FBF - To The Death #5

Title: Asphodel

Story: Simon Furman

Art: Geoff Senior

Letterer: Martin Baines

Design by: Amazing15

Printed in the UK by: Mixam

Plot

With Dryagin gone, Diamond Bill releases the others from the Firedrake's tractor beam, and resigns his commission, refusing to work for a monster like Kraken. Kraken has the team arrest Bill for him, and also bring Leone back to the ship, to be dealt with later, warning the rest that they'll be dealt with too if they betray him. They begrudgingly agree, whilst Kraken heads off to kill Dryagin himself.

On Earth, the female Sleepwalker is searching around a place called "Echo Conclave" to find her target, and is directed to it by a small child, whom she pays with some computer chips.

Back on the Moon, Dryagin drives the Luna-Quad he was left by Bill and heads towards the Luna-6 facility, rather than the closer Luna-4, assuming Kraken won't be there. Unfortunately, Kraken knows Dryagin too well and intercepts him along the way, causing both quads to crash, and Dryagin gets fired on by him, leading him to a rock to try and hide behind, but unfortunately one of the Cyber warriors find him, and aim directly at him.

Kraken orders the Cyber to let him get the kill, takes aim, and then the Cyber suddenly turns on him, filling Kraken with bullet holes, before telling the confused Dryagin to run away, unaware that the original operator has been killed and replaced by the Sleepwalker on Earth.

An alien spacecraft arrives at Earth, and Killatoa exits to meet with the Triumvirate, to learn who his new target is.

On the Moon, King's team arrives and find Kraken's body, and communicates with Snow through the Cyber, who has remained next to the dead body, who explains that he now has full control of it's sensory output, but also urges King to hurry up, as their enemies may have called in someone stronger to take out Dryagin now that Kraken is dead.

Elsewhere, the Pacifiers defy Kraken's orders and free both Leone and Bill, intending to go after Dryagin and rescue him, regardless of their orders, since they're all fed up of being used now.

Dryagin arrives at a Lunar Spaceport, where he finds King's shuttle, and attempts to take it for himself, inside he finds the technician, and Mazur, the latter of whom he manages to defeat in battle, assuming he's an enemy. He is stopped from killing the White Noise member when King returns and activates a holo-communicator, allowing Dryagin to talk to Snow, who explains that he used to work for the Energy Corp and that his team's first mission to Asphodel was so they could create an extinction weapon, which his team is now trying to disable, before it can be used. He also informs Dryagin that the Triumvirate ordered the deaths of his wife and child, causing him to be devastated.

The Pacifiers arrive in the Firedrake, and order King and his team to step away from Dryagin, also assuming them to be the enemy too

Characters

Pacificers

Aleksy Dryagin

Josiah Kraken Killed by Sleepwalker in Cyber Warrior

Jonas Huey

Leone

Bette Larssen

Hash Flynn

Megan Umber

Dolan Rekt

Diamond Bill

The Echelon (Mentioned)

White Noise

Deacon Snow

Juddh King

Mazur

Trent Hubble Still Kidnapped into Team

Female Sleepwalker

Rest of King's Tac-Team

Energy Corp/Tri-Corp

Veni

Vidi

Vici

Sebastian Pelle (Flashback)

Lucius Warrender (Flashback)

Beauregard Percy (Flashback)

Crowe (Flashback)

Future Technologies Scientists (Flashback)

Cerberus (Mentioned)

Other Human

Recycle Café Cyber Soldier Operator Killed by Sleepwalker

Random Civilians

Lena Dryagin (Mentioned) Claimed to be Dead by Snow

Leo Dryagin (Mentioned) Claimed to be Dead by Snow

Last Cyber Soldier Operator (Mentioned)

Other

Killatoa

Asphodel's Denizens (Flashback) Now Extinct

Notes

• So it turns out that the opening scenes last issue where Dryagin is approached by a Cyber-Warrior was actually set during THIS issue, not the previous one, like I thought before.
• During the brief visit to Earth early in the story, we can see that the feed from the Moon has been stopped, and replaced with re-runs of previous missions, most likely because people may start rioting if they learned that Dryagin is the one being actively targeted for death.
• Kraken says "All that is over, finished." A very Furmanism-filled line :D
• Oh and then he says "End of the Road"!! I love this series 
• We learn that one of the sleepwalker's missions is to replace a Cyber-Warrior, and to use it to help Dryagin survive, so we should be able to assume that the other one was sent to take out the other remaining one too.
• We finally get a view of Killatoa, who basically looks like an amphibious version of Death's Head, a character that Furman created back in the 80's, and is also a hired gun of sorts.
• The kidnapped engineer from the past couple issues is finally named as "Trent Hubble"...oddly this is probably the most normal name we've had in the series so far!
• Still no names for most of King's team however...this doesn't bode well for them!
• We learn that the man we saw with Snow in the prequel story is Beauregard Percy, who along with his equally old and decrepit fellows, Sebastian Pelle and Lucius Warrender, were the heads of Energy Corp and ran the same positions as the Triumvirate do in the comic's present. From how large they look, and how Killatoa questions whether they are still "gentlemen" we can either assume that these are cloned or robotic bodies used by these older characters.
• Snow decides to tell Dryagin that Lena and Leo were killed in the explosion, rather than him rescuing them. This is either the truth, but the ones we've seen before are AI based on them, or he is lying to Dryagin to get him angry enough to take down the Triumvirate for him (I personally believe it to be the latter)
• Snow also mentions that he would have tried to redirect Dryagin's mission, had he of known he was the one leading it, implying some hidden connection. Considering his unwillingness to show himself to Lena, despite happily doing so with Dryagin, we can probably assume that he is related to her, possibly her father or grandfather.
• The Asphodel Extinction Weapon, as previously seen in the prequel story, is confirmed to be an extinction weapon made from the resources of Asphodel, and not a weapon to destroy the planet, or something related to it at least.
• The Cerberus mentioned in this issue is likely just a code-name for the Triumvirate, but knowing this writer, I'm going to class it as another "character", just in case.