Chapter Text
Enterprise 2.0
Season 1, Episode 1: "Beta One"
Based on an original script “Broken Bow”
by Brannon Braga & Rick Berman
Script treatment by
D. F. Scott
For Katerina
who has shown me the greatest journey
™ & © 2026 CBS Studios Inc. © 2026 Paramount Pictures Corporation. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved. This is a fan-related work. No infringement of CBS Studios’ or Paramount’s Copyrights is intended, and no profit is taken.
Act I
1. Visual Effect – Outer Space, Starfield
A few seconds of absolute peace, interrupted by the gravelly voice of a statesman, aged perhaps 80 years.
Old Archer (v.o.)
Space... is not what I expected.
(FX) TUMBLING THROUGH SPACE
[MUSIC: “The Longest March” by David Bennett]
As if our camera got knocked by someone’s elbow, we lose our bearing, and take several somersaults. Earth’s moon sneaks into the picture, then gets lost.
OLD ARCHER (V.O., cont’d)
Sure, I grew up in space. Everyone’s seen the pictures of me joyously bouncing away at the inside of a cargo capsule when I was about three, like an electron inside an atom.
(FX) Earth from high orbit
We regain our bearing, bringing Earth back into the picture. We’re about 10,000 miles above the surface.
OLD ARCHER (V.O., cont’d)
I was just as much at home in zero-G as a whalefish at the bottom of the ocean. Home for me was wherever my father was at the time, and just as often as not, Dad was in space.
Jump Cut to:
From some 5,000 miles above, we notice Earth doesn’t look quite like what we might expect. There are sand-colored pock-marks spotting the eastern half of North America.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
Part of me believed Dad built space to be his own personal workshop. I started piloting our shuttle to and from orbit when I was fourteen, the way you’d commute to and from work.
The western half of the continent is parched and grey. And the Great Lakes have been bunched together into one lake.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
To me, Dad was Zeus, he was Apollo, he crafted the very stars with the fire from his voice. And if people didn’t pay him the proper tribute and acknowledge space was his personal universe, I’d take offense.
JUMP CUT TO:
About 2,000 miles, confirming our suspicion that North America has changed. Occasionally our view is obstructed by some piece of dark junk like a floating cataract.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
I mean, wasn’t it obvious? Was everyone a fool? Couldn’t they see? Earth had one starship. One, and Dad built it. Okay, so it never left our solar system.
We’re peering at the ground from about 1,200 nautical miles in orbit. Some of the sandiest areas are scorched as if by colossal cigarettes. A coppery fleck, like a piece of metal leaf catching the sun, flickers at us like a distant signal.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
But then he and I built the second one together. A much safer one this time. Okay, so no one would let us launch that one either, but Dad promised it would happen someday.
Closer now, and the fleck has form: a disk like a commemorative coin, with two long tubes strutting out from one side, attached to a displaced cylinder like a life support system.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
He declared it from the mountaintop. He was a minister of God, after all. Whosoever would dare doubt his word and summon his wrath?
2. Int. enterprise Techlab – (FX) earth from starboard window
Closer still, but the fleck is now gone. Reflections on the glass we’re peering through now inform us we’re inside a room. One reflection in that glass is the face of Col. Jonathan ARCHER, a man built by God to be sculpted by lesser men. His reflection shows he’s looking intently at specific points in North America, as though if he were to look askance for one moment, they’d blow away. We orbit his face awhile, as though he were Earth’s counterpart and the two were bound together.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
And then one day Dad stopped. He handed me his keys. He turned over the deed to the gates of heaven itself - the chariot of everyone’s collective dreams and fervent prayers – to me. Of the one-point-eight billion human beings left on planet Earth, I was now singularly relevant. I was the one person with his own starship. My own escape plan. My Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. My personal one-way ticket out of hell, should it come to that.
CAMERA roams around Techlab, and it’s kind of a mess. There are half-completed experiments everywhere – open containers, sealed containers, odd bits of computer-like equipment. We SEE compartments and aquariums where various Earth creatures roam – garter snakes, rabbits, carp.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
Now, suddenly, space was space. Thousands of worlds beyond Neptune. News of civilizations that weren’t human. Whose wars were never our wars. Whose histories were their own. Whose lives bore no resemblance to ours. Whose beliefs aren’t our beliefs. Whose gods weren’t Italian Renaissance models with silken hair and flowing beards, and who spoke neither Latin nor English.
CAMERA comes around full-circle to reveal the back of ARCHER’s head at the window. He’s wearing a gold, collared short-sleeve top and a black ball cap.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
Not like home at all. Nothing like what I was led to believe. Space was a gut-punch.
Archer
(staccato)
Three... two...
Old Archer (V.O.)
I was not ready.
As ARCHER turns around briskly and professionally, acting on his own cue, we see on his cap his mission badge, accompanied by ENTERPRISE NX-01. His face is the stuff that coins are made of. He looks into his own camera, and speaks to it like it’s his best friend. His hands are half his voice.
Archer
Hi, Yayuk in Bandung, Indonesia. It’s Colonel Archer on the Starship Enterprise. Yes, you noticed correctly, we did add these protruding pipes, right near the vents on the back of the engine nacelles. And you’re right on the money: They are indeed passive intercoolers.
You see, the rear of the nacelle is the hottest area. It’s where the neutrons are expelled and the catalysts are recaptured. So guess what, the coolers... get hot. Our chief engineer, Trip Tucker, figured, why not pipe that coolant through the coldest thing there is, which is... space.
JUMP CUT TO:
ARCHER is standing by the same window, and makes the same turn toward his camera (not ours).
ARCHER (Cont’d)
Hi, New Harvest Primary School in Bellevue, Nebraska! It’s Colonel Archer on the Enterprise. Shout out to Mr. Corvin and Ms. Ali-mak-
(screws up the name)
Ali-may – shoot.
ARCHER turns to face the window again.
Archer (Cont’d)
Three... two...
(turns toward his camera)
Hi, New Harvest Primary School in Bellevue, Nebraska!
JUMP CUT TO:
ARCHER is facing the window. And here we go again.
Archer (Cont’d)
Three... two...
(turns toward his camera)
Hi, 3-D-Viper-5, it’s Jonathan Archer. Listen, I feel you. I know you’re frustrated. Boy, do we all ever get frustrated up here sometimes. But as I tell the whole crew, and I’m sure we all stand together on this: We’re not a political mission.
3. (FX) Ext. outside enterprise Techlab Window
From the opposite side of the window, we can just make out the profile of ARCHER speaking into his camera. We see the coppery frame of the titular vessel, and get a sense for the first time just how big, or small, this ship really is. It’s being held in place by five semi-circular docking clamps attached to a smaller, cylindrical space station, whose dull grey distinguishes it from the gleaming, polished starship. Below it is the pock-marked blue planet, bathed in sunlight.
TITLES appear softly, one line revealing the next, as though sunbeams were illuminating them in turn.
TITLE OVER:
Interplanetary Space Vehicle ENTERPRISE
United Earth Space Registry Number NX-01
In geostationary orbit
421 km altitude over the Atlantic Ocean
Thursday, April 8, 2151
0907 hours CCT
Archer (V.O., Cont’d)
The moment we make politics part of who we are, we lose touch with the bigger mission, the one that deals with you and me.
TITLES gently fade leaving the word ENTERPRISE to shine on its own.
Archer (V.O., Cont’d)
Yes, we need to boldly go, but then we need to boldly come back. And come back smarter, maybe wiser, ready to do what we need to do to repair our planet.
Opening TITLES continue. CAMERA pans away from the Earth and sweeps over the ship, giving us our first profile view of Enterprise NX-01 in a geostationary orbit. As ARCHER continues speaking, we hear the voice of OLD ARCHER, speaking as though he’s watching with us, telling us what he wishes we could see.
OLD ARCHER (V.O.)
How many times over these last decades I’ve looked into the mirror, wishing that man I expected to see – so untethered, so straightforward -
CAMERA continues panning to the left. As our view skims across the port side of the ship, it catches sight of a foreign, flaming pinprick gliding just into the horizon.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
- so eager to play out every act from the beginning, word-for-word, never willing to skip ahead to the final act and the moral of the story -
4. (FX) Ext. outside ship, looking through window towards archer
ARCHER continues explaining something really important and really fun to his camera, as though he’s not the only one in the room.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
– that man you see today on the oversized bronze statues, could talk to me again, just for a minute or two, while I try to recall where I left my good face, and explain it all from the beginning.
Jump cut to:
5. (FX) Ext. above earth, re-entering object on fire
Cutting a path over the equator and heading north toward the Gulf of Mexico, this fiery spark singes the atmosphere like a blowtorch cutting through a metal wall.
Jump cut to:
6. Int. enterprise Techlab – (FX) earth from starboard window
ARCHER is still pretty much where he was.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
With his hands swarming about like he’s spinning cotton candy. And those eyes whose tomorrows look less like my yesterdays. What happened to you, Colonel Jonathan Archer? God, do I miss you.
Archer
(into his camera)
No, erecting a canopy over your tree like the one over your porch or your sidewalk doesn’t help. Trees still need the sun.
Jump cut to:
7. (FX) Ext. POV just above re-entering object on fire
It could be a flaming asteroid. But then it sheds several polygon-shaped covers to reveal something bright white, like the origin of fire itself. SOUND for the first time of a million nails on chalkboard.
Jump cut to:
8. Int. enterprise Techlab – close-up archer
Archer (cont’d)
(same angle, this time somberly)
I understand what you and your family must be going through. All of us share in the sorrow you feel now.
Jump cut to:
Archer (cont’d)
(in mid-sentence, professorially)
- all of us -
Jump cut to:
Archer (cont’d)
(in mid-thought, sweetly)
All of us –
Jump cut to:
Archer (cont’d)
(inspiringly)
All of us -
Jump cut to:
Archer (cont’d)
(sincerely)
You have... a gift. Something all of us would be blessed to have. What defines you as a person is not how many bushels you bring in, or how many metric tons you’ve shipped. Just that you have this gift at all... is what makes you human.
Jump cut to:
Archer (Cont’d)
(jocularly, in mid-sentence)
Differential spectrographic collimated interferometer.
Jump cut to:
Archer (Cont’d)
Double-quadrature phase transition.
Jump cut to:
Archer (Cont’d)
Quantum stable field.
Jump cut to:
Archer (Cont’d)
Epidermal enhancement. Otherwise known as, yes, paint. That grade of paint does damage the atmosphere. I concede that point. But we used –
The lights dim in the room for a second, then come back up.
Archer (Cont’d)
- that... wait. Okay, sorry, electrical fault. Looks like we’re okay. We used that paint up here, on the ship, above the atmosphere where it can’t do any harm. And the more we use up here, the less that toxic material gets used by mistake down there.
9. Int. enterprise, deck D corridor, floor level
CAMERA is inches behind the scuffed work boots and tattered leggings of Capt. Charles “Trip” TUCKER, United Earth Space Guard Corps of Engineers. He’s marching as best he can through a corridor that is barely four feet wide.
As TUCKER steps over the rudely protruding lip of an open hatchway, CAMERA rises to meet his face. He’s a thin, limber, well-groomed man with pleasant features, southern mannerisms, and a flare for chivalry. He’s wearing a red short-sleeve shirt bearing a white cartoon drawing of the Corps’ bulldog mascot carrying a wrench and a laser torch, with white letters over the chest reading, “Redshirts Go FIRST!”
People working in this area with tools and machinery have to suck their guts in and stand to one side, including specialist Georg PRECHTL, who’s taller than most folks, and who doesn’t need to suck in a gut he doesn’t have. TUCKER has the easy, slightly slurred speech pattern of a Floridian, perhaps part-Seminole.
Prechtl (O.S.)
Hey, Trip. Didn’t see you.
Tucker
You’re fine, Georg. Sorry. Comin’ through.
At the end of the hallway is a closed metal hatch labeled, along the wall, “Techlab 2.” With the business end of a screwdriver, he raps loudly on the door.
10. Int. enterprise Techlab – (FX) earth from starboard window
It’s a small ship, so the noise penetrates. ARCHER persists.
Jump Cut to:
Archer (Cont’d)
When will we launch, for real? Well, Sondra, we’re not going to lie to you. We have to be vigilant and find –
(inhales, then loudly)
I’m recording here, Trip!
Tucker (O.S.)
(shouting through closed door)
We’ve only got a half-hour left in the deployment window, Colonel. You told me, drag you out o’ there if I had to, that’s what I’m doin’.
ARCHER walks over to his miniature camera, mounted on a tripod, shuts it off, then flips the manual latch and, with a bit of effort, slides the door open. It’s not automatic.
11. Int. Enterprise D-DECK corridor, tucker and archer
It’s a four-foot-wide passageway, segmented by hatchways with six-inch-high hurdles for your feet and only five feet of head clearance. Walking through it is like playing hopscotch inside a drinking straw. It’s not wide enough for two people, let alone carrying luggage, so one steps ahead of the other.
Archer
Aye, aye, Captain Tucker.
ARCHER exits the Techlab hatch, which he leaves open.
Tucker
Hey. Your orders, at oh-five-forty-five this morning. I quote: “One hour, no longer, yank me outta there.”
TUCKER marches forward through the “corridor” in front of ARCHER, because there’s no room for two men side-by-side. CAMERA moves on a dolly over people’s heads because there’s not enough room.
Archer
That was not an hour.
Tucker
No, it was not an hour. It was ninety-three minutes.
Archer
(embarrassed)
Oh, for heaven’s sake!
Tucker
Your fans’ll wait for you. They’ll love you even more when you finish installing this telescope you’ve been promisin’ them all season.
Archer
It’s a differential spectrographic collimated interferometer.
Tucker
It’s a telescope. You know you give yourself a little smile every time you say that technobabble name right? I’ve seen you practice it in the mirror.
Archer
(royal accent)
Our audience demands transparenc-ey. Accurac-ey. Clarit-ey.
Tucker
Your audience would love you just the same if you called the thing by the name God gave it rather than the one we gave it.
12. (fx) Ext. Earth from just above cloud level – day
As the descending object cuts into the atmosphere, the plume it leaves switches from bright white to smoky charcoal.
Old Archer (V.O.)
“A frontiersman,” the novelist Zane Gray once wrote, “must take his choice of succumbing or cutting his way through flesh and bone.
At OLD ARCHER’s next words, the object does something a comet wouldn’t: change course, like a pinball against a bumper.
Old Archer (V.O.)
“Blood will be spilled; if not yours, then your foe’s.”
13. (FX) ext. Re-entry from ground level - day
From the deck of a refit offshore oil rig, we see a mostly clear sky over the ocean, cut by a strange grey contrail that corkscrews and weaves, the way a meteor doesn’t.
Old Archer (V.o., cont’d)
(normal tone)
I read Zane Gray as a boy. Part of my mom’s collection of printed 20th century books. Gray wrote about how settlers of European origin expanded their territorial borders westward. Unilaterally, of course.
From a few miles over Earth, we SEE the object bobbing and weaving, its contrail like ice fragments from a skater’s boot.
Old Archer (V.o., cont’d)
They booted out all the people who had lived in North America for generations. This was back when Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo were places you could visit without scuba gear.
14. (FX) Ext. enterprise orbiting earth
Attached to the underside of the ship like a bug is a maintenance vessel that’s mostly a transparent globe. ARCHER and TUCKER are snugly seated inside. Below the ship, the object continues cutting through the Gulf skies.
Tucker
(over radio)
[beep] Techlab, Termite One. [beep]
Ciesielski (V.O.)
(over radio)
[beep] Termite One, Techlab. You are five-by-five and we see your heartbeat. [beep]
Tucker
(over radio)
[beep] Roger, J.B., switching to secure channel. [beep]
15. (FX) Ext. beside re-entering object
We’re just feet away from this thing now, and it appears to be a cuboctahedron. But it’s loud, and with as much fire blazing from all sides, there’s still no way to discern what it is.
16. (FX) Computer Graph of atmospheric plot
[MUSIC: “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago, mid-song, moderate volume, through the vessel’s speakers.]
We SEE a computer-generated graph depicting something descending into an atmosphere. But by the look of these canyons, it’s soon clear to us this isn’t Earth.
Archer (O.S.)
Hel-l-o-o-o-o, Neptune.
17. Int. Termite, ARcher and tucker
ARCHER is peering through a visor that appears to have been borrowed from a submarine periscope.
TUCKER
Neptune? Hell, Colonel, you can pick up galaxies with this thing!
Archer
Always loved Neptune. Beautiful, icy blue giant. Like a favorite champion marble I kept as a kid.
