mina happened to look over and notice her belly button between her pants and the mid-length top she was wearing. "Hey, what's that?" Not noticing at first, Beverly asked back, "What's what?" Mina pointed. "That. On your stomach." She looked down and said, "Oh, that's my bellybutton." Messuta looked over and added, "Human's still have them." "Ohh," Mina said, "oh, you must be the half-Terranian then." Sheratan was nervous over how accepting she'd be now. Mina extended her hand. "Nice to meet you." "Pleasure's mine," Beverly replied. Australis turned around and looked at the window in the higher part of the wall. "We're ready to go, Commander." "Good luck, you guys," Lotia said. Sheratan turned around and looked at her. Standing with a cane, to support her since she hadn't been standing in a while, Lotia was at the main entrance with an exhausted smile on her face. Running to her, Sheratan stopped in front of Lotia and said, "You shouldn't be here, Lotia. Why did you come?" She looked into his eyes and said, "I had to see you before you left just in case..." "Lotia," Sheratan interrupted. "I will come back for you. Don't worry about me, just--make sure you and the baby are all right." She smiled. "Uton Defense gave me a ride and the physician said I was in good enough condition to visit and come back later." Sheratan took a deep breath, happy to see her regardless of his wishes to have her back at the Bio-Recovery Center. "Thanks for caring," Lotia replied. "Come back safely, okay?" Sheratan nodded. "I will." Lotia smiled and he, quickly, moved forward and kissed her on the lips. Australis, Nashiran, Messuta, Mina and Beverly watched and when Sheratan finished, he took another satisfying deep breath and smiled. Grinning back, Lotia said, "Go, Sheratan." Sheratan nodded. "Right." Looking behind himself at the four Astrorangers behind himself, he said. "All right everybody..." Sheratan turned around and brought up his right fist. "Let's do it!" With the ceiling above the five of them, Sheratan stepped in front of the team he led and pulled back his fist before shouting. "AstroCharge!" Thrusting his fist forward, the red ruby GeneGem on his golden ring flashed brilliantly. And, simultaneously, the amethyst, onyx, diamond, zircon and jade genesis gems flared into a blinding white light. Standing in front of a red grid of light, a tall laser beam scanned Sheratan's still body from his right finger tips across to his left hand, leaving a red, glowing silhouette of his body. At the center of where his chest was, the Mars insignia beamed forward and once the logo vanished, Sheratan had become the mars Astroranger. In white boots, gloves and a belt with holster matching his white neck below his shiny red helmet with black visor and silver lip-plate, he was in a glossy red uniform bearing the white A-shaped emblem on his chest. Australis stood in front of a green grid as a light white beam of light scrolled across his body, leaving a green, glowing silhouette of his body. At the center of his chest appeared the Jupiter insignia which beamed forward. Upon the emblem disappearing, Australis transformed into the jupiter Astroranger--the green, glossy uniform he wore shined as his helmet also gleamed. Appearing in front of a purple grid of lights was Nashiran, standing in front of a white ray that as soon as it touched his body, caused his form to take on a purple glow. As soon as the ray left his right fingertips, the Saturn logo beamed forward of his chest and after it passed out of view, the saturn Astroranger's black uniform shined brilliantly. A grid of white lights behind Messuta was joined by another white laser beam that rapidly replaced his body, atom by atom by pure white energy. And a black-outlined insignia of the Mercury sign beamed forward, the mercury Astroranger appeared within his white, battle suit. Standing with her legs together, Andromina's eyes opened in front of the pink grid over the blackness out of outer space. The tall laser beam came down from above and rolled over her body, leaving behind a glowing, pink silhouette of her body. The Venus insignia came from within her glowing bosom before beaming forward and upon passing out of view, the venus Astroranger appeared. Standing within her protected uniform, her skirt's golden trim boarded the shiny fabric below her belt. Also standing in front of a yellow grid with her feet together, Beverly looked up as a white ray warmly passed through her, from arm to arm, the entire length of her body. She became a yellow silhouette of light before the forked symbol of Earth emerged from her bust. And after the yellow insignia beamed forth, the earth Astroranger stepped out, wearing her yellow, shiny AstroSuit, supporting two devices on her white belt. And after a blinding flash of white light, the red Astroranger stood in front of CombatShuttle before winding his arm around and pointing his left arm at at an angle to the sky to form the Mars insignia. "Sheratan Kasei!" Forming a fist with his left hand and bringing out his right hand like a planet and its sun, he shouted, "MarsAstro!" In front of CommandShuttle, the green Astroranger assumed the position of the archer holding a bow and arrow announcing, "Australis Mokusei!" Striking the team pose MarsAstro did, he finished, "JupiterAstro!" One foot stepping out, his right fist down and left fist up to make the Saturn sign, the black Astroranger shouted, "Nashiran Dosei!" Assuming the team position in front of SolarShuttle, he announced, "SaturnAstro!" With his arms, the white Astroranger formed a plus sign on his left and a circle on the right before creating a crescent above his head and saying, "Messuta Suisei!" Upon taking the team battle pose in front of TurboShuttle, he called out, "MercuryAstro!" With her arms up like the arms of the Libra scales below RescueShuttle, the pink Astroranger said, "Andromina Tenbinza!" After striking the group pose, she shouted, "VenusAstro!" "Beverly Tenmei!" she shouted holding out her arms, bent at the elbows in an angle. The yellow Astroranger assumed the team stance in front of her yellow jet, AirShuttle. "EarthAstro!" With the ceiling high above their helmets, they'd brought up their fists and pointed them both out to the sky shouting, "Galaxy Task Force." Striking the battle pose one more time, they announced, "Astroranger!" VenusAstro looked through the black visor of her helmet's mask at her left and right fists and then looked up. "Wow! What a rush!" Looking behind herself, the pink Astroranger said, "wow, this suit really makes my legs look nice. Too bad for this skirt." The red Astroranger looked up and said, "All aboard!" Below the yellow number 6 sign, the EarthAstro was running after the door before leaping up to grab onto the handle bars and slide out of sight as the sign above the slot had lit up. Beneath the pink number 5 sign, VenusAstro ran into the tube opening before grabbing the handle bars and swinging into the the shaft as the 5 sign above the door lit up. Under the white number 4 sign, MercuryAstro jogged towards the tube before jumping up and grabbing the handle bars to slide out of sight as the white 4 sign lit up. Above the tube door was the black number 3 sign as SaturnAstro ran into the slot and hooked his white gloves onto the handle bars to swing out of sight. The green number 2 sign was above the slot that JupiterAstro ran inside of before grabbing the handle bars to swing out of sight. MarsAstro ran into the slot of the tube with the red number 1 sign above the door. Inside of the dark corridor, the red Astroranger grabbed onto the handle bars that were on the cable and started gliding down the tunnel. The tunnel walls were lit by bars of light. In the ceiling overhead, a tube's hole irised open as MarsAstro dropped out. In a small booth, he landed in his seat and the seat belt had automatically locked over his chest's white, A-shaped logo from behind herself in the chair. Behind the cockpit, a pair of doors opened, allowing MarsAstro's chair to roll up a set of tracks before locking into place and the doors closed. Meanwhile, in front of him, the flight control console ascended from the floor and a control board overhead was shown after two covers slid back and angled down by a couple of inches. His two white gloves gripped the spools on the terminal for altitude and direction and the red Astroranger, in front of the Mars insignia looked ahead. "MarsAstro aboard." Commander Leto pushed his talk button and said through their console's audio system, "You are clear for take off." "Astrorangers!" MarsAstro called out, "full throttle!" On a lever in the console, his white glove gripped the handle before pushing forward. The five Astrorangers in the cockpits sequentially grabbed the velocity lever before pushing forward. Two huge black tubes which were already glowing blue suddenly blasted two blinding streams of yellow down into the exhaust shaft of the platform. The length of the massive GunjinShuttle shot up the angled-up ramps one fight after the other. In deep space--the moon, illuminated by the sun beyond, featured one crater where a red shuttle, black rocket, green starship, white rocket, pink and yellow shuttles flew out of the darkness of that crater. Together again, the fleet flew in unison through space as the stars rolled by and with the Earth below, the five star ships with their engines burning bright zoomed forward to the planet ahead. A field of stars in the blackness of outer space was outside of the hardshell window capping the green shuttle's cockpit as JupiterAstro tapped buttons on his backlit membrane keyboard. "This is Australis," he radioed. "I'm reading something new on my scanner, guys. Most of the Xyrth are apparently in constant mental contact with one another, feeling and thinking everything together. But there now appears to be another one in Arizona, America that's transmitting to the tenth power of the others and is not mobile like the others." The black Astroranger looked at the 3-D hologram display behind the windshield featuring JupiterAstro. "Maybe we found their queen." VenusAstro said, "Good." On a slanted graphics console above her flight control and vehicle status terminal, the pink Astroranger could see a sine wave pattern in one box while another showed multi-colored lines spanning a flat view of the globe. "We can probably track Xyrth movement based on these transmissions. That's something the AstroShuttles couldn't do." Sitting in front of the mercury insignia in a white sign behind his chair, MercuryAstro added, "We could write a program to determine what sort of information they were feeding each other. That way we could confuse them." "No time," SaturnAstro's voice said. His holographic display showed all five of them. "We need to figure out how to disconnect their mental link up. Isolated, their sense of instinct will take a nose dive." The red Astroranger nodded affirmatively. "And the only way to do that is to take care of whatever's in Arizona." Looking to her left, EarthAstro asked, "But what about the Xyrth in the other parts of the world? We've got to stop them." VenusAstro answered, "The Xyrth will protect their leader either due to orders or merely out of instinct." "As they say: before you can get to the quarterback, you've got to get past his defensive line," MarsAstro added. The vast surface of Earth thousands of miles below consumed much of the view of space as the six GunjinShuttles flew into the foreground on their way to the North American continent. In the vast flatlands of the Arizona desert 55 miles from the Grand Canyon were hundreds of asymmetrically shaped structures apparently made out of the ground itself. Green transparent rays beamed into the ground causing a section of the earth to rise up. The Xyrth, exoskeletal scorpion-like humanoids with a silver, metallic exterior, manipulated the tractor rays by the steel, glowing claws that were the ends of their arms. The shapeless blob of brown was molded into yet another lumpy dome with a black whole for an entrance. The stone made igloo-like tent joined the hundreds in the field. The iron, chrome-covered space dwellers were building one of many cities on this Earth, just like the one on other worlds as it once was billions of years ago. These worker Xyrth were just as prepared for combat as the Army Xyrth, only less harmful simply due to different programming and lack of experience. All the hardware was still there. As the sun shined off of its solid structure, a Xyrth was crawling towards a team to furnish a recently erected shelter when it stopped to look into the sky. Five things were passing through the blueness of the sky above and the Xyrth were joined by many more that ran into the same area to look up into the air. A crowd of Xyrth were observing from the blazing desert below as the nose of a white metallic body descended on the dusty plains below. While this crowd stared up into the sky, a comet streaked down from above before pounding the Earth