[Preview] Long ago, in the Antares solar system, the Nazitans' ancient civilisation was nearly destroyed in a civil war that had raged for centuries. Fearing extinction, the survivors left their dying world to seek out other races which they would convert into hybrid Nazitans. Many millennia later, they discovered the transmissions of the S.E.T.I program; the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence from Earth. Now, one of the Nazitan leaders Adol the Great with his henchmen warriors Tortan and Ginara, science officer Pleadia and spy Igan have colonised Pluto under its surface in Earth's Solar System under command of supreme Lord Vahorra. And now, the only thing between them and us is . . .

GALAXY TASK FORCE ASTRO RANGER

A Phill. Production

Starring: Sheratan Kasei as Dave Marcello…………………………………………………………………MarsAstro!

Australis Mokusei as Will Richards…………………………………………………………….JupiterAstro!

Nashiran Dosei as Tom Nevison………………………………………………………………...SaturnAstro!

Messuta Suisei as Ron Michaeli………………………………………………………………MercuryAstro!

Lotia Kinsei as Amy Leven……………………………………………………………………...VenusAstro!

and...

Commander Leto as Professor Aaron Hanson.

Featuring...

Detective Frank Mahoney and Detective Kathy Sanchez.

ACT I:

The morning sun shone upon Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters. People steadily went in and out of its many entrances and exits. Inside one of its halls, a young woman wearing pumps, stockings, black skirt, white blouse and a black suit jacket featuring her badge walked towards the door. The Hispanic woman with shoulder length black hair walked through the door and looked at an African-American man in black tie and slacks and white shirt sat at a desk with a name plate reading Frank Mahoney as he was writing information on one of many forms.

"Good morning, Frank" said the lady as she removed her coat and hung it upon the rack.

"Hi, Kathy; how was your weekend?"

"Fine, thanks," she answered upon sitting down at the desk, "you?"

"It was all right but I was bored," Frank answered.

"We need more exciting assignments," Kathy replied.

"Well perhaps this may be of interest," Frank looked at another sheet of paper and then looked at Kathy. "I got a weird call from an old friend I know."

"What--another?"

Frank nodded. "Jim, a security guard at LAX called me up about a group of people that seemed suspicious."

Kathy picked up a file folder and opened it. "What did they do?"

"According to him, things got strange at customs when their passports didn't quite check out like they were supposed to."

"Well call the Canadian Embassy and check them out," Kathy suggested.

"Joe is right now trying to figure out where they are right now."

The telephone rang and Frank picked it up. "Fugitive, Mahoney." Kathy proceeded to fill out some more forms.

"Thanks, Joe." Frank pushed the phone plunger to hang up before releasing it and dialling out. "Yeah, Sgt. Mahoney, L.A.P.D. Could you give me the name of the driver that left to the Los Angeles International Airport at about 15minutes ago? It picked up five passengers," Frank asked on the phone. "Yes, I'll hold."

"Maybe he can identify the people in question," Kathy interjected. Frank had nodded at her, acknowledging her statement.

"Yes?" Frank spoke up on the phone. "Thanks. Can you spell that for me?" Frank busily wrote down the name. "How can we get in touch with him?" Frank writes more information down. "All right. Thanks." Frank hung up again. "That was the Yellow Cab Company dispatcher. He said he'll be back for lunch at noon."

"Good. Another thing is that we need to find out where they're going," Kathy mentioned.

Frank leaned back in his chair. "I've been thinking that they're probably with the witness protection program. In which case, we wont find anything anyway."

"Right, but if they're somebody that's wanted, well, we have ourselves a case," Kathy replied with a smile.

Episode 1:

"Dawn of Destruction"

In the harsh, uninhabitable regions of outer space, Pluto orbits with the rest of the solar system. Not too far away, a grey metallic sphere is seen approaching the planet. Inside, a dark round chamber which resembled a battleship's bridge was seen as the planet Pluto took up the majority of the view-screen ahead. A thin, short brown and green humanoid with long thin fingers and thin eyes and thin, moulded shut slit for a mouth operated a console with track-ball controls. Directly behind him was a tall, elderly humanoid with a grey-face wearing a three-point crown, and a scarf around his mouth with wide shoulder pads, long purple and black robe with matching cape sitting in a throne-like chair.

"Igan," the crowned one called out in a deep throaty voice. "What is our status?"

