[970805]
                                                                      [Preview]
The most diabolical plot ever..  A trap is set on Jupiter for the Astrorangers
by the Nazitans while Pleadia's new machine becomes the death of JupiterAstro!
Today, in Episode 34, "Final Destiny!  Australis is Lost".

                                                                  [Title Theme]


Artist Bros. Enterprises presents . . .

                        GALAXY TASK FORCE ASTRO RANGER
                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Starring...

         Sheratan Kasei, a.k.a., Dave Marcello.  MarsAstro!

         Australis Mokusei, a.k.a., Will Richards.  JupiterAstro!

         Nashiran Dosei, a.k.a., Tom Nevison.  SaturnAstro!

         Messuta Suisei, a.k.a., Ron Michaeli.  MercuryAstro!

         Lotia Kinsei, a.k.a., Amy Leven.  VenusAstro!

         Beverly Tenmei.  EarthAstro!

  and... Commander Leto, a.k.a., Dr. Aaron Hanson.

  Featuring...

         Detective Frank Mahoney and Detective Kathy Sanchez.

 with... Captain Tony Fleishman.



  ACT I:

     It was crisp and cool in Los Angeles but still sunny in the Hollywood
Hills where the Terranian residence was.  Inside of the three-bedroom home, Tom
was in the room he shared with Dave talking on the telephone.  Dave walked in
through the door left ajar eating an apple.
  Tom turned around to see Dave sit down on his bed and read a magazine.  "Yes,
I'm listening. ...  Yeah, I'm open this afternoon, when did you want me to come
by?"  Dave didn't find his noon lunch of merely an apple satisfying but didn't
feel like complaining to Amy.
  "Six o'clock?  Sure, that sounds good.  . . .  Thanks, I'll try to be on
time.  ...  okay bye."  Tom hung up and went to the closet.
  "It's a quarter past noon," Dave said.  "Who could be calling you?"
  Tom went through his clothes.  "A client of mine and she was calling from
work."
  "Okay, Tom.  But why are you choosing clothes now?  You could just throw on
your usual work clothes, jump in the truck and whack some weeds."
  "I'm not gardening, I'm just visiting," Tom told him while choosing ties.
  Dave nodded.  Suddenly `just visiting' dawned on him and he looked back at
Tom.  "Just visiting?  I thought socializing with the natives wasn't on your
agenda."
  "We've been here for nine months.  People's priorities can change," Tom
replied. "I'm just stopping by to chat.  I don't have anything else to do today
so I decided I would see her."
  Dave grins and shakes his head.  "You would jump down my throat with both
feet if I said that."
  "Huh?"
  "Tom...  When I was going to see Beverly, I didn't act like this is something
that I do everyday," Dave explained.  "And you still criticized me for seeing a
non-Terranian.  Now, out of the blue..."
  "Dave, this is different," Tom interrupted.  "I am in no way romantically
interested in Sara."
  Dave cocked a sly grin and arched an eyebrow.  "Sara?"
  Tom sighed, knowing he said too much.  "You know, Dave; this really isn't any
of your business anyway."
  Dave chuckled.  "If you say so, Tom.  But you know that you wouldn't be
caught dead giving a human the time of day!  Let alone, stopping over for some
milk and cookies."
  "Your sarcasm isn't appreciated," Tom grumbled.  Dave laughed even more.


                                  Episode 34:
                      "Final Destiny!  Australis is Lost"                     

     In the far reaches of Earth's solar system is Pluto where underneath its
surface remained the many chambers of the Nazitan Outpost.  Inside of Pleadia's
laboratory, across the hall from his workshop, Ginara and Igan stood by as
Pleadia handled a rifle like weapon with numerous buttons, knobs, switches and
indicators of various color.  Ginara was impressed.  "I take it this is some
new armor piercing laser emitter?"
  Pleadia was smiling but then frowned at what he thought was a patronizing
comment.  "No," he said with disgust.  "This is a particle frequency
accelerator.  It is similar to the multi-dimensional transporter we use here at
the base to send Cyborgs to various different dimensions of other planets."
  "So why did you build this?" Igan asked.
  "Because this is portable.  The dimensional transporter requires an enormous
amount of power and occupies the entire lower-level of this outpost," Pleadia
said.  "With this, you can push objects up slightly behind the frequency of
this dimension causing it to disappear and pass through different material."
  "This is a remarkable tool, Pleadia," Ginara remarked.  "What are some of the
tactical advantages you were considering for the PFA?"
  "I say we test this out on an Astroranger and see what happens.  If we can
get him or her to believe he or she is dead, they will be powerless to stop
us," Pleadia answered.  "Even if they know they're not dead, there wont be
anything they can do because, as far as this world is concerned, they are
nothing but stray neutrons flying through space.  Not real matter."
  Igan nodded.  "Agreed.  I believe our best way of drawing out the Astroranger
battle team is by sending a troop of Armatons to the city on Earth and when..."
  "No no no, that's tired, Igan," Ginara interrupted.  "Tortan and I should go
to Jupiter."
  "But Ginara, we have yet to survey that planet for the solar sphere," Pleadia
said.  "And we have already lost the Saturn solar sphere."
  Ginara frowned.  "Don't you think I know that?  The Astrorangers will believe
that we are going to Jupiter for its solar sphere because they seem to be aware
of our movements.  However, instead of a search, when they arrive--Tortan will
ambush the Astroranger task force."