Tucker
Look, you say the word and this big ship we’re parked next to? It could have you standing on Neptune in six minutes flat.
(after a moment)
We could go there, hop out the hatchway, check out the weather, hop back in, get home in time for kickoff.
ARCHER is lost in an astronomer’s reverie.
Ciesielski (V.O.)
(on radio, matter-of-factly)
I take it he’s found Neptune.
Tucker
Two hundred years of the manned space program, and the guy’s out here starin’ through a freakin’ telescope.
18. (FX) EARTH from 100 miles
We’re over Canada looking due south. The atmosphere is striped and glowing blue-green. A white streak tears diagonally downward toward North America.
Then a young woman’s face, half the size of the planet, lowers itself inquisitively toward the blue ball, as though it were stitched together and she noticed a seam ripping loose. Illuminated by an unseen light source, she is heavenly, a vision of a goddess.
CAMERA pulls back to reveal she is indeed a woman. We can see now she’s been peering over a 3D holographic plot of Earth.
19. Int. UESPA Control, close-up awan
Sadia AWAN is a ground-based flight dynamics officer (FIDO). Her complexion is ivory, and her hair is silken, long, and dark. As CAMERA pans back we see she’s at Mission Control. It’s a moderately-sized control room, like God’s own reserve data center, jammed with enough equipment that you could easily trip over some of it if you didn’t watch your own feet while walking.
REVERSE ANGLE AWAN
TITLE OVER:
LILIAN A. SLOANE UESPA SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
San Francisco, California
April 8, 2151
0924 hours CCT
Behind AWAN are several console positions, only one of which is presently manned. AWAN whips her head around to study the telemetry posted on the huge screen behind her. CAMERA steps back to frame her in silhouette against a sea of data.
Awan
(to herself)
What the frank do you mean, it’s not there?
(into her radio)
C-Link, FIDO.
A man seated at a station behind her, whose brightly lit callsign reads CLNK, responds.
CLNK
Yes, FIDO?
AWAN
Have they booted up Techlab yet?
CLNK
The D-S-C-I should be live, but I’m not reading any live streams yet.
AWAN
(to herself)
C’mon, Jon. Stop recording your damn fan mail and look out the window of your frank-in’ spaceship.
(to CLNK)
Can we buzz them anyway?
Communications to the ship over an open (“half-duplex”) radio channel are always bookended with [beep] noises.
CLNK
(into his headset)
[beep] Enterprise, Frisco C-Link, copy? [beep]
(confusedly)
I know we calibrated our channels this morning.
AWAN marches towards CLNK’s station, exasperated that she seems to have to do everything herself around here.
20. (FX) Close-up descending object
The fire trail heaves a gust of smoke. It then changes direction as though it were kicked like a soccer ball.
21. (fx) ground level, gulf of mexico beach - day
The silver streak is clearly visible from the ground, and beach combers are pointing toward it. Some are frightened by it, having seen missiles too many times before. The thing zooms across the sky way faster than any plane, and everything and everyone illuminated by it cast shadows that zoom along the ground like children playing hide-and-seek.
Old Archer (V.O.)
I always expected space to be one of Zane Gray’s idealistic frontiers: an untamed wilderness, unclaimed territory ripe for harvesting new resources, new ideas, planting roots for a new country, a new people. Unilaterally, of course.
22. Int. Termite – Archer and Tucker
Archer
Trip, how many planets are there in this solar system again?
Tucker
Well, there used to be nine. I watched a show once with this fellow Henry Archer – you might know him. He said there were nine.
(pauses for effect)
I think I was nine at the time.
Without taking his eyes off the scope, ARCHER tap-tap-taps toward a console he wants TUCKER to re-examine.
TUCKER (cont’d)
Oh. Crap.
TUCKER fiddles with the armature of something that maneuvers the big arms outside the Termite. We HEAR the hydraulic whirr sound.
aRCHER
Yes. There we go. Nine.
Ciesielski (V.O.)
(on radio)
You know, a girl could get hungry out here -
23. Visual effect – Primary hull underside, docked termite
From a descending portion of the Enterprise’s main dish is a porthole from which we see the silhouette of a lady at work.
Ciesielski (V.O., Cont’d)
(on radio)
- for a plate of ham and eggs, over-easy... or whatever ham substitute-
24. Int. Enterprise Techlab, ciesielski at window
Overseeing the installation job is J.B. CIESIELSKI, wearing the blue jumpsuit of UESPA, the civilian space service.
Ciesielski (Cont’d)
- oozes out of the ol’ protein re-sequencer today.
CIESIELSKI is petite, but doesn’t stand or act like it, with strawberry blonde hair tied in the back haphazardly, by someone in a hurry. She could be wearing a gunny sack and still stun anyone with a pulse.
Messages to and from Earth are bookended by mildly screeching beep noises.
Awan (V.O.)
(on radio)
[beep] Enterprise, Frisco FIDO, copy? [beep]
Ciesielski
(to radio)
[beep] Frisco Control, Enterprise One-OPS. Hi, Sadia. You’re five-by-five. Whatcha got for me? [beep]
25. int. uespa control, awan at her console
AWAN’s station is made up of a long, curved monitor, an independent keyboard unit, several wires, some loose paper, and various trinkets that would be decorative if they were straightened up a bit.
AWAN (V.O.)
[beep] Hi, J.B. Listen, I need you to look out your window towards Texas. Tell me whether you have a visual on a possible meteor, or a catastrophic re-entry. We’re getting clear visuals but no corroborating data. [beep]
26. int. Ent. Techlab, wide angle
Techlab is a narrow ring of experiment bays extending from 10 degrees port to 10 degrees starboard, of the underside of the primary hull. CIESIELSKI moves from the port to the starboard side, but it’s an obstacle course.
Ciesielski
(into communicator)
[beep] Checking it now, FIDO. You said negative telemetry on this? Not a scrap of data at all? [beep]
Awan (V.O.)
[beep] Nothing. My tracking scope is clear, but there’s people posting video on the net and it’s showing up in satellite imagery. [beep]
CIESIELSKI takes a portable scope from a compartment the starboard side window. She peers through them and adjusts their focus.
Ciesielski
[beep] Well, don’t worry about it, it’s another fake. You get fakes every hour.
27. (FX) from outside porthole, ciesielski’s face
Ciesielski (Cont’d)
Gulf of Mexico, maybe? Can you estimate its coord -?
(interrupting herself)
Whoa. Strike that, FIDO, I have a clear visual. Damn. Damn! Alert S-G-S-O, tell them to scramble! Get General Forrest on Q-TAC! That could be a hostile incendiary! [beep]
(much faster pace)
Termite, One-OPS. Heads up, guys! I’ve got a visual of a critical re-entry, possible F-E-T, maybe hostile incendiary! Coordinates: Three-zero degrees north, ninety-six west.
28. (Fx) Ext. termite, toward ARCHEr and tucker
We SEE them through the big, pressurized panoramic glass bubble. They scramble to reposition themselves for a better view. ARCHER sees the weird trail and points to it.
Archer
There it is.
(to radio)
Confirming that F-E-T, J.B., stand by.
Tucker
Who the hell south of North America would want to launch just one I-C-B-M?
Archer
If you’re a terrorist and that’s the only one you’ve got, maybe? No, it’s too slow for a missile, way too slow for a meteor.
29. int. termite, behind tucker toward archer
Tucker
There’s a hell of a lot of decomposition. That thing had some mass to it.
Archer
If it had a warhead, it would already have detonated in the atmosphere.
Tucker
Ground sensors have got to have data on this by now. Surely Special Ops has scrambled.
(pauses)
It can’t be a derelict satellite. It keeps altering its heading. It’s under power.
(softly)
A drone bomb? Meson bomb?
Archer
Can’t rule that out yet.
(to radio)
Okay, J.B., log new object as Beta One. Keep the flag field clear for F-E-T status, in case it’s not already registered.
(straightening himself up)
Meanwhile, let’s give our newest technological gizmo here a little beta test, shall we?
Ciesielski (V.O.)
Ah. I get it now. This was all part of your fiendish plan.
Tucker
You finally get your telescope, and you’re not going to point it at the sky?
Archer
(slyly)
You people are about to learn why the D-S-C-I is not a telescope.
ARCHER gives a sly grin, like a magician longing to tell his audience the secrets of his trick, but won’t.
30. Int. UESPA control, crane shot over consoles
AWAN is running back and forth between stations, typing the commands the people who would normally be seated there would enter. From the rear, EMELYANOV (callsign MODO) - a short, chrome-domed, slightly stocky man with a bulldog-like face in a rumpled shirt and lopsided necktie - enters and runs towards the front. He speaks with a metropolitan Russian accent that’s been stomped on by his Brooklyn upbringing.
Emelyanov
Log me in, please, FIDO.
Awan
You’re up now, MODO.
Emelyanov
Thank you. Where are the logs for this object? I asked for logs.
Awan
There are no logs for this object. No live telemetry, nothing with numbers or values. Only visuals.
Emelyanov
I have shown you where trajectory logs are collected and where they are deposited. You should know this.
EMELYANOV points toward an item on her console.
Emelyanov (Cont’d)
Are you using my filters for the log ingress?
Awan
I’m using our filters, yes.
(muttering)
I’m not an idiot.
AWAN droops the corners of her lips like a bulldog, hunches over like EMELYANOV, and bounces like a bobblehead doll.
Emelyanov
(oblivious)
How far out is McGee?
AWAN
He may be still be stuck in a tunnel.
emelyanov
Why that man should insist on relying upon public transportation...?
EMELYANOV dons a headset and twitches a switch.
Emelyanov (Cont’d)
(into headset)
[beep] Enterprise, Frisco MODO. Copy? [beep]
Behind AWAN, marching briskly toward her station, keeping an eye on the big board, is Rihanna MULRENNAN, resource management officer (callsign REMO). Her short, shock-red hair can be seen from space. She gently places a hand on AWAN’s shoulder to avoid startling her.
Mulrennan
Hey, sweetie.
AWAN
Hi.
As MULRENNAN logs in, “REMO” lights up on the back side of her station, facing the big screen up front. MULRENNAN tweaks a few controls.
Ciesielski (V.O.)
[beep] MODO, Enterprise One-OPS. Five-by-five, Vadim. [beep]
Mulrennan
How come I can’t acquire this object on scope? MODO, did you screw up the sat-track again?
Emelyanov
(into radio, over MULRENNAN)
[beep] One-OPS, MODO. Can we interface with any orbital analog cameras pointed at North America, perhaps zoom in on this anomaly? [beep]
Mulrennan
(into her headset)
C-Link, REMO. Refresh the sat-track and put it up on one, please.
C-LNK
On it, REMO.
Mulrennan
Hey, what kind of resolution can we get out of these sat-cams? Maybe this thing’s big enough to cast a shadow?
Emelyanov
We would need algorithmics to detect light wave variations. Certainly feasible, but the training models would need several minutes. We don’t have that much time.
AWAN
How about with triangulation? Suppose we acquire interpolated location and bearing of everyone posting videos from the ground? Cross-reference and overlay it on the sat-track?
reverse-angle ground crew
They’re in front of the huge center screen. (FX) First it shows the western hemisphere, then zooms in over North America, then the Southwest region, passing a bright white marker for the Enterprise along the way. Several circles and ovals mark the areas where satellites should be taking photos. But there are no other indicators. MULRENNAN throws her arms in the air.
Mulrennan
Not a bad idea. But we’d need a translator matrix.
(to EMELYANOV)
You tell me, Vadim, what’s faster? Training models on sun shadows, or a translator matrix for tracking data on ten thousand comm units?
Emelyanov
What matters is the reliability of the results. A shadow track would give us probabilities in the sixty percent range. A cross-triangulation would give us nineties.
Mulrennan
And you happen to know where all that tracking data is sitting in the net? What am I saying, of course you do.
(switching tracks)
Hang on. Where’s all our low-atmosphere drones? Where’s anything besides a stack of amateur photos? Surely we have actual eyes on this thing!
Archer (O.S.)
(over MULRENNAN)
[beep] MODO, Enterprise M-COM. Stand by for a live feed. [beep]
Emelyanov
(into radio)
[beep] Copy that, M-COM. [beep]
(to the room)
Suppose we were to work this problem backwards. If we are not receiving any data, then either someone is filtering us out exclusively, which is impossible, or...
MULRENNAN
Or, no one else is receiving data. And if that’s the case, we should be seeing emergency requests. Panic buttons being pressed.
Awan
Condition Reds all over the continent.
Emelyanov
Except for... anyone who may have expected these events to happen. FIDO, bring up the traffic logs on our servers’ load balancers, please. We should be seeing waves of overflow requests transgressing our networks.
Awan
Shouldn’t take a second.
On a smaller display alongside the largest one, we SEE a moving heuristic plot that looks like an earthquake. Individual staffers are now streaming in, one-by-one, until the control room becomes standing-room-only.
Awan (Cont’d)
(breathlessly)
O-o-h, jeez! Overflows. Denied requests. Everywhere. Load balancers are overloaded.
Emelyanov
Thank you, FIDO. We have an abundance of panic. Now, let’s filter these waves for amplitude. Let’s try to isolate who is panicking the least.
31. (FX) Ext. aereal view of new mexico desert
TITLE OVER:
Shiprock, New Mexico
South Central District, North America
36.47 ° N, 108.41 ° W
April 8, 2151
0928 hours CCT
Shiprock Peak has always looked like something big tried to stab its way from the core of the Earth, and stopped part-way. As we peruse this domestic alien landscape, we HEAR:
Old Archer (V.O.)
In the Twentieth Century, back when there was paper and film, there were about ten thousand stories being told about “alien” invaders. Would-be conquerors. Things from far-off worlds like Mars blazing their own frontiers, staking claims to our world. Unilaterally, of course.
From the right of the monument, a white, javelin-like protrusion cuts into the sky, just a few hundred feet off the surface.
Old Archer (V.O., cont’d)
By the Twenty-First Century, we’d shifted to recording everything electronically. Naturally, most of the “invader” stories we told ourselves, assuming we ever did, were lost. So somehow, we stopped considering the possibility of karma finally coming around and enforcing its justice.
We travel toward this rip in the seam of the sky, as if to intercept it. When we get close enough to it, we SEE it’s a small transport, like an airplane, leaving a vapor trail. The craft passes close enough for us to SEE it’s manned, intact, and clearly flying under guidance.
32. Int. inside UESG transport cabin
It’s loud in here. CAMERA is at the rear of the aircraft, behind two rows of two manned seats. Lighting comes by way of the sun searing through the front windshield, piercing an otherwise dull and dark interior. CAMERA rocks and sways along with the aircraft.
All four occupants are wearing full camouflage headgear, complete with sunshades and ear protectors. You can tell they’re pretty much human from their noses and mouths. Amid the noise, we HEAR the enunciated shouts of a man’s voice amplified by AM radio.
FORREST
(slowly, through radio)
All right, everyone. Our theme for today is minimum panic. The moment we set off our own alarms, we inform an invading force they’ve just struck our jugular.
CAMERA swings over to the left rear chair, at first focusing on its occupant’s right shoulder. There’s a patch sewn on: a blue globe behind a red, Navajo arrowhead pointing up, at the center of which is a five-pointed, comet-like star with a piercing top point. Emblazoned in gold along the bottom of the globe is the Latin inscription, “SINE PARI.” As we SCAN up, we notice three eight-pointed stars on the bearer’s epaulet.
RADIO
(heavy static)
Space Guard Three, please clarify. Are you go or no-go for defense condition elevation?
CAMERA settles back to reveal an ID badge reading “FORREST,” below which are enough colored ribbons to open a fabric store. FORREST leans toward the aisle on his right and taps his colleague on the knee to get her attention.
FORREST
(through radio)
Captain Rossiter, update on time-to-impact?
Khija ROSSITER responds before he can finish, as though he’s asked this same question every thirty seconds. From this angle, we can’t discern much about her except that she’s a lean, mean fighting machine.
Rossiter
(through radio)
Four minutes, forty seconds. Looking at probable impact zone... wait, it’s changed direction again. Now projected for southeast Oklahoma.
RADIO
(over ROSSITER, agitated)
Space Guard Three, do you copy?
FORREST
(to ROSSITER)
Where’s our ground telemetry? Last three invasions, our telemetry went down. We panicked, we lost time, we gave away our hand, and people died. This time, I want them to think we’re eyeballing them directly.
(beat)
Any chance we’re eyeballing them directly?
Rossiter
Coastal Station Alexandria reports visual contact, but negative laser fix.
Forrest
No, no, no. They can’t be telling us something that bright is repelling laser beams! You can’t absorb light, and reflect it at the same time!
