Radu Vs the Amazon Women, a space cases fanfic

Disclaimer: Space Cases belongs to Peter David and Bill Mumy, and probably several other people/organizations that are not me. This story is purely for entertainment purposes, not intended for sale or profit.

A/n: Written to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Space Cases! This story was originally inspired by an anecdote I found on the Space Cases website:

"Later, at a party, Kristian came to me with a carefully maintained straight face and said he had an idea for another episode. He claimed it was called "Radu Vs. the Amazon Women." "What happens is," he explained, "in the teaser the entire crew gets frozen...except for Radu. And then he spends the rest of the episode with the Amazon women." "Fighting them?" I asked. He shrugged and grinned. I told him I'd think about it. I invite fans to flesh it out."
-Peter David [taken from the SpaceCasesTV website]

Challenge accepted! Radu was always my favorite. So Kristian Ayre, if by some chance you're reading, this one's for you!

Radu Vs. the Amazon Women

It was just another day aboard the starship Christa as it soared peacefully through a particularly deserted stretch of outer space on its long journey back to the Sol system and Starcademy. It had been quite some time since the crew had run afoul of any violent alien attackers or destructive interstellar phenomena. As such (and if that weren't bad enough), Miss Davenport had devised a plan to 'alleviate the tedium through cooperative educational encounters'.

No one was fooled. A fancy term for "studying" was still just a fancy term for studying. The cadets had tried to run. They had tried to hide. But no one had escaped her clutches.

That was how Radu and Suzee found themselves in the team room bent over their compupads. Both of them looked like they'd rather be just about anyplace else.

"Okay, let's go over this one more time," Suzee sighed, rubbing her temples.

"Right," Radu nodded, frowning a tad desperately at the figures on the readout.

"If the deutronium ore has an impurity factor of greater than 27.93%..." Suzee prompted.

"Then…um…" Radu grimaced. "Then you reroute the plasma conduits through the dilithium chamber, reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and vent the hydraulic pumps through the forward ion injectors, which would…"

"Blow up the ship," Harlan interrupted as he walked up behind Radu and leaned over his shoulder to examine the readout he was squinting at so miserably.

"Twice," Suzee agreed forlornly, giving Radu a pitying look that made him cringe.

"I'm really sorry Miss Davenport is making you tutor me in engineering," he said.

"Well, it sort of makes sense," Suzee shrugged. "I mean, I'm an engineering genius. And you're…"

"An engineering idiot," Radu said glumly.

"Not an idiot!" Suzee said admonishingly. "Just… a little lost."

"Calling him 'a little lost' might actually be worse than calling him an idiot," Harlan interjected helpfully, grinning cheekily at Radu's discomfort. "Aren't you Andromedans supposed to have a naturally accurate sense of direction?"

Radu sighed in dejection.

"Let me see that," Harlan continued, snatching the compupad out of Radu's hand before he could stop him. "Oh, come on," he scoffed as he scrolled through the problem set. "This is beginner stuff. You reroute the deutronium injectors through the dilithium chamber, engage the hydraulic pump – hermetic seals intact – and then vent the rear ion conduits to reallocate the deutronium." He looked up and gave them a smug smile. "And the neutrons can flow any which way they like, as long as they're not blowing up the ship."

"Wow, Harlan," Suzee blinked, impressed. "I had no idea you knew anything about engineering."

"Hey, I'm the total package," Harlan said, spreading his hands as though to say 'I can't help how awesome I am' and shooting her a wink. "Brains, looks and charm." He tossed the compupad back to Radu. "Beats plain old brute strength any day!"

Startled, Radu managed to catch the compupad, but his hand closed a little too tightly around it. The screen cracked and the casing crunched, it emitted an ominous shower of sparks and began to smoke. Radu dropped it hastily on the table just as it burst into flames.

An instant later the team room door whooshed open and Thelma appeared. Striding mechanically forward, she extended her arm, the tip of one finger cocking back to reveal a white tube, and shot a choking fog of fire suppression gas at the burning compupad.

"Please do not set fire to the team room," Thelma pleasantly requested of the three coughing, gagging space cadets. "Commander Goddard's instructions were most adamant on that point, after the first three times." She nodded jauntily, her cervos whirring, and disappeared back through the door as briskly as she'd entered.

"I-I'm sorry," Radu stuttered, staring in dismay at the smoking mess on the table. "I didn't mean to…"

"Yeah, you never do," Harlan muttered.

"Don't worry about it, Radu," Suzee said sympathetically, which only made him feel worse. "It was a good time to take a break anyway. We'll try again tomorrow. Trust me – if Harlan can do it, I know you can figure it out."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean!" Harlan exclaimed, bumping her shoulder playfully as they walked out of the team room together.

Radu watched them go, crestfallen. "Brains, looks and charm," he said sadly, then looked down at the pile of molten slag that was all that was left of the compupad. "Beats brute strength any day."

Meanwhile, up at the Compost, Commander Goddard was attempting to engage in diplomatic negotiations with the first populated world that had come into communications range in weeks. The creatures on the screen each had three eyes, six legs, piggish snouts and hides covered in blue scales. And were evidently, to put it in technical terms, a bunch of backwater yokels.

"As I said, our stores of deutronium are starting to run low," he said as pleasantly as he could through gritted teeth.

"I done told ya, Mister Commaynder, sir," one of the aliens twanged. "We're jus' simple folk 'round these parts. We don't truck with none o' them newfangled whatchamacallit gadgets what run on deutronium."

"Alright," Goddard said slowly, his equanimity running on fumes. He was being as patient as he knew how to be, but he had been on the com with them for over forty-five minutes and all he knew for sure by now was that if they started square dancing again, he would not be responsible for his actions. "Then maybe you know where we can find some?"

"What'chu think, Xebulon?" the alien asked his companion.

"Well, Glabutrax," said the second alien, "I reckon the only planet hereabouts you'd be finding deutronium lying around might be that there Amazonia."

"Amazonia?" the Commander asked eagerly, ecstatic to finally be getting somewhere.

"Yup. Planet o' the Amazons."

"And where is that?"

"We'll send y'all the coordinates – Hey, Bubba! Send 'em them there coordinates fer Amazonia! – but let me tell you right now, Mister Commaynder, sir, you ain't never gonna be able to get nothing from them."

Commander Goddard frowned. "Why is that?"

"Well, they don't take too kindly to men folk on planet Amazonia, do they Xebulon?"

"No, no they don', Glabutrax."

"Hey Bubba! Do they take kindly to men folk on planet Amazonia?"

"No siree they don'!"

"Y' see?" the alien said meaningfully. "Ain't nuthin' fer it."

"Ah, well, I'm sure we'll figure something out. Thank you, gentlemen, it's been a pleasure." Then, because he couldn't hold back any longer, he added, "Xebulon, Glabutrax… and Bubba?"

"You got sum sorta problem with that, Mister?"

"None at all. Lovely names. Goddard out."

"This is a terrible idea," Miss Davenport complained as she positioned herself in front of the helm, grimacing at the image of Amazonia on the view screen. "I mean, yes, I have of the poise, grace, dignity and authority of a natural leader. No one can deny that. But I am not a Stardog! I know nothing about commanding a spaceship! I don't know anything about opening relations with alien species! This is not in my job description! It will never work!"

"For once I agree with Miss Davenport!" Harlan exclaimed, scowling up at where Suzee had taken his usual position at the helm. "She'll fly the ship into a black hole, Commander!"

"Hey!" Suzee complained.

"No offense," Harlan said belatedly. "You're a great engineer. But there's a reason I'm the pilot here."

"I think she'll make a great pilot," Radu chimed in hopefully from where he was standing off to one side, out of view of the com screen.

"Thank you, Radu," Suzee smiled at him, then turned a gloating smirk on Harlan.

"Yeah, no one asked you, flamethrower," Harlan groused, shooting Radu a quelling look.

"Enough!" Commander Goddard barked. "Local intel says that this planet is stringently matriarchal. They won't even talk to men, much less negotiate with them. But they've apparently got plenty of deutronium ore to spare, and our fuel lines are running dangerously low. So whether any of you like it or not, we don't have a choice. Now don't worry," he said to Miss Davenport. "We've been over the basics. Remember the three C's."

"Calm, courteous, complimentary," she recited dutifully.

"Exactly! And if anything unexpected happens, I'll give you a signal from over here."

"Incoming communication signal from the planet below," Thelma informed them.

"Good! Boys, back here out of sight! Rosie, patch us through!"

"On it, Commander!"

Commander Goddard gave Miss Davenport an encouraging thumbs up and stepped back against the wall with the male cadets, out of the range of the visual communication display.

"Calm, courteous, complimentary. Calm, courteous, complimentary…" Miss Davenport closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them as Rosie activated the view screen.

