What's Bourne / What's Left Behind

**What's Bourne / What's Left Behind** is the ninth episode of the second season of *Another Life*, and the nineteenth episode of the series overall. It was released on October 14, 2021 on Netflix.

## Synopsis

Eager to go home by any means necessary, Niko and Richard head to a planet with an artifact. Erik and Cas go undercover, and William brokers a deal.

## Plot

Niko and Richard are having a hard time moving, but she tells him to hang on. She hopes that the Decuma's hyper speed was faster than their FTL. The energy core stops moving and Richard notices the Artifact, which meant they had made it. Niko says that they need to have faith that the planet has oxygen and says that she will not let Richard take the implant. She tells Richard how interactions with the Achaia go and asks him to get her in the Artifact, which he says he cannot do, but Niko says it is the only way.

Dillon, Zayn, and Bernie film a video where they say they are being chased by USIC. Dillon tells Mackenzie he is impressed by how fast they found them, but she simply tells them that they are sabotaging everything, which Zayn says is a good thing because they had seen that relationship. Dillon tells Mackenzie that Seth had wiped their memories and murdered people, but she simply asks where Erik and Cas were. Zayn says that they were dead if they revealed it.

Cas and Erik call for William, but he does not respond. Erik is surprised and tells Cas that he had never been in a spaceship before and also says that it was the closest he had felt to him since she had left. William hears Cas, but he cannot leave since Ursula and Seth are working on him. He asks Ursula why she is helping the Achaia and she says that it was because humans were murderers and they were meant to be liberated by the Achaia. She says she thought she could save the world and he tells her that she had made him, but she tells him about Gabriel. She wonders how many crew they had killed and says that she would let the aliens do it. William tells her that the information she had was the only thing that could save them from the Achaia, but she is still helping Seth and says that she would crack his encryptions and then delete him.

Niko and Richard see the Artifact, which she mentions as weird. He brings weapons and armor, which they choose from. He grabs a tube and says it is not for fighting. They move forward together, but Richard asks her to let him go first. They gasp as they get used to the planet's thin air and move forward. They see something surrounding the Artifact, which contains something not Achaian around it. Niko throws some stones, which provokes nothing so both of them go inside.

They do not see anything, but they see a record of when the Achaia landed on the planet. The creatures apparently welcomed the Achaia as well. Niko and Richard find remains under the floor, which makes Niko realize that they were in a cemetery. The Artifact's door opens and Niko moves towards it, laying down her weapons, which Richard does as well. Niko asks Richard to not let her see Erik or Jana once they got back to Earth with the implant and they walk inside.

Seth is in pain from his implant, asking it to stop. He tells Ursula and William that they knew where Niko and Richard were, saying that it was a planet orbiting a star called Citalá. He also says that she would be replacing him if he could not extract William's data. Ursula asks for more time, but William says that he can decrypt the data in exchange for a deal. He asks if his coding could be passed to an implant that could be put in Erik's head. Seth says that the implant needs to be accepted in order for it to last longer, which disgusts Ursula, so she wants to leave. Seth tells her to shut up, and tells William that he could bring Erik to him.

William reaches Erik and Cas, telling them that Ursula had located the data, but is brought back. Cas grabs an axe and both of them head towards Seth. Both of them fight USIC security, though Cas does a better job of it, so Erik is dragged away.

Erik is taken to Seth, saying that he is disappointed at Ursula for working for him. Ursula tells Seth that it was not necessary to force William, but Seth does not listen to her and tells William that he could proceed. He tells Erik that Niko is alive and safe, but what they needed in order to bring her home was for him to accept an implant, becoming William in the process. Erik reminds William that Niko trusted him and Seth says that he would call Jana, asking her how she would feel becoming an orphan, so Erik accepts.

Seth shoots a guard, telling Ursula that she needed to press delete on the data William was decrypting. The guard's implant comes out and heads towards Erik. Seth tells William to jump in before he changed his mind. However, William refuses until Niko and Richard were safe.

Seth goes to the Artifact, meeting Richard and Niko. She tells him that she is ready to negotiate and he introduces himself, saying that he had taken an implant after she turned it down and was the Achaia's spokesman. He tells her that he could open the door to Earth and does so. Richard asks if they could walk through.

