Buzz and Mira are chasing after Lardak for counterfeiting and when they are taking him back to 42, they see Trade World being destroyed. Zurg contacts the Galactic Alliance and tells them to surrender or more planets will be destroyed.

Tangean noble Lord Angstrom tries to get Mira to wed Fop Doppler, a fairly minor member of the Tangean noble clique (and fairly snooty) so as to provide a distraction as a band of Tangean ""Grounders"" attack and allow for Lord Angstrom to overthrow Mira's father. The Grounders are a humanoid race that shares the planet Tangea with the race that Mira is native to. While the blue-skinned, svelte, and fairly bourgeois Tangeans (""Tangean Blue-bloods"") have the psychic ability to phase through solid objects (...aka...""ghosting""...), the taupe-skinned, stocky, and fairly proletarian Tangeans (""Tangean Grounders"") have the psychic ability to project focused force-blasts (...aka...""boom-boom""...). For some reason, the native psychic abilities of both Tangean races are nullified if either race is in close proximity to the other.

In hopes of avoiding marriage, Mira invokes a law requiring Fop to submit to a ""Challenge of Worth"". She selects Ranger Academy basic training

Mira ghosts into a Crystallic Fusion Generator Core and becomes a glowing, supercharged, power-speed-junkie. Mira's father warns Mira about how her race can fall prey to such temptation, but Mira has to find out on her own. Eventually, after she attempts to battle Zurg on her own, she realizes that her need for ""re-charging"" is getting worse and worse and is beginning to take control of her life, but she manages to overcome her ""energy addiction"".

While Team Lightyear is conducting mock-combat training with Team Rocket (...headed by Rocket Crocket...), Crocket goads Mira into getting herself tagged. King Nova presents Mira with an invention of his, the Starthought; a small spacecraft guided by one's thoughts. Mira has doubts about it until she realizes that it'd really bother Crocket to see her zipping around in such a spiffy ship. While testing the Starthought, Mira runs into some tourists, who are actually Warp Darkmatter, along with one of Zurg's Brain Pods & a Grub, on a reconnaissance mission to scope out any new Star Command developments. Zurg sets up a fake raid on a Gulgarian mining outpost, in order to lure Mira, and the Starthought, into his clutches. After successfully losing the Starthought to Zurg (...success for Zurg, dismal failure for Mira...), Mira goes to Cosmo's Diner to sulk, but Team Lightyear & King Nova show up and convince Mira to go out and re-nab the Starthought back from Zurg. They sneak into Zurg

Professor Reddschift, Mira, Booster, and XR are pinned down by Zurg's hornets, who are attempting to kidnap Prof. Reddschift. The Prof. is worried that Buzz won't be able to arrive in time to save him from capture. To try to buck up his spirits, Mira relates her first encounter with Buzz, back before she enlisted in Space Ranger Academy. King Nova had been nabbed by Zurg and his Hyper-Hornet in the midst of a conference attempting to convince Tangea to join the Galactic Alliance, but Mira & Buzz managed to defeat Zurg, save King Nova, and convince Tangea to join the Alliance (and Mira to join the Space Rangers). This proves to be less than impressive to Reddschift. Booster then relates HIS first run in with Buzz. Zurg had attempted to take over Jo-Ad with his Mega-Hornet, thus cutting off food supplies to most of the Galactic Alliance. But with Buzz's timely arrival, and with Booster's strength, they managed to stave off Zurg. Again, Reddschift isn't impressed. XR then tells H