the others.

HAHOKU: All right, the area's secured.  Let's go in and see what their computer can tell us. (Into mike) First team head for operations.  Zeki, see if you can get their CPU on line. Breeze, meet me at the south lock by the up-link tower...

INT. FIRST LEVEL 64
HAHOKU: (Voice over)...We're coming in.
ZEKI: (Cupping his mike) He's coming in. I feel safer already.
SNOWDRIFT: (Sotto voice) Pendejo jerk off.

EXT. COLONY COMPLEX 65
Lights arc across the dormant buildings as the APC turns onto the "main drag." It trundles down the rutted street, throwing up sheets of filthy water as the massive wheels hit pond like potholes. Windblown rain lashes across the headlights.

Breeze emerges from the south lock just as the APC rolls up close to the entrance. The crew-door slides back. Hahoku emerges, followed by Not-much, Kapu, and Kaltag. Not-much looks back to see Jenna stop in the APC doorway, eyeing the ominous colony structure. She meets his eyes. Shakes her head "no." Not ready.

ZEKI: (Voice over; filtered) Sir, the CPU is on-line.
HAHOKU: Okay, stand by in operations. (To those present) Let's go.

INT. APC 66
The crew-door cycles home with a clang. Jenna sits in the dark interior, lit by the tactical displays. The wind howls outside, an incredibly desolate sound. She hugs herself. Alone. Unarmed. She knows she's in a tank, but remembers the acid. Leaps up. Hits the door switch.

EXT. APC - SOUTH LOCK 67
The crew-door opens and Jenna emerges. In time to see the lock doors rumbling closed.

JENNA: (Shouting) Not-much!

The wind snatches her words away. The crew door whines shut behind her. She walks to the exterior lock door-controls and studies them. She punches some unfamiliar buttons. Nothing happens. She looks really nervous, alone in the howling wind. She hits another button. The door-motors come to life and she relaxes a little. Glances behind her. AND SCREAMS! There's a face right there! Right at her shoulder. She jumps back, gasping for breath.

KALTAG: Scare you?
JENNA: Christ, Kaltag!
KALTAG: Sorry. Breeze said to keep an eye on you.

He gestures for her to precede him inside.

INT. CONTROL BLOCK CORRIDOR 68
Jenna catches up with the others as they move into the bowels of the complex.

HAHOKU: (to Not-much) Looks like you company can write off its share of this colony.
NOT-MUCH: (Unconcerned) It's insured.

ON JENNA as they move along the corridor...reacting to the fact that she is back in alien country. She sees the ravaged administration complex. Fire-gutted offices.  Breeze notices her looking around nervously. He motions to big Kaltag with his eyes and the trooper casually falls in beside her on the other side, rifle at ready. a two-man protective cordon. She glances at Breeze. He winks, but so fast maybe it's something in his eye.

Trooper Snow emerges from a side corridor ahead.

SNOW: Sir, you should check this out...

He leads the way into the corridor.

INT. CORRIDOR 69
This wing is completely without power. The troopers switch on their pack lights and the beams illuminate a scene of devastation worse than they have seen. Her expression reveals that Jenna is about to turn and flee.

SNOW: Right ahead here...

They approach a barricade blocking the corridor, a hastily welded wall of pipes, steel-plate, outer-door panels. Acid holes have slashed through the floor and walls in several places. The metal is scratched and twisted by hideously powerful forces, peeled back like a soup can on one side. They squeeze through the opening.

INT. MEDICAL WING 70
They pack-lights play over the devastation of the colonists' last ditch battle. The equipment of the med labs has been uprooted to add to the barrier. The walls are perforated by pulse-rifle fire and acid. Scorched by untended fires to bare metal. A few instruments glow with emergency power.

KALTAG: Last stand.
HAHOKU: No bodies?
SNOW: No, Sir. Looks like it was a helluva fight.

TIGHT ON JENNA transfixed by something.

JENNA: (Low) Over there.

The others turn and approach, seeing what she sees. She has entered a second room, part of the med lab area. In a storage alcove at near eye level stand seven transparent cylinders. STASIS TUBES. They glow faintly with an eerie violet light given off by the field which preserves the specimens inside.

They look like jars containing SEVERED ARTHRITIC HANDS, the palsied fingers curled in a death-rictus. Structurally they are more like spiders with sickening translucent skin, a flaccid scrotal body, gill-like organs underneath drifting in the suspension fluid.  Something you definitely do not want on your face, for example.

NOT-MUCH: Are these the same...?

Jenna nods, unable to speak. Not-much leans closer in fascination. His face almost touching one cylinder, is lit by its glow.

JENNA: Watch it, Not-much...

The creature inside lunges suddenly, slamming against the glass. Not-much jumps back. From the palm of the thing's hand like body emerges a pearl-escent TUBULE. like a tapered piece of intestine, which slithers tongue like over the inside of the glass. Then it retracts into a sheath between the "gills."