"We should be ready to deploy our underground base as soon as we can power down engines, Master. Particle beams allow us to begin installation of our underground base." the short humanoid alien answered.

"Is there anything else, Adol the Great?"

"Pleadia," Adol said while ignoring Igan. "Any updates on your report of this system?"

"It has been yet again confirmed that an intermediately advanced race of class H beings dwell on the third celestial body from the star around which all nine planets orbit. Unfortunately, there is no life on any of the other planets or natural satellites."

"Hmmm. Tortan, Defences?"

A large, masked humanoid similar to a samurai stepped forth from the raised aft section of the bridge and bowed his head briefly. "They seem to possess mostly chemical explosives, fire-arms and other primitive weapons. Our conventional techniques can easily stop this threat."

A slender silver and golden a skin-tight suit stepped forth, wearing a brown belt with metallic armour along her arms and boots. "I would be careful of their military," she said to Adol. "However, once deployment is complete, I think our ship could defeat their forces within 30 Earth days."

"Agreed, Ginara," Adol said in nodding. "Just in case, I want you to ready the Armaton solders, Tortan."

"They proved extremely useful on Wataran," Tortan recalled. "That planet didn't have enough people to adapt."

"It doesn't matter," Adol interrupted. "Our mission from Lord Vahorra is to keep the Nazitan race alive by giving them anything we can manage: Bodies for the race, people to bear our offspring, organs to repair our own kind and even for intellectual value. Whatever there is to gain will be taken. We have spent too long building our intergalactic empire for it to go extinct this soon."

"It was so fortunate for us to have received broadcasts from this planet," Pleadia noted. "It was almost an invitation."

"Indeed. Your selection of genetically enhanced creatures with their new cybernetic links to your controllers should make this an effortless mission."

Griffith Observatory, a building of three domes showing astronomical observational equipment from the north lawn of Griffith Park came into view. On the east road, a yellow taxi cab stopped at the curb; five young men and one young lady stepped out of the cab as they looked up Mount Hollywood. A light-brown haired, brown-eyed man in grey sweat-pants and a red tank top turned around to look at the other four and then at the observatory. The blonde woman wearing a pink body suit, red vest and tan stockings with navy blue skirt and pumps handed the taxi-driver a great deal of cash to pay for all five of their long trip.

A brown-haired, brown-eyed young man in the black shirt spoke up promptly. "That trip took long enough."

The dark-brown haired man in three-piece black & white suit looked around. "Sheratan, are you sure this is the place?"

"Australis, I'm positive!" the man in the red tank top insisted. "After our long ride into the park, you would think such a building like none other in this area would look like the one we were told to head to."

A blonde man wearing brown shorts and a white t-shirt looked at one in the tank-top called Sheratan. "Take it easy, Sheratan. I'm sure we can ask for information if we're lost."

"We're not lost, Messuta. Trust me."

"Looks like a little bit of a walk to the structure, so let's get moving," the one in blue jeans and a black dress shirt had suggested.

"Building," Australis reminded Nashiran. "We don't want to stand out and get undesired attention by speaking unlike they do here. Okay let's go…Lotia, talk to the guard."

Nashiran moaned as they all started walking through the lawn towards the main rotunda. Inside, they walked towards the South Galleria when Lotia spotted a name-tagged man and approached him.

"Hello, my name is Amy Leven; we are expecting to speak with Dr. Aaron Hanson," she told the security guard.

"I'll tell him you're all here and see if he's available. In the meantime I invite you to see the east hall," the man in uniform replied. "I'll tell him to meet you by the Earth globe in the east rotunda."

"Thank you, sir." They proceeded to walk down the east hall seeing many exhibits as they walked by including models of the moon and the Hubble Space Telescope. Coming into the East Rotunda, they looked at the large Earth globe.

"I still find it amazing to know that this world knows of this solar system after more than 35,000 years of being in the dark," Australis pondered. "I've always taken it for granted but I never thought I'd be here in the still early stages of galactic exploration."

"I agree," Messuta replied. Nashiran looked over and saw the aged man in a suit and white lab coat walking through the east hall into the rotunda.

"Greetings!" he cheerfully said to them.

"Hello," Lotia replied as she walked up to him and gave him a hug.

Australis stepped up to shake his hand. "Did I do that right?" The man in the white lab coat had nodded.

