Ah! My Space Goddess!

by ceroxon

The time of Keiichi and the Goddess is long forgotten. Humanity has reached the stars and meet aliens peoples. But what happened to the Goddess and Demons? What is the link between Keiichi of the 2Oth century and the "Captain Keiichi" and his sisters of this future? A story that links the present and the future, and those who have forgotten the past are condemned to repeat it.

5. Captain Keiichi's challenge

First of all, I want to clarify that this is a fanfic adaptation work mixing with the pulp comics series "Captain Future", from1940 Edmond Hamilton and the Japanese anime version from 1979. The main characters have been replaced by their equivalent from oh my goddess and the two universes have been mixed even if the shading remains about 85% of that of the original novels by Hamilton. This is a work of adaptation, modernization (at 1940, it starts to date a little) and a merge with the ah my goddess universe. Some chapters have been adapted and their fate and the role of some characters have been changed. I think I did a pretty good job overall and hope you will enjoy reading it. Besides Edmond Hamilton, I particularly thank Kosuke Fujishima for his work "ah my goddess." For this fanfic I want to explain that nothing would have been possible without the beta reading of TheManTimeForgotI therefore thank them with all my heart. I also thank all those who worked on the series "Captain Flam", which is the French adaptation of the anime series "Captain Future" inspired by the work of Hamilton.

05) Captain Keiichi's challenge.

Somewhere, in the depths of space...

A being sits down in front of a powerful television transmitter in a strange room, surrounded by fire and water. The being could have been an Earthling, a Romacean, a Oranean, or S'lirths'e or native from many other planets. It was impossible to say which, because his whole body was concealed by a kind of black suit with a purple cape. Even his head was concealed by a metal helmet, similar to a ancient knight, with the exception of two holes for the eyes. The being could see, but his face could not be seen. He reached the control panel of the large TV and was settled on a secret frequency wave. The generator was emitting furious groans.

The being had a thought in himself, "The one who will control the Gravium ore, will control the galaxy."

A short physics course is required. Gravium is a metal with the atomic number 241 in the periodic table of elements (or Mendeleiev periodic table). To put it simply, everything that exists in the universe is composed of atoms which make up all matter: the earth, the stars, the machines etc. Each atoms in the table in numbered. The more atoms they have, the "heavier" they are, and the higher their atomic number is. Hydrogen is the lightest, so it carries the atomic number 1. The maximum atomic number is impossible to determine because the weight of an atom depends on the number of neutrons/protons which the composed, yet one can always add more of each, while we cannot drop below 1 (therefore no atoms are lighter than hydrogen).

However, the heavier an atom is, the more they are unstable, that is to say more than they tend to disperse into energy. Uranium, plutonium for instance, are so heavy that they can be broken "easily" and release their energy. This is the principle of nuclear fission.

After a moment, the atoms are so heavy that they disperse all alone in a few tenths of seconds becoming pure energy. We observe them simply in the "atom smashing" done in particle accelerators.

All this brings us to the Gravium. It is a super heavy atom, yet is stable, it does not dissipate. However this state of fact gives the element two extraordinary properties.

The first: despite the enormous energy it contains, it emits very little radiation (all atoms emit a degree more or less strong of radioactivity).

Its second feature, the one which makes it so fantastic, is that with the appropriate technology, it allows the control over any objects gravitational field. Therefore, it is this ore which allows different civilizations to explore space, as well as environments where the gravity varies to great extremes.

In the 21th century, its existence is still unknown because this metal is far too 'heavy' to be able to form in the course of the nuclear reactions which have shaped the planet Earth, therefore, does not exist on our planet, however, it would be discovered on Mercury by the space explorer " Mark Carew" during the mission "Wing of Icarus" in 2127.

The problem is the scarcity of the ore. There exist only five mines known in the galaxy. Two are under control of humanity. The other three belong to various extraterrestrial species who share in the framework of their space explorations. Of course, given its rarity and its importance, the Gravium is the object of all sorts of political and economic manoeuvering, and the mines themselves are fortified installations; the best protected in the galaxy. A true armada for each of them.

The being pressed a button on the control panel and then he spoke to the microphone behind the visio-screen. "Wrecker, call ship number one."

A moment later a man with a grey headset and a black Visor was made manifest.

"Ship number one. Commander here. What are your instructions?" the commander said, a being with pink skin with a face that was vaguely serpentine and a prominent skull covered with red crusts.

"You are at the designated position?" asked the hissing voice of the man who called himself "Wrecker".

"Yes, sir, we are flying off Sigoon now."

"Good, you will strike at exactly ten o'clock, galactic time."

Wrecker pushed another button. "Ship Two!"

The interior of another spaceship flashed into the screen. Its commander was Oranean.

"Ship Two reporting, sir," the Oranean said. "We are progressing towards the Oranea Moon on schedule."

"Strike at exactly ten, galactic time," ordered Wrecker's sibilant voice.

Another button was pressed. "Ship Three!"

A hulking Romacean, as oddly strange in appearance as the other two ship commanders, reported from the third ship. "Ship Three off Kalem, sir. We are ready to descend and blast the stockade at any moment."

"Blast at ten, galactic time," Wrecker ordered.

Then the black-veiled figure of mystery touched the switch that called across the Solar System to a fourth spaceship.

A big green Denephean, his large, circular dark eyes hollowly solemn, answered in thick, jerky accents from the fourth craft. "Ship Four, sir. We are approaching Earth's Moon."

Wrecker's dark figure tensed.

"The mission that I entrust you is the most important for following the plan. I want you to capture the only being which can block the road, Captain Keiichi. Once under control, the rest will be only a formality. I convey to you the details of the plan for his capture. You will take action in 10 hours exactly." He said.

Wrecker touched a larger switch. The visio-screen went dark, and the snarling whine of generators sank and died. The dark-veiled figure of mystery hunched, brooding.

"The plan can't fail, now," he told himself. "The one man who might spoil it will be in our power. The System, reeling under this blow, will call to him for help as usual. But he won't answer this time. Nobody will answer." Wrecker's dark form stiffened.

