Vendetta
An audio signal from Audric emanated from an incoming asteroid belt in Sector 7. Herc successfully piloted the Pride through it in order to follow the transmission, but in the process the barge took heavy damage. The Lightning League traced the signal to a hollowed-out asteroid full of machinery and blinking lights.
Herc identified the site as belonging to Vendetta, an expert gambler to whom he owed a past debt. He stayed on the Pride to make repairs while the others went to meet her. Vendetta claimed that she had a tape from Audric, and if Jayce won her games, then he also won the tape. He played various games in the Tunnel of Challenge, including Laser Ball and an enormous pinball machine, and beat them all. Vendetta instructed him to go into the pinball machine to find the tape, but when the League entered it, the game started up again. Jayce called upon the Ring of Light for aid, burning a hole in the wall and suspended the pinballs in mid-air long enough for the League to run to safety.
In the meantime, Vendetta met up with Herc. Through a combination of trickery and arm-twisting, she forced him to play a game of Spacegammon with the Pride as the prize. She cheated on her own equipment, causing him to lose. Vendetta had him tied him up and dumped some of the League's belongings, then loaded her materials onto the barge before leaving.
The League returned only to find that the Pride was lifting off without them. It couldn't get far, though -- Herc wasn't finished fixing it! Jayce donned a spacesuit and chased after it on the Space Scooter, one of the items Vendetta dumped. He managed to get on board but was captured by Vendetta's robot guards. Taken to the bridge, he tried to convince her that the barge needed serious repairs, but she thought he was bluffing. The ship lurched suddenly, disabling the robot guards in nasty falls, and Jayce grabbed the controls. Vendetta warned him not to go back, because her asteroid was heading straight into a nearby sum. Jayce steered it back anyway, to save his friends.
She admitted that the Monster Minds forced her to lure the League to her asteroid, and revealed that the tape is in the pinball machine's Number 5 flipper. Herc radioed Jayce instructions on flying the ship via communicator until the signal was cut off. Jayce managed to land the Pride on the asteroid's outer surface safely by himself. The League fought the Monster Mind troopers that appeared on the asteroid while Flora and Brock recovered the tape. Jayce drove Battle Base in to pick the League up as it was being retrieved. Everyone escaped just before the asteroid crashed headlong into the sun.
The tape was discovered to be an old recording from Audric's first laboratory, altered by Saw Boss to lure the League into his trap. In return for saving her life, Vendetta forgave Herc's past debt. She was dropped off on a nearby planet, and the League continued its quest.
Terror Tank: "They're running away from the vine-tunnel, Excellency!"
Saw Boss: "If they make it, they only escape into my second trap!"
Bridge Computer: "Approaching object, asteroid belt -- size is R times 7 space miles!"
Herc: "R times 7 space miles?!"
Audric (recorded voice): "Jayce, this is your father! Meet me in Sector Seven!"
Jayce: "The signal again! It's coming from that asteroid belt."
Herc: "What?! Coming from the asteriod belt? (Smacks fist into palm) Okay, this is it! (Promptly flies the Pride into it) The Pride has GOT to hold together!"
Oon: "I j-j-just hope I hold t-t-together!"
(After a lot of shaking, rattling, & rolling, the League emerges mostly unscathed)
Flora: "We made it, Herc! You're the best pilot!"
Herc: "Ohhh, naturally. But the Pride's got a lot of damage!"
Oon: "D-D-Didn't b-b-bother me a b-b-b-bit!"
Herc: "It's a lousy place to land -- that's what."
Jayce: "All right, Herc -- but we're going to find out anyway, so you might as well tell us."
Herc: "Well, I know the owner, ah Vendetta. She claims I owe her some money -- an old gambling debt."
Vendetta: "Welcome to Gamma Gambit, Jayce, son of Audric."
Jayce: "I guess you must be Vendetta."
Vendetta: "Bingo. And I'll bet you are the young man looking for his father?"
Jayce: "Yes! Do you know where he is?"
Vendetta: "Indeed I do. I won a message, a tape from an old space buccaneer, and nothing in this galaxy would make me happier than for you to have it."
Jayce: "Great!"
Vendetta: "Once you've won it -- in a GAME!"
Jayce: "I'm afraid that finding my father is much too important for me to play any games!"
Gillian: "Going along with her might be the best, and fastest way, my boy. I know of gamesters."
Vendetta: "You're wise, old man -- I can tell you've played the game of life a long time."
Cookie the Rookie (Vendetta's robotic assistant): "Hey! Wait up, handsome!"
Oon: "M-M-M-M-Me?"
Cookie: "Yah, you, shiny and handsome!"
Oon: "Heh, thanks! My name is Oon! You really think I'm handsome?"
Cookie: "You're the galaxy's end!"
Oon: "I'd love to stay and chat, but my Master can't get along without me..."