Rossiter
I do have visual estimates: Altitude, thirty-five to thirty-eight kilometers; velocity zero-point-eight-two kilometers per second.
Forrest
That’s about twenty times slower than the average meteor. That thing’s gonna start plummeting -
(interrupting himself, to RADIO)
Q-TAC Four, Space Guard Three. No-go. No-go. We sit tight.
(to PILOT)
Corporal, what’s our time-to-arrival?
PILOT
Nine minutes, sir.
FORREST
Five minutes late for us in any event. Lieutenant, divert us due south, take us to U-E-S-G Carswell.
Pilot
General, E-T-A to Carswell is about twenty minutes, sir.
FORREST
Step on it and make it fifteen.
Pilot
Yes, sir.
Forrest
(to ROSSITER)
Captain, contact DOWINTEL Central. Tell them to have Colonel Cavanaugh meet us at Carswell hangar at oh-nine-forty-five.
Rossiter
Sir.
Forrest
Tell him to bring every scrap of telemetry that none of us appear to have.
33. (FX) Ext. white desert sands, CLEAR sky
It’s later in the morning. From the ground, Beta One has descended below the cloud line. It’s as bright as a second sun. A sonic boom confirms its speed, and the coughing hiss in its wake confirms its poor condition.
Old Archer (v.O.)
Before this moment, before April the Eighth, say you were to ask someone from my generation, what does “space” mean to you?
A number of hovering, motorcycle-sized vehicles about 18 inches off the ground zoom below Beta One, following its descent angle as best they can.
Old Archer (v.O.)
For the folks I grew up with, it wasn’t so much about–
(ostentatious affectation)
“Space, the Final Frontier”
(normal)
- as it was about the space you acquire, that you invest in, cultivate, develop.
Beta One veers 15 degrees right, leaving behind a smoke trail like a stunt plane with a blown engine. The interceptors scramble to keep up, coasting out of formation like surfers over a crashing wave.
Old Archer (v.O., cont’d)
Space to spend your next vacation. Or, space to stow all our cubic megatons of toxic trash. Real estate.
(FX) Beta One’s POV of interceptors below
We’re looking down from the side of Beta One as if we’re about to jump out of it. The ground looks like a swath of fabric being punctured from below by a dozen sewing needles, all taking random paths.
Old Archer (v.O., cont’d)
We were running out of real estate. We’d blown a giant hole in our atmosphere. Made a lot of empty space, but you couldn’t live in it, couldn’t build hotels on it, couldn’t charge rent.
A puff of fire erupts from one of these tracks like a bursting kernel of orange popcorn. The other paths blow around it, losing their way, some stopping dead still.
Old Archer (v.O., cont’d)
We melted the ice caps. Boiled the ocean away. We needed space that wasn’t dying. Especially if you’re trying to stabilize your property values. We were playing Monopoly on a board one-third the size. We couldn’t reach “Go” anymore, so we couldn’t depend on collecting our two-hundred dollars every round.
(FX) ground-level, smoke plumes from crashed interceptors
We’re looking up at Beta One from the ground. Some vehicles have traveled on, while others have stopped to rescue those that crashed. A black smoke column rises into nothingness.
Old Archer (v.O., cont’d)
Park Place and Boardwalk were gone, and there was only one railroad. So the whole strategy changed. Streets and avenues became overrated. The property you needed now, if you’re still in the game, was Electric Company.
34. (FX) Approaching enterprise from below
We’re looking up at the ship a few hundred yards away, with all of space behind it. If you were expecting a big fuselage on the underside of this vessel, it’s not there.
35. Int. Enterprise techlab, wide angle towards windows
CIESIELSKI is no longer alone here. There are several more personnel booting up their stations, some at the long starboard window trying to take measurements of Beta One. PRECHTL is clearing a variety of unidentifiable items off of a duty station, like they’ve been there for months.
Ciesielski
What are we still waiting for, Colonel?
Archer (V.O.)
(from radio)
Laser collimation sequence, J.B., it’ll be another minute.
Ciesielski
Wonder what Galileo Galilei would be doing while he waited for laser collimation.
reverse angle ciesielski
She’s trying to scan out the window through a pair of binoculars, but she’s having trouble seeing around her team’s heads.
ciesielski (cont’d)
Beta One is still clearly visible. But my people here are saying it’s making course adjustments. So what the hell are we looking at?
Tucker (V.O.)
(over radio)
I still think we should rule out a derelict satellite. Your typical derelict is way up high in graveyard orbit.
36. Int termite, tucker in profile
Tucker (Cont’d)
It’s geostationary. It’d have to have plummeted straight down a few hundred miles. That takes rocket power, and a derelict would’ve dumped all its fuel years ago. Besides, once it hit the mesosphere, it would’ve disintegrated.
swing back to include archer
Archer
You’re forgetting, Trip: During the war, the Eastern Coalition used electric ion propulsion. After the ceasefire —
TUCKER thinks ARCHER’s idea is silly.
Tucker
(interrupting)
Electric ion? I could carry an electric ion thruster in one hand! It wouldn’t have enough shielding to sustain re-entry! It would have incinerated way back over Venezuela!
Archer
I’m saying, someone might have gotten away with saving up just enough fuel for an ignition, if not a controlled burn.
Tucker
We’ve already drained every dead bird in the sky!
Archer
Every single one? Really?
Tucker
Corps of Engineers accounted for every one. Visually.
Archer
You got a better theory, I’m listening.
Tucker
(using his hands)
I’m thinking Beta One launched from the ground, maybe Brazil, maybe further south. Anti-gravity drone with a large payload, could still be a small enough form factor to escape detection. Escapes the mesosphere, but enters orbital trajectory too soon, smacks back against the mesosphere, then starts burning up.
Archer
What’s its target altitude? Even an anti-grav has to build up orbital momentum through the stratosphere. If momentum fails, they’d abort.
Ciesielski (V.O.)
(over radio)
Listen, boys, boys. I’ve got an alternate theory for you: Suppose you were an F‑E‑T alien species. You’ve planted an asset in orbit around a planet you haven’t yet declared hostile.
37. Int. techlab, close-up ciesielski
Ciesielski (Cont’d)
Maybe it looks like a derelict satellite, so we’d ignore it. For reasons you can’t explain, that asset starts falling into the atmosphere of the planet you’re surveilling. So you order up whatever camouflage that’s available to you. Maybe a smokescreen? Big ball of fire? Corkscrew re-entry pattern?
38. Int. termite, close-up archer
ARCHER and TUCKER both understand quite thoroughly the words that CIESIELSKI is carefully avoiding saying over an open radio.
Ciesielski (V.O., cont’D)
Now, if that’s a plausible scenario for you fellas, then who knows what we’re looking at? A failing surveillance monitor? Or maybe a meson bomb?
Archer
Or. Or... we could be the victims of someone’s clever act of misdirection. Beta One might not be anything but a fireworks show. Something to take our eyes off of something a lot more important.
A nice, chirpy sequence of tones emits from the DSCI controls.
Archer (Cont’d)
Okay, finally.
(into radio)
J.B., we’re online. Confirm acquisition of signal, please.
(beat)
By the way, have you heard any traffic about an intruder alert? DefCon warning?
CiesielskI (V.O.)
(from radio)
Negative, Colonel. Nika tells me air defense frequencies are all jammed with voice traffic, but no one’s raised the global alert levels yet.
Tucker
If S-G-S-O hasn’t scrambled an interceptor squadron, Colonel? They must have some active theory about what this thing is, and they’re holding off.
39. (Fx) atop transmitter relay station, paris, texas
Several hundred feet over the Great Plains is a communications relay, looking like an overgrowth of mushrooms atop the trunk of a giant, dead tree. We’re near the top of this complex, looking due south. Floating in place inside their own safe, gravity-defying work pods are three mechanics trying to make their communications network work again.
Old Archer
So what’s our next stop after Earth? Where do all the Earthlings go?
(singing)
“Long time passing...”
(normal)
Well, we hadn’t been too many other places.
From the distance, an object brighter than the sun zooms towards them, perhaps not all that fast, coughing a terrible plume of dark grey smoke, though not making much sound yet. As it nears the mechanics, they point their equipment towards it, trying to take pictures and sensor readings. We HEAR faint whoops and hollers of amazement.
Old Archer (v.O., cont’d)
We landed the Eagle on the moon in 1969. Erected a tennis court on Mars in 2041. Inadvertently built a landing pad for the Vulcans in 2063.
Reverse angle relay station
As the comet-like object passes over them, their whooping continues as though someone brought them their own personal fireworks show.
Old Archer (v.O., cont’d)
Opened up a resort hotel orbiting Neptune in 2138. Plenty of real estate.
That is, if you don’t mind reducing all of humanity to about thirteen hundred head. Not exactly Noah’s Ark.
40. Int. UESPA control, Lüdecke’s POV
Dashing in from the rear entrance of the control room, parking his bicycle against the wall, and removing his bicycle helmet is Eike LÜDECKE, telemetry and guidance systems officer - a young fellow in shirtsleeves with a curly nest of sandy hair and a fuzzy beard. He takes his station, which lights up with the callsign TELX.
Lüdecke
Hey. I made it. Where’s Owen?
Awan
M-I-A. Still stuck in the tunnel.
LÜDECKE
Geez! What is Owen’s obsession with taking the freakin’ tram?
As LÜDECKE takes his station, CAMERA whips back to center on EMELYANOV.
Emelyanov
REMO, what does Algorithmics tell you we should be seeing?
Mulrennan
Clean air. Unobstructed traffic. Birds – the living variety.
EMELYANOV studies several rows full of raw digits.
EMELYANOV
Those clean air scans have repeating patterns. That’s fake white noise. Someone or something is patching that data in, in real time. If Algorithmics was in proper working order, it would tell us we’re looking at an algorithm. What we’re looking for, is a person.
Awan
What are you saying, Vadim? Every ground scanner on the continent is guilty of sabotage?
emelyanov
It could be some sort of coordinated invasion drill, but then, why wouldn’t S-G-S-O have coordinated with us, instead of keeping us in the dark?
AWAN wishes she hadn’t tripped EMELYANOV’s cynicism circuit.
Mulrennan
Coordination. Yeah. Like the military’s any good with that.
41. (Fx) Ext. termite, ARCHEr and tucker in window
CiesielskI (V.o.)
Negative confirmation from any ground stations. They’re telling me I’m not looking at it. I am looking at it! You Can See It!
Archer
Trip, check me up on input channel three. Is that...?
Tucker
(discovering something)
Wh-h-hoa!
Archer
That’s a life sign.
Tucker
There’s a living pilot on that!
Archer
(to radio)
One-OPS, data confirms Beta One F-E-T is a manned vehicle. At least one living occupant, exact count indeterminate, species indeterminate.
Tucker
Surely he’s broadcast a mayday signal.
Ciesielski (V.O.)
(over TUCKER)
Copy that, Beta One manned vehicle. I’m sending an emergency ground rescue request now. Tell you what, I’ll alert the Science Exchange. They should have assets in North Texas. They may be able to coordinate first response.
Archer
(to radio)
Good idea. J.B. That’ll minimize the chances of civilian government leaks, if we keep government out of this.
Tucker
Tell me, Colonel, do you recall Species Alpha ever assaulting us with manned artillery?
Archer
Not with drones? Manned bombs, “baka bombs,” cherry blossoms like mid-twentieth century warfare? Never.
Tucker
So, good news, Beta One’s not ballistic. Bad news, it’s a small spacecraft. Too small to have been launched by anything other than, one, Earth; or two, a larger spacecraft with an interstellar drive component. We need to be scanning the exosphere.
42. (FX) Int. enterprise techlab, ciesielski in front of window
CIESIELSKI is joined in Techlab by Specialist Amanika MAGOHA. Her complexion is polished mahogany, and she wears a brightly colored head scarf that adorns her like a garden.
Ciesielski
I’m hearin’ you, Trip. Nika’s here. I’ve called Travis in. We’ll fire up the spectrum discriminators, see if there’s any orbital traffic we’re missing on our scanners.
Tucker (O.S.)
We’re looking for something at least the size of the Enterprise.
Awan (v.O.)
(from radio, stepping on TUCKER)
[beep] Be advised, One-OPS. Beta One’s trajectory has stabilized. Beginning plummeting descent. It’s not targeting –
The lights dim again, this time to just one or two candle-power. We see dark, silhouetted heads against the blue marble of Earth. Folks here express their disgust in a wonderful variety of ways.
Ciesielski
(banging on her console)
Oh shit, shit, shit, no! Not now!
(into radio, frantically)
Termite, have you got power? Colonel? Trip?
Magoha
Transmitter’s rebooting. Again.
(typing new commands)
Sadia’s probably panicking. Again.
Ciesielski
(banging again)
Stupid colossal flying saucer piece of...
(into radio, frantically)
Flight Control, Enterprise, copy? Flight Control, Enterprise One-OPS, copy?
43. int. UESPA Control, down first aisle
C-LNK (O.S.)
Lost contact!
AWAN (O.S.)
(full volume)
Jesus James Christ!
EMELYANOV’s fury is always a bit subdued, like a rumbling volcano that hasn’t blown its top yet.
Emelyanov (O.S.)
They’re rebooting Archer’s God-forsaken Frankenstein server array. Give it ten seconds.
(beat)
I have accounted for every derelict satellite in the sky. Where the damn hell is McGee?
44. Ext. conroe farm - day
TITLE OVER:
Broken Bow, Oklahoma
Southwestern District, North America
33.59 ° N, 94.45 ° W
April 8, 2151
0934 hours CCT
Like the fire from a dragon without the dragon, the coughing, black smoke streak is only a few hundred feet overhead. CAMERA tracks it, and we SEE a deep, green wheatfield, some medium elm trees, and a gravel road.
Old Archer (v.O.)
The first volume of human history ends here. Volume Two begins in about thirty seconds.
It’s a sizable farm complex, with three rows of long, semi-transparent greenhouses for nursing seedlings and making compost and fertilizers. Headed slowly towards us is a vehicle still recognizable as a tractor, pulling toward a silver covered barn.
The tractor stops just in front of us. Stepping out of the cabin is JULIE, a fit working lady, slightly past middle-age, in denim work gear and a star-spangled head scarf.
Old Archer (v.O., cont’d)
It is April the Eighth, 2151. Three-point-eight kilometers northeast of a little farming town called Broken Bow, Oklahoma.
JULIE takes out a flat communicator, which beeps.
JULIE
(to her comm)
Morgan, it’s Julie. Some kind of bright airborne object up here, bright as hell, coughing smoke! It’ll crash soon, if it’s in the suburbs, there’s gonna be casualties.
JULIE takes off in a mad dash toward her house.
Julie (cont’d)
Sound bomb shelter warnings! Get everyone’s families to safety stations! Have all units meet me at Station Three in five!
45. (FX) aerial 200 ft. over open field
The earth here is red and meticulously combed into horizontal rows, awaiting planting. Over a tree line, the grey, coughing, spent beast, no longer bright, barely misses a row of oaks, and smashes into the Earth. It carries too much momentum to stop, so it bounces a hundred feet into the air. It keeps bouncing, spinning so fast that nothing appears to slow it down.
(fx) alongside beta one, just above ground level
Our view is about 10 meters east of the object, now rolling north-northwest like an atomic meatball, kicking up plumes of red dust. It bowls clean through a covered shed before we can even make out what it was, then strikes the edge of a raised road, kicking it back up into the air twenty feet.
(fX) opposite side of road
The meatball flies over our head. We follow it as it strikes the ground again, rolling ahead into an untilled field of brush.
(fx) alongside beta one, just above ground level
It may be rolling slower now. It plows through a razor wire fence, uprooting the whole thing. As the fence is dragged along, it picks up brush and vines, and spins it back into the mass of the object. Now Beta One is a green, vegetation-covered fuzzball.
(fX) Aerial shot 500 feet over parking lot
There’s a farm equipment dealer, whose inventory is neatly parked outside. The ground shows the plume trail of Beta One headed straight for a row of combine harvesters.
(FX) ground level below harvester
They’re several tons of steel, but they can’t stand a chance against this earth-covered tarball. Beta One knocks them aside like toys. ANGLE REVERSES to show it rolling below our horizon.
(fx) alongside beta one, just above ground level
Rolling down a hill gives Beta One the one thing it didn’t really need: more momentum. Now it’s hopping along like a basketball, rudely denting the earth as it continues. We see the shattered splinters from what were once trees, as it blindly barrels through.
