Wing Commander in Real Time - Day 3 - 1100 Zulu
The Terran Knowledge Bank
Script
227 EXT. KILRATHI COMCON SHIP
- The Diligent's umbilical latches onto the Kilrathi ship.
228 INT. KILRATHI SHIP - CORRIDOR
- A section of wall glows white hot, exploding inward!
- Revealing the Diligent's airlock -- which depressurizes
- and opens. Spacesuited Confed Marines come towards us in
- a surreal zero-g grace, and leading the
- charge...Deveraux!
229 INT. DILIGENT - BLAIR'S GUN POSITION
- BLAIR can hear radio crosstalk and sounds of battle as he
- scans his radar screen. MERLIN's voice comes out of
- nowhere.
- MERLIN
- Deck two, aft section. The bridge.
230 INT. KILRATHI SHIP - CORRIDOR
- Blair comes through the hole, weapon ready, swings into
- the corridor, and right into a Kilrathi! It's dead,
- floating gruesomely in the airless corridor.
- BLAIR, looks left, can just make out the signs of battle,
- weighs his options, goes right.
- Inside of the Kilrathi ship is alien, hard, grotesque.
- Sharp angles and exposed tubes give it almost a predatory
- feel, like the lair of some jungle animal. He comes to an
- airlock. Hitting the pressure plate he steps inside.
- The green fog-like atmosphere that the Kilrathi breathe
- makes it difficult to see, makes the alien architecture
- creepy, gruesome. Blair switches his suit to thermal
- imaging.
- BLAIR's POV (THROUGH THERMAL IMAGER): Similar to normal/span>
- vision except that forms are more defined, details less/span>
- so. Anything "hot" is enhanced.
230A INT. KILRATHI SHIP - CORRIDOR
- MARINES push forward hard towards a heavily defended
- hatch way. Air is alive with laser fire, the stink of
- cordite, and the oppressive feeling of death. Bodies,
- both Kilrathi and human, litter the deck. A Marine's
- hit, and DEVERAUX pulls him out of the line of fire.
230B INT. BRIDGE - KILRATHI SHIP. (PREVIOUSLY SC. 234)
- Two Kilrathi warriors stand at the door, weapons ready.
- Behind them, a KILRATHI OFFICER prowls nervously, watches
- a bank of monitors which show the battle raging in the
- ship's corridors. He keys a code into the main console
- and glances at the big, RED BUTTON set in the center of
- the console.
SC. 231-232 OMIT
233 INT. DILIGENT - BRIDGE
233A INT. KILRATHI SHIP - UNFAMILIAR CORRIDOR
233B INT. KILRATHI SHIP - BRIDGE
- Last second, he rolls under the console, pops up, fires
- point blank into the back of a Warrior's head. Blast
- spatters tissue and crimson fluid on the wall.
- BLAIR snaps around, tries to line his weapon on the
- second Kilrathi. Too late. Thing's right there. An
- armored fist knocks Blair's weapon away. Backhand sends
- him spinning back. HE lands hard on the floor.
- WARRIOR looms over him, picks him up by his vest, lifts
- him off the floor, holds him up.
- Four inch serrated claws appear in the thing's right
- hand. It cocks its arm, ready to strike ...stops, lets
- Blair go, stumbles back.
- Lodged in its chest is Blair's Pilgrim cross. BLAIR
- watches he thing fall to the floor.
- BLAIR looks around the room. On the counter he dove
- behind, he sees a black box with a score of cables
- emanating from it, some leading to a monitor that is
- scrolling numbers. A piece of the door lies on top of
- the box, partially obscures it. He can see the letters
- "NAV."
- BLAIR
- What thee hell?
- BLAIR pulls the piece of door away, sees the words
- PEGASUS NAVCOM A.I. stenciled on them.
- BLAIR (CONT'D)
- They have the Charybdis jump
- coordinates, Merlin.