Saw Boss: "My plan is going perfectly! So far, you've earned the reward of keeping your life!"
Vendetta: "One way or another, the boy will lose. He never expected a Joker like you in the deck."
Saw Boss: "NOW GO! Their ship is for the taking!"
Vendetta: "Long time no see, Stormsailor."
Herc: "Huh? Oh, uh, sorry lady, you've got the wrong guy."
Vendetta: "You know, Herc -- there's still an old debt we have to settle."
Herc: "Oh -- Vendetta! Huh, it's you! Ha-ha, yeah, well, listen, I meant to pay you, except that this bunch hasn't paid me yet! Now, as soon as they do..."
Vendetta: "Perhaps there's another way to settle the score -- one last game."
Herc: "Huh, I don't have anything to bet."
Vendetta: "Oh yes you do..."
Herc: "My ship?! Oh no, NO WAY -- the Pride is all I've got!"
Vendetta (recorded voice): "Welcome to the Tunnel of Challenge. Please move on to Challenge Number 1. This is the game of Laser Ball."
Flora: "Ever play this before, Jayce?"
Jayce: "Lots of times!"
Vendetta (recorded voice): "Congratulations, young man. Move on to Game Number 2, where your father's message awaits you."
(While playing Spacegammon, AKA an oversized version of Blackgammon)
Herc: "Hah, a piece of cake!"
Vendetta: "For your ship."
Herc: "You got it."
Vendetta (recorded voice): "Not bad, sonny -- you reached high score. Your prize, your father's tape, awaits you on the pinball field. All you have to do -- is get it!"
Jayce: "Herc, what happened?"
Herc (downcast): "You know where I can get a new ship, with nothing down?"
Jayce (disbelieving): "You bet the Pride and lost her to Vendetta?!"
Herc: "I tried to stop her! Don't worry -- Vendetta won't get very far."
Jayce: "Why not?"
Herc: "I didn't had time to fix the navigation system! Ha-ha, without it, she's up a galaxy without a thruster!"
Saw Boss: "See to it that the boy and his friends are sealed inside that asteroid forever."
Gun Grinner: "It will be done, Excellency!"
Vendetta: "What's wrong with this bucket of bolts?! I'm beginning to wonder if I lost by winning this thing!"
Vendetta: "Think you're clever, don't you, sonny? I'll teach you to play games with Vendetta!"
Cookie: "I just can't wait to see you in battle, Oon!"
Herc: "Don't get too comfortable, Oon!"
Jayce: "Okay, Vendetta, the games are over!"
Vendetta: "I hold the trump card."
Jayce: "That's where you're wrong! Unless we get this ship repaired, we're headed straight for our doom!"
Vendetta: "I almost fell for your bluff, Poker-Face!"
Jayce: "It's true. There's a malfunction in the navigation system -- without it, the ship will go out of control!"
Vendetta: "Guards, send him back into space, with or without his Scooter!"
Vendetta: "You weren't bluffing!"
Jayce: "We're going back somehow and get my friends!"
Jayce: "What you owe me is my father's tape. And I know you really have it, because you used it to lure us to you!"
Vendetta: "The pinball machine -- it's hidden in Flipper Number 5, swift rear panel."
Herc: "Gillian, we'll have to clear those vines with some 'hot rain.'"
Gillian: "I don't like conflict, but when it comes to a clue from Audric, there's no choice."
Jayce: "Herc, I need your help! The Pride won't level out!"
Herc: "It sounds like the equilibrizer's out. Use the braking rockets in short bursts!"
Jayce: "Coming in at fifteen degrees!"
Herc: "You're too steep -- angle back! (Incoming Monster Mind fire disrupts the signal) Jayce! Jayce! Oh darn, must've knocked my transmitter out -- sorry kid, you're on your own!"
Jayce: "Herc, come in -- Herc! Ohhh, I've lost him!"
Vendetta: "How will we land?!"
Jayce: "Just try my best!"
(After a successful landing on the asteroid's surface)
Jayce: "Whew!"
Vendetta: "You're not a bad pilot, kid!"
Flora: "Special delivery for Jayce!"
Herc: "Okay, navigation system AND engines ready to go!"
Jayce: "Give her all she's got, Herc!"
Herc: "With pleasure, hotshot!"
Saw Boss: "Before long, boy, I will have MY WAY!"
Herc: "So THAT'S how you won the Spacegammon game, you cheated!"
Vendetta: "Tell you what, Space Sailor, we'll even the score: for getting me off that asteroid, I'll forget your debt to me."
Cookie: "I have to stay with my chess team, but maybe someday, we'll meet again."
Oon: "I'd like that. We knights in shining armor are hard to come by, you know!"
Gillian: "It's an old tape from Audric's library which Saw Boss edited to lure us here."
Herc: "Well, where to now, hotshot?"
Jayce: "To the farthest corner of the universe if necessary -- we're going to find my father yet!"
