Episodes 71 - 80

Episode #71: "The Secret Of Garantur"

While their ship crosses the Xantas border belt and reaches the giant gas planet Garatur, the Protector crew detects a Meechan ship but when Lt. Madison  tries to contact it, nobody answers. Dr. Lazarus checks it and his results say the ship temperature is much too low. Taggert and Dr. Lazarus decide to connect the ship via tractor beam and send a shuttle to transport the crew to the Protector. When the rescue team reaches the Meechan ship, it turns out that the entire Meechan crew is shock-frozen and will need a whole day to defrost. Dr. Lazarus tells the commander he feels some kind of enormous fear coming from the planet and Lt. Madison says she can hear high frequences, but is not able to get out the background sounds yet. While Tech Sgt. Chen checks the board computer of the Meechan ship, he realizes that its crew was testing different kind of bombs in the Methan atmosphere of Garantur, but suddenly they stopped without any reason. On next day, Lt. Madison says she had nightmares showing that the planet would try to destroy the Protector. Chen calls the commander and says the Meechan ship has vanished and his computers say it is now in the atmosphere of Garantur. To get it back, Taggert creates a rescue team of him, Dr. Lazarus and Lt. Madison, takes a shuttle and flies into the atmosphere of the gas planet, connected with the Protector via tractor beam. When they are inside the atmosphere, the monitors around are displaying madness. Dr. Lazarus realizes it seems the displayed pattern are a language. Lt. Madison directs her translation computer to the monitors and after 10 minutes, the computer begins to translate and tells that Garantur is a home of a gas basing life form, living in peace before the Meechans came and poisoned their atmosphere with their bombs, so they had to freeze them. They now wanted to take the ship inside their planet, but realized the crew is not available, so they demand the Meechans from the Protector or it will be shock-frozen as well. With help of Dr. Lazarus, Lt. Madison establishes a communication and tells the Garanturians that freezing is no solution as other Meechan ships will appear searching for their lost crew. But then she gets an idea. Later, when the Meechans wake up, they see a big gas planet with a ring in front of them and their board computer tells them it is Ugnas IV. Thinking they drifted far away from their destination, the Meechans take course home. Lt. Madisons plan worked: The Protector pulverized some greater asteroids and created a ring around Garantur and Chen manipluated the Meechan board computer so that it showed another location. The Garanturians are so thankful that they send a mediator to the Galactic Union to learn about the requirements for membership.

Episode #72: "The Blue Winds of Moon"

Acanoc is a little planet with some water lakes and a blue atmosphere and known as "Blue Moon" because it is the sole satellite of a hugh gas planet. Commander Taggert, Lt. Madison and Dr. Lazarus take an excusion on the surface because their mineral detector displayed a Beryllium resource which was never expected here. When they get to the place where the Beryllium was located, they see a strange blue crystal heap, exhausing blue steam. Lt. Madison is fascinated and walkes nearby, then suddendly gets a hallucination where she is in a NSEA conference, encircled by young and very attractive officers, telling her she was promoted to be a commander. However, this does not last long as  Taggert and Dr. Lazarus draw her away from the crystals. In the meantime, two Ssazzbatt ship arrive and their commanders are also interested in the Beryllium assuming of a great deal opportunity. When Tech Sgt. Chen tries to transport Taggert, Dr. Lazarus and Lt. Madison back on board, the signal is blocked by the Ssazzbatts who let him know they remove the blocker only if he signes a contract that they get all the moon resources. Chen answers that only the commander can sign this contract but as he is currently down on the moon, he cannot do this. So one Ssazzbatt commander decides for a transport down to the moon. When he found the NSEA crew, he demands them to surrender and sign the resource contract. Before Taggert can say his catchphrase "We never give up, never surrender", Dr. Lazarus says they first must see the Beryllium as it will be hard to get because it is surrounded by crystals. The Ssazzbatts, now curious, follow him to the steaming crystals, and when they are near, they gets a blackout so Taggert and Dr. Lazarus can unarm them. Taggert gets and idea, puts some steaming crystals to the now sleeping Ssazzbatts, takes the communicator from one Ssazzbatt and orders a transport. Short time later, he and the others are transported back to the Protector. Chen reports Taggert suddenly the Ssazzbatts removed their blocker and their space ship drifted away but he could not find the reason. When Taggert tells him what happend, he laughts a lot. Later, Dr. Lazarus analyses a blue crystal and tells the other crew members the structure is partly similar to Beryllium, but actually it is an alloy of a more heavy metal and a very light one which converts to gas under normal temperatures and creates hallucinations when inhaled for more than five minutes. When the NSEA headquarter read the Protector report, they decide to set up a reseach station on Acanoc to investigate the effects of the now called "Blue Winds of Moon" crystals.