BREEZE: (to Not-much) It likes you.

Only two of the creatures seem to pulse with life.  Not-much taps the other stasis cylinders but the hand-things remain inertly clenched.

NOT-MUCH: These are dead. There's just the two alive.

On top of each cylinder is a file folder. Jenna takes a folder from above one of the live specimens. Inside is a medical chart printout with handwritten entries.

JENNA: (Reading) Removed surgically before embryo implantation. Subject: Marachuk, John L. Died during procedure.  (Looking up) They killed him getting it off.
BREEZE: Poor bastard.

They are startled by a LOUD BEEP. They turn. Breeze is intent on his motion tracker, aimed back toward the shattered barricade. BEEP. BEEP.

BREEZE: Behind us.

He gestures at the corridor they just passed through.

JENNA: One of us?
HAHOKU: (Into headset) Blacknight...where are your people?  Anybody in D-Block?
BLACKNIGHT: (Voice over; filtered) Negative. We're all in Operations.

Snowdrift swings the smart-gun to ready position on its support arm, locking it with an authoritative CLICK. She and Breeze head toward the source of the signal, the others following.

INT. CORRIDOR 71
Breeze' tracker is reading out more rapidly. They turn into the kitchens, a stainless steel labyrinth. Jenna hangs back. Then realizes there is nothing behind her but darkness. She catches up to the group.

INT. KITCHENS 72
The troopers enter, their lights bouncing around the stainless steel surfaces.

BREEZE: It's moving.

Snowdrift is scanning, gaze intense. The other troops grip their weapons tightly.

SNOWDRIFT: Which way?

Breeze nods toward a complicated array of food processing equipment. They move forward, weapons leveled. Jenna shuffles forward in the dark. Kaltag trips over a metal canister, sending it CLANGING.  Jenna half climbs the wall.  Breeze' tracker beeps steadily. The beeps merge. Become a solid tone. CRASH. Something moves in the dark, toppling a rack of stockpots.

ON SNOWDRIFT pivoting smoothly to fire. In the same instant Breeze' rifle slashes INTO FRAME. Slams Snowdrift' barrel upward. A STREAM OF TRACER FIRE rips into the ceiling, the rounds SEARING LIKE LIGHTNING.

SNOWDRIFT: You fuck!

Breeze ignores her, moving past and aiming his light under a row of steel cabinets. He gestures to Jenna, who steps forward. Trusting his judgment. She crouches beside him.

JENNA'S P.O.V. lit by Breeze' pack-light...a tiny cowering figure. A very dirty, very terrified JULIE JORDEN. She clutches a plastic food packet in one hand, its top gnawed partway through. In the other hand she grips the HEAD OF A LARGE DOLL, holding it by the hair. Just the head. Eyes staring. Julie is pathetically emaciated...fragile-looking as Dresden china, her hair tangled and matted.

JENNA: (Soothingly) Come on out. It's all right...

Jenna moves toward her, reaching slowly under the cabinet. Julie backs away, trembling visibly, her vision fixated like a rabbit blinded by headlights.  Jenna's hand almost reaches her.  The kid bolts like a shot, scuttling along beneath the cabinetry. Jenna scrambles to follow...to keep her in sight. Crabbing frantically sideways. Breeze makes a grab, catching one tiny ankle. He snaps his hand out a moment later.

BREEZE: Ow! Shit. Watch it, she bites.

The girl reaches a ventilation duct set in the baseboard, its grille kicked out. She scrambles inside, her tiny body barely fitting, wriggling like a fish. In his bulky armor Breeze knows he'll never make it into the tiny duct. Jenna dives. She squirms into the duct without thinking. Just ahead she sees Julie enter a dark space and slam a steel hatch. Jenna pushes the hatch open before the child can latch it, and crawls in after her.

Julie is backed into a cul-de-sac in the tiny steel chamber. Jenna shines her light around in amazement. It is a NEST. A nest built by a child. Wadded up blankets and pillows line the space, mixed up with a haphazard array of TOYS, STUFFED ANIMALS, DOLLS, CHEAP JEWELRY, COMIC BOOKS, EMPTY FOOD PACKETS, even a battery operated TAPE PLAYER. All foraged from the wrecked colony. Jenna marvels at the child's incredible adaptability, the ability to functions even in this nightmarish environment.

Julie edges along the far wall and dives for the hatch. Jenna grabs her, controlling her in a bear hug. The kid struggles wildly, like a cat at the vets. Eyes wide, hands lashing out in a frenzy...but silent. No scream.

JENNA: It's okay, it's okay. It's over...you're going to be all right now...it's okay...you're safe...

Julie goes limp, almost catatonic. CLOSE ON JULIE'S TRAUMATIZED, VACANT STARE her lips are white and trembling, her eyes track wildly and she flinches from unseen terrors.