Dry RAVINE, ground level, close-up toad
A well-formed toad, minding his own business, sits atop dry driftwood in a creek bed. Behind him is a CRASH, which makes him hop out of our view, revealing a 20-foot-deep ravine. Beta One sails overhead as though it will jump this chasm.
Then CAMERA whips right to show the hill on the other side is 40 feet high, and Beta One has no choice but to smash hard into it. The ground shakes, and we shake with it. The scene becomes engulfed in red dust. Nothing explodes.
opposite end of creek bed
The earth pushes forward several feet, uprooting vegetation and felling trees, their root balls heaving upward. A rolling carpet of red junk obscures our view. An orange glow emerges from behind the junk, and we HEAR the snapping cracks of an emerging fire.
(fx) aerial shot of beta one track
From 500 ft. high, where there’s occasional clouds obscuring us, we SEE a gash in the earth several miles long, and some small fires popping up in the brush in the craft’s wake. Those combine harvesters were wasted.
46. (FX) INFRARED SCAN OF crash site
Our view of the crash site is replaced with an electronic scan of the same area. Moving tick-marks on the scan indicate someone is searching for something but not finding it yet.
Archer (O.S.)
Negative for radioactives. Just
debris now. Definitely artificial, traces of ores, forged metal, incendiary liquids, expelled gasses.
47. Int. termite, behind tucker and archer
Tucker
Life signs look like they’ve vanished. Whoever was cooped up in that thing was either cooked like an egg or bailed out.
Archer
If he bailed, we’d have seen something. Unless he just jumped into a tall tree.
Ciesielski (V.O.)
(from radio)
S-G-S-O squadron leader says Beta One followed an irregularly winding descent path. When it went down, it dropped like a stone, then it rolled for about three kilometers before winding up lodged in a dry creek bed. Several small brush fires, no major explosions.
Archer
All right, J.B., copy these coordinates, please: Thirty-three-point-nine north, ninety-four-point-six west.
Ciesielski (V.O.)
Copy that, Colonel. Space Guard reports they have now begun compiling Beta One flight telemetry.
ARCHER types those coordinates in and adjusts his scan.
Archer
What, it took S-G-S-O fifteen minutes to reboot their servers? Did they explain the delay?
ciesielski (V.O.)
Do they ever explain their delays?
Tucker
If someone did want to launch an invasion, today would’ve been a pretty good day.
Archer
Whoever piloted this thing might have given his life to unearth that one little fact.
Tucker
No way his friends haven’t picked up on it now. They can literally see the truth from space.
ARCHER starts packing up to return to his ship.
Archer
(to radio)
All right, J.B., the D-S-C-I is fully interfaced now. Let’s cancel egress and transfer controls to Techlab. We’re headed back in.
Ciesielski (V.O.)
Roger that, Colonel, we’ll prep the hangar.
48. (FX) aerial From 1,000 ft., crash site below
As if we’re in a helicopter, we travel past the initial gash in the earth, on our way to a farming complex in the distance we recognize for its three long composting buildings. CAMERA ZOOMS towards this complex, which comes in grainy before being electronically enhanced. It’s still a long ways away.
49. Ext. Conroe farm - day
SOUND of nearby electronic air raid sirens. A purple monster truck with six wheels (four in the back), adorned near the rear with the waving Stars and Stripes, tears out of the tractor shed, kicking up white dust from the gravel. It pulls into the gravel road headed south towards town.
pan to gravel road, treeline in the distance
There’s a row of tall evergreens lined up outside a bend in the gravel road. Behind it, we see the strangely corkscrewing contrail from Beta One’s descent, and a small plume of black smoke in the far distance.
quick zoom – klaang silhouette
Amid the trees is the silhouette of a very large, shirtless man with long dreadlocks and, judging from his shape, not a half-ounce of fat. As the man, KLAANG, steps into the light, we immediately see enough of his washboard-like forehead and impossibly broad shoulders to surmise that he’s Klingon.
Zoom out toward farmhouse
Absolutely uninjured and paying no attention to the truck, KLAANG sprints the hundred-yard distance towards the farmhouse.
50. Inside Julie’s truck cabin
From her windshield, we can see KLAANG is running right towards her, as fast as a motorcycle. JULIE slams on the brakes, rolls down her window, sticks her head out, and yells:
Julie
Hey! Hey!! What the frank kind o’ stunt you think you’re-
KLAANG dodges her truck to the right. CAMERA wheels around to follow him as he heads straight for her house.
Reverse angle julie
JULIE throws open her cabin door and leaps out.
JULIE (Cont’d)
Hey!! You! You’re not just going to walk into my house!
From a compartment behind her seat, she pulls out one hell of a long shotgun. Seeing KLAANG isn’t slowing down, she aims it into the air, cocks it, and fires. It’s louder than Beta One.
Julie (Cont’d)
Stop!! Now!
Reverse angle, julie towards klaang
KLAANG does stop running, and turns around in a carefree fashion, scared of nothing. He appears to see JULIE’s shotgun, then lets out a laugh worthy of Klingon opera.
Zoom in klaang
It’s as if he’s never seen a projectile firearm outside of a history book until this moment. It’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen.
reverse angle, klaang along road towards julie
KLAANG turns back around and resumes his run.
Julie (Cont’d)
(in the distance)
Stop!!!
JULIE aims for his feet and fires again. But KLAANG is already thirty feet ahead of where the bullet ricochets.
JULIE starts running after him, reloading her rifle along the way. But he’s easily three times faster. CAMERA follows him backwards as he finds the big shed and darts towards cover like a fox dodging a forest fire.
In a moment, JULIE catches up with us. But rather than follow KLAANG inside the shed, she runs through the patio inside her house.
51. Int./ext. farmhouse kitchen
It’s a well-used, but cared for, kitchen, from whose windows we can see the tractor shed. From elsewhere we HEAR a thud, followed by something sliding and another thud. JULIE hears it and freezes for a few seconds. Then she drops to the ground flat, laying her rifle next to her. She scoots toward the safety of a china cabinet, nudging her rifle towards her with her knee along the way.
At the china cabinet, JULIE assumes a squatting position, tucking the shotgun under her right arm. Reaching inside the lower drawer of the cabinet, she retrieves something resembling a grey spray paint can. She bites off the top of the can, then counts silently to 3 and hurls it outside.
Staying low, JULIE runs to the opposite side of the open door, then crouches down and covers her ears. A bright, crackling BANG, but no damage. Soon we HEAR a hiss and see a plume of artificially blue smoke, which soon occludes our view of everything.
We HEAR JULIE breathing through a cloth. Sensing no bears or coyotes, she starts to head outside and scout for damage. As she steps out the open sliding door, she senses someone behind her.
JULIE pauses, listens a moment, and grips her rifle a bit more tightly. Then in an instant, she does an amateurish but competent forward roll, emerging facing the opposite direction.
angle - Julie’s end of door, toward klaang
JULIE finds herself staring at KLAANG, standing upright against the side of the house, but not in an offensive position. He’s wearing one of her denim work skirts, and boy, does it ever not fit.
KLAANG is making gestures that, to JULIE, look like charades. He opens his mouth wide, slaps it with one hand, then slices that hand crosswise with the other.
angle – klaang’s end toward julie
JULIE
Is that your sign for “Hello” or...?
angle - Julie’s end of door, toward klaang
KLAANG repeats the gesture more forcefully; it must mean, “Shut the f*** up.” The rifle’s pointed at him, but he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care.
angle – Julie’s and Klaang’s profiles staring at each other
Tipping his (huge) forehead down to suggest danger, KLAANG stabs the air with his finger in two places in the distance. JULIE sees that cranium of his for the first time.
JULIE (Cont’d)
(astonished)
What... are...
At this, KLAANG thrusts his outstretched palm toward JULIE’s mouth with force enough to smack her against the wall if it struck. But his palm stops one centimeter short and freezes there. He’s not going to hurt her.
JULIE examines KLAANG’s hand like one studies a painting. The emotion sweeping over her now is something other than fear.
Julie (cont’d)
(whispering, slow)
...you?
They stay that way for a few seconds, just studying one another.
MORGAN (V.O.)
(from radio)
Julie, we’re here. It’s been ten minutes, where are you?
Startled, JULIE fumbles the rifle. KLAANG panics, not knowing where the sound is coming from.
angle – toward garage entry door
KLAANG grabs JULIE under the shoulders, lifts her vertically two feet, and carefully repositions her inside the kitchen as though she were a mannequin. She’s not hurt.
Mindlessly, KLAANG picks up JULIE’s rifle and hands it to her. She offers it back to him. He waves it away, then she taps him on the arm and repeats the gesture.
Julie
(slowly, emphatically)
I trust you.
KLAANG takes the rifle, looks it over, then rejects it with disgust like a boy with a broccoli sandwich. He then carefully steps one foot outside.
52. Ext./int. tractor shed to kitchen from farm service road
We just make out KLAANG emerging from the kitchen door in the distance. CAMERA drops below the surface of the edge of the wheat field to reveal, just in front of us, the profile of a blue humanoid (SH’VEA 1) crouched down like a sprinter at the gates. We only see his face, and (FX) it’s like blueberry gelatin.
CAMERA pans to reveal KLAANG in the distance. Seeing a crack in the concrete patio beneath his feet, with a succession of kicks that could be felt in China, KLAANG breaks free a chunk the size of a bowling ball. With his bare fingers, he pries the chunk loose from the ground. Making sure he has clearance behind him, he hurdles it shot-put style. It sails through the air like it was catapulted.
53. Int. farmhouse patio, close-up julie
A few seconds later we HEAR a wail like a wounded bobcat. JULIE cringes in part-sympathy, part-astonishment. That’s not an animal she’s heard before.
behind julie, past kitchen toward staircase
KLAANG runs back inside and bolts upstairs. Along the way, the torn denim skirt gets left behind. That’s not what JULIE’s looking at right now.
JULIE
(to radio)
Hang on, Morgan, there’s a man in my house.
MORGAN (V.O.)
A man? Julie, you need help? We’re two minutes out!
JULIE follows KLAANG upstairs.
54. Int. Upstairs Bedroom
KLAANG may be running for his life, but he’s not in such a hurry that he can’t find some decent clothes first. He rifles through a drawer and finds blue jeans. They don’t fit in the legs. JULIE walks in behind him, entranced.
Julie
(to radio)
Well, okay, maybe not really a man.
MORGAN (V.O.)
What d’ya mean, is it a man, a bear, what is it?
55. Ext. front patio, toward second story
Though KLAANG’s fast, he’s careful to open the window he could have just crashed through. He crawls out, then leaps to the ground like a mountain lion and takes off running. He leaves JULIE standing behind in the window.
Zoom in on julie
Julie
(astonished)
He’s like how God should-a made man the first time.
56. Visual Effect – Underside of Enterprise docked
The Termite has already docked and a piece of it is visible in the light of the open hangar. The hatch doors are closing behind it.
57. Int. Enterprise Hangar Bay
The room is no larger than a hotel’s indoor swimming area. ARCHER and TUCKER have already stepped out from the Termite onto the steel deck plates, which lead to upward stairs. CIESIELSKI enters and leans over a rail towards them, as TUCKER and ARCHER ascend the stairs.
Archer
Has the impact zone been evacuated?
Ciesielski
Pretty much the opposite. The locals sounded warning sirens, then everyone got in their trucks and followed the big plume of smoke.
Tucker
Protecting their homeland from the first invaders they’ve seen in over a decade. They were hungry for an invasion. At last they’ve got someone they can shoot at.
Archer
So how secure is the site now? Any way to know?
Ciesielski
Well, the fire’s been extinguished. Nothing exploded, no injuries reported on the ground. Quite a few trees flattened.
Archer
Has the Science Exchange shown up yet?
Ciesielski
No indication. But everyone else has, and they’re all jockeying for supremacy. Global Security, local security, regional security.
Tucker
With that much security, no way it’ll be secure.
Ciesielski
Space Guard, as always, will be the last on the scene. Until then, it’s looking like the hucksters and sight-seers are in charge, maybe a dozen protesters.
58. Int. Enterprise D-Deck Corridor
CIESIELSKI walks ahead, followed by ARCHER, then TUCKER, since there’s no space for two people to walk side-by-side. CAMERA follows in reverse angle just in front of CIESIELSKI.
Tucker
Great. If we want a sample from the wreckage, we’ll have to go down there and buy it at auction.
Archer
We need to know who’s going to be standing their ground when the Vulcans show up. If this scene becomes chaotic, Vulcan will want to step in and mediate.
Ciesielski
Oh, let’s be honest, Jon. Vulcan could “step in and mediate” for any reason they’d pull out of their asses. Evidence of Species Alpha? Maybe civil uprising? Killer bees? Vulcan doesn’t have to be standing there, smelling the tear gas, to declare a global emergency and suspend us all for three more years.
Tucker
Eleven years since the war, and here we are, still waiting on Vulcan to tell us how to respond. Whether to respond. Whatever happened to all that planetary unity?
ARCHER halts his march forward. In this very narrow corridor, he whips completely around like a Wimbledon spectator to face TUCKER, then whips back to face CIESIELSKI.
Archer
(to TUCKER)
Hang on, Trip.
(to CIESIELSKI)
What about soft data? Observations? Gut feelings?
Ciesielski
Nika’s been monitoring radio traffic. Civil Air Defense has been scrambling and re-scrambling their comm signatures, so any signal that does come through only lasts for about three seconds.
Archer
What are they saying? Anything?
Ciesielski
Nika believes, though she can’t say for certain yet... Beta One evaded all of Earth’s missile locks and countermeasures.
CIESIELSKI resumes marching forward, leading the men behind her.
Archer
What about shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles? You can fire them just by pulling the trigger, you don’t need weapons lock.
Ciesielski
Nobody’s mentioned missiles.
Tucker
That descent path was over Texas, right?
Ciesielski
Right.
Tucker
Nobody flies so much as a hang glider over Texas without being shot down by a missile.
They reach the Techlab sliding door, which has been left open because it’s a hassle to remember to slide it closed all the time.
Ciesielski
Who knows, maybe a missile did hit it. Who could tell with all the smoke?
Tucker
There’s no way a target leaving a smoke trail five hundred K long could evade a laser-guided, camera-assisted drone.
ARCHER has a realization, and his attitude goes dark like a dying flashbulb.
Archer
Unless someone’s playing with dark gravity. Bending photons. Who do we know who’s tried bending light waves?
TUCKER and CIESIELSKI come to the realization simultaneously.
TUCKER
(big exhale)
Species Alpha.
CIESIELSKI
(over TUCKER)
Alpha. Oh, Christ.
Archer
We can rule out Beta One generating enough power to bend its own light. If it had that level of power, it would’ve pulled off an anti-grav-assisted landing instead of crashing.
Tucker
So once again, I’m telling you. We’re looking for something big, at high elevation or in low orbit.
Ciesielski
A mothership.
Tucker
A mother of a ship.
Archer
It could be smaller.
Tucker
Smaller? And interstellar?
A moment’s pause as the mood gets even darker.
Ciesielski
That’d be worse, wouldn’t it?
CIESIELSKI finds her seat at the center table, [FX] above which floats a slowly rotating wireframe map of Earth, with a bright white NX-01 floating above the Equator.
Ciesielski (Cont’d)
So... if we don’t know what we’re looking for, then what do we start looking for? What’s our first guess? And will this new telescope you’ve been fawning over even help us?
ARCHER finds a seat beside her, TUCKER remains standing. Seated at a console with his back turned to us for now is MAYWEATHER.
Archer
It’s not a telescope, J.B.
Ciesielski
(a little miffed)
What the hell difference does it make what I call it, Jon?
Archer
A lot more than you think. What you’re calling a “telescope” is really an interferometer. It measures the dynamics of incoming light waves by bombarding those waves with positively charged ions.
CIESIELSKI holds up a hand.
Ciesielski
Okay, wait, Jon. I’m a geologist. I need you to go a little slower with this.
ARCHER is accustomed to being a teacher, but CIESIELSKI can be one stubborn pupil. So he gets out his hands and draws images for her in open space.
Archer
You see, all a telescope needs to see the universe is a set of lenses. It’s perfectly passive, because all the lenses need to do is keep bending the paths of photons until our eyes can make sense of the pattern.
Tucker
A differential interferometer is an active scanning device. It beams positively charged ions into the light waves.
Archer
Right, and then it can determine what types of molecules it’s looking at by measuring the disturbances from those waves.
(to TUCKER)
See, you know what the D-S-C-I is, Trip. Why do you keep calling it a telescope?
TUCKER
(never giving up)
It’s a long, retractable metal tube that traps light waves. If Galileo Galilei were standing here, with us, he’d call that dang thing a telescope.