And shrieked in alarm.

Framed in the firelight of two golden braziers shaped like monstrous fanged jaws, a tall, statuesque, strikingly beautiful woman in a silken red toga and golden belt and circlet reclined on a throne of glaring yellow skulls, slowly sharpening a wicked-looking dagger.

"M-maybe they're animal skulls?" Rosie squeaked from the com station.

"You know they're not," Bova muttered fatalistically, before Commander Goddard elbowed him in the side, reminding him to keep it down.

The woman on the view screen seemed completely unfazed by Miss Davenport's reaction, as though she was perfectly accustomed to being greeted by screams of terror.

"Why do you seek audience with Hippolyta, Headwoman of Amazonia?" she boomed.

The voice was powerful and severe enough to make Miss Davenport jump, and toy with the idea of fainting. From the corner of her eye, she saw Commander Goddard make a 'get on with it' motion. So instead she swallowed her spleen back down and rallied.

"Good day!" she said, forcing her face into what she hoped passed for a friendly smile. "I am …er… Commander Davenport of the starship Christa. Um…" Calm, courteous and… and… complimentary! she reminded herself. "My, what a lovely… erm… throne of skulls!" she blurted in her most complimentary tone. "I haven't seen such a superb collection of...moldering dead things… since… since…"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Commander Goddard waving his arms, a look of disbelieving frustration on his face. She grimaced at him, unable to discern what he was trying to tell her. Her mind had gone quite blank, arrested by the gleam of the dagger in the firelight and the way the skulls seemed to leer through the screen at her.

"The, um… the ship – our ship! – is circling? – orbiting! – your planet?" she said, shaking her head at the Commander, who instantly stopped drawing circles in the air and smacked the palm of his hand to his forehead.

"This was a terrible idea," he hissed to himself.

"She's crashing and burning, isn't she?" Bova murmured.

"Looks like it, yeah," Radu replied quietly.

"Maybe if Commander Goddard would send clearer signals…" Harlan muttered, and began moving his own arms around, trying to mimic a spaceship in flight.

"No, maybe something more like this…" Radu whispered, then started waving his arms around as well, trying to mimic the shape and motion of the engines.

"Well, when in Rome," Bova shrugged, and started jumping and flailing as well, for no reason in particular.

"I think what the Commander here is trying to say…" Suzee interrupted Miss Davenport, only to look up and do a double take at the four males members of the crew doing what looked vaguely like frantic interpretive dance in the corner. Her mouth opened and closed several times, and then she just shook her head and subsided into a baffled silence, while behind her, Rosie broke down in a fit of hysterical giggles.

Meanwhile, someone had handed a compupad to the brutal-looking beauty on the screen.

"Our scans show that the deutronium ore your spacecraft is burning for fuel is nearly depleted. You have come to request a supply from us, yes?" Hippolyta demanded forbiddingly.

"Yes!" Miss Davenport exclaimed, clapping her hands together as she finally recalled what she was supposed to be doing talking to this barbaric creature. "Yes, that's exactly it! If you could spare some, that is. Ma'am."

Hippolyta stared at Miss Davenport suspiciously for several long, bullet-sweating seconds before relenting.

"Deutronium is a byproduct of our mining process," Hippolyta said. "We have no use for it. You are welcome to as much as your ship can carry. I have only one question first." She paused, and her face darkened terrifyingly. "There are no men in your crew?"

"Men?" Miss Davenport exclaimed. She forced out a breathless little laugh and slapped her leg, then winced, and rubbed the spot she'd just slapped. "Men! Ha! Of course not! Men, crewing my ship! The very idea!"

At that moment, several things happened almost simultaneously.

Bova, still jumping and flailing, landed hard on Harlan's toe.

Harlan, biting his lip with a grunt of pain, jerked his foot out from under Bova and stumbled back against Radu.

Radu instinctively flung an arm out to catch Harlan, and accidentally elbowed Commander Goddard in the back as he overbalanced.

All three cadets ended up in a pile on the floor.

And Commander Goddard went flying across the room with a shout of surprise, and landed directly at Miss Davenport's feet.

Miss Davenport stared down at the Commander in disbelieving frustration, then looked up at the screen, where the Headwoman had raised one questioning eyebrow.

"What, him?" Miss Davenport shrilled as Commander Goddard climbed to his feet, dusting himself off and sending a glare that promised retribution at the cadets in the corner. "Oh, no, no, no! He's not a crewmember, he's… he's…" she cast about for an explanation, something, anything, and then blurted out the first one that leapt to mind. "He's… my pet!"

The Commander turned his glare on her. She ignored him.

"Yes, that's right, he's my pet!" she continued, warming to the idea, and shook an admonishing finger in the Commander's face. "He gives me nothing but trouble, as you can well imagine. But I'm a terrible softie, I just can't bring myself to discipline him properly." She turned back to the screen. "I trust that won't be a problem… will it?"

Hippolyta was giving her a level look. For a moment, the entire crew held their breath, certain that the entire disastrous venture had ended in failure.

Then the Headwoman threw her head back and laughed. It was not a nice sound.

"I like you, Commander Davenport!" the Headwoman said, her face splitting into a broad smile that was as beautiful as it was frightening. "You amuse me! Come down to my hall and share a drink with me! As, shall we say, the price of the deutronium. Your crew shall come as well. And any more pets you have skulking around! They can load the ore!"

The echo of her sinister laughter seemed to linger in the Compost long after she had cut the transmission.

There was a long, awkward silence. Then –

"Your pet?"

"What were you guys trying to do? You looked like you were having some kind of fit!"

"They could have been animal skulls."

"Hey, I would have gotten the message across if these two hadn't blown it!"

"I had to improvise! I told you it wouldn't work!"

"It's my fault, Commander. I'm really sorry, it was an accident."

"Honestly Radu, first another compupad, and now this. How many times have we discussed this? You must be more careful!"

"They weren't animal skulls."

"Yeah, man, in case you forgot, this isn't an Andromedan ship, you could really hurt somebody!"

"Alright, enough!" Commander Goddard shouted over the rest. Silence fell. "Yes, that could have gone better. But in spite of…well, everything, it seems we're one step closer to getting our hands on that deutronium. Thelma!" he called over his right shoulder.

"Yes?" Thelma appeared over his left. He startled, then sighed.

"Can you trace the signal and find a landing zone nearby?"

Thelma's gears clicked and dinged.

"I am sorry, Commander," she intoned agreeably. "That will not be possible. The signal is coming from deep beneath the planet's surface, which is completely sealed over with glacial flows."

"An ice world?" Bova wondered.

"Brrr! I don't like the sound of that," Rosie said.

"Then how do they expect us to – "

Harlan was cut off mid-question as a sparkling beam of light flared through the Compost.

"Matter teleport signal detected," Thelma reported belatedly to no one at all. She was now alone aboard the Christa.

An instant later, the crew materialized inside a strange cavern of white rock. They stood on a broad metal platform that took up most of the room. The ceiling hung thick with stalactites and the rough hewn walls pulsed with colorful lights.

"Er… nevermind," Harlan said.

"Whoa, look at this!" Suzee exclaimed, examining the pulsing of the walls.

"That's bioluminescence, right Miss Davenport?" Rosie asked.

"Very good, Rosie," Miss Davenport replied, almost pathetically grateful for something to focus on other than their probable impending doom. "The entire rock formation appears to have a living element to it."

"I wonder…" Suzee said, staring thoughtfully at a certain light pattern on the wall before her. If you squinted really hard and used your imagination, it looked almost like two eyes and a mouth – a face. Experimentally, she leaned forward and pitched her consciousness into the image. The crew startled as a little tremor rumbled through the chamber. Two of the lights changed color, reflecting the lavender light in Suzee's eyes. For an instant the shaking intensified, then stopped. Suzee blinked and stepped back, breaking the connection.

"There's definitely something there. But it's really strange. I can't get a clear picture from it. Like it isn't completely awake."

"So wait, this place is like the Christa then!" Rosie exclaimed. "Partly alive!"

"That's interesting and all, but what is this place?" Radu wondered.

"That was a matter teleport beam," Commander Goddard said. "I think it's safe to assume that we've accepted the Headwoman's invitation."

"Whether we like it or not," Bova agreed ominously.

The sound of approaching footsteps drew all eyes towards an open archway, the only entrance to the chamber.

In strode six women. All of them were exceptionally tall, muscular, curvaceous and uniformly beautiful. They were clad in tight, scant leather, the orbits of their eyes had been painted with pigments of dark reds, greens and blues, giving their glares a fearsome, exotic quality. Each wielded a gleaming sharp spear, carrying them with the ease of familiar use, and two wore blaster guns holstered at their hips.