"Let us adjourn to my office. There is much to be discussed." Inside of the closed, private office, the six people walked past rows and rows of monitors displaying various pictures. They approached a door marked Administrative Offices - Private. The elderly man opened the door and sat down at one of the chairs behind the desk as the other four took a seat on the couch.

"For the sake of security, we shall refer to each other by our agreed upon names," the man reminded. The other five nodded in agreement.

"If we can remember them all," Nashiran complained.

Sheratan sighed. "All right. Here we go again. I'm Dave Marcello."

Australis in the three piece suit and green tie looked at the elderly man behind the desk. "William Richards." He then looked over to Messuta in the white t-shirt and shorts.

"Ron Michaeli," Messuta replied.

Lotia, the young woman in a pink bodysuit with a brown vest and skirt took her cue from Messuta now known as Ron and spoke up. "Amy Leven."

The elderly man behind the desk looked at Nashiran in the blue jeans and black dress shirt. "And you?"

"Tom Nevison," Nashiran added.

"Good. I'm Dr. Aaron Hanson. While we are anywhere where there are people or the possibility of someone listening, you should always refer to me by that name," the man in the lab coat said.

"That's question number one," Dave asked. "What are we doing here? When we spent over a year training for this mission, I was expecting this place to be a little bit more apocalyptic."

"I told Will very briefly about our mission so that you will come. Routine monitoring of galactic parameters for the next 100 Astronomical Units located an artificial spherical body travelling at a supernatural rate of speed," Hanson answered. "This led my colleagues to believe that this in fact an extraterrestrial ship possessing sentient life forms onboard. Contact has been impossible so their intentions within this solar system is unknown."

"But why have we been called away from Base IX?" Tom asked. "With all due respect, sir. I don't like it here, especially now that I have seen the place in person. The people choose to mutilate their anatomy despite widely available knowledge available even to them based on what they do know."

"Not to mention that due to their sociological behaviour for the past 40,000years, their evolutionary growth has been stunted. I mean," Ron explained, "they still have navels."

"It is estimated that the unidentified spacecraft's power-reserves are too low making them incapable of crossing over the vibrational dimension that leads to where we exist because it's so far up on the vibrational scale. However, if their intentions are anything like destroying this planet, that will mean the destruction of our home as well," Dr. Hanson told them. "Due to suspected alien threat, I was elected to station here in 1993, however it remained a false alarm. I chose to stay here in contact with our other operatives to ensure that the humans don't detonate another nuclear bomb."

"I remember that," Dave recalled. "I almost wasn't born because my grandparents just left the area before yet another ``spontaneous explosion'' occurred some fifty years ago."

"How did that happen again?" Amy asked.

"The chain reaction of a free neutron striking unstable uranium atoms causes them to split and this causes a highly violent reaction which has been called nuclear. Fortunately, the cascade of free-radicals caused by the radiation doesn't cross over, but the explosion does because there is a chain reaction. It's the only thing that transcends all vibrational-dimension layers of Earth."

"Back to our mission," Dave aggressively reminded. "Will our technology operate at full potential here?"

"Yes. For the first time, a defence base was built for space replete with artificial life support systems and is in synchronous orbit around the dark side of the moon leaving its detection impossible by anyone. This was also done in 1993 as per my arrival in preparations of alien threat to this planet. This means that in this dimension, everything will function as if like at home."

"Except without being there," Tom complained.

"Come on, Tom," Amy pleaded. "Can't you look at the bright side for at least a second?"

"Yeah. I think it will be fascinating to study a new culture for once. There are only two races where we're from," Ron added. "Besides, they might be pitiful but I really don't think they can help it."

"Whatever your opinions of this place are, you must ensure the safety on this planet. Now, on to business. I have taken the liberty of downloading images from the observatory's telescope cameras and putting them here on this cassette," Dr. Hanson said as he approached a television/VCR combo and inserted the VHS cassette.

At Police Headquarters, Frank just hung up the telephone again as Kathy continued to fill out more forms.

"Well, Joe finally got in touch with the driver and he identified them. There were four men, one woman, all about in their twenties and they went up to Griffith Observatory. They had no luggage either"

"That's good," Kathy replied. "They also seem rather harmless."

"Yeah I know, but the thing is, I know the guard and I don't want to make him feel like he's crazy," Frank replied.