in the distance behind them. They all looked behind themselves as the site of this brilliant light became a blast of bright orange, becoming bursting balls of fire. Another flaming explosion boomed as black smoke began to rise up from the area. At the scene, Xyrth were running from towers of fire-filled explosions blasting out of the Earth while passing other Xyrth already chared by the flames. The underside of a flying machine came between the heard of Xyrth trying to gallop away before they were forced to roll onto their backs. Leaving them upon its ascension into the sky was the red GunjinShuttle. Aboard the cockpit, MarsAstro looked behind himself. "Okay, team, we've got 'em on the run; let's keep it up!" Banking around into a U-turn, the black GunjinShuttle began to fire dual bolts of cyan light from the guns on its wing tips. Xyrth standing by were blown away by sparks blasting them back. The green GunjinShuttle swung into a nose dive but before pulling up again, it dropped a bomb so that when it ascended again the Xyrth were launched into midair by another fire-filled explosion. In the sky--the white GunjinShuttle were firing bolts of light from its wingtip-mounted guns causing a dozen fountains of sparks to flash from the ground, blasting multiple Xyrth into midair as well. Smoke lifted off of the pavement as six steel legs suddenly jumped off the asphalt and behind the street were steel bars where a pair of eyes were. Inside of the shelter, Sasha was looking to the sky to see hundreds of Xyrth all over Los Angeles take flight in an eastern direction. "Where're they going?" Linda crammed her face beside Sasha's and asked her, "What's going on?" "The aliens..." Sasha was answering. Looking at Linda while stepping down from the crate marked RATIONS and dusted off her hands. "They've left." Linda looked out of the bars in surprise. "What?" Extending as far as the eye could see was the flat desert horizon while on the other side of the highway were a pack of Xyrth running away from a black cloud rising from a fire-filled explosion followed by another fire-ball bursting next to them. The pink GunjinShuttle flew overhead while dropping a bomb from a slot on its ventral hull and below, another black mushroom cloud rose up from gas explosions. A Xyrth running into place looked up into the sky before a gleam sunlight rolled over its grid-like eyes. This was not a worker Xyrth as it leaped up, in the blue sky--the silver, metallic arachnid coasted about. Aboard the yellow GunjinShuttle, EarthAstro looked behind herself before looking straight ahead. "We've got company." An Army Xyrth was flying toward the back of her GunjinShuttle before it pulled up. Overhead, the yellow fighter jet turned upside down while, below, the flying Xyrth followed it up--higher into the sky. EarthAstro's shuttle flew down again before the Xyrth finished following her; when her wingtip machine guns began to unleash a stream of cyan bolts of light, the Xyrth evaporated into a spark filled explosion in midair. EarthAstro glanced behind herself again. "That one must've came from below!" The black Astroranger was looking at her motion-picture in the holographic image in front of his windshield. "I was expecting it sooner, Beverly. Apparently, they didn't see us coming." "No, they were waiting for back-up," MercuryAstro radioed. From the cockpit of the white GunjinShuttle, he continued, "Scanners sense 96 Xyrth have been dispatched from the East Coast and are approaching at Mach 8 velocity. 64 of which are already here!" The red Astroranger nodded. "The more that come, the more we can exterminate. But we can't fight them in the sky and on the ground at the same time. Time for phase two, guys." In the pink GunjinShuttle cockpit, VenusAstro put up two fingers. "Ready when you are." With the floor below the red Astroranger's seat, MarsAstro commanded, "Insert Genesis Gemstones!" Reaching over with his white glove, he inserted a red ruby into a cup built into the control panel. Upon placement, three beams of yellow light streamed through the transparent top of the console before reaching the red jewel. It began to shine and flash brilliantly. Simultaneously--the five Astrorangers inserted their gems: the amethyst, the onyx, the diamond, the zircon and the jade as MarsAstro did before they all flashed brilliantly. The six of them looking directly ahead commanded, "GunjinShuttle Transform!" In the sky above, the six star ships flew in unison, leaving behind a glowing streak of yellow, pink, white on the left with green, purple and red on the right. Flying into the distance they ascended into the blindingly bright sun above before flashing. Endlessly ascending--the red GunjinShuttle folded down its nose before passing into the background while continuing to transform as the green Shuttle ascended into view. It's wings flipped upside down before hovering away before being replaced by the black GunjinShuttle unfolding a pair of columns that turned around to form two robot legs. After it passed away, the white GunjinShuttle ascended while the sections beside where its nose were unfolded into arms and silver, metal fists came from the wrist boxes. After swinging into the background, the transforming GunjinShuttles were joined by the pink fighter jet. While it turned around before its head ascended, the yellow ship had floated in front of it in the form of a robot with its wings on its shoulder blades. In the blue sky above, a white star-like light twinkled before six robots came down from that flash one by one. On the desert plains, a dust cloud puffed up when two black, metallic feet landed on the ground. Landing in their individual positions were the AstroBots before coming out of them to stand completely straight and at attention. The red AstroBot's face shaped like MarsAstro's mask, the green AstroBot's metal face molded to JupiterAstro's helmet mask, the black AstroBot's steel face matching SaturnAstro's mask, the white AstroBot's metal head resembling MercuryAstro's helmet, the pink AstroBot's face plate matching VenusAstro's mask and the yellow AstroBot's face appearing exactly as EarthAstro's helmet mask. In the desert under the hot sun, The Xyrth turned directly to face them as more landed to meet with the fleet. MarsAstro pushed several buttons on the ceiling before taping backlit keys on his console. "Is everybody ready?" Surrounding red Astroranger in the center were the faces of the other Astrorangers as they nodded affirmatively. "YES!" From the ground, one could see the profile of the AstroBots above as they charged ahead. Meanwhile, the Xyrth crawled overhead as they galloped forth as fast as they could. As the fleet came up against the AstroBots, sparks blew everywhere--fists jabbed Xyrth body parts, blasting out sparks from the metal crashing up against their bodies. The white AstroBot front kicked a Xyrth backwards into midair. Meanwhile, the red AstroBot caught a claw trying to strike its armor while reverse punching the Xyrth across the face, sending it flying out of sight. A Xyrth jumped off the ground and into the air--in the blue sky, it the exoskeletal creature of steel descended from above. However, all of a sudden, its body was stopped by its entire torso catching the sole of the green AstroBot's foot. Putting its metal hands together, the black AstroBot pounded down a Xyrth before spin-kicking another one out of the way. While it continued to sail through midair, the pink AstroBot landed between two Xyrth and after ducking one's attempt to swing its rear legs at its body, the light-weight robot upper-cut its face before reverse-punching it out of the way. The other Xyrth tried to stick its claws in the pink AstroBot's chest chaises but its silver fists caught its arms and swung its entire body into the air. Xyrth that were approaching were knocked back by the one that the pink AstroBot had tossed at them. A Xyrth's tail curled up as its facial fangs clamped out of anger, it fired several bolts of lightning from the end of its metallic tail unlike the usual single blast. Putting up its hands like claws, the yellow AstroBot bared the full force of a spark-filled explosion. However, the wall of white smoke was cleared by the yellow robot running forward. On the brown earth, it put its two silver, metal feet together before leaping up and away. Ascending into the blue sky, was the yellow AstroBot, shifting its fists ahead before dropping forward. A giant steel fist jabbed that Xyrth in the ribbed chest, blasting a smoke-filled flash of sparks from its metal body. In front of the glowing blue sphere known as Earth in the blackness of outer space was its natural satellite, a silver lunar body. Within one of the moon's largest craters was an enormous hangar. Behind the glass in the wall at least two stories up from the platform below was the control booth where Commander Leto sat in front of his workstation apparently tired but not from exhaustion. The focus lenses he wore before his aging eyes reflected images on the screens of his console. provided by super-powerful telescopic cameras aboard the station observing the battle below. Leto's heart felt pride and joy but his body felt energy slipping from his life force. At his terminal, Leto pressed a marked, backlit button--turning it on. Leto took a deep breath. "Astrorangers, this is Commander Leto." "This is Sheratan, Commander--go ahead." Closing his eyes and taking another deep breath, Lyonix Leto spoke again. "The AstroBots have the same (ugh)," he quickly sighed before continuing, "...the same, Celestial weapons as you do. Use passcode uh... Passcode..." The green Astroranger looked to his side--wondering what it was that he was listening to within his robot's cockpit. "Commander?" "Yes," he quickly replied. Inside of the control booth--Leto looked up and continued speaking. "Four zero nine." "Thanks, commander," MarsAstro replied. Taking another breath, Leto was satisfied but hoped they knew what to do from here as he began to feel himself slipping away. Commander Leto's eyes were closing his head was sliding downward. On a numerical keypad, EarthAstro typed the 4 key before dialing 0 and then 9. Looking up at the holographic display within her cockpit, the yellow Astroranger put her white, gloved hand on her chest and nodded to the side. "I sure am glad I at least learned how to read a little Utonian." Looking to her right, VenusAstro giggled as she gave her a two finger salute. MarsAstro nodded. "Passcode entered. Release Celestial Weapons!" Fist after fist held up a yellow dagger, then a pink boomerang, a white staff, and then a black scythe, then the green bow and a red sword. After swinging it forth before drawing them back, the AstroBots stood together with individual battle stances. Two Xyrth got together before one running from behind them jumped off of their backs and leaped into the air. The pink AstroBot was charging forth as it tossed the Sonic Boomerang into the sky. In midair, the Xyrth was slashed apart by the boomerang before returning to the pink AstroBot. The white AstroBot held its staff straight blocking two Xyrth from clawing its armor before turning them away and jabbing one of them. Sparks blasted the first Xyrth away before the white AstroBot swung across, the end of its staff knocking that Xyrth out of sight. A Xyrth flew by the green AstroBot--its legs striking its chest and blasting sparks out of its armor. It was forced to turn around as another Xyrth came flying the other way, again causing sparks to break out of the green AstroBot. On the ground, the Xyrth's metal legs pushed back up into the sky again. In midair, the Xyrth was coming in for the kill; however, the green AstroBot picked up its ThunderBow and arrow. Onboard, JupiterAstro in the cockpit shouted, "Fire!" The green AstroBot let go of the arrow and as the Xyrth flew through the sky, the arrow burrowed a path into the center of the Xyrth, gutting the creature before it had burst into flames in midair. A Xyrth tried to strike the black AstroBot but the claws approaching were cut off by the Xyrth in its black fist swinging through the sky. The Xyrth itself was kicked out of the way before the black AstroBot turned around to swing its arm across. Sparks threw the Xyrth in its way into a sideways tumble from the smoke. Chopping down on the left and right, two brilliant flashes left sparks to blast from the Xyrth the red AstroBot chopped down. It turned around and, aboard the cockpit, MarsAstro put up a thumbs up. "Let's see if this thing can do a cosmic missile!" Looking to her left, EarthAstro nodded. "Oh, good idea!" In a smokey black background, the circle and right arrow symbol of Mars shined as a bonfire was seen behind the red Astrobot. It took its sword upside-down into its left hand and ran its gloved hand the length of the blade causing a red beam of light to follow its fingers. It horizontally strikes out causing the energy to leave the sword and fly. A flaming light soared in the sky. Lightning cracked