One of these stepped forward. She was at least a head taller than Miss Davenport, though when she towered over her, it seemed more like ten. Miss Davenport shrank back from the burning intensity of her glare.

The Amazon raised her spear, and Miss Davenport cringed.

"All hail Commander Davenport, headwoman of the Starship Christa!" she shouted.

"All hail!" the Amazons shouted, banging the butts of their spears on the ground. Radu clapped his hands over his ears in dismay.

"Oh, my, well, yes, um…" Miss Davenport dissembled, relieved and a tad flattered.

"The Commander and her crew will come with us," the Amazon woman said. It wasn't a suggestion.

"Well, I… think we'd better do as they say," Miss Davenport suggested, trying to muster up that natural air of authority she'd been bragging about earlier.

The rest of the crew looked at Commander Goddard.

"They hold all the cards," Commander Goddard muttered quietly, so that only the crew could hear. "For now, we'll play along."

Miss Davenport frowned, perturbed. Wasn't she supposed to be in charge for the duration of this little farce?

As the crew moved to follow the Amazon, she held up a hand, a look of undisguised disgust coming over her features.

"The males," she said it as though the very word offended her, "will be taken to the slag store to haul the deutronium crates to the matter teleport platform. If they are good for even that much," she added, looking them up and down with frank skepticism. The other Amazons laughed ruthlessly.

"Hey!" Harlan exclaimed, stepping forward angrily, only to be restrained by Commander Goddard's hand on his shoulder. He had noticed the way the Amazons eagerly tightened their grips on their weapons as Harlan almost gave them an excuse for a fight.

"Now, now, Harlan, we are guests here," the Commander said, his voice tight with forced geniality. "Be a good… pet," he sighed as though he could not believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. "Behave."

Harlan ground his teeth together and subsided with bad grace, falling in behind Radu and Bova. Commander Goddard moved to join them, but another Amazon stopped him with a hand on his chest. To the astonishment of all, she fisted her hand in the front of his uniform, picked him straight up off the ground and placed him on his feet behind Miss Davenport, as casually as if she were rearranging figurines on a shelf.

"The Commander's pet may accompany the crew into the Headwoman's presence, if you will vouch for his behavior," the lead Amazon informed Miss Davenport.

Miss Davenport's jaw was hanging open rather absurdly at the display of brute strength from the statuesque supermodel. Now it snapped shut, a dawning look of opportunistic gratification entering her expression.

"You have my word as a commander that he will be the very soul of obedient propriety," she intoned loftily, pointedly reminding Commander Goddard of their current roles. She smirked as she saw a tick start in the Commander's jaw from the corner of her eye. Clearing her throat briskly, she waved a shooing hand at the boys, glaring imperiously down her nose at them as she threw herself fully into the performance. "Move along, now, pets! Do as you are told, and do try to be useful!"

The three glared after her as she followed the Amazon down a fork in the tunnel outside the matter teleport room and disappeared. Shrugging apologetically and snickering behind their hands, Suzee and Rosie could only follow the adults.

"Power corrupts," Bova observed sardonically as the remainder of the gorgeous, glaring Amazons herded them roughly in the opposite direction. "Just usually not that quickly."

Miss Davenport and Commander Goddard where whispering furiously at each other by the time they reached the doors to the Headwoman's throne room.

"I don't understand what you're so upset about. This was all your idea in the first place!"

"I told you to act like a Stardog commander, not a Spung warlord!"

"Oh, don't be dramatic. Can I help it if I've taken to diplomacy like a duck to water? I'm merely playing my part in securing the deutronium! Isn't that what's important?"

"Yeah, well… you don't have to enjoy it so much!"

"Me? Enjoy ordering you around for once? Perish the thought," she said acerbically.

"This is ridiculous," he hissed. "You have to put the mission before your personal feelings of inadequacy."

Miss Davenport bristled.

"I suppose I could be a bit more circumspect and even handed," she demurred, pretending to consider it. "But what would our hostesses think? We wouldn't want to offend their sensibilities, now would we? I suppose you're just going to have to put the mission before your personal feelings."

Without waiting for a retort, she turned her nose up and led the way through the huge carven gold doors into the throne room.

It was an enormous circular stone cavern. Amazon guards stood at intervals around the perimeter, spears in hand. More of the fearsome braziers shaped like roaring jaws lined the walls. They were interspersed with decorative ice statues of humanoids, each carved in eerie detail. They were either dancing in joy or writhing in agony – it was hard to tell. In the very center of the room a gaping, circular pit fell away into nothingness, Its sheer walls were painted with writhing shadows and the hellish red stain of deeper planetary fires rising from far, far below.

"Greetings, Commander Davenport!" Hippolyta, Headwoman of the Amazons, thundered like a cheerful stormcloud. She stepped down from the dais that housed her imposing throne of skulls at the far end of the room. She was the tallest Amazon they'd met yet, and the most intimidating as she paced towards them. "I present you with the crowns of my enemies, as a token of esteem! Come let us drink deeply of the bloodwine, to our new friendship!"

"Crowns!" Miss Davenport exclaimed dreamily, doing her best to ignore the ominous ambiance and thinking she could get to like this command business.

Three Amazon women strode forward carrying what appeared at first to be old ivory bowls. But on closer inspection, the truth became clear: they could only be the slightly lumpy, crudely hacked domes of yet more humanoid skulls. The Amazons thrust one at each of the females. (If Commander Goddard was disappointed to be left out of this particular ritual, he hid it expertly.)

Miss Davenport stared down at the gooey red slime bubbling viscously in the skull bowl, her smug expression transforming with revulsion.

"Did you say this is wine?" Suzee asked hastily, pressing her skull bowl back into the hands of the Amazon that had brought it to her. "Ooh, sorry, Rosie and I are too young for alcohol." Rosie quickly followed Suzee's lead, nodding vigorously.

"Then it is you and I, Davenport! Just as it should be!" Hippolyta held up a skull bowl of her own. "One Headwoman to another!" She tipped the bowl back and drank down the rank concoction with relish.

"Wouldn't want to offend our hostesses," Miss Davenport heard Commander Goddard goad almost gleefully over her shoulder, a satisfied smirk on his face. "Go on, Commander. And don't forget to enjoy yourself!"

Meanwhile, Harlan, Radu and Bova had been delivered to a large cavern with an ore processing unit taking up one wall, and put to work loading crates of deutronium ore onto anti-gravity pallets, which they were later going to have the distinct displeasure of pushing back up to the matter teleport chamber.

"This is great!" Radu exclaimed brightly, lifting yet another hefty crate of ore with ease. "There's enough deutronium here to fill up three cargo holds! If it is as pure as it looks, we could be looking at enough fuel to last us for years!"

"Yeah, right, great for you, Mr. Super Strength," Harlan retorted in a strangled voice, as he and Bova struggled to carry one crate of the super-dense ore between the two of them. They dropped the crate onto the pallet and leaned against it, breathing heavily. Harlan mopped at his brow, then glanced thoughtfully across the room. A group of Amazon guards lounged there, watching the cadets' work with bored amusement and talking quietly amongst themselves. "You know, this would go a lot faster if they'd help us."

"Not very likely," Bova said. "They seem to be enjoying watching us suffer."

"Yeah, but you saw how strong they are. If we could convince them to lend a hand, we'd be done and out of here in no time!"

"I don't see how," Radu said, setting down another crate as easily as if it were filled with feather pillows. "They really don't like men very much."

"Heh, well, maybe they just haven't met the right man yet," Harlan countered with a self-assured grin.

"Harlan, maybe you shouldn't…"

"Hey, total package, remember? Brains, looks," he straightened his uniform with renewed purpose and set off across the room, "and charm!"

The Amazons fell silent as Harlan approached, turning one by one to glare at him suspiciously. The Amazon with the blaster on her belt cocked a challenging eyebrow at him.

"You know, you surprised me back there," Harlan said, giving her his most winning smile. "I've never met a girl as beautiful as you that could lift a guy off of his feet like that."

Radu and Bova looked on from across the room.

"You think it'll work?" Radu wondered.

Abruptly they both ducked as Harlan, with a cry of alarm, came flying through the air over their heads to land amidst a stack of empty crates. They splintered, breaking his fall.

"Nope," Bova replied belatedly.

"Harlan!" Radu exclaimed, rushing to his crewmate's side.

Bova turned to see the Amazon stalking across the room towards them. Panicking, he charged his antennae and zapped her with an electrical bolt. The Amazon gasped and froze, writhing in pain for an instant, but far from stopping her, all it did was make her angrier. The instant he released the charge, her hand darted out and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him off of his feet. Bova squeezed his eyes shut as she drew her fist back.