Episode #73: "Some Tasks For Taggert" 

During a rescue mission for the Gdonks, when the Protector crew just transports the crew of the Gdonk ship to the lading center of the Protector, a couple of Ssazzbatts kidnap commander Taggert under the pretext, their queen had ordered it and bring him to planet Enok, where a colony of them is located. When Taggert meets the Ssazzbatt queen, she tells him when he helped the Gdonks, he entered Ssazzbatt territory unpermitted and deserves to be pubished, but fortunately she can change the punishment so he just has to perform some tasks and is free to go then. First, he has to enter a kind of theater and tell the Ssazzbatt community his greatest adventures. Of course the commander is sure that will be easy and when he tells his story with great gesticulations, strong sounds and movements, the Ssazzbatts are really impressed. But after two hours, he has to do it again and after 8 hours, his listener are quite bored. The queen decides to let him do the next task on next day where he has to cross a very high canyon just by using a rope connected between both sides, but although the commander almost falls down for exhaustment when he reaches the other side, the does not fail. So the queen orders he has to fight against the Enok beast. In the meantime, all Gdonks are saved, but Dr. Lazarus misses commander Taggert. As nobody knows where he is, Dr. Lazarus asks Laredo to scan the area, but his position cannot be detected. Finally the Gdonk commander admits that he just had a conflict with the Ssazzbatts for Beryllium resources on Enok. Dr. Lazarus orders to fly to that planet. Taggert, now in fight with the Enok beast, a mixture between a hedgehog and hyaena, is really in trouble and already suffers some scratches of bad hits. The Ssazzbatt queen is already sure she will hear him calling for help, but the commander gets an idea and drops almost all his clothes in a corner, then hides himself. When the beast attacks his clothes, he picks a big rock and throws it down his enemy. In this moment, Dr. Lazarus, Lt. Madison, the Gdonk commander and another Ssazzbatt appear who used the Protector transporter. When they meet Taggert and the Ssazzbatt queen, the queen orders to eleminate all, but the Ssazzbatt near Dr. Lazarus shouts she is the real queen, creates a special very high vibrating sound so the fake queen collapses at once. At the end, after Dr. Lazarus told the commander he met the real Ssazzbatt queen in space and while the Gdonks and Ssazzbatts negotiate the resources of Enok, the Protector crew has to sit in the Ssazzbatt theater when Taggert is telling them about his tasks with lots of his very own gesticulations and sounds.

Episode #74: "The Dangerous Legend"