and clouds rolled rapidly upward while the green AstroBot put out its ThunderBow. The green AstroBot pointed its fist into the air when a green beam of light materialized into a glowing arrow. It loaded the arrow into its bow, pulled back and let go of the bowstring shooting the arrow. The flaming light soaring through the sky was joined by the LightArrow. The crescent, circle and cross symbol of Mercury painted themselves onto the backdrop of outer space while the planet Mercury itself faded into view. The white AstroBot rose up holding its staff and held it up. The white AstroBot twirled its Power Staff in its hands and then lifted it to the sky as clouds gathered and formed lightning. The PowerStaff became brilliant with electricity as it aimed it for its target. It forced the long weapon ahead of itself as the electricity jumped off the tip of its long weapon. The flaming arrow in the sky was electrified causing it to gain speed, leaving a trail of light behind. The pink circle and cross insignia of Venus was large and bright as it spun around. It flew backwards while spinning when it eventually reached the top of the pink AstroBot's pink helmet above its visor. The pink AstroBot held up the end of its boomerang. It pushed its fingers the length of the weapon causing it to become a pink arc of light. The pink AstroBot flung it into the air. The flaming arrow with the electric blue trail of speeding light was joined by the boomerang's arc increasing its size. The peculiar symbol of Saturn appeared as the cosmic backdrop revealed a shot of the beautiful planet. Rising from below, the black AstroBot took its battle pose while holding its Celestial Weapon. It had cast its scythe to the sky and, in midair the flaming boomerang and arrow, leaving a trail of light from its speed, was struck by the glowing, spinning BattleScythe. When they made contact, a brilliant flash transformed it all into a missile made up of red, green, blue, white and pink light that streaked out of sight. One of the Xyrth was standing directly in its path and, as the comet came after the creature, it pierced its head, splitting it up the middle. Suddenly, it's legs gave out and it had exploded violently. The brilliant glow reflected from EarthAstro's shiny mask. "Wow!" SaturnAstro clenched his fist. "Remember, they can send a hundred more here at a moments notice." The white Astroranger pointed ahead though. "They only need just one though! Look!" A Xyrth threw up its upper arms before expanding to its maximum size, compromising its endurance by a significant degree. Inside of the red AstroBot cockpit, MarsAstro nodded. "Don't think we didn't see this coming, right guys? Let's bring this thing together!" With the red Astroranger in the center, the other five appeared around himself as they commanded, "ShogunAstro transform!" Running together, the ground beneath their feet rolled by as they charged ahead. All of a sudden, the green AstroBot leaped into the air. While rapidly ascending in the sky, the green AstroBot's arms folded inside of its head before its legs came over to lock onto the sides of its entire body. After it hovered away, the yellow AstroBot disconnected at the center of its torso to allow its legs and body to split into a long bar with two columns at the ends. Once it floated to the side, the red AstroBot's arms folded into its back before its head retracted into its chest and legs folded onto the sides of its torso. It swung into the background when the pink AstroBot's torso folded back onto the lower half of its body before locking the arms into the front side and swinging both legs up 180 degrees. Once it moved into the back, the white AstroBot's arms locked into its chest as it rolled its head into its back and connected its legs together--as did the black AstroBot. Suddenly, the black and white AstroBots swung upside down and switched positions, the red Astrobot turned around, pink AstroBot flipped upside down, as the green AstroBot turned upside when the yellow AstroBot spun around as well. So as they all landed on the ground, steam poured out as the green AstroBot stacked on top of the yellow AstroBot forming the head and shoulders upon stacking onto the red AstroBot for the body which mounted onto the pink AstroBot for the waist and upper legs that locked into the top of the black and white AstroBots for the legs. Below the white, glowing dome ceiling was a wrap-around, floor to ceiling display screen with two black columns for audio output. The carpeted floor from the edge of the viewer inclined upward like a ramp leading to a circular platform where there were two seats with consoles and individual monitors attached to the tops. Between them was a walkway with LED lights along the edges that led to three more seats the same way while in the back wall was an elevated seat, suspended by an arm with the same equipment. On the side walls, there were system monitors with backlit, membrane keyboards below each screen which terminated at two lift shafts in the rear corners. Manned at each station was an Astroranger on the brightly lit bridge. The white Astroranger at the station on the foreground right said, "ShogunAstro online." "Enlarged Xyrth approaching at known maximum velocity," the green Astroranger reported on the rear right side. The red Astroranger nodded. "Engage the SolarAxe!" While standing in front of a field of stars in space, ShogunAstro swung the sword around in a 360-degree circle with its blade of light forming an image of the zodiac. And, as the giant, multi-colored warrior robot held the SolarAxe high, ShogunAstro cut straight down through the center of the circle. A yellow streak of light sliced diagonally through the Xyrth's body as it slipped off its feet and, before it fell on its bottom, the giant Xyrth had burst into flames. The explosion bringing a black cloud of smoke into the sky. In the sky, a fleet of Xyrth begin to approach by air in a continuous stream of shining metallic silver from their exoskeleton, scorpion like bodies. ShogunAstro took a step forward while, aboard the bridge--the Astrorangers watched the Xyrth fly out to their location. MarsAstro looked over to the corner right. "Messuta, report." "There are at least a hundred in that swarm cloud with more to come. All coming from the Grand Canyon." EarthAstro in the rear left of the bridge looked down asking, "The Grand Canyon??" JupiterAstro looked up behind himself. "We detected the most Xyrth activity at that location so we might be getting too close for comfort." MarsAstro stood up. "There are far too many of them to fight in robot mode. Prepare AstroShip transformation sequence." "Sequence initiated," SaturnAstro replied. ShogunAstro jumped into the air and in the sky, its legs came up to lock into its torso before its arms connected together over its head forming the nose of the giant space ship and engine thrusters from the legs. Overhead, the ship turned around and flew ahead to face the midair horizon formed by the Xyrth. Aboard the bridge, MarsAstro sat down in his seat below. "Forcefields up, arm all weapons and set our heading to the Grand Canyon, maximum velocity." JupiterAstro was typing in commands on light buttons in the black glass panel. "Forcefields are up, charges loaded and engines ready" "Full speed ahead," MarsAstro told him. Behind AstroShip, two tubes were glowing yellow as the vessel was pushed off into the distance. Aboard the bridge, MarsAstro watched the main display screen. "Once we pass this defense line barrier they've set up, fire charges from the aft launch tube." In midair, AstroShip sailed through the sky--causing the hundreds of Xyrth to part and zoom past the side of its hull. Once it passed through--the legs of the silver, metallic creatures swung around as they all formed a giant M to turn around and follow AstroShip. On the bridge of the AstroShip--the red Astroranger looked to his left. "Nashiran, Fire at will." The black Astroranger nodded and tapped a light button on the black glass panel under his white glove. On the aft section of the AstroShip was a tube in the ventral hull where bright flashes launched spinning stars of light behind itself. As the Xyrth closed on the AstroShip, one by one--they exploded as a star slammed into their bodies. Onboard the AstroShip bridge--the pink Astroranger shook her head and shrugged. "Well, that made them a non-issue quick." "Sheratan, something BIG is coming up," MercuryAstro reported. "And it's surrounded by Xyrth." Sitting on the edge of his seat, MarsAstro asked, "What's our current position?" "We are forty seconds from firing range of the Grand Canyon." JupiterAstro sat forward too and spoke up. "Long range cameras. Telescopic factor times eighty." On the screen, a distant picture of the Grand Canyon was accompanied numbers in the four corners of the screen: distance to location, magnification, current velocity and altitude, propulsion/shields/weapon levels in red, blue and green bar graphs. All of a sudden, the computer confirmation chirp sounded and a more detailed image of the Grand Canyon was provided--showing an 800 foot tall castle made of the Earth itself. In front of which was a creature surrounded by other Xyrth the size of a dinosaur. As she came into view, its oval, antennae bearing head gave an ominous look to the sky as the Astrorangers approached. Her three eyes blinked and its two steel jaws in front of its oral cavity bent as it bent stretched every joint in her body. She was studded with bolt-tops between fins of reflective metal upon the ridges of her vertebrae. And it extended into a ribbed tail of metal caged in a black, steel frame leading to a fork of pins at the end. Singular-clawed legs with two joints in all six legs had fins for faster flight and swimming capabilities. Standing in front of the motion picture featuring PHYR was the red Astroranger. He looked behind himself at the black and green Astrorangers and said, "send a message to Commander Leto. Tell them that we have engaged the queen." The white Astroranger looked up at him from his station and the picture of the canyon ahead was reflected from the mask of MarsAstro's red helmet. Hovering in front of the mother of the current tribe of Xyrth surrounding her in complete stillness was the AstroShip of red, black, green, white, pink and yellow color. "Open a broadcast channel, Messuta," MarsAstro said. The white Astroranger watched his console carefully while entering several keystrokes. "Contacting on all frequencies." The black Astroranger looked up. "It--has responded." "Xyrth--this is MarsAstro of Galaxy Task Force Astroranger," the red Astroranger spoke. "We know you can understand this message because of how advanced your communication skills apparently are. Leave this planet now or face dire consequences." Screaming tones similar to machine sounds returned over the bridge speakers causing the yellow Astroranger to squirm. VenusAstro yelled out. "Mute that!" Quickly, MercuryAstro's console beeped as the noise was silenced. JupiterAstro asked her, "Translate that if possible." "This is coming in almost faster than the demodulator can uncompress it," VenusAstro said. "Compensating with a full duplex channel." "Read what we have." She started to read the words in the window on her console, but they seemed out of order. "Woah--this grammar, I'll try to translate." The red and green Astrorangers looked behind themselves to listen. "We know of the existence of all those whom tread our territory and remember what they know as our memory is shared and thus vast. You humanoids are but a spec of sand in the hour glass of time." SaturnAstro looked at the red and green Astrorangers. "(Wha?)" Continuing, the pink Astroranger read, "This territory was formed moments prior to our arrival billions of solar orbits ago. It as the creatures you call dinosaurs were purged, the same fate will be suffered by your..." "(Jeez, these people are long winded,)" MarsAstro said while she continued speaking. JupiterAstro replied, "(You would be too if you lived a thousand years.)" "...across all nine planets of the devine solar system of..." VenusAstro kept reading. The red Astroranger swung his fingers under his chin as a signal to cut it short. SaturnAstro said, "For something so arrogant, it sure put a lot of effort into protecting this area." "I know. Messuta, close communication channels," MarsAstro said. "Nashiran, raise shields--prepare to fire at will." SaturnAstro announced, "Dorsal firing chamber charged." "Open fire," MarsAstro ordered. On top of the AstroShip was a round ring where two lights in the back came around the sides before meeting in the center to stream upward in a beam of golden light while red stars pulsed forth from under the nose of the AstroShip. Under the nose of the AstroShip was another tube that launched spinning red stars from bright flashes. Below the blue sky over PHYR, sparks explode from out of her body but she is apparently unmoved by the powerful blasts as red lights continually