Kathy sighed. "Joe did mention that the cabby overheard the passengers talking about an Aaron Hanson they were going to see but I ignored that at first."

"That's much better; now we can call someone, check on their business and then go about our own." Frank picked up the phone and dialled three numbers. "Los Angeles, the number to Griffith Park please," Frank requested as he wrote down some numbers. Hanging up, he dialled them and held on the phone.

Pluto--the grey, ice covered planet remained in the slow distant and orbit only to receive a fraction of the sun's heat and light. Beneath the surface, a massive bunker housed the Nazitan outpost installed by their battleship. Within the primary chamber, torches were mounted upon the brown, stone walls of the oval room. The ceiling was a dark, crystal dome and, on one end of the chamber, a stage that supported a large iron clad throne. Toward the steps was a grey crystal ball that was held up by a clay-like pedestal. On the floor below stood Tortan, the samurai-style armoured warrior and his mate Ginara in metallic Ninja garb. Beside her was Pleadia, the short and elderly scientist in what appeared to be a lab coat and his assistant Igan. From out of the many dimly lit caverns which travelled throughout the artificial subterranean structure walked the tall and majestic Adol the Great, the mission commander in a dark cape and scarf that masked his face. Holding his black wand, he sat in his throne's seat and looked back and for that his servants.

"Rise," Adol ordered as they all stood. On the crystal ball, images of their ship travelling past Saturn at an incredible speed were watched by all. "Soon our craft will reach Earth and unleash our powerful Armaton warriors on their planet as the ship roams the world defeating their defences," Adol said to everyone.

"And, if they get damaged in battle, we can bring the working pieces back here and construct new armed automatons," Pleadia added.

"Igan, how best shall we begin utilising the Homo Sapiens?" Adol asked.

Igan approached the crystal ball. "Mainly re-productive purposes and the utilisation of their bodies to act as carriers of our genetics until they re-produce as variants on our own race slowly evolving as part of our own race."

"Tactically speaking," Ginara began, "it's going to be a long and drawn out process but with little resistance. We can focus on doing this efficiently and in a timely fashion."

"Have a cyborg ready to begin testing the grounds before we launch our full scale assault," Adol told everyone.

ACT II:

Images of the metallic sphere travelling through space passing Mars were visible on one of the colour monitors that Dr. Hanson showed the other five.

"Is it possible that this could just be false alarm?" Tom proposed.

"That doesn't look like space junk or any form of travelling debris to me," Ron observed. "It seems self-propelled."

"That's because it is," Aaron Hanson told them. He turned off the screen and looked to them all. "They have made no effort to respond to any of our attempts to communicate with them."

Amy shrugged. "It could be a robot or a probe."

"Unfortunately, it isn't. We believe there is or was intelligence on board that vessel and their intentions are extremely suspicious."

"Perhaps their communications systems were damaged in a battle," Dave said in thinking out loud.

"There is no malfunction. My peers and I are certain they are ignoring us," Aaron mentioned. "And by entering this space, unannounced with full knowledge of entities dwelling here, it may be considered a hostile action."

"What are we going to do if they turn out to be a hostile force?" Will asked.

"I believe a bit of history may answer that question for us," Dr. Hanson replied.

In outer space, Pluto floated in orbit while underground, the brown, oval chamber and crystal dome ceiling was the bunker that housed the Nazitan outpost. Adol stood from his iron clad throne and looked upon his crystal ball. From his point of view, the grey globe in front of himself showed the path in which the metallic spherical battleship they travelled in moving ever closer towards Earth.

"Master, our unmanned ship has passed the 61st lunar body. Arrival is just minutes away," Igan reported.

"Excellent, Igan," Adol muttered. "Maintain remote control."

"I suggest that you use the ship to gather information about Earth before ravaging their planet," Ginara recommended. "Perhaps we can gain the best tactical advantage from learning more about how they function and what they are all about."

"Yes," Adol agreed, "Igan, set the ship to orbit the planet."

"What will be our strategy?" Tortan asked.

"I suggest that we occupy their military forces by our ship so that the Homo Sapiens will be left vulnerable to attack from my cyborg," Pleadia answered.

"Yes," Adol responded while nodding. "This will be our plan for the time being. Pleadia, arrange the creation of a cyborg as soon as possible. We don't want to waste unnecessary energy on the creatures."