About 10 hours later, the three mines of Gravium under alien control were being attacked. Everything went very quickly.

On Sigoon I...

The hot side of the planet Sigoon I, the closest planet to the sun of Sigoon planetary system, sizzled under the scorching heat of the sun that seemed to fill half the brassy sky. That flaming orb, only thirty-six million miles away, kept this side of the planet at a temperature above the melting point of most metals! Yet there were Sigooneans at one spot in this hottest place in the 13 worlds of Sigoon solar system. Upon the seared, blackened rock-plain of the hot side stood the clustered smelters, barracks, offices and open rock workings of one of the galaxy's five Gravium mines. This mine was protected from the fearful heat that otherwise would instantly slay all here. From a towering radiator-mechanism arched a domelike "Halo" of blue force, a screen of vibrations that barred terrific solar radiance. A young Sigoonean metallurgist came out of the laboratories and glanced up at the colossal orb flaming overhead. He speculated, for the thousandth time, what would happen if the "halo" failed and the solar heat penetrated.

"Thank the gods of space the Halo radiator is failure-proof." he told himself.

"Otherwise there'd be no mine here. Even as it is, Gravium is the only thing that would draw Sigoonean men to this place."

The young metallurgist glanced at his watch. "Ten o'clock, galactic time! I'd better be getting back to work" He stiffened suddenly.

A black space-cruiser was diving down out of the brassy sky. It roared over the halo shrouded mine, and a small black object dropped from the cruiser toward the Halo radiator. Next moment, with a roar and flash of white fire, the big radiator mechanism exploded into fragments.

"A proton bomb!" yelled the Sigoonean. "This means death for…"

Even as he realized the imminence of death, he died. The fearful solar heat, striking the little mine-settlement as its screen of protective vibrations was destroyed, reducing that young Sigoonean's body to a charred black cinder instantaneously. Within ten minutes, every trace of the Sigoon Gravium mines and its workers had been completely destroyed by the terrific solar heat.

On the Oranea moon...

It was the night in the equatorial desert of Oranean principal moon. The stars shone brilliantly in the chill, clear air, and the two meteor-like moons, the "Space Goddesses", shed a pale radiance as they sailed across the heavens. That light illuminated the busy mine of the Oranean Gravium Company. For here on Oranean moon, too, was mined a small quantity of the precious ore that made life in other planet possible.

Two Oranean laborers came out of a tunnel for a breath of air. The fur of their faces was wet, they breathed in the chill night air gratefully. It was two minutes before ten o'clock, galactic time.

"What's that up there, Arraj?" the younger Oranean asked, pointing up.

The older man looked. Up there against the superbly blazing Milky Way, a tiny black spot was growing.

"Looks like a meteor coming this way," he said quickly. "But it must be a big one…."

"Look, Arraj, it is a meteor!" cried the younger Oranean excitedly. "And there's a ship guiding it!"

The two stared for a moment at the incredible spectacle. That expanding black spot was clearly a giant meteor, rushing now at tremendous speed toward the Moon. And close beside the booming meteor rushed a dark spaceship, playing rays upon the great mass. The ship was propelling the meteor toward the moon.

"That meteor's going to strike here!" yelled the young Oranean wildly. "That ship's deliberately guiding it to hit the mines!"

The great meteor was rushing straight down toward them, looming larger and larger. The ship that had guided it until the last moment was now rocketing back out to space. The younger of the two Oranean tried to scream an alarm as the monstrous mass darted down. He could utter no sound; fear gripped him.

Then the giant meteor struck. The concussion shook the lonely Oranean moon desert for leagues. And when the quaking shudder of the moon ceased, the Gravium mines had disappeared. The impact of the great meteor had made that whole region a fusing, superheated wreck of shattered rock.

On Kalem...

Dawn was breaking over the southern part of Kalem, the 12th planet of Romacean system. Low on the northern horizon, over the great plains which cover most of this giant, prairie-world, the stupendous arc of the Rings glittered less brightly against the star-studded sky.

Down low in one of the southern valleys of Kalem, the rising Sun gleamed off the white cement buildings and raw rock pits of the Gravium workings. For here, too, was mined some of the precious Gravium vital to the Galaxy. Around the whole Gravium mine towered a stockade of atomic flame. Atomic projectors set close together formed a ring whose unceasing jets of flame alone kept out the brown, creeping monsters that could be glimpsed outside.

Those brown, great crawling things were the dreaded Silica, strange beings composed of inorganic compounds with a siliceous base. They had each eyes at the extremity of two tentacles of their skull. Like all siliceous life of this planet, they ate metal, and would attack any place to satisfy their avid craving. The exposed veins of Gravium in the workings, the metal of the machines here, were a constant lure to the Silicae. Always, they hungrily circled the stockade of flame.

The tall, blue-skinned Romacean engineer who came out of his cabin, rubbing sleep from his eyes, stared distastefully at the crawling brown monsters visible outside the flame-fence.

"Damned vermin," he muttered disgustedly. "I'm tired looking at them. What I need are some bright lights and pretty girls."

It was ten o'clock Galactic time. The engineer started toward the barracks to rouse his men for the day-shift. Suddenly he stopped and peered upward.

"What the Korarak…" ("Korarak" is a sort of "devil" in Romacean belief).

A black spaceship was diving toward the Gravium mines. From it darted a powerful atom-beam that struck and demolished the atomic projectors of a whole sector of the stockade. That whole part of the flame-fence died. The ship darted up and away with a thunder of rocket-tubes. The Romacean engineer, his face ghastly, pitched toward the alarm-bell control.

"All out, the stockade's broken!" he yelled, as he sent the alarms ringing.

Half-awakened men poured out of the buildings. But already, through the gap in the flame-fence, a horde of the Silicae was pouring in!

Two hours later, the monstrous Silicae flowed leisurely away. The cement buildings remained, and the broken bodies of dead men. But every trace of metal was gone, eaten by the monsters. The machinery, the tools, the scraps of metal on the persons of the men, and even the Gravium in the open workings all had been ingested by the strange creatures. The Romacean Gravium source had been wiped out.

On the Earth moon...

