Episode 11 - No Risk No Reward

Tad talks to Bersi, who has recovered his leg movement. Tad talks to Ori's laywer and saves Ori from legal fees, but not before Ori hears a cryptic and dire message from his jail mate. Ori rides back to the ship and narrowly avoids a crash with an on-coming shipping truck by jumping over it. In mid-air Ori spots Chuck, who has rescued himself from slavery. Ori gives Chuck a lift back to the ship, where the crew is waiting.

Chuck tells everyone how he survived and escaped. Ori gets tattooed to mark his time in prison, and gets some medical implants while he is at it. The crew finds out that mercenaries are looking for people matching their description, and decide it is time to go. Ori tells the crew about the strange tale he has heard, and everyone agrees that there may be some profit to be had.

Everybody flies to Younis and meets Alien worshippers.

Crew almost falls to death walking over an ice bridge, but Thaymus saves the day. The rumbles of an ice worm underfoot make the crew hesitate, but they decide to push forward and are attacked. Everybody unloads into the ice worm. Val, Tad and Braugh show that they are the best marksmen in the group. Ori tries to ride the ice worm with a grapple launcher, but is thrown into the air instead. Tad finishes the ice worm off. Ori looks for venomous glands or valuable organs, but a worm is only a worm. Even so, he takes a sample of the creature to study later.

The crew makes it to the mouth of the cave and enter with flares aglow. They come upon a deep crevasse in the ice and with nowhere else to go, they descend. As Thaymus is repelling his prosthetic arm freezes up, ice locking the mechanics of his grip. Thaymus swings to grab the rope with his good arm, but misses and falls, his body bouncing limply once below. Ori, climbing harness attached, quickly follows and applies a Lazurus patch to Thaymus. While Thaymus is lying there, Ori feels a peace of mind he had forgotten was there. As Ori touches Thaymus, a mental link is established and peace of mind is gone, replaced by a fuzzy heaviness of the mind. Ori places Thaymus inside a survival tent, mentally promising that he would return.

At the bottom of the crevasse a tunnel extends into the mountain. The crew moves forward cautiously, worried after seeing Thaymus suffer so dramatically and unexpectedly. Two bodies in vacc-suits rest 2/3 of the way through the tunnel. Their flesh is long decayed, and small holes perforate both suits throughout. Val recognizes these as the markings of suit chewers, and warns everyone to be ready.

The end of the tunnel opens up into a domed chamber, empty save for a matte black disc embedded into the ice. Upon seeing the disc, the whole crew begins to feel a sense of hunger pulling them forward. Thaymus's presence in Ori's mind is in a frenzy, and is telling Ori to pick it up. Ori suggest they contact the Alien Worshippers for advice, but the crew rightly decides to keep this discovery to themselves. Braugh steps forward to pick up the disc and in the process one his power cell comes in contact with the disc. In a flash, the battery is drained and Bruagh steps backwards through the hologram that has appeared. Two spheres orbit in the centre, with bright points of light dotting the limits of the projected hololight. Val clenches his jaw: "I know a star map when I see it. I'm coming home Saru, I'm coming home." The holo-gram blinks out. Braugh takes the disc.

'PEEP, PEEP, PEEP' Ori's bio-scanner rings out in the silence and the crew turns to look towards the tunnel entrance, where a single suit chewer is scuttling towards them. Ori make a plan, but is cut off when Val casually blasts the creature dead. On the way out Ori picks up the suit chewer and the the compads of the deceased in the tunnel. The survival tent is collapsed into a make-shift stretcher and sled for Thaymus. The crew walks back to the ship without interruption and boards. A feeling of achievement and opportunity is cut by the heavy breathing of Thaymus' respirator.