During a stay on starbase 17, Dr. Lazarus visits the bar and gets in contact with an oddy female stranger who shows him a small object and asks him to analyze it. After the doctor took a first few and explained some facts, the stanger has disappeared. Puzzled but curious, he takes the object to the Protector and when he searches all available libraries, he discovers that it is an artefact belonging to the Meechans, and a legend tells it is supposed to be a very powerful weapon, but it is unknown how to activate and use it. When Dr. Lazarus shows his explorations to the commander, Taggert suggests that Tech Sgt. Chen should have a look at the artefact as well. When the flight continues, Laredo detects an asteroid with a much heavier structure than usual and Taggert orders to get more near for getting more details. Lt. Madison means that is suspicious and suggests preparations for defense, but Taggert denies as this is no known enemy territory. Suddenly, some Meechan ships leave the asteroid and surround the Protector. Taggert now realizes the asteroid is a Meechan mother ship, but now it is too late. The Meechan commander, Zarrok, contacts the Protector and demands the artefact, otherwise the Protector would be vaporized. Dr. Lazarus answers, he can get it, but first has to sign to Galactic Peace Accord to make sure they will not misuse it. Zarrok laughts and says, the artefact is Meechan property and the Protector is not in the position to negotiate. Taggert suggests that a team of Meechan and Galactic Union scientists would first study the artefact, but Zarrok is not interested and says either the artefact is transported within 2 minutes or the Protector will be destroyed. After 2 minutes, when Taggert and Dr. Lazarus had a discussion, the commander tells Zarrok he knows that the artefact is a powerful weapon and he will use it if the Meechans attack the Protector. Zarrok answers, he will not play this game and lets his ships attack the Protector. Taggert orders to evade but a direct hit of the engines stops the flight. Under constant vibrations and explosions, Taggert runs to Tech Sgt. Chen, asking if he can activate the artefact. Chen says he can but does not know what happens then. Taggert orders to give it a try, contacts Zarrok and tells him the Protector surrenders. When the Meechans stopp their attack, Chen redirects all energy to the artefact, but nothing happens. Lt. Madison is already desperate and says they are lost, the Meechans restart their attack. But this time, their shots cannot reach the Protector, their ships are even moved away. Now they understand the artefact is a protection shield intensifier. However, Chen reports that the Protector matter is expanded also, including the artefact, and will break if the process will not be stopped. Just when Taggert orders to stop, the artefact breaks into peaces. Fortunately, the Meechans are gone now so Chen and his team can repair the engines, while Dr. Lazarus starts to reassemble the artefact because Taggert made a bet that he will drink 10 martini bottles with him if he can finish it. Back on starbase 17, the entire crew laughts at Taggert when he drinks the martini with sour face because Dr. Lazarus won the bet, although he still needs time to study how it can be reactivated.

Episode #75: "The Genius Gadgets" 

Back from holiday, Professor Zabatan, one of the greatest genius persons of the Galactic Union, is on board of the Protector and does his favourite business: Discussing improvements with Tech Sgt. Chen. Lt. Madison bets with Commander Taggert that she can interrupt them for an hour, so when she meets them in the canteen, she joins them and starts talking about Rigelian food. However, when the Professor explains some traditional dishes, he soon discusses with Chen about the machines for making it, so Madison gives up finally. On next day, Chen starts to feel unwell and visits the medical center. The doctor tells him he got the Rigelian Flu and must be under quarantaine for a week. Commander Taggert is now unsure about the substitution, but then gets happy when he hears the Professor wants to do Chens serivce as he has probably infected him and wants to pay something back. Two days later, the Protector meets a delegation of Gnifflans, lookong like humans, but with extemly white skin, for a trade and knowledge agreement. However, after both ships stop, Laredo realizes that the other ship has a very strong magnetic field. Suddenly, the Protector starts to act weird, first sending strange light signals, then shoot around and finally separates the upper and lower deck. When Dr. Lazarus asks Professor Zabatan of the reason, he answers that he installed a lot of little improvements to the Protecor engines, but the strong magnetic field seems to cause unexpected reactions. Taggert now tries to explain the situation to Xanaxas, the Gnifflan female leader, but she is insulted and takes course home. When her ship disappeared, the Protector acts normal again. Taggert is now angry and asks the Professor why he modified the Protector without telling him, the Professor answers this is an exploration ship so improvements must always be possible. While Taggert discusses with him similar like Chen, the Gnifflan ship appears again, but with 5 other ships escorted. Xanaxas lets Taggert know she wants the Protector, otherwise her ships will open the fire. While Laredo and Lt. Madison try to negotiate, the Professor tells Taggert he might have an idea how the Protector could escape, but needs to talk to Chen first. When Taggert, Dr. Lazarus and he want to talk to Chen, the doctor tries to prevent it, but Dr. Lazarus stops him with a kind of hypnosis trick. Chen stills feel unwell but can talk, and while he discusses with the Professor, the first shots from the Gnifflans hit the ship with desasterous effects as their blasters are higher developed. However, Chen and Professor Zabatan leave the medical center quickly, modify a gadget and ask taggert to activate it as it is possible that the Protector will be vaporized if they did a mistake. Taggert does not answer but activates the gadget by himself, and suddenly hundrets of copies of the protector appear behind the original ship. The Gnifflans are shocked, turn around an flee. Short time after that, the board computer reports a system overload and the Beryllium sphere breaks in 1000 pieces, the Protector copies disappear in this moment entirely. Professor Zabantan admits his multicopy gadget needs some more improvement, but Taggert denies and demands to remove all modifications, emphasizing that the Protector is an exploration and not an experimentation ship.