     Seven o'clock in the evening, the stars were out in the night sky above
Culver City.  In the green, tree-lined neighborhood was Sara Bergstrom's house.
Here, a nicely dressed Tom knocked on her front door and a little while later
it opened.  In a slim sun dress, Sara modestly smiled while greeting him. "Come
in."  Tom walked inside and she continued in to turn off the television. 
  Tom sat down.  "The sun set early today," he said to make small talk.
  Sara nodded.  "Yeah, I don't like how, towards the end of the year, the days
get shorter and the nights get longer because when you come home from work, you
can't go to the park to spend the last hours of daylight in the sun."
  "I often like to go the park alone at night," Tom replied.  "It gives me a
chance to think and often I write my songs there."
  Sara smiled.  "I'd go at night too, but then I'd need a can of mace."
  "Hehe," Tom lightly chuckled.
  "It's weird to see you smile," Sara commented.  "You hardly ever do it but
when you do, it looks nice."
  "Sara--you're a charming young lady.  I can't see how any man could ever let
you go," Tom said.
  Sara sat down as well.  "I don't think I would let my ex hang on to me.  It's
kind of weird how things turn out, you know...  I think one of the worst thing
that ever happened between us is when we and a couple of others ran a computer
users group."
  Tom leaned forth.  "Why?  What happened?"
  "It wasn't too popular at the time.  However, having a small club made it so
we were a small family of friends," Sara explained.  "Now, at many of our
meetings, people would invite friends to the club.  What we would do at
gatherings would be to try and recommend new software, new hardware and share
advice as well."
  Tom nodded.  "Uh huh..."
  "Now, many of us who ran the club invited people to come by all the time, but
it would be up to me, my husband and two other guys to add people to the CU
Group," she explained.  Sara rolled her eyes.  "One day, Ryan, my ex, had told
a guest he brought that he'd add him to the club and did.  But, he did this
without asking me or any of the two CU Administrators so I removed Stephen, the
guy Ryan signed in, from the club."
  "Right, of course; he was never supposed to be added to begin with," Tom
replied.
  Sara nodded.  "Exactly.  So, anyway, Stephen finds out that he was removed
but nobody told him and thus, he feels the group handled this situation poorly
and decides to found his own computer users' group.  This has been done before,
mainly cause they've always felt our user group to be too restrictive."
  Tom squinted in confusion.  "Restrictive?"
  "Like, I wouldn't allow any alcohol at the meetings, no cigarette smoke and
people wanted to trade 'warez'."
  "Warez??" he interrupted.
  "Uh, heh--that's slang for pirated computer software; stolen, basically,"
Sara said.  "So anyway, Stephen starts the South Bay Computer Users Group; we
were the West LA Computer Users' Group.  Now, he starts doing what our group
wouldn't allow and our members started leaving the club to join his."
  "They just turned their backs on you?  After being there all that time?"
  Sara smiled sadly.  "I guess you don't actually know who your friends really
are until you need them the most.  Eventually, Ryan joined Stephen's club and I
was furious."
  "Naturally," Tom interjected.  "Your husband wasn't likely to do this."
  Sara sighed.  "He never really left us but he joined an organization that had
become popular off results of our efforts.  We started an all new awareness of
the Internet, and UNIX and so on and so forth.  And now, Stephen founds this
copy-cat group that gets members that our group worked very hard to get first."
Sara sniffed.  "And to top it all off, Ryan joins _them_ and goes to help
_them_ become better.  And now, when people look about the various user groups
in L.A., they see how small we are and how big they and other groups are.
Obviously, they go to join the others instead of us."
  "I wish I could say I am surprised, Sara but I'm not," Tom said.  "Did you
try and make things right?  Set the record straight?"
  "Yeah.  Sure," she answered.  "Time would go by, old members would leave, new
members would join and the stories of the past were long dead.  And Ryan and
Stephen are, like, ``everything's fine, nothing ever happened.''  But everybody
knows West LA Computer Users Group was screwed over and I knew it too.  But you
know what?  There isn't anything anybody can do about it now."
  "These sad incidents are why I've kept my distance from people," Tom replied
to her.
  Sara nods.  "I know.  This is why I didn't want him to contest our divorce.
That and many other situations made it so that when I asked for one, he agreed.
I'm glad there was no struggle; no huge battle."
  Tom looked down and nodded.  "I could understand something like this
happening to somebody like me; but, Ryan treating you this badly, especially
after pledging his love to you, is, actually, disturbingly surprising."
  "I guess it's just how life works, Tom; there are guys out there who are
right next to worshiping the ground a woman's just walked over and they get
married to those only to be taken advantage of," Sara replied.  "Meanwhile,
girls like me who just want an honest relationship get stuck with these
two-faced con artists."  Tom nodded.
  "But, no...  It's not truly surprising.  I've always had bad luck with
people as well," Sara mentioned.  "How come you say it's surprising for this to
happen to me but not for you, Tom?"
  "Well, I never really ever thought of myself as unique so I just saw people
that liked to do what I liked to do and try to become their friend," Tom
explained.  "But as soon as I would try, then I'd have to befriend each and
every one of his friends and their friends too."
  "Yeah," Sara agreed.
  "And no matter what it is that I do, it seemed like there would always be
somebody to say that I am wrong.  I do not know what I am talking about," Tom
mentioned.  "So I'd stay out of everybody else's way and if anybody wanted to
be my friend, then fine...  They could but not surprisingly, nobody would."
  Sara cocked her head.  "How long ago did you notice this?"
  "For as long as I can remember associating with others," Tom answered.  "Only
reason I'm with the people I know now is because I work with them in some form
or another.  But, I can't really be me.  In some ways, we're like a family."
  "Yeah.  They're the only group of people you can live around and feel strange
trying to be yourself around," Sara replied.  "I mean, really being open."
  Tom nodded.  "Yeah."
  Sara stood up and walked towards the kitchen.  "Debbie and Megan (you
remember me mentioning them, right?)..."
  Tom nodded again. "(Yeah sure...)"
  "The reason I've been able to stick with them so long and vise versa is that
we all seem to be outside everyone's concept of what a woman should be," Sara
said from the kitchen.  Returning to the doorway, she opened a can of root
beer.  "Maybe I need to start a new club; friends of the un-befriendable."
  Tom laughed.  Sara smiled and walked, her foot swung into a speaker attached
to her stereo system and stubbed her toe.  "Oww...  Argh!"  Tom got up to see
if she'd cut her toe as she sat down to rub her foot.
  "Sorry.  This is the second time today," Sara said.  "Ooh, this smarts..."
  Tom grabbed her foot.  "Here, let me..."  In too much pain to care, Sara let
Tom apply pressure to specific parts of her foot to relieve the pain.  Sara was
surprised by the sharpness leaving the bruise on her small toe.
  "You know, since I've learned more about you, Sara, I can understand why it
is you felt you had call a gardener when you didn't need to," Tom said.
  Sara smiled coyly.  "I wasn't going to go through with it but Debbie had
prepared me with things to say and even told me to let my lawn go for a few
weeks before calling to be more convincing."
  "Seems like they had it all figured out.  I can understand why you wouldn't
want to do this," Tom replied.  "Under most circumstances, most people wouldn't
understand."
  Sara nodded.  "That was their logic.  They figured, if you were strange
enough to stick around after this, you were the one.  I guess I went through
with it because I was tired of having to deal with always being alone."  The
conversation had taken her mind off the pain in her toe.
  Tom nodded.  "Okay, how does your foot feel?"
  Sara wiggled her toes and smiled.  "It feels better, thanks."
  "Something I picked up along the way somewhere," Tom replied while standing
up.  "Go ahead and stand on it."
  Sara stood up effortlessly.  "Thanks a lot, Tom.  You should be a masseuse,
not a gardener," she said with a grin.
  Tom shook his head to the contrary.  "I'd like to think that all my clients
would be a pretty as you."  Sara grinned and chuckled.