- BLAIR reacts to a sound, spins around, sees GERALD
- standing behind him, weapon lined.
Storyboards
Novelization
CHAPTER 25
KILRATHI
CONCOM SHIPULYSSES CORRIDOR MARCH 17, 2654
1100 HOURS
ZULU TIME2 HOURS FROM
CHARYBOIS QUASAR
JUMP POINT
- Deveraux knew that Sergeant Cogan did not appreciate her
- leading his Marines into the ConCom ship. His jowly face
- screwed up into a knot when he first heard about the plan, and
- his expression had not changed. Deveraux was not a Confed
- Marine Corps lieutenant, nor did she have any special training
- in tactical boarding operations. For all intents and purposes,
- she should not be commanding the Marines.
- However, she possessed one piece of knowledge that had
- convinced Commander Gerald to assign her the task. As part of
- her academy training she had spent two months flying a
- captured Dorkir-class freighter similar to the ConCom. She
- knew the layout of those vessels better than any grunt in
- Cogan's squad. Sure, Marines received intense training in
- enemy ship design, but no solider could memorize thousands of
- deck plans. Without her, the squad would rely on field slates
- and constantly have to pause to check their coordinates via
- computer. She could get them to the bridge far more
- swiftly—not that Cogan appreciated the advantage. Deveraux
- was not a Marine. Period.
- And while she stood at the front of the squad, immersed in
- the sparks and shimmer of the superheated hull, Cogan
- reminded her of that fact. "When the door blows, hold back,
- Commander. Let my people do their jobs." His face shield
- barely hid his contempt.
- "I'm leading this group, Sergeant. I recommend that you take
- that literally. Are we clear?"
- "Yeah, we are. At least your corpse won't weigh very much in
- zero G." He marched back and began shouting at his troops.
- "Five seconds," a Marine reported, waving a small scanner
- near the cutting line.
- Deveraux began a mental countdown, but the copper-colored
- section of plastisteel thudded to the deck before she reached
- one. She felt the umbilical's air tug on her shoulders as it fled
- into the Kilrathi ship. As suspected, the cats had turned off the
- artificial gravity in this section in order to slow the Marines'
- progress. In a surreal zero-G dance, she glided forward and
- turned into a triangular corridor clogged with a thick green gas
- and festooned with conduits. A silhouette stirred ahead, and
- she strained to see through the fog, her rifle stock already
- jammed into her shoulder.
- A yellow bolt tore a jagged hole in the bulkhead just a
- half-meter away. She returned fire but couldn't pick out a
- target. She touched a button on her helmet, engaging her
- thermal scanner. Data bars beamed at the corners of her
- faceplate. Forms grew more defined, details less so. The torn-up
- bulkhead throbbed red.
- The Marines charged in around her, cutting loose an
- incredible wave of suppressing fire that stirred the alien gas
- into hundreds of tiny whirlpools.
- "Hold your fire," Cogan ordered.
- She studied the corridor via the thermal scope. No movement
- or heat sources. "Tito! Marx! Take point. Second team. Watch
- our backs. Let's move."
* * *
- Blair kept Polanski and Maniac in his sights as the two
- engaged another pair of Dralthis that had sprung from behind
- the asteroids. "They're coming up behind. Let's kickstop 'em,"
- Polanski told Maniac.
- "Affirmative."
- "On my mark. Hold… hold… hold… mark!"
- Maniac and Polanski broke into hard ninety-degree turns,
- holding their new courses for a moment. The Dralthis overshot
- them, and the Rapiers spun back 180 degrees to lock targets.
- Missiles flew, and the cats paid with interest for their mistake.
- "Lieutenant, can I have a word with you?" Merlin asked, his
- voice coming abruptly from the intercom.
- "Little busy right now."
- The hologram flashed into view with his usual flourish and
- sat cross-legged on the Ion cannon's console. He thrust out his
- lower lip and blew a stray lock of hair from his eyes. "I'm
- picking up some strange electromagnetic emissions from the
- Kilrathi ship."