The sound of an impact made him flinch, but there was no pain. Cautiously he opened one eye.

The Amazon's fist was caught in Radu's gloved hand, just inches from his face. She stared it in mute astonishment, straining with all her might to shake him off, and failing. With a cry of outrage, she tossed Bova aside. He landed on Harlan, who had just picked himself up off of the ground, and they both tumbled back down in a dazed heap.

Radu and the Amazon broke apart, Radu backing away and holding his hands up in a placating gesture while the Amazon paced after him, a fevered gleam in her eye.

"C-can't we talk about this?" Radu asked.

With a blood-curdling battle cry, the Amazon launched herself at him.

An instant later, the Amazons watching from across the room ducked as their leader went flying through the air over their heads to splinter a few crates of her own. They raced over to her as she climbed slowly to her feet. There was a strange look on her face.

"He defeated me!" she breathed wonderingly. She was staring intently at Radu. "He's strong!"

"Sorry!" Radu called, wincing apologetically, before rushing over to Harlan and Bova. "Are you guys okay?"

"I think so, but…"

The three slowly turned as a shadow fell over them, looking up to see the remaining Amazons, cracking their knuckles ominously and smiling terrible, alluring smiles, advancing on them like a tidal wave rising out of an angry sea.

"Uh-oh…"

"So your planet used to be a jungle world?" Miss Davenport said. "And then three hundred years ago a catastrophic shift in the tectonic plates triggered an ice age?"

"Just so!" Hippolyta replied. "Since then we have totally abandoned the surface and have carved out the planet's interior to make our new home."

Miss Davenport seemed to have found some measure of confidence at the bottom of that skull bowl of red sludge, because even Commander Goddard had to admit that so far she was holding her own. (Not out loud, of course, but he was willing to think it.) At her suggestion, Hippolyta was leading her, Suzee and Rosie on an impromptu tour, proudly showing off the achievements of the Amazons. (Goddard didn't count himself in their number, having achieved roughly the same status as the furniture in their collective regard).

"How do you grow food with no sunlight?" Rosie wondered.

"Ah!" Hippolyta replied, only too happy to brag. "We have tamed ourselves a capable servant. You see, the planet itself is infused and bonded with a life-force energy being. It serves us in our every need, thanks to the magic of my golden girdle." Her hand rested proudly on the ornate belt at her waist.

"Wait, then you know that this planet is partly alive?" Suzee interrupted indignantly. She couldn't forget the vast, lonely mind of the Face in the stone, half lost in strange dreams. "You've built this amazing civilization by exploiting a living, sentient creature for your own benefit! How can you justify what you're doing to it?"

Hippolyta turned a cold glower on Suzee and made to speak, but what she would have said they'd never know, because she was interrupted by the sounds of shouting coming from just ahead.

"Is that what I think it is?" Rosie asked.

"It sounds like a fight," Miss Davenport said disapprovingly.

"It is coming from the slag store," Hippolyta added with interest.

There was a brief pause while this sank in. Then Commander Goddard and Miss Davenport shared a wide-eyed look, and bolted for the far archway, leaving the rest to catch up behind them. Rounding the bend, they skidded to a halt just inside to stare in disbelief.

A crowd of Amazons had gathered around the edges of the room, shouting and laughing and cheering like coliseum spectators. Others were whispering and giggling amongst themselves, the transformation from fearsome barbarian warriors to giggling girlish bystanders somehow much more disturbing.

In the center of the circle of gathered Amazons stood Radu.

Before anyone could so much as open their mouths to ask what was going on, one of the Amazons detached herself from the crowd to a roar of approval. She dropped into an aggressive crouch, let out a shrill battle cry and, spear poised to strike, launched herself at Radu – who swiftly ducked the spear, side stepped and caught her around the middle with one arm. Disarming her with the other, he used her own momentum to fling her backwards over his shoulder. She landed halfway across the room, her head cracking dizzyingly against the stone floor.

Then, to the astonishment of his crewmates, he grinned broadly and lifted the spear triumphantly over his head to a chorus of whoops and cheers, mingled with cries of, "Me next, Radu! Try me next!"

Suzee found her voice first.

"Radu!" she cried. Then she blinked and shook her head as though trying to clear it. "Radu?" she repeated incredulously, as though what her eyes were telling her simply did not compute.

At the sound of Suzee's scandalized exclamation, Radu's head jerked around and he paled to see the rest of the crew watching. Instinctively he tried to hide the spear behind his back, then glanced up and realized the point was jutting far up over the top of his head. Sheepishly, he handed it to a nearby Amazon.

"This, um… this isn't what it looks like…" he began haltingly.

"Oh good," Commander Goddard said angrily. "Because for a moment it looked like you were disobeying a direct order to behave."

"What's the matter?" Rosie quietly asked Suzee, who was still shaking her head, looking a little dazed.

"It's nothing really," she replied. "It's just… I'm so used to Harlan being the one causing trouble…"

"Hey!" came Harlan's voice from where he sat, forgotten and sulking, on a crate in the corner. Bova sat beside him, looking bemused. "I heard that!"

"In fairness, he did try to cause trouble," Bova chimed in with a shrug, then flailed wildly as Harlan shoved him off the crate.

"Madam Headwoman, I beg your pardon!" Miss Davenport pleaded, sending a withering look in Radu's direction. Radu cringed. "I can't imagine what has gotten into him! Brawling like a common ruffian! I can only apologize with the utmost sincerity –"

"Don't bother," Harlan interrupted grumpily. "They love it! They're having the time of their lives!"

"Yes, it would seem that I am the one who must offer apology," Hippolyta replied, surveying the situation with an air of predatory satisfaction. She didn't look very sorry. "My sisters can be… impulsive. They are a rather flirtatious bunch..."

"You call that flirting?" Harlan exclaimed, rubbing his side where he'd landed on the crates.

"…although in this case, it does not appear to have done its usual harm," Hippolyta continued, ignoring Harlan in much the same way she would ignore a buzzing fly – a passing nuisance that she would casually crush later on, if she happened to remember.

"I beg to differ," Harlan muttered.

"They don't seem like the sort of people that begging works on," Bova observed. Harlan shot him a glare, then shoved him off the crate again.

"Radu?" Suzee repeated cautiously as the Amazon he'd just thrown across the room sauntered up behind him and, laughing happily, draped her arms proprietarily around his shoulders. "What is going on?"

"Just, you know…" Radu shrugged, color rising once more to his cheeks. "Making friends," he murmured. He couldn't quite look at her as he deftly squirmed out of the Amazon's embrace.

Suzee's expression soured as she sized up his brand-new, beautiful, buxom and scantily clad 'friend' and then shot him a scathing look.

"I thought you were supposed to be a Starcademy cadet," she scolded him, irritated without quite knowing why. "Is this really how a Stardog acts when he's representing his crew on an alien planet? What happened to the three C's?"

"Well, you're… you're right, but… I mean… I didn't mean to…" he sighed defensively. "It just sort of happened. But, uh, hey, it turned out alright, didn't it?"

"Yeah, this time!" Suzee replied. "But this is the only planet, anywhere, ever, where beating up the locals would turn out alright! Anywhere else, it would have led to a pretty severe misunderstanding." The look she gave him was searing with disappointment. "Face it, you got lucky. You could have seriously endangered the mission, not to mention our lives."

Radu bristled, then wilted with the shame of letting his crew down. Watching this, the Amazon beside him scowled at Suzee.

"There is no misunderstanding!" she exclaimed, reclaiming her grip on Radu – and shooting him an admiring look when her exceptional strength didn't budge him an inch. "Radu has defeated me in combat, as is tradition amongst the Amazons!"

"Uh…yeah!" Radu rallied, bolstered by the unexpected support.

"He has proven himself strong before my tribe!"

"Yeah!" Radu repeated with vindication.

"So now I am his wife!"

"Yeah!" Radu nodded decisively. Then he turned to stare at the Amazon woman in amazement. "Wait, what?"

"What?" Suzee echoed in disbelieving dismay.

"What!" Harlan cried, throwing his hands up in defeat at a world gone mad, in which he was the unpopular one, and Radu got all the girls.

"WHAT?" the entire crew of the Christa exclaimed in unison, just for good measure.

"You heard right! I am now Radu's wife!"

"So am I!" interjected another Amazon woman that Radu had fought, slipping an arm around his neck so that the first Amazon was forced to share.

"Whoa, wait just a minute…" Radu swiftly ducked out of their grasp, only to stumble backwards into a veritable web of strong, insistent female arms.

"And me!"

"Me as well!"

"Don't forget about me!"

The claims were called from every direction. More and more Amazons stepped out of the crowd to cuddle up to Radu.