     Half past six that evening at the Terranian household and Amy was just
returning home.  Ron walked out of the study where music was playing that he'd
just stopped.  "Wow, you're coming home sorta late."
  Amy nodded while locking the front door.  "Yeah, there was an accident on the
Hollywood Freeway so my taxi was stuck for a while until we could be re-routed
off the freeway."
  "Sounds like a real mess, Amy" Ron said in closing.  "Well, I gotta go..."
  "Ooh wait a minute, Ron," Amy said; Ron stopped and looked at her again.  "Do
you have a second?  I need to ask you something."
  "Shoot," Ron said.
  "Do you think you could record a song I wrote?" Amy asked.
  Ron shrugged.  "Sure, but I don't play.  I just record the stuff."
  Amy nodded.  "Yeah, I know.  I was hoping Tom could perform it."
  "Well, I don't know, Amy" Ron answered, "I'm surprised Tom agreed to the last
one but I don't think..."
  "Oh come on, Ron!  You're the only one around here who anybody will listen to
and..."
  "Okay, okay...  No need to beg," Ron interrupted.  "I'll see if I can get him
to do one for you.  But this might take a little more effort.  The song you had
used before was supposed to be another song--which he already didn't like.  Tom
might not be interested in literally making a new one specifically for the..."
  Amy just glared at him.
  "I'll let you know," Ron said.
  Amy smiled.  "Thanks, Ron!"
  Ron shook his head.  "I've got to learn how to say no to that girl."