- "So?"
- He leaped onto the crossbar joining the firing grips and
- obscured Blair's view. "They're Pilgrim. The ULF frequency I
- picked up earlier. Do I have your attention?"
- "Yeah. Can you pinpoint the signal?"
- "Of course. I wouldn't have brought it up if I couldn't."
- Blair gaped at the little man. "Well?"
- "Deck two, aft section. The bridge."
- Decision time. He glanced at the radar display: all clear.
- Maniac and Polanski could handle themselves for at least a little
- while, barring an onslaught. Man, that's weak justification, but
- it makes me feel a little less guilty. He lifted out his cross,
- kissed it, then climbed down from the gunner's dome. Moving
- gingerly away from the ladder, he stole a glance at the bridge.
- Taggart and Gerald sat at their consoles, their backs to him.
- Good. He unlatched a rifle from its bulkhead mount, checked
- the charge, then fetched his helmet from the rack.
- He winced as the airlock doors parted, and tossed another
- look back at the bridge. Taggart and Gerald had heard nothing.
- He double-checked his helmet's binding, then ventured into the
- umbilical, feeling his weight decrease before the suit's gravity
- boots automatically kicked in.
- Dense fog unfurled toward him, and once he reached the
- opening to the ConCom ship, visibility had been reduced to a
- meter. He turned into a corridor and something brushed his shoulder.
- He recoiled with a cry, lifting the rifle, finger tensing over the trigger.
- An abomination floated next to him, a uniformed beast so
- hideous that nature had not yet forgiven herself for its creation.
- The thing's pale, elongated head had been torn open by laser
- fire, and its huge paws were locked in a death clutch. The corpse
- rolled over, and the yellow eyes stared at Blair, convex irises
- now inert, lids twitching involuntarily.
- Taggart had been right. The Kilrathi would not be entering
- beauty pageants anytime soon. And Blair felt fortunate that his
- first close encounter was with a dead one.
- "Nice," Merlin said through the comm. "I believe there's
- another way. To the right."
- His gravity boots peeled off the deck and made traveling
- furtively more than a little difficult, though the haze did help.
- He reached a door at the corridor's end and frowned at the
- control panel labeled in Kilrathi.
- "Translating," Merlin said. "Hit the big button."
- "Of course."
- Green fumes poured through the doors as they slid apart. He
- tpuched a control on his helmet, bringing the thermal scanner
- online. Two pipes affixed to the bulkhead glowed red, otherwise
- the corridor appeared cool. With his rifle at the ready, he
- moved inside.
* * *
- "Aw, hell," Deveraux moaned as a half-dozen Kilrathi
- troopers stamped up the corridor. The Marines traded a dozen
- bolts with the aliens, then fell back into an intersecting passage.
- "That the only way?" Cogan asked, popping out an energy
- magazine and popping in another.
- "It is now," she answered grimly. "They've reported our
- position. They're already sealing us off back there."
- "Grenade!" someone cried.
- Deveraux looked down as the cylindrical concussion grenade
- rolled across the deck, just two meters away. Cogan seized her
- shoulders, driving her back as the bomb exploded. A bluish-red
- fireball swelled overhead. They collapsed, and Deveraux fought
- to recover her breath. Somehow, she managed to sit up.
- Three Marines lay dead in the intersection, their arms and
- legs gone or twisted at unnatural angles, their space suits
- whistling as O2 units mindlessly pumped air.
- A sweaty and scared-looking grunt rounded the corner,
- ducking from incoming fire. He took one look at his
- dismembered comrades, gagged, then forced himself toward
- Deveraux. "Ma'am? Got another squad moving in behind us. We
- are pinned down."
- "Lieutenant Polanski? Report," Gerald ordered.
- The young man's masked face shown on the comm screen.
- "No contacts, sir."
