D7 ASSASSIN


While on watch, Vila picks up a strange message sent from Servalan. She has hired the professional assassin, Cancer to eliminate the crew on the planet Domo. No one knows what Cancer looks like and Avon decides to strike first by going to Domo.
Domo is the base for space pirates. They capture ship passengers and then sell them into slavery. Avon plans to let himself be captured and taken to the slave auction in order to meet Cancer. His plan fails when he loses his teleport bracelet. While awaiting the auction, Avon meets an old slave, Nebrox, who agrees to steal back Avon's bracelet if Avon will let him aboard Scorpio in payment. Nebrox also tells Avon that Servalan has purchased a slave from an entertainment troupe and has sent him away in a black ship. This must be Cancer! Avon narrowly escapes being sold to Servalan, and with Nebrox teleports back to the ship. The crew then follows the trail of the black ship.
          They soon catch up with it as it is floating dead in space. They teleport aboard and capture Cancer. They also find that Cancer has purchased a slave, Piri who brings out all of Tarrant's protective instincts, Despite binding Cancer, Nebrox is murdered. Soolin barely escapes a poisonous crab and Avon is captured. Piri is Cancer and the man they mistook for the assassin is just an actor. Piri kills him.
Piri places a crab on the bound Avon and gloats over her partnership with Servalan. But Tarrant and Soolin save Avon just in time, and the crab kills Cancer instead. Servalan sends her ships to destroy the black ship. Avon, Tarrant and Soolin teleport back to Scorpio and escape.


D8 GAMES


Orac has discovered that an unlimited supply of energy can be provided by the use of a gemstone known as feldon crystals. One of the planets where feldon is mined is MecronII. The mining operations are controlled by Belkov, a master player of games. He has program his computer, Gambit to play with him continuously. Gambit also controls the defense systems so that all the programs are run as games. Belkov may have been skimming off the Federation and saved some feldon crystals in an orbital freighter to be sold for his own profit. Servalan goes to MerconII to see why mining production has not lived up to it's projections.
          Avon contacts a Federation geologist, who is willing to act against the Federation. But before they can get organized, The geologist goes to the freighter and tries to steal some of the feldon. The orbiter is program to play a series of games with the intruder. The geologist loses and is sent back to the planet gravely injured.
          The crystals hold a religious significance for the natives and Belkov uses this to pit the Federation against the Merconians. This allows Belkov time to plan his escape. He also traps Tarrant and Dayna. Meanwhile, Avon orders Vila to remove part of the computer so that he and Orac can study how the defense mechanism works. As he is doing this, Vila overhears Belkov instructing Gambit to self destruct. Vila uses this information to gain Gambit's acceptance and is able to free Tarrant and Dayna. He is allowed to dismantle part of the computer without injury.
          Teleporting to the orbiter, the crew must play a series of games in order to assess the crystals. They manage to gain entry into the center of the ship only to find out the the final game involves focusing the crystal on a black hole. This will destroy everything in the vicinity. The crew teleport back to Scorpio and Avon uses the feldon to blast them away from the black hole. Belkov appears to have escape and the crew leaves empty handed. Even the necklace of crystals that Vila has stolen appear to be fakes.


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