     In Dimension XII of the planet Jupiter, there were many hills and
mountains in a red desert terrain.  Caves led to underground tunnels while in
the sky--clouds swirled circles of red clouds causing winds to be strong but it
was calm enough to not kick up the dust on the ground.  Ginara and Tortan had
walked about looking for a suitable location for battle.  Steam came out of the
cracks in the ground and Ginara looked at Tortan, who was waiting for action.
  "Tortan--this area is pretty geologically unstable by the looks of things,"
Ginara said.  "Either there is a fault line through here or a geyser.  And I
think those are volcanos."
  Tortan looked at the mountains.  "All this can be used to our advantage.  See
if you can survey the area and map out how and when these surprises will begin,
Ginara.  A fault line could be the cessation to that wretched AstroMan."
  "Do not forget a cyborg will be needed to traverse this vast planet in order
to obtain the Solar Sphere, Tortan," she replied.  "This area need not cave in
while it is attempting to accomplish this task."
  "Agreed; this is why we are no where near the Solar Sphere," Tortan said.  "I
wonder if the Astrorangers will be suspicious of our distance from the sphere?"
  Ginara shook her head.  "I wouldn't worry about it, Tortan.  They can make up
their own conclusions.  The Astroranger battle team will be much too concerned
with us even being the same dimension as the one where the Jupiter solar sphere
resides."
 "In that case, let us begin," Tortan replied. "Adol the Great; this is Tortan,
we have arrived at the designated coordinates and await your assistance."
     Inside of the brown primary chamber of the Nazitan Outpost underground
inside of Pluto--Adol had nodded and stood from his iron throne.  Approaching
the crystal ball upon the pedestal he had began to wave his black pinwheel wand
over the glass like globe.  "By the power invested in me by Lord Vahora of
Procyon III, I, Adol the Great, command you to _grow_, Tortan!"  The pinwheel
on his wand spun faster with increasing speed.  "Multiply your size one hundred
fold; make your strength one thousand fold and augment your powers ten thousand
fold!  Grow, Tortan and become Titan-Tortan!"
    On Jupiter, the 150-foot tall samurai-styled warrior marched into position.


 ACT II:

     It was dawn in Los Angeles; at the Terranians' house, Will walked down the
stairs and through the living room to enter the study.  Ron was there where he
wore headphones and watched VU meters showing the level of a recording he was
working on.
  "Ron," Will called out to him.  Ron did not respond.
  Will arched an eyebrow.  "Ron?"  He taped him on his shoulder and Ron jumped
in shock, startling Will as well.
  "DAH!!" Ron shouted.  "Don't ever do that!!"
  "Sorry, Ron, but I wanted to ask you about all this expensive recording
equipment," Will said thumbing through pages of yellow receipts.
  Ron nodded while changing a tape.  "Don't worry about that, Tom's been saving
up his money.  He's taking care of it."
  "I hope so, but he's never gonna make his money back unless he gets signed by
a record com..."  Dave walked into the room looking deprived of sleep.
  Ron stared at him.  "Uh, Dave?  You got home from work at 5 A.M. and it's..."
  "7:29 A.M., yes I know," Dave finished.  "Heads'll roll for this.  Aaron
called my cell phone--Tortan and Ginara are roaming on Jupiter."
  Will nodded.  "You wake Tom, I'll go get Amy."
  "Oh, no--she's already up," Dave said.
  "What?  Were you there?" Will asked.
  Dave's eyes shifted back and forth.  "You need to get Tom, I'll take Amy in
my car and tailgate to the Observatory."
  "Right," Will replied.
  "Come on, Ron," Dave said.  Ron got up and joined Dave to ride in his car.

