What does the crew of the Raza need – besides money and their memories? How about a couple of stowaways?
A little time has passed since Episode 6. One makes another play for Two, showing up in her quarters to deliver a “status report” in which nothing has changed – the ship needs repairs, fuel and supplies. Two drops her towel to make him stammer, but again turns him down: “It’s complicated, remember?” Meanwhile, Five wakes from a dream about one of Six’s memories and the penny drops: Six mentions Maplethorpe and code – it must be for the vault. She races to tell the others.
They head to the vault, where the pass code gets them in, though the door barely opens and the lights won’t come on. Android gets to work on that while the crew investigates. The vault is vast, but the low-hanging fruit include a case of guns, a case of money and a stasis pod with a woman inside. The stasis pod has power from the ship, but isn’t connected to the data link, which they presume is why she didn’t wake up with the rest of them.
Three wants to thaw her out and find out if she knows anything about their past(s). Two agrees. They take her to sick bay and Android thaws her out, but she doesn’t wake up. Android says she’s been in stasis a long time, and that she has a disease common on planets where they mine cirilium and refinery runoff leaches into the groundwater. There’s no known cure.
She’s dying, and was probably in stasis to halt progress of the disease. Now that she’s out of stasis, the disease will progress again. How long does she have? Android estimates that it could be just days.
Three panics and wants to put her back into stasis before she wakes up, but Two wants to find out what she knows.
Back in the vault, Six, Four, Five and One continue opening crates. One finds something, er, entertaining. Forget zombies – bring on the Sex Bot, an “entertainment model” service bot with sexy panties, an Aussie accent and many “service” options, according to the manual.
One’s fascinated; he should bring her online, Two snaps, she probably has a great personality to go with that body. Indeed, she does. Lots of charm and innuendo, and she cooks, too, well enough to make an Android jealous when they heap praise on Wendy for mouthgasms and ignore Android’s more practical contributions to their wellbeing.
So: welcome to Raza Middle School, where Wendy has the boys’ attention and all the other girls are sad, angry, injured. That Wendy, she’s definitely too good to be true …
Mystery woman awakes in sick bay and lights up, in a dying sort of way, when she sees Three. “Marcus!” she beams, wrapping her arms around him.
Two explains the crew’s memory loss; Three apologizes for not remembering her. The dying woman is Sarah, and she fills in a bit of Three’s history: he was on her planet with his team when an uprising of miners began. Some of his team died; the rest must have presumed he died. Sarah found him injured on her farm, dragged him to her cabin and nursed his wounds. They fell in love, then Sarah fell ill with the disease the Multi Corp denied existed. Somehow, Three smuggles her onto the Raza in stasis.
Meanwhile, Wendy’s not done “entertaining” the crew. She shows up in One’s quarters and offers to pleasure him, running through a list of sex acts including Dunking the Cosmic Donut? One weakly declines, until she begins to undress. And when One arrives as Wendy and One are wrapping things up, he explains that Wendy’s “not complicated.” Turnabout is fair play and all that.
After Two and One leave, Wendy has a bot-style seizure. When she recovers, she’s a new, badder Sex Bot. She steals One’s gun.
Meanwhile, Android unzips her flight suit to reveal cleavage and takes a crack at new accents; the crew is not charmed. She zips up and shuts up and gets back to doing all the stuff that actually keeps the Raza flying.
What? No cat fight?
Five finds Android on the bridge and asks her to give Wendy a chance, as Wendy’s the new girl, and Five knows how that feels. (How, we still don’t know.) Android agrees, and Pixie skips away. Alone, Android winces, fingertips at temples; cut to Wendy, bashing away at the computer in Two’s quarters.
Two: What are you doing? Wendy says has tidied the room and is now trying to learn the ship’s system to be more helpful. Offers to “help” Two. You know, to relieve some of that, um, tension. When Two declines, Wendy offers up her insights on what most pleases One in bed. Because Wendy’s noticed Two’s temperature goes up when he’s around. Where is One anyways?
(Anyways?!)
He’s in the mess hall; Wendy made him something special.