Brilliant sunlight bathed the side of the moon that faced Earth. In the flood of light, the lunar peaks and craters rose stark and bare, the lunar plains stretched in deathly desolation. At only one place was there movement on this forbidding, barren globe.

That place was in the mighty mountain-ring of Tycho crater. A black spaceship had landed stealthily in the jagged peaks of the crater. A score of space-suited men, each wearing on his breast his flat gravitation-equalizer, were cautiously moving out onto the flat, white rock plain of the great crater. The leader, a big Denephean whose yellow eyes looked oddly hollow and strange inside his glassite helmet, stopped suddenly and pointed toward a big glassite window set in the crater-plain ahead.

"That's the place!" muttered the Jovian to his men on his suit-phone. "That's where they live, Captain Keiichi and his sisters!"

"Do we attack at once?" asked one of the men.

"No, Wrecker said to wait until the girls have gone on their regular trip to some laboratory they have on the other side," the Denephean said. "There they go now! Get down, all of you!"

Out of an underground hangar, a tear-drop shaped little ship was rising. It zoomed in a streak of fire across the peaks of Tycho crater.

"Now, Captain Keiichi's alone!" the Denephean leader exclaimed. He looked at his watch. "And it's ten, now."

He unhooked a gun like weapon from his belt and aimed it at the glassite window ahead. As he pulled trigger of the instrument he muttered tensely: "This will get Captain Keiichi!"

While the Galaxy was facing one of the most serious perils that it had never seen up to now, on the Moon was Captain Keiichi was in full discussion with Colonel Chihiro. He was still unaware of the crisis and the immediate danger that was reigning.

"How? Valerie Halburn, sorry, I want tell Halval has escaped?" The Captain incredulously asked.

"Escaped, or removed. In any case, she has disappeared." Chihiro answered.

"But how is this possible? The high security prisons of Kelaburs have the best guards and fortifications in the Galaxy; nobody has ever escaped. And in the case of Halval, I imagine that the surveillance had been further strengthened. "

"Currently in effect. She was at the prison canteen, when all the lights went out. Of course, the emergency generators are put on the market, but in vain. Even the torches have refused to operate. When the light finally returned and that all female prisoners had been summoned gathered to see if they were all there, she was gone. "

"You say that even the torches went out?"

"It is a strange thing, I would say even extraordinary or simply impossible. After examination of the installations, everything worked, and thanks to the detectors, it has been able to estimate that the appliances had indeed works normally even the torches, but the light refused to disseminate, as if 'sucked in' by the darkness. We think that she might have concealed a device theorized by veteran Denephean scientists. A 'black photon transmitter' of waves particles which cancels out conventional photons and could therefore "extinguish" all light in the area. This theory is the most plausible, even if it is completely ludicrous. The black photon is scientifically impossible, said by the same experts. It's an object which would have an atomic weight of less than 0. That simply can't be. "

"I am entirely in agreement with that last note. Dark matter, or dark energy, its existence has been agreed upon and known for centuries. Black Photons? Absurd." Keiichi said before continuing. "However, a Denephean device which we don't have any prior knowledge of... this is the most reasonable conclusion. Have you talked to Shiho? She's the expert for this kind of thing."

"Yes, absolutely. However, she didn't have any explanation for it either. Nothing among the devices that Denepheans or the writings translated up to present allow anyone to explain what happened. We're still continuing the excavations and the translations, however it will take some years yet before we are finished. The detectors...well, they have simply recorded the ultra-sounds. Thus, it is thought that Halval had a sort of echolocation machine and that's how she has been able to escape without anything seeing her." Chihiro explained.

"And this machine? It certainly hasn't been introduced in her cell, and she hasn't been issuing the echolocation herself. She's a human, not a "bat-girl"." Keiichi said.

"The corrupt guards perhaps?" Chihiro suggested.

"I know the security procedures of Kelaburs. A number of 'inmates' are located down there, thanks to me. The rotation system of guards and their assignments are changed continuously, precisely to avoid this kind of possibility. Therefore, the mystery remains for the moment. "

At that moment, a signal sounds on the Colonel's communicator.

"Sorry, Captain. There must be an emergency. I would remind you later if I have any new information." Chihiro said before promptly turning off the visio-screen.

"Time for me to be getting back to work, instead of wool-gathering," Keiichi told himself. "Now, if I used a higher frequency beam in this projector, would it…"

He was turning toward the projector, as he spoke. But he suddenly stopped, as a paralyzing force had struck him. He slumped to the laboratory floor like a dead man.

"Something's blocking off all the electric nerve-currents in my body!" the thought flashed through Keiichi's mind. "This is no accident, someone's causing this…."

He made a superhuman mental effort to move. If he could just get to a cabinet across the laboratory, he could use the instruments in it to neutralize this paralyzing force. But he was helpless, unable to stir a finger. He lay prone, and in a moment, he heard men entering the air-lock outer door of the sub-lunar dwelling.

"Ha ha! Even the 'famous' Captain Keiichi cannot resist a beam on a paralytic frequency." the leader Denephean mocked while Keiichi was helplessly lying on the ground.

Keiichi waited grimly. Into the laboratory cautiously came a band of space-suited men.

"Put a space-suit on him," the Denephean was ordering. "He mustn't die as we take him to the ship. Wrecker's orders!"

"Who is Wrecker? Why he ordered you to do this?"

The Denephean laughed hollowly. "You'll meet Wrecker soon, Captain Keiichi. You've ruined a lot of schemes, but you won't ruin his. He's too smart, he struck at you first!"

Keiichi's eyes narrowed. There was something strange about this Denephean and his men. Their set expressions, and hollow eyes... Inwardly, Keiichi was seething.

Whoever Wrecker was, he was the first who had ever dared made a deliberate attack on Captain Keiichi's home. It was a challenge to Captain Keiichi, a challenge the boy grimly accepted.

Two hours later on Earth, the President, Sayoko Mishima, was near the point of collapse. This morning, she thought that the case of 'the Space Emperor', the most serious crisis in her mandate, was completed as well. Now with the attack of the mines of Gravium, the crisis on Deneph resembled a simple annoyance.

