With thanks to anonymous reviewer "I love canon", whose complaints about how dreadful it is that I write AU fanfic reminded me of this, possibly the most canon compliant BotP story longer than about 300 words I've ever written, and that I'd never posted it here. Written originally for a challenge back in the days of Yahoo Groups - everything from here on is from my 2008 submission.

A/N: One thing which some people may not know is that Invasion of Space Center was intended to be the final episode of Battle of the Planets. So no need to preserve continuity with following episodes.

Battle of the Planets does not belong to me - and in this case, nor does much of the dialog which is taken from the episodes. I just changed the contexts slightly.

And I'm pretty sure you could tell this story entirely with existing footage...

Invasion of Space Center - the alternative version

Today was not a good day. In fact, even by our standards, today was a truly disastrous day. Research Center is gone, and I don't care what they say about offsite backups, this is going to take some coming back from. Just the stupid little things. There's nowhere I can dock the Phoenix any more. The only way in and out for us, short of scuba diving, is to use the G-4. That's small enough to use the standard docking bays in the other buildings. But right now the Phoenix can't refuel here, let alone get repairs. Most of the specialist tools are gone. All the spare parts.

And artificial intelligences, of course, can't be backed up at all.

Mark knew something was going on, right from the outset. Said as much, even. One of these days the Chief will learn that his premonitions are right far more often than they're wrong. Today we weren't nearly careful enough. Mark told us in as many words that the place would be destroyed. Princess saw something. Zark saw something. And yet we blithely returned to base, opening Center Neptune wide to that Spectran mini-sub. We might as well have offered them tea and biscuits while we were about it.

No, today we reacted instead of acting. It never works. We left Princess and Mark trying to find the locator beacon that the Spectran infiltrators had planted, and the rest of us went out in search of the missiles we knew it would attract.

Well, we found nothing, and eventually Jason ordered us back. I do sometimes wonder if our gunner has a premonition sense of his own. I couldn't see any reason to give up just then. If we hadn't, though...well, let's just say I'm sitting here this evening very, very glad that I don't have a promotion.

It was already too late for us to save the base. The first wave of missiles had struck, and struck hard. Research Center was twisted, hanging at an angle, the artificial island snapped clean in half by the forces involved. Wrenched support girders and mangled steel were everywhere, and I didn't want to even think about the extent of the internal damage. Huge rents in the side made it all too obvious that multiple missiles had penetrated the hull. And communications were all over the place. Mark and Princess weren't answering, and nor was Anderson. We could hear Zark, frantically organising the last of the evacuations and calling for help, but he didn't appear to be hearing us. Then there was a burst of static on the channel and we lost him too.

I was quite sure I didn't want to take the Phoenix back in there. Our docking bay was still clear, more or less, but I had a bad feeling about it. Surprise, surprise, nobody wanted to listen. The pilot's premonition doesn't get even the respect that the commander's does.

"Wiggle us in there somehow," Jason ordered, and I did as I was told. With the inevitable consequences. By the time Keyop piped up that there were a million missiles on his scanners, I had to admit that we were stuck, with no way to bring our own missiles to bear. Not that they could have made any significant difference. There probably weren't a million inbound, but there must have been several hundred. Jason at his best couldn't have taken out more than twenty. We sat there, we watched and we waited, and then they struck.

We've been hit enough times to know exactly what a missile strike feels like. A surprisingly small jolt at first impact, with massive shock and vibration a long instant later as the thing explodes. The sound is inconsequential compared to the movement, and unless things have gone disastrously wrong you see nothing at all. It's not at all like the movies.

This time, though, the vibration didn't stop. We twisted in the grip of the tangled wreckage, and I knew I had to do something. Times like that you don't wait for orders. If something has to be done, you announce and you get on with it.

"I'm gonna blast through."

And, with a million mental apologies to Princess's bike in the port wingpod, I did the only thing I had room for: rammed the wall with all the thrust I could get behind it. Again, and again.