While the boys are arguing, CIESIELSKI thinks she’s clued into something.
Ciesielski
Guys, can it a second.
(beat)
I think I see what you’re saying, Jon. This active sensor device sends out particles. Which makes it in one sense a telescope, but in another sense a searchlight.
Archer
Right!
Ciesielski
We turn it on, and we send a signal to anyone with their eyes on us that we’re looking for something.
Tucker
Exactly. And if they’ve got their own telescope, or searchlight, just like ours, then they can use filters to tune in our signal and find out exactly what we’re trying to search for.
Archer
Let’s say we believe this mothership has duranium plating. Well, we can scan for duranium.
Tucker
Perhaps its ion reaction exhaust is full of spent neutrinos. We can look for those.
Archer
But we have to bombard the wave with the right signals. And that bombardment could be picked up by anyone who has their own interferometer. So they’d know the profile of what we’re scanning for.
shoulder-level on ciesielski towards mayweather
MAYWEATHER still has his back turned to us. CIESIELSKI is assembling these facts in her head layer by layer, like a great geologist.
Ciesielski
Okay. Okay. So if someone out there can plainly see we’re searching for them, or something that we think fits their profile... then why is that a bad thing?
Tucker
Because everyone can see what we’re looking for.
Ciesielski
Everyone, including Vulcans.
Archer
Especially Vulcans.
Ciesielski
So anything we scan for... gives Vulcan reason to believe we think it’s up here.
Tucker
Right. And if we start actively scanning for Species Alpha, that’s the ball game.
Archer
Vulcan would shut us down and claim they were “protecting” us. In the name of the Solar Protectorate and Terran safety, they’d suspend every manned space operation beyond the lowest level of the troposphere.
Tucker
Yep.
Ciesielski
Okay, guys, I get it. But Jon, you didn’t think of this when you installed the thing?
ARCHER had prepared an answer, but he pauses himself.
close-up ciesielski
The light from the rotating wireframe globe is catching CIESIELSKI’s face in precisely the right way. Rembrandt would be spellbound.
ciesielski (cont’d)
I mean, think about it. You’ve told everyone on Planet Earth, including the non-humans, that the purpose of the Enterprise is to search for new life.
(beat)
We’re out here in space, in the dark. Anybody visiting us with an ounce of good sense would have to know, if we’re doing business in the dark, we have to have some kind of searchlight to seek out who’s out there. Or interferometer, or telescope, or whatever.
(beat)
If we’re not searching for anyone out here, especially an hour or so after we’ve just been pelted by an alien lander, doesn’t that make us look more suspicious than if we reveal to the universe that we’re looking for something big with duranium plating?
TUCKER and ARCHER look at each other awhile, sending their own signals with their eyes.
Tucker
She’s got a hell of a point, Colonel.
Ciesielski
Look, we’re eleven years out from a war where we lost more than half of Earth on account of alien bombardments! If we’re not scanning for Alpha ships, then how stupid will anyone out there think we are?
TUCKER gets a very dark look.
Tucker
Wait a second. Let’s flip this around. If the Vulcan installations aren’t scanning for Alpha ships...?
ARCHER picks up on this.
Archer
It’d be because they don’t need to. They already know.
Tucker
How stupid would they expect us to think they are?
Archer
(deep inhale)
People, we’re being tested. Somebody out there, if they’re as smart as J.B. -
Tucker
Colonel, that kinda creature hasn’t evolved yet.
Archer
Please excuse me, I do stand corrected, if they’re half as smart as J.B., they’re watching us for our next move. They want to know how much we know about our galaxy.
Tucker
Are we really as stupid as we look?
Archer
Or do we know enough now about Species Alpha that we can spot their identities on a map? Vulcan has all the data on the state of our galaxy – physical, chemical, political, sociological.
Tucker
Vulcan knows who Species Alpha is. They’ve probably always known. Their planet or planets of origin.
Ciesielski
They know exactly how hard it would be to tell humans and Alphans apart in a dark room.
Tucker
Or Vulcans and Alphans apart.
Archer
If Vulcan had already categorically ruled out Species Alpha as Beta One’s origin, then they would have to possess the data to have made that deduction.
Tucker
So what’s Vulcan’s strongest negotiating position? If they look like they do possess that data?
Ciesielski
They won’t rule them out, Jon. That would tip their hand. They’ll leave Alpha in the picture as suspects.
Tucker
So Vulcan would act like they don’t possess the data. Can they bluff like that?
slow zoom archer
Archer
If they could? Then everything they’ve told us up to now is a baldfaced lie.
Behind ARCHER, MAYWEATHER wheels his chair around and makes a stunning announcement:
Mayweather
Col. Archer! Confirmed alien contact, live, on the ground, three humanoid F‑E‑Ts in foot pursuit!
He had ARCHER at “alien contact.” They all rise so fast and clamor over MAYWEATHER’s console that they collide with one another and nearly kiss the desk plates.
59. Ext. crane shot 50 feet above wheat field, descending
KLAANG is charging toward us like a freight train. He’s faster than SH’VEA 1 and SH’VEA 2 pursuing him. As they run, they leave trails behind them in the wheat field; and as both SH’VEA fire, they leave scorch marks in the wheat like Etch-a-Sketch lines.
JUMP Cut to:
CAMERA is three feet ahead of KLAANG, who has come upon a raised gravel road leading to a trio of grain silos. He’s at full thrust, and he expects his slower pursuers to take the road. As soon as they do, (FX) they fire, but he jumps off and rolls several feet downhill.
60. (FX) Ext. Alongside gravel road
Not all trucks in this era have wheels, and the one which KLAANG is nearly outrunning does not. But the driver notices KLAANG to the truck’s right, slows down, and shouts out the cabin window.
Behind KLAANG about 50 yards is SH’VEA 2, wearing charcoal grey one-piece tights that reveal parts of his glassy, aquamarine blue skin. He’s actually starting to catch up, and SH’VEA 1 is coming into the clear behind him.
KLAANG checks behind himself to make sure his pursuers are in line. They’re firing, but he dodges each shot as though he sensed their fire in advance.
Once KLAANG notices that SH’VEA 2 is ahead of the truck, he dives to the right in front of the truck. DRIVER shouts something profane that we can’t hear.
Being an anti-grav truck, it avoids striking KLAANG by pulling up in the air four feet. SH’VEA 1 fires, causing a ricochet that bounces up into the undercarriage. As SH’VEA 2 dives right, the truck stalls like a biplane, and smashes nose-down into SH’VEA 2, (FX) squashing him like a pillow.
Beside stalled truck
The truck skids to a stop, and its DRIVER pops out of the cabin. He’s expecting to examine an injured or dead body, but instead SH’VEA 2 rolls to one side, (FX) arises to a standing position like a retrieved marionette, and takes off running behind SH’VEA 1.
DRIVER
(mutters incomprehensibly)
SH’VEA 2 leaves behind maybe a pint of a blue, translucent gel, which DRIVER wipes off his front bumper. He takes a flat communicator out of his pocket.
Driver
(into radio)
Morgan... I just ran into some kind of blue Vulcan, but he took off running after this other Vulcan dude, huge, body like a bull!
61. (FX) Int. Enterprise Techlab – Overhead Scan
At the bottom of the scan is the truck. DRIVER is in front of it, indicated by a bright orange tick mark. A blue tick mark has taken off into the field with two green ones in pursuit. They’re so fast that the scan has to zoom itself out to keep everyone in frame.
Tucker (O.S.)
Wait, did that guy just get back up?
Mayweather (O.S.)
Still got a heartbeat for him, steady rhythm.
MAYWEATHER points out a trail that looks like steam puffing from a train.
Mayweather (O.s., Cont’d)
See these? Warm air trails. Notice the undulations? Those are respiratory functions. Exhales.
Pull back to reveal Archer, Tucker, Mayweather, Ciesielski
Lt. Travis MAYWEATHER is dressed in a blue civilian jumpsuit similar to CIESIELSKI’s. He’s a living recruiting poster for the space service, with a face like every mother’s dream for her daughter.
Ciesielski
You are recording this?
Mayweather
(sarcastically)
Live aliens in an Oklahoma wheat field? Nah, the Colonel won’t want them in the show.
ARCHER smacks MAYWEATHER’s shoulder lightly.
Archer
What, are you kidding? For once, this week’s episode comes to us. Put this plot up on the table, please.
MAYWEATHER makes a couple of taps.
(FX) toward table with 3D projection
It’s an octagonal table about the right size for poker. Just above it, appears a copy of his console display. Vector-like lines appear in 3D in the air to identify each life sign.
Mayweather
(talking as he goes)
Blue Guy’s body heat indicates methane but not ethylene, so he’s not quite human. Green Guys are emanating nitrogen, they’re almost not humanoid.
All four take up positions around the table, as CAMERA orbits it to study each person.
Tucker
In the War with Alpha, we never got one clue as to their... heart rhythms, breathing patterns, shoe sizes.
ARCHER crouches down closer.
Archer
Neither of these species are Alpha.
Ciesielski
What makes you certain, Jon?
Archer
Eighteen million active combatants faced down Species Alpha, and the only thing any of us learned about what they looked like was, they’re humanoid. Any one of them left exposed would immolate himself rather than be photographed or sensor-imaged.
(indicating green spots)
These three are running out in the open on a planet crawling with satellites.
Ciesielski
All of which appear disabled. How exposed can they be?
Mayweather
I’ve seen school kids play hide-and-seek with better tactics. Blue Guy’s leading them, Green Guys are just following behind.
Archer
(indicating blue spot)
Blue guy is taunting them. He’s drawing their fire.
Ciesielski
The prey is taunting the predator.
Tucker
What I don’t get is how Beta One crashed...
TUCKER operates a control to zoom the display back to a magnification that incorporates the crash site. It takes more than a moment.
Tucker (Cont’d)
...here, and they end up playing Cowboys-and-Indians there? That’s fourteen kilometers, the shortest path cuts through a populated area. What’d they do, hitch a ride? However they got from here to there, they would’ve been spotted.
Archer
I think we can rule out their having bailed from Beta One.
Mayweather
Maybe Beta One wasn’t even their vessel. Maybe it was escorting them and took collateral damage.
Tucker
A mother of a ship, Colonel.
Archer
Whether or not you’re capable of bending dark gravity, you can’t mask air compression patterns from the weather sensors. If there were two vessels, it wouldn’t have mattered whether they were separated by two kilometers or two centimeters, we’d have seen them their contrails, vapor trails, something.
Ciesielski
Something else you can’t mask: pictures of parachutes. Sensor images of parachutes. Anything with a parachute.
CIESIELSKI points to the tail end of Beta One’s journey path.
Ciesielski (cont’d)
Beta One rolled to a stop along a seven-kilometer path. Nobody inside that thing at the time would be in a state to just walk out, let alone run.
Tucker
We saw a pilot. For a few seconds. Maybe he died then. If not, he was certainly killed in the crash.
Archer
We’ll find his remains in the wreckage, then.
Ciesielski
Residual D-N-A, maybe? Assuming they have D-N-A.
Tucker
But if we don’t? At some point, the pilot has to have jumped.
Archer
Then we’d find his body in a field, maybe? Somewhere along the descent path.
Ciesielski
Wouldn’t the D-S-C-I have picked up traces, though? I mean, it locked onto these F-E-Ts like they were quasars or something. If the pilot can’t eject safely, what does he do? Blow open his hatch, jump out, and yell, “Geronimo?” Where are their damn parachutes?
Tucker
How would you fit an ejection mechanism... on a capsule or lander small enough to fit into a tool shed?
Mayweather
You’d need, like, jet packs.
Tucker
Right. The volume of those alone would be half of that spacecraft.
Mayweather
Maybe Beta One itself is an ejection mechanism –
(like he’s coining the term)
- kind of an escape pod.
TUCKER
(with added emphasis)
Ejected from an interstellar spacecraft. I’m tellin’ you, we find this thing, we’ll have all our answers.
TUCKER leans into the table. He’s in CIESIELSKI’s airspace, close enough to get a whiff of her perfume. But she doesn’t find this creepy, and her body language shows it.
Tucker
Now, suppose we’re looking for a light-speed vehicle. That’s got a fuel pod, molecular scoop, warp generator. Anyone equipped with resources like those, leaves behind some kind of residual trail. A warp speed signature.
Ciesielski
Like breadcrumbs. Tire tracks. But you’d think if every species out there leaves tracks of where they’ve been, by now they’d have developed some kind of technology that wipes their trails clean. Afterburners? Turbochargers? Something that burns off their residuals.
Mayweather
Okay. Okay, picture this. Suppose their interstellar transport was like a multi-stage rocket. With an interstellar stage that it parks someplace safe when it’s not in use.
Tucker
You’re saying, the big stage doesn’t have to be here in Earth orbit.
Mayweather
Right, it could be... inside the rings of Saturn, maybe? The asteroid belt?
Tucker
So you wouldn’t have to haul your light-speed engines with you.
Mayweather
Right!
Tucker
For every planet in the solar system you’re visiting.
Mayweater
Exactly! The solar stage could use, well, maybe impulse engines? How big are those? Ten, twelve cubic meters?
Tucker
(using his hands)
Okay, but after parking that interstellar stage, they’d have to undock their transit module, and then build up momentum to break orbit from where they parked, and then brake against that momentum to ingress into Earth orbit. We’d be seeing ion trails everywhere.
Ciesielski
Could they have used some kind of passive propulsion system? Say, a solar sail?
Tucker
Maybe, if they don’t mind the size of their sails triggering a lunar eclipse.
Ciesielski
How about Jon’s electric ion generator? That’d be really small, low-power.
Tucker
Not impossible. But then they’d have to be happy with orbital egress taking one or two months.
Mayweather
So we’ve got two possibilities, Colonel. One, our F-E-Ts have got an interstellar drive so advanced, we can’t see their ion trail or warp signature, wherever they parked it.
Archer
Which would be a global security threat.
Mayweather
Two – probably more likely - they’ve got some way of masking their ion trail from us.
Ciesielski
(through her teeth)
Which would be a global security threat.
Archer
Yea, but then why go running out in an open field in plain sight of naked eyes? If they were trying so hard to hide, why blow their cover when they didn’t have to? Travis, I’m thinking it looks more to me like option number one.
Ciesielski
Naked eyes can be discredited. Surely you know that feeling well enough.
Tucker
Raw data, on the other hand, wouldn’t lie. Assuming we had some.
Ciesielski
And that lack of raw data? I’m sorry, but that suggests sabotage to me, which implies accomplices on the ground.
ARCHER likes her last inference.
Archer
No one could have sabotaged the D-S-C-I, we just installed it an hour ago.
(to MAYWEATHER)
Travis, encrypt this live feed, wrap it in a diagnostics dump, route it to Frisco TEL-X. Lüdecke keeps an eye open for this type of stuff. If there’s a rogue filter out there squelching sensor scans, we don’t want it to get trapped.
Mayweather
(already hard at work)
Doing it now.
62. Ext. farmland treeline
A line of tall trees follows a ridge where there used to be a railroad track. Like untrained actors pretending to be superheroes, SH’VEA 1 and SH’VEA 2 climb on top of the ridge. They slink and prance like contemporary dancers.
A SOUND, like a rock banging against metal. SH’VEA 1 and SH’VEA 2 hear it, and leap off the ridge to find an old tin-covered drainage tunnel. They run toward it.
63. Ext. Inside Drainage Tunnel
SH’VEA 2 enters first, crouching down since the tunnel is barely over four feet tall. SH’VEA 1 enters from behind. SH’VEA 2 tests the corrugated metal wall with his knuckle. It makes the same sound as the bang.
SH’VEA 1 finds a hand-sized rock, having just left a fresh imprint in the silt. Sensing something’s amiss, he turns around and exits the tunnel, still crouched down.
cut to:
64. Ext. Outside tunnel – BODY shot Klaang
Quick shot: KLAANG has a five-foot railroad tie in mid-swing, like a baseball bat. It strikes the camera CRACK!
Cut to black
ACT II
SLOW DISSOLVE in:
65. (FX) Int. San Francisco metro station, mid-morning
As if waking from an unconscious state, we SEE from near-ground level several dozen feet, most covered in a variety of different modalities: wet shoes, moccasins, bandages, boots, prosthetics. They are ascending a concrete staircase, illuminated only by something in the far distance.
CAMERA follows the staircase railing to move our view to waist-level. People’s clothes are covered with headgear and protective transparent plastic. Some carry opaque umbrellas, although it is not raining. The brims of people’s hats tend to collide with one another; their owners mindlessly straighten them and move on.