Meanwhile at Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters…Parker Centre; Frank at the desk he shared with Kathy had hung up the phone. She looked at him expecting what he'd learned from the conversation.

"Well, Hanson wasn't in so I left our number with the secretary. They did say he was speaking with some guests who arrived a short while ago."

"If we could get some names, we could wrap this up," Kathy replied.

"I think I can help," said a man in a grey blazer with black slacks and tie with white shirt who came into the office where Frank and Kathy were with a file-folder.

"Hi, Captain Fleishman," Frank greet.

Fleishman walked in. "Hey, Detectives. I heard that you needed help so I figured you did me a favour, and now I owe you one so here it is."

"Hey thanks, chief!" Frank said. "What is it?"

"Names," Fleishman answered. "I got them from the observatory."

"But Frank just called them," Kathy mentioned.

"I spoke with the director, Dr. Kroff and he said that Dr. Hanson mentioned he would be taking off a little time to show five guests around the observatory and a trail just north-west of West Observatory Road."

"Let me see those names, I'll call the National Crime Information Centre and see if I can have a dispatcher fax me a print out from the terminal," Kathy said as she looked at the names Captain Fleishman wrote down.

"I already thought of that, and they turned up nothing," Captain Fleishman replied. "You might want to call the Canadian Embassy now, because they can check out the status of their citizenship to see what the problem was all about when they flew into Los Angeles in the first place."

"Where did they come from anyway?" Kathy asked.

"Vancouver," the Captain answered.

"I'm going to find out what I can get on Hanson," Frank said. "I say we go down to Griffith Observatory and just go ask him. He shouldn't have any problems with this if everything is on the up-and-up."

"Well, I have to go back to work," Captain Fleishman told them. "I'll let you guys know what's going on if anything new comes up."

"Great; thanks, Captain," Frank said.

As he left, the telephone rang and Kathy answered. "Fugitive, Sanchez. . .Woah . . . What?? Okay--okay thanks. . . . All right, we'll be on our way."

"What was that all about?" Frank asked while she hung up.

"That was CBS News on the phone," Kathy answered. "They said that Griffith Observatory reported an unidentified flying object headed directly to Earth."

"What is it?"

"They say it's an artificial sphere that's travelling at almost 100,000 miles per hour."

"Man--that's fast. Where did it come from?"

Kathy shook her head. "I don't know, but it'll be here in about 20 minutes."

"The observatory seems to be ground-zero for all of this," Frank figured. "Let's go, Kate." She nodded and they moved to head out of the office.

The metallic sphere was seen at the ocean's horizon in the sky as it came for the shore. Yellow stars were fired upon the Hawaiian shore from the ship causing powerful explosions to occur on the vacated beach. The sphere came to a stop as it floated in mid air and fired a green beam upon the ground causing a tree to be cut down and the ground to explode again. The USS CARL VINSON was just leaving the Hawaiian shoreline. On deck, the public address system was heard as crewmen were running into position.

"Now hear this--this is the captain speaking: All hands to battle stations--red alert! All hands to battle stations; this is not a drill. I repeat, all hands to battle stations!" Moments later, the battleship's mighty guns blasted away at the ship. Explosions pounded the hull but it was undamaged as it returned fire, forcing the water to explode on each side of the ship. Jet planes took off from an aircraft carrier and fired several missiles at the floating ship. Explosions bounced off the hull again as was there no damage. The floating metallic ship launched more yellow stars after the fighter craft. Another ship had helicopters lift off towards the floating ship. One of the helicopters fired its machine guns at it as sparks bounced off all around the floating globe as it returned fire with its green beam which just missed the chopper. The sphere moved past the coast and the ship and air craft attempted to follow as the battle continued. A field news reporter stood in the centre of downtown Honolulu, Hawaii with a camera crew.

"This is Yvonne Halen for KHON. According to Naval officials, the UFO that reportedly fired on Hawaii according to the Coast Guard was attacked without success by the USS CARL VINSON and the USS BLUE RIDGE. There appears to be no strategy to the ship attacks from the aliens. However, there is some disagreement on that. Currently, the national guard is ready for an invasion at the west coast of the states to perhaps have better luck in stopping this, so far, faceless foe. Other countries are mobilising their forces as well; back to you in the studio."

San Diego, California; several fighter jets flew out past the coast. From there point of view, they encountered the huge metallic sphere.

