JENNA: I'm sorry, Julie.
JULIE: You don't have to be sorry. It wasn't your fault.
ZEKI: (Kicking rocks) Just tell me what the fuck we're supposed to do now. What're we gonna do now?
NOT-MUCH: (Annoyed) May be could build a fire and sing songs.
JULIE: We should get back, 'cause it'll be dark soon. They come mostly at night. Mostly.

Jenna follows Julie's look to the AP station looming in the twilight, the burning drop-ship wreckage jammed into its basal structure.

EXT. CONTROL BLOCK - NIGHT 115
The wind howls mournfully around the metal buildings, dry and cold.

INT. OPERATIONS 116
The weary and demoralized group is gathered to take stock of their grim options. Snowdrift and Zeki are just setting down a scorched and dented packing case, one of several culled from the APC wreckage.

Breeze indicates their remaining inventory of weapons, lying on a table.

BREEZE: This is all we could salvage. We've got four pulse-rifles with about fifty rounds each. Not so good. About fifteen M-40 grenades and two flame throwers less than half full...one damaged. And We've got four of these robot-sentry units with scanners and display intact.

He opens one of the scorched cases, revealing a high-tech servo-actuated machine gun with optical sensing equipment, packed in foam.

JENNA: How long after we're declared overdue can we expect a rescue?
BREEZE: About seventeen days.
ZEKI: Man, we're not going to make it seventeen hours! Those things are going to come in here, just like they did before, man...they're going to come in here and get us, man, long before...
JENNA: She survived longer than that with no weapons and no training.

Jenna indicates Julie, who salutes Zeki smartly.

JENNA: So you better just start dealing with it. Just deal with it, Zeki...because we need you and I'm tired of your bullshit. Now get on a terminal and call up some kind of floor plan file.  Construction blueprints, maintenance schematics, anything that shows the layout of this place. I want to see air ducts, electrical access tunnels, subbasements. Every possible way into this wing.

Zeki gathers himself, thankful for the direction.  Breeze nods approval of her handling of it.

ZEKI: Aye-firmative. I'm on it.
KAPU: I'll be in medical. I'd like to continue my analysis.
JENNA: Fine. You do that.

INT. OPERATIONS 117
Not-much, Jenna, Zeki and Breeze are bent over a large HORIZONTAL VIDEOSCREEN, like an illuminated chart table. Julie hops from one foot to the other to see.

JENNA: This service tunnel is how they're moving back and forth.
ZEKI: Yeah, right, it runs from the processing station right into the sublevel here.

He traces a finger along the abstract ground plan.

JENNA: All right. There's a fire door at this end. The first thing we do is put a remote sentry in the tunnel and seal that door.
BREEZE: We gotta figure on them getting into the complex.
JENNA: That's right. So we put up welded barricades at these intersections...(Pointing)...and seal these ducts hereand here. Then they can only come at us from these two corridors and we create a free field of fire for the other two sentry units, here.

Breeze contemplates her game plan and raises his hand, satisfied.

BREEZE: Outstanding. Then all we need's a deck of cards. All right, let's move like we got a purpose.
ZEKI: Aye-firmative.
JULIE: (Imitating Zeki) Aye-firmative!

INT. SERVICE TUNNEL - SUBLEVEL 118
A long straight service tunnel, lined with conduit, seems to go on forever. Snowdrift and Zeki have finished setting up two of the robot sentry guns on tripods in the tunnel.

SNOWDRIFT: (Shouting) Testing!

She hurls a wastebasket down the tunnel, into the automatic field of fire. The sentry guns swivel smoothly, the wastebasket bounces once...and is riddled by two quick bursts of EXPLODING 10MM ROUNDS into dime-sized shrapnel. They retreat behind a heavy steel FIRE DOOR which they roll closed on its track. Snowdrift, using a PORTABLE WELDING TORCH, begins sealing the door to its frame, as Zeki paces nervously.

ZEKI: Zeki here. A and B sentries are in place and keyed. We're sealing the tunnel.

INT. SECOND LEVEL CORRIDOR 119
Breeze pauses in his work.

BREEZE: (Into mike) Roger.

He and Jenna are covering an air duct opening with a metal plate, welding it in place, showering sparks in the dark corridor. Behind them Not-much and Julie are moving back and forth with cartons of food on a hand truck, stacking it inside the operations center.

Breeze sets down his welder and pulls a small object out of a belt pouch. A bracelet like EMERGENCY LOCATING BEEPER.

BREEZE: Here, put this on. Then I can locate you anywhere in the complex on this --

He indicates a tiny TRACKER hooked to his battle harness. He shrugs, a little self-consciously.

BREEZE: Just a...precaution. You know.

Jenna pauses for a moment, regarding him quizzically.

JENNA: (Strapping it on) Thanks.
ZEKI: Uh, what's next?