Sayoko didn't see the end of the problems that this disaster was. The two mines under the control of Earth were intact for the moment. On the other hand, the extraterrestrial delegates present in the neighborhoods of the presidency were in the process of organizing a meeting of emergency. The accusations of an "earthling conspiracy, aimed to take control of the Gravium production and eradicate the peoples of the other planets" were already were beginning to accumulate. With it, the threat of interstellar war and the assault of the two earth mines would follow. In the emergency, General Lind had ordered that the defenses around the strategic reserves of Gravium of each planet of the Terran federation, as well as around the two mines still intact, should be doubled. However, she doubted that this would serve anything. The space fleets had proved powerless to prevent attacks. They were…. paralyzed. Everything was going well, and then the communications, weapons systems, navigation, propulsion of the three fleets had stopped operating during the few minutes that the attack had lasted.

"Madam President, I have just learned that three of the Gravium mines were destroyed." said Sora Hasegawa, the assistant of Sayoko.

"But who was able to do that? And why? If the production of the ore which allows us to control the gravity of ships and space stations stopped, we would no longer be able to live in space!" Sayoko asked herself.

"According to the information, the other two mines on Mercury and Bama have suffered no damage." Sora added.

"For the moment, yes. The Romaceans, the Oraneans and Sigooneans already accusing me. They even speak of gathering a common fleet to attack the mines in question, as well as Earth. I succeeded in stopping them for the moment, but they have required guarantees of my hand and the sharing of the ore until the crisis is over," Sayoko cried with a sigh.

"Yes, a fine decision ma'am." Sora said.

"You read my thoughts... It looks to be a job for him in the meantime." the President replied as she opened the emergency channel to request the assistance of Captain Keiichi.

This time however, the call was heard by no one.

Keiichi had been grabbed, still bound and helpless, in his space-suit. Now his captors carried him out of the lunar laboratory and across Tycho crater to a black ship hidden in the peaks.

Captain Keiichi was tossed into a small supply-room off the main corridor of the ship. And a tall, stringy, hairy face Oranean stood guard over him with a drawn atom-pistol.

The boy felt the ship lurch upward with the roar of rockets, then hurtle off through space. He squirmed around to look through the window. The ship was flying away from the moon and Earth, and heading almost straight toward the blazing orb of the sun.

Keiichi was shaking his members to see if he could break free. In the room where he was locked up, was a human wearing a black hood that left only his eyes and nose visible, like a ninja mask.

"Remain quiet, or otherwise I'll shoot your knee" he said firmly, pointing his gun toward the Captain.

At this moment, Skuld, Urd, and Megumi were returned to their main house, still unaware of the abduction of their brother, but when they found a recorder placed in the point of entry, and no trace of Keiichi, they listened to the recording, revealing their intention.

"We have captured your Captain. Don't try to follow us if you want to have a chance to see him alive."

"What's all this about?" screamed Urd in anger.

"I don't know, but we need act with great caution." Megumi answered.

"We have to free big brother!" Adds Skuld, who had no intention of obeying the orders of the kidnappers.

In the office of the presidency, Belldandy, who left Deneph a few days ago to come on Earth at this precise moment, had been summoned here, in emergency. Sayoko, who had learned of the existence of the girl and her role in the events of Deneph following the reports which had been given to her, she hoped that Ms. Belldandy Landore would perhaps know where the Captain was at this time. She thought that her presence on Earth had a connection. Sayoko knows how to read between the lines of the reports and had well soon understood that this girl and the Captain were friends, if not more. "A romantic partner perhaps..." She had envisioned without too much confidence. It was a faint hope but in the urgency of the situation, she had to try. Of course, Sayoko had also ordered to General Lind to do what she could on her side to face the crisis, but the assistance of Keiichi would not go unwanted.

Belldandy was surprised to have been convened by the President in person. She was only a simple interstellar agent of the secret service, not a high ranking officer in the army.

She would not find the answer to this question, because at the moment where she arrived in Sayoko's office, the President had a call on her visio-screen. "Wrecker" then appeared.

"You're the President?" He asked bluntly.

"I am. Who are you? How did you get access to this channel?" Sayoko answered in a tone just as hostile as that of this interloper.

"Hijacking your computer systems is child's play for me. I'm speaking to you using the relay on Jupiter. I am Wrecker. It was I who destroyed the three mines on Kalem, Sigoon I, and the moon of Oranea. "

"What?!" Exclaimed Sayoko.

"I tell you now that I can destroy the two remaining mines on Bama and on Mercury whenever I like. It will all depend on what you decide to do." Wrecker adds.

"You dare threaten me?" Said the President.

"Threaten? Not even; you and your people you are far too insignificant in my eyes for me to lowered myself to threats. I am simply telling you the situation. If you do not want the other two mines destroyed as well, declare immediately that your government is dissolved. And give me all your power." Explained the individual headset on a tone... amused.

"Out of the question. Besides, I have taken all the necessary measures to protect these two mines." Sayoko argued.

Wrecker then broke out laughing.

"Ah ha ha ha ha! You can't be serious! You are going to do what? Doubling the fleets of vessels which stand guard? I'll hijack them as easily as the others. This should grab your attention."

The image on the screen of Sayoko changed. Now there was Captain Keiichi, restrained on a chair by handcuffs, placed before a large porthole where they could see the sun closing in as well as a few stars. The intense radiation increased the heat on his body, who was sweating and seemed to be suffering.

"I do not know your plans, but if you are intending on save Captain Keiichi, I advise you to quickly change them. Now, 'Madam President' you can see that you can do nothing at all? If the production of Gravium stops completely, the majority of human beings who are in the space are sentenced to a very slow end"

Sayoko, to his amazement and despite her concern, rejected the megalomaniac's terms. "I won't yield to your threats. You will never the govern the Terran federation."

"Very well, you have been warned. You and your people will simply die earlier than expected. I am going to destroy the last two mines. So much the worse for you." On this grim note, the conversation stopped.

