Dale was sitting in Ming's Inquisitor, struggling against the chains that held her firmly in place. She was beaten, broken and the only thing that still gave her hope was the fact that Flash was out there somewhere, getting help, and that her kids were save for now.
"You will tell me everything you know, Dale Gordon!" Ming said, standing in front of her, cruel and merciless and enjoying every bit of pain the poor woman felt. "Every little secret about that damn husband of yours, about the Space Center, about Earth's weapon systems, everything I demand to know you will tell me!"
"I will not!" Dale cried. "I will tell you nothing, Ming!"
"Well, I had hoped you'd be a little more cooperative," Ming replied, glaring at her. "Now I will have to kill your dear children once they've been found. And found they will be, make no mistake about that. And meanwhile, I will still get to know what I desire. That machine you're chained to is my new Inquisitor - it's never been tested but why not start with you? It will drain all the knowledge out of your brain until there's nothing left."
Dale was shaking with fear. Should she make something up? Or should she start telling Ming some minor secrets to try to distract him? But how long would she be able to keep this up? He'd soon get impatient. But she could not tell him all he wanted to know about their work and Earth's Defense System - but could that machine really get it out of her mind anyway? Luckily, she didn't know as much as Flash did. She was a journalist, working with the Space Center to report on their travels, accompanying them on missions to write down their findings, give detailed reports and interviews. She wasn't a trained pilot, ready to defend Earth from alien invasion. She knew very little about the secrets of weapons and defense.
"Still not talking, are we?" Ming laughed at her. "Well, Mrs Gordon - looks like you don't care about your family very much."
"They are all I care about!" she shouted. "Please, Ming! I know you have kids yourself - please be reas-"
"Silence!" he roared.
And then he started the Inquisitor. It felt like sitting on an electric chair. Dale was screaming and screaming while Ming watched, clearly enjoying her pain.
"Are you getting something out of that dumb brain of hers?" he asked one of his ice robots who was reading the screen.
"Nothing, Sir," the robot replied. "It should work - but clearly, some more testing-"
"NO!" Ming shouted at his minion. "No more testing! Just turn the thing on full power!"
"But Sir, that will-"
"DO IT!"
The ice robot pressed the button. There was a flash of bright light, a horrifying scream from Dale and then the crystal at the top of the Inquisitor burst into pieces. The machine died and also, Dale's lifeless body collapsed. Dale Gordon was no more.
"Now that's one way to enter!" Lothar shouted.
Flash had just crashed the spaceship right into a door of the royal place. They'd been shot at again but so far, everyone was still alive. Lothar was their first line of defence, tearing through the masses of ice robots that came running at them. Flash followed, shooting at everything that wasn't them, while Mandrake was at the rear, using his telekinesis to lift ice robots into the air and crashing them into each other or the walls.
"Which way?" Mandrake called.
"We go where those ice robots come from," Flash decided. "Because that will either lead us to Ming or to where the prisoners are being kept. And both is fine with me!"
"Well, each second counts. Let's go!" Lothar said.
April and Rick heard the commotion somewhere far off in the distance but they were busy trying to find their mother. They had gone further up the stairs this time and had to be even more careful now. But even here they found no trace of their mother so far.
"This doesn't seem to be the part of the palace where the Royal Family lives," April noted. "It's more like a behind the scenes thing - lot's of rooms with technology doing who knows what, storage rooms, everything."
"Let's hope we don't stumble into the throne room by accident," Rick said. He still held the little zuffoid in his arms.
"Maybe we should go towards the noise," April said, trying to decide. "It could be Mom trying to get free."
"Or any other prisoner - or just some of Ming's slaves having a fight, who knows." Rick shook his head. "Better not, April. But maybe they're all busy now, maybe we could steal a ship - I mean, if we can't find our parents, what else can we do. It's not like we can walk out of the palace just like that either."
"Fine, let's go in the other direction," April agreed. "Maybe we can find some spaceships there."
They walked past a few more rooms that looks like interrogation rooms or even torture chambers. The siblings tried not to think about what happened in those rooms. They just wanted to get out of there.
Suddenly, Rick stopped, making a strange noise. April turned around and grew pale. In one of those rooms, chained to a strange machine, was their mother. She didn't appear to be concious and there were no guards around either.
"Mom!" Rick shouted before April could stop him. He ran towards her and his sister had little choice but to follow.
"Not so loud, Rick!" she hissed. Then she, too, kneeled next to Dale. "Mom! Mom? It's us, April and Rick - we're going to... going to..."
