"Oh!" exclaimed Zark, "I don't know when I've ever been so upset! All my circuits are surely about to blow any moment now!"
Rapidly, he paced back and forth, back and forth across his room at Center Neptune as 1-Rover-1 sat watching him.
"First the earthquakes, and now G-Force is locked in battle on the bottom of the Middle Sea with a terrible Spectran catfish ship and I've just heard from Chief Anderson that Jason has found out that he's actually half Spectran, and has run away and gone missing!"
1-Rover-1 yapped.
"Yes, I'm as shocked as you are! I don't know how one of his parents could have been Spectran," fretted Zark, "Princess told me, just a few months ago, that Jason can remember things about his parents –before they died in the car accident- and that they were a perfectly typical, happy little family."
1-Rover-1 yapped again.
"Yes, it would make sense if he'd been adopted as a baby," agreed Zark, "But that still doesn't explain where he came from."
The robot paused in his pacing, silent for a moment.
"Actually, 1-Rover-1," said Zark confidingly, "I have a feeling that Chief Anderson knows a lot more than he's letting on. Why, he's even more dreadfully upset than me about what's happened!"
Zark sighed, "And of course, he's still the only one who has clearance to read the records on Jason's childhood."
But suddenly Zark threw up his arms in the air, and then whizzed back over to his console, where he began frantically pushing buttons.
"But I shouldn't be talking! I have to see what's happening with Mark and everyone on the Phoenix! And I have to try to track down Jason too –surely he couldn't have gone that far!"
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The Spectran sun sets early this far north, thought Jason, standing on the edge of a cliff in the Damruk Mountains, facing a yellow and orange-streaked sky that, under other circumstances, he might have admired. Fortunately, his G-Force uniform offered him all the protection from the cold wind that he needed.
He jumped down from the high cliff. The space ship he'd used to get here didn't have much in the way of instruments but the few and faint signs of activity they –and his wrist communicator- had picked up indicated that if anything really were here, it was somewhere in this foggy valley. He'd been careful to land and conceal his ship far from here, to avoid detection, and to approach the valley surreptitiously on foot.
As he landed on the ground below, and the thick mist swirled around him, Jason gasped.
All around him the rock had been carved into statues of strange and malevolent creatures. Had these monsters once actually lived here? The statues were clearly very ancient…
It dawned on him then just how little he really knew about Spectra's history. Or maybe he did know; the knowledge, like so many of his memories, could have been stolen from him.
Stolen by Chief Anderson, he was certain, and replaced with lies.
He gazed down into the valley. The truth, the answers he sought, were somewhere down there. From this vantage, he could just make out, amidst the swirling mist, strange lines carved into the vast expanse of valley floor that formed a sinister, beaked face.
Maybe this whole area had once been, in ancient times, a grand temple of some kind and, considering the bleakness of the weather here, maybe it was all underground.
But even as he stared, his eyes widening with realization that he was in the right place after all, a spasm of pain flickered through his head. He clenched his eyes shut, clutching his helmet with one hand.
"Need to find a way in," muttered Jason, lifting his wrist communicator to his eyes to study its readings.
But even as he spoke, he heard noises –the unmistakable sounds of booted feet shifting on rocky ground.
He looked around hastily now, and froze as he realized that, in the mist, he had been discovered and surrounded by a brigade of armed Spectran soldiers.
"We thought you'd fallen to your death back on Earth," growled the voice of the bearded-and-blue-clad Captain Baldrik as all the soldiers trained guns on Jason, "Zoltar and I were just giving your mother the bad news-"
I was right –they're both here, thought Jason, his eyes widening as he kept his back to the Captain, I have to ditch these soldiers and get inside that place!
"But when I was called aside by one of my men," continued the Captain, "and told that you'd been spotted on surveillance cameras sneaking around here, I had to come get you personally –you won't escape from me again!"
"I wouldn't be too sure of that-" began Jason, but his bravado was derailed by a sudden burst of pain behind his eyes, making him lean over and hold his head with one hand even as momentary dizziness and nausea assailed him and his vision briefly clouded. He dropped to one knee.
"You're still in bad shape, aren't you?" sneered Captain Baldrik, "You'd better give up now –don't start a fight you can't win." He brandished his gun for emphasis.
But the true seriousness of his plight had now fully dawned on Jason. He was in bad shape, and no one on Earth knew that he'd gone to Spectra.
At this immense distance, he'd never be able to contact Mark with just his wrist communicator. But he had to try –as long as the message got out there, it had a chance of being intercepted and heard somewhere along the vastness of space between Spectra and Earth.
"Mark, this is Jason! I'm on Spectra!" gasped Jason urgently into his wrist communicator, but before the transmission could even send, a shot rang out and a bullet flew past Jason's forearm, tearing his communicator's wrist band.
"No!" cried Jason as his communicator went hurling from his wrist to strike the hard, rocky ground. Its back panel popped open from the impact and its internal components scattered about it.
He had no way to try to contact anyone now. And worse still, his damaged communicator could no longer maintain his transmutation. In a flash of light, he was left, still crouching on one knee, in only his jeans and t-shirt. He was now far more vulnerable, but not completely without resources.
All the soldiers gasped. "Is that how you change into your uniforms? With those bracelets?" demanded Captain Baldrik, "Well, now that I can see your face again, I know for sure I've got the right guy –come quietly! No time to waste!"
Jason rose to his feet, resisting the dizziness and nausea, but a bitter laugh escaped his lips. Wasn't it just yesterday that he'd been up against this same Captain –maybe even these same soldiers- in a desperate fight he couldn't afford to lose?
