ZEKI: What're we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?
HAHOKU: (Voice over; static) Flame-units only. I want rifles slung.
BLACKNIGHT: Let's go. Pull 'em out.

He walks among the troopers, collecting the magazines from each one's weapon.
Snowdrift turns hers over reluctantly.
The three who are carrying them get out small incinerator units. When Blacknight moves on, Snowdrift slips a spare magazine from concealment and inserts it in her weapon. Rapid does the same. Breeze hangs back in the shadows. He opens a cylindrical sheath attached to his battle-harness. Slides out an old style PUMP TWELVE-GAUGE with a sawed-off butt stock. Chambers a round.

BREEZE: (Low, to Zeki) I always keep this handy.  For close encounter.
BLACKNIGHT: (v.s.) Let's move. Breeze, back us up.

INT. LARGER CHAMBER 88
The air is thick. Lights flare.

HAHOKU: (Voice over; very faint) Any movement?

Zeki watches his tracker, scanning.

ZEKI: Nothing. Zip.

Blacknight stops, his _expression changing. They face a wall of living horror. The colonists have been brought here and entombed alive...

COCOONS protrude from the niches and interstices of the structure. The cocoon material is the same translucent epoxy. The bodies are frozen in carelessly twisted positions. Macabre image of frozen agony. Many are desiccated. Skeletal.  Rip-cages burst outward, as if exploded from within.  Paralyzed, brought here, entombed in living death as hosts for the embryos growing within then. Lamprey moves close to examine one of the figures, perhaps the most "recent." A WOMAN, ghost-white and drained. The WOMAN'S EYES SNAP OPEN...They seem to plead.

LAMPRAY: Sir!

The woman's lips move feebly.

WOMAN: Please...God...kill me.

INT. APC 89
Jenna watches the woman, white knuckled. The sound of RETCHING comes over the general frequency.

INT. COCOON CHAMBER 90
The woman begins to convulse. She SCREAMS, a sawing shriek of mindless agony.

BLACKNIGHT: Flame thrower! Move!

Snow hands it to him. Suddenly, the woman's chest EXPLODES in a gout of blood. A SMALL FANGED HEAD EMERGES, HISSING VICIOUSLY.

Blacknight pulls the trigger. Then the other troopers aarrying flamethrowers open fire. An orgy of purging fire. The cocoons vanish in the shimmering heat.

A SHRILL SCREECHING begins, like a siren made from fingernails on blackboards.

ANGLE ON WALL as something begins to emerge. Dimly glimpsed, a glistening bio-mechanic creature larger then a man. Lying dormant, it had blended perfectly with the convoluted surface of fused bone. The troopers don't see it. Smoke from the burning cocoons quickly fills the confined space. Visibility drops to zero.

ZEKI: Movement!
BLACKNIGHT: Position?
ZEKI: Can't lock up...
BLACKNIGHT: (With an edge) Talk to me, Zeki.
ZEKI: Uh, seems to be in front and behind.

INT. APC 91
Hahoku is plating with the gain controls on the monitors.

HAHOKU: We can't see anything back here, Blacknight. What's going on?

Jenna senses it coming, like a wave at night. Dark, terrifying and inevitable.

JENNA: (Low) Pull you team out, Hahoku.

INT. COCOON CHAMBER - TIGHT ON SEVERAL WALLS AND 92 CEILING NICHES
as they come alive. Bonelike, tube like shapes shift, becoming emerging ALIENS. Dimly glimpsed...glints of slime. Silhouettes.

BLACKNIGHT: Go to infrared. Looks sharp people!

The squad members snap down their image intensifier visors.

ZEKI: Multiple signals. All round. Closing.

Lamprey turns to retreat, her flamethrower held tightly. A nightmarish silhouette materializes out of the smoke behind her! It strikes like lightning.  SEIZES HER. She fires reflexively, wild. The jet of flame engulfs Snow nearby. Blacknight spins as the double SCREAM. Can't see anything in the think smoke.

INT. APC 93
Jenna watches Snow's monitor go black. His bio-readouts flatten. The other screens show glimpses of shimmering infrared silhouettes of the aliens, the images bobbing and panning confusedly.

INT. COCOON CHAMBER 94
Snowdrift nods to Rapid with grim satisfaction.

SNOWDRIFT: Let's rock.

They OPEN UP simultaneously, lighting up the smoke like welders' arcs.

HAHOKU: (Voice over; static) Who's firing? I ordered a hold fire, dammit!

Snowdrift rips off her headset. She is riveted to the targeting screen, moving ferret-quick in a pivoting dance. Thunder and lightning. Better than sex for her. FLASH-CRACK! An alien SCREECH from the darkness.

INT. APC 95
The battle of phantoms unfolds on the video screens.  Jenna flinches as another scream comes over the open frequency. Kaltag's monitor breaks up. His life signs plummet. Voices blend and overlap.

ZEKI: (Voice over) Let's get the fuck out of here!
BREEZE: (Voice over) Not that tunnel, the other one!
DARKNIGHT: (Voice over) You sure? Watch it...behind you. Fucking move, will you!

Hahoku is Ashen. Confused. Gulping for air like a grouper. How could the situation have unraveled so fast?