"How many of them did you fight!" Commander Goddard exclaimed, aghast (and just a tiny bit impressed). Radu shrugged helplessly and did his best not to look like a gazelle in the midst of a pride of purring lionesses – without much success.

"Um… Madam Headwoman…?" Miss Davenport faltered.

"It is way of the Amazons," Hippolyta replied to the unasked question, her raised voice commanding silence from the rest. "We prize only one trait in a man. Strength!"

Hippolyta strode forward and pinned Radu with a thoughtful glare. After a moment, she gave a little nod of approval, drawing a chorus of hushed exclamations from the surrounding Amazons.

"Most men are weak and fragile, good for nothing but playing with until they break!" There was a general chorus of agreement from the gathered Amazon women. "A man strong enough to defeat an Amazon is a rare treasure. So any man that bests an Amazon woman in combat automatically wins her as his wife."

"I, uh… I didn't know," Radu said apologetically. "But, I mean, come on…" he added laughingly. "They can't all think that I'm their…"

"And why not?" Hippolyta demanded, frowning – it was not an expression that most people lived to see twice.

Radu blinked and looked around at the throng of resplendent barbarian beauties, his face going almost comically red, then back up at Hippolyta, as though it should be obvious. When Hippolyta's face darkened, Radu was forced to carefully weigh his immediate options.

"No, um…" he squeaked, then cleared his throat so that his voice returned to its normal octave, "No reason."

He cast a pleading look at the rest of the crew, before his attention was arrested by several of his 'wives' sliding their hands over his shoulders and down his chest, smiling sweetly at him and drawing a rather silly grin from him in return. True, he was feeling rather trapped at the moment, but as traps went, it had to be said, this one could have been worse.

"Then it is settled!" Hippolyta announced. "Radu will remain here, with us!" There was a cheer of approval from the Amazons.

"What?"

"What!"

"What?!"

"WHAT?"

"You do that a lot," Hippolyta noted, glancing inquisitively around at the crew of the Christa.

"This is getting out of hand," Commander Goddard interjected, fed up. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we can't allow you to keep him."

"Why not, Commander?" Harlan interrupted spitefully. His ego was still smarting from being thrown over – literally – in favor of Radu. "Seems like a shame to make him leave when he's finally found someplace he actually fits in."

"Harlan!" Rosie scolded. "Radu fits in with us! I mean, most of the time…"

"Radu is a Starcademy cadet," Miss Davenport chimed in. "Even a failing student is still a student and therefore my responsibility. We can't just leave him behind."

"Besides, if we did, who'd break the compupads so we could get out of doing homework?" Bova joked. Harlan snickered, slapping him on the shoulder – Bova accidentally lost his balance and fell off of the crate a third time.

Radu wasn't laughing.

"Gee, thanks guys," said Radu, disheartened by their less-than-glowing defense. Perhaps at long last he had reached the end of his formidable tolerance. Or, flattered by the exuberant attention of the Amazons and flushed with adrenaline from the sparring, it was just possible that the situation had begun to go to his head. Either way, he suddenly didn't see why he should put up with their teasing. "You know, maybe I should stay here."

"Don't be silly, Radu," Suzee scoffed. But when she caught the look on his face, her certainty faltered. "You can't be serious…"

"Why shouldn't I?" Radu demanded. Indignation rising, he settled back into the welcoming embrace of the Amazons and looked around accusingly at his crewmates. "After all, they don't mind that I'm not the total package."

"True!" the Amazons agreed cheerfully.

"They like that I'm stronger than them!"

"Yes, we do!"

"They're not afraid that I'll break something!"

"Nope!"

"Or that I'll hurt somebody!"

"You can try!"

Radu's sudden burst of anger subsided, leaving him subdued with downcast eyes.

"And nobody here will feel sorry for me if I can't figure out how to purify deutronium ore without blowing up the ship…" Suzee's back stiffened, and she crossed her arms defensively at his implication. "So maybe it's best for everybody if I just stay here. Where I'm actually wanted."

Not waiting for a reply, he stalked out of the slag store, his Amazon entourage following eagerly in his wake.

"Man, what's got his shorts in a twist?" Harlan wondered, then relented with a long-suffering sigh. "I'll go get him."

"No, let him go for now," Commander Goddard said with a shake of his head. "He needs to cool off."

"I should say so," Miss Davenport agreed. "I really don't know what's gotten into him."

But thinking back, each of them had to admit they might have some idea.

"I guess we've been pretty hard on him today…" Harlan muttered.

"Not just today," Bova pointed out. "Radu takes a lot of flack." He looked pointedly at Harlan, who pointedly ignored him.

"And he's so patient with everyone that I guess sometimes we forget that his feelings get hurt too," Rosie said, her face falling.

"Come on," the Commander encouraged. "Let's finish loading these crates, and then we'll go find Radu and ask him to come back with us. Because we're a team, and we don't leave one of our own behind."

"Aw man," Harlan complained. "Radu's the only one that can lift these crates without breaking his back!"

"Missing him already, Mr. Band? Good, you can be the first to tell him so, next time you see him." Commander Goddard extended an arm towards the crates in invitation.

Harlan pulled a face, and got to work.

While the crew was toiling in the slag store, Radu was reclining on a low platform strewn with cushions and soft furs. Once the Amazons had caught him, they had draped him in a robe of sumptuous silken cloth and woven (with some difficulty) a wreath of golden laurels in his hair. They gathered around him now, one fanning him with a large frond, another kneeling next to him, tempting him with a tray of exotic fruits, a third pouring a strange fizzy drink into a golden goblet at his side, each item obediently materialized by the being that inhabited the walls. Still others stood by playing harps and bone flutes and dancing for him, or trying to draw him out with songs and stories. The rest merely lounged beside him as though on display for his enjoyment, all at his beck and call, waiting to cater to his every whim and generally treating him like a king.

They were making it very hard for Radu not to feel vindicated in his words and actions. For while it was a very effective distraction.

Now though, Radu leaned heavily on the heel of his hand and sighed, and no matter what they tried, he would not be comforted.

"What is the matter, Radu?" one finally asked, curling up on the furs beside him. "You aren't pleased?"

Radu straightened guiltily. "I'm sorry. You're all being really nice to me. It's just… I feel like I've let my friends down." He tried to smile, but it faded quickly. "To an Andromedan, loyalty and cooperation is everything. The team is more important than the individual."

"And you feel that you have been disloyal to your friends," said a second Amazon, folding herself onto the furs at his other side.

"Especially the little female with the colorful hair," another observed, exchanging knowing glances with her friends. "You like her best, don't you?"

Radu didn't respond, but his blush was confirmation enough.

"Don't feel sad any longer on their account," said another, sidling closer and laying a placating had on his arm. "If you stay with us, we will make you very happy."

Radu's blush deepened considerably, and he made a visible effort collect himself.

"I'm really sorry," he shook his head with as much sincere regret as he could muster. "I know what I said back there, but I can't really stay. I belong with my crew."

"Is the girl with colorful hair why you won't stay?"

"Yeah… er, no… I don't know. Part of it." Radu drew one knee up so that he could lean his chin on it, his expression wistful. "Maybe a big part of it… I mean, the others don't… I don't really know if they even…" Then he shook his head and subsided into demoralized silence.

Abruptly, the walls of the cavern shook with another tremor. The Amazons shared another meaningful glance over the top of his head.

"Make no decisions right now," the first entreated. Radu, preoccupied with his own gloomy thoughts, missed the ominous sparkle of anticipation in her eyes. "The Headwoman has something special planned on your behalf. Afterwards… you may see things differently."

Without the help of Radu or the Amazons, hauling the deutronium ore had taken hours of hard work, but at last the crew of the Christa heaved the last of the crates onto the matter teleport platform.

"You know, Radu was right," Bova panted. "This much deutronium could last us practically forever."

"Speaking of Radu," Suzee frowned, worried, "where is he?"

"Maybe she knows something," Rosie suggested, pointing towards the Amazon guard glowering silently at them from the archway.

"Yeah, well you can ask her," Harlan said. "I learned my lesson last time."

In response to Rosie's question, the Amazon tapped a pattern of lights on the cavern wall, then resumed her silent glaring.

A tremor shivered through the floor of the chamber, loosing little sprays of rock dust from the ceiling to rain down on the crew.

"Another one?" Rosie said.

"Wasn't me this time," Suzee said, though she could see the Face emerging from the pattern on the wall again. Was it her imagination, or did the mouth seem to be turned down in a frown of dismay?

"I'm sure there's nothing to worry about…" Miss Davenport said, peering uneasily at the sharp, shivering points of the stalactites.

Moments later, two more guards preceded Hippolyta into the room.

"Madam Headwoman," she greeted. "As you can see, we've finished transferring the deutronium. I cannot begin to thank you for your generosity. Your hospitality has been… indescribable. But now we really must be on our way."