I don't think that was the cause of the final catastrophic structural failure. Even if it was, I truly believe it only hastened the inevitable. There was a further screech of tortured metal, and then we twisted through ninety degrees, a slow, inevitable tumble which ended only when wall became floor and the belts were the only things keeping us in the seats. The rotation stopped, but the motion didn't. We were, unmistakably, falling. Just briefly. A massive jolt, and we stopped dead.

I spared a moment to glance at Keyop. The kid's eyes were saucers, fear all over his face, and for the first time ever I gave serious thought to whether I should have disobeyed a direct order. If I had, the Phoenix wouldn't be in here. Now the fraction of manoeuvrability I had had was gone. There was nothing I could do to get us out.

I turned to speak to Jason just in time to see his expression freeze.

"We're moving," he said.

Not falling straight this time, either. We were tumbling in all three dimensions, the groans of strained metal all around us - and abruptly there was a jolt of a different kind. The Phoenix shifting independently of her metal trap. Something had given way and we had room to move.

Again, not a time to wait for orders. I hit it with everything we had, and the Phoenix responded. Moments later we were free. Outside the structure, and this time when Jason went to the radio it worked.

"Mark? Where are you?"

"B section," came our commander's voice. I'm not sure I've ever been more relieved.

"Anyone else?"

"Princess is with me. Anderson's in the fileroom, but he's not responding. And there's Zark."

"Oh, don't worry about me, Commander," came a cheerful tinny voice. "Rover and I can wait. We don't have your requirements for oxygen."

"Unfortunately," Jason muttered.

"How stable are we?"

Jason and I looked at each other, then at the screen. Precarious didn't begin to describe it. Research Center was teetering on a ledge far too small to hold it for long. Even as we watched, another lump of rock broke from the edge and tumbled into the black of the abyss below.

"Not good," Jason said bluntly. "Tiny, we need to go get them."

I squinted at the screen, considering. B section was nearly at the top of the structure normally, so it was close to the right hand end now. I'd punched the Phoenix into dozens of mecha. I'd never expected to have to do it to our own base.

"Zark will have to get to you," Jason said. "We can't risk getting stuck again."

I never have understood how a robot can clear its throat, but Zark managed it. "I'm afraid that, with my access tubes at this angle, I can't quite -"

"You stay where you are, Zark. I'm coming to get you." Mark sounded confident and decisive, and while Jason raised his eyebrows he didn't comment.

Instead he looked sideways at me. "If you hit it right, we should be able to rock them back onto the ledge a bit."

I snorted before I could help myself, and Jason glared. He was wrong, though. The Phoenix was designed to punch through with minimum transfer of momentum. This wasn't the time to argue physics, though. I picked my spot, lined her up, and hit it.

The hull of Research Center hadn't been designed to withstand this. It was hot knife through butter time. Even so I didn't dare go near B section. With Anderson not responding, we couldn't know if he was unconscious, or physically incapable of keeping his head out of the water for long enough for us to get to him. I had to be careful to maintain the structure's integrity, and that meant stopping well short.

"Wait for us, Tiny," was all Jason said as he and Keyop headed out for the risky underwater swim to B section.

Yeah, I'd wait. As usual. I'm good at waiting. Practice does that for you.

It's not normally this dramatic, though. Barely two minutes later I had hysterical Zark on the speaker.

"Tiny, you must tell Mark! I can't contact him direct, and Jason and Keyop are in trouble!"

I frowned, hesitating as I reached for the button. "He's well on his way to fetch you, Zark. Princess -"

"She won't be strong enough, I know! Never mind me, Tiny, you have to tell Mark to turn back and help them!"

Quirks of radio inside a twisted metal structure are far from predictable, and my communications worked just fine. Mark simply said, "Roger." I sat and waited again. It seemed a desperately long time until the radio pipped again.

"Come on in, Tiny. We're going into the secret file room."

Not a word about what the crisis had been, how Anderson was, nothing. I'm used to that too. They'd tell me if something was wrong. But calling me further in surely meant that Mark had decided trying to reverse the route Jason and Keyop had taken was simply too dangerous.