Just like then, he would fight to the end, no matter how messed up he might be. He would never give up!
He had no way of knowing that his face had taken on a grim intensity, with a manic and predatory gleam in his eyes, but Captain Baldrik and the soldiers all took a hasty and nervous step backwards at the sight of him now.
"You just don't get it, do you?" said Jason in a low, hard voice, "I don't 'come quietly.'"
And then he leapt, shooting high into the air while pulling open the hidden pocket on the right thigh of his jeans to release the emergency stash of feather stunners that he had concealed there earlier, before he'd left the space ship.
As the soldiers all stared up at him, briefly frozen in confusion, Jason instantly began hurling the feathers, handfuls at a time. The dart-like feathers rained down, embedding their points in all the soldiers even as some, futilely, attempted to fire their rifles.
Jason landed on the ground again, in a crouch. He felt dizzy and ill but he lifted his chin and stared ahead grimly, as he heard a spate of thumping noises behind him as all the soldiers succumbed and dropped to the ground, stunned into unconsciousness.
And they would stay that way for several hours -Jason knew that for a fact.
But even before he tried to stand again, Jason glanced around at his green-clad victims strewn about his vicinity and saw no sign of Captain Baldrik's blue uniform.
Somehow, his most important target here had eluded him.
He stood up now, clutching his head as it swirled with pain, and he nearly staggered but he stayed on his feet nevertheless, holding his last two remaining feather stunners in his gritted teeth.
There was Captain Baldrik! He was several feet away now, partially concealed behind some rocks and pointing the barrel of a gun straight at Jason.
The stand off lasted barely a second. Jason flung both feathers at the Captain but at the same instant, the Captain fired his gun…
Jason yelled as he felt the sudden impact in his chest that knocked him over backwards, but there was almost no accompanying pain. Rather, even as he fell, a grey numbness overwhelmed him…
Of course, they wanted him alive. He'd been shot with a tranquilizer gun.
"And down you go!" crowed Captain Baldrik.
Stumbling backwards, Jason's head and back made abrupt contact with the hard rock of a stone statue but he was still conscious, though he could barely move his arms or legs.
It was some kind of paralytic tranquilizer.
"Looks like I've really got you this time," chortled the Captain, though even as he spoke he was pulling one of Jason's feathers from his arm, "This will redeem me completely in Zoltar's eyes!" Brandishing his gun, and revealing that the other feather was stuck in his neck, he added, "Now if you don't mind, I've got some important work to begin…"
But he didn't finish his explanation. He too had finally succumbed to the feathers' stunning effect and he collapsed on the ground.
Jason stared blankly at the glowing streaks of color that the setting Spectran sun still cast across the sky even as the world receded into the background of his mind…
He was dreaming again –except he was awake.
He saw a cascade of pale pink petals, falling through the air before a surreal, distorted sky…
He'd seen this before.
He was small again, and lying on his stomach with his chin in the golden sand. He gritted his teeth and struggled once, trying to resist, trying to get up. He had to stop her! But it was no use. Everything was now fading away…
Everything except that horrible woman with the mask and the stars on her chest. She had thrown the flower at him, and now he was slipping away.
But he could still hear her voice.
This was no dream; it was true. And there were so many more now…
I remember, thought Jason, overwhelmed by the cascade of memory, Mala… Everything…
The sound of a falling rock snapped him out of his reverie abruptly and the reality of his immediate situation came flooding in.
He was once again surrounded by a new brigade of Spectran soldiers, standing in the mist and training their rifles on him.
They've really got me now…
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"Hasn't the mantle procedure been initiated yet?" demanded the Luminous One, "There is no more time for delays!"
"The shaft is now complete," replied Zoltar confidently, "and we have reached all the way to the mantle. Despite the high altitude here and the need to drill through so much more rock, this far north the mantle is stable enough."
Zoltar smiled, raising one fist in a gesture of optimism.
And I have an expert in Captain Baldrik, thought Zoltar to himself, He will ensure the procedure is done correctly.
"I promise it will be a success!" he told the Luminous One, who continued to stare at him with disconcerting intensity, "We've encountered no serious eruptions, and the cadmixium and plutantrium pods are all prepared."
"It was also you who once assured me a mantle reactor would solve all our problems!" snapped the eerie blue visage.
"I swear," vowed Zoltar while making a sweeping bow, "this will save Spectra."
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"This is the final test run of the equipment," announced a Spectran engineer's voice, as a massive collection of gears began to rotate, driving giant pistons up and down, as electricity crackled in great purple streaks from the power complex that was sustaining it all. Atop a shaft so deep its bottom seemingly receded into nothingness, lined by guiderails, a gleaming red pod sat, ready to be launched into the planet's mantle.
"I report that all is functioning correctly," the same voice announced to Zoltar, who was sitting in a chair in the control room, "Please provide the initial pod sequence."
"Where is Captain Baldrik?" demanded Zoltar, "Somebody find him!"
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Far away on Earth, Chief Anderson stared out his window at the sun now setting behind the mountains in the distance.
In the Middle Sea, the Phoenix continued to struggle futilely against the Spectran catfish ship, still entwined in its whiskers' relentless grip.
On Spectra, the soldiers had closed in slowly on Jason, but were now mere feet away from him, and he was still unable to stand or walk.
And simultaneously, at Center Neptune, Zark was pacing and speaking anxiously.
"The Space Center says Jason took a space ship to the moon –but he's not there! And the others are in such danger. I have never been so worried!"
But he paused, adding "But I know G-Force. Somehow, everything will be okay."
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To be continued…