April had tried to feel a pulse, but got nothing. Slowly, she liftet up her mother's head. Dale's eyes were open and her face showed pure terror.
"Oh my god," Rick gasped and he started to cry. April had tears streaming down her face too. Her whole body was shaking. She wanted to curl up on the spot and cry herself to sleep. Instead, she forced herself to take a breath, one after the other.
"She's gone, April, she's gone!" Rick cried, rocking himself back and forth, with Zuffy pressing himself close to the boy.
"I know," April replied, wrapping her arms around her brother. "I know."
Suddenly, Zuffy seemed to be alarmed and he tried to climb beneath Rick's jacket. Rick didn't react, but April suddenly heared something - someone was coming!
"Rick, we've got to go!" she whispered.
"What? No, we can't leave her, we've got to take her with us!" Rick said, trying to get the chains open.
"We can't - I have no idea how to open these chains - and there's someone coming!" April dragged her brother up from the floor and behind the machine. A few seconds later, Mungor, Ming's gigantic snakelike pet, was at the open door.
"What is that thing?!" Rick whispered, eyes wide. Zuffy was now buried deep under his jacket, still shaking.
„No idea, but I don't want to find out," April muttered.
After what seemed like an eternity, the snake slittered away.
"Great, it's gone in the direction we wanted to go in," April said. "I'm not going there now. We'll try the other way."
"The snake is gone, we could try to free Mom," Rick said, looking over to the huge computer. "I bet I could figure out how to open these chains. They must be part of the machine."
"We don't have the time," April interrupted. "There's nothing we can do now instead of trying to get out of here. We'll bring Dad back here to get her, but now we'll have to leave. If this snake can come in here, so can anyone else."
"Love you, Mom," Rick whispered, looking down at his mother's lifeless body. "We'll come back to get you, I promise!"
"Yes, we will!" April agreed. Then she took Rick's hand and led his out of the room and down the corridor again.
"Stop!" a robotic voice suddenly called behind them. "Stop!"
"Run!" April shouted and sprinted forward, followed closely by Rick.
"There's a ton of those ice robots after us!" Rick cried after looking back. "How are we going to lose them!?"
"Don't know, don't - ahhh, crap!"
From the other side, more ice robots appeared and soon, both siblings were pushed towards the wall, with ice robots coming at them from all sides.
"The Emperor needs at least one of them alive!" they've heard another robotic voice say.
"You can tell your Emperor he can go to hell!" someone else said.
Now Lothar was here, taking down ice robot after ice robot. Neither Rick or April knew the man but they felt very thankful indeed. This person seemed to be on their side!
Then Flash and Mandrake appeared and April suddenly felt so happy that she could have cried.
"Dad!"
"Kids, are you alright? Where's your mother?!" Flash shouted, relieved to see his son and daughter again. He took a stand in front of them, shooting at every ice robot he could find.
"Dad, she's... she's..."
April couldn't bring herself to say it but Rick finally did so, pointing down the corridor.
"... in one of those rooms, chained to a strange machine..."
"Go!" Mandrake called towards Flash. "We'll handle the rest. Go!"
Flash broke into a run and disappeared while Lothar and Mandrake took care of the rest of the ice robots.
"There will be more coming soon," Lothar predicted after checking to see that both kids were unharmed.
"We should hurry," Mandrake agreed. He had created some illusions so lot's of ice robots were still busy somewhere else, fighting a non-existent fight. However, this wouldn't last much longer.
April and Rick led them to the torture chamber where Flash was kneeling in front of the Inquisitor, his head resting in Dale's lap. He was crying. Rick and April had tears streaming down their faces too and Lothar put his hands gently on their shoulders.
"I know it's hard," he said. "Just hold on a little while longer. We do need to get out of here."
Mandrake respectfully took of his tophat. "My deepest condolences, old friend... I am at a loss of what to say... just know, whatever you and your family need, Lothar and I will be there for you."
"What my family needs is Dale - she's the heart of our family," Flash cried, getting up and gently touching Dale's face.
"We couldn't get those chains to open," Rick admitted.
Lothar went over to the huge computer and Rick followed. Together, they managed to find the right buttons. Flash took Dale in his arms and with a stoic expression he carried his dead wife out of the torture chamber.
Note: Dynak and Octon are much more silent in This Is Their Story. Dynak is just a computer. Dale's personality will not get absorbed by the crystals in this version of the pilot.