She consults a printout of the floor plan.

EXT. CONTROL BLOCK 120
The wind has died utterly and in the even more eerie stillness a diffuse mist has rolled into shroud the complex. Visibility is low in the fog.  Everything looks underwater. There is no movement.

INT. CORRIDOR 121

In the barricaded corridor sentry-gun "C" sits waiting, its "ARMED" light flashing green. Through a hole torn in the ceiling at the far end of the corridor the fog swirls in. Water drips. An expectant hush.

INT. MED LAB ANNEX - OPERATING ROOM 122

Jenna carries an exhausted Julie through the inner connecting rooms of the medical wing. She reaches an OPERATING ROOM which is small but very high-tech...vault like metal walls, strange equipment.  Several metal cots have been set up, displacing O.R. equipment which is pushed into one corner.

Julie is resting her head on Jenna's shoulder, barely awake...out of steam. Jenna sets her on one of the cots and Julie lies down.

JENNA: Now you just lie here and have a nap. You're exhausted.
JULIE: I don't want to...I have scary dreams.

This obviously strikes a chord with Jenna, but she feigns cheerfulness.

JENNA: I'll bet Casey doesn't have bad dreams.

Jenna lifts the doll's head from Julie's tiny fingers and looks inside. It is, of course, empty.

JENNA: Nothing bad in here. Maybe you could just try to be like her.

Jenna closes the doll's eyes and hands her back.  Julie rolls her eyes as if to say "don't pull that five-year-old shit on me, lady. I'm six."

JULIE: Jenna...she doesn't have bad dreams because she's just a piece of plastic.
JENNA: Oh. Sorry, Julie.
JULIE: My mommy always said there were no monsters. No real ones. But there are.

Jenna's _expression becomes sober. She brushes damp hair back from the child's pale forehead.

JENNA: (Quietly) Yes, there are, aren't there.
JULIE: Why do they tell little kids that?

Julie's voice reveals her deep sense of betrayal.  She's seen that the world can be just as terrifying as her most primal child's nightmare if not more so, and that's a lot worse than finding out there is no Santa.

JENNA: Well, some kids can't handle it like you can.
JULIE: Did one of those things grow inside her?

Jenna begins pulling blankets up an tucking them in around her tiny body.

JENNA: I don't know, Julie. That's the truth.
JULIE: Isn't that how babies come?  I mean people babies...they grow inside you?
JENNA: No, it's different, honey.
JULIE: Did you ever have a baby?
JENNA: Yes. A little girl.
JULIE: Where is she?
JENNA: (Quietly) Gone.
JULIE: You mean dead.

It's more statement than question. Jenna nods slowly. She turns, reaching for a PORTABLE SPACE HEATER sitting nearby, and slides it closer to the bed. She switches it on. It HUMS and emits a cozy orange glow.

JULIE: Jenna, I was just thinking...Maybe I could do you a favor and fill in for her. Just for a while. You can try it and if you don't like it, it's okay.  I'll understand. No big deal.  Whattya think?

Jenna gazes at her a long time before answering...a conflict between the urge to crush the child to her in a forever hug and the knowledge that neither of them may see another dawn.

JENNA: I think it's not the worst idea I've heard all day. Let's talk about it later.

She switches off the light and starts to rise. Julie grabs her arm. A plaintive voice in the dark.

JULIE: Don't go! Please.
JENNA: I'll be right in the other room, Julie. And look...I can see you on that camera right up there.

Julie looks at the VIDEO SECURITY CAMERA above the door.  Jenna unsnaps the TRACKER BRACELET given to her by Breeze and puts it on Julie's tiny wrist, cinching it down.

JENNA: Here. Take is for luck. Now go to sleep...and don't dream.

Jenna walks away and Julie rolls on her side, hugging Casey and gazing at the hypnotically pulsing function light on the bracelet. The space heater hums comfortingly.

INT. MED LAB 123
ECU Hahoku, his eyelids slitted open like those of a corpse, but with the eyes tracking erratically. The only sign of life.

JENNA: (Voice over) How is he?

Jenna stands over the Lieutenant, who is lying motionless on an examining table. Kapu looks up from his instruments nearby, the light of a single gooseneck lamp giving his features a macabre cast.

KAPU: I've isolated a neuron-muscular toxin responsible for the paralysis. It seems to be metabolizing. He should wake up soon.
JENNA: Now let me get this straight. The aliens paralyzed the colonists, carried them over there, cocooned them to be hosts for more of those...

Jenna points at the stasis cylinders containing the face-hugger specimens.

JENNA: Which would mean lots of those parasites, right? One for each person...over a hundred at least.
KAPU: Yes. That follows.
JENNA: But these things come from eggs...so where are all the eggs coming from.
KAPU: That is the question of the hour. We could assume a parallel to certain insect forms who have hive