In Three’s quarters, Sarah collapses. He rushes her to the infirmary. Five is there, but doesn’t know what to do. Three pages Android from the bridge; she’s on the way, but cut off by Wendy.
Android tries to make nice with her, apologizing for misjudging her. Wendy shoots her. “Apology not accepted.” Wendy sits at a console and gets to work on her evil plan.
One, Four and Six are eating Wendy’s home cookin’ in the mess hall; Two walks in; Wendy locks them in.
The ship drops out of FTL. Five and Three are still with Sarah in the sick bay.
Two pages Android, who can’t answer; she’s disabled and on the floor of the bridge.
Wendy punches buttons and a guy calling himself Cyrus King begins to address the crew of the Raza – he’s the Voldemort in the Wendy-Bot horcrux. He knew they’d activate Wendy and he’d get his revenge.
Cyrus says the Raza crew killed everyone in his unit, burned them alive, and now they’ll suffer the same fate: Wendy has reprogrammed the ship’s course. They’re now flying directly to the nearest star. Villain speechifying …
Five and Three, with Sarah in his arms, hurry back to the vault. Three lowers her into the stasis pod and they say their goodbyes, for now.
Two tells Three to get to the port-side something relay, which can shut down the engines from there. Of course, Wendy’s eavesdropping on their comms. Five nearly blows the ruse, but Wendy leaves the the bridge to hunt for Three; she’s got with One’s gun.
Five catches on: Three’s the bait, to lure Wendy away from the bridge. Then Five has to figure out how to work around or disable whatever Wendy has done.
Wendy locks bridge on her way out, and it’s Killer Sex Bot on the prowl, searching for Three.
Meanwhile, Five uses the vent system to get into the bridge – so much for the locked door. She finds the incapacitated Android and hesitates, then gets to work on bridge.
Three’s ready for Wendy, having brought along the largest possible gun from the vault cache. The meet and it’s a firefight.
Five can’t get into nav system; Two says to tap into non-essential systems instead, and set all doors to “manual.” Good thinking, Two. Nice clear head.
Three runs out of charge on the big gun and switches to handguns; Wendy disarms him like the badass android she is. Meanwhile, Five succeeds with the doors; the rest of the crew is out of the mess hall.
Three’s on his feet again, on the offensive, but his kicks and punches don’t even faze Wendy. She throws him across the room, picks him up, stands him on his feet, slaps him silly. He’s on the ground, getting her to talk, asking her about fun and serving when Four runs her through with a sword, which doesn’t even slow her down. He hacks off her head, which does.
Ding dong, the Bot is dead, but they’re still on course toward the star and Wendy’s encrypted passcode has Five locked out of the navigation systems.
“Is Wendy’s head damaged?” Severed, but seems otherwise intact, Four reports. Two wants it on the bridge. Meanwhile, dump her body. Four sprints off with Wendy’s head; Three and Six are on dumping detail.
Two hooks up Wendy’s head to the ship’s computer; meanwhile, small explosions, as power is dying all over the ship, including Sarah’s stasis pod.
Two looking through a log on the timeline from Wendy’s head – she had to have set the passcode in the last hour.
Six and Three can’t get the airlock to open on manual. They set down Wendy’s body to work the problem and suddenly she’s – headless SexBot! How much can she really do without a head? Kickass on Three and Six.
Wendy’s linked into the ship’s sensors! But Two can’t pull the plug yet – she doesn’t have the code, so the beatdown continues. It’s looking bad for Six and Three when BAM! Nav control regained!
Two unplugs Wendy as the Raza makes a u-turn.
They take Android to sick bay, not sure how badly damaged she is or how long before she comes back online. Meanwhile, Sarah is dead; the power fluctuations must have damaged the stasis pod.
Three grieves in his quarters; Four plays with his swords in the training room; Five visits the stasis pod to bid Sarah farewell.
One is in his towel, just out of the shower, when Two stops by for a status update. Maybe complicated isn’t such a bad thing after all, Two decides, and the door closes as One’s towel drops.
