Kenneth and Eugene journey to the Dark Side of the Sun and raise questions about the notion of a deterministic universe, was the deck stacked against Tank, and in what ways the Silicates are just like Marty McFly from Back to the Future.
Episode Synopsis
Killer has got a problem. She’s got a recurring nightmare that starts with the exploding sun and ends with her reliving the death of her parents at the hands of the AI Rebels (AKA the Silicates.)
But there’s no time for that; the Fightin’ 58s have got their marching orders. Their mission: to guard a mine’s Helium-3 ore. Compared to the war, the mine is downright close to home, just 215 mks outside the Kuiper Belt, on a dark and barren asteroid named Boonwell. There’s grumbling all around because this is boring work. They want to be out shooting some Chigs.
The Colonel assigns Killer as the commander of the mission, with Snot as her XO. She balks at that and confides in the Colonel that she thinks it’s her destiny to die out there on this mission. He poo-poos the concept of a deterministic universe and the concept of luck; “now get on that horse, soldier, and get the job done.”
On the flight out, what appears to be a rouge asteroid is on a collision course, but it follows them. move out of thewhen they try to. They use their bang-bang-shoot’em ups to destroy it, but not before Killer overhears radio chatter that can only be Silicates. This rattles Killer.
On asteroid Boonwell, they set up their perimeter and begin guard duty. Before long, they are under attack by Silicates, who have killed all the miners and are attempting to steal the ore.
Killer is not up for the fight, and they retreat to their ship. Snot favors an assault and takes Killer aside to see what’s her major malfunction. She confides to him the story of her parents being killed and says they’re destined to kill her. She’s waited her whole life for payback, but now she’s afraid.
Meanwhile, Tank gets a history info dump on the Silicates. They were built to be, effectively, a slave class designed to serve and fight, but when petty politics caused a rogue programmer to introduce a bug into the Silicates, they went on a genocidal war to eradicate man and be free. This introduced bug is nothing more than “take a chance,” but now the Silicates have turned gambling into a religion. It’s a shame they didn’t adopt ABBA as their religion instead.
Killer facing her fear is apparently enough, and they initiate the raid. It doesn’t go well. Some members of the team are killed, while most are captured on the main assault. Killer and Snot, on a side mission to turn life support back on, avoid capture, and even gain access to a damaged Silicate and try to use it to gather information on the others.
The Silicates are also trying to gather information, but just before the torture starts, Tank tries to appeal to their better nature – he offers to gamble for the information. Triggered by the phrase, “take a chance,” they can’t pass that up, so it’s one hand of blackjack, winner takes all – more or less. Tank loses, but in the nick of time, Killer and Snot rescue them.
Set free, they go on the offensive and are soon pinned down once more, this time without Killer, who has gone off to capture a Silicate so that she can force it to tell her why her family was singled out for killing.
She captures one with a whole can of whoop-ass on him, then tries to get him to talk. She even offers him his life. He knows it’s unlikely she’ll let him live, but he is compelled to make a stupid bet when she plays the “take a chance” trump card. He tells her what she wanted to know – they picked her family on a coin toss. She kills him.
Things look bad for the rest of the team until Killer comes in and kills all the Silicates single-handedly. All of them, that is, except the ones who escaped and are taking the ore. She’s decided she’s going to blow them all up, too, while this time, Snot counsels caution. She blows them up, anyway.
That night, the dream about the sun is gone. Replaced by a new nightmare when the Silicates are going to kill her and her sisters.
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