     In outer space, the moon hid the opal sphere-shaped space station. Onboard
the SpaceBase--Sheratan, Australis, Messuta, Lotia and Nashiran walked into the
primary chamber.  Here, Commander Leto turned around and looked at the team.
  "Are we all set and ready to go?  I wanna hurry up and get this over with so
I can back to bed," Sheratan said.
  "Not quite.  I find it suspicious that the location of the solar sphere's
typical energy signature is rather distant from Tortan and Ginara," Leto said.
"They might be up to something.  Nevertheless, you need to be there."
  "Understood.  Perhaps they can't find it?  They usually don't do anything
together," Messuta replied.  "I'm not sure what else they could be doing."
  Nashiran crossed his arms.  "We should probably stay on our guard.  Whenever
they do something that is way out of the ordinary, it means they're up to
something.  Something more than what meets the eye."
  "Agreed," Australis replied.  "Let's get going."
  Lotia nodded affirmatively.  "Ready."
  "ChangeForm!" Sheratan shouted--all five pulled up their right fists, baring
their GeneGem rings that shined.  "AstroCharge!"  Forcing their rings ahead of
themselves, the five stones flashed brightly.
  Sheratan's face was before a black background as it began to dissolve into a
black silhouette; his body also a shadow in front of a red grid, a white bar of
light scrolled across his body from left to right.  The light returned to the
left, leaving Sheratan in the red shiny uniform of MarsAstro.
  The shadows of the other four Terranians transformed into the green, white,
black and pink Astrorangers as a brilliant white light flashed once again.
  In the zero-gravity take-off bay at the bottom of the SpaceBase, the force
field maintaining air-pressure activated in the take-off bay as the bay doors
began to open as indicated by the warning signal.
  Seated, JupiterAstro had been lowered inside of the cockpit of CommandShuttle
as the lights came on.  The console slid towards the him and locked into place.
  In CombatShuttle, MarsAstro pushed up the slider on his console. "Take off!"
The TurboShuttle's rocket boosters fired up.  Inside of the TurboShuttle
cockpit, MercuryAstro's head was pressed back against his seat's headboard.
  In outer space, the five AstroShuttles had left the take-off bay as the
SpaceBase became invisible again.
  The white TurboShuttle flew by the moon.  "Okay, everybody--energize your
molecular structural bonds," MercuryAstro said within his cockpit.  "We need to
achieve near light speed in order to get between dimensional layers."
  VenusAstro read active graphics on her console and looked at a picture within
picture of Mars featuring the white Astroranger. "Subatomic Vibration Frequency
Accelerators are synched to Near Light Speed engines and MIB generators show
normal compensation output."
  The green CommandShuttle passed the pink RescueShuttle VenusAstro piloted to
take the lead position.  "Sheratan, program the timer to transmit a Machine
Time Code so our AstroShuttles will engage NLS ignition simultaneously,"
JupiterAstro said while adjusting knobs on his console.
  MarsAstro nodded.  "Acknowledged, Australis.  MTC signal programmed."
  A picture of SaturnAstro appeared within the screen displaying outer space.
"Receiving MTC and SolarShuttle's timer is accepting re-configuration
pass codes," SaturnAstro reported.  "All systems are ready."
  MercuryAstro looked around to make sure everything operated normally.  "Okay
good; there can't be any problems.  We've never gone up to 12,228 A.U. before.
Ready?"
  "Check," MarsAstro replied on his screen.
  Red CombatShuttle then took the lead in flying formation.  "NLS ignition on
5, 4, 3, 2--cut gas thrusters."
  JupiterAstro pulled back a slider on his console.  "Thrusters disengaged."
  "Ignition!" MarsAstro said. All five shuttles stopped and began to glow, then
stretching out and snapping into a diamond of light that vanished in space.
  Onboard the SpaceBase--Leto nodded and was sure everything was normal.  At
least things seemed normal, however, he felt as if something weren't right.
Commander Leto had the feeling that something was about to go wrong and sighed.