blast into her with yellow beams also shooting into PHYR's metallic exterior. The AstroShip continued to fire red, spinning stars while maintaining the yellow beam from the ring on its top. However, as sparks continued bursting from the gigantic Xyrth, PHYR's body was left harmless. Aboard the bridge, the yellow Astroranger pointed at the main screen. "She's a brick house! She should be a barbecue by now." VenusAstro shrugged. "What can I say? This bitch is tough." "Scanners indicate a power surge coming this way guys!" MercuryAstro reported. SaturnAstro looked to his right. "Just when we thought it was safe to piss off almost omnipotent space aliens." PHYR bent over in the canyon that was dwarfed by the magnificent size of both her and her castle as her tail rolled up, pointing its end at the AstroShip. A chevron shaped delta of yellow light coursed out of a ring traveling up PHYR's tail before being launched ahead. The light struck a green grid around the AstroShip that suddenly became visible as it hovered above the ground. On board the bridge, the Astrorangers were rocked in their seats before the lights went to a dim red. "Shields at thirty percent and falling," VenusAstro reported. MarsAstro turned around and looked at the yellow Astroranger. "What?" "One more like that and we're all gonna be chunky salsa," EarthAstro said. VenusAstro said. "Sheratan, Beverly--something weird's going on inside that castle." "We'll deal with that later! Right now, we need to figure out how to deal with THAT fucker out there," SaturnAstro said. "No wait a minute, Nash," the pink Astroranger replied. "That transmitter we were looking for that's controlling all of the Xyrth is SOMEWHERE in there!" The white Astroranger turned around and asked, "What?" MarsAstro stood up. "We knock that thing out and she's going to hell. Beverly, Mina--you're with me. Australis, you're in charge; transform this thing back to ShogunAstro, since it'll stand a better chance that way." The green Astroranger nodded affirmatively. "Don't wait for us guys," MarsAstro said while walking towards the rear doors with the yellow and pink Astrorangers following him. "In case you don't see us, you guys do whatever it takes to nuke the beast." The doors opened and the three of them walked inside before turning around again as the doors closed. Sitting down was the green Astroranger in MarsAstro's seat. "Messuta, begin ShogunAstro transformation sequence." He looked at SaturnAstro and the black Astroranger nodded back, confident in both him and the red Astroranger. PHYR was almost done mustering the energy to hurl another powerful blast of energy from her tail but then she watched the AstroShip fly straight for her before flying up into the sky. PHYR looked up and, in the sky--the nose came apart to become the arms down before the supporting shell of the nose of the space ship came down back over its chest the engine column extended out before locking down into the bottom again to become the legs. On the ground, two black and white metal feet landed on the dusty desert land before ShogunAstro shifted the silver fists of its yellow arms. Behind its house-sized head made of metal--the red Astroranger surfaced while looking to the sky, "Galaxy Task Force Command: HydroCycles--ignition!" The clouds in the blue sky began to part as the faded image of a white saucer began to warp into visibility. Beneath its ventral hull, two black lines perforated a plank that lowered out of the saucer's underside. A motorcycle with a red body shell rolled out of the saucer. With a water-pressure powered engine with a high-pitched sound, the rear wheel guards came down and extended at the ends to become wings; two cylinders at the base of each wing was a special jet that enabled the red HydroCycle to fly. On the top of ShogunAstro's head--MarsAstro jumped off of the metal plank and, in the sky overhead, MarsAstro free fell out of sight. Also somersaulting from above were the pink and yellow Astrorangers. Landing on the black, vinyl seat of the red HydroCycle were two white boots. Two white gloves gripped the handle bars as MarsAstro began to guide his HydroCycle downward. Following him were the Astrorangers on the pink and yellow hydro-powered motorcycles. Below the peak of the stone-made castle was the floor of the Grand Canyon, lined with shining silver creatures. The dirt path was a road for the red, pink and yellow Astrorangers on their motorcycles driving towards the dark mouth of the skyscraping high-rise. On the ground, the Astrorangers drove the HydroCycles past the Xyrth climbing down the hills to try and stop them. Riding single-file, MarsAstro was the first to see the enormity of the castle's entrance as they approached the black hole. The yellow Astroranger stared ahead in awe. "Oh my God," she moaned at its massive diameter. Looking down at the display screen of the pink HydroCycle, VenusAstro said, "that leads underground. This castle is twice its actual height!" MarsAstro glanced behind himself. "Since they manipulate the ground to create structures, I assumed as much! Let's go!!" Three times the wheezing hydraulic engines buzzed by as they left the bright and sunny outdoors. Inside of the blackness of the castle, they found themselves inside of a floor lit cave as their motorcycles braked to a halt before throwing down their kick stands. Quickly, the red Astroranger's leg shined as he climbed off of his HydroCycle and looked around, keeping his eyes open for what the neuro network might look like. EarthAstro walked up from behind and was looking around as well, watching for danger, though. "I don't believe this place." VenusAstro looked at her and said, "Beverly, use your PortaScanner to find the Xyrth transmitter." Nodding affirmatively, EarthAstro replied, "Right." In the holster on the right side of the yellow Astroranger's white belt was a gray device that her white glove removed. Pulling open the cover flap, she dialed commands into the alphanumeric keypad as beeps confirmed each keystroke. On the active matrix color display was a map of the region drawn in red with yellow dots and one green dot. The legend below it indicating the yellow dots were the Xyrth and the green dot was the transmitter. Looking up, EarthAstro said. "There is an insane number of Xyrth in here!" Pushing ahead, the red Astroranger pointed behind her. "Like right behind you!" She turned around and gasped. Pairs of eyes appeared in the darkness before the rest of their silver bodies crawled into view. VenusAstro stood in front of them. "Sheratan, Beverly and I will deal with these guys--the second you get a chance, take out that transmitter!" "But, Andromina!" MarsAstro said to her, "I can't risk both of your lives like that!" "Listen, you'd do the same thing for us but I want someone with the most powerful Celestial Weapon in their doing as much damage as can possibly be done," VenusAstro told him. "Now are you with me?" Moaning, MarsAstro hadn't responded yet. EarthAstro closed her PortaScanner, put it back in her holster and buttoned the strap shut. "Come on, guys! We can argue later!" The Xyrth were crawling off the walls and out of holes in the walls as if an infestation were being fumigated. MarsAstro drew his his FireSword and held it beside his helmet before a gleam of light rolled across his red mask's black visor. "Let's do it!" The pink and yellow Astroranger ran forward holding the Sonic Boomerang and Lightning Daggers before MarsAstro followed. VenusAstro ran into the ground in the blackness of the castle before jumping over a rock and bouncing up into a head-under-feet flip. When she landed, the pink Astroranger held up her boomerang with both hands to block Xyrth's karate chop. Turning around, she held up the Sonic Boomerang again to block two arms trying to slash her. She swung the boomerang up to separate their arms. Another Xyrth was attacking from her right side so VenusAstro turned around and sliced across. Sparks blasted out of its decapitated body before a high roundhouse kicked another Xyrth into flying out of her way. The pink Astroranger ducked a pair of legs swinging at her left. Leaping sideways into an airborne roll over, her boomerang sparked off the Xyrth's metal skin, dropping the creature to the ground as she landed on her hands and feet like a panther. "Eeyah!!" shouted the red Astroranger as he came out of a somersault with a full twist. Landing on the ground, he swung his sword down. Sparks blew out of a Xyrth that was split up the middle and burst into a tower of sparks. MarsAstro turned around and found himself kicked in the abs. The red Astroranger stumbled back before turning around. MarsAstro was swinging the blade of his FireSword at the Xyrth but when it ducked, it turned around and kicked the front of his leg. The red Astroranger flipped onto his feet instead of tripping and turned around to leap into the air. In midair above, MarsAstro's legs and arms shifted into place as he shouted, "FireSword strike!!" Below, the Xyrth stepped back, not expecting his recovery. The Xyrth's shell sparked as the red Astroranger's sword struck it while flying by. The stone wall was used by his two white boots to bounced back. In midair again, the red Astroranger's legs were shifted and his fists held the FireSword sword down on the creature below. Over the Xyrth's head, it used its tail to spark against the white logo on MarsAstro's chest. On the ground between the Xyrth's legs, the red Astroranger landed on his back before turning over. "Ugh! This is harder than I thought!!" The yellow Astroranger's arm belted a Xyrth across the face before turning around. After EarthAstro's dagger swung down, Xyrth's head exploded into sparks. Smoke puffed out of its neck as it dropped away and she turned to watch for more Xyrth coming at her from behind. The yellow Astroranger cut away the claw of a Xyrth's arm before turning away and using the other dagger to knock down a low arm. Using the other lightning dagger, EarthAstro knocked the Xyrth's higher arm out of the way. A Xyrth's face jiggled from being knocked by her fist holding a dagger before she brought her elbow back to pound another Xyrth in the head. In midair, that Xyrth was sent flying between the crowd of other silver creatures before rolling in the dust. "YES," EarthAstro cheered while clenching her fist. "Here we go!" On the ground, she put her white boots together and leaped into the air. From her perspective, the Xyrth on the ground were growing farther and farther away. In midair, the yellow Astroranger rolled into a backward somersault before putting her legs together, out straight--and her arms out; forming a T. The Xyrth tried running but EarthAstro flew in with her daggers in hand as sparks blew the Xyrth onto their backs as she sailed between them. Smoke followed her as she swung away before landing by her legs. Turning around EarthAstro looked back and forth. "I hope the others are doing okay with that giant outside." In the great bowl in the heart of the Arizona desert known as the Grand Canyon, ShogunAstro brought its large black fists apart while PHYR started crawling ahead. They charged past one another as ShogunAstro made its approach so it turned around before PHYR did. She landed her arms on ShogunAstro's shoulders before lifting her arms out of the way and stepping back. ShogunAstro wound up its fist and slugged straight ahead but PHYR's chest was not moved by the full force of the mighty robot's punch. ShogunAstro launched its other fist but it was knocked out of the way by her arm, forcing the towering robot to stumble back. As ShogunAstro stepped back and looked ahead, the green Astroranger on the bridge pointed ahead before making a fist. "She didn't move an inch!" "Well we're out," MercuryAstro added, "now it's her turn!" PHYR swung its arm into ShogunAstro's chest before another arm whipped its abs. Aboard the bridge, the Astrorangers were rocked before SaturnAstro looked up. "So far so good!" "Let's keep it that way," JupiterAstro replied. "Launch finger missiles now!" ShogunAstro's hand came up before turning to the side when sparks started flying from its fingers. Huge blasts of yellow flashed from PHYR's body but when the white cloud of smoke puffed up, she walked through without trouble. ShogunAstro stepped back, surprised to see her survival. Below itself, thousands of neighboring Xyrth ran down the hills of the canyon and towards the stone castle erected in the center of the pit while, at the bottom, many others were already crawling into many holes put into the side of the high-rise structure to enter many times as fast. Other Xyrth were streaming out of holes and paths carved by the Xyrth as they poured into the sky-scraping structure. Inside of the blackness of the deep headquarters, a Xyrth chased VenusAstro up to a wall but she walked up the wall before leaping backwards over the Xyrth's body. Before the pink Astroranger landed, she swung out--causing her boomerang to spark off the back of the