"I'm on my way, Commander," I acknowledged, and then thought of something else. "What about Zark?"

"I can wait a little longer," the cheery voice came back, but there was just an edge of concern to it.

The comm system clicked onto a private channel, and then Mark's voice came over it.

"Tiny, the way through to Zark is flooding fast. We need to push right into A section and grab him quick. He may take a bit of drying out, but it's our only option. I don't want to worry him, though. You know what he's like."

"Got it." I went back to the public channel. "We'll be with you real soon, Zark. Just hang in there."

"I'm pleased to hear it." The degree of worry had increased. "I don't like to grumble, but there are several inches of water in here now. Rover is up to his tail."

"Not long now," I responded, and turned my attention to my route. Getting to the file room was easy. Getting to A section, tucked deep in the middle of Research Center, was anything but.

By the time the rest of the team entered the flight deck, and Mark and Jason had lowered a limp Anderson into the gunner's seat, I knew what I needed to do. There were simply too many structural beams between our current location and A section to take the risk that the Phoenix might get stuck again. That left me with no alternative but to go out and back in again.

That's when our luck ran out. Transfer of momentum. Only slight, but it was enough. As we punched back out into clear water I heard Princess gasp, and , over the radio, a shocked "Oh, my!" I kept going, since nobody had told me to stop. Only then did I take the time to look at the rear viewer.

Research Center wasn't on the ledge any more. Instead it was rolling, spinning in the water as it drifted gently downwards. If we went back in there now, we'd never come out.

And then Anderson woke up, very much to our relief.

"Research Center?" he asked.

Mark was equally brief. "Not much left."

Anderson struggled to a more upright position, holding his head. Heaven only knows how he'd managed not to lose his glasses. He surveyed the screens for a long silent moment.

"Is anyone still in there?"

"Zark," Princess said shakily over Jason's "no".

Another long pause, as we watched our base sink irrevocably into the depths of the trench. Then, "Turn back. We can't let Zark fall into Zoltar's hands."

"Chief - it's not safe to go in there!" I exclaimed.

Mark looked at me, then back to the Chief. "We all know that. Are you sure, Chief? You want us to destroy it, and him, completely? That's a tall order."

Anderson simply held his gaze, and Mark turned away. "What do you think, Jason?"

Jason was already standing alongside me, the safety cover of the firing switch retracted. "Hate to do this, but the Chief's right. Well, here go -"

"Wait!" That was Princess, tearful now. "We can't just blow him up!"

"There's no alternative. Zoltar's subs can go deeper than we can. We can't wait." Mark's tone was flat, and he barely looked at her.

"We at least have to tell him."

"What? That we're about to blow him to hell?" Jason's snort was decidedly impatient, and Princess reacted as sharply as I'd ever heard from her.

"No. We tell him we appreciate what he's done for us. What he did today. He could have kept his mouth shut, had Mark fetch him instead of rescuing you and Keyop. Nobody would ever have realised he knew what was going on, not with communications on the blink like they were today. He saved you, Jason. You should show some gratitude."

Jason actually flushed, and Mark stepped up to the microphone at Princess's console with none of his usual confidence. He glanced at Keyop.

"Laugh and I'll throttle you." Then he cleared his throat self-consciously and flicked the microphone switch. "Zark, you're the greatest. We're sure lucky to have you on our team."

Dabbing at her eyes, Princess added, "You're a wizard and a genius, and my hero."

None of us laughed. The microphone clicked off, and Mark pointed at Jason.

"Do it."

I've no idea how an artificial intelligence dies. Do they feel pain? Zark certainly used to feel worry. I hope it was quick; that it all came to a gentle, unremarkable end with him still sure we were coming for him and basking in his well-earned praise. He always wanted to be a full member of G-Force, to do his bit, to be a hero. Today he got that, and he truly deserved it.

I just wish it hadn't ended like this.