| Death of a King | |
|---|---|
| Season 2, Episode 11 | |
 Lord Mantel is determined to take the fight to the Beast Planet. | |
| Air date | 9th June 1999 |
| Written by | Christy Marx |
| Directed by | James E. Taylor |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous Nor Iron Bars a Cage |
Next The Long Road Home |
While the war on the Prison Planet continues, Graveheart and Cryos seek a way to the Teleport Engine so that they may return home. Meanwhile, Lord Mantel declares his intention to end the threat of the Beast Planet by attacking it with his Battle Moons.
Appearing in "Death of a King"[]
- Prison Planet
- Planet Rock
- Beast Planet
- Planet Bone (Flashback)
- Pelvus (Flashback)
Plot[]
The last episode ended with Sternum ready to shoot Femur, and Jade taking the gun from him under the pretext of killing Femur herself. Now, Femur begs her to spare him:
Aw, come on, doll! Why're ya doin' this? After all we've been through... If ya wanna shoot someone, shoot Sternum! Yaah! Uhah! I'm too good lookin' to die! Ah! I wanna li-i-i-ive! 
Jade asks Sternum if Femur is really worth killing. After witnessing the Emperor grovelling for his life, Sternum replies:
What a pathetic display! All those years I dreamt of vengeance, and now I realize he's not even worthy of my revenge. The past is dead, and right now I have more important things to do.
After Sternum decides to begrudgingly spare him, they return to the fortress and witness the fallout of Jewelia's attack. Femur notices the stars are different, which Sternum says was due to his control of the teleport engines, which he used to travel far away from their previous location. Jade demands he send them back, but Sternum explains that he teleported to the Alliance worlds by accident, and without their coordinates, they cannot return. Sternum has Jade and Femur help rebuild their defenses in preparation for another attack.
Back at Alliance space, Lord Mantel forces Tekla, Zera, and Pyrus to fly to Rock so he can explain his plans to them. On the flight over, Zera assures Tekla that Ice's technicians will certainly repair Voxx, but she is more concerned about her misjudgment of Jade, which allowed Mantel to take over. After consoling Tekla, Pyrus hands her a Forcefield Generator, just in case she needs it down there. When they get to Mantel's throne room, he shows that after he re-enabled the Alliance fleet, they drove off the Beast Armada. Pyrus says it's clearly a trick to draw them out, but Mantel believes they fled because they fear him.
Meanwhile, Graveheart is still under the notion that Sternum is a tyrant who had Jade and Femur killed. He and Cryos give Jewelia a battle plan to attack Sternum's fortress on two fronts: an underground assault through the tunnels led by Graveheart and Cryos, and a frontal assault above ground to cover it led by Jewelia.
In the middle of the episode, Femur tries to convince Jade of Sternum's untrustworthiness by exaggeratingly narrating an old-timey flashback, complete with sepia tone and film scratches, of how he took his brother's place as Emperor of Bone:
Emperor Sternum was worried about Femur being second-in-line for the throne of Bone, so he had Femur carted off to be executed. But Femur bribed his guards to spare him and conspired with Pelvus to serve Sternum a poisoned drink. The poison incapacitated him, allowing Femur to take his place as Emperor. Leaving Sternum's fate to a coin flip, Femur decided "in a gesture of great mercy" to send him to the Prison Planet instead of to his death, then replaced Sternum's corrupt regime with his own. Jade responded by suggesting that Sternum may have changed, since he hasn't killed him, and that he needed to get to work.
During Jewelia's assault, Sternum detects Graveheart's underground intrusion, so he orders Femur to watch Jade's back while she repels the frontal assault so he can go to the tunnels to stop the underground one. Sternum confronts Graveheart, who still believes Sternum killed Jade, and the two fight for control of the Teleport Engines. Back topside, Femur flees from the shootout, while Jewelia identifies Jade and nearly takes her out with a sniper rifle.
While all this was going on, Lord Mantel used his hostile takeover of the Alliance to arrogantly launch all his ships and Battle Moons on a full-scale assault on the Beast Planet. The attack does no harm to the Beast itself, and leaves Rock defenseless, allowing Blokk to take over the planet. After wiping out countless Quarriors, Blokk and his drones storm the throne room. Eventually, Pyrus finally convinces Mantel to break off the Battle Moons' attack before they, and the people of Fire living on them, are wiped out by the Beast.
Mantel challenges Blokk to one-on-one combat. Tekla gives him a Forcefield Generator to even the odds, but Blokk attacks it, allowing him to defeat Mantel. Despite not knowing what Jade's necklace is -- a Data Crystal with the defense codes of the entire Alliance fleet -- Blokk attempts to take it from Mantel as a bauble trophy. In a last act of defiance to prevent Blokk from getting it, Mantel smashes the crystal. The episode ends with Blokk killing Mantel, declaring, "The king is dead. Long live the Beast!"
See Also[]
| Episode listing |
|---|
| Season 1: Behold the Beast, On the Rocks, Born in Fire, Bad to the Bone, Wolf in the Fold, Mind War, J'Accuse, Blood is Thicker…, Rock and Ruin, Against all Odds, Uneasy Hangs the Head, Ragnarok (Part 1), Ragnarok (Part 2) Season 2: Worlds within Worlds, This is the Way the World Ends…, Period of Adjustment, Blaze of Glory, Sandstorm, Girls Night Out, Timebomb, Embers of the Past, Divided We Stand, Nor Iron Bars a Cage, Death of a King, The Long Road Home, Ascension |