      One by one--the shiny pink, white, black, green and red uniform-clad team
somersaulted overhead and out of sight in X-formation.  On the ground, the five
had aimed their Moleculatom Daggers for combat and shouted, "Astroranger!"
Titan-Tortan marched in from behind a sleeping but steaming volcano. Ginara ran
down the side of a hill and pointed.  "Armatons, the Astroranger task force has
arrived; charge!"  The black skeletal androids zig-zagged as they ran after the
battle team.
     VenusAstro had done a walk-over, using her ankles to knock down an
Armaton soldier.
  Turning around, she used the blade of her dagger to slice across the
metallic chest of the Armaton.  Sparks exploded from the blow knocking
it down again.  "Why do I get the feeling this is a stall?" she asked while
kicking and striking more soldiers down.
     SaturnAstro roundhouse kicked an approaching Armaton and sweep kicked
another, tripping that soldier.  "I don't know, but... this is a sure fire sign
they were expecting us!"
     Sparks exploded from the bodies of the some eight Armaton soldiers
surrounding MarsAstro after he'd successfully struck them all with his dagger.
  Titan-Tortan had walked out from behind the mountains and began to approach
the Astroranger task force below fighting off the Armatons.
     MercuryAstro back flipped and grabbed the Armaton's fist trying to
punch high.  The white Astroranger came in and cut through its flank
making sparks broke out of its metal frame.
  The white Astroranger cartwheeled away; meanwhile JupiterAstro
roundhouse-kicked an Armaton's fist away, elbow-jabbed it in the abs and
sliced across its chest with his dagger.  Sparks knocked the soldier down.
  Titan-Tortan used his massive sword to slice into the mountain side to cause
boulders to fall into the valley.  VenusAstro looked up and ducked a spin-kick
from an Armaton.  "This is a distraction!  We need AstroMan!"  The pink
Astroranger kicked the Armaton in the back.
  MarsAstro tumbled over, blocked two Armaton's attacking with sword-tipped
rifles, withdrew his blade and separated both weapons by striking up.
The red Astroranger turned around and kicked a soldier in the back of
the head causing it to flip over.
  MarsAstro blocked a side kick from the other Armaton, ducked a
high-spin kick and struck him down in a blast of sparks bursting from
the soldier's metal frame.
  Titan-Tortan stepped down upon the team as they leaped away.  Rolling clear,
they all got up on one knee as MercuryAstro looked at MarsAstro.  "They were
fully prepared for our arrival, Sheratan."
  MarsAstro nodded.  "So were we," he said; they all stood up and shouted,
"Galaxy Task Force Command--Astro Shuttles Blast Off!"
  In the zero-gravity take-off bay at the bottom of the SpaceBase, the force
field maintaining air-pressure inside of the take-off bay was activated.  The
doors began to open, showing Earth in outer space, as indicated by the warning
signal.  The afterburners flared with rocket propulsion prior to moving the two
shuttles, two rockets and one space shift out of the shuttle bay.
    In outer space, the five AstroShuttles had left the take-off bay as the
SpaceBase became invisible again.
  "All aboard!" the red Astroranger called out as they crossed their arms.  The
team became glowing spheres of light prior to traveling towards the cockpits of
the shuttle fleet.
  Within the CombatShuttle's cockpit indicated by the Mars insignia, MarsAstro
had materialized before sitting in his seat.  The chair lowered onto the floor
and rolled forth while the console slid towards him.  "CombatShuttle manned."
  Inside of CommandShuttle's cockpit, JupiterAstro nodded and assumed control
of his console.  "Acknowledged, AstroFleet now under manual pilot," the green
Astroranger replied while looking at MarsAstro in an inset window on screen.
  MarsAstro sat within the cockpit of his red AstroShuttle, CombatShuttle.
"Merge to form AstroMan."  A five-way view of all cockpits showed the white
gloves of the Astroranger's fists pulling back a large black lever.
  Red and Pink Shuttles landed on the ground as feet and legs while green
CommandShuttle's nose folded under the ventral hull while its jet packs slid on
to the sides to become shoulders.  The craft connected to the legs, forming the
torso.  Meanwhile, the rockets white TurboShuttle and black SolarShuttle hooked
up to the shoulders as arms and fists.
    Meanwhile, different tubes were bringing each Astroranger in their seat to
the primary cockpit.
  AstroMan's head ascended from between its shoulders--through its red visor,
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.  MarsAstro manned the
middle and center station and placed his hands on the controls.  "Merging
sequence complete."
  Pulling away to show all of the multi-colored robot, its fists' knuckles were
together.  AstroMan's red visor gleamed into a twinkle in the upper corner when
bringing its fists apart; a field of stars in outer space appeared behind
itself showing the planets:  Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.
Inside of the cockpit, MarsAstro keyed in a number on his keypad.  "SunSabre!"
  AstroMan was armed with the single-sided, silver-bladed sword with a golden
sideways I for a guard and charged ahead.  Titan-Tortan marched in as well.
     Both passed each other while striking pass each other.  Sparks
exploded from both of their armors as the blades cut across.
