.
.	Episode Description: “Tell us about the Argo Mission to Saturn and what happened to it - and to you, Takaya Aiba,” Freeman repeats. “What?” D-Boy asks in shock. “The Argo Mission - its commander was Kouzou Aiba. I found records - and some pictures of the crew - in our files,” Freeman continues patiently. “The last time the Argo Mission was heard from was outside the orbit of Titan. Kouzou Aiba was the expedition commander. Among the crew were his four children - Kengo, Takaya, Shinya, and Miyuki. Shinya is Tekkaman Evil, and there is Miyuki. You’re too young to be Kengo. That makes you Takaya Aiba.” “No, no, I’m D-BOY!” the young man replies. The doctor chooses that moment to interrupt. Miyuki is getting worse. “All right...all right. I’ll tell you what I can...but it...it hurts!” he says. Aki puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be with you,” she says gently. “We’ll pretend you’re just telling me...” First, D-Boy and Aki must donate blood to give to Miyuki to help her survive the operation that must be performed. “Your name may be Takaya Aiba, but you’ll always be D-Boy to me,” Aki tells him. In the Orbital Ring, Evil again hangs suspended within a Radamu bubble, as they change his armor once more. Omega talks to him as Shinya hangs there, unable to move. Omega is upset at Evil’s failure to defeat Blade, and his loss of Rapier makes it worse. Omega is preparing three more Tekkamen to help defeat Blade. After Miyuki is wheeled away, D-Boy and Aki sit in the empty exam room, and D-Boy begins to tell the story of what happened to the ARGO. First, he explains that most of the crew was still in hibernation when they arrived at Saturn. The crew had been divided in half, each taking turns in stasis in rotation to help them survive the decade-long voyage each way. “We had entered Saturn’s rings,” he says wearily. There, they found a magnetic anomaly. Investigation showed it was an alien vessel of some kind, like nothing they had ever seen before. It was huge, and looked almost alive...their ship was captured by energy emanations from the alien, and it was decided to send in an exploration team after all attempts to contact the strange vessel failed. Shinya mentioned that the phenomena of the energy field reminded him of stories of other lost, ghost ships, like the MARY CELESTE and the FLYING DUTCHMAN. They celebrate as Miyuki sends a message about their discovery home. “They’ll never laugh at the Aiba family again! We’ll be number one when we get home!” the twins celebrate as their father tells them they will be part of the exploration team. They were not supposed to have any weapons, but Takaya sneaked in a gun anyway. When they entered the alien ship, they discovered that the inside of it was like a living thing, too. Evidently the aliens, instead of using machinery, had developed biotechnology instead - gene engineering themselves and other species around them to perform the functions that humans had done with computers and other machine-oriented technology. They discovered to their horror that the ship was not dead, but only asleep. Their arrival woke up the alien horrors that were hibernating inside the vessel! Things like huge seed pods hanging overhead split in half, revealing eyes inside - and the halves dropped down on their vines, engulfing the members of the exploration party. The humans run, but eventually all were captured. Miyuki watched in terror, racing to try to wake the sleeping crew, including her oldest brother, Kengo. Takaya tried to use his gun but the weapon was knocked out of his hand before he could fire it, and he too was ‘eaten’. The Radamu encase all the humans in globes of liquid, including those left on board the ARGO - Miyuki, Kengo, and the others sleepers. The older members of the crew were experimented on, and their life-forces drained to feed the Radamu. The aliens draw knowledge of Earth and her defenses from the helpless crew. The ARGO herself was drawn into the alien vessel. Takaya and the others watched helplessly as each one is drained, screaming in pain. They themselves were kept paralyzed by the Radamu, unable to do anything to help their comrades. Each knew what was happening to him or herself, but could not stop the process. The Tekkasystem that creates a Tekkaman in most cases controls the wearer, draining them of all life-force until they die. Only a few proved to be able to control the Tekkasystem; they became Tekkamen, forced to become the leaders of the force the Radamu will send against the Earth. They were gradually encased in sets of Tekkaman armor. “How did you escape that fate?” Aki asks. “My father...” is the reply. Kouzou was one of the ones drained rather than turned fully into a Tekkaman; he was dropped out of the Radamu pod he was encased in before he was completely dead. Briefly he showed energy lines that are the first stage of becoming a Tekkaman. Finding Takaya’s gun, he used the weapon to free his son. Takaya was already encased in the second stage of the system - a primitive form of the armor he now wears, it looks an awful lot like the Tekkaman armor worn by the hero in the original TEKKAMAN TV show! He did not yet have one of the Radamu parasites attached to him that would have forced him to be obedient to Radamu commands. Kouzou dragged the dazed Takaya off to one of the ARGO’s escape pods, and sent him off to warn the Earth of what was coming. Takaya was still partially paralyzed from Radamu influence and could not move to help his father when the aliens attacked, and watched helplessly as Kouzou is re absorbed by the aliens before the lifepod launched out of the alien ship. As the alien ship disappeared from view, he screamed for his family - his father, older brother, Shinya, Miyuki...but to no avail. As the pod arrived in Earth orbit, he completed the transformation into Tekkaman Blade. Unfortunately, the pod proved to be slower than the Radamu forces, and he found the Radamu already had taken over the Moon bases and the Orbital Ring. He was almost immediately confronted by Tekkaman Dagger, and lost that initial battle, falling to Earth. There he was found by Aki and Noal. The battle and the fall resulted in his amnesia. (I suspect he didn’t really WANT to remember what had happened to him and the rest of his family, either.) “And you know what happened after that,” he says dully, at the end of his story. The doctors notify them then that Miyuki is out of surgery and ready for visitors. D-Boy and Aki race to her side, and the two siblings embrace once more. “Older brother, I’m so glad to see you! I have so much I must tell you...” she says. “But I must tell you...our father is dead.” D-Boy screams...	.
	.

	.
.	Episode Images:	.
	.