Stolen Device Disintegrates a Planet: Recap, Dark Matter, Episode 11

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If you’re up for wall-to-wall action, Dark Matter Episode 11 won’t disappoint, as double crosses and gun fights end with the stolen device disintegrating a planet.

Episode 10 ended on a cliffhanger: Wexler had Two in the airlock; his team had the rest of the crew restrained and held at gunpoint. He threatened to eject Two if someone didn’t give him the passcode to the vault before he counted to five.

Three gave up the information, and Kane confirmed its accuracy. Wexler’s team secured the device. Two asks why Wexler is doing this, since they successfully did the job Truffault required of them. Wexler said they wanted the bounties on their heads and the Raza itself — a win-win-win for him, he gloated.

To the horror of the Raza crew, Wexler then ejected Two as revenge for her rejecting his crude advances, and kicking his ass when he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

We pick up the thread here, with the Raza crew staggered by what they’ve just witnessed, and Vons herding them down to the vault. Three and Four attempt to fight, but with hands tied behind their backs and Wexler’s crew armed, it’s a short-lived effort.

Wexler signals his team’s friends aboard the Dimitriov. He and his team are planning to sell the device out from under Commander Truffault and the Mekei Combine. They also want the horde of cash and prizes a friend of Wexler’s heard while drinking with a bragging Jace Corso.

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They bring up One for questioning, but One has no idea if Jace Corso had a hidden pirate stash since he’s not the real Jace Corso. He’s in an impossible position, as Wexler and Co. aren’t going to believe the amnesia story. When Wexler can’t beat the information out of One, he has his crew bring up Five; he’ll torture her until One spills. After all, she’s expendable, since there’s no bounty on her head at risk if they mutilate or rape her.

Fortunately, Five is saved by the ship, which has a FTL drive failure that draws Wexler’s crew to the bridge. Since Android is down and Two is dead, Wexler tries to figure out what’s wrong with the ship. When he can’t he makes Five try.

She discovers the problem – the same FTL drive issue Android fixed on a space walk a few episodes back. Vons volunteers to take the space walk, and Five tells him what has to be done. But as soon as he’s close to the damaged part of the ship, his mag boots inexplicably fail and he loses oxygen; he’s dead in moments. And someone just pressurized the airlock.

The someone in the airlock is Two, looking terrifyingly alien as a hard shell seems to dissolve, leaving her her usual gorgeous and wily self.

Wexler dispatches Kane and Tash to take Five back to the vault and to check the airlock. Kane opens the airlock and no one’s there. Tash accuses Five of sabotaging Vons, and is on the verge of killing her when Two appears. Two and Tran fight to the death – Tash’s, that is.

Two and Five share a brief reunion. “I thought you were gone,” Five marvels. Two tells her she thought so too, and will explain when she figures it out herself. Two asks where the others are, and Five reports; they head off to rescue the rest of their team, but the passcode has been changed.

Two orders Five into the vents to hide; she’ll get the code from Wexler.

Kane finds Tash’s body and reports to Wexler. They’re mystified, as they don’t know Two is back. Wexler orders Kane to find Five and put a bullet in her brain.

The Dimitriov hails Wexler, who confirms they have the device. He tries to put them off while he handles a “situation,” but they board the Raza immediately.

In the vault, the men of Raza are slowly being deprived of oxygen, it’s not hooked up to the ship’s venting system. They discuss their shock and grief over the loss of Two, and worry over Five’s fate, and vow revenge and bro-unity and … wait, what? The oxygen deprivation is getting serious.

Two encounters a team from the Dimitriov crew and kills them in hand-to-hand combat; from the vent, Five watches more troops from the Dimitriov move through the Raza. Two is in ninja mode and sets a trap for this batch, neutralizing them with falling barrels pushed from a mezzanine.

Kane sneaks up behind Two, and she has to surrender her weapon. He’s about to shoot her “for Vons and Tash,” but when the gun fires, its Kane who goes down. Five has snuck up behind him with a weapon she retrieved from the box she hid when she stowed away on the Raza. More shots, and Kane’s really most sincerely dead.

Wexler panics when he can’t reach Kane via comm, and the Dimitriov commander hails him to find out why he can’t reach any of his team members, either. Wexler admits he’s having trouble with the Raza crew, who were supposed to be locked up, but he can handle it.

“Are you sure about that?” Two asks, sneaking up on him in the bridge. She and Five have him at gunpoint. When the captain of the waiting ship discovers the Raza crew isn’t in custody as originally agreed, the ship bugs out via FTL. Two puts Wexler in the airlock and threatens to eject him if he won’t give the new passcode so she can save her crew.

Wexler threatens and cajoles, but gives up the code, convinced that Two doesn’t have the balls to eject him. Except she does. Ah, karma.

Buh-bye, bad guy.

Five opens the vault and the Raza men begin to revive. They’re skeptical of the story Two told Five: she grabbed onto a handle on the ship’s hull and prepared to die, but didn’t, so she got into a tunnel, disengaged something so the ship couldn’t jump to FTL, then got close to the door of the airlock and waited for it to open. All without a space suit.

“What the hell is she?” Three asks. Fair question.

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Two boots up the Android, who does a medical scan that reveals that Two is an advanced biosynthetic organism, not born but engineered. She’s got nanites doing self repair, working the kinds of magic that saved her during her space walk – technology that doesn’t officially exist, and it contravenes all galactic laws.

Two wants to know why Android didn’t mention it after previous diagnostic scans.

If Android’s assessment is correct, Two’s very existence is illegal. If the authorities learned of it, Android warns, Two would be hunted down and destroyed.

Android’s explanation as to why she didn’t disclose this sooner doesn’t hold water. The case for her having reached singularity is building …

The Raza crew completes delivery of the device, presumably to the Mekei Combine. Scientists on the planet bring the device online as the Raza men board the marauder and return to the ship with the payment.

Android detects unusual readings from the planet when the device begins to behave strangely. The planet’s gravitational field begins to fluctuate wildly. As soon as the marauder is safely docked within the Raza, they flee, barely escaping the fallout of the destruction of the planet.

The question is, was the planet’s destruction an accident, or was the Raza crew set up again?