Belldandy already left before talking with the president. She was definitely not aware of the attack of the mines or the capture of Captain five minutes earlier, but now she already had a plan of action in mind.

Sayoko did not prevent the young woman from leaving, the conversation that she wished to have with her could wait. She knew now where the captain was: a prisoner of the enemy.

The vessel or was a prisoner Keiichi hovered near a star. The abductors had chosen this place to be undetectable by conventional means and for the case, highly unlikely, that the captain has escaped. Only the hull of the ship prevented the heat of several thousand degrees to kill any life on the inside. It is at this time that the Denephean leader came into the cell of the captain.

"Your dear President of the Terran federation has had the pleasure to see you sweat before this porthole. She had the air of concern of your fate." He said he thee smiling.

"Why have I been abducted? What is the meaning of all this?" Asked Keiichi.

"With Wrecker, our leader, we destroyed three of the five mines of Gravium that exists in the galaxy."

"NO!" Said Keiichi, horrified by the implications.

"But if you try to escape Captain. And in fact, in the case where you do, you wouldn't get far. If you tried to get out of this vessel we can't find you; our detectors are not precise enough with the solar interference, but you shall be turned to ash in a few moments. Then it is for everyone's sake, especially yours, to stay calm. You re free to try and fight your way all alone through this vessel and its entire crew, if you are in the mood." Added the Denephean, still smiling.

While he was about to leave, the boy asked a question. "Wait. Tell me at least who this Wrecker is. I've never heard of him until today. "

"Hm? Oh I do not know. He appeared one day, and made a very attractive offer. He has become our leader and he is as powerful as you think he is. Holding up the fleets of defenses which protect the mines of Gravium is only a small part of his vision. For the rest you shall ask him yourself. He wished to see you shortly. Apparently he has plans for you."

The Denephean then took leave permanently, leaving Keiichi attached to its chair, with the custody of earlier for the monitor.

Keiichi looked at his situation and was considering all the possibilities when to his escape. Having Urd as his professor, he knew several ways to free himself of his handcuffs. It was the presence of the guard which was the problem. They wouldn't let Keiichi liberate himself without reacting. Therefore he should begin by neutralizing the guards. Which was going to be difficult since he was bound. Difficult, but not impossible. He had something for precisely this type of situation.

"Hey you." He said.

"Hum?" answered the man.

"Can you remove my watch? It's a bit irritating in the position."

"Your what?" Asked the guard, not knowing what a watch was. Nobody had worn watch for centuries. With all the electronics that people had on them now, starting with their personal communicator, the modern version of the mobile phone, wristwatches were unnecessary, and had been forgotten for a very long time. They fell into history, and weren't even in museums…. with the exception of one which was on the arm of the Captain.

Of course, the guards had searched Keiichi before tying him down. They had removed his communicator and his pistols as well as any kind of gadgets that he could have. However, none of them had paid attention to this watch, thinking it to be a simple decorative bracelet.

"My bracelet, the one with a small dial and needles. In this position it's too tight. Remove it please."

Of course, the guard was clever enough to suspect a trap. "You think that I will take off your handcuffs? Forget it. In any event I do not have the key." Replied the guard.

"I'm not trying to trick you. It's just that this bracelet hurts me. I am not asking that you loosen the handcuffs, but just that you remove my watch. Just a little effort of goodwill and I'll keep quiet. I promise."

The guard thinks about it. After all it did not bode well to hear the prisoner aching for days pending the arrival of Wrecker and since he didn't have the keys to the handcuffs, Keiichi could not in any case escape. "Fine, but at the slightest shady move you'll get a rifle butt in the knees." The guard knelt behind Keiichi, at the level of his watch.

"How do I take it off?" he asked.

"There is a small button on the side of the dial. Press it to detach the bracelet." Answered the captain.

The guard leaned upon on the button, and heard a small noise of air escaping. He had no time to realize that he was breathing in a fast acting sleeping gas before he collapsed to the ground.

"They had a few good ideas in those old spy movies of the 20th century that Urd likes to watch. In any case, thank you Sean Connery." Keiichi thought with amusement. The first part of the problem, namely to neutralize the guard was settled. Now, to remove these handcuffs.

Depending on the way in which it is attached, there are several ways to escape. Break the chair if it is fragile enough, or dislodge the bones of the thumb to remove the handcuffs if the hand is flexible enough. The handcuffs were too tight to allow to free himself using the latter method, and the chair was metal. However, Keiichi had already thought of all this and found a solution to this problem before neutralizing the guard.

His weapon.

Urd had trained him how for days. Seize the weapon, the flatten against the wall in such a way that it fired on the handcuffs, using the foot of the chair to press the trigger. It had to be very precise in order not to blow off one's own hand. In addition, he might have to adjust the frequency of power of the weapon so as to not burn his arm. Fortunately, the problem of heat did not arise, as Keiichi was wearing his space suit. Able to withstand heat of the order of 800 degrees. A true exercise worthy of the greatest acrobats. Keiichi had had great difficulty in mastering this movement but it proved very useful now. He had to move quickly however. Someone could come at any moment.

Keiichi succeeds his sleight-of-hand and freed himself, retrieving the weapon of the guard and his clothes. It was not as much sentimentality that by necessity. The guard was a little more massive that Keiichi and was a good head taller than Keiichi, which forced him to compensate for the differences between them. Fortunately, all the guards wore these species of hoods obscuring the essential part of their face. Surely a security measure in case they would be seen by eyes enemy, but who returned against them now. In effect, Keiichi could come and go almost freely in the vessel, without attracting attention, which would have been much more difficult if his face were exposed.

He had originally planned to go out with a shuttle and launch an SOS to his sisters. His captors would not have been able to find it because of the proximity of the star and when the Space Goddess, with its special sensors ultra-performance would happen to coordinates agreed he would have been saved.

Unfortunately, this vessel had no shuttle, only a few relief bubbles. Thrown in space with one of them was even more uncertain than to be in the ocean with a rubber buoy.

Keiichi could not keep his disguise indefinitely, sooner or later he would be unmasked. Certainly, he had taken the trouble to hide the body of the guard somewhere in the meantime, but when he would find that he had left his cell, the alert would be given, each man unmasked, and the whole vessel searched. He had to act very quickly.