JENNA: (To Hahoku) GET THEM OUT OF THERE! DO IT NOW!
HAHOKU: Shut up. Just shut up!

CRASH! Darknight's telemetry cuts off like the plug was pulled. Flat line.

HAHOKU: Uh,...Blacknight, I want you to lay down a suppressing fire with the incinerators and fall back by squads to the APC, over.

BLACKNIGHT: (Voice over; heavy static) Say again? All after incinerators?

Jenna watches it fall apart.

HAHOKU: I said...

INT. COCOON CHAMBER 96
Blacknight adjusts his headset.

HAHOKU: (Voice over; static)...lay down (garbled) ...bysquads to...(garbled)

Hahoku's voice breaks up completely. A SCREAM.  Blacknight whirls, uncertain.

BLACKNIGHT: Lamprey? Darknight? Sound off! Kaltag?

Nothing. He spins. Almost blows Zeki's head off.

ZEKI: (Freaked) We're getting nuked! We're gonna die in here!

Blacknight hands him a magazine. Zeki slaps it home, looking truly terrified.

BLACKNIGHT: Yeah. Right. Right! Fuck the heat exchanger!

He FIRES. Snowdrift, nearby, is laying down a horrendous field of fire. Strobe-bright flashes sear the darkness. She pivots, firing mechanically in controlled bursts. Scoring points in her own private video game.

She SPINS as Breeze approached laterally. WHAM! She fires "at" him. Breeze whirls...to see a nightmarish figure right behind him, catapulted backwards by Snowdrift' blast.

INT. APC 97
Blacknight's monitor SPINS CRAZILY AND GOES DARK.

HAHOKU: (Distantly) I told them to fall back...
JENNA: (Viciously) They're but off! Do something!

But he's gone. Total brain-lock.

TIGHT ON JENNA as she struggles with a decision.  She's terrified...of what she knows she's about to do. But more than that, she's furious. Shouldering past a paralyzed Hahoku she runs up the aisle of the APC.

JENNA: (In passing) Julie, put your seatbelt on!

Jenna jumps into the driver's seat of the APC. Takes a deep breath. Starts slapping switches.

HAHOKU: Jenna, what the hell...?

She slams the tractor into gear.

EXT. APC 98
as the drive-wheels spin on the wet ground. The massive machine leaps forward.

INT. APC 99
Jenna sees smoke pouring out of the complex ahead as she slides sideways onto the descending ramp way.  She slams the left and right drive-wheel actuators viciously, spinning the machine in a roaring pivot.  Hahoku lunges forward along the aisle, abandoning his command center.

HAHOKU: (Shrill) What are you doing? Turn around! That's an order!

He claws at her, hysterical. Not-much pulls him off.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 100
The APC roars down into the smoky structure, tearing away outcroppings of alien-encrustation. Jenna hits the floodlights. Strobe-beacon. Siren. She homes on the flash of weapons fire ahead.

INT. COCOON CHAMBER 101
The APC crashes inside, showering debris. Breeze, supporting a limping Zeki, appears out of the smoke.  The APC pulls up broadside and Not-much gets the crew-door open.  Rapid and Snowdrift back out of the dense mist, firing as they fall back. Rapid goes empty, slams the buckles cutting loose his smart-gun harness, and unslings a flame thrower.

Breeze pushes Zeki inside, leaps in after him and drags Snowdrift inside, massive gear and all. She sees a DARK SHAPE lunge toward Rapid. She fires one burst, prone. Clean body hit.

The flash lights up the hideous inhuman grin, blowing open the thing's thorax. A spray of BRIGHT YELLOW ACID slashes across Rapid's face and chest, eating into him like a hot knife through butter. He drops in boiling smoke, reflexively triggering his flame thrower.

The jet of liquid fire arcs around as he falls, engulfing the back half of the APC.

INT. APC 102
Snowdrift rolls aside as a gout of napalm shoots through the crew-door, setting the interior on fire. Breeze is rolling the door closed when Snowdrift lunges, clawing out the opening. He stops her, dragging her inside.

SNOWDRIFT: Rapid! He's down!

Breeze screams right in her face.

BREEZE: He's gone! Forget it, he's gone!
SNOWDRIFT: (Irrational) No.. No, he's not. He's --

Not-much and Zeki help him drag her from the door.

BREEZE: (To Jenna) Let's go!

Jenna jams reverse. Nails the throttle. The APC bellows backward up the ramp. Zeki disappears under a pile of equipment as a storage rack breaks free. Breeze gets the door almost closed. Suddenly CLAWS appear at the edge. Julie screams. Against the combined efforts of Breeze, Not-much and Snowdrift the door is being SLOWLY WRENCHED OPEN FROM OUTSIDE.  Breeze yells at a paralyzed Hahoku.

BREEZE: Get on the Goddamn door!  Hahoku backs away, eyes wide. Breeze jams his shoulder against the latching lever and frees one hand to raise his 12-gauge. An alien head wedges through the opening, its hideous mouth opening. And Breeze jams his SHOTGUN MUZZLE between its jaws and pulls the trigger! BLAM!  The creature is flung backward, its shattered head containing acid blood. The spray eats into the door, the deck, hits Zeki on the arm. He shrieks. They slide the door home and dog it tight.

EXT. APC 103

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Next page