Spectrum Online Swarm Mission Logs Season One

Starring:

Colonel White, Captain Scarlet, Captain Blue, Lieutenant Green, Doctor Gold, Lieutenant Silver & all Angels.




The Angels are launched to intercept an aircraft on a collision course with Skybase. When Destiny destroys the plane, a swarm of mechanical insects is released. The swarm attacks Destiny's Falcon and disable both engines. Destiny detaches her life pod, but the majority of the swarm stay with her. They manage to eat through the metal of the pod and get inside. Destiny decides that she cannot risk landing on Skybase and she cannot bail out because the parachute has been damaged by the insects.

Scarlet dons his pressure suit and goes out onto the flight deck. Following Scarlet's instructions, Destiny ejects from the escape pod, and he skydives from the base and catches her in mid-air, and they float to safety using Scarlet's 'chute.

Back on Skybase, Destiny heads for a shower and does not notice that she has brought one of the insects back with her inside her flight suit.

During the debriefing, White reveals that the insects were experimental machines known as 'Cyberbugs' - robots that can act in groups or individually, and can be used to infiltrate facilities with ease.

After the debriefing, Scarlet and Destiny muse over what might have happened if the bugs had managed to get on board Skybase. Scarlet is rather blasé about it until the elevator they are using breaks down, trapping them between floors.

Whilst they are trapped, Destiny and Scarlet hear a thud on the roof of the elevator car. Realising that the engineer must have fallen, Destiny opens the escape hatch to check, and is confronted by the dead engineer and a new swarm of Cyberbugs. She shuts the hatch, but the bugs simply start to eat their way through the roof, just as they did with the Falcon.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Green is attacked by another group of the bugs whilst she is asleep in her quarters.

Blue joins the Angels in the standby lounge, where they joke about Scarlet and Destiny, until the Swarm invades the room through the air vents. They all manage to escape safely.

Destiny finally manage to escape from the lift through the floor hatch, but the Swarm get through the ceiling before Scarlet can follow her into the lift shaft. He fires at the bugs, but it has no effect. He drops through the hole in the floor, and he and Destiny climb down the shaft as quickly as they can.

Blue and Harmony head to Central Control, where White and Lieutenant Silver are working towards a solution to the problem. The bugs have already invaded five decks of Skybase, including Level 8, where Lieutenant Green's quarters are.

Scarlet and Destiny are also making their way to Central Control, using maintenance corridors. They come across a place where the creatures have started to nest. Scarlet throws a mine into the nest.

White and Silver discover that the creatures' advance through the base is focused, as if they know what they are looking for. Blue is insistent that they find Lieutenant Green. He and Dr. Gold don spacesuits and go down to Green's quarters, where they find her trapped inside the same material that was used in the nest. She is still conscious, and reveals that the swarm is tapped into her mind, using her knowledge of Skybase to find the nuclear reactors. She is trying to confuse them, but knows that she can't keep up the deception for very long. Reluctantly, Gold is forced to leave her inside the nest as removing her could cause serious brain damage.

Scarlet and Destiny escape from the maintenance corridors into the kitchen. They try to fight off the bugs, and when Destiny accidentally knocks over a pan of water, the bugs caught in the spill begin to short-circuit. Scarlet notices, and he and Destiny shoot at the water pipes in order to slow the Swarm down, before heading towards Engineering to trigger the sprinkler systems. The mobile bugs flood into the air vents and away from the kitchens. At that moment, Green reveals to Blue that the bugs have found what they were looking for.

Scarlet finds that the bugs are all over Engineering, and soon finds himself under attack from the Swarm. He manages to fight his way through the cloud and trigger the fire-prevention systems. The bugs short-circuit throughout the base, leaving the maintenance crews with the task of hoovering up the pieces and Lieutenant Green threatening to never leave her post again.


Quotable Scarlet

After Scarlet has caught Destiny
Destiny: Thanks for dropping by.
Scarlet: It doesn't mean I've fallen for you.



Did you spot...?


  • The Cyberbugs bear an extraordinary resemblance to the little spider that Black used to Mysteronise General Zamatev in Instrument of Destruction part 2.
  • A beautifully impressive bit of GCI - when Destiny shoots the water pipe in the kitchen, the resulting spurt of water has the rainbow effect where it catches the light.



Episode Rating: 4 stars
Cast your vote on the Datalink forum

Reviewer's Rating: 4/5

I felt at this point, the series had found its feet and produced an intelligent and thoughtful story, even going so far as to bring back elements from a previous episode.

The fact that it was produced late shows in the developing relationship between Scarlet and Destiny - her flirting with Scarlet is positively scandalous considering that, from the viewers' perspective, her boyfriend has only just been possessed by the Mysterons.

The soppy lines between Scarlet and Destiny mean that it can never get that '5' from me, but other than that, it is a great example of what the series has in store.




Written by Phil Ford

Directed by David Lane

Animated by Blue team

Transmission date: 26 February 2005

Appears on DVD 1