S5E05: Carnival of Bone

Beware the calls from the Between...

Plot Summary
Following on from the events of the previous episode, the STU prepared to investigate another of the planets labelled as a candidate for the Sayan homeworld. However, Captain Hood received orders to keep the Head where it was and ot await his arrival. With little else to do, the STU and Hood had gathered within Hangar Bay 4T. Sirus began talking with the Captain, mentioning that he had heard rumors about several personnel going missing. Hood confirmed the rumors, saying it ranged from lowly officers to soldiers. Terminos entered into the conversation, and several theories were thrown around. These ranged from Sayans attacking discreetly, to the missing individuals being Sayans themselves regrouping with the larger force now that their cover ahd been blown.

As they spoke, Saiyo watched from afar, seeming more and more uncomfortable once the discussion reached the Sayan Commander they battled, and how it was acting as a relay to command the forces. Ketsueki sat down by her, asking what was wrong. She replied that she was just thinking about that fight, and how she had to call on her ability yet again in order to fell it. Sirus overheard this, and demanded clarification. When neither Ketsueki nor Saiyo proved responsive to his questioning, he turned to the rest of the Sayan squad instead. It was Terminos who answered, in spite of the glares from his teammates. He informed Sirus that Saiyo indeed had an ability to spot weaknesses in her enemies.

Both Sirus and Hood stated they were unaware of this, and were wondering why no one had bothered telling them until now. Seeing further risk if he kept silent, Terminos went on to explain how she was augmented like her brother, but made it a point to state how uncontrollable it was. Sirus found that particular reasoning to be fair, but did not see the same about her silence on her special talent, or her refusal to use it. He reminded them that their enemies were monsters who made starships out of living flesh. Terminos had tried to say that it had traumatic origins due to Blue Blood, but was forced to agree that had she used it much more frequently in the past, they would have done a lot better.

Sirus and Hood both made it an official command that Saiyo call upon her talent henceforth. He did not care at all if it caused her emotional distress, even if it came from a traumatic origin. She was under their outfit and their command. In a fit of rage, Saiyo nearly triggered Red Mode as she revealed her talent did not come from Blue Blood at all. Rather, she had always had that ability, and Dr. Greenspan's augmentations merely enhanced it. She said the reason she hated talking about it was because it was not an ability she called on; it was instead always active. She lived life every day seeing the weakpoints of all her friends and family, knowing precisely how fragile and easy it would be for them to die. With that, she fled the hangar in tears.

Everyone in the Squad was shocked, including Ketsueki and Jack, as not even the latter knew the truth. Sirus, meanwhile, still did not care. In fact, that her ability was constantly active was only further reason to use it. Jack and Ketsueki both tried to persuade him otherwise, but he would not relent. Instead, to cement his authority, he pulled out a blaster, threatening that the both of them would have to convince her to use it more, or she'd be forced to. Both Jack and Ketsueki prepared ot fight Sirus, but upon remembering his performance against the Sayans the previous day, Jack relented. He nodded and let Ketsueki chase after his sister, while he kept an eye on Sirus.

Shortly thereafter, The General arrived aboard an Alpha Fleet vessel. He informed Captain Hood and the STU that they were being transferred off of the Head. The General needed his own flagship for himself, and as such reassigned them to the Iron Princess, a ship of the Iron Court. He also handed Hood a datapad, saying that there was a small change to their mission. The Alliances' scouts had found a completely dead and barren world, however the readings were the most Sayan-positive they had ever taken. The STU's mission was to investigate the discrepency. Saying not a word further, The General made his way towards the bridge to take his ship back.

After a call from Vate to inform Ketsueki and Saiyo of what was happening, the entire STU and Hood boarded the Iron Princess, and set course for their next mission.

Upon arrival, they found that, indeed, the world was dead and barren; a far cry from the industrious world they had been to prior. However, the entire surface was covered in a substance that highly resembled the terraformer, though it was brittle, discolored, and had numerous "gashes." Sirus called for a science team to establish a small base and learn what they could, leaving Gordon and Williams to stand guard, as he had a bad feeling about the planet (a sentiment shared by most of the rest of the STU). On his way down, Cyem informed Sirus that he had caught sight of a crater of sorts. Under Sirus' command, Cyem led them to what he had seen.

It was no crater. Instead it was an opening to a massive tunnel beneath the surface. It was so large, in fact, that it could fit the Mimics and Cyem hiself comfortably. Making their way inwards, the STU found that the entire underground resembled innards. It was first theorized the Sayans had hollowed out the planet in search of something, potentially even force crystals. Cyem called it into question, asking where the machines were, and reminding that their machines were organic. Certainly some additional organic residue would have been found, but they had not seen any such thing. Furthermore, the walls of the tunnel were not the terraformer, which was highly unusual. The terraformer was known to consume and convert everything; why would it have stopped at the surface edge?

To their horror, the STU was forced to contend with the possibility that the planet had literally been alive at some point.

