Anyway, back to the cliff-hanger, with Zarkov protesting “The retarding rockets don’t seem to make any difference!” before their ship hits the Nitron beam and spins out of control. Except it doesn't. Despite the fact that the ship is clearly spinning, everyone is still standing inside, as if nothing has happened. Zarkov says that they hit something (in space?) that knocked them out of the beam just in time and that's the end of it. Bit of a cheat, really, not that that's a surprise with these things.
Observing from below, Ming does some stirring and tells Azura: “We must stop at nothing to rid ourselves of these earth people.” Azura, Ming and some Martian guards give chase in a spaceship, though they're all pretty nervous about heading into the Valley of Desolation, because that's where the Clay People live and no-one has ever survived an encounter with them, or something.
Sure enough, Flash, Zarkov, Dale and Happy all crash-land in the Valley of Desolation, with their ship a total write-off. “And I promised my wife I’d be home for dinner”, says Happy. There's no time for wallowing though, because the Martian ship comes in for a landing, causing them to hide behind some rocks while Ming and his guards search for Flash and his friends.
Flash being Flash, he spots his moment and leaps in to knock out a few guards before boarding Ming's ship. (“Flash, no!” screams Dale, as she seems to be contractually obliged to do every episode). There he comes face to face with Azura, who signals Ming before casually disappearing in a puff of smoke. Flash: confused.
Ming's ship is apparently called a Strato-sled. Dale, Zarkov and Happy quickly jump aboard and they force a pilot to help them take off, nearly running over a furious Ming in the process. This bit is speeded up for some reason, so it's doubly hilarious.
In the Strato-sled, Flash finds a powerful ray gun, which he plans to use to destroy the Nitron Beam. There's an exciting chase sequence, during which the pilot escapes using parachute-like wings (these will be important for later) and Flash somehow manages to shoot down a spaceship with an ordinary handgun. He hits a Martian in the shoulder and everything. One shot!
It's no use though, as they're outnumbered by Martian ships and can't reach the tower, so they land near some caves and hide. Flash uses one of the ray gun's two shots to dislodge some rocks, cutting off the guards.
Inside the caves, Dale screams and faints. When she awakes, she tells Flash that she saw people appearing out of the walls!
Flash assumes Dale is talking nonsense, but then the Clay People materialise, in a great looking sequence that will be used A LOT in Trip to Mars, so get used to it. There's an accompanying musical cue too.
Understandably freaked out, Flash and his friends run away. Happy shoots a Clay Person with the gun, but the Clay People just fall about laughing, the implication being that bullets go straight through them.
Now even more panicked, our heroes run into a chamber that has a pointy stalactite ceiling, never a good sign. Sure enough, they find themselves trapped inside as the ceiling starts to lower on top of them. Oh no!
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