from unseen terrors. We READ a dark nightmare world in her eyes.

Jenna's light falls on something amidst the debris...a FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH of Julie, dressed up and smiling, a ribbon in her hair. In embossed gold letters underneath it says:

FIRST GRADE CITIZENSHIP AWARD
REBECCA JORDEN

INT. OPERATIONS - ON JULIE - MANAGER'S OFFICE 73
sitting huddles in a chair, arms around her knees.  Looking at a point in space.

HAHOKU: (V.s.) What's her name again?
LAMPRAY: (v.s.) Rebecca.

WIDER ANGLE REVEALING Hahoku sitting in front of her while Lamprey watches the readouts from a BIO-MONITORING CUFF wrapped around Julie's tiny arm.

HAHOKU: Now think, Rebecca.  Concentrate. Just start at the beginning...

No response. Jenna enters, carrying a coffee mug.

HAHOKU: Where are your parents? You have to try...
JENNA: (Sharply) Hahoku! Give it a rest would you.

Hahoku stands with a sigh of dismissal.

HAHOKU: Total brain-lock.
LAMPRAY: (Shrugs) Physically she's okay.  Borderline malnutrition, but I don't think any permanent damage.

She unsnaps the bio-monitoring cuff.

HAHOKU: Come on, we're wasting our time.

Hahoku and the others exit, leaving only Jenna with Julie. Through the window of the office, out on the main floor of the operations room, we SEE Hahoku join Not-much and Kapu at a computer terminal.

Jenna kneels beside Julie, brushing the girl's unkempt hair out of her eyes in a gentle, maternal fashion.

JENNA: Here, try this. A little instant hot chocolate.

She wraps the child's hands around the cup. Raises it to her lips for her. The girl drinks mechanically, spilling down her chin.

JENNA: (Soothing) Poor thing. You don't talk much do you? That's okay by me. Most people do a lot of talking and they wind up not saying very much.

She sets the cup down and wipes the child's chin clean.

JENNA: Uh oh. I made a clean spot here. Now I've done it. Guess I'll just have to do the whole thing.

She pours water from a squeeze bottle onto a small cloth and gently washes the little girl's face. Julie's eyes seem to focus on her for the first time.

JENNA: Hard to believe...there's a little girl under all this.  And a pretty one at that.

Julie gazes at her. Jenna smiles.

INT. OPERATIONS 74
The ground teams are gathered around a terminal in the computer center. Zeki has the CPU main computer on-line and reading out.
TIGHT ON MONITOR SCREEN as an abstract of the main colony ground plan drifts across the screen.  Searching.
Zeki bashes at the keyboard, his fingers dancing expertly.

NOT-MUCH: (To Hahoku) What's he scanning for?
HAHOKU: PDT'S. Personal-Data Transmitters.  Every adult colonist had one surgically implanted.
ZEKI: If they're within twenty klicks we'll read it out here, but so far...zip.

INT. OFFICE 75
Jenna is washing Julie's tiny hands with a cloth, pink skin emerging from black grime.
JENNA: I don't know how you managed to stay alive but you're one brave kid, Rebecca.

Julie's voice is almost inaudible.

JULIE: N-Julie.

Jenna leans closer. Feels like she's breathing on coals. The sound was incomprehensible.

JENNA: What did you say?
JULIE: Julie. My n-name's Julie.  Nobody calls me Rebecca except my dork brother.

Jenna grins inanely, not wanting to move or speak...or break the spell.

JENNA: Well, Julie it is then. My name's Jenna...and people and K 9s call me Jenna.

Jenna picks up her tiny limp hand, shaking it formally.

JENNA: Pleased to meet you. And who is this? Does she have a name?

Julie glances at the disembodied doll, still clutched in one filthy hand.

JULIE: Casey. She's my only friend.
JENNA: What about me?

Julie's reply is flat, neutral.

JULIE: I don't want you for a friend.
JENNA: Why not?
JULIE: Because you'll be gone soon, like the others. Like everybody. You'll be dead and you'll leave me alone.

Jenna gazes at her, chilled both by the ominous statement and by the situation which could have produced this outlook in a child.

JENNA: Oh, Julie. Your mom and dad went away like that, didn't they?

Julie nods, staring at her knees.

JENNA: (Soothingly) They'd be here if they could, honey. I know they would.
JULIE: (With cold certainty) They're dead.
JENNA: Julie. Look at me...Julie. I won’t leave you. I promise.
JULIE: You promise?
JENNA: Cross my heart.
JULIE: And hope to die?

Jenna smiles grimly at the inadvertently macabre expression.

JENNA: (Quietly) And hope to die.

And because she's a child, the darkest terrors, even the ones seen and not imagined, can still be banished by a smile and a single promise. Julie's eyes brim as she gazes at Jenna. Her lower lip starts to tremble, and her face slowly deforms into an abject mask. She sobs as she clamps her arms around Jenna's neck. The sobs come in waves as Jenna rocks her, tears of suppresses terror and grief and hurt rolling down her face. It is a breakthrough.  Jenna closes her eyes, hoping that this promise can be kept.