Episode #76: "The Viloreedian Gift"  

After saving peace between the Ssazzbatts and the Viloreeds who look like insects, the Viloreedian president gives Commander Taggert a special seed to show their thankfulness. Taggert, not really interested to care for a plant, forwards the seed to Lt. Madison and orders that she will take care for it. After some days the Protector took course to the next destiny, Varos 7, Lt. Madison realizes that the Viloreedian plant which she put in a pot with earth and water, has grown fast, and wants to carry it to the biologic station, but she cannot move it. When she called Taggert and Dr. Lazarus, the Mak'Tar checks it and realizes the plant converted a part of the ship to a kind of heavy and fertile soil, but did not destory electric functions which means it must own a special consciousness. Taggert asks Dr. Lazarus to find a way for communication with the plant and telling it the ship is in danger if it grows this way. Suddenly, a heavy vibration runs through the ship, red alarm sounds and Laredo tells Taggert via ship communicator that the Gnifflans attacking the Protector. Taggert cannot run to the command deck as the vibrations are too strong. Although Laredo tries his best and Tech Sgt. Chen redirects all energy to the shields, the damages of the Protector become so bad that Dr. Lazarus recommends to surrender, but Taggert denies and asks Lt. Madison to send a signal the attack must stop or the Protector crew will destory the ship by themselfs. Suddenly, the face of Xanaxas, the female Gnifflan leader, appears on screen, asking if that is meant serious, then asking what kind of plant is it in the background of the room Taggert is just in. After Lt. Madison explained it, Xanaxas says she will now enter the ship. Having arrived with a group of other Gnifflans, she asks Taggert if she can have the plant. When Taggert agrees, Xanaxas orders to help the Protector crew repairing the ship. Now she tells that the Gnifflans are actually Cyborgs, a mix between biologic and artificial life. Unfortunately, there are no kind of plans on their planet and all attempts to prepare a suitable soil were to no avail. Now they finally get the chance to get this with the special seed. After Dr. Lazarus offered his help to provide all research information about creating biliogical soils, Xanaxas is even ready to sign the Galactic Peace Accord so Galactic Union ships will not longer be attacked.

Episode #77: "Attacked from Future"

Merrigor is a strange system: Instead of a large sun, there is a small black sun with a wide corona in its center and the orbits of the planets are varying from time to time. When the Protector arrived to research it, Taggert realizes that the behaviour of his crew changes: When he invites them for a meeting, they say it is already over, when the tells Tech Sgt. Chen that he just noticed his Nebulizer does not work, he gets an answer that this was corrected a week ago and when he tests it, it is really working. The last doubts disappear then his own mirror image just passes by instead of watching him like he does. He decides to ask Dr. Lazarus for help, but just in this moment the doctor is in his room telling him his power tree plant is acting strangely and growing as it wants to escape from the black sun. He can also confirm the strange time shifts Taggert experienced and his research result is that only the third planet is not affected by them. He also discovered a verly large crater exhausting a hugh energy stream. Both decide to visit the third planet with red atmosphere and land at the border of the crater. Dr. Lazarus now tries a mind bending with the energy stream until a light ball appears in the center, moving up and tells them he was the time guardian and they should be careful of what they do as changes can influence their past and future. As Taggert asks what this means, two persons appear looking like them but much older, explaining the Time Guardian was created by the Zyron scientists who had a station here for their time experiments, but one experiment failed and had the terrible effect that the time strings mixed with more than one reality existing, so the station was destroyed at the end. When Taggert says he wants to leave, his older version says that is not necessary because the Protector is already destroyed, they had to stay here. But when the commander declines, their older versions draw their Nebulizers and start a fight. Taggert and Dr. Lazarus run back to their shuttle, and while the lasers are fired all the time, they realize that they are the past for their older versions in future, and trying to change something in their past could have unpredictable results, so they want to stop it. However, the commander and the doctor can escape, and being back on the Protector, Taggert orders to leave the system, apologizing if he said this already, and that the crew should prepare for a battle. The crew wonders because they can see no enemies, but then two ships appear with NSEA sign, attacking the Protector. Laredo does not want to shoot as there are NSEA ships, but Taggert realizes there can only be their older versions and fires himself instead. When both ships are destroyed, Taggert moves his ship away from the Meerigor system, while Dr. Lazarus explains what happened. At the end Lt. Madison says at least they now know the NSEA will exist longer, even when they are pensioners.