"This is Red Phoenix to base, we have engaged the UFO," communicated to the pilot over the radio. "We're preparing to open fire now."

"Blue Eagle here, UFO has been locked into target and preparing to fire." One of the jets launched missiles after the huge sphere but the ship green-beamed it into exploding. Two others fired machine guns on the ship as sparks bounced off the hull and it turned fired with a yellow flying star which caused the jet to catch on fire upon contact as it came out of the sky. The sphere passed the other jets as they came around to follow it. They fired more missiles after it. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, sirens rang out; in the streets, police cars and motorcycles poured into the streets.

"This is an emergency evacuation! Please leave this area immediately!" was broadcasted over bullhorns as people ran for cover. The on-ramp to the San Diego freeway was in a traffic jam as people abandoned their cars and joined others as they ran down the freeway.

Off the coast of California, the ship came in to attack. Several tanks fired away at the ship as the floating ship promptly fired yellow triangular shaped bolts at the tanks. One tank was hit and burst into flames. In the air, more military helicopters fired on the UFO.

Downtown Los Angeles…the gigantic metal sphere reached the heart of the city and stopped as it hovered their. Helicopters flew around it firing at will upon the UFO while it returned fire relentlessly. In a cathedral, the sounds of the exchange were heard as people took shelter there and prayed. Whole families were packed under benches as debris fell from the ceiling and loud explosions were heard. Stained glass windows shattered interrupting organ music while meanwhile, outside...

The bottom half of the UFO showed skeletal robots with rifles strapped to their backs dropping from a tube. Military vehicles rushed in as the citizens ran away; soldiers jumped from the jeeps and ran after them.

"Let's move it out! GO! GO!" a commanding officer yelled. "Open fire!" The seemingly endless droves of warriors marched in unison as they suddenly drew there rifles and fired light green bits of light at the soldiers causing sparks to explode on the streets everywhere. The soldiers fell back after the explosions.

"Fire at will!" the commanding officer continued.

Igan continued to control their ship and Pleadia maintained the controls on the warriors below.

"The Armatons in conjunction with our battleship will distract their defences so that when we release my new cyborg, the citizens will be helpless to stop the beginning of their end," Pleadia announced in his laboratory.

Helicopters and fighter jets continued to fire upon the ship hovering above downtown as it returned fire with more damaging effects. The Armatons put on their rifles and then ran after the soldiers and engaged them in hand-to-hand combat. Meanwhile, fire engines sped down the street to the Intercontinental Hotel with Paramedics and Ambulances following them. Police Cars were located at the end of Hope Street as one of the officers were announcing over the bull horn.

"Evacuate the area! I repeat! This area is under heavy attack! Do not remain here! Leave at once!!" The serious traffic jam made it difficult for mass transit vehicles to detour. Armatons continued to fire everywhere as many soldiers were taken out. The fire engines arrived at another building at5th and Figueroa Street as they attempted to put out the fire. Paramedics escorted smoke inhalation victims from the buildings and into the ambulances. More tanks rolled in on the Harbour freeway and started firing to the east; the giant metal globe in the sky fired off more triangular bolts for the freeway. The overpass bridge gave way, dropping a tank onto the ground busting one of the fire hydrants. The gushing water from the hydrant shorted out one of the Armatons standing near it. The camouflage-clad soldier locked up and fell to the ground as it began to start smoking. A military helicopter dropped from the sky in flames, falling through high-voltage power cables. When it exploded, the fire blasting out of the crash blew a great number of parked vehicles into the air. Meanwhile, a black and white police car without a strobe light drove northbound up the Golden State Freeway. Inside, the police radio was jammed with various calls for assistance as Detective Sanchez looked out of the window to her left.

"Frank," she said to him while he attempted to navigate through the tight traffic. "Look at that!" Kathy pointed to a huge metallic sphere that hovered above the centre of Los Angeles surrounded by tall skyscrapers. Tiny jets and helicopters were seen flying around the UFO exchanging fire with the massive battleship.

"I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't have see it with my own eyes, Kathy," Frank commented. "This is unreal." Their car continued on to the mountains ahead.

