Three Blackbirds are racing on motorcycles.
Two of them jump off of ramps, landing on the third.
Once the three are stacked, metal plates surround them, and the mecha is created around their bikes! It’s a… scary… horrifying….
Chess piece of death!
Yep, the mecha of the week is a chess knight. I think they were digging the bottom of the barrel on this one. But it’s interesting to note that even though former Blackbird Captain Koji Yabane betrayed Galactor, the team he left behind is still using motorcycles that transform into mecha.
The Chess Piece of Death approaches a familiar plane at the end of its ‘runway’.
Its tentacles (Yep, didn’t you know that chess knights have tentacles?) lash around the G-3 and G-4 bays, tearing off the ends of the God Phoenix’s wings. The mecha then slices through the God Phoenix, using its mane as the knife. Ooh, maybe this is where Kamo got the inspiration for the Hypershoot!
And all that’s left of the God Phoenix is rubble.
But hey, doesn’t the inside look awfully empty?
“Ah, splendid!” Katse says to himself, watching the whole thing on his monitors.
“So, Berg Katse,” X asks, “what do you think of Galactor’s great acrobat riders?”
“Sire, were those GCIA combat mecha-training exercises?” Katse asks.
I wonder what GCIA stands for… Galactor Chumps In Action?
“Yes they were.” X confirms. “We’ve sent out over 80 mecha beasts thus far, only to be defeated by the Science Ninja Team! I’ve had to endlessly re-evaluate our strategies because of this.”
Okay, this had me curious. Have there been 80 mecha in the first 84 episodes of the show? Naturally, I had to pose this question to our Gatch Guru, James, and here’s what he had to say:
I don't have an exact count, but it all depends on what you wish to classify as a Gallactor Iron Beast. Does this include mecha that are not animal-shaped, such as the Undersea Aircraft Carrier and Archaeo's airplanes? If you count all Gallactor mecha, then by a quick count, it looks like you'd have 95 mecha (Not including repeat appearances by some mecha, such as the Crab Tanks, Thundersaurus, King Dragon, and the like). If you count only those that you might think of as Iron Beasts (The animal-shaped mecha, as well as things like Mechaball, Gallack X, the Sonic Mecha, and non-mechanical monsters like Jigokiller and Super Bem), you've got 84 of them. If you go strictly by animal-shaped mechanical objects (Including humanoids), then you've got 66. That number would drop further if you only count animal-shaped vehicles and eliminate things like the mechanical animals from episode #27, the squid torpedos from episode #36, and cyborgs like Gallack X and the mannequins from #70. I did not include Lucy in the count, because she wasn't working strictly for Gallactor. Of course, this is just a quick count, and I could have missed a couple. It also does not include the mecha that appeared in episode #85 itself.
So, not an exact count, but still a wealth of information.
James! 
“My deepest apologies, Sire!” Katse replies, sweating bullets.
“There’s no time for apologies! We must defeat the Science Ninja Team so we can further our plans!” X snaps.
“If we just had some way of knowing where they’re hiding, we could attack before they transform…” Katse suggests.
“Perhaps we do.” X interrupts as Katse gasps. “According to our computer analysis, I believe they may reside in the town of Jutland.” Yep, he said Jutland. So do the subs. So I guess Jutland is a part of Utoland? (FTR, James has clarified already that Jutland is an ADVism, and it’ supposed to be Utoland.)
“Are you sure about this?” Katse asks doubtfully.
“It will be your job to confirm it, using the GCIA. Confirm it, and then destroy the Science Ninja Team!” X’s orders are clear.
“Sire!” Katse bows with a flourish, even as the Daily Fish Parade (tm) takes place at our friendly neighborhood Crescent Base.
So what’s happening in Dr. Nambu’s neighborhood today? Well, he’s analyzing that oh-so-high tech data tape… the kind with holes in it…
“The ISO received information that the GCIA, Galactor’s Intelligence Gathering Association, was going to infiltrate Jutland to find the Science Ninja Team, and immediately informed Dr. Nambu.” the narrator informs us.
Oh! So GCIA stands for ‘Galactor Central Intelligence Agency’? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Jun and Jinpei seem to be just standing around.
While Joe and Ryu are hard at work, inspecting the God Phoenix.
Ken is getting the message.
“Loud and clear, Doctor. I’ll bet you anything they’re going to try to sneak across along the border somewhere.” Ken says. “All right, then. We’ll have to unmask them first.”
Now we see three nastily-smirking men riding motorcycles. Hey, weren’t there three Blackbirds who made up the Chess Piece of Death? Suspicious…
But when they arrive at the border crossing, someone is there to meet them.
“Well, it’s Gatchaman!” Sneers the lead biker. Yeah. Let’s just ignore the other two people with him…
“Judging by your reaction, you must be from Galactor, huh, punk?” Ken asks smugly.
“Get them!” the lead biker snarls, raising his hand. “Attack!”
They charge at the border crossing, but Ken, Jun and Jinpei jump/fly/drive away. The men smash through the wooden barrier.
But look who’s ready to greet them again just a little bit down the road!
Yep, Ken is leaping onto the back of Jun’s bike.
“Be careful, Jun!” Ken cautions her.
“I can handle them!” Jun replies confidently.
The motorcycles open up in a similar fashion to the G-3, shooting missiles from their fronts. But the G-3 and G-4 avoid their explosions.
Ken throws his boomerang…
…taking out the three Galactors, who are now dressed as Blackbirds on Blackbird bikes. I guess they did their own transformation.
Jun launches her yo-yo…
She wraps it around a pole, using its leverage to pull her bike (with Ken still her passenger) onto a higher roadway.
The G-4 is perched on a cliff, and as the Blackbirds approach, it opens its mouth. Inside, Jinpei is preparing an attack…
But the Blackbirds have picked up a few of Gatchaman’s tricks, and their bikes literally leap into the air to avoid that explosion. When they land, they’re doing their creepy cackle-laughs that they did in the Bitter Bird Missile ep (when they were ganging up on Jun in the beginning of the episode) and they start driving quickly in a circle, so fast that they’re just blurs.
This doesn’t deter Jun, who launches a Swan Rocket.
“You did it!” Jinpei cries as the missile hits. “That was a totally far out rocket, Sis!”
Except… all that remains is a big hole. There’s no sign of the bikers or their bikes… no wreckage of any kind. Ken studies the hole.
“Those bikers are just as good as you’d expect.” he says to himself. “We can’t let our guard down around them.”
“Big Bro, they couldn’t have gone far, yet!” Jinpei says, emerging from his vehicle. “Let’s finish them off!”
“We’re going to let them go.” Ken announces.
“Say what?” Jinpei is surprised.