Further down, the STU found that they had stepped into an impossibly large chamber, surrounded and supported on all sides by black bone. Sirus attempted to contact the Princess or those he left behind to guard the scientists, to no avail. Davids soon figured out why, reporting that, somehow, they were miles underground. Though they had been walking for only 20 minutes on ground that wasn't super steep, space had bent and spat them out even further down. A spatial anomaly, in other words.

In the center of this gargantuan chamber sat a large fleshy pedastal, with an artery-like tube hanging from the ceiling. Pieces of it had fallen off, forming a pile around something in the very center of the room. This "something" slowly reacted to their presence, sending a psychic wave of voices to intrude upon everyone's heads. The voices were nonsensical and discordant, but slowly harmonized into nondescript noise as the entity made itself visible. Crawling forth from the pile, it revealed itself to be a massive "creature" composed of multiple Sayan husks, taking on the loose form of a spider. However, instead of eight legs or a head, there was instead one spindly appendage on its front side that it could use to pull itself forward. With a hideous screech it charged the STU.

The STU attempted to fight it, but it shrugged off all attacks, barely flinching to them. Davids informed the group that, despite the very visible monster coming at them, they were still not picking up on any life signs. With that haunting message, Sirus ordered a retreat. Hurrying out of the chamber, the STU were faced with yet another problem. Thanks to the spatial distortion, they had no idea where they were anymore, or where to go. In order to buy them time to figure out what to do, Cyem lept at the beast and tried to hold it at bay. His shield survived all attacks to try and damage him, so eventually the entity opened itself up and absorbed Cyem whole.

With their powerhouse gone, Sirus made a quick decision and led the rest of the STU through a series of tunnels. Eventually, they managed to shake off the thing, if only temporarily. It was decided that, despite the potential risks, their only method of escaping was to try using portals to escape. However, there were so many individual members of the STU that attempting to file them through portals before the entity returned was unreasonable. As such, Sirus ordered the Squad to hunt down the entity and distract it while the 447th escaped.

After they had found and battled it for some time, Sirus informed them that the 447th had escaped safely. But he then ordered them not to take the portals themselves. Instead, they had to keep the beast on their tail, and lure it to the surface. He had no time to explain why, but informed them of another distortion that should take them closer to the surface.

Once the Squad had led the creature onto the surface, they found themselves encircled by the entire 447th, their blasters trained on the entity. With Sirus' guidance, the Squad lured the entity between several round objects, which turned out to be net projectors. With the creature officially locked in place by the energy net, Sirus told Hood he was clear to collect their newest speciment. Before it was lifted by tractor beam, however, Sirus asked if Cyem was alright. Cyem, still inside the creature, confirmed that he was still alive, but that he had been better. Promising to get him out, Sirus let the Princess take him and his captor to talk to the Squad.

Sirus informed them that the rudimentary research the science team had done confirmed their suspicions about the planet being alive at one point, and that that thing, which they nicknamed the "Rotter," was responsible for killing it. Though they were unsure of what exactly it was, the Princess was going to take the Rotter to one of The General's research stations to find out. They were hopeful they might have even been able to find a way to use the Rotter against the Sayans.

Since the Princess was also the STU's new home, they would all be tagging along while they took it for further study. Their mission accomplsihed, Sirus ordered them to return to base.

Soundtrack

 * 1) Opening Theme - Gold Rush (Doom: Ancient Aliens)
 * 2) Show of Force - Sinister Thinking / World Depression (Code Geass)
 * 3) Corpseworld - Moon Mountain Pass (Starfox Adventures)
 * 4) Into The Bowels - Nova Prospekt (Half-Life 2)
 * 5) Guts - Tunnel Ambience (Duke Nuke Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me)
 * 6) The Chamber - Enviornmental Sound Silence 2 (Metroid Fusion)
 * 7) It Moves - Kazashi (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni)
 * 8) Awakening - The Citadel Attack (Serious Sam: The Second Encounter)
 * 9) It Roams - Xenoresearch Labs (Metroid Prime 3: Corruption)
 * 10) Facing the Entity - Vs. Nightmare (Metroid: Other M)
 * 11) Captured! - Main Theme (Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike)
 * 12) Ending Theme - Gold Rush (Ending Mix)

Trivia

 * The entire opening scenes set aboard the Head's hangar were originally meant to take place on the Command Deck at the end of the previous episode. However, due to time complications, it was moved to the beginning of this one, instead, and fused with The General's announcement of their transferral.
 * Magmetor7 was not present for half of the episode, forcing SDM to use the same tactic he had done with Aurion previous. As such, despite Wicker being absent for the entire beginning half, the rest of the characters acted as if he had been there all along once he arrived.
 * This episode revealed the official name for The General's soldiers' armor: "Butcher suits."
 * This episode finally revealed the true reason for Saiyo's disdain for her own weakness spotting ability, something that had been intended to be revealed midway through Season 4. However, the characters' behavior towards her furing that time made such a thing virtually impossible.