“Dark Star Rising” is episode ten of season one of Mutant X.
A man and a woman are working on something by some greenhouses owned by Tricorp Botanical. The man doesn’t sound well, even though he insists he’s fine. Following a coughing bout, the woman tells him she’s not going to let him handle explosives after that. When he tries to get up to help, she tells him that if he does that again, she’ll kill him. He thinks she may not have to. Then Shalimar drops in. The two stand and their eyes glow, because they’re ferals too. During the fight one bomb goes off and the man mentions the second. The man passes out and Shalimar throws the bomb away. Then is grabbed by the throat by someone rather large. The woman tells the large man that they have to go now and he throws Shalimar away. The man on the ground, Clark, tells them to leave him; they all know he’s dying. No-one is left behind, though.
Back at the Sanctuary, Jesse is examining the mark around Shalimar’s throat where she was grabbed. He says she could have called him; she was too busy having the life choked out of her. Shalimar was managing fine against the first two until the human mountain turned up. Emma was right, though; she apparently picked up a telempathic transmission about a renegade pack of New Mutants.
Adam and Brennan are searching the database when Shalimar joins them. Whoever attacked her isn’t in the database. Did they have any distinguishing characteristics? Besides one being a 7′ giant? Yes. Shalimar says the woman had combat training, definitely military. She called the wounded guy corporal. All had a tattoo on their wrist; a red disc with a black five-pointed star. That is recognised; it’s the symbol of Dark Star, an international anti-terrorist unit funded by Interpol. Who were all killed in a South American drug war firefight two months ago. So, how are they now walking around with New Mutant abilities.
Eckhart is speaking to a Dr Harrison – this week’s minion isn’t a true minion but that probably won’t help him – about the attack on Tricorp. Harrison says that Dark Star won’t lay down and die. Eckhart says nine have complied. Harrison believes the three survivors were responsible for the attack. No, his security branch didn’t drive them off; they are in the agribusiness, his security branch can barely tie their shoelaces. Eckhart promises to send his own security to help. Though they have never proven to be stunningly competent in the past.
The corporal is now dead and the other two are promising to get who’s responsible. The woman mentions Shalimar, because her eyes had the same glow and she matched them head to head. Maybe there are others. They seem to have no knowledge of New Mutants.
Emma gets a flash of Dark Star being injected. Jesse has found no evidence of New Mutant abilities possessed by the team. Emma thinks the connection is directly related to whatever happened in the jungle. The father of the woman, Angel Dawn, own an abandoned engine plant so Shalimar and Brennan head there.
Shalimar is warning Brennan about the big guy. He’s confident of his own powers. However, when they crash through the door, both members of Dark Star are ready and waiting for them. They manage to talk Dark Star into listening and yes, they have no knowledge of what New Mutants or the Children of Genomex are. All they apparently know is that Tricorp killed their squad and turned them into freaks.
Jesse has found nothing dirty in the Tricorp database, but he has found details on their primary research programme. It’s a plant, and one Adam recognises. It’s extremely rare, with only 12 in the world; three are in Tricorp’s hydroponic garden. A genetically engineered parasitic plant that spends most of its life as a threadlike infection strand in its host. In the early days of genetic research, they found that only a single strand of DNA separated humans from yeast. The plant was a misstep on their path to manipulate DNA, because it has a 25-year growth cycle.
Dawn, and Lieutenant Bo Longstreet, are telling Shalimar and Brennan about their mission. They had what they thought was the usual run of vaccinations, but people started getting ill, then they were ambushed by the cartel they had been sent against. They called for help, with no response, and headed deeper into the jungle. After several days, only three were left alive. Instead of dying, they developed new abilities. A captured cartel solider told them they were set up to test the serum they were injected with.
Eckhart and Harrison are talking about the test. It seems they only need one survivor, and after 90 days the chances of survival increase exponentially. Longstreet seems to be doing well. The next step is to genetically alter humans into New Mutants. First, they need Longstreet. A team is sent to bring him in, but they weren’t expecting Shalimar and Brennan, and the GS agents display their usual degree of competence. Then Dawn falls ill. A cure needs to be found, and quickly, or she’ll die, and the cure requires one of the plants.