Chapter Thirteen: Castaways In Tropica

With flashing flame swords, Flash and the now-revealed Prince Barin fight one another on a suspended high wire over the blazing green fire in the final game of Ming's tournament of death. Princess Aura saves the two fighters and they escape with Dr. Zarkov in their newly repaired earth rocket ship. Enroute to Arboria, Ming's space patrol hits Flash's rocket ship and he lands in Tropica, a virtual Garden of Eden. Flash saves Tropica's Queen Desira from a tree-dragon attack and he and his friends are invited by the queen to be guests of this lovely, tropical country. Desira's scheming cousin Braznor drugs the queen and prepares to take over the country. Flash and friends rescue the queen and they break for freedom astride giant horse-like gryphs. Flash and his friends escape a giant lizard-like monster and survive an attack by the dreaded rock termites. As the chapter ends we see Flash and party mysteriously suspended in midair and drawn as if by a magnet into the dark depths of the deepening cavern.