Frozen Assets/Aki Team Gets Caught

Frozen Assets

The Explorer and her fleet are just leaving star system 37.  On the lounge, Jeff thinks the Drules are started to see things the Alliance's way.  Hawkins arrives and says they can only have the new planet if they disarm.  What's this?!  Continuity?!  And following the Dairugger script, for the most part?  Hawkins allows Jeff to take the Voltron force out for some exploring.

Hazar and Dorma discuss the impasse they have with the Drule high command.  Borgam arrives and announces he is deploying another squadron.  Hazar is angry, but Borgam is acting on the supreme council's order.  He plans to ambush the Voltron force at Planet 10.  Borgam tells Hazar that something bad will happen if he doesn't toe the party line.

Jeff comes upon a planet at the edge of the solar system.  He advises Hawkins, who tells him to go in for a look.  Crick wonders if they need backup, but Hawkins keeps him in reserve.  We get some fantastic backgrounds of the glaciated, frozen planet, and segue to a Drule fleet grounded in the ice.  Captain Howl (?) decides to act shipwrecked and helpless.  We get a flashy effect that matches that of a ship approaching the HQ from the space warp.  Dorma tells Hazar that captain Shigormu has arrive.  Dorma tries to convince him to escape into exile, but he refuses.  The enter the planning room where Shigormu and Borgam await.  Shigormu reads a statement that Hazar has been relieved of duty and sent back to the homeworld, with Borgam placed in his command.  Dorma tries to sway Shigormu, but there is no room for compromise.  After Hazar and Dorma leave, Shigormu tells Borgam that Hazar is to be court martialed.  Dorma feels hopeless; Hazar isn't so defeated, but rather resigned.  They watch another squadron leave to reinforce Captain H*** on planet 10.

The air team patrols the planet, heading towards potential Drule signals over a lake of ice.  They come upon the fleet sitting in the ice.  Jeff has them form the Stratofighter and lands, examining the ghost ships.  Jeff calls the Drule squadron, but the Captain tells his XO that they will play possum until reinforcements arrive. 

Jeff's team jumps out of their ship and approach the ships.  An icefall gives them pause, but Jeff leads them to a lowered ramp.  Chip wants to go back, but Jeff thinks the ships are abandoned.  He sends Ginger to report to Hawkins while he leads the other three into the ship.  The Captain gloats.  Jeff has Chip stand guard at the entrance while he leads Wolo and Rocky further in.

Cliff and Crick are deployed to support Jeff by Hawkins and form their subunits.  The Air team moves further into the ship, and Jeff is suspicious of the supposed abandonment.  They move through the ship and into the control room.  They see Drule soldiers scattered around the floor, and then the lights come up and they're surrounded.  The Captain goes all Bond villain and gloats, then they reproduce the gymnastics routine from planet Eldora and evade gunfire.  Chip escapes from the ship just as it lifts off and runs to the Stratofighter.  Ginger calls Hawkins, and he tells her that the other teams are on their way.  Then a robeast explodes out of the eyes.  It tries stomp on Chip, but Ginger picks him up and they fight the robeast.  Jeff, Rocky, and Wollo fight a slow retreat, and Jeff gets the idea to steal some ships from the hangar.

Ginger continues to engage the robeast, but the Stratofighter takesw a hit from its claw and crashes.  She's saved from getting stomped on by the arrival of Cliff and Crick.  Jeff and his team make it to a hangar bay full of Drule fighters.  They each take a fighter and Jeff opens the hangar doors.  The air currents blow the troops back, and Jeff and his team escape.

Cliff and Crick are bombarding the robeast, but they don't have the power levels to damage it.  Then they catch sight of the three missing team members.  Jeff and his team jump onto the Stratofighter and get into their own cockpits.

Captain Jumka (who looks like a purple Mark Harmon) is told that the other captain isn't doing so well.  Jumka gives the word for the other captain to retreat.

They form voltron.  They charge the robeast and through the spinning laser blades at it, but its beam weapons destroy the blades and knock Voltron back.  Jeff charges again, but gets knocked back.  He disables the robeast's beam weapon with the wing beam, and then destroys another weapon with the raybeam whip, impales it with a solar combat spear, and then forms the blazing sword and does and impressive cartwheel attack.

Captain HGhgjf orders his fleet on to the third planet.  Then we see the shot of Jeff and his guys fleeing in stolen ships again.