TITLE OVER:
Embarcadero Transport Station
Western District, North America
37.80 ° N, 122.40 ° W
April 8, 2151
0938 hours CCT
Squeezing through the throng is the face of Owen McGEE, a lean, fierce, self-driven man in a dark blue naval aviator’s cap. Like everyone else here, he struggles to maintain his balance. As he comes into full view, we notice he is wearing a respectable, tailored blue suit being protected by an ill-fitting transparent poncho.
As we reach the top of the staircase, instead of the outdoors, we emerge inside a canvas tent. People extract their communication devices, and no two are the same. Some look like science experiments pieced together with aluminum foil; others, from a distance, resemble ham sandwiches. Some folks hold them to their own ears, others in the crook of their armpits, others still with their chins pressed against their shoulders. McGEE fumbles with his own flip-top communicator, which looks like a relic from a sci-fi convention.
McGee
I’m about out –
[repositions]
I’m about out of the tunnel.
[beat]
You got my signal yet? Eike?
Most everyone else emerging from the tunnel is also trying to get a signal. At surface level, we SEE the world covered in a series of eggshell-white canvas caravan tents, forming mile-long hallways shielding the sunlight. As CAMERA finds McGEE’s face, we can ascertain his luck wearing even the nicest clothes rivals that of an eight-year old playing dodgeball in a swamp.
McGee (Cont’d)
Eike? Hello. Don’t hang up. Hello?
Like a wave pushing surfers, a tide of people hurl themselves towards the base of a lamppost to which one of the tents is tied, the top of which rises above a hole in its canvas. The tent is being buffeted like a sail in a windstorm.
Folks clamor to find space to place one of their outstretched hands on a tent pole, making it serve as an antenna to improve their signal. McGEE tries to do the same, but is obstructed by an elderly lady being pulled forward by a trio of semi-realistic, robotic children on reins.
McGee (Cont’d)
Sorry, ma’am. Excuse me. I’m being –
[bump]
- pushed.
(to bystander)
Hey! Watch your hands, fella!
McGEE feels for his wallet and finds it’s still there. Trying to keep himself upright while reaching for the lamppost, he’s knocked to one side by an AD-HAT – a fellow wearing a bright, LED-illuminated cylindrical billboard suspended in an anti-gravity bubble two feet above his head, almost blindingly flashing the message along its marquee, “IMAGINE SUNSHINE!” Escaping meekly through a loudspeaker in his hat, we HEAR a semi-humanoid, repeating chant that brightens the day of perhaps no one: “Happy-happy-happy-hap, happy-happy-happy-hap, happy-happy-happy-hap, happy-happy-hap-hap-hap!” AD-HAT meanders through the crowd like a pinball machine bumper knocked loose.
AD-HAT
(wailing with little breath)
We’re not gonna die.
After space opens up at the lamppost, McGEE extracts from his pocket a sucker-cup on a long, dangly wire attached to his communicator. He licks it, then smacks it onto the lamppost where it sticks.
McGEE (Cont’d)
(into communicator)
Hear me now?
We HEAR the voice of LÜDECKE, along with the digital static that comes from a comm that may as well be a crystal radio set.
LÜDECKE (V.O.)
(from comm, staticky)
Three-by-four, Flight.
McGee
Okay, I’m ten minutes out, what’s the word on ionization? Have we got any detectors in the area?
Lüdecke (V.O.)
We’re getting no reports from radio access networks, Flight. Zero.
AD-HAT (O.S.)
(wailing)
We’re all gonna live!
McGEE sticks a finger in one ear to dull down the sound, zig-zagging through the crowd to find someplace he can’t hear the happy-happy chant.
McGEE
So what happened? Have all the R-A-Ns been fried by a missile or did they just pop offline like someone forgot to pay the comms bill this month?
LÜdecke (V.O.)
They’re offline, Flight. The bug’s on their end for sure.
McGee
For sure? Why, for sure?
Lüdecke (V.o.)
I can’t say.
McGee
(exasperated)
O-o-okay? You know for sure, but you can’t say why you’re sure?
66. Int. UESPA control, lÜdecke at station
LÜDECKE’s personal phone is sleek and sophisticated, like a polished stone.
LÜdecke
(into his phone)
I don’t want to reveal any information on an open line, Flight. We don’t know what buzzers are out there listening in.
McGee (V.O.)
You interrupted my being trapped underground with ten thousand people in candlelight to tell me you can’t tell me what’s happening?
LÜDECKE
Just get here. Just get yourself here.
67. Int./Ext. pedestrian tent trail, McGee at Lamppost
McGee
(pointedly)
I was getting myself there when you signaled me.
(after silence)
Eike?
McGEE gives up on the lamppost and double-marches forward. A wooden barricade obstructs what would otherwise have been a clear, tent-covered way ahead. It supports the remains of an old highway road sign that reads, “Embarcadero.” It’s been crudely repositioned here on makeshift easels, with some of the headlight reflectors still dangling from its letters, and an arrow pointing right. It splits the crowd two directions, and McGEE breaks right.
AD-HAT (O.S.)
(wailing)
There’s hope. There’s still hope.
From a breakaway tent to the right, a rope line has been set up. At the base of this tent is an animated foldout street sign brightly showing, in repeating sequence, 1) an animated faceless smiling mouth; 2) the mouth wide open, revealing an oversized tongue; 3) the word EAT; 4) the word Sprag!
Some folks break into this rope line and hold out what look like identity cards. McGEE follows suit. [FX] From a distance, a laser briefly scans each card. Then a fellow from the back unceremoniously lobs towards each person a silver foil package. McGEE grabs one out of the air, brings it to his face, and opens it with his teeth as he keeps walking. Inside are what appear to be a stash of rainbow-colored, thumb-sized, cylindrically shaped edibles. Folks fiddle with how to eat them, some only having one arm free.
McGEE sniffs his bag to obtain any clue as to this substance’s edibility, and appears skeptical. He then spots TOBÓN, a woman in front of him struggling with a bag with her left arm and her teeth, as she clutches a briefcase in the same hand. He keeps an eye on her in case she needs help, and then notices her right sleeve is completely vacant. Gallantly, he steps in.
McGee
Ma’am, please. Allow me.
TOBÓN gets agitated, embarrassed that she’s drawing attention. He guides her to a lamppost, drops his own gear, and holds out his hand. Self-consciously, she hands him her breakfast bag. With a bit of poorly concealed effort, he makes a neat tear in the top of it, then hands it back to her.
TobóN
Thank you. This is breakfast these days.
McGee
Well, at least they added color. Maybe for the red ones they added flavor.
McGEE retrieves his own bag, and takes a bite of a red one.
McGee (Cont’d)
Hm. Nope.
(chewing, stentorian)
“We’ve eliminated hunger on Planet Earth!”
(normal)
Just like we eliminated poverty.
McGEE lifts up a flap in the canvas and tosses the remainder of the red piece onto the street. TOBÓN reaches for her bag. McGEE starts to give it to her then, deducing she’s a veteran, realizing how awkward this must be for her.
McGee (Cont’d)
Listen, are you headed to the Veterans’ Bureau? I’ll walk with you. They know me there.
Tobón
(self-consciously)
Yeah, uh, assessment meeting, I’m already late. Thanks just the same.
McGee
What, V-A-B hasn’t assigned you a job?
TOBÓN is too self-conscious right now to answer. McGEE tries to break the ice by offering his left hand, seeing as she only has the left hand to shake with.
McGee (Cont’d)
Forgive me, ma’am. I’m Owen McGee. Lieutenant Colonel, Second Marine Expeditionary Force, Reserve.
TOBÓN straightens up upon hearing McGEE’s rank.
TOBÓN
It’s an honor, sir. Master Sergeant Mariana Tobón. Logistics Officer, Third United Earth Cavalry.
Now TOBÓN offers her hand in return.
McGee
Third Cavalry. Were you -?
ToBÓN
(shyly)
I fought at Sioux Falls, sir.
close-up McGee
That explains her arm. And maybe her fractured psyche. He knows how few people returned from that battle.
McGee
Sioux Falls. Jesus.
A very awkward silence for several seconds. TOBÓN starts walking off, despondently, then McGEE follows her.
ToBÓN
Please excuse me, sir.
McGEE
No wait, wait.
TobÓN
Sir, respectfully –
McGee
V-A-B gave you no assignments, whatsoever?
ToBóN
Oh, sure, they did. In freight distribution. I was supposed to get a prosthesis.
She holds out one arm to emphasize the other one’s absence.
McGee
Okay. Sergeant, if you’ll permit me, your day gets better from here, I promise. Come with me to my office, please.
ToBóN
Sir, again respectfully, I don’t... really know you.
McGee
You can trust me, Master Sergeant.
ToBóN
I’m sure I can. Please understand, my two boys and I, we’ve had it up to our necks with charity.
McGEE immediately realizes he has to switch tack.
McGee
(taking command)
Hey. Hey! Soldier? Listen up!
TOBÓN places her heels together, stands more upright, and turn her eyes askance from his.
McGee (Cont’d)
I’m not handing out charity. I’m putting you to work. I’m with the Enterprise Task Force. We’re rebuilding the Great Plains region. I need logistics personnel.
Close-up ToBón
This revelation is like warm sunlight on TOBÓN’s face. She turns to face him, questioningly, as though he’s an apparition that may vanish.
McGee (Cont’d. o.s.)
(reassuringly)
I’m the starship Flight Director and General Manager. My boss is Jonathan Archer.
TOBóN
(after a moment, shyly)
Oh, my god. Sir, I don’t know... It’s been years since I directed operations.
McGee
You just told me the only résumé I need to know. You want a job or not?
ToBón
(astonished)
Yes, sir, I’d be very grateful, but can you even hire me without... a work assignment waiver from the Bureau?
McGee
(resuming his stride)
My Task Force props up California so it doesn’t crumble into the Pacific Ocean. I’ve got more leverage than anyone left on this planet. Walk with me. You said two boys?
TOBÓN takes a moment to think about this. Is this really happening? Then she catches up.
ToBÓN
Rico and Esteban. Eight and five.
McGee
Are they at school?
ToBÓN
Their school hasn’t reopened yet.
McGee
Are they safe? Being looked after?
ToBÓN
Our housing block has a volunteer care unit. But I have to be back for them at one.
McGee
I’ll send a shuttle for them. They’ll be safe. They can join you at the Center.
ToBóN
Um... will they just let you use a fuel-burning shuttle?
McGee
I use fuel-burning rockets; what’s one more shuttle, give or take? Anyway, we’ve got a school on-site. Great kids there. Your boys will love it. Maybe they’ll get a chance to chat with the Enterprise crew today, maybe meet Colonel Archer, maybe J.B. Ciesielski. She’s an angel with the kids.
TOBÓN is on the verge of tears. She stops, despite causing a traffic pile-up behind her. McGEE holds out an arm.
McGEE (Cont’d)
Sergeant? Come on! Stay in formation!
ToBÓn
You don’t understand, sir. I’m just a veteran. I can’t afford a physical school.
McGee
No one’s asking you to. All our employees have their kids there.
ToBÓN
But I’m not a - ... Sir? What did I do... to earn all this?
close-up McGee
McGee
(the utmost sincerity)
Sioux Falls.
CLOSE-up Tobón
It’s as if her old life ended here, like she shed a painful, old skin to reveal a new armor of hope. In a moment, she regains her poise and heads forward. CAMERA lets them walk past us into the distance as they descend down a hill, followed by a sea of poncho wearers trying to eat colored marshmallows from foil pouches while in motion.
(FX) crane shot over san francisco bay
CAMERA escapes like a drone from under the flaps of two tents. As it rises, it’s a cloudless sky and way too bright a morning. We SEE the tent-covered sidewalks of Bay Street, looking out toward the Embarcadero along the bay. There are no motorized vehicles here, only temporary rails which prevent bicyclists, scooters, skateboarders, and roller skaters from colliding with the tents. A structure reminiscent of Coit Tower stands near the site of the old one.
Out in the bay itself, at Pier 27, is a long, silver, battleship-shaped building lined with satellite receivers.
TITLE OVER:
LILIAN A. SLOANE UESPA SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
San Francisco, California
April 8, 2151
0941 hours CCT
68. Int. UESPA control, Lüdecke at station
TITLES stay up for a few seconds more. There’s a few dozen people here now, and a flurry of activity as folks plow into the mystery of the missing logs. Shades on the windows to the lobby outside have been drawn, so no one from outside sees in. CAMERA pans waist-high through the middle aisle, to settle on LÜDECKE, with a pencil absent-mindedly resting atop each ear, and who uses a lot more paper than others.
LÜdecke
(studying his monitor)
Oh, come on! Who’s sending me diagnostics now?
Mulrennan
(over LÜDECKE, into headset)
Alejandro! It’s Rihanna. Listen, have you been seeing this – What? You too? How can everyone’s sensors not be tracking this F-E-T candidate? Who’s masking the signal?
Lüdecke
(into headset, over MULRENNAN)
MODO, TEL-X! Would you at least –
(tossing his headset, to EMELYANOV)
MODO, will you at least give me seventy seconds to boot up backup guidance! I can’t boot diagnostics without a backup.
AWAN
(exasperated, shouting)
Diagnostics? Really? Now? Seriously?
Mulrennan
(shouting back)
It’s not really diagnostics, sweetie.
LÜDECKE leans into his monitor and realizes this isn’t quite what he expected.
LÜDECKe
Oh. Wait. What? What the hell is this? What, are we taking a peek at somebody’s back yard now?
LÜDECKE types a few commands. The Battle of Broken Bow replaces the satellite tracking map on the main screen. It’s zoomed into KLAANG swinging the railroad tie, occasionally connecting with SH’VEA 1 and/or SH’VEA 2 and knocking them to the ground, but not for long.
Mayweather (V.O.)
(from radio)
[beep] Frisco, T-NAC. Please confirm your receipt of diagnostic dump one-four. [beep]
EMELYANOV is feeling embarrassed by this.
Emelyanov
(muttering)
The first opportunity to deploy the D‑S‑C‑I, and they become voyeurs?
(to radio)
[beep] T-NAC, MODO. Explanation of video signal, please. [beep]
MAYWEATHER (V.O.)
(from radio)
[beep] Frisco, request we switch to Q-TAC Four. [beep]
LÜDECKE
Seriously? This warrants we talk on Q-TAC?
Mulrennan
Q-TAC? This looks like a backyard brawl, what’s the big military secret?
EMELYANOV’s embarrassment is converting to disgust. That will change in a moment.
EMELYANOV
(to CLNK)
C-Link, mute the main vox. Switch to Q-TAC Eighteen.
CLNK complies. After switching to a Q-TAC channel, the beeps go away and the sound quality gets a little clearer, like switching from AM to FM. For security reasons, the return channel is always a different number from the one sending.
Emelyanov (Cont’d)
(into radio)
Q-TAC Eighteen, go.
archer (V.O.)
Frisco, M-COM. You are looking at three live humanoid F-E-Ts in hand-to-hand combat.
Upon realizing what they’re witnessing, everyone who was seated stands, slowly, like a new king is being coronated.
Archer (V.O., cont’d)
Two of one species, the other one very different. Completely dissimilar biochemistry. But both check out as non-human on every test battery we’ve run.
Some of the ground crew now treat this as a two-on-one martial arts match, and are wincing and oohing at the connecting blows.
AWAN
M-COM, FIDO. You’re saying these are two species that are both uncatalogued?
Archer (V.O.)
Three aliens in an open field. Forty thousand years of human history without so much as a “how-do-you-do,” and these guys just plop down from the sky and have themselves a slugfest.
69. (FX) ext. old railroad ridge
SH’VEA 1 arises from the ground, marionette-style, with some signs of injury, though they soon disappear. SH’VEA 2 catches one of KLAANG’s swings with two hands. Counter-swinging with force from nowhere, SH’VEA 2 gains control of the railroad tie, and hurls KLAANG into SH’VEA 1’s awaiting arms.
SH’VEA 1 wraps a rubber-like arm around KLAANG’s neck and bends him violently backward. He screams like a Klingon warrior. With his neck near the ground now, KLAANG catapults both legs into the air, balancing on his hands, his total weight in SH’VEA 1’s arms. He scissor-locks SH’VEA 1’s head between his knees, then with the full force of his tremendous legs, wrenches SH’VEA 1’s neck.
Something definitely snaps. SH’VEA 1 slumps. KLAANG tumbles with him, then springs back upright. In that split-second, (OPTICAL) SH’VEA 2 launches the railroad tie into KLAANG’s chest like a rocket-propelled javelin. He’s thrust back ten feet into the riprap.