"All we're missing is our crewman," Commander Goddard added over her shoulder. "You wouldn't happen to know where he can be found, would you?"

Hippolyta curled her lip in offense to be addressed so presumptuously by a man.

"He is so very outspoken for a mere pet, Commander," she observed venomously, ignoring his question.

"Yes, well," Miss Davenport laughed nervously. "I did say I had trouble training him properly…"

"As it seems you have never been trained properly in the art of lying." Hippolyta slashed a hand through the air to forestall any denials. She cast one last disappointed glare at Miss Davenport, who snapped her mouth shut and looked thoroughly miserable to have been caught out, then dismissed her completely from her notice and grudgingly turned to address the real Commander. "No matter now. Your time here is done. You have what you came for. And we have what we want. Take the ore, and go!"

Her words and expression brooked no argument. But Harlan had never let that stop him before, and he wasn't about to start now.

"We're not leaving without Radu," he said, stepping up to match the Headwoman glare for glare.

"That's right!" Suzee exclaimed, her eyes accusing. "You seem to think that you can always have your way just because you're the strongest. Well, not this time!"

Hippolyta tensed with anger, but instead of advancing on them in a rage, a slow smile curved her red mouth. It was somehow much scarier.

"I had a feeling you'd say something like that."

Without warning, she pressed her palm to the light patterns on the wall, the other touching a gem on her belt, and a containment field hummed into existence around the matter teleport platform, trapping the crew inside.

"Despite insult upon insult, I was prepared to let you go in peace," Hippolyta told them with frightening calm. Then her smile became an evil-looking snarl. "I cannot tell you how pleased I am that you have made that impossible!"

The room began to rumble again, but this time the tremors came not from the floor, but from the ceiling. The stalactites withdrew into the stone like retracting claws to reveal a hidden aperture. It spun open like the iris of a huge eye. A shrieking howl was the only warning the crew had an instant before a white whirlwind of bitter, blazing cold crashed mercilessly into the containment field, funneled down from the sub-zero surface of the planet above. The shocked cries that penetrated the icy maelstrom were cut short in an instant. A moment later, when the aperture been sealed, the stalactite locks replaced and the snow settled, the Headwoman lowered the containment field.

The crew of the Christa stood still as statues, flash-frozen and trapped in a state of cryonic suspended animation inside a layer of ice.

"Vital functions?" she asked one of the guards.

"Stable suspension achieved," the guard replied, examining the wall panel that housed the matter teleport controls. "They will survive like this for approximately one hour before their bodies are beyond repair. After that," she smiled unpleasantly, "the permafrost coating is of sufficient density to preserve their corpses. They will make fitting additions to the collection in the throne room."

Hippolyta meandered lordingly amongst her new trophies, then stopped and leaned down so that she could glare into Suzee's wide, unblinking eyes.

"As you are well aware, the elements of our world have some unique properties. So I know that you can still hear me," she said in a soft, poisonous tone. "Well hear this. We will keep the Andromedan. And we will continue to use our planet however we see fit." A gloating smirk twisted her beautiful face, making it hideous with pride. "And I have decided that you, presumptuous girl, will help us do both." She straightened and stalked away. "Prepare her!" she ordered as she swept out of the room.

The crew of the Christa stood immobilized in the ice, aware of all that was going on around them, but completely helpless to do anything about it. And they did try. The three humans flexed and strained for all they were worth, but they were completely subsumed in an unbreakable layer of rock-hard ice. Rosie glowed with heat, but the permafrost didn't even sweat. Bova's antennae sparked and zapped, but the ice encasing him remained solidly intact.

It was hopeless. All seemed lost.

Just before the two Amazon guards strode forward to lift Suzee off of the platform, her eyes sparked with a lavender glow, and her mind pitched forward - into the Face watching from within the light patterns on the wall. For a moment the Face in light glowed lavender, but it was too big and too alien to hold onto. There was just enough time to transmit a single urgent idea. An instant later, the Face faded away.

Radu meandered alone through the white subterranean tunnels, craning his neck back and forth along the passage ways, looking for something familiar. He had managed to give his alleged Amazon wives the slip when the tremors started to increase in frequency, wandering off on his own in search of solitude. Now nothing looked familiar.

He wasn't lost – no matter what Harlan had to say about his inborn sense of direction, he was never lost – but all the same… he was having trouble finding his way. The acoustics of the tunnels played havoc with his directional hearing, but it was more than that. If he didn't know better he could almost swear that the tunnels were changing.

Yet even more than not quite knowing which way to go, he was distracted by the fact that he didn't know where exactly he was trying to get to.

Doubts plagued him. He really couldn't imagine staying here while the Christa and his crewmates departed. He'd spoken hastily, out of frustration, and he wanted to go back and apologize, but… what if those hasty words had been exactly what they had all been waiting to hear? He had run away before they could respond, and now his imagination was conjuring up all sorts of terrible possibilities.

What if he really was a burden to the crew? Had he been weighing them down and holding them back all this time? Not an asset, but a responsibility, just one more problem to worry about in their struggle to get home? He tried to remind himself that these were his friends, his crew, his team, but their criticism haunted him, and he didn't know what to do. Could it really be that the best way he could help his friends… was to let them leave him behind?

Radu was abruptly startled out of his morose thoughts, when he walked into a stone wall.

Stumbling backwards and rubbing his forehead, Radu squinted at the sudden dead end in confusion. He was sure there had been a tunnel in front of him a moment ago - he wasn't that distracted!

He turned to go back the way he had come – and ran straight into another wall. He tumbled backward and landed on his backside, more confused than concussed.

"Cut that out!" he exclaimed, at he knew-not-whom.

A moment later, a familiar pattern of lights emerged on the newly formed wall. It was the Face.

"Oh, it's you," he said, picking himself up of the floor. "I guess I should have figured. So you can move the walls around, huh? You're pretty powerful…"

Was it his imagination, or did the lights of the Face take on a pinkish tint at his compliment?

"Well, it's only true," he said with a little smile.

Abruptly the lights that made up the Face's eyes and mouth turned down in a facsimile of sadness.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked.

The Face's eyes widened, and then it dissolved into a new pattern.

R A D U, the lights painstakingly spelled out.

"Wow, hey, yeah, that's me!" Radu exclaimed, unaccountably pleased.

But the lights on the wall weren't finished shifting. More words appeared, glowing more brightly, as though with urgency. They spelled out…

FIRE AND DARKNESS YOU WILL TAME
HERO ADDED TO YOUR NAME
NOBLE RADU, WORTHY AND BRAVE…

Radu recognized the poetry immediately. A little chill of disquiet wound its way up his spine.

"Where did you learn those words?" he asked the Face.

The Face reemerged from the light patterns, but this time its eye lights glowed lavender.

"From Suzee?" he guessed.

Rather than answer, it spelled out the last line –

THOSE WHO SCORNED YOU, YOU WILL SAVE.

The chill tied itself in a cold knot and settled in the pit of his stomach.

"Something's not right…" he muttered. "Where are my friends?"

In answer, the wall in front of him shivered and dissolved, pulling back to reveal that the tunnel now arced off in a completely different direction. With no choice but to trust the Face, and urged on by a growing sense of foreboding, Radu threw off the robes and adornments of the Amazons and took off swiftly down the new-made passage, all doubt and indecision momentarily forgotten.

The Amazons had assembled around the fiery bottomless pit in the Headwoman's throne room, stomping their feet and chanting thunderously to the beat of enormous drums. Just as the cacophony a crescendo, the crowd parted for the Headwoman and silence fell. With slow ceremony, she reached down and plucked a single golden jewel off of her belt and cast it into the pit.

For a moment nothing happened. Then the cavern shook violently and great gouts of red flame and black smoke twisted up out of the pit. They swirled together and resolved themselves into a shape with two eyes and a mouth – the Face of the World.

"Bring forth the sacrifice!" Hippolyta ordered.

Suzee, dazed and weak from the stress of being abruptly frozen and just as abruptly thawed out again, was dragged forward, barely conscious, held on her feet between two Amazons. They had dressed her in a red silken toga similar to Hippolyta's gown of office, and painted her eyes with black pigment.

"Oh mighty World!" Hippolyta called to the hovering Face of flame and shadow. "Outsiders have come to disturb our peace and stir you from your slumber. So we have brought you the most brazen of them, one who disturbs your rest, questions our ways, and draws the eye of a strong man away from your daughters!"

She waved imperiously, and the Amazons passed Suzee into her viselike grip. Suzee's eyes sparked half-heartedly, but she was too weak now to enter the Headwoman's mind. Her fingers scrabbled at the restraining hand, but it might as well have been a manacle of castrogenium.