Xyrth. VenusAstro turned around and leaped into the air; on the back of one Xyrth, her foot step-kicked its shoulders. As it tumbled away, the pink Astroranger free-fell onto another Xyrth before tackling it to the ground. Rolling over in the dust, she spun around on her back before holding up the Sonic Boomerang vertically. VenusAstro ducked a roundhouse before using her weapon to block a side kick. She reached behind herself with the boomerang to knock away the rear legs of a Xyrth before swinging up on her right side to block another Xyrth's karate chop. VenusAstro swung straight ahead, tripping a Xyrth in front of her before swinging into a sweep kick that tripped another Xyrth. VenusAstro leaped into an airborne roll-over with one leg straight out. When that leg hammered down on a Xyrth, they went down together. On the ground--the pink Astroranger used her white gloves to push herself onto her feet again. In front of her was another Xyrth so, immediately she'd struck her Libra-scales pose. "Venus V-kick!" she shouted before leaping skyward. In midair, the pink Astroranger's two legs flung out, wide apart as she came toward the Xyrth. After her legs wrapped around the Xyrth's metal head, VenusAstro hung backwards before standing on her hands. Pulling her legs, the Xyrth's body was also pulled over her body. Now on her hands and feet, she ran away. The yellow Astroranger looked at her do that and gasped. "They said she was good but I didn't know she mastered Lotia's style!" MarsAstro's forearm beat off a Xyrth before turning around. The tail of the Xyrth that attacked him curled up like a scorpion and the two fangs on the end of the steel segments that composed its cord-like tail began to sizzle. Arcs of electricity crawled all over the razor sharp fangs before blazing forward in a chaotic stream of lightning. The lightning bolt blew sparks out from MarsAstro's chest, launching him into the air. Against the blackness of the cave, the red Astroranger's body swung back--electric blue arcs crawling all over his body. On the ground, MarsAstro had landed with sparks popping out of his uniform all over. "Aw! Aw-haw!! Oh MAN!" The Xyrth's eyes had rapidly fired cyan bullets from its face and a fountain of sparks erupted into a tower of yellow, launching the red Astroranger off of his feet and into the ground. "Ahhhhh!!!" The yellow Astroranger reached out. "Sheratan!" Knelt down, MarsAstro looked at her while catching his breath. "Ugh.. DON'T worry about me, Beverly. Just find that transmitter and destroy it when you do!" Looking at the Xyrth approaching in front of himself, the red Astroranger stood up. "I'll handle these guys." Standing in a smokey setting, stars appeared behind MarsAstro while red lines had drawn themselves to become the constellation of Aries. The planet Mars had faded into view when MarsAstro had turned his sword upside down into his left hand. "Celestial Weapon!" he shouted while running his white, gloved hand the length of the sword's blade. "Blazing FireSword!" The blade had become a red beam of light. Standing alone, the red Astroranger swung his sword forward, casting the red beam off the blade. The Xyrth charging after him found a red comet busting through their bodies, blasting sparks out of each and every one of them. MarsAstro waved his arm. "Depart with much haste! GO! GO!" VenusAstro looked at EarthAstro. "Now's our chance." "Uh huh," the yellow Astroranger replied as they ran into the darkness of a hallway. With the hills of the canyon behind ShogunAstro, PHYR had stood in front of the giant robot; turning around, the gigantic Xyrth allowed its tail to latch onto its abdomen. Between them, arcs of electricity ran the length of her tail before causing electric blue arcs of lightning to crawl all over ShogunAstro. Sparks randomly popped out of its armor while, onboard the bridge--the Astrorangers were jostled by the explosions as sparks blasted within the chamber. SaturnAstro looked behind himself at the smoke before looking ahead; next to him was JupiterAstro looking ahead in anticipation. "Here she comes!" MercuryAstro pointed. PHYR reached and, with one arm, grabbed ShogunAstro's shoulder while the other arm reached in between its legs and lifted up. Over PHYR's head was ShogunAstro who pushed the enormous robot away. In midair, ShogunAstro was sent flying from her body standing in the canyon and, on the side of a hill, ShogunAstro crashed through. Aboard the bridge, the Astrorangers held on as much as they could upon impact before the green Astroranger recovered from the incredible shock. "Guys, are you all right?" The black Astroranger shouted back, "Barely!" "Damn it, I hope Sheratan's successful," JupiterAstro said. "Otherwise this is it!" In the blackness beneath the castle--the pink and yellow Astrorangers' uniforms shined as they'd run down a wide walk way, the dirt noticeably bearing Xyrth foot prints. EarthAstro's mask was face down--looking at the giant size of that mark but then VenusAstro, staring ahead--tapped her on the shoulder with her glove. "Hey, Beverly. Check this out." "What?" she asked while looking up. The light shining off of their suits came from a gazebo on a platform holding a pedestal. Tubes connected to a bulb on top of the pedestal featured a flowing stream of light toward the bulb, causing it to glow. "This is incredible!" EarthAstro said; looking at her PortaScanner, the yellow Astroranger glanced at VenusAstro. "It's output is well over a gigawatt, Andromina." The pink Astroranger nodded. "That's great. Let's smash it and get the fuck out of here." A laser bolt blew sparks out of the ceiling beside them, causing them to duck. "Too late!" EarthAstro said. VenusAstro held up her the Sonic Boomerang. "Draw your weapons!" From different off-ramps in the walls came many Xyrth, pouring into the smaller chamber. Holding the lightning daggers, the yellow Astroranger's back was up against VenusAstro's back. "We don't have enough room to fight them all." The pink Astroranger looked over her shoulder. "Then we'll hold a demolition derby!" One of the Xyrth in their offensive line alternately fired red beams of light from its eyes and, at the other entrance--the two Astrorangers leaped away from a fountain of sparks that erupted out of the ground. On the dirt, EarthAstro rolled over before standing up. She ducked two roundhouse kicks before turning to spin kick a Xyrth's head out of the way. The yellow Astroranger sliced down with her dagger, blasting sparks out of another Xyrth. She swung down her other dagger as sparks broke out of a Xyrth trying to attack her. VenusAstro tumbled over before turning around to watch as the Xyrth crawled toward her. As the pink Astroranger stood up, she shouted, "Moleculatom Weapon!" In her fist was the hand-held device. A Xyrth galloping after her was thrown back into the ground by a beam sparking against its body. VenusAstro looked in another direction before pointing her weapon and pressing the button to force a ray of yellow out of the end of the device. She stood in front of a Xyrth coming towards her as the yellow ray was traced by a laser-thin beam of electric blue light. A bright flash of yellow was reflected by the Xyrth's silver body before sparks also blew out of its shell. Holding out the Moleculatom Weapon to her side, the pink Astroranger looked over her shoulder as another ray of electricity blasted a Xyrth approaching from out of the stone walls. The scorpion-like tail of a Xyrth curled up to launch arcs of electricity forward of its body so VenusAstro leaped out of the way of a spark-filled explosion. Another Xyrth joined it and started firing red bolts of light from its face's eyes rapidly. The pink Astroranger rolled behind a rock where sparks broke off of its surface before rising up to shoot back. A triple-blast of sparks did not move the Xyrth who returned fire via both of their tails. VenusAstro was already in midair leaping away from the rock that exploded into a dust cloud. Up against the stone wall, was her two white boots. In midair, she rolled into a cannon ball somersault and after the Xyrth watched her fly; VenusAstro ascended upward as she whipped out her arm and opened fire. Sparks repeatedly sprayed out of the shell of one of the Xyrth and while the pink Astroranger free-fell from above, bolts of electricity kept shooting from her Moleculatom Weapon. The Xyrth was tipping over as sparks blackened its exterior. VenusAstro landed and turned around, noticing she was right next to the elaborate transmitter at the heart of the castle. "Moleculatom Weapon! Full Power!" When holding out her arm, the pink Astroranger's fist was kicked by a Xyrth's leg, launching the hand-held device skyward. Tossed into midair, the weapon flew up before falling again and, on the ground--it had fell on the dirt. In the distance, VenusAstro's mask visor immediately saw it as she'd made an attempt to run for it. While running, she was surrounded by towers of sparks erupting all around herself before being launched from her feet and into an airborne spiral onto the ground. On the dirt, the pink Astroranger's uniform smoked as she struggled to her feet while coughing. Coming out of the blackness above was another Xyrth leaping ahead. The Xyrth landed on top of VenusAstro and pinned her shoulders to the ground; while she resisted, it opened up its fangs and she turned her head away from it. "Oh no!" A pair of Xyrth grabbed the yellow Astroranger by the arms and dragged her up against the wall before a third one stepped in front of her and jabbed its claw into her torso. Sparks exploded from her shiny uniform before another one of its claws slashed her, blasting EarthAstro again. In the blackness of the chamber, a silver claw was swinging out of the air before EarthAstro turned her helmet's mask away from the final strike. "Comet Kick!" MarsAstro shouted; bouncing up into a flying side kick, the black sole of his white boot kicked the Xyrth over. And, its claw slashed through the Xyrth holding onto the yellow Astroranger's right arm, causing it to explode. EarthAstro karate chopped the Xyrth holding onto her left arm before the red Astroranger ran next to her. "Sorry for the delay." The yellow Astroranger pointed ahead. "Mina!" "Let's go!" MarsAstro commanded before they both ran ahead. The Xyrth on top of VenusAstro, looked to its left and fired two red bolts of light from its eyes. The yellow and red Astrorangers were knocked down by a smoke filled blast of sparks from the abs before falling away. And the pink Astroranger under the Xyrth saw the two of them stay down as well. "I'm the only one left!" she gasped. "Celestial Weapon... Sonic Boomerang!" In her fist, pink lines drew an arch-shaped grid of light before flashing. The metal boomerang of the Venus Astroranger was in her grip. On the ground, the pink Astroranger used her left hand to hold back the Xyrth's neck while bringing up the arm holding the boomerang. "Sonic Boomerang Thunder Blow!" she called out as she flung it into the air. The Xyrth on top of her snapped its head around to look at the boomerang tumble through the blackness of the underground chamber. Looking through the black visor of their helmet masks, the yellow and red Astroranger knelt while looking up at the Sonic Boomerang rotate through the air. The faces of the Xyrth in the chamber followed the boomerang into the installation where the bioelectric transmitter was mounted as it crashed through the glass-like sphere atop the pedestal. Sparks sprayed out of the shattered crystal in a violent display of fireworks. The pink Astroranger noticed that the Xyrth on top of her was petrified so she pushed it off of herself and got up--grabbing her Moleculatom Weapon. In New York City, the Xyrth crawling through time square had suddenly frozen in front of the large Panasonic sign. The Yellowstone National Forest in Wyoming was being re-designed by additional Xyrth forming structures out of the earth itself when all of a suddenly their next movement slowed to a complete movement--all at once. Under the black sky on the surface of a rocky, red desert that the planet Mars was--Xyrth in the center of fields they have built up with both large and small structures became paralyzed before they could finish taking their next step. In the Grand Canyon in front of her castle, PHYR stood in front of ShogunAstro as it watched look from side to side. She screamed fiercely as she felt the millions of Xyrth in touch with her mind become suddenly silent. The sides of the canyon were covered with motionless Xyrth, leaving PHYR alone. ShogunAstro picked up its SolarAxe and swung down; sparks blasted out of PHYR's ribbed chest before a sideways slice caused another explosion to break from her body. Inside of ShogunAstro's cockpit, MercuryAstro pushed the talk button on his console and said, "You did it, guys but we have a new problem!" "Now what?" MarsAstro replied via his terminal's speakers. MercuryAstro looked at a graphical map on his console and