Episode #78: "The Rolling Servant" 

The Avonqas are known as very good engineers, but lousy architects and walking through their buildings is always an adventure. Although Commander Taggert is aware of this fact, he stumbels during a meeting for a closer cooperation of the Galactic Union and the Avonqas, falls and rolls to the feets of their queen, Celoah. Surprisingly she is very happy that this happend and tells Taggert she will accept the cooperation if he becomes her servant. The Avonqanian prime minister, standing beside the queen, explains that rolling to the feet of the queen is a traditional custom to express that someone wants to become a royal servant. Although Taggert wants to decline, Dr. Lazarus recommends him to agree as the cooperation contract is very important, and finally he accepts. Some hours later the doctor meets the Commander again, telling the negotiations are not over yet as the Meechans try to get a cooperation also. Taggert complains that he has to do nonsens tasks like counting flowers or stroking hedgehog-like animals and blames Dr. Lazarus for his situation. While both start an intensive discussion, the doctor gets an idea. When he returns to the negotiation center, he pretends to stumble and rolls to the feet of the queen like Taggert did. Celoah happily accepts him to be another servant. Now both, Taggert and Dr. Lazarus, behave as clumsy as possible and constantly pretend to argue with each other, and once they are so in anger that Taggert hustles a Meechan so much that he falls and had to become the third servant of the queen, but does not want it and tells this with lots of wild gesticulations. The queen is insulted and quits the negotiations with the Meechans, signs the cooperation contract with the Galactic Union and releases Taggert and Dr. Lazarus from their service as she is fed up with their perfect pretended clumsiness.

Episode #79: "The Ssazzbatt War"

Episode #80: "The Blue Barrierer Confrontation"

On a mission to carry food to the Targathians, the Protector has to stop in front of a huge blue glittering barrier belt which is detracting energy from its engines. While Dr. Lazarus checks an alternative way, Commander Taggert looses his patience and orders Laredo to last the barrier away. Laredo follows and after some shots, the barrier seems to disappear, but then returns and absorbs the Protector entirely. Surrounded by the stange phenomenon, navigation becomes impossible because the instruments stop working. Suddenly Lt. Madison gets a signal and a blue star appears on the communication screen, telling a message with a very whirring sound. When Lt. Madison gets the translation, she says the Protector cannot not pass because it was not blue enough. Taggert does not want to loose any more time, so he orders Tech Sgt. Chen to colorize the ship to blue. After this is done, he sends a message to the blue star, but gets the answer the Protector was too dark. So Taggert asks Chen to install some more lights on the outside of the Protector. Again he sends an message afterwards and gets the answer the Protector needs an extra propeller in front to make the navigation more safe. When Dr. Lazarus asks the blue star for the complete conditions, he gets the answer this is not possible as the conditions change quickly. While Taggert is tired to play this game, Lt. Madison gets an idea and says: "They want a fashion show. Let's give it to them!" and talks with Chen for the modifications. When the blue light appears again for the answer, Lt. Madison says they are not the Protector any more, but the Galactor and got some more grids near the bow, if that is okay. In this moment, Tech Sgt. Chen detects that the energy detraction is decreasing. After a while, the blue star answers that is okay, but another modification is needed. Lt. Madison answers, that is already done in the meantime, the wings got some additional parabol antenna and how they will like that. Every time the blue star needs to think, the energy detraction decreases more and more and when it is finally gone, Taggert orders to give maximum energy to the engines and fly away with full speed ahead. Fortunately, it works and they can arrive at Targathia just in time. However, the Targathians wonder very much that the Protector looks like a carinval boat. Dr. Lazarus comment that somebody thought he could blast problems away and needs to train his patience with highes priority while pointing to Taggert. The Targathians are very happy and invite Taggert to play the Ekkatekka game lasting 114 hours at minimum.