  Titan-Tortan turned around and bright his sword high to cut down.
AstroMan blocked his sword however he'd knocked the SunSabre off target
and cut down against AstroMan's body.
The Astroranger task force was rocked in the cockpit after sparks erupted in
front of themselves.
     Titan-Tortan jumped into the air; in the sky, he flew in to a
flying side kick.  When his foot pounded AstroMan's chest, sparks broke
out of its armor.
Sparks exploded in front of the cockpit as the Astrorangers shouted, "OUGH!"
They were jolted once again and crashed against the ground.
  AstroMan's body was lying smoking on the ground while Titan-Tortan had
back-flipped and then landed on the ground.  He held his sword out offensively
while he approached again.  "Prepare for your disintegration."
  AstroMan had stood again and tried to attack.
  Titan-Tortan struck his sword towards AstroMan's SunSabre; AstroMan took its
sword away and struck down against Titan-Tortan's armor as sparks broke out.
SaturnAstro exhaled harshly.  "Finally, we're getting somewhere."
  AstroMan and Titan-Tortan had buried the blades of their weapons in each
others shoulders and then dragged them back causing sparks to burst yet again.
AstroMan stepped forth and encountered Titan-Tortan's sword across its chest.
  Titan-Tortan stepped back and turned his sword around showing the reverse
side of the guard revealing a dark jewel.  "Sword of Procyon--energize!"  The
gem shined before glowing strongly.  A stream of light purple streamed forth in
a powerful beam of destructive energy.
  The beam had hit AstroMan's abs and sparks shot out like fireworks from
AstroMan's armor.
A cascade of sparks had broke out within the cockpit.  "Two can play at that!"
MarsAstro said.  The had smoke cleared and he put his hands back on the
console.  "VisorRay!"
  The red visor of AstroMan gleamed as it shot forth a yellow bar of light.
Titan-Tortan was zapped with the equally destructive beam of light.  The giant
hit the ground and tumbled over. AstroMan stood forth to make sure he was down.
In the cockpit, VenusAstro's display on her console was reading numbers beyond
its scale range.  "There appears to be an abnormally high sense of geological
instability in this region."
  "I see it, Lotia," MercuryAstro replied.  "I think we should get out of here
while we still can."
  SaturnAstro nodded.  "I agree, this was a setup."
  Ginara looked on as the two massive bodies continued their sword fight.
Suddenly, the ground began to quake.  "Tortan!  The fault is opening from
pressure to the volcano."
  Titan-Tortan kicked AstroMan back and clashed swords with the giant robot.
The ground began to shake stronger this time and AstroMan began to looked
around to take cover.  Cracks in the ground began to crumble apart, forming a
gap behind AstroMan.  The Volcano shot a tower of fire into the sky, hurling
tons of rock into the air.
  Suddenly finding itself alone, AstroMan's body was being stoned by the
flaming rocks as sparks repeatedly broke out of its heavy armor.  Lava flowed
down the gaps in the ground and the ground that AstroMan stood on gave way.
In the cockpit, they were still shaking from the rumbling occurring outside.
  "Inner hull temperature reaching 200 degrees Celsius," VenusAstro reported.
"Liquid nitrogen heat sink cells compensating."
  "Pull power from weapons to the shields now!" MarsAstro commanded.
  "I can't keep this thing up.  Stability software is unable to compensate,"
Jupiterastro tried to say through the noise of explosions, "...for the ground
breakage."
  "Do it manually," SaturnAstro replied.  "This is the longest quake I have
ever known to exist!"
  "Not to mention the strongest," MercuryAstro replied, "by Earth's scale, this
would be an 8.9 on their richter scale."
  VenusAstro jumped with shock. "This place is coming apart!!"
Another stretch of land collapsed inside of the ground and AstroMan fell down;
it began to sink inside.  AstroMan held onto the cliff by its left hand while
holding its sword; it looked down and saw the deep gap suddenly fill up with
hot lava.  The nature battered robot struggled to climb up.
  "Get us the hell out of here!" MarsAstro commanded.  "Oh NO!  Where did HE
come from?"  Titan-Tortan reappeared on screen after having hidden somewhere.
  "We don't have enough power to get out of this pit and get rid of him all at
the same time!" VenusAstro said.  "What can we do?"
Titan-Tortan turned its sword upside down and stabbed downward.  AstroMan
looked up and fired its VisorRay into Titan-Tortan.  Sparks blasted from his
armor knocking him back some.
Inside of the cockpit, the shaking stopped.  "Geographical activity stabilizing
but this cliff will not support the weight of AstroMan," MercuryAstro reported.
VenusAstro looked at red flashing graphics on her console.  "We can't hold on
much longer!"
  "Try to manually override the CombatShuttle and RescueShuttle's afterburners
to give us a boost," MercuryAstro replied.  There was one more shake before the
last explosion from the some half dozen volcanos.
  "Manual override engaged," MarsAstro said, "ready when you are, Lotia."
  "Ready," VenusAstro acknowledged.  "Ignition."
AstroMan had taken flight into the air--in the sky, it flew forth kicking its
feet towards Titan-Tortan.
  Titan-Tortan himself used his left hand's finger tips to electrocute the huge
robot.  As the sparks blew, AstroMan crashed into the ground and rolled over.