70. Int. Ent. techlab, mayweather at console
Mayweather
Frisco, T-NAC. Our new D-S-C-I picked up these guys after I applied an F-E-T algorithmic profile to our sensor filters. I was looking for anyone who may have been fleeing Beta One, rather than running towards it. I found these guys within a twenty-K radius of the descent path.
Emelyanov (V.O.)
(from radio)
Twenty kilometers? How far are these F‑E‑Ts from Beta One point of impact?
Mayweather
A bit over fourteen K.
71. Int. UESPA control, emelyanov down aisle towards awan
Folks are still wincing and oo-oo-oohing as the blows and counter-blows are traded, on the big screen in front of them.
Emelyanov
Obviously they could not have fled on foot from the impact point. Have you tracked any parachutes? Any ejection seats? Artifacts?
Mayweather (V.O.)
Negative, MODO. Just Beta One vehicle, and these three guys. We did pick up, briefly, one life sign from Beta One three minutes prior to impact.
Emelyanov
Then there must be at least one other F-E-T vehicle in the vicinity. It is being masked or cloaked somehow, but probably in somebody’s barn.
(to LÜDECKE)
Go out there and find McGee now. Tie reins on him if you have to, and drag him into this building!
Overcome with the rapidly building pressure of the moment, LÜDECKE tears off a piece of paper from one of the 78 or so notepads at his station, and hurriedly writes something on it. He then dashes through the double-doors and towards outside.
72. (FX) ext. Broken Bow old railroad ridge
As KLAANG slumps, SH’VEA 1 picks himself back up. Both SH’VEA reach for their weapons. But KLAANG is dislodging softball-size rocks from the riprap. He launches them like a Howitzer, and both SH’VEA are busy dodging projectiles. SH’VEA 1 goes in for the kill.
Swinging his own arm like a mace, and clutching a rock the size of a cantaloupe, KLAANG strikes SH’VEA 1 across the cheek. With the same motion, Kali Silat-style, KLAANG uses his elbow to disarm SH’VEA 1. With his other hand, KLAANG grabs the weapon from the air, aims it at SH’VEA 2, and pulls the trigger.
Nothing fires. SH’VEA 2 pulls his trigger, only to realize KLAANG has heaved SH’VEA 1 in front of him as a shield. The shot strikes SH’VEA 1 in the back of the shoulder, burning him like a hot skewer in a marshmallow.
KLAANG shoves the weapon into SH’VEA 1’s limp hand. Pressing SH’VEA 1’s skin against the trigger, now it fires, striking SH’VEA 2 right in the neck. The wound spews blue gelatin.
73. (FX) Ext. san francisco pier 27, midday, crane shot
We SEE and HEAR a flock of very healthy seagulls jockeying for position in the air. Behind them, rather than the sky, is an array of large, translucent fabric canopies strung on poles. As CAMERA descends, we SEE kids tossing colored scraps of Sprag towards birds, leaning over one of the temporary railings separating pedestrians from bicyclists.
In the distance, we HEAR a street musician playing a supreme rhythm on some “found” material, such as paint buckets. The collective sound of percussion, seagulls, and children is interrupted by McGEE, who with TOBÓN has found his way into the open, at the crossing across the Embarcadero.
McGEE pushes a segment of railing to one side, then helps TOBÓN through. On the opposite side of the railing, there’s pedestrian and non-motorized vehicle traffic from both directions, so they get whistles, cat-calls, buzzers, bells, and the occasional profanity.
With fewer people on the near side of the street, McGEE finds himself charged by seagulls who notice his open foil bag.
McGee (O.S.)
(to seagulls)
G’won, shoo. Shoo! I got nothin’ you want.
(waving his arms)
Trust me, you don’t want this! You could die if I fed you this crap. The environmentalists would have me hog-tied.
McGEE holds open his half-full bag.
McGee (Cont’d)
I mean, look, would you willingly eat this? It’s like the Easter Bunny threw up.
Approaching McGEE and TOBÓN from across the street is LÜDECKE, panting from having run outside in the heat, having left his bike helmet behind.
LÜdecke
Found you!
LÜDECKE tries to manage traffic, McGEE ignores it. There’s no regular crossing here, so folks take their chances when and where they can. McGEE realizes LÜDECKE is not wearing headgear in the oppressively bright sun, and gives him his hat.
McGee
Here. You shouldn’t be exposed to the sun without a hat or an umbrella.
LÜDECKE
There wasn’t time. I had to find you.
McGee
Don’t ever let people see you without a hat. If they know who you are, they’ll think it’s a sign that the sun’s back to normal now and they’ll take theirs off too.
McGEE takes out his communicator.
McGEE (Cont’d)
You couldn’t just tell me everything over the comm?
LÜDECKE
(snickering)
Heh. It’s a flip-top.
McGEE raises and lowers the gold lid of his communicator.
McGee
Look: on... off. On... off.
LÜDECKE
The lid still works!
McGee
(holds it near his mouth)
And look, you can use your voice.
(demonstrating)
“Mr. McGee, come here, we need you.” You don’t throw something away just because it’s old and out of style -
LÜDECKE snorts, as though he knows the response to that but he also knows better than blurt it out.
McGEE (Cont’d)
- like you would a comb. What?
(rethinking his tack, pointing)
Don’t you dare say what’s on your mind right now.
Lüdecke
There’s even bigger news now, Flight, but I can’t say it here.
McGEE resumes walking toward the main entrance; the others follow.
McGee
Bigger than the nothing you urgently briefed me about five minutes ago, I hope.
LÜDECKE looks askance, meekly, as though he couldn’t have (not) said it better himself.
McGee (Cont’d)
(indicates TOBÓN)
Anyway. Eike, this is Master Sergeant Mariana Tobón. She’ll be our trainee in logistics. Or maybe she’ll be the train-er. Sergeant, this is Eike Lüdecke. He’s one of my flight dynamics officers. Hopefully that fact isn’t too scary, upon hearing it spoken aloud.
LÜDECKE offers her his right hand, she takes it with her left hooked in a 180.
TObóN
(awkwardly)
Hi. It’s okay, I’m used to it. Tell me again, is it “Ike-y?”
LÜdecke
“Ike-eh.”
McGee
You’re lucky to be meeting him today, Sergeant. Usually he’s a fountain of unsolicited information.
(points to a gull)
He probably thinks there could be infra-red sensors on these seagulls.
LÜDECKe
Not infra-red for sure.
McGee
Of course not. I should’ve known that. Well, how about parabolic microphones stapled to their wings?
McGEE relents and tosses bits of his foil pouch contents toward the gulls. They swoop down toward them, then stand beside them on the sidewalk quizzically, and finally fly off without them.
LÜDECKE
Staples would interfere with the antenna. Face it, Flight, you know nothing about electronic surveillance.
McGee
There. Seagull repellant!
They walk past our CAMERA position, and it pivots to follow them. We SEE aluminum letters along the edge of the modern portico of the tinted glass building they’re entering: LILIAN A. SLOANE UESPA SPACE FLIGHT CENTER. In front of it, there’s a giant, polished gunmetal Copernican mobile of the solar system, beneath which are parked about two dozen homeless folks with tarps over their heads or their entire bodies.
74. Int. UESPA space flight center lobby
It’s a repurposed business conference center with a long row of steel-frame glass doors, and a long and vast lobby, capable of sheltering hundreds of people, even though there are only a few dozen here. The interior space is naturally lit, with minimal artificial supplementary light, as is the case with most public buildings nowadays.
There’s a security archway just inside the lobby, with laser lights that scan folks as they pass through. LÜDECKE and McGEE hold out cards as they walk past them; TOBÓN stops first to have her handprint scanned.
Once past the scanner and out into the open, TOBÓN takes a moment to take stock of where she is. She absorbs it all, wide-eyed, like a child. There are exhibits, mobiles, model spaceships, oversized portraits of heroes along the wall: John Glenn, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, Sally Ride, Zefram Cochrane, young Henry Archer, Lilian Sloane (for whom the complex is named), and Jonathan Archer. The people here are busy, active, and engaged with work.
TOBÓN
It’s so wonderful! It’s like I’ve stepped back in time two centuries!
McGEE takes a moment to digest the irony of that statement. LÜDECKE fishes for a piece of paper from his front hip pocket. Once it emerges, it’s like a wad that some schoolkid tossed across the classroom. He hands McGEE this wad like it’s a major award.
McGee (Cont’d)
Good God, we are back in time. We’re writing paper notes to each other now.
McGEE grabs the paper like a sleepy lion pawing a dead antelope. He unwads it, looks down at it, and immediately sighs in despair.
We SEE the note: 3 FET OPEN FIELD
McGEE decides not to mention it aloud, especially if it means what he thinks it does, and at the moment he’s not entirely certain. He gingerly folds the paper as though it might melt.
McGee
(extra-carefully)
Okay, I’ll tell you what. I’d like to help you out with this. First thing, I think we need to get our trainee registered. Could you take her to see Mr. Addison, please?
LÜDECKE
You mean Ms. Goran?
McGEE signals LÜDECKE with his eyes.
McGee
(more distinctly)
I mean Mr. Addison. We could use his help squaring away some... paperwork. You seem to be good with paper today.
The code McGEE is trying to send LÜDECKE, is not finding its way through his thick hair and into his head. He takes LÜDECKE aside while TÓBON is conveniently lost in a reverie.
McGee (Cont’d)
(calmly, clinching the note)
If this means what I think it means, then her intercepting me in the middle of ten thousand people on a crowded walkway, is no coincidence. It’s exactly the type of heart string-pulling stunt G-S-C Director Bertram would pull at a time like this to get one of her agents planted here as a mole.
LÜDECKE
(grinning)
Now who’s the paranoid one?
McGEE notices TOBÓN is dazzled by one of the glass-case exhibits showing ancient space suits. He then slaps LÜDECKE like a wet noodle with the slip of paper.
McGee
Take Sergeant Tobón to Addison. Get her cleared. If she’s clean, I need her in Logistics. Otherwise, I want her shipped back to Elena Bertram in a crate.
(toward TÓBON, holding up a hand)
Sergeant! I’ve got to man Mission Control. Go with Eike, he’ll take care of you. It was delightful meeting you! Looking forward to you joining us!
TOBÓN holds her hand to her heart.
TOBÓN
(almost in tears)
I’m so indebted to you, Colonel McGee! As God is my witness, you won’t regret this!
McGee
Your boys are on their way here now. I’ll look for you at our group meeting! Monday morning, oh-eight-thirty hours!
McGEE heads towards the Mission Control room entrance.
McGee (Cont’d)
(muttering to himself)
“Colonel McGee.”
(a la Scarlett)
“As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again!”
(snickering)
Am I ever the sucker.
There’s a half-flight of stairs leading toward a huge conference room. It’s covered with frosted glass that has fogged itself to prevent people from peeking in. At the door is a security guard who sees McGEE present his badge, and passes him through.
75. Int. UESPA Mission Control, waist-level along center aisle
The flight crew cheers on the fight like it was a boxing match. From one of the consoles, EMELYANOV is having a bit of fun, and perhaps profit.
Emelyanov
Odds on Blue are now three-to-one. Ladies and gentlemen, place your final bets, please.
Following him from the rear, we SEE McGEE barging through the double-doors and marching toward the front of the control room, where The Battle of Broken Bow appears on the big screen. McGEE begins his daily pacing back and forth down the center aisle.
McGee
(shouting)
Good morning, people! Fill me in? What’s the source of this video?
MULRENNAN
The Enterprise. Direct feed.
McGee
They’re not feeding this out unencrypted?
Awan
No, no. Mayweather secured it and tucked it into the D-S-C-I diagnostic feed.
McGee
So this is from the telescope?
Mulrennan
The same channel we’d use if the Enterprise were scanning Sirius 9 or Loracus Prime for alien life. Except it’s set to close proximity. I never expected it would function at this resolution.
From directly beneath the main screen, McGEE makes a sharp half-pirouette like an honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknown. He stretches out his hands like an evangelist pleading for cash.
McGee
Ya know... Does anyone else find it just a tad ironic that Archer, four hundred twenty K in space, sets up a telescope, points it at... the ground, and discovers alien life? That’s one lucky sum-bitch! Let me tell you, if God exists, and she has a favorite, that’s him.
AWAN
Well, Archer began tracking it with the D-S-C-I back when we suspected it could be a ballistic incendiary. At some point, he just happened upon these guys.
The moment she says “ballistic incendiary,” McGEE yanks some of his remaining hairs.
McGee
(livid)
Whoa, whoa, whoa. “Ballistic incendiary?” He was tracking - You were tracking a suspected incendiary?
(to EMELYANOV)
Come on! Vadim, you were tracking a ballistic incendiary and you didn’t signal a defense alert?
Emelyanov
It was negative, Flight. No radiation signatures. Negative geographic guidance patterns.
McGee
Would a masked meson bomb need a guidance pattern? A big enough one could detonate in Greenland and blow out windows in Florida.
Emelyanov
I know a meson bomb’s flight behavior patterns. I know every bomb’s behavior patterns. This was an errant spacecraft.
LÜDECKE dashes in from the rear entrance.
LÜDECKE
Sergeant Tobón is being processed now, Flight.
McGee
(to LÜDECKE, pointing)
You! You ran all the way outside without a hat to not tell me about a possible ballistic incendiary? Why didn’t you write that on your little Dead Sea Scroll there?
LÜDECKE
Vadim cleared it. Trust me, we would have signaled Air Defense!
Emelyanov
(over LÜDECKE)
Beta One was an unregistered re-entry vehicle. We had a positive recording of a single humanoid life sign at mid-mesosphere, but zero life signs by the time it reached stratosphere level.
McGee
That suggests the pilot would have burned alive - Wait, I’m sorry. Enterprise picked up a life sign but not a vehicle profile?
Emelyanov
Enterprise, plus simultaneous resonance recorded from seven separate units. As if some fellow took a dive off the troposphere naked. Yet no laser telemetry, no sonar from the vehicle.
McGee
When you say “no sonar,” that’s analog. What pattern did the resonance present?
Emelyanov
White noise. Spring thunderstorms. However, Sadia did manage something of a miracle.
Awan
I bounced some telecom tracking signals off all the handheld cameras pointed in its direction. So we now know what compass directions they were all facing when they were taking pictures, on X, Y, and Z axes.
McGee
Oh, God love you, Sadia, you’re incredible!
Emelyanov
From FIDO’s heuristics, I have assembled a flight pattern.
McGee
Heuristics. If this had been a hostile incendiary, would we have had time to assemble its trajectory from heuristics?
Emelyanov
(honest shake of his head)
No.
McGee
On the other hand, anyone with enough knowledge to have sabotaged the entire global tracking network, would have to have surmised we’d resort to a secondary data source. Like, say, for instance, ten thousand handheld cameras.
LÜdecke
So, Flight, you’re thinking our sensors weren’t sabotaged?
McGee
It could be mass stupidity. But in my experience, that level of stupidity takes intelligence to pull off. Hundreds of independent systems all go offline simultaneously. Something singular is responsible for that.
(to EMELYANOV)
Tell me you agree.
Emelyanov
System-wide failure isn’t impossible. But it’s the synchronicity of it that bothers me. It’s too well-timed.
McGee
(to EMELYANOV)
Vadim, if you suspect something? Suspect someone? Spit it out.
Emelyanov
I am looking at a cascade failure of satellite relays, the magnitude of which spans this hemisphere. The pattern behind it is systematic, but selective. There is a method behind this.
McGee
What’s the chances of a single network trunk failure? Wouldn’t the repercussions follow a systematic pattern?
Emelyanov
One trunk failure would take down all the data traffic, not just a selected segment of it. The world would be staring at blank comm screens rather than cartoons and pornography. There would be panic in the streets.
McGee
If we weren’t picking up telemetry on Beta One back when it was a possible ballistic incendiary, neither was anybody else. A fact which should induce panic. Why haven’t we gotten calls from Space Guard Intelligence? From DOWINTEL?
Mulrennan
If you want evidence of panic, Flight, we’ve got it. In North Texas, they sounded air raid sirens. Some folks crawled back inside their fallout shelters.
76. Ext. Broken bow old railroad ridge, overhead crane shot
A semi-paved road runs parallel to the raised ridge where the trains used to run. Along this road, a convoy of several farm vehicles and trailers – some with wheels, some without – roll toward the site of the brawl. They’re all overloaded with townspeople, most armed to the teeth with shotguns, ballistics, the occasional shoulder-launched missile, and some seated on crates that probably contain nitro bottles. As we watch them, we HEAR MULRENNAN continue her report:
Mulrennan (V.O., cont’d)
Many of the others have already formed vigilante squads. In Oklahoma, vigilantes chased Beta One in their trucks, their defense gear, and God knows what other army surplus from the last war.
