Nibiru, orbital headquarter of the Strikeforce
Agent Z, the double of the real dictator of Mandelovia, hangs naked from the ceiling of a cell. His body sports the marks of torture, but he has not revealed any of his secrets. Because he believes to be the real D'Goon.
A man, dressed with the uniform of the Strikeforce soldiers, enter in the cell, to bring water for the man.
Z is still, seemingly dead. The soldier come closer, and a precise kick on the throat kill instantly the soldier. Before the man falls to the ground, the false D'Goon is able to stop his fall with his legs. Then, with the most terrible of the strains, he raises the man toward his tied up hand with just the strength of his bare legs. Then, keeping the dead soldier just by the fingers, he search the man's belt with mouth and tongue, until he finds what he's looking for: the remote control of his magnetic handcuffs.
He let the man fall. Then, with the tongue, he presses each buttons of the remote, until, with a click, the handcuffs open and he falls to the ground too, landing perfectly on his legs.
Armed with just the remote, Z runs away from the cell, trough a corridor with an endless row of similar cells on the two sides. Suddenly an alarm noise began to buzz, and from the far ending of the corridor a group of armored soldiers appeared, flashing laser beam at him.
Z opens a lateral door, and finds himself inside a huge chamber, with a domed glassed roof. Behind, the star filled darkness of space. The enormous vault was filled by any kind of plants, growing on hydroponic pools.
"This is how the ship refurbish itself of oxygen" thinks the false D'Goon, running in the dense plantation, to hide from the arriving soldiers.
But through the foliage he sees not just soldiers, but also one of the agents, the woman code-named Eden.
"Don't fire here!" she orders to the men, and begins to bath the plants with a green ray emanating for her open hands. Instantly, the plants begin to bend, to twist, to shake, like they are alive.
Wines surround Z, tying him, immobilizing his body.
But Z begins to gnaw at the smaller branches wrapping his arms, and then, finally free, began to swing from a plant to another, dancing on the green like a gibbon.
The soldiers begin to fire, without listening to Tenant Eden, themselves scared to death by the green nightmare they gotten into. The laser beams at first just deflects over the glass dome, but then it begins to cracks, and finally breaks with a boom, that suddenly stops, like someone switched the audio off. The air is sucked outside, in the void of space, and with the air gone are the soldiers and Eden, their screaming faces mute in the soundless of space.
Meanwhile, Z has crawled quick as a geek down trembling lianes toward the still open door, managing to roll outside, back in the corridor, before the door lock automatically behind himself.
As he is back on his feet, another swarm of soldiers come in, and he jumps in air and lands over their heads, swinging across the laser beams and kicking the soldiers in the faces, easily taking them down, like a wire-works performers in an action movie.
The remote control still in his hands, he opened the door closing the end of the corridor, to find himself in a big room, with many maps floating freely standing up-right.
"I was expecting you, D'Goon!" says a voice. From behind a map appears a tall, black skinned man, a long staff in one hand.
"The one called Darkstar, I guess" says Z.
With a wave of the staff, Darkstar send Z flying backward, but before crashing over the metallic wall, he roll back, makes a somersault and touch the vertical wall with his feet, and suddenly pushes himself back toward the man.
They both fall to the ground, and instantly are standing up, fighting.
"Your power are useless outside the atmosphere!" says Z, coldly.
"Maybe, but I don't need them to take you down" replies Darkstar.
hit after hit, blow after blow, the fight is at an even, when other armed soldiers arrive.
"Surrender" one of them says, raising his raygun.
"Never!" responds the false D'Goon.
As the soldiers fires, D'Goon jumps, rotates, his feet touch the ceiling, do a few step before falling over the head of the soldier. Meanwhile, the ray cuts across Darkstar head, killing him instantly.
Whit a pressure of his feet, D'Goon crushes the skull of the soldier, and began kicking and punching again the rest of the soldiers, all of them untrained enough to be able to confront an Elite Guard of Mandelovia, possible the last of the Alphabet Agents.
As the last of the soldiers falls, Z comes back in the corridor. There is a last door, surely the control room of the ship.
The door open and a short, fat kid comes out.
Z looks at him puzzled. "And you are the last line of defense? A child?"
From the kid, better known as Tenant Albino, comes just an uncontrollable laugh.
A few minutes later, Jack Merlin opens the door of the pilot room, and enter the corridor.
There is just Albino, his Strikeforce jacket soaked in blood, standing over a few bones and a broken remote control.
Merlin smiles. "Good work Pedrito!"
From the kids comes just a smile, and a loud "BURP!"
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Inside the pilot room, a minute later.
"So, D'Goon didn't reveal the coordinate of the fortress. Are we going with the emergency plan?" asks Ekorre.
Merlin is answering to information feed directly to him by The Brain. "No, Ekorre, not yet. The Vanguardian hovercraft is leaving mandelovia, as they have failed their mission. But we don't know if they have discovered the coordinates, they have been with D'Goon for a lot of time, and they have a telepat, something we are sorely missing. So, let's see what route will take the Stormloader, it could be a pleasing surprise."