At Griffith Observatory, Dr. Aaron Hanson had Dave, Will, Ron, Amy and Tomin his private office watching one of the monitors as a news helicopter featured the grand battle in downtown Los Angeles. Amazing pictures of the dark grey sphere Omni-directionally shooting out rays and spinning stars at military helicopters and jet planes. The National Guard relentlessly fought back as hard as possible despite losing ships that were even touched by these beams of light.

"I must say, they sure know how to put up a fight," Dave remarked.

"However, it is evident that they are failing fast and that is why now is the time that I bring you to our new lunar orbital facility," Dr. Hanson replied.

"But how are we going to get here?" Tom asked.

"Follow me," Hanson beckoned as he walked over to the closet. Opening the door, he entered and pushed a special spot near the ceiling with his hand causing part of the floor to pull back under the wall where a stair case became visible. The six of them walked down the stairs in the closet entering abasement with several entrances from other tunnels.

"We have multiple tunnels with a little more security in case you need to get to the moon orbiter by yourselves," Hanson told them. He walked up to a wall, pulled the latch down a green beam of light to scan his face. Suddenly, the wall turned around showing ten booths that illuminated into a soft glow from behind. Hanson walked up to a panel on the side of the wall and punched in an alpha-numeric sequence.

"I've activated the matter transportation device, we should be at the Space-Base in less than five seconds. Step up." The five joined Aaron who stood inside of the chambers as a glass shield closed around them. Suddenly, the chambers became extremely brilliant with light. The white light vanished, leaving behind blue twinkling stars that dissolved into darkness. Behind the Moon seen in space orbiting the Earth was the opal-coloured spherical satellite that stayed in synchronous orbit with the dark-side of the lunar celestial body. Inside, the top floor marked Deck A on the floor featured a wall showing an active matrix colour monitor with five work stations on the left and right with the whole chamber illuminated by the entire ceiling. At the entrance, one door pulled back showing all six of them on a platform with six transparent glowing pads on the floor with one being a larger blue pad as they all stepped out. The door auto-closed and Dr. Aaron Hanson walked through the white laboratory to the brown seat in front of the long engineering-style control panel connected to the large view screen on the wall.

"This place looks like Base IX back on Terrania," Dave said.

"Hanson..." Commander Leto interrupted. "We're no longer on Earth so, we don't have to use our code names, Sheratan. The whole idea here is to re-create an environment you would all be used to on our home world of Terrania. Being in Earth's dimension is merely so that we can combat this new foe. This way they wont make it to our world."

"Will our technology stand up against the aliens?" Australis asked.

"Speculative analysis shows that our technology is generally equal to theirs. They don't know about us and we don't know enough about them to determine whether or not we'll be actually fighting a losing battle," Leto answered. "However, as our mission progresses, we will learn new things and from this base and, I will converse with the Uton Government on Terrania to share information with the other Military specialists. Hopefully, we'll be able to send these forces back to wherever they came from."

"First, we need to figure out what their strategy is," Messuta figured.

Leto nodded. "Right. So far, I believe they are trying to occupy the human military forces from around the world to their now vacant ship so that when they attack the rest of the population, they will be left helpless."

"What do they want to do with the humans?" Lotia wondered.

"That is what we are going to find out. In any case..." Commander Leto walked over to the left as a safe-like storage box on top of a file-folder type stand. He entered access codes on the membrane keyboard as the red on black digital display read out various non-roman text. The safe opened out as five rings that sat on a sloped platform behind a motion-detector grid became visible; the grid shut off as Leto turned to face the five watching him.

"After spending a year conditioning yourself for a life in America and for the mission ahead, you are all now ready for the final element to your ability to perform your duties," Commander Leto said. "The Gene Gems."

"THE Genesis Gemstone rings??" Lotia gasped with awe. "Oh... I have heard so much about them! They're based on the crystals used within reactor cores at our power plants."

Australis began to nod while recalling some information. "I heard they were developing these rings for the Galaxy Task Force to give enough power to the prototype of the Astro Suit."

"They succeeded," Leto said. "Each individual Gene Gem is uniquely formulated to activate and energise your uniforms, weapons and vehicles. And, the golden ring that houses the Genesis Gem completes the energy circuit through the voice command: Astro Charge."

"Now that this massive force has come from the unknown, we will need the most powerful energy-generation tool that we have every created to combat this foe," Nashiran commented.