77. Int. UESPA Mission Control, close-up McGee
McGEE bows down, takes some deep breaths, trains his gaze at the big screen, and regains his composure.
McGee
(smacking his fists together)
Okay. Let’s you and me not be the ones who panic here. Let’s reset. Thanks to FIDO, we do have a flight pattern.
McGEE begins marching up and down the center aisle.
McGee (Cont’d)
What’s the distance between our humanoids and the lander – what’s it’s tag again?
AWAN
Beta One.
McGee
Delta between F-E-Ts and Beta One point-of-impact?
AWAN
Fourteen kilometers.
Mulrennan
Eleven-point-one from the nearest point along Beta One descent track.
McGee
Uh-uh. No way. If they’re on foot and that’s their ship, they hitched a ride with someone.
Lüdecke
Not in the same truck, they didn’t. They would have strangled one another. Besides, where would they tell their driver to go? The bus terminal?
McGEE parades down a few rows of consoles, looking over shoulders, trying to spot clues.
McGee
All of us are missing something huge! Whole series of events. Sequences, stages, event patterns, repercussions.
McGEE crouches over his own station, desperately trying out different pairs of glasses to find the one that makes him see the answer to all of this.
McGee (Cont’d)
Where’s all this government surveillance we’re so besieged with? We’ve got thirty-three thousand catalogued satellites, and God knows how many uncatalogued. We recorded everything there is to record on this planet, except specifically these things? That’s not just systematic. That’s deliberate. We’re working against someone.
(to EMELYANOV)
We have an adversary.
(pause)
C’mon, Vadim, you’re not the least bit suspicious?
EMELYANOV snickers ever so slightly.
Emelyanov
I suspect everything and everyone, at one point or another.
McGee
Somebody’s bluffing. Someone knew Beta One was coming. Maybe not crash landing, but someone out there knows more than we do and doesn’t want us to know any more. And us staring at this alien fistfight? That’s a diversion. What’s really happening right now is probably someplace way, way the other direction.
(to C-LNC)
C-Link, put me in touch with –
C-LNC is too engrossed in the fight to be paying much attention to anyone else.
McGee
(snapping his fingers)
C-Link! Hello!
(beat)
This is what causes cascade failures, right here: diversion. Put me in touch with General Forrest at Space Guard Special Ops.
C-LNC
Right away, Flight.
On the big screen along the back wall, streaks of gunfire are being traced from off-screen. AWAN is first to notice.
Awan
Uh-oh.
McGee
No, no, no. Don’t say “uh-oh.” Never say “uh-oh.” That is a banned sound.
LÜDECKE
Who’s making those tracers?
78. Int. Enterprise Techlab – close-up Mayweather
Mayweather
Villagers.
reverse swing toward ciesielski, archer
Ciesielski
Oh God.
Archer
How close is Global Security?
Mayweather
Nowhere close. District troopers are parked at the crash site.
Tucker
If one of those farmers happens to be sober, shoots straight, and doesn’t miss...
Archer
It’s the kill switch. Vulcan could take back control of every project with a human assigned to it.
Ciesielski
(shrugging her shoulders)
Air/space traffic, communications, the weather net, the typhoon shields.
Archer
We’ll lose what’s left of our planet.
79. ext. below broken bow old railroad ridge road
At the base of the ridge, three trucks have pulled up, and eleven townspeople have drawn their weapons. You can HEAR their charges, each of which sounds like the high-pitched whines of photographer’s portable flashes, multiplied by a number too big to be safe.
KLAANG is standing 30 yards away, but from their angle, they only see his head and shoulders.
Townsman 1
(shouting)
You come down here, Vulcan!
Townsman 2
(enunciating)
Put your hands in the air!
TOWNSMAN 2 lays down his rifle, then steps forward and demonstrates the act of putting hands in the air, in a bizarre act resembling the “Walk Like an Egyptian” dance.
Townsman 2
Vulcan! Look here!
KLAANG is almost entertained by this.
KLAANG
(shouting in Klingon, subtitled)
(What manner of walking pig excrement dares to call me Vulcan?)
Townsman 1
Did you hear him? He said, “Vulcan!”
Townsman 2
(softly)
Thad, that feller’s got a head the size of a watermelon. That’s not a Vulcan.
KLAANG moves. Several townsmen respond by taking up position at the base of the hill.
Townsman 1
Stay put, Vulcan!
(to TOWNSMAN 2)
Or whatever damn alien, I don’t care.
Klaang
(shouting in Klingon, subtitled)
(Do any of you maggots see the green blood of cowards oozing from my veins?)
Stillness for a few seconds, then KLAANG takes off for the tunnel, taking himself out of the line of fire for a few seconds. The townspeople perched on the hill rise and advance, only to find KLAANG disappeared. CAMERA rises to reveal SH’VEA 1 and SH’VEA 2 have fully recovered and are standing upright, weapons drawn.
One townsperson fires. SH’VEA 2 is hit. A splat SOUND is heard, of raw firepower being dissolved by acid like a seltzer tablet in water. A little smoke, like a cigarette being put out. SH’VEA 2 is unmoved, but maybe a bit ticked off.
townsman 1
(pitifully)
Aw, mother puss bucket.
Both SH’VEA lunge forward like panthers on steroids.
Cut to:
80. Int. Enterprise Techlab, mayweather
There’s furious activity around the display table.
MAGOHA
It’s like Earth’s entire security staff suddenly went on vacation.
Radio (V.O.)
Global Security Hotline?
whip to ciesielski
Ciesielski
(businesslike)
Yes, good afternoon, this is J.B. Ciesielski, director of operations, Starship Enterprise. I need to be patched through to Director Bertram, tell her this is Status One Gold.
Whip to archer
Archer
(into a receiver)
Lee... Forrest.
FORREST (V.O.)
(voice message)
Hi, you’ve reached General Lee Forrest, United Earth Space Guard Chief of Operations. I’m out golfing at the moment.
Archer
(muttering)
You’re not golfing, General, you don’t golf.
ARCHER presses a few buttons, then:
Receiver
(robotic voice)
Space Guard Personal Comm.
Archer
(into receiver)
Colonel... Michael... Cavanaugh.
whip to ciesielski
Ciesielski
C – I – E... S – I... No, it’s C-I-E. Yes, I know, “I-before-E–except-after-C” -
(panicking)
Oh, for God’s sake!
81. Int. Uespa Mission Control, behind mcGee and Emelyanov
McGEE is looking over EMELYANOV’s shoulder at a geospatial analytics scan.
McGee
That’s still three kilometers.
Emelyanov
If these species are uncatalogued, we don’t know their foot speed.
McGee
We don’t know if they have feet.
whip around to mcGee, Awan from front
Awan
Flight, have we lost tracking on the two greens?
McGEE looks up at the main screen. We SEE what he sees: the two bright green points are flickering out, and occasionally flickering on but grey.
McGee
Interference from something? Is G-S-C in the altercation area yet?
Emelyanov
Negative.
McGee
(pointing)
There they are... I think. They can’t possibly be moving on foot that fast.
82. Ext. Aerial shot ridge line
KLAANG is running at full throttle toward a structure in the distance, which comes into the picture slowly. It’s a grain silo. Catching up from the opposite end of the ridge are all three trucks.
83. Int. Enterprise Techlab, MAgoha
Magoha
(only half-kidding)
Enterprise calling any intelligent life form, do you read?
whip to ciesielski
Ciesielski
(to radio)
Yes, the one in space, the one in the network show, with Jonathan Archer, the Starship Ent-... Hello? Hello?
From behind CIESIELSKI’s shoulder, the face of Gen. Lee FORREST pops onto one of the middle-sized screens. He looks like the leader of a dramatic company who found a general’s uniform among the actors’ wardrobe, his battle scars having been delivered during arguments with bureaucrats rather than on battlefields.
Forrest (V.O.)
(on screen)
Enterprise, Space Guard Three on Q-TAC Fifteen, you copy?
Before he can finish, everyone rushes to the screen with his face on it.
Archer
(exasperated)
General! Good to see you! There’s a situation on the ground, fourteen kilometers south-southwest of Broken Bow-
Forrest (V.O.)
(on screen)
Jon... Jon! We’ve got it, thanks to you. Three humanoids. At least I hope there’s still three, if these dumb-ass farmers don’t shoot them first. Cute maneuver there, Lieutenant Mayweather - “diagnostics dump one-four,” like Colonel Cavanaugh wasn’t going to figure that one out.
MAYWEATHER smiles meekly.
FORREST (V.O., Cont’d)
(on screen)
Anyway, Space Guard Rapid Response will secure the perimeter and quash the riotous homesteaders. I’m here at Carswell Base in North Texas. We’ve got an incident containment post under way. I’ve ordered Colonel Cavanaugh and everyone with Defense Intelligence to join me here. That’s three people, maybe four, tops.
Archer
Good. Give me forty minutes, I’ll drop down and join you.
Forrest
Negative! Stay with your ship. You’re our only link to the scene until we can find out why all the networks aren’t sending data.
ARcher
(wound tight)
I’ve got people taking care of the equipment, General. I can take charge of that scene, and I can find out who these aliens are.
Forrest
I know you’re accustomed to being the star of the show, Jon, but this time I don’t think everyone’s here for your autograph. Take charge of your crew for now. Keep up the Broken Bow Show. Go nowhere. I promise you’ll be kept in the loop. Out.
The screen flicks off, replacing FORREST’s face with a map denoting the locations of Carswell Base and Broken Bow, making note of the distance between the two.
Archer
(huffing)
Go nowhere. That’s been our standing order for the last six years.
whip to mayweather’s console
Mayweather
Colonel, Blue Guy is coming up on a dense, encased structure approximately 40 meters tall. Five hundred meters ahead at plus five degrees.
Archer
That’s a grain silo.
Tucker
He’s not gonna climb that thing?
Archer
Don’t know what he’d gain from it, unless...
(brainstorm)
Travis, is the D-S-C-I still tuned for atmospheric gasses?
Mayweather
Yes, sir, that’s how we’re getting chemical signatures.
Archer
Nitrogen dioxide?
Mayweather
That’s one.
Archer
Scan the silo for gaseous emanations. Right at the top, the chute loader, there should be ventilation.
(FX) The display zooms in on each cylinder in turn. MAYWEATHER isn’t quite sure what ARCHER’s getting at yet.
Mayweather
Not seeing anything.
Archer
Nothing. That is not good.
84. Ext. Base of Grain Silo
KLAANG has found the side ladder, and has as much ease traveling up as he does forward. From below, SH’VEA 2 draws his weapon. But SH’VEA 1 deflects his arm before he can fire, perhaps saving them all.
Silo EAST SIDE GRAVEL Parking Lot
The townspeople are establishing a perimeter. The ladder is on their side, and they can see KLAANG like a big spider. SH’VEA 1 is now climbing up behind him. They’re getting their firearms in position.
SILO GRAVEL WEST SIDE ENTRANCE
Northbound from the highway in front of us are three trucks, all of are full of people, and headed toward the inclined, metal entrance to a storm shelter near the westernmost silo cylinder.
At high speed, JULIE’s purple truck pulls in from the opposite side of the highway, skidding to a stop directly in front of the other trucks. Its driver emerges first: GUIDRY, a thin, wind-worn fellow whose entire life has been spent repairing field equipment. JULIE hurdles herself out of the passenger cabin, rushing toward the other trucks. She finds MORGAN, a stocky, rugged veteran of hundreds of rescues,
JuLie
Morgan! Get these people out of the co-op shelter now! Drive them to First Lutheran!
Morgan
Julie, First Lutheran’s fallout shelter may be in bad shape. It was a weapons stockpile last I saw the inside of it.
Julie
It’s gonna be in better shape than this silo if those villagers start shooting. Damn district troopers, they’re all out at the crash site!
Behind JULIE, several trucks arrive full of armed villagers. They are not hooping and hollering, but instead behave more like a trained civil defense force – albeit one armed to the teeth. JULIE runs toward them as though everyone’s life depended on her.
JULIE (cont’d)
You people can’t be firing off artillery in this area! In this heat, if that silo’s not been vented, you’ll blow us all straight to Mars!
The villagers no more notice JULIE than they would a stray possum. They take up firing positions along the perimeter.
Julie (Cont’d)
Good God, you morons! I’m the chief of civil defense here!
JULIE recognizes one of the villagers and runs toward him.
Julie (Cont’d)
Darnell? Darnell?? You’re too close to be firing off rifle rounds! You’re liable to get shredded!
DARNELL brushes JULIE away without so much as looking at her.
Julie (Cont’d)
Hey! Darnell!
(right in his ear, shouting)
Darnell Pullman!
DARNELL doesn’t even blink an eye. The gunmen all ready their firearms simultaneously, without even a signal to each other. They’re looking at one spot, and JULIE wheels around to catch sight of their target.
Silo Ladder Looking Up (OPTICALS)
SH’VEA 1 has KLAANG where he wants him. Steadying his weapon against one rung of the ladder, he fires straight up. This time it’s a hit, striking KLAANG’s right leg.
For a second, it looks like KLAANG may hang there by his left arm for a while. Then with his right arm, he grabs a softball-sized rock tucked under his shirt and hurls it at SH’VEA 1. It strikes him squarely in the head.
close up Sh’Vea 1
There are three more where that came from. After the fourth one hits, SH’VEA 1 loses his grip and tumbles thirty feet to the ground.
Close up klaang
We see KLAANG from the right side. From his left, SH’VEA 2 – who doesn’t need a ladder – is pulling up alongside. KLAANG lets out a warrior yell and races him to the top.
base of silo, back end
TOWNSPERSON 2 has positioned a giant shotgun on the open driver’s side door of his truck. Its sight looks like a starship deflector beacon, and its muzzle may as well be that of a bazooka.
From his vantage point, KLAANG emerges first at the top of the pointed cone. TOWNSPERSON 2 steadies his weapon against his cabin door.
Aerial Above Silo
KLAANG has climbed atop the loading chute, where it connects to the top of the cone. SH’VEA 2 can’t vault onto the chute from a slanted footing. So he follows KLAANG’s path to the top of the cone.
base of silo, front end
JULIE looks up at KLAANG in puzzlement.
JULIE
What the frank is he doing?
KLAANG looks down at the primitive species and shouts the only insult these pig-dogs might possibly recognize.
KLAANG
(from top, shouting)
A-a-aH! Vul-l-l-cann!
Top of silo, close-up klaang
KLAANG beats his own chest like a guy in a gorilla suit.
Klaang
Vulcan, Vulcan, Vulcan, Vulcan!
A big ricochet bounces off the base of the chute at KLAANG’s feet.
base of silo, back end, zoom in TOWNSPERSON 2
TOWNSPERSON 2 corrects his aim with a very steady hand.
base of silo, front end, zoom in julie
JULIE sees TOWNSPERSON 2 about 50 yards away, then looks back at the morons and bellows.
Julie
(top of her lungs)
Take... cover!!!
JULIE takes off running away from the silo at full speed. Only GUIDRY and a few other townspeople join her; the rest think she’s mad.
top of silo
KLAANG bounds forward atop the loading chute as though it were a diving platform, while SH’VEA 2 struggles to gain a footing. Below the chute 50 feet away is a tall, round bale of hay. KLAANG’s headed for it, which would be a miracle if he reaches it. There’s one shotgun BLAST as KLAANG leaps off the edge.
silo from multiple angles (OPTICALS)
A colossal BOOM, replayed from five angles. The silo wall shatters, and a billion projectile kernels eject like the birth of the universe.
The blast throws KLAANG off his trajectory. The hay bales tumble beneath him, and he descends out of sight into a plume of burning grass.
Windows are blown out of the trucks, and debris scatters for a thousand yards. JULIE and a few others are slightly downhill, but in a few seconds they’re blown forward and into the dirt.
85. Int. UESPA Mission Control
The explosion reflects in the faces of the ground crew. There are shouts of anger and despair, some destroyed headgear, and some cursing directed at the townspeople.
slow zoom mcGee
McGee
(deadpan)
Well, folks, that about wraps things up for the United Earth Space Probe Agency.
86. Int. Enterprise Techlab
The crew are completely speechless. They’re staring at the display, which is busy analyzing the residue and has lost its alien life signs.
MAGOHA is biting her lip, and may have bitten too hard. CIESIELSKI’s fingers are stuck in her hair. TUCKER stomps, then pounds the wall with his palms. CLOSE ON ARCHER, usually the solid one, who has closed his eyes and bowed his head.
cut To Black