He went in the room adjacent to the cell and used the communicator to contact Urd, in doing so, it would be discovered immediately, it should therefore leave the vessel just after he sent his message.

When Urd saw Keiichi appear on the screen, she smiled, reassured. "Captain?! You're well? Where are you?"

"Not the time to explain the details. Listen Urd, I will either leave the vessel or be held prisoner in a few moments. I want you to come to me immediately." Explained the captain.

"What is your position?" Asked Urd, returned suddenly serious and concentrated.

"Look. I am in the star area Alpha 19. Sector 1.4.2, coordinates... AX 200. You have a fix?"

"Star sector? But you'll burn like a torch if you go outside!" Exclaimed the changeling, in panic.

"I'm going to pull out in a relief bubble, fully charged. If you want to prevent me from burning up, you'd better get here soon. I have to cut the communication, I hear something, without doubt they already discovered my escape."

"But I..."

Keiichi snatched the intercom, and jammed the handle of the door with his weapon. That would win him the necessary time for charging the device of the bubble to the maximum before use.

The relief bubble is a device similar to a magnetic field, which protects from stellar radiation and heat, with the seat belt protecting him from the effects of gravity. The device is similar to two disks and that fit on the end of the arms, a bubble forming around the body, allowing you to survive for a certain time in space. Usually a few hours, or a few days depending on the hardness of the external conditions and the natural resistance of the bearer. Of course, close to the star, the heat and the flow of radiation are very high, too much for as the bubble takes for more than half an hour.

When the bubble was loaded, and the kidnappers trying to melt the door, Keiichi took a helmet from one of the suits in the room, used the mechanism and left the vessel, totally incapable of controlling the direction of the bubble, but knowing that after the path of the vessel it slips on the surface of the star crown, and would not attracted by the center of the star.

Urd, Skuld and Megumi were of course already in route at full speed to the coordinates expressed, nearly dying of grief. Never, until now, had their brother had taken a risk also enormous.

The black-headed adventurer leaped out into an inferno of raging light and heat into a hell of radiation flooding from the star whose orb jammed the firmament.

But as he leaped, Keiichi switched on his makeshift mechanism. Its generator and transformers began humming. It projected a spherical shell of light that completely enclosed the boy as he flew out into space, a "halo" or vibration-screen that would protect him from the star radiation which otherwise would kill him instantly!

Keiichi found himself floating in space. The raider ship was receding, a black mass surrounded by the blue flicker of its own halo. Then the ship was gone, unable to find him in the midst of cosmic energy flow. And the Captain, inside his space-suit and protected only by the fragile "halo" from the withering radiation, floated alone in space, only a few million miles out from the star

"The relief bubble isn't holding up as long as I had hoped at this heat…" he said when the lights on his helmet indicated various figures on the external conditions were more worrying that he had first thought.

Could his sister reach him in time, even in the super-swift "Space Goddess"?

"It's a gamble," Keiichi thought grimly. "And not the first one I've taken, but probably the biggest!"

Even through the filter-glassite helmet, the glare of the star was overwhelming. He seemed suspended above a titanic ocean of raving flame that filled the whole Universe. Soon heat began to invade Keiichi's suit. Keiichi turned the generator up to higher power, increasing the intensity of the "halo."

Before long, he had to turn it up again. And now the generator was beginning to falter, its small charge of atomic fuel depleted by the extraordinary demands made upon it to maintain the fragile screen of vibrations.

During this time, aboard the "Space Goddess", Megumi took the floor. "Quickly, time is of the essence!" said she worried, as if this reminder, who Urd and Skuld was well aware of, could fix things.

The heat was so enormous that the flames seemed to directly develop around the small bubble that protected the captain less and less.

"In principle it should be around here." said Skuld.

"I hope so." added the brain.

"Good, but where is he?" Wondered Urd, who was the most concerned of the three sisters.

But nothing on the hyper sophisticated scanners of the "Space Goddess" indicated the presence of Keiichi. Were they sufficiently precise? Had Keiichi overestimated the capabilities of his ship?

Two minutes passed. "This time, he is lost…" Megumi resign herself.

At this time the "Space Goddess" received a call. "Hello, this is Belldandy, do you receive me? Answer."

"This is Skuld. Talk."

"You won't find the captain here. He should be 5000 kilometers further, vector 5.3.8" declared the agent of the galactic Patrol.

"What? But how can you tell?" Asked Urd, astonished.

"Don't waste time, the Captain should be there. Go. "

Urd and Skuld looked, stunned.

"Explain!" asked Urd who had need of a valid explanation before to give up the search here, where her brother had told him that he would be.

"The one who kidnapped the Captain showed us images of him when he was a prisoner on board the craft. At that time, we could see a star and its environment by the porthole. According to the images and the stars surrounding I could use to the computers of the galactic police to perform the calculations for positioning and drift. In short, the Captain Keiichi should logically be located at the coordinates that I have indicated." Belldandy explained.

Urd, Skuld and Megumi rushed then to new coordinates, hoping that Belldandy was right.

The boy felt a queer chill, despite the stifling heat inside his suit. Could this be the end? Had he dared the space demons once too often?

"No, they'll come," Keiichi muttered doggedly. "My sisters won't fail me, and as though to confirm his faith, the Space Goddess swept out of the upper void like a streak of flashing fire! The teardrop-shaped little ship, the swiftest thing in space, had its shrouding blue "halo" out. It volleyed around in a dizzy turn and drove level beside Keiichi, its air-lock door open.

At this time that he allowed himself to sleep.

Later, while the Space Goddess was back in orbit around the moon, Belldandy had joined the vessel. "Do not stay planted there and do nothing. Skuld bring the ice, and Urd brought towels. I will remove the helmet." said Belldandy.

"No, leave it on." ordered Keiichi who seemed suddenly regain consciousness.

This was the bewilderment of everyone with a slight peak of anger.

"This is really not nice to pretend to be unconscious. We were very concerned about you." Bell snarled.

