“What’s the punishment for rebelling against the great Shepherd?”
- Release Date: 12th October 2002
- Season 1
- Episode 5
- Director: Will Meugniot
- Writers: Richard Mueller
The team are on a seemingly on a peaceful farming planet, watching an alien walk with a cart being pulled by a horse-like creature. It gets attacked so they step in and protect it. More villagers arrive, trying to kill the attackers, so Bonner stops them as the punishment seems a bit too severe. The villagers are about to turn on them, but a human stops them – Bonnar’s old mentor, Shepherd, who seems to be their leader. Apparently the attackers were rebels, rather than just bandits.
As Shepherd leads them to his house, the people seem to be worshiping him. He explains that the Mostari were primitive people fighting each other, and he brought farming, medicine, law and order to them. They reach his house and it’s a colossal castle. They’re all almost crushed by rocks as they arrive, with Draga stopping them, with the workers running off. They enter the courtyard and there’s a colossal statue of Shepherd – Sydney seems to think she knows why the people are rebelling.
They have a feast and one of the workers drops something and looks very worried, as though expecting a severe punishment. Sydney speaks to Bonner about her concerns, but he trusts Shepherd so much. She tells him to find out what the punishment for rebelling against him actually is. As they rest, we see Shepherd sneak off, contacting the Tlak’khan.
When they reach the castle, Shepherd realises that the Tlak’khan want to kill Bonner, he wants to call the deal off, but they remind him that they can wipe everyone else if they wanted to, they only leave them alone because Shepherd can be useful. Luckily, by the time the Tlak’khan reach the guest chambers and start firing, the rest are already snooping around.
A fight breaks out and the Tlak’khan end up knocking over the statue and setting the castle on fire, but they’re defeated and everyone gets out. Bonner admits that he was blind to what Shepherd was doing, and Shepard says he’s going to find a new planet where nobody is bowing down to him, telling the Mostari that they’re capable of doing things on their own.