- "I concur," Marshall added. "We're jamming local
- transmissions, but that doesn't mean our buddies didn't get off
- a signal. Better set the table anyway."
- "Understood," Gerald said. "How are we doing back there,
- Blair?"
- No response.
- "Lieutenant Blair? Answer your station." Gerald tapped on
- the ship's security cameras. He flipped through the images until
- he found the empty gunner's dome. "Look at this," he shouted
- at Taggart. "You should've never brought that half-breed on this
- mission. His orders were to remain on this ship." Gerald bolted
- up. "Stay here. I'll find him."
- Picturing himself with a gun shoved into Blair's forehead,
- Gerald slapped on his helmet and tore a rifle from the rack. He
- glanced to Taggart. That's right, Commodore. You should look
- worried. Now your boy is going down.
* * *
- "Which way, Merlin?"
- Blair had reached the end of the corridor, where a more
- narrow passage ran through it at a seventy-five-degree angle.
- "Go left. Then down."
- His elbow scraped along the wall of the tube, which quickly
- widened into a standard-size corridor with increasing gravity.
- Blair's stomach suddenly greeted his knees.
- "There's a floor panel on the deck. Pull it up," Merlin
- instructed.
- He found the handle and slowly lifted the panel while
- balancing his weapon. He peered into the hallway below, hoped
- to God that it would remain clear, then dropped to the deck.
- "See that hatch up ahead?" Merlin asked. "That's the bridge.
- ULF signals are peaking the meter now."
- After a second glance at the hatch, Blair dodged to the
- bulkhead. Large, cross-shaped windows built into the doors
- revealed two Kilrathi officers, their heads lowered to their
- consoles, their bodies outlined in the faint red of his thermal
- scanner. He cocked his rifle. Full charge. Keeping to the
- shadows and thicker fog near the wall, Blair advanced. He threw
- a look back, and when he faced forward, light flickered across
- his display.
- Two towering Kilrathi skulked out of the gloom near the
- bridge door, and one of them took massive strides toward him,
- its booted feet rumbling the deck, its mouth opening to expose
- diseased gums and a grotesque set of gnarled, razor-sharp
- teeth. Blair stood immobilized in the image as the warrior
- launched itself toward him with improbable speed.
- His finger found the trigger, and he blew open the alien's
- abdomen at point-blank range. The thing gurgled and bled over
- its legs, took a step back, and dropped.
- In a blur, the second Kilrathi appeared behind the first.
- Blair lifted the rifle. The cat came at him, bulbous eyes
- widening, arms lifting, claws springing from its paw. A victory
- grin split open its horrid face.
- Blair fired!
- Pain rocked visibly through the alien, robbing its smile and
- narrowing its gaze. It released a spinetingling shriek and
- stumbled onto its back.
- As Blair stepped around the cat, he exchanged a look with a
- Kilrathi officer behind the bridge's door, then stole his way to
- the windows.
- On the other side, one alien stood fixated on a monitor while
- another, presumably the captain, turned to kneel before a
- copper-colored statue of Sivar. The captain's mouth moved.
- "This is not good," Merlin said. "That Kilrathi in there just
- spoke a ritual phrase. He says that he's honored to die for the
- glory of Kilrah, the Emperor, and the Empire."
- The captain rose and turned back to a center console, where
- Blair spotted a red button that needed no translation.
- He fell back from the door, dropped an explosive round into
- his rifle's grenade launcher, aimed, and—
- With a faint thump the bomb left his weapon, struck the door,
- and blew it off its tracks in a column of flames edged in black
- smoke. Exploiting the lingering cloud, Blair rushed toward the
- hatch, then crouched to pick a target.
- Reaching for the red button, the Kilrathi captain jerked as
- Blair's first round tore a ragged hunk out of its shoulder. Two
- more bolts punched the now-howling captain to the deck.