"In payment for these offenses…" Hippolyta roughly thrust Suzee forward, so that she leaned precariously over the very edge of the pit. "I offer you her life!"

The tunnel, Radu discovered, opened out directly behind the grotesque throne made of skulls they had seen on the Christa's com screen. He crept up behind it now, watching the terrible ceremony in dismay. Hippolyta, holding Suzee over the swirling pit, might choose to drop her at any moment. There was no time to think or plan, or to be afraid that he'd say or do the wrong thing, or break something irreparably, or hurt someone that mattered to him. He had to act.

Not giving himself time to hesitate, he gripped the base of the morbid throne and tipped it forward. It toppled forward and shattered.

Every head in the room snapped around, every eye finding him. Hippolyta was forced to draw Suzee away from the edge as she turned to face the unexpected attack. Radu could not know what an imposing figure he cut, standing alone on the dais between the fiery fanged braziers, the grim tide of skulls rolling down from his feet like a harbinger. Even so, it gave him the split second advantage he needed to dash forward and wrench Suzee from Hippolyta's grasp.

But Hippolyta was not Headwoman of the Amazons for nothing. With a fierce roar, she tackled Radu, grappling with him so that Suzee slipped from his grip. Unsupported, her legs gave out and she landed precariously close to the sheer drop off.

The Amazons were overcoming their alarm and beginning to circle them like predators. There wasn't time to be gentle or careful. So for the first time in a long time, Radu didn't hold back. It felt way better than he later liked to admit when he wrenched Hippolyta's hands off of him, drew back and punched her full in the face. Not bothering to watch her go flying into the crowd of Amazons like a bowling ball taking out a rack of tenpins, he turned back to search for Suzee.

"Radu!" he heard her call, and spotted her just in time to watch her scrabble at the smooth stone and slip helplessly over the edge of the precipice.

"Suzee!" he cried, and leapt forward, thrusting his hand blindly over the ledge in a desperate grab.

His hand closed around her wrist. The flood of relief at the one-in-a-million catch nearly made him lose his grip, so he wasted no time pulling he safely back up onto solid ground.

Though safe was relative term at the moment. A furious wall of Amazons in full battle mode was closing in on them, blocking their escape. Fighting off one Amazon, or even two or three, he could have handled. But this many? Not a chance, especially not while protecting Suzee.

Looking around in growing desperation, Radu locked eyes with the dark glare of the Face of the World still hovering expectantly above the pit. Though it looked far more sinister and threatening in fire and smoke, he easily recognized it as the same Face that had blushed pink when he had offered it a small compliment.

"Help us, please!" he called to it. His own pent up frustrations lent strength and surety to his words that he rarely felt. "I'm sorry if we woke you up. But maybe that's a good thing!" He gestured at the gathered Amazons. "These people enslaved you! They think that being the strongest means you can do whatever you want? Well you are the strongest one here! Don't you think it's time you stopped letting them bully you?" He gritted his teeth, hoping against hope that he wasn't wasting precious seconds on a futile gamble. "Don't you think it's time to wake up!"

In response, the Face's mouth stretched open in a silent scream. Then the eyes narrowed and tilted downward with anger, and suddenly it was no longer silent as a monstrous roar built up from the depths of the pit. It swiftly built to a violent quake that shook the floor out from under the Amazons' feet. Only Radu's superior balance kept him upright, and Suzee along with him.

"Can you run?" he asked her.

"I'll try!" she nodded wearily.

"Stop them!" came a cry from nearby. Hippolyta had struggled to her feet, eyes blazing, the very picture of an avenging goddess despite her torn gown and the bruised face, watching their attempt to escape with a mix of rage and longing. "Without the sacrifice, the Face will not be lulled back to sleep! And… and…" Longing suddenly to won out over anger. "And you must capture the man! He has defeated me! He is strong! I must have him!"

It was the most hair-raising thing Radu had heard all day. He and Suzee shared a look of perfect agreement, then bolted for the exit.

The Amazons tried their best to stop them, hurling spears and hurrying to bar their way. Thanks to the earthquake they came in thin enough numbers that Radu had little trouble holding them back and knocking them aside. The one fatal flaw in this was that each time he took one down, she came back twice as determined – only not with angry war cries and jabbing spears. They were soon dodging through a gauntlet of groping, insistent hands, accompanied by breathy cries of "Radu!" "Husband!" "So strong!" "Oh, please come back!"

"This cannot be happening," he heard Suzee deadpan through gritted teeth. Radu contemplated dropping dead of humiliation before the Amazons could finish them off.

Luckily the tunnel was just in front of them – but the path was completely blocked once more, this time by a wall of giggling and sighing supermodel barbarian brides.

Just as they were about to be overtaken, a swath of black and red tentacles of smoke and fire shot out of the pit, whipping down and sweeping the Amazons back as easily as a gust of wind scattering a pile ashes. A kinetic wave rippled outward from where Radu stood supporting Suzee, throwing back the last of the opposition and leaving clear path to the mouth of the tunnel.

"Thank you!" Radu shouted as he pushed Suzee ahead of him into the tunnel. "Good luck!"

It might have been his imagination, but as he turned to duck through the exit, he thought the Face seemed to smile.

The bioluminescent lights were flickering and spinning madly as the tunnels shook. Glowing cracks were beginning to form on the floors and walls, and more than once they had to jump to avoid falling through fissures or being crushed by falling rocks.

At last Radu managed to retrace his steps back to the matter teleport chamber. He stopped short, horrified to see the crew standing like ice statues amongst the crates.

"We have to get them back to the Christa," Suzee said weakly. She suddenly swayed and pitched forward. Radu caught her and gently lowered her onto the platform beside Bova's frozen boots. "The Christa can counteract the effects… but we're running out of time…"

"Right, I'm on it!" Radu exclaimed, rushing over to the wall panel that housed the matter teleport controls. "Oh no…" he moaned.

The casing of the panel had been bent and twisted by the tectonic activity of the walls, the controls crushed. Radu pried away the warped casing, peering warily into the circuitry. It all just looked like a tangled mass of spaghetti strings and flickering lights to him. He traced the control circuits deeper into the wiring, wracking his brain.

"Suzee, I think maybe we can still get it working, but…" he squinted uncertainly, "it looks like the energy relays are damaged. I need you to help me reroute the power…" he glanced up to see Suzee's eyes had fallen closed. He abandoned the wall panel and rushed over to her, giving her a gentle shake. "Suzee? Hey, come on!"

Suzee groaned, shaking her head slowly.

"I can't," she whimpered. It was clear she needed to be in one of the Christa's healing tubes, immediately. "Use the deutronium, Radu," she murmured. "It isn't compatible with their machinery, but if you can get one good surge of power, it should be enough to kick the activation circuit into teleporting everything on the platform back to the last programmed coordinates."

"The Christa!" Radu exclaimed. Then his excitement died away quickly and he shook his head. "But I can't! You know I can't! I'm an engineering idiot! More likely to blow up the platform than get us out of here! Twice, remember?" he joked weakly.

"Hey… you really think I'd waste my time on someone I didn't believe could do it?" she gasped. Her hand came up and closed over one of his, and she cracked her eyes open and gave him the surest look she could muster. "I wasn't feeling sorry for you, Radu... I really meant it… I know you can do it..."

"I can't," he repeated uncertainly.

"You… have to…" With a sigh, Suzee's eyes fluttered closed and her head lolled to the side.

"Suzee? Suzee!" Radu cried, but it was no use, she was completely unconscious.

He lowered her carefully back to the platform, looking around the room for some other answer, but the rest of the crew was out of commission and no alien force was going to intervene this time. He was on his own. He looked back down at Suzee's unconscious face.

"I'll try," he promised.

Prying open the nearest crate, Radu retrieved a lump of the dense gray ore, rushed back to the wall panel and carefully drew out the energy relay board.

"Alright, alright," he muttered nervously, searching for familiar landmarks. "Fuel injector, dilithium diode, hydraulic exchange, ion conduit… aw man, please, please don't blow up…"

Flicking open the access hatch on what he fervently hoped was the correct energy line, he squeezed the ore rock, crushing it into a fine powder, and let the raw dust trickle into the opening. Replacing the hatch, he connected the line to the dilithium diode.

Over the jangling of his nerves, he seemed to hear Harlan's voice in his head, confidently describing the process.

"Deutronium injector to dilithium chamber…"

He reached into the wall and switched on the hydraulic piston. When it failed to activate, he gave it a gentle tap. It left a dent in the casing, but the seals held and the pump squealed to life, sucking the ore into the diode chamber.

"Hydraulic pump engaged…"

Waiting while the chemical interaction with the dilithium purified the ore was excruciating. The tremors were becoming more violent all the time. The stalactites rattled ominously on the ceiling.