William calls Cas, telling her that Seth had opened the bridge to Earth. She jumps down from the ceiling and is told by William to distract Seth in order to have him weak and occupied. Ursula tells William that she wants to help, and offers to protect his code. William goes inside the implant as Cas punches Seth repeatedly, which makes him bleed.

Seth notices he was betrayed by William and starts choking him. Niko tells him to let William go. William tells Seth that when Iara encountered the Achaia, they strangled her, but she was not ready. However, he says that he is ready and knocks him to the floor. He tells Niko and Richard to run, but the former asks if he can get back, which he says he would try. Niko and Richard run towards Earth and make it back, which makes them happy.

William tells Seth that he was not a robot, and he was not a human, so he could hurt him. Seth leaves the Artifact and stops one of Cas's punches, choking her. Ursula tries getting William back out from the Artifact, while Seth approaches the implant that was going to be Erik's. William appears and says that perhaps he was too fast for him. Cas approaches Seth from behind and chokes him, but he says that even if they killed him, the Achaia would be there since they were pissed.

Niko and Erik call for William and Cas. Erik cannot believe it and yells out happily, while William also reports he is alive. Richard tells Niko that he would introduce himself to the soldiers while Erik tells Niko that she needs to talk to Cas and William because Seth said that the Achaia were on their way. Niko asks if the neutrino weapon is working, but William says that he has been struggling with it.

Mackenzie approaches Niko, welcoming her back, saying that they were cuffing everybody tat came out of the Artifact. Niko asks if she was still human, which Mackenzie said she was. Niko says that they need to hurry up and get the military ready for when the Achaia attack.

Cas drags Seth away while Erik understands how neutrinos worked on the Achaia with William. William says that they need more neutrinos, but whenever he did it, the magnetic confinement was overheated. Erik asks if they could back off on the accelerator beam, directed equal power into the cooling systems and then toggled between the two. Ursula, William, and Erik give the theory a go.

Niko and Richard tell Mackenzie that they need to talk to the joint chiefs. Mackenzie says that she has been trying to find Seth, which Niko found strange since he had gone rogue, probably for the same reason they were expecting the Achaia to attack, since they knew what kills them. Mackenzie keeps discussing, but Niko interrupts her, asking to speak to the Joint Chiefs. Niko asks Erik how things are going, and says that they are doing good, having converted the Salvare into a neutrino bomb, which worries Niko, but William says that if they were able to destroy a cluster of ships, then Ursula would have time to release the data to the world, so everybody could have their own bombs, which Cas does not support.

Erik says that maybe they do not need bombs, since when the magnetar had destroyed the Achaian ship, they had been towing it, and proposes to do the same thing with the neutrinos. William realizes that he could make the neutrinos a gun with the ship. However, the problem was that USIC engineers had already started dismantling the FTL drive, so Niko and Ursula say that they would fix it.

Niko and Ursula start fixing, while Cas is impatient. They work on it, but the Salvare detects a wormhole opening between Earth and Mars, which had at least one Achaian ring.

Niko tries contacting the Salvare, but does not get through. Richard asks if they could delay they delay the Achaia by nuking them, but Mackenzie says that the Joint Chiefs would refuse to do that. Zayn, Bernie and Dillon approach Niko, who tells them the Achaia had reached them. When asked if she knew for sure that Earth is the target, she simply leaves the tent and tries contacting the Salvare.

Cas tells Erik and Ursula that she needs the weapon, but they are not ready. Niko tells Cas, Erik, and William to abandon ship, but in the sky, they see a big explosion, which shocks her, Richard, Zayn, Bernie, and Dillon.

## Cast

* Justin Chatwin as Erik Wallace
* Samuel Anderson as William
* Elizabeth Faith Ludlow as Cas Isakovic
* Tongayi Chirisa as Richard Ncube
* A.J. Rivera as Bernie Martinez
* JayR Tinaco as Zayn Petrossian
* Dillon Casey as Seth Gage
* Rekha Sharma as Ursula Monroe
* Catherine Lough Haggquist as Annette Mackenzie
* Mathew Yanagiya as Special Ops Soldier