Gruier’s first, hesitant venture into zero-g is overcome by some reassuring words from Marika. Once Hyakume cracks the lock the boarding party heads into the vast interior of the golden ghost ship. Coorie contacts them to say she’s identified the Queen Serendipity docked on the opposite side of the ship. Since the latter are probably heading to the bridge or engine room first, Marika says it’s time for them to make like pirates and head for the treasure.
They pass nearly-empty storerooms once filled with pre-FTL artifacts, most of them retrieved and sold during previous economic crises – hence the earlier search teams, and a genetic bank containing samples for all the lifeforms that populate Serenity. In the deepest parts of the ship they come upon a last door that, once open, reveals a giant artificial rose. Misa, with Gruier’s permission, explains that it’s an artificial womb, used to create to royal family of Serenity.
A hatch up above opens and Grunhilde enters the chamber accompanied by Yotof, Catherine, and a squad of soldiers. Gruier wants to destroy the rose, saying that Serenity has no more need for the royal family, but Grunhilde wants to use it to restore the family’s prestige. In the midst of their argument the leaders on both sides exchange signals and create a distraction to knock out the sisters.
Gruier wakes up on the bridge of the ghost ship to find the pirates and soldiers working together. Marika explains that she and Grunhilde were knocked out so both sides could work things out peacefully. When Gruier was kicked off the bridge of the Bentenmaru earlier Marika sent a coded transmission of her plan to the Queen Serendipity that Yotof was able to interpret. She tells Gruier that the rose was used up; well, not quite. There was enough genetic data and cells to produce one more person, and Gruier is introduced to her new baby sibling, whom she’s assured she didn’t almost kill but arrived in time to save; much longer and they wouldn’t have been unable to awaken the baby from stasis. The golden ghost ship is returned to Serenity and the Bentenmaru leaves for its next adventure.
Thoughts
I was going to write a bunch of stuff asking unanswered questions about the situation on Serenity and why the golden ghost ship is left to wander space in the first place, but then I realized my commentary for this series was devolving into nitpicking, so I’d rather not. There’s still half the series left, and the preview for the next episode makes it clear Grunhilde isn’t going anywhere, so I don’t think the show is done with Serenity yet, and if things on the planet really are getting less than rosy (Grunhilde even mentioned something about the history of the royal family being false; that’s bound to prove interesting, assuming it does come up again) there’s sure to be more opportunities where pirates come in handy.
It’s not like this episode was a bad one either. Marika’s solution was clever and a little underhanded – if I didn’t know better I’d think she was a pirate – and the treasure wasn’t what you’d expect, and that’s definitely a strength of the show. It could easily just be about typical pirates who go in guns blazing and make off with fat piles of loot (OK, they do that whenever they rob a cruise ship, but at least that isn’t everything), but that’s not Marika’s style. She can be sneaky and otherwise think like a pirate, but she, and the rest of the crew, are a clever and much more flexible bunch that make the show much more interesting because of it. Whatever their next adventures are, I’m sure I’ll have fun watching them.
No comments:
Post a Comment