said, "There are hundreds of thousands of unborn Xyrth within eggs stored in a cave close by. Find it and destroy them--quick!" MarsAstro replied. "We're on our way." Underground within the Xyrth's castle, made from raised Earth, the pink Astroranger kept her eyes on the Xyrth not moving while MarsAstro looked around to make sure none were coming. "I've found it!" said the yellow Astroranger. VenusAstro turned around and walked towards her. EarthAstro was holding her PortaScanner and looked up. "There's a huge chamber beyond that sealed wall behind where the transmitter used to be." MarsAstro walked beside her and looked at the wall. "Is it thin enough for us to get through?" "Echo tests are inconclusive," EarthAstro said. MarsAstro shook his head and stepped forward. "We have to do better than that. Galaxy Task Force Command: HydroCycle--ignition!" Another wall had suddenly burst forth as the red HydroCycle busted through as its headlight beamed ahead. Rocks fell from the wall after the motorcycle broke through and the red, yellow and pink Astrorangers turned around. MarsAstro leaped forward and put up his fist. "Let's do it!" On the brown, stone pavement--he put his white boots together and leaped up. In the blackness overhead, the red Astroranger flipped upside down before dropping feet first out of sight. On the red motorcycle, MarsAstro cranked the handle bars before driving forward. "Moleculatom Blaster--open fire!" His white gloved finger lifted up a clear, plastic cover to push the red, backlit button underneath with his thumb. On the other side of the wall, the stones had suddenly exploded into a massive dust cloud that the red Astroranger drove through on the red HydroCycle. On the ground, the bike's front tire stopped rolling and MarsAstro climbed off of his parked motorcycle. Standing by himself, the pink and yellow Astrorangers stood beside him on both sides as he looked up. They watched what he saw as EarthAstro said, "Damn." All around them was a slimy array of purple sacs that were glowing yellow off and on along with their frog-like expansions and contractions. All of them were joined by green vines that stretched along the walls and along the ceiling as well and this cave was deep. There were Xyrth embryos stretching into the darkness at the very end of this tunnel. VenusAstro looked at the others. "PHYR is one horny bitch, that's for sure." As the three of them stood watching, from behind their legs, there was a sac whose skin was hardening up into a shell. MarsAstro walked around while looking up at all of them. "How are we going to destroy this many of them?" The yellow Astroranger opened her PortaScanner and began to tap in some commands. The hardening shell in the corner was developing a crack that drew a crooked line in the middle of its oval shape. VenusAstro stopped walking and looked down. "I've got a bad feeling about this." "Sheratan," EarthAstro called. MarsAstro looked behind himself and said, "We can get them all if..." Suddenly, an alarm in her PortaScanner began to whine as she immediately brought her masked visor closer to the gray device. "What?!" VenusAstro quickly moved next to MarsAstro. "What is it, Beverly?" The shell on the ground suddenly split wide open in a gooey mess before a steel object flung itself out of the dark shell. Meanwhile, the yellow Astroranger's helmet was pointed down as she looked through her mask's black visor. "It seems like... Oogh!!!" her muffled voice grunted as the steel arm wrapped itself around her torso. On the ground, the PortaScanner dropped onto its side. The two Astrorangers reached out screaming. "Beverly!!" A small Xyrth was holding EarthAstro in midair with one of its arms as she screamed. "Ahh!!! Guys! Help me!!" "No!" VenusAstro cried in protest against the Xyrth's actions before lunging forward. MarsAstro reached out after the pink Astroranger. "Mina, wait!" VenusAstro charged towards the Xyrth but its metallic tail curled up and on its fang-like end, an arc of electricity was conducted between the two points before a lightning bolt pulsed ahead. VenusAstro stopped running when the top of her chest exploded from sparks followed by her shoulders. The pink Astroranger was frozen solid by the electricution as the sparks produced a cloud of smoke blocking her mask from sight. MarsAstro reached out shouting, "Andromina!" On the ground, VenusAstro dropped onto her back with her body smoldering as she cringed and writhed in pain while moaning. "FireSword!" the red Astroranger hollered while drawing the double sided weapon. The yellow Astroranger cried out, "Hurry!! It's--squeezing me to death!" MarsAstro shouted, "Haaai!" before swinging down. Once the blade of his sword cut down, he finished, "AH! Yah!!" Striking across, sparks exploded out of the arm holding EarthAstro before she fell from its grasp. The yellow Astroranger dropped to her hand and knee gasping. "Oh shit..." MarsAstro knelt down beside her. "Beverly, are you okay?" "Sheratan, look," she said--pointing ahead. The red Astroranger looked up and all across the massive hall were solid shells cracking as the noise grew louder. On the ground, the pink Astroranger pulled herself up off the stone pavement before shaking her helmet. "Guys? What's going on?" Suddenly looking up, she saw mucus-like lubrication drip from the cracked edges of the shells the Xyrth were developing in. The red and yellow Astrorangers hadn't taken their eyes off of what was above as they took cautious steps backward. Meanwhile, on the floor--a shell busted open before another metal arm pushed forward like a snake. VenusAstro's white boot was wrapped up by the end of the Xyrth's arm on the floor. The pink Astroranger screamed as she looked down before finding herself being pulled towards the creature. On her belt, VenusAstro grabbed the Moleculatom weapon and looked up and away from her ankle before opening fire. Sparks exploded from the Xyrth's arm before she cried. "Ow!! My foot!" The first Xyrth that attacked Beverly turned around on its six legs and fired another bolt of lightning from its metallic tail. A wall of sparks exploded after the red and yellow Astrorangers leaped out of the way. EarthAstro rolled over on her side before holding out her arm to fire a beam of electric blue light from the Moleculatom Weapon. Sparks rushed from the silver, metal exoskeleton of the Xyrth but it continued to approach them. The yellow Astroranger looked behind herself. "Sheratan! We have got to destroy this nest before we are overtaken by them!" "Right!" Standing in a smokey setting, stars appeared behind MarsAstro while red lines had drawn themselves to become the constellation of Aries. The planet Mars had faded into view when MarsAstro had turned his sword upside down into his left hand. "Celestial Weapon!" he shouted while running his white, gloved hand the length of the sword's blade. "Blazing FireSword!" The blade had become a red beam of light. Standing alone, the red Astroranger swung his sword forward, casting the red beam off the blade. The red, comet-shaped beam was casting light on the tunnel walls on its way to the absolute rear of the chamber--exposing the thousands of Xyrth waiting to be born. The cave began to tremble now as the yellow Astroranger looked around at the dust and rocks fall from above. Meanwhile, the quaking became worse and the yellow Astroranger was hardly able to stand. VenusAstro screamed, "This place is gonna blow!" Sparks blasted out of the walls as the surge of unregulated energy pulsed throughout the structure. "Let's get out of here!" MarsAstro ordered. The earth-made castle was disintegrating from the overload of power disbursing from its structure while sparks rained from above and blew out of the ground. Meanwhile, the yellow and red Astrorangers ran through the raining debris. MarsAstro climbed aboard his motorcycle. "Mina, Beverly--follow me!" He threw up the kick stand and cranked the handle bar of the red HydroCycle before driving away. Following him was VenusAstro on the pink HydroCycle and EarthAstro on the yellow Hydrocycle. In several chambers throughout the castle--fire exploded into the room from out of the wall, burning alive the paralyzed Xyrth. Meanwhile--in a tunnel, MarsAstro drove the red HydroCycle at its top velocity, leading the two Astrorangers behind him. Ahead was a white light coming from the exit of the castle and the red Astroranger glanced behind himself. "We're almost there!" As the red, pink and yellow motorcycles buzzed by--fire was rushing through the tunnel behind them. In the blue sky overhead--MarsAstro drove into the air followed by VenusAstro and EarthAstro. On the off-road dirt path, their three tires rolled to a halt as the body jerked up from the sudden stop. Sitting on their motorcycles, the three Astrorangers looked dead ahead as sparks shot out of the outer walls of the falling castle. Smoke and dust was rising as the towers were falling while even more sparks spewed from remaining portions still standing. Once fallen, a bright orange flash was followed by a fire ball erupting into a massive explosion--extending into a tower of flames over two hundred meters tall. Black smoke lifted from off the flames as the incredible and impressive destruction of the Xyrth castle all but deafened all within a mile of the site of detonation. PHYR watched the gigantic torch that her castle had become as ShogunAstro stepped forward. The giant robot looked down and, on the ground below--the three Astrorangers looked up at the team aboard the cockpit. JupiterAstro stood up and gave a thumbs up. "I don't know how you did it, Sheratan but we're all glad you did!" The red Astroranger looked up and saluted. "You ready to trash this thing?" SaturnAstro nodded affirmatively as JupiterAstro replied. "You bet!" Looking from side to side, MarsAstro said. "OK everybody: let's go!" After he leaped into the air, the pink and yellow Astrorangers looked at each other and nodded affirmatively before jumping up. In the sky overhead, the red Astroranger ascended out of sight before the two female Astrorangers followed him up. Aboard of the cockpit--the three Astrorangers dropped into their seats and placed their hands on the controls. Still injured, PHYR began to run after ShogunAstro with her bat-winged arms out and elongated neck holding her head down to ram the mighty robot. At the center of the cockpit, MarsAstro said. "All together now!" "SolarAxe SuperNova Strike!" the Galaxy Task Force shouted. While standing in front of a field of stars in space, ShogunAstro swung the sword around in a 360-degree circle with its blade of light forming an image of the zodiac. And, as the giant, multi-colored warrior robot held the SolarAxe high, ShogunAstro cut straight down through the center of the circle. A yellow streak of light sliced diagonally through PHYR's body as she slipped off of her foot and, before it fell on its bottom, the gigantic Xyrth had burst into flames. The explosion bringing a black cloud of smoke into the sky. The candle lit interior of a concrete bunker underground housed families, sharing rations, water and a thinning supply of clothes and few options for bathing. Gathered around a chemically powered radio receiver built decades ago, they heard a static-burdened broadcast emanating from a shortwave radio transmission. As heard on the station, the announcer said, "have stopped their attack. Repeat, all activity by the unknown creatures have ended." Shocked and happy faces from the unkempt men, women and children lit up as they began to scream of joy and disbelief that it was over--and that it had ever happened. Others embraced one another as tears streamed down the cheeks of any. "According to international sources still in operation, the..." the announcer was saying until the noise within the shelter grew too loud for any to hear the totality of the broadcast. ShogunAstro stood behind the fire burning from PHYR's flaming skeletal remains in the hot, desert canyon. Within its cockpit, the six Astrorangers stood up immediately before cheering. VenusAstro jumped for joy with both of her fists up while EarthAstro happily hooted. The black and white Astrorangers high-fived each other while JupiterAstro gave the red Astroranger a hug--all grunting various things in celebration of their success. "All right, guys--let's go!" MarsAstro said before the Galaxy Task Force leaped up and away. The red and green Astrorangers free fell out of the sky before the black and white Astrorangers somersaulted out of the air with the pink and yellow Astrorangers dropping behind them. In front of the towering robot behind them, the six Astrorangers had landed. MarsAstro turned to his side and looked to the sky with his hand on the side of his helmet. "Commander Leto, this is Sheratan. We did it!" JupiterAstro nodded with SaturnAstro as the pink and yellow Astrorangers were practically holding their breath with suspense. "Commander Leto, this is Sheratan Kasei," MarsAstro said, "do you read me?" MercuryAstro