"I think he wanted to be pampered a little." Urd said with a slight grunt.

"Sometimes without any sense of tact." adds Skuld, in agreement, for one time, with Urd.

"I'm really sorry. I am just waking up. I didn't want to worry anyone. " said Keiichi before adding, "By analyzing the composition of atmosphere contained in this helmet we can know where it comes from, and therefore or direct our research."

Everyone stopped to argue. "Keiichi is alive and well and we are very happy." added Megumi.

"It is true, now I can leave reassured to the planet Bama." said Belldandy.

"Bama?" Asked Keiichi.

"Yes, one of the last two mines of Gravium is located there, and its director, Mr. Tamiya, was asked to do everything we can to try to protect it, which was our intention in any way."

I see. I also think that we also will have to go down there. Skuld, I have a job for you." Said Keiichi.

"What then?" Asked the girl robot.

"If I have understood correctly, this "Wrecker" managed to hack into the various fleets loaded to protect the mines. Surely he can do it again. I count on you for rapidly developing the measures to prevent him, equipping the "Space Goddess" and transmit a copy to all the vessels of the Galactic Patrol."

"It is as if it was already done." Said the girl of metal, delighted to carry out this type of work.

"Bell, no objection to us coming with you?" Asked the Captain.

"Of course not, I would be happy."

Shortly after, the Captain Keiichi contacted himself the President Sayoko. "Hello, Madam President? This is Captain Keiichi."

Of course, Sayoko Mishima answered immediately. "You're well Captain?" She asked simply but sincerely.

"Yes I am. I'm a little warm, if you can't tell, but that is okay. My kidnappers have been good enough to explain to me the situation, and Belldandy the measures that you have taken. Now, I'm calling you to formally request permission to act in order to neutralize this "Wrecker" at once." Explained the captain.

Sayoko laughed before the aspect of "formal request" of the query of Keiichi. "Permission granted." said she smiling before adding "I hope that you will succeed as quickly as possible. On my end, I am responsible for preventing any attack on the people who depend on the mines already destroyed. They are not happy as you might suspect, but I have been able to tackle a conciliation to share the Gravium in our reserves in the meantime before this case is finished. However, this will be futile if the other mines are destroyed. You know what will happen then I guess?" said the chairwoman which reflected its seriousness.

"Of course. Skuld is working already on the counter measures to protect the other mines, while Megumi is attempting to identify the origin of our aggressors. I have the feeling that perhaps they are not what they appear to be. When I was their prisoners, they appeared inexplicably strange. Their general attitude is not consistent with that of the peoples which they are derived. I understand that these are marginal but…. there is something fishy, I am sure".

"You have my blessing. Colonel Chihiro is already on Bama, she will provide you all the necessary support" said Sayoko.

"Thank you, that is very reassuring to know that Chihiro is on the case. Can you arrange a meeting with the directors of the five mines?" Asked Keiichi.

"For that of Bama and Mercury it shouldn't pose a problem. Concerning the other three, I think I can do something. However, I do not think that one of them could be this Wrecker. They are men of business, extremely monitored by their key position by the exchequer of galactic power. It is unthinkable that one of them can play the interstellar terrorist without being immediately discovered."

"I am well aware. Even still I think that a meeting will not be unnecessary. I thank you in advance for your efforts." the captain said.

"You want to meet with them here on Earth?"

"No, I want to meet them secretly," Keiichi answered. "Wrecker, behind this plot will now think that I'm dead, killed by the solar heat. I want him to keep on thinking that, it will put him off his guard. So tell the Gravium magnates to meet me at a secret rendezvous in space, in the asteroidal zone, at position 39.5 outward, 18 degrees countersunwise, 0.2 below ecliptic plane. I'll be there on the 22nd, at noon galactic time."

"I'll televise the Gravium officials to be there," Sayoko exclaimed, "and to keep the whole meeting an utter secret."

Captain Keiichi off the televisor and turned to his three comrades.

"Get started for that space-position at once, Skuld," Keiichi asked.

"Very well Captain." answered the metal -girl.

A little later, while the "Space Goddess" sped to the meeting hastily organized on the request of Keiichi, Urd came search him in his cabin, he was in full conversation with Bell.

"Then it is to you that I own my life Bell. I cannot thank you enough." said he kindly.

"This is nothing. Sometimes, it is the noble Valkyrie who saves the poor prince in distress." Belldandy joked.

"Valkyrie?" asked Keiichi.

"Of old legends of a region called "Norway" on Earth. Valkyries would be goddesses of war or something of the kind."

That was a very long time ago that the "countries" of the Earth and their governments had disappeared. The USA, Japan, Saudi Arabia, France… were no longer called countries but "regions". Moreover, some had changed their name. Brazil was called now "Doraleo" for example.

It is then that Urd entered in the room. "Excuse me Bell, I really would like to leave you giggling alone, but I have something to say to my brother. I am sorry to interrupt you for a minute?" She asked without really waiting for an answer other than "of course".

"Of course. I will let you and..."

"No no, stay Bell, you are concerned a little also, when I think about it" said quickly the changeling girl.

"What do you want tell to me Urd?" Asked Keiichi.

The sister of Captain, stepped up to him, smiling, and laid her hands on his shoulders. "Are you sure that you've recovered from that small experience of imminent death by stellar heat? Are you perfectly well now?"

Keiichi did not like at all the smile of his sister. "Yes, I'm absolutely fone, thank you for your concern."

"Very good, very good…" Said Urd, always smiling. At this point, the woman with brown skin took aim at Keiichi a slap such as he had never yet received. He fell to the ground under the impact and surprise.

"What are you doing?" He asked…. speechless.

"I'm not done yet." Said his sister, her face distorted by the fury. Urd jumped up to her brother and pushed him against the wall.

"NEVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN!"

"But Urd I… "

"THERE IS NO "BUT". I WAS SCARED TO DEATH, AND SUDDENLY I RECEIVE YOUR CALL, TO HEAR YOU SAY THAT YOU'RE GOING THROW YOURSELF AT A STAR! YOU IMAGINED WHAT I FELT? WITHOUT BELLDANDY I WOULD LIVE WITH THE IDEA THAT I HAD LEFT MY BROTHER TO ROAST LIKE A DUCK! WHAT HORROR!"