The air team waits outside Hawkins' office while the big H berates Jeff for almost causing an all out war with the Drules.  Cliff and Crick also tease Jeff.

Aki Team Gets Caught

So, not too many episodes after "Air Rugger Vanishes," we have "Aki Team Gets Caught."  I wonder if this is carrying on in the fine mecha anime tradition of titular hyperbole, like Mazinger Z's "Kouji Kabuto Dies in Lava."  (He doesn't die.  Though both things do happen to Aki and his team, niether is very serious in the end).

We see the Rugger Guard and fleet as they depart the star system to the sounds of a rough draft to some of the Macross OST.  Aki is hopeful for the future with Galveston.  Everyone else pretty much slaps him down.  But is the absence of Galveston forces due to Teles' efforts, or because they're up to something?  Aki's team launches to explore the further planets in the star system.

Teles tells Sirk that the planet is 15% closer to collapse than they were last month, and they NEED to lower their arms and find a new planet.  Then Raucher arrives and tells him that Captain Herm from the Homeworld fleet has arrived at the tenth planet  and he wants to send Captain Zucca to reinforce him, and this is on Supreme Commander Caponero's authority, even though Teles tries to reason with Raucher, and then tries to use his authority, and realizes he has none left.

Aki finds the ninth planet, a rogue planet outside star system 37, and Ise has him survey it with the air team.  Ise tells Keats to standby.  Then we get a montage of awesome ice planet backgrounds (it makes me want to listen to Immortal) that leads up to Captain Herm's grounded and frozen fleet.  Herm tells his XO to cut power and look crashed.

Captine Gigolone arrives at the Galveston HQ, and Sirk tells him he should go into exile, amass a force of his own, and rebel, and even the Earth forces might help him.  Teles is too proud to do such a thing.  They enter the planning room and Gigolone installs Raucher as the commander of the frontline base, and Teles is to return to Galveston for court martial.  Sirk tries to reason with Gigolone, and then follows Teles out.  Raucher and Gigolone talk trash while he's gone.  Teles broods at the windows for probably the last time (well, at these windows.  I'm sure he'll find other windows at which to brood).  Then the Zucca fleet is launched. 

The air team surveys the planet and enters a region of canyons, where they find Herm's grounded fleet.  Aki combines into the Air Rugger and approaches for a landing.  Patty gets no energy signatures.  Herm asks his XO where the Zucca fleet is.  Since they've just left the HQ, Herm decides to wait.

The air team gets out of their ships and move to explore the ice-encrusted ships.  They see a stairway lowered from the flagship.  Aki decides to take Mutsu, Kai, and Kreuz to investigate, leaving Patty to contact the Rugger Guard.  Herm watches them board and plans an ambush.  Aki leaves Mutsu at the entrance, standing guard.  Patty contacts Ise and he sends the other teams.

Aki and his team move deeper into the enemy ship.  They enter the bridge and find dozens of Galveston soldiers strewn around.  Then the lights come back up and Herm captures them.  Sort of.  They trade words, and then breakdance their way out of the fighting.  The ship starts to lift off and Mutsu jumps out, riding the ramp to the ground.  He gets to the Air Rugger, while Patty advises Ise.  Then a battle attacker emerges from the ice and we hear the Dairugger version of Macross' Fate's Arrow.  Patty and Mutsu have their hands full, as do Aki, Kai, and Kreuz in the ship.  Then Aki decides to steal fighters from the hanger.  (Oh, yeah, the Galveston troops are using more submachinegun-looking weapons, rather than the big silver rifles we've seen before.

The battle attacker is just about to take out the Air Rugger when the others arrive and the three ships gang up on the battle attacker.  The three Air Rugger members reach the hangar and launch in stolen fighters.  Herm is angry that his troops let them go.  The three make it to the Air Rugger (not without showing off).  Zucca's fleet arrives and receives word of the battle.  Zucca decides to just head to the third planet (thus setting up the next episode).  The three subunits reform into Dairugger.

Dairugger throws the spin cutters, but they're vaporized by the battle attacker's beam weapon.  Aki charges, and gets hit by another beam weapon, which he disables with the wing beam and the whip.  Then they use the lance and season the battle attacker, before fully cooking it with the Dairugger sword.  Herm watches the battle attacker explode and makes for the third planet.

Ise chews out Aki, and the rest of his team waits.  Walter and Keats are all "I told ya so."  Then he goes and buys his team coffee.  Patty wants cake, too.