stepped forward. "What's wrong?" "I don't know but I want to know what's going on," the red Astroranger replied. Alone in the blackness of outer space, the moon's light gray surface was illuminated by unshielded sunlight reflecting from its powered terrain. In the ceiling were six tubes that were illuminated by lights built into the aluminum-like walls of the corridor leading out of the crater. Below it were six metal slides, angled up and suspended above the exhaust trenches below the platform that surrounded the AstroShuttles mounted on the launch pads and led to the remaining floor of this lunar base. The three-story tall walls were lined with catwalks and stair cases except for the forward wall. There were four elevators in all corners of the lunar base that led to booths behind the walls below the ceiling while over two stories below, the main entrance was in fact a hallway with two large freight doors. In their jump suit uniforms--Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta, Andromina and Beverly walked inside in a rush before the doors closed. Sheratan called out, "Commander!" "Commander Leto!" Australis followed. The six of them were on the white platform below as Nashiran looked around. "Commander, where are you?" With the ceiling above Messuta, his eyes scanned the walls above where the control booths were. Something was in the window that he saw so he looked over at the others. "Hey, look up there!" he shouted, pointing at the booth he spotted. Sheratan looked up as well. "Come on, guys!" He ran forward followed by the other five. Inside of the control room, light came from the outside as more shined from the door opening on the right side of the booth. Sheratan looked ahead and paused with confusion. "What?" Nobody was on the chair but there was a note written in Utonian, the language of Terraina. Sheratan picked up and Australis and Nashiran watched him read it. "Astrorangers, I hope you are reading this because it means you are alive and that you have succeeded in your mission," Sheratan read out loud--translating it to English for Beverly's sake. "I have been taken to Biorecovery Center 335 as scheduled. (What?)" Sheratan read faster, "My final time is today but do not worry. All that depends on me has been resolved at the Uton Defense Force well in advance." "We have to go right now!" Messuta said. Nashiran nodded. "I hope it isn't already too late." Underground on the MagWay, oncoming and outgoing vehicles sailed over the metal pavement where the magnetic light tracks under the glass segments held the MagLev vehicles in their own lane. The magnetic repulsion giving the highly aerodynamic vehicles the ability to quickly reach high velocity. The speed limit on the main MagWay's were the equivalent of 100 kilometers per hour. Up ahead was a digital sign which, translated, displayed: BIO-RECOVERY CENTER 335 - NON-EMERGENCY ENTRANCE - VISITOR LANE. This was behind other signs such as EMERGENCY ENTRANCE - VISITORS and EMERGENCY ENTRANCE - BIOTRUCKS ONLY. This way traffic was effectively separated into the triple-layer lots below the dome building above. A groove in the walkway attached to the wall led to the pool of anchored magnetic levitation vehicles in this lot--as if floating on water. Floating through a gap in the hundreds of vehicles here was a sleek red vehicle with Sheratan's hands on the manual controls inside. Inside of the lobby for non-emergency visits, the main entrance featured six tubes with a cutaway front. On the right and left side, there were large screens displaying digital video broadcasts from two separate data streams or channels. Below them, there were wrap-around couches that faced transparent platforms holding terminals running old computer games. Finally, a bell chimed from one of the tubes that became illuminated by a glowing light behind the perl-colored shaft. A large round lift brought up Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta and Beverly. They walked out of the cutaway of the tube, one of six and approached a window in a wall next to a pair of heavy doors on the left and right side. Sheratan approached one of the windows and showed a golden rectangle bearing a silver, engraved logo of the Uton Defense department. "Galaxy Task Force Astroranger, Sheratan Kasei. We're here to see Commander Lyonix Leto." Below the glass portrait window, the caretaker in a white uniform typed something into the membrane keyboard console embedded into her workstation. Her terminal displayed a table of information that she read and then looked at Sheratan again. "Stand back and place your hand on the scanner," she said through the speakers on the left and right side of the window via a condenser microphone. Sheratan looked down and a plastic-like surface was rolled out of a slot that had opened under the window and a yellow light came on. It immediately changed to green so Sheratan flatly laid his hand on the surface. The status indicator changed to green as a blue light scanned up from the bottom of the pad up to the top. After that concluded, the status indicator changed to red. Sheratan took his hand off of the platform and it rolled back inside of the wall. She looked at the scan appear on her computer and nodded. "Okay, place all metal objects inside of the cabinet once unlocked." Next to the speaker was a door with a handle on it that was below two similar status indicator. The red light beside a word which, translated, meant 'Locked' changed to a green light next to the word 'Unlocked'. Sheratan turned the handle and opened it to put in a hand full of objects. Once he closed the door, it became locked again and the caretaker on the other side within her white booth opened the door to pick up the objects with tongs. She deposited them within a bag and said, "Okay, Kasei--please step into the purification chamber directly to your right. Next?" Sheratan walked over to the large heavy door with the small window in the front and pulled it open with both hands. A loud air-pressure noise hissed as the thick door slowly opened. Sheratan stepped up inside of the chamber as the door closed itself. Facing him was another thick door but it wasn't going to open until the rays from the beam guns above were finished eliminating known germs and bacteria--among other impurities. A long hall became visible with sliding glass doors, blurred for privacy with designated chamber coordinates imprinted on them. That sector's attendant saw Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta and Beverly walking out of the lobby and started to walk up to them. "Which chamber are you visiting?" she asked. "T1E," Sheratan answered. The sector attendant nodded and turned around. "Follow me." She walked forward and the others walked behind her. A slot next to the door with a red light was changed to green when a silver, credit-card sized card was pushed half-way into that slot. And the ten-button keypad above it was dialed five times before the attendant stood up and said, "You may proceed for twenty milli-chrons." "We'll only be a few moments," Messuta assured her. She smiled and turned around before the others glanced at each other, anxiously. They were almost too afraid to walk inside for fear of what they might see. However, Sheratan was more curious than afraid of what he might see and so, became the first to approach that door. Once he walked towards it, it slid back into the wall and--on the other side, the bio-recovery chamber was a room that was brightly lit from above but everything else was blacked out. On the elevated platform were mechanical instruments with organic contents connected to a glass box inside suspended from above by four cables. The box contained a communications interface and a posture-balanced mattress and head-rest for the patient, identified by the information computer mounted on the top of the bio-case. The only way in being through the bottom of this case, all of the sealing utilized through this facility--one of thousands world wide was developed by Terranian's to make sure the patient is not infected by the outside world and visa versa. Beverly watched Messuta approach the physician monitoring the vital signs of Lyonix Leto. "What have you found?" "He only has but a few moments." Inside of the biocase was Lyonix, looking pail but in no pain. Australis, Sheratan and Nashiran approached the biocase. Lyonix looked up at them with a quiet smile. "You're alive..." Sheratan nodded affirmatively. "You succeeded?" he asked. Australis nodded as well. "We were going to tell you, sir, but we discovered your note." "Words cannot express how much gratitude I feel to know this before my time here has passed," Lyonix told them all. Messuta and Beverly were both disturbed by this comment as they knew the end of an era was approaching. Nashiran asked, "Commander... Lyonix; who will succeed you?" Looking over at Australis, he said, "Australis Mokusei." Australis' eyes opened wide. "Me? But--why?" Lyonix took a breath before smiling again. "Your years of consistently dedicated service to the Uton Defense Force are better than any credentials attainable in training." Sheratan put his hand on Australis' shoulder, causing him to look at Sheratan. "Why didn't you tell us you were going to die today?" Nashiran asked. "We all know our date of ending a while before too long." Sighing, Lyonix nodded. "I know. I didn't want to take your minds away from what mattered most." "We understand," Sheratan said. "Beverly," Lyonix called; standing next to Messuta, she walked forth. Then standing next to the his biocase, Beverly look at him as he saw her through the transparent surface. "History has been made by your contribution to the Astroranger force. Now, humans will be forever recognized as our equal and not subordinate." With a hand on her chest, Beverly said, "But I'm half-Terranian as well." Lyonix shook his head. "It doesn't matter, Beverly. Your mind is human." Suddenly, he inhaled sharply and Messuta walked forward to join the rest standing next to his bed as the physician and his assistant stood on the other side of the biocase. "Sheratan, take care of Lotia and the being she is releasing into life on Terrania," Lyonix said. "Nashiran, I will never forget every sacrifice you made for us. Without your help, a whole world may have ceased to exist." Nashiran nodded affirmatively. Lyonix looked down and over at Messuta. "Help Australis, Messuta. He will be a great commander and your assistance to him as it was over ten years ago will become more important now than ever." Taking another deep breath with his eyes closed before looking straight up. "With all this as it is, my mission is complete. I can rest in peace." Silence came over the chamber as the seven people on the platform next to Lyonix Leto's suspended biocase watched intently. The line graph on a monitor's display screen originally arching upwards per segment became straight per segment while seven bar graphs on another screen had begun to slowly fall to the line the bars stood on. The light within the biocase reflected from the faces of the Astrorangers as Sheratan, Australis, Nashiran, Messuta and Beverly looked down into the case. Her eyes were moist before sniffing. In the white hallway, the steel door slowly opened as the five of them were walked out by the hall attendant. After she closed the door, the attendant raised her arm in the direction of the exit and Australis nodded. "Thank you." "You're welcome." Together, the five of them walked down the hallway between the doors to chambers where others were being held. Behind them, another physician hurriedly walked behind them. "Sheratan Kasei?" he voice echoed through the white hall. Sheratan indeed turned around. "Yes?" The physician sighed of relief. "I thought that was you I saw in the entrance photo log. When I asked if the father of a woman's baby was in the building, they said he wasn't which is unusual but when I had them check for you, the receptionist said you were here." Sheratan shook his head and looked startled and confused. "What?? Wait! What's this all about?" "Come with me." Blackness was split by an ever widening column of light until a door was half way open; on the other side, seeing into the chamber, Sheratan saw Lotia lying in a regular bed holding a bald, baby in her arms. Lotia looked up at Sheratan with a serene smile on her face. Beverly and Australis on his left with Nashiran and Messuta on Sheratan's left, followed him into the chamber as the physician who delivered the child closed the door. As Sheratan approached Lotia's bed, she softly said, "It's a miracle." Standing in front of the others, the physician sighed and looked at his accomplishment. "I have only had one other situation like this but fortunately that gave me the experience to deal with this." "What do you mean?" Sheratan asked. The physician cocked his head. "For whatever reason, the delivery of this one was complicated due to physical trauma. However, for ambiguous reasons, this boy is healthy." After looking at the doctor, Sheratan smiled and then looked at the baby in Lotia's arms. When she noticed his expression, Lotia asked, "Would you like to hold him?" Sheratan nodded and reached down while Beverly and the others watched with anticipation. He stood up again with the boy in a small, soft body suit in his arms and looked into his eyes. "Oh, man." Looking up at everyone, he smiled brightly and cheerfully said, "I'm a father." Under the ceiling of a warehouse where there were many catwalks, lamps hung from the steel beams overhead that lit the paved floor below. Large boxes were stacked against the wall with mobile equipment vehicles such as forklifts, cranes and bulldozers were parked inside. More of them were outside of the open hanger door on the wet lot, illuminated to a bluish white hue by the night street lamps and beacon lights on the front of the warehouse. Inside, Andromina came out of a back flip before leaping into backward handsprings. Again in her black, baggy jump suit, Mina began to roundhouse forward again before turning into a tornado kick and landing to drop into a sweep kick. When Mina stood up, she pushed her elbow back before ducking and then hurricane kicking twice before front kicking forward and punching ahead. "Solo's cool but having a partner is a lot more fun," said Messuta standing at the large front doors. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, Andromina pulled down the hood of her outfit and continued to breath deeply. "I'm just working out." Messuta nodded as he walked in. "I know, I saw. I was hoping to join in and maybe sharpen my own shadow sparring skills." Grabbing a towel off of one of the crates in the warehouse, Mina pressed the clothe on her face. "That's why you came here? I thought the Uton Government wanted to use me again." Messuta looked away and tried to shrug the harshness off as apart of her abrasive personality. "You know, Mina; I learned a thoughtful phase while working on Earth ten years ago." Still drying herself off, Mina waited to hear this special statement. "You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar," Messuta replied. "And, on Earth--vinegar is sour whereas honey is sweet." Andromina grinned. "Yeah, but, aren't flies bugs? And don't they try to avoid them?" "That's not my point," Messuta tried to say to some degree of lightness. "Andromina, You come off as really aggressive, almost as if you're over compensating for some.." Mina scoffed. "Not even." Messuta stepped forward. "So why are you always so..." "So--what?" Mina interrupted. Messuta sighed. Mina sighed too. "Listen. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, Messuta. It's just that, well, I saw what happened to you guys. All my life I thought you guys were living the life of royalty because of that mission but I started to realize, especially after fighting the Xyrth--that was no picnic. And, if any of you had've known this before going to Earth, high explosives couldn't blow you across that dimensional gateway." Messuta laughed. She stepped forward. "I just have a little bit too much interest in my own life to sign it away to the government. Even if it is for the greater good." Messuta nodded. "It's not for everyone." "Besides, someone's bound to do it because the glory is that important to them," Mina replied. "But that's not why I came here, Mina." Looking away for a moment, she pondered why and then looked at him before asking, "What?" Messuta stepped forward. "Andromina, you had no idea you were dazzling me with your skills aboard the AstroShip. But you're not only knowledgeable, but an amazing fighter and very attractive." Mina did not know how to respond to that. "I've never felt that kind of a connection with such a pretty yet thought provoking young lady, Mina. I'd really like to keep in touch with you," Messuta added. Andromina looked down and away, unable to decide what to tell him. Large birds in the blue sky of the horizon descended on the sandy shores of Santa Monica beach a warm late spring day. Families and friends had picnics, played ball games and tossed frisbee while, in the low tide, children frolicked in the foamy waves next to the long, tall pier. There, people fished, ate at cafes, danced, went on various rides including a ferris wheel and a roller coaster. Meanwhile on the sand was a blue beach chair under a large umbrella, and only wearing a yellow swimsuit and sunglasses on her head, Beverly Tenmei was reading a book. The coastal wind blew stronger for a moment, and, after pulling her black hair from her face, Beverly's almond eyes scrolled from word to word. Rows of parked cars ranging from compact, sedan and luxury to trucks, vans and sport-utility vehicles behind the fence below the cliff where Ocean Boulevard ran beneath an elaborate bridge near Ocean Park. From one of the hotels seen in the city of Santa Monica walked the older gentleman that Tenmei had met before. Father of two and unmarried since the loss of his wife to the Astroranger wars of 1997, Mister Robert McLaughlin was more known for his achievement in the recovery of the Saturn V Rocket plans and the birth of the Saturn VI rocket and SkyLab--unfortunately destroyed by the arrival of the ancient Xyrth one year ago. Back in California on Memorial Day weekend, McLaughlin found himself walking between everyone in a hawaiian shirt and white pants. Sipping on the straw in a thermos from out of a straw picnic basket beside her, Beverly put down the ice thai tea she brought and turned another page in her book. "Good story?" Beverly looked up and saw Robert looking down at her with a serene smile. "Robert," she happily said. As Beverly layed a bookmark between pages and closed the hardcover book, Robert knelt down in front of her. "This is my last day in California and I asked around to see if you were still here too." "How long have you been here looking for me?" Robert shrugged. "Today... A couple of hours. Can't tell you how good it felt to finally see your face again." Beverly smiled. "Beverly, what happened after you hid me at the observatory?" Robert asked. Beverly sighed. "Well, I was called away to deal with rioting breaking out just before those creatures arrived. Then we took to the shelters and that's when the Astrorangers came." Looking to the sand, Robert nodded. "What happened to you?" she asked him. Sighing, Robert answered, "Well, you'll never believe this, but, I caught a ride with this guy heading up to an airfield in Lancaster and got a private airplane ride back to Hartford." "Wow!" Beverly gasped. Robert nodded. "I'm completely serious; we stopped a few times but the airports were deserted, there was no bus or train service and the taxi cabs disappeared. I didn't have a choice but hope the ATMs were still turned on and working to get enough cash out to pay the guy who drove and flew me all the way home to find my kids." Beverly shook her head. "Damn. I can hardly believe that happened now since everything is virtually back to normal. We've rebuilt so quickly." Robert smirked. "That's great--I was just happy they got my gas, water and power turned back on before my food spoiled and my clothes got too rank." Beverly laughed. Running up to her in a blue bikini was Sasha Castillo and knelt down. "Hey, sorry I took so long. I couldn't find this in the car but now that I have it on, let's go swimming!" "What was wrong with your sweater and jeans?" Beverly sarcastically asked. Sasha laughed. "Uh, hey--is this your sister?" Robert assumed by the like hair color and similar eyes. Looking at each other, Sasha grinned before Beverly looked at Robert. "Um, not quite." "We're friends," Sasha immediately piped up. Robert shook his head and smiled. Sasha stood up before Beverly and asked, "Well, ready to go?" "Yup!" Beverly answered when suddenly Sasha ran away. "Hey!" Beverly shouted. "You're not beating me to the finish like that, Sasha!" Down the sands, Beverly ran after Sasha past a man building a sand castle and Robert looked ahead, shaking his head while chuckling. At the tide, the sunlight made Sasha and Beverly into silhouettes in front of the sparkling pacific ocean as they jumped over the waves. Water splashed up as their legs leaped farther into the waters. Robert pulled up a small Kodak camera and looked through the viewfinder to see Beverly jump up before diving in. Gears in the camera automatically exposed the film and framed her. Beverly was there, in midair, with her hair tossed and water droplets surrounding her leaping legs framed forever in this photograph. In culver city--a small house surrounded by a beautiful garden of flowers ranging the rainbow in colors was in front of the newly paved sidewalk and road were a green Toyota was parked. On the mailbox was an engraved sign: Sara Berg as a man in a black dress shirt and jeans walked in front of it. Inside of the house within the living room behind the front door, the sound of a doorbell chimed and Sara herself walked up to it. Nashiran stood on the front porch as the door opened before seeing the long, black-haired lady in all of the beauty he'd remembered over a decade ago. "Hello, Sara." After a long pause in a paralyzing state of shock, she gasped, "Tom???" T H E E N D [#990303] Cast: MarsAstro, red Astroranger Sheratan Kasei (a.k.a. Dave Marcello) JupiterAstro, green Astroranger Australis Mokusei (a.k.a. Will Richards) SaturnAstro, black Astroranger Nashiran Dosei (a.k.a. Tom Nevison) MercuryAstro, white Astroranger Messuta Suisei (a.k.a. Ron Michaeli) VenusAstro, pink Astroranger Lotia Kinsei (a.k.a. Amy Levin) Andromina Tenbinza EarthAstro, yellow Astroranger Beverly Tenmei Aaron Hanson Commander Lyonix Leto Sasha Castillo Linda Castillo Kathy Sanchez Franklyn Mahoney Peter Lum Robert McLaughlin Rebecca McLaughlin Anderson McLaughlin John Madison Songs by Dairenn Lombard and Valerie Lombard Original Score Composed and Arranged by Dairenn Lombard Art Direction Ondre Lombard Production Design Online Design, Inc. Narrative Action Consultants Kouichi Sakamoto Jeff Pruitt Pat Johnson Peter Bell Charlie Picerni Creative Consultants Russell Lum Matthew Williams Internet Distribution Services Base IX Communications Songs ASTRORANGER Produced and Performed by Dairenn Lombard POWER OF THE GALAXY Produced by Vince DiCola Arranged and Performed by Dairenn Lombard SUDDENLY SO STRONG Produced and Performed by Dairenn Lombard Arranged by Katherine Fisher CLOSER THAN FRIENDS Arranged and Produced by Dairenn Lombard Performed by Lynda Gulliver GO EARTH ASTRO Arranged and Performed by Dairenn Lombard Produced by Aaron Waterman DEADLY STRIKE Arranged and Performed by Dairenn Lombard Produced by James Cushinery UNTIL IT'S GONE Produced by Dairenn Lombard Arranged and Performed by Valerie Lombard SHOW NO MERCY Arranged and Performed by Dairenn Lombard Produced by Glen Tipton and K. K. Downing Music Recorded and Mixed by Dairenn Lombard Nelson A. Pacheco Music Recorded at G-BOY STUDIOS, Hawthorne, California Sound Effects by Russell Brower Title Design Amritaloka Trailokya Technical Consultants Hideo Miyake Akemi Kishita Shouichi Takeuchi Yuki Sasaki Robert Chou Steven Rival Dennis Ostrovsky Aaron Coleman Shirley Comroe Eugene Glover Special Equipment Controlers and Sequencers Lombard MicroSystems, LTD Fatar, Music Industries Corporation Roland Corporation, USA Boss, Roland Corporation, USA Steinberg Cakewalk Music Software, Inc. Digital Audio Recording E-muSystems, Inc. TASCAM, TEAC America, Inc. ADB Laboratories, Inc. Event Electronics, Inc. Analog Audio Recorders Sony Corporation of America Synthesizers Kurzweil--Young Chang America, Inc. Roland Corporation, USA E-muSystems, Inc. Korg USA, Inc. Effects Processing Mackie Designs, Inc. Lexicon, Inc. Behringer Microphones Shure Brothers, Inc. Monitoring Yamaha Corporation of America Roland Corporation, USA Halfer, Rockford Corporation Special Thanks to Marc Miyake Ron Wasserman Harmon Caldwell Los Angeles Police Department Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles National Passenger Rail Corporation West L.A. Music Thomas Brothers, Inc. (c)MCMXCIX ARTIST BROTHERS All Rights Reserved "Galaxy Task Force Astro Ranger" is a trademark of Artist Bros. The above text is protected under laws of the United States and and other countries. Unauthorized duplication, distribution or exhibition may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution. Country Of First Publication: United States of America. Artist Bros., Inc. and Dairenn Lombard are the author of the preceding text. The characters and events depicted in this story are fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional. This copyright notice does not extend to infringe upon the existing copyrights for `Super-Sentai' titles maintained by Toei Company LTD., Toei Agency, Toei International, Asahi-TV, Marvel Comics and Ishimori Productions. Soundtrack Available on cassette and compact disc from Artist Bros. Music Distributed by Artist Bros. Entertainment This story is considered rated PG-13.