INT. OPERATIONS 76
Everyone jumps as Zeki cries out triumphantly.

ZEKI: Hah! Stop your grinning' and drop your linen! Found 'em.
HAHOKU: Alive?
ZEKI: Unknown. But, it looks like all of them. Over at the processing station...sublevel 'C' under the south tower.

TIGHT ON SCREEN showing an amoeba like cluster of flashing blue dots clumped tightly in one area.

BREEZE: Looks like a Goddamn town meeting.
HAHOKU: Let's saddle up.
BLACKNIGHT: Alwright, let's go girls, they ain't paying' us by the hour.

EXT. ACHERON - TWILIGHT 77
The APC roars across the stygian landscape, traversing the causeway which connects the colony to the ATMOSPHERE STATION a kilometer away. Behind it the drop-ship settles to the ground at the colony landing field.

PAN WITH THE APC TO REVEAL the massive structure.  Like a vast foundry the conical exhaust tower flickers with spectral light.

INT. APC 78
The troopers sit, more subdued now, swaying and bouncing in the heavily sprung vehicle. Kaltag is in the saddle. Jenna and Julie sit side by side just aft of the driver's cockpit.

JULIE: I was the best at the game.  I knew the whole maze.
JENNA: The 'maze'? You mean the air ducts?
JULIE: Yeah, you know. In the walls, under the floor. I was the ace. I could hide better than anybody.
JENNA: You're really something, ace.

Jenna's gaze shifts out the windshield as the processing station looms ahead.

EXT. APC/STATION 79
The vast structure towers above the parked personnel carrier. Deploying in front of the APC, backlit by its lights, the troopers cast long shadows. They look ominous. Hulking techno-samurai. The base of the station is a depthless maze of conduits and pressure vessels, like an oil refinery.  Or a Dantean version of one. The THRUM of functioning machine systems echoes through the labyrinth.

HAHOKU: (Voice over; static) Forty meters in. Ramp on axial two-two. Access to sublevels.

The troopers start down the open ramp way. Light filters down through several levels of steel mesh floor, catwalks and pipes. Below that is darkness.

HAHOKU: (Voice over; static) B-Level. Next one down.

The thrumming of machines grows louder as they descend.

INT. APC 80
Huddles around the screens are Jenna, Not-much and Hahoku. Julie squeezes in from behind. Hahoku is doing his video wizard bit, dancing on the buttons.

HAHOKU: (To team) We're not making that out too well. What is it?
ZEKI: (Voice over; static) You tell me. I only work here.

INT. COMPLEX 81
The group stands before a bizarre tableau. Among the refinery like lattice of pipes and conduits something new and not of human or K 9 design had been added.

It is a structure of some sort, extending from and crudely imitating the complex of plumbing, but made of some strange encrusted substance. It vaguely resembles the chambered nests of swallows on a much larger scale, and it attenuates so gradually into the original hardware that it is hard to see where one ends and the other begins.

The alien structure seems to extend far back into the complex of machinery. The plant thrums loudly, its functioning seemingly not impaired.

INT. APC 82
Jenna stares at the scene in dread fascination.

HAHOKU: What is it?
JENNA: I don't know.
HAHOKU: (To team) Proceed inside.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 83
They enter the organic labyrinth, playing their lights over the walls. Revealing a BIO-MECHANICAL LATTICE, like the marrow of some vast bone. The air is thick with STEAM. Trickling water. The place seems almost alive.

INT. APC 84
They watch in various helmet-camera P.O.V.'s of the wall detail.

JENNA: (Low) Oh God...

CLOSE ON VIDEO as it PAN SLOWLY...REVEALING a bas-relief of detritus from the colony: furniture, wiring, human bones, skulls...Fused together with a translucent, epoxy like substance. \

LAMPRAY: (Voice over; static) Looks like some sort of secreted resin.
HAHOKU: They ripped apart the colony for building materials.
JENNA: And the colonists...When they were done with them. (Turning) Julie, you better go sit up front. Go on.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 85
Steam swirls around them as the troopers move deeper inside.

SNOW: Hotter than hell in here.
ZEKI: Yeah...but it's a dry heat.

INT. APC 86
Jenna leans forward suddenly, studying the graphic readout of the STATION GROUND PLAN.

JENNA: They're right under the primary heat exchangers.
NOT-MUCH: Yeah? Maybe the organisms like the heat, that's why they built...
JENNA: That's not what I mean. Hahoku, if your men have to use their weapons in there, they'll rupture the cooling system.
NOT-MUCH: (Realizing) She's right.
HAHOKU: So.
JENNA: So...then the fusion containment shuts down.
HAHOKU: (Impatient) So? So?
NOT-MUCH: We're talking thermonuclear explosion.
HAHOKU: Shit. (Into Mike) Blacknight, collect magazines from everybody. We can't have any firing in there.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 87
The troopers look at each other in dismay.

KALTAG: Is he fucking crazy?
ZEKI: What're we

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