Belldandy preferred not to intervene. Urd was right and Keiichi deserved a small lesson.

"Urd, there was no other solutions." Said the Captain.

"Don't start with that. You're a smart guy, you would have been able to find something else. Destroy their engines, for example, or empty a portion of the air from the vessel to suffocate them. I'm not saying that it would have been easier, but you should have probably succeeded. Jump into a star. No buts, and then what happens the next time? You'll eat a micro black hole and transform yourself into a singularity perhaps?"

While he rubbed his cheek, Keiichi looked down. "Urd, I am sorry. Forgive me." He said sincerely.

The anger of his sister gripped, she took her brother in her arms and let fall a few tears. "Never again! Swear!"

"I swear."

A few moments passed, then Urd released her grip. "I'll leave you now. I need a drink, it'll do me some good." She said simply, leaving Keiichi with his beloved.

The Brain, working intently on the space-suit atmosphere clue, listened to their televisor as the "Space Goddess" hurtled out through the stellar spaces.

An Earth news-caster's taut voice reached her "ears". "Grave situation caused by the mysterious disasters to the Kalem, Oranean moon and Sigoon I Gravium mines," he was saying. "Panic is becoming evident as the public fears similar disasters to the Mercury and Bama mines, which would shut off the Gravium supply completely.

"This panic is rapidly paralyzing space-traffic! Space-sailors of many ships are refusing to leave their native worlds, for fear their equalizers wear out on the voyage and new ones prove unobtainable." Shipping lines have had to cancel many sailings. And this is having disastrous effects already upon the life of every world in the System.

"The grain-boats from Denephean haven't sailed, and most worlds face a bad grainshortage. Meat shipments from the Boomean ranches are dwindling. Sea-food consignments from Bama have dropped to a trickle. Worse still, industries which depend on metals and materials from other worlds are having to shut down. All interplanetary colonization projects are canceled, from lack of equalizers."

Unemployment is mounting, prices skyrocketing, ruin threatening, on every world!

"People fear a complete collapse of interplanetary traffic. If the remaining Gravium sources are destroyed and no more equalizers can be made, we'll be thrown back into the dark ages before space-travel began, the ages when each world was completely isolated. Progress will be set back by centuries!"

Megumi had been listening, her work with the spectroscope on the atmosphere-clue temporarily forgotten.

"That danger is real" she muttered. "Danger of the collapse of the interplanetary civilization that has taken so many decades to build. No wonder people are in panic!"

"Aye, lad," repeated the Brain, her lens-eyes brooding. "But who would want such a collapse to occur? What can be the motive of this Wrecker whose organization is striking at the Gravium sources?"

Captain Keiichi left Bell and went forward into the transparent-walled control-room. The automatic pilot was maintaining the "Space Goddess" on its course, while Skuld and Urd sat playing "compound chess."

"Compound chess" was a semi-scientific game Keiichi had devised. There was a board of a thousand squares, and each player had ninety-odd pieces representing the different elements. The idea was to move the element-pieces onto squares occupied by the opponent's elements, so as to form known scientific compounds. Whoever formed the most compounds, won the game.

Urd was fidgeting restlessly, glowering at Skuld who sat like a metal statue studying the board with her gleaming photoelectric eyes, while Banpei gnawed playfully at his impervious metal arm.

"Well, go ahead and move!" Urd finally exploded. "You know you're beaten, my next move will win the last compound."

"I'll move when I'm ready," Skuld boomed calmly.

Finally the robot girl reached her metal hand and moved her "radium" piece far across the board to the square of Urd's "chlorine!"

"Radium chloride, that's the last compound and it's mine," Skuld boomed triumphantly. "I win the game."

"Better luck next time, Urd," chuckled Keiichi.

"She always wins!" Urd said disgustedly. "I'm through playing her, how can a woman beat a machine?"

"Take control and pilot straight to the rendezvous, Skuld," Keiichi asked.

"We're nearing the asteroid zone."

The "Space Goddess" rushed on through the void. Far ahead in the abyss swam the brilliant white speck of Jupiter, and the fainter green sparks of Mercury and Neptune.

Close ahead stretched the great belt of cloudy specks that was the wilderness of thousands of asteroids and meteor-swarms which whirl between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Most interplanetary shipping avoided this dangerous zone. That was one reason why Keiichi had chosen it for the secret rendezvous.

The robot steered expertly through the maze of meteor-swarms and booming planetoids. Finally, they glimpsed ahead a cluster of five small, swift-lined space yachts, floating together not far from the edge of a great meteor-swarm.

"The Gravium magnates are here," Keiichi commented. "Space-suit on Urd, you and I will go over to them. Skuld, you'd better stick around the "Space Goddess", Megumi, continue analysis on the air inside the helmet please.

"While I'm waiting, can I try to find some heavy metals over in those meteors?" Skuld asked, pointing toward the nearby drifting swarm. "I want some for Sigel, she's hungry."

"My little girl is always hungry," said Urd, smiling.

"Go ahead, Skuld, but don't go far," Keiichi said.

The boy led the way out of the airlock. He and Urd in space-suits, they leaped out from "the Space Goddess" side toward the five space-yachts.

Despite the grave urgency of their mission, Keiichi felt a thrill of elation as he and Urd shot together across the narrow gulf of empty space. It was good to be out in star-decked space again, after the long weeks of quiet research on the moon.

One of the five small yachts shone with light. The two comrades entered its airlock, and a moment later were inside. In this space-yacht, besides a crew of three hardy Earthmen space-sailors, were six men who came forward with startled exclamations as Keiichi and his sisters appeared.

The directors of the mines were already waiting for the captain in a room when they saw the "Space Goddess'.

"Gentlemen, I believe that here is the Captain Keiichi. " Said one of them, a muscular man with brown hair.

Who is Wrecker? What does he gain exactly by destroying the mines of Gravium? What will the meeting with the directors of the mines accomplish, and will be able to help Captain Keiichi fight back?