Commander Leto took a golden ring with a star-shaped Ruby on its top. "Sheratan Kasei, you are MarsAstro with the rank of red--leader. The power of Mars will resonate through your gem." Commander Leto gave Sheratan the jewel as he slipped it onto his right ring finger.

"Australis Mokusei, you are JupiterAstro with the rank of Green, second in command. Jupiter's energy will resonate from the amethyst stone you own." Australis fitted the golden ring with the Amethyst stone onto his finger.

Commander Leto handed Messuta his golden diamond ring. "Messuta Suisei, you are MercuryAstro with the rank of white. Mercury's vibrational cosmic power will be at your command with the Diamond Gene Gem."

Lotia slipped on her golden ring. "Lotia Kinsei, you are VenusAstro; Venus will resonate through your Zircon Gene Gem."

"And Nashiran Dosei, you're SaturnAstro with the rank of Black. Saturn will resonate through your Onyx Gem," Commander Leto said as he gave him the golden ring with the stone on top.

"Together you make up the team Galaxy Task Force Astro Rangers." The safe automatically re-closed as Leto walked over to the console in front of the main viewer and played back a recording made of the original Astro Rangers. "The Astro ranger battle team was formed 58 years ago by Commander Taiyou with your grandparents baring the same looking uniforms."

"How does defence look?" Sheratan said.

"New weapons will shortly be stored in our molecular transportation facility where the suits are housed now just one deck above the shuttle bay at the bottom of this space station."

"Good, there is no telling what these aliens can do," Sheratan said.

"It'll be interesting to see what it'll be like using the new Moleculatom Light Blaster's with terrawattage pumping through the firing chamber," Nashiran said. "Perhaps we'll have an edge there."

"We're hoping to make a break through with the new Type 4 metal-suits but they're having problems trying to get all the new onboard equipment to withstand endurance," Leto said.

"Fine, whatever," Nashiran replied, knowing that wont happen within a useful period of time. The view screen began to display an aerial view of Griffith Park featuring the acrobatic Armaton warriors holding off law enforcement.

"That's all I have the time to tell you about. Your training that was taught at the security bases where you once served to protect our land will serve you here as well. For your information, your Gene Gems will glow when anything harmful is near itself or its owner."

"How'd the humans ever learn our fighting techniques anyway?" Sheratan asked.

"Five thousand years ago, I think it was, we taught a few humans our fighting skills after trading some materials from their world--materials only available on Earth such as these types of gems," Lotia explained. "Because Terrania thought Humans had become extinct over five thousand years ago, we stopped trying to make contact with them so now they don't even know we exist," Australis explained. "I sure hope those aliens don't have any techniques like we do. Otherwise, we're all in very serious trouble."

"Whatever the threat may be, we must stand against them because what this all boils down to is that the only thing that stands between this planet and those forces are all of you," Leto said.

Washington, D.C….an emergency press conference was held at The White House by a spokes-person for The Department of Defence. Several correspondence reporters shouted questions at the men standing on the stage in front of the microphones.

"At this time, the United States Department of Defence has allocated extra National Guard reinforcements to Southern California and all available Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force man power has been put on tactical alert to ensure the safety of this country," the spokes-person said.

"Sir," one reporter managed to speak, "is the armed forces gaining any advantage to the U.F.O?"

"We are unable to provide an accurate statement to the press and public, however, our primary concern at this point is to not allow this object to come to any other major city or leave the area it is currently attacking until it is unable to do any further damage."

"Does the President intend on making a statement?" a reporter asked.

"Yes he does and he already has informed us to let the public know to not panic."

After the Nazitans brought to Earth the squadron of Armaton soldiers to ravage Los Angeles…Galaxy Task Force Astro Ranger, from Terrania (an alternate world of Earth's) was brought here, by Commander Leto, by order of the Uton Government of Terrania to protect both worlds from the forces of Adol the Great and his minions: Igan, Tortan and Ginara with Pleadia's new cybernetic warriors. So now, the unknown fights the unknown in Galaxy Task Force ASTRO RANGER!

TO BE CONTINUED

In next week's episode of Galaxy Task Force Astro Ranger . . . Pleadia, from the Nazitan Outpost beneath the surface of Pluto, catapults to Earth the terrorising Cyborg Vacman. Meanwhile, the super-humans known as Terranians use the golden rings topped with five unique Genesis Gemstones to Astro Charge and become the Astro Rangers in episode No. 2, "We Need A Hero!"