Stargate Universe 1.06: “Water”
As the team aboard the Destiny continue to hurtle uncontrollably through the universe, a new problem arises to join the plethora of others threatening their survival. The water levels aboard the ship have started to disappear at an alarming rate, with thousands of gallons of water missing from the holding tanks. But there is an even more unsettling detail: nobody has been near the tanks to steal it.
As Rush, Eli and Col. Young try to determine where the water is going, Rush decides that instead of trying to find out who is (presumably) stealing it, they should take the opportunity to gate to a nearby ice planet — which Eli jokingly refers to as “Hoth” — to search for usable ice as a water source.
Using million-year-old spacesuits they found aboard the Destiny, Col. Young and 1st Lt. Scott use the stargate to check out the icy planet, which is very hostile and tremors frequently. While they are gone, Col. Young leaves 1st Lt. Johansen in charge of the crew. She tells Master Sgt. Greer to start searching for the missing water, just in case.
As she is walking alone down one of the corridors on the ship, an alien life-form much like the one 1st Lt. Scott saw on the desert planet in the previous episode appears. It assumes the form of a mirror image of her but suddenly disappears again when Master Sgt. Greer calls for her over the radio.
On the ice planet, Young and Scott finally come across some usable ice, but have no way to transport it to back to the Destiny. Eli, with his seemingly limitless creativity, creates a sort of hover-sled for the two to transport the ice. They begin to load ice onto the sled to send it back to the stargate as quickly as they can before they either run out of air or their ship leaves the system.
Johansen tells Greer and Rush what she saw in the corridor and they decide to try and find the alien life form, which might be responsible for the loss of water. Before they can find it, however, one of the military crew spots it on the ship and opens fire on it with his sidearm. Unsurprisingly the creature is not at all fazed by his attack and in return attacks him, mortally wounding the soldier.
Greer’s response to the life form’s attack on the soldier is to fashion a flamethrower and go hunting for it, but Johansen tells him to use caution, as Scott said the creature on the planet was more helpful than harmful to him.
Meanwhile on the planet, Scott and Young continue to cut away at the ice with plasma cutters to bring it back to the Destiny. While walking towards the hover-sled, however, Scott falls through the ice and becomes wedged in a crevice underneath it. Although Col. Young attempts to rescue him, he cannot free him from the ice.
While the team scrambles to capture and eject the creature from the ship to save their water supply, Scott discovers that his suit is slowly losing pressure and before long he loses consciousness. In a race to save his life, Young continues his struggle to free Scott from the ice to no avail.
Aboard the Destiny, the crew finally captures the creature by luring it into a container of water and decides to send it through the stargate to eject it from the ship. Scott is finally freed from the crevice when a tremor on the planet shifts the ice, and Col. Young is able to pull him back to the surface.
As they reach the gate on the planet, the team aboard Destiny sends the captured creature through. It escapes upon reaching the other side. Before the gate shuts down, Col. Young and 1st Lt. Scott quickly make their way through the gate to the ship.
Although they were able to scavenge a small amount of the ice, the crew still does not have enough water to sustain them. The episode ends with Col. Young in a state of distress, the situation clearly starting to take its toll on him.