- Blair flinched as the remaining two bridge officers returned
- fire from the cover of consoles. He dodged through showers of
- sparks and flying debris, then dropped to his stomach behind a
- long row of stations. He inched forward, careful not to move the
- colossal swivel chairs beside him. From between the widely
- spaced console legs he saw armored feet closing in on him from
- flanking positions. In a half-dozen heartbeats, the cats would be
- standing over him.
- He waited for four of those beats, then rolled under the
- stations and popped up behind a warrior, jabbed his rifle into
- the thing's long head, and squeezed off a bolt. The warrior
- dropped, most of its brain on the wall behind it.
- But where was the other officer?
- Pivoting frantically, Blair couldn't find him. Then, out of
- nowhere, the thing abandoned its rifle and sprang. An armored
- fist sent Blair's weapon tumbling, and an even faster paw across
- his face hurled him to the deck.
- This Kilrathi did not smile as the earlier one had. The pure
- thought of killing narrowed its eyes to slits, kept its lip crimped
- in a sneer, and fueled a long, steady growl. It reached for Blair's
- chest, grabbing him by the fabric of his space suit. With little
- effort, the thing hoisted him high into the air as it extended the
- talons of its free paw. Then it lowered him a little, wanting to
- stare him down before the unceremonious gutting.
- In a second of movement so well choreographed that it made
- Blair feel he had stepped outside himself, he jabbed his thumbs
- into the cat's large, yellow eyes. The paw gripping him relaxed,
- and he fell, palming a console for balance as the alien wailed in
- agony.
- Blair bounded for his rifle, came up with it, and finished off
- the Kilrathi with a pair of bolts to the head. Flesh sizzled.
- "Nicely done," Merlin said, seated on the forward edge of a
- nearby monitor.
- "Thanks for the help."
- "I'm just running my program. And by the way, don't touch
- the red button."
- He looked at the self-destruct switch and sighed. Then his
- gaze wandered the rest of the bridge, and he noticed a black box
- partially hidden behind a piece of the exploded hatch, the
- letters N-A-V visible on one side. The box sat on the station he
- had hidden behind, and a score of cables emanated from it,
- some leading to a monitor that scrolled numbers and letters,
- some into a bank of consoles he guessed were part of the
- ConCom's communication system. "What the hell?"
- After crossing to the device, he set down his rifle and lifted
- away the piece of plastisteel. His mind raced as he read the
- words PEGASUS NAVCOM AI. "They have the Charybdis jump
- coordinates, Merlin."
- "They have more than that. I'm picking up strong
- electromagnetic emissions from the panel to your right. It's a
- ULF signal. I finished translating the code. They're relaying a
- ship's coordinates."
- "What ship?"
- "The Tiger Claw."
- "Damn it. What's the source?"
- "The original signal comes from the Tiger Claw herself."
- Blair's jaw dropped. "A traitor on the Claw?"
- "It gets worse. It's encrypted with an executive-level code,
- one I recognized immediately."
- "Who has access to those codes?"
- "Only Captain Sansky and Commander Gerald."
- The monitor flashed, and the code numbers and letters
- scrolled by at an increasing rate.
- "What's happening?" Blair huddled over the screen.
- "The signal just went from ULF to Ultra High Frequency. The
- Tiger Claw just became a beacon."
- "Every Kilrathi ship in the sector will be able to find her,"
- Blair said, nearly losing his voice.
- "Lieutenant, someone is—"
- Reacting to the sound of footfalls, Blair whirled to lock gazes
- with Commander Gerald, who, with inflamed eyes and teeth
- flashing obscenely, raised his rifle and started onto the bridge.
- "You'd like my ship to fall, wouldn't you, you treacherous piece
- of shit." He gestured with his weapon toward one of the dead
- Kilrathi. "I should feed you to these things."
- "Looks like you'll get your chance," Blair said, then patted
- the NAVCOM. "They owe you a few favors, don't they, Mr.
- Gerald?"
