Episode 7 - What Time Is It?

November 26, 2017·35 min·2 clips

Grim, alone on the crashing Hyacinth, hears Captain Ember Roth's voice confirm her crew has been freed moments before the ship hits the asteroid.

The episode opens mid-crisis: the shuttle is damaged after an abortive launch attempt, long-range comms are out, and Grim has less than thirty minutes of air in the asteroid. Blue and Finch debate contacting corporate with their data versus waiting to negotiate in person, with Blue initially reluctant. Finch repairs the shuttle's thrust enough to fly while Blue relays communication through the barely-functional Hyacinth. When Blue contacts corporate station to reveal their find, the station offers five billion each without hesitation. Blue finds this suspicious — corporate clearly knows the value of the rock — and decides to use the data as ransom with pirate Commander Temple instead of selling it outright, aiming to pit corporate against Temple over the asteroid's location. Blue negotiates with Temple, who agrees to release Captain Ember Roth and her 52-person crew of the Corvus in exchange for the asteroid's survey data and five million. Blue sends the data and money, but comms fail before she can confirm the transmission went through. With the shuttle damaged and the only relay gone, Finch suggests distracting the asteroid by having the Hyacinth launch its remaining probes and sacrificial Smithy drones as an attack decoy so the shuttle can escape. The plan partially works: the asteroid responds violently, the Hyacinth is destroyed as intended, but the shuttle takes debris hits. Finch is thrown loose from her harness and killed by impacts. Blue launches the shuttle's remaining missiles solo, naming each for a dead crew member — Finch, Conrad, Argus, Dreadnought — before apparently dying offscreen. Grim jet-packs to the drifting Hyacinth alone, spins out of control in debris, and barely reaches the bridge. On backup power he reaches the comms relay just as Captain Ember Roth hails from the freed Corvus. The two exchange a warm if grief-laden reunion — Grim cannot bring himself to name the dead directly, instead saying they are busy. The episode ends with the Irish ballad The Parting Glass.

As heard by us

A tense bargaining standoff where every offer sounds like a trap.

This episode turns a tense bargain into a stress test for trust. A damaged shuttle and a shaky comm line force the crew into tighter, uglier choices, and the clipped back-and-forth does the heavy lifting.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for The Hyacinth Disaster Part 7, where a tense space standoff turns into a deal with too many moving parts.

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