Suddenly, one fell, spearing a crate of ore with a violent crash. Another came crashing down, and then another. Radu looked up just in time to see a particularly wicked looking stalactite shake itself free above the helpless crew. Dashing forward, he lifted Harlans' frozen form out of the way just as it crashed down exactly where he had been standing. There was no time for relief as he spun around and knocked another out of midair before it could stab down in to Commander Goddard's shoulder, and thanks to his superior hearing, actually managed to grab a third right out of midair before it could split Rosie's head open.

"Sorry, guys," he muttered. "No time to be gentle…"

One by one he shoved his icebound friends over into the relative shelter of some of the larger crates before any more projectiles had a chance to wiggle free. He picked Suzee up last and had just settled her carefully against the crates between Harlan and Miss Davenport when his ears detected the telltale hiss of pure deutronium eating into the dilithium diode.

Dashing back over to the wrecked controls, he licked his lower lip nervously, then bit it for good measure and flicked open the little aperture on the rear section of the ion conduit.

"Rear ion conduit vented…"

The hissing of the deutronium-dilithium reaction died away as the purified deutronium was sucked back into the fuel line. Radu gave a cry of triumph as the damaged machinery flickered and clicked and whirred reluctantly to life. Flushed with success, he engaged the activation circuit.

Nothing happened.

"What the…!" he exclaimed in dismay. "That should have worked!" He almost despaired – he really was an idiot, and his friends were going to die because of it… Then he smacked his forehead in realization. "Of course! We need to teleport to the Christa, not away…"

The machinery was smoking and sparking as the incompatible deutronium fuel corroded the circuitry. Radu carefully reached in, his gloves singing in the acidic heat, and flicked the neutron flow regulator out of his casing. Then he deftly turned it around and pressed it back into place.

"Polarity of the neutron flow reversed! So there, Harlan!"

"RADU!"

The furious shout was accompanied by the thunderous echo of footfalls from outside. Radu turned to see the bedraggled Amazon horde, led by a rather ragged looking Hippolyta, charging towards him with wild eyes and outstretched hands. The shaking of the caverns intensified, the walls cracking and splitting around them.

"Now or never! Please don't explode!" Radu squeezed his eyes shut, punched the activation circuit and scrambled back onto the platform.

The panel sparked, belched smoke, and exploded. The concussion of the blast brought down a devastating shower of stalactite fangs. They crunched through the surface of the platform, completely destroying it…

…just after the matter teleport beam flashed and sparkled through the room, teleporting the crew of the Christa and their precious haul of deutronium ore safely back up to their ship.

The Christa was a remarkably efficient vessel, and with Thelma's help, the crew was thawed and revived and back to normal in no time. Now they were gathered in the Compost, staring in horrified wonder at the image on the view screen.

Far below, the ice bound planet was in chaos. Glaciers gnashed and cracked under the strain of tectonic activity. Great gouts of black smoke and red flame spewed up into the snowy dark above and newly formed fissures in the permafrost layer glowed red hot with magma flow. If it kept up, it wouldn't be long before oceans began to form. New weather patterns would emerge, and the ice age would come to an end.

In short, planet Amazonia had taken Radu's advice. It was waking up.

"Do you think…" Rosie swallowed hard as a particularly violent volcanic eruption split a massive glacier right down the middle. "Do you think anyone survived?"

"Hard to say," Commander Goddard said grimly. "Those caverns went on for miles and miles, and however primitive their culture, the Amazons are a technologically advanced species. It's possible they had provisions in place for just such an event. Then again…" An impassive expression served as a mask for his thoughts, but they were all thinking the same thing – who, no matter how tough, could survive that kind of cataclysm?

"Whatever happens, they brought this on themselves," Suzee said with harsh determination. "They had to have known what they were risking when they enslaved their world and chose exploitation over coexistence. They did it anyway."

"Yeah, but still…" Harlan's voice trailed off as he took one last look at the apocalyptic image on the screen, then just shook his head and turned away. There really wasn't anything left to say.

Fortunately, distraction chose that moment to arrive through the Compost door, in the form of Radu.

"We, um…" Radu looked around, then down at the floor, unaccountably embarrassed. "…that is, Thelma and I just finished storing the last of the deutronium ore. We left a couple of crates in the engine room, Suzee. It should be enough to fill up the fuel lines to capacity, and we'll have plenty more where that came from down in the cargo holds for a long time to come."

He looked up at the decimation of the planet on the screen, then away, distressed. It seemed he really was incapable of touching anything without breaking it – even a whole planet wasn't safe…

Abruptly, Rosie was in front of him, bounding up on her toes to wrap him in a warm, heartfelt hug. He was so startled that all he could do to stand there and let her.

"Radu, you were amazing!" she exclaimed as she released him. "You saved us all!"

"It… it was nothing," Radu stammered with a self-deprecating smile as Rosie gave him one last sunny grin and moved past him.

"Nah, it was something, alright," Bova said as he moved to follow Rosie towards the jump chutes. "I thought we were toast. Extra crispy. Thanks, man."

"What it was," Commander Goddard interjected, "was heroic. I've known officers with twenty years of service under their belts that couldn't have performed that well, under that kind of pressure, and against those odds. Mr. Radu," he offered the tongue-tied cadet a nod of respect, "you're going to make a fine Stardog one day."

"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. You've a long way to go yet," Miss Davenport added primly. Then her features softened with the effort of trying to suppress a smile of pride. "But I assure you, I will do everything in my power to see that this incident is highlighted on your permanent record when we make it back to Starcademy."

It was strange bordering on surreal for the cadets to hear her utter those words as praise, rather than as a threat.

"Get us back on course, gentlemen," Commander Goddard ordered them, and then he and Miss Davenport exited through the Compost doors, already bickering under their breaths again about the finer points of her unique command style.

Harlan watched them go, then rolled his eyes and gave Radu a level look. Radu met his stare nervously. Then Harlan shrugged and slapped Radu on the shoulder.

"Not bad, man," he said, before moving past him towards the jump chutes.

"Is that really all you have to say, Harlan?" Suzee called after him.

"Hey, I'm just glad to be back in the real world, where all the girls like me best," Harlan replied brashly, waggling his eyebrows. Then he paused thoughtfully, sighed reluctantly, and turned back to offer Radu a rare sincere smile. "Thanks, Radu. Really."

He disappeared into the jump chute before anyone could comment on the momentary lapse in his tough guy mystique.

Suzee shook her head at the empty air where he had stood as she turned back to Radu.

"So… I guess Elmira's prediction for you finally came true."

"You think so?" Radu asked.

"Definitely! I mean, you had that Face made of 'fire and darkness' wrapped around your little finger. Commander Goddard called you a hero. And uh," she shrugged apologetically, "we were all being pretty scornful towards you. And you saved us."

"I, uh…" Radu didn't quite know what to say, so he shrugged sheepishly, blushing. "I guess so."

"You know, I meant what I said. I always knew you could do it," she told him earnestly. "You just had to stop getting in your own way."

"I couldn't have done anything without your help," Radu replied, feeling inexplicably fidgety as it abruptly registered that they were alone together. "If you hadn't gotten that message to me… if you hadn't told me how to use the deutronium…"

Suzee shook her head, dismissing his denials and taking a step closer to him.

"You really were brave. And noble," she smirked, cocking her head with mock thoughtfulness. "In fact, might even go so far as to call you the 'total package'." The smirk became a smile as she leaned in a pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Thanks for being my hero," she said, half-sweetness, half-sass as she brushed past him.

Radu turned to watch her go, stars in his eyes and a little half smile of wonder turning up the corner of his mouth. There weren't many guys that would trade a half-naked harem of subservient supermodel Amazons for a single kiss on the cheek from a pretty girl… but at the moment, Radu couldn't help but feel he'd gotten the better deal by a wide margin.

"Oh by the way," Suzee paused beside the jump chute terminal. "We discussed it while you were down in the cargo hold. We're all pretty tired, so, uh, last one out of the Compost is on monitor duty." With that she shot him a wink and a devious grin, and leapt into the jump chute.

Radu blinked a few times in silent surprise to find himself alone, and apparently in command of the ship. His jaw dropped.

"I can't believe it!" he exclaimed. "They tricked me!" Then he burst into laughter.

There was an irrepressible smile on his face as he stepped up to the helm and broke orbit, leaving the planet of the Amazons far behind on a renewed course for home. It was just another day aboard the Starship Christa, but for once he didn't feel the slightest bit alone.

END

A/n: Every review knocks a week off of the Christa's journey back to Starcademy – do your part to get the crew home faster and review! Comments and constructive criticism are welcome! Flames and trolls will be fed to Eaty.