  From out of the red-tinted sky came MercuryAstro and VenusAstro free-falling
into the ground.  Following them were JupiterAstro and SaturnAstro also took a
dive into the land when finally MarsAstro fell out as well.
  On the land, they were all sprawled out across the ground.  JupiterAstro had
gotten up and pulled on the others. "Come on, we've got to get away from here."
  VenusAstro nodded and began to run with him; the others had followed.
  "Ginara!" Titan-Tortan had bellowed.  "Finish them once and for all!"
After running down a mountain made road, they encountered Ginara standing there
which stopped the team.
  "This is turning out to be one very bad day," JupiterAstro said.
  Ginara stepped forth aggressively. "You have no idea," she said while running
after them.
     She somersaulted over a kick from MercuryAstro and blocked a punch
from VenusAstro and used her fist to flip the pink Astroranger onto her
back.  "This is too easy!"
  Ginara then blocked JupiterAstro's shin-kick and ducked a
SaturnAstro's spinning kick.
  She stopped his punch with her left forearm and upper-cut the black
Astroranger with her right fist.  Ginara turned around to kick him
in the back of the helmet flipping SaturnAstro over onto his back.
     MarsAstro came flying forth with his FireSword above himself.
MercuryAstro watched anxiously as she kicked his sword's blade away.
  Ginara tumbled passed the red Astroranger's striking weapon,
roundhoused the blade away and side kicked him in the chest.
     MercuryAstro stepped in and high-spin kicked towards Ginara; she
ducked and roundhoused him across the helmet, knocking him over.
  JupiterAstro watched MercuryAstro flipped over and roll up to him.
  "You okay, Messuta?" the green Astroranger asked him.
  MercuryAstro nodded.  "I'm alright."
  "Good, but she wont be!" JupiterAstro running in after her.
  MercuryAstro stood up and reached out.  "Be careful!!"
     Ginara charged ahead as well as JupiterAstro.  The green
Astroranger jumped up into a flying side-kick that Ginara tumbled past.
She got up and turned around to block a kick to her side from JupiterAstro.
His shin also tried knocking her left side; Ginara stopped his leg and
ducked a high spinning kick so she could kick him in the abs.
  JupiterAstro stumbled back and cartwheeled past another front kick
and stopped her fist from punching him.  Ginara pushed his arm up and
kicked him across the chest knocking him into the air.
  The green Astroranger had flew through the air and shouted, "HAUGH!" when he
hit the side of a hill and rolled out onto the red dirt.
  Aimed upward, the special weapon Pleadia had designed was within Ginara's
hands as she brought it down to point at straight ahead.  "Now you will face
oblivion."  Watching through her target scope, Ginara saw JupiterAstro stand up
while breathing heavily.
  MercuryAstro elbow-stomped an Armaton's neck and looked over at JupiterAstro.
"Uh oh, you guys!!  We gotta help!"
  MarsAstro nodded.  "Come on, let's go!"  The team ran from the area.
  "What is that thing?" JupiterAstro asked.
  Ginara pulled the trigger.  "You'll see..."  Suddenly, a low humming noise
became louder as a glowing light began to build up within the barrel of the
weapon.  Suddenly, a stream of white light pushed forth--JupiterAstro was hit
with the light.  The others stopped running after him to see what was going on.
  "What's...  happening..." JupiterAstro said as his voice started breaking up,
"to...  me... ?"  He began to glow extremely brightly as the light began to
shine through his body.
  "Oh my god, what's happening to him?!" VenusAstro asked.  More light beamed
through the green Astroranger.  The brilliant light caused the team to shield
their already visor-protected eyes.  Eventually, JupiterAstro was so brightly
lit that he had burst into a fountain of rainbow light that rained down.
  Oddly, a star-shaped light hovered backwards from the site of disintegration;
Ginara's rifle backfired sparks from feedback and she dropped the smoking gun
onto the ground.  "Oh well, at least it is done," she said; Ginara left the
scene.
  The Astroranger task force were distracted by what happened as they ran after
where JupiterAstro had disappeared.  They walked around looking for where he
migt have gone.  VenusAstro knelt down to the red powered ground and touched
the burnt spot where the sparks had rained.  Looking at it, she picked up her
white gloved hand and then stood up again.  Slowly, VenusAstro began to breath
harder.  Suddenly she shouted out, "Australis!!"

                                                           TO BE CONTINUED    

Next week on Galaxy Task Force Astroranger. . .

Refusing to believe Australis Mokusei has died--the task force begin attempting
to search for him; meanwhile, Pleadia hatches Cyborg Centaur to find the solar
sphere on Jupiter in Episode 35: "Deadly Arrow".

[624]
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Unauthorized duplication,  distribution  or  exhibition  may  result  in  civil
liability and criminal prosecution. Copyright (c)1997 Artist Bros. Enterprises,
Artist Bros. Music and Dairenn Lombard.  All Rights Reserved.  Country Of First
Publication: United States of America.  Artist Brothers 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
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and Ishimori Productions.                                               [TV-PG]
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