Episode Synopsis:

On Earth, there’s trouble at the mill as a computer system goes haywire blowing up a chemical plant, but it’s not a total loss, it gives the BBC stunt team a chance to shine in the chaos.

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On the Moon, Spring and David are preparing for a trip to Outpost 9, a remote location, even on the moon.  As they prepare, they discuss the pending dismissal of two Star Cops, Hubble and Kenzy.  Spring has determined that they are bent cops, David doesn’t think he has enough evidence.

Security at Outpost 9 is tight, and the visit seems almost pointless. Dr. Chandri, head of the outpost cannot tell them about the research they do, but he’s picked up some potentially troubling news through his research.  An organization of anarchists are planning on blowing up a space shuttle.  He knows nothing save that they are called the Black Hand Group or BHG for short.  Spring has more than a usual copper’s knowledge of computers and works out that Outpost 9 must be working on an Intelligent Listening System – a computer system that taps into a vast amount of broadcast information, and uses algorithms to sift through it and pick up information of use to the intelligence community.

All this information could have been imparted over the com link, and Spring is certain Chandri wants to tell him more, but he gets nothing more.

On Earth, they’re having problems in the Chunnel.  The computers have diverted two oncoming trains onto the same track causing the trains to collide at high speed, killing hundreds.  Like the chemical plant disaster, strange poetry appears on the computer screens before the disaster happens.

Kenzy, one of the bent cops, unaware that she’s about to be fired, arrives on the moon to meet Spring for the first time.  She’s come with a great idea.  An Australian company makes these new weapons, just made for space warfare.  Just exactly the sort of the things Star Cops could use.  Spring isn’t interested.  He plays back a video of a detained perp giving her a bribe and now she’s fired. But she’s an Australian and she’s not going to take this lying down.  At this point, she meets Colin Devis, the newest Star Cop – he was pretending to be the perp that bribed her.

David is not happy, Devis also attempted to bribe him, although he passed the “test” with flying colors.  He has words with Spring; however, Spring pre-empts his outrage with a promotion to second-in-command of the Star Cops.  David gives Devis his first assignment, go to Earth and negotiate a contract to purchase the weapons Kenzy showed them bypassing her and any possible profit she’d get from the deal.

Box has turned up very little information about the BHG, so he returns to talk to Chandri, alone.  When he arrives, the pieces start to fall into place.  Chandri has “discovered” the computer worm and how it infects the computers.  It’s installed in a small piece of circuitry at the manufacturing plant and lays dormant until triggered by an activation code – a line of poetry, “O rose thou art sick.”  The computers affected were made at the Chandri family business.  In fact, he developed it himself and has used it, killing the other members of the Outpost 9 staff.  His Intelligent Listening System that he’s been developing for some government is a failure, which Spring suspected because of the poor quality information provided about the BHG.  Now, rather than be found to be a failure, Chandri will destroy Moonbase 9, and all the evidence, along with Spring.  Spring overpowers Chandri and kills him with one of the new space weapons – which, incidentally, Chandri also developed.  With the base set to self-destruct, can Spring escape in time?

Back on Earth, Devis is returning from his mission to purchase weapons.  Coincidentally, he gets a flight with Kenzy, who is returning to space because she loves it out there.  Any friends that she thought she had in high places got pulled out from under her by Spring’s cagey purchase of high-tech weapons.  Miracle of miracles, the information from Chandri wasn’t a complete waste of time, this just happens to be the shuttle that the BHG plan to hijack and destroy.  Devis and Kenzy take on the hijackers and, in a find piece of fielding on the boundary, Kenzy uses her Australian super cricket powers to catch a glass globe contains a deadly pathogen.

With Devis and Kenzy the heroes of the day, Kenzy uses her time on the news to brag up how brilliant Spring was for planting them on the shuttle flight to prevent the disaster.  Cornered, Spring (oh, who did escape from Outpost 9) must reinstate her.

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