Wing Commander in Real Time - Day 1 - 0900 Zulu

Script

1 FADE IN:

2 OMIT.

3 EXT. INTERSTELLAR SPACE

We see a beautiful swirling quasar. Red spills over the

blackness of space. This is the Charybdis Quasar -- the

offspring of several collapsed stars and the gateway to Earth.

A HUGE ASTEROID slowly cruises into frame. As we drift

closer we can see that this "rock" is covered with a

lattice work of towers, gun emplacements, antennae and

docks -- huge battle ships sit idle in their berths. Two

monstrously large ion engines are imbedded in the "rear"

of this mobile naval base.

SUPERIMPOSE: VEGA SECTOR FLEET HEADQUARTERS - TERRAN

CONFEDERATION: ASTEROID WORLD "PEGASUS." MARCH 15TH.

EARTH YEAR 2654. 0900 HOURS, ZULU TIME. LOCATION:

ULYSSES CORRIDOR. 700 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH.

3A INT. PEGASUS COMMAND AND CONTROL/NAVCOM CONTROL ROOM

Hewn out of solid rock, this is the nerve center of the

Pegasus station. a FEW BORED TECHS sit at their stations.

This is the end of the graveyard shift. A RADAR tech is

drinking coffee.

CLOSE ON his screen: NOTHING.

Puts down his coffee, leans back.

RADAR TECH

Hey Tom, you cover for me? I've got to

take a leak.

Another tech nods. The Radar Tech leaves.

CLOSE ON his screen: a mass of RED BLIPS suddenly

appears.

CLOSE ON the coffee mug: The coffee starts to VIBRATE.

3B EXT. ASTEROID WORLDLET

From above, we see what must be the shadows of a hundred

bombers pass over the surface of this rock. Then we hear

the scream of engines. STRANGE, ALIEN FIGHTER CRAFT --

their shapes almost suggesting a TALON or a CLAW -- dive

INTO THE FRAME. Begin their attack run.

3C INT. PEGASUS COMMAND AND CONTROL/NAVCOM CONTROL ROOM

The Coffee cup is shaken by explosions. Alarms ring out.

4 OMIT.

5 OMIT.

6 OMIT.

7 OMIT.

8 OMIT.

9 EXT. ASTEROID WORLDLET

Explosions pepper the surface of the asteroid world.

Confederation battle ships are caught helplessly in their

berths as missiles and laser fire rain down on them.

Cold space erupts with streams of tachyon fire as the

desperate CONFED ships and asteroid based gun batteries

return fire.

It's a futile effort. For every attacking ship that is

destroyed, another takes it's place. What few Confed

fighters the worldlet can launch are instantly destroyed.

The destruction is awesome, all-encompassing. This is

what Pearl Harbor must have been like seven hundred years

ago.

An alien bomber pulls up from it's attack run, banks

hard, tears past us under full power.

9A INT. PEGASUS COMMAND ADN CONTROL/NAVCOM CONTROL ROOM

Alive now, people run to their stations. Radar, communications, weapons, and security officers

bark out orders to subordinates, relay orders and issue

on the spot situation reports.

Over the communications links, we hear fighters engaging

the enemy, disappearing in screams and static; capital

ship commanders desperately ordering their mooring cut,

calling for full power and more aerial support. Mayday

calls, prayers, expletives fill the airwaves.

RADAR TECH

I count one nine zero bodies inbound.

Vector three seven four, attack

formation.

SECURITY OFFICER

Shields are not responding.

Station shudders as a CONFED capital ship explodes, tears

apart. Great pieces of fiery metal spin through space,

smash into the station, hurtle into space.

COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER

The Iowa's gone. And the Kobi.

ADMIRAL BILL WILSON, grey haired, mid fifties, thick

around the middle, enters the room, a CONFED Marine

trailing.

WILSON

Status?

RADAR TECH

Forty Kilrathi capital ships coming to

bear, Admiral. They are powering weapons.

WILSON

How did they get past our patrols?

Alarms sound. SECURITY OFFICER reacts.

SECURITY OFFICER

We have a station breach. Levels

seven, eleven, and thirteen. Kilrathi

Marines.

WILSON looks at a bank of black and white security

monitors.

9B SECURITY MONITORS

We catch glimpses of massive, armored forms moving

through shadow enshrouded corridors. Their faces

obscured by rebreathers and great flowing plumes, they

cut through CONFED security teams, move efficiently and

inexorably forward.

A figure steps into view.

SECURITY OFFICER

They're headed for Command and Control.

WILSON reacts, turns towards a massive computer system

sitting behind a glass partition. At its center is a

small black box with NAVCOM stenciled on it.

WILSON

Destroy the NAVCOM A.I. Now!

COMPUTER OFFICER banks on a keyboard, smashes a glass

case to reveal a r ed handle, pushes it forward. Nothing

happens. HE pushes handle a second time. Again,

nothing. Off of Wilson's look, COMPUTER OFFICER just

shakes his head.

COMPUTER OFFICER

Command codes have been overwritten.

WILSON grabs the Marine's weapon, drops the slide back,

lines the weapon, fires on the NAVCOM. Uranium depleted

rounds, bounce off the glass. Clip empty, he tries to

break the glass with the butt. Stock shatters.

Concussion outside. Heads swing to the massive

reinforced doors leading to the center. They're

distorting, bending in.

WILSON

Prepare a drone. Get me a coded

channel.

COMMUNICATIONS TECH bangs at a keyboard, nods to Wilson

who turns towards a video monitor:

WILSON (CONT'D)

This is Admiral Bill Wilson, Pegasus

station commanding officer. Forty

Kilrathi capital ships are closing.

Station has been breached. They want

the NAVCOM. Repeat, they want--

Concussion tears into the room as the exterior doors are

blown off their hinges in a wall of toxic smoke.

Wilson's head snaps to the doors. he can just see the

outline of an armored figure stepping through.

CLOSE ON his eyes. He's a dead man, but there's no fear,

just resignation.

He depresses a button by the video monitor.

9C EXT. PEGASUS STATION

A single drone launches from the burning station, fires

retro rockets, speeds away towards a distant swirling

mass of dying suns called the Charybdis Quasar some forty

hours away.

As the drone speeds back, it passes in front of the

Kilrathi battle group. CAMERA stays on the ominous alien

armada.

Storyboards

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Novelization

PROLOGUE

VEGA SECTOR FLEET HEADQUARTERS

TERRAN CONFEDERATION ASTEROID WORLD PEGASUS

MARCH 15, 2654 0900 HOURS ZULU TIME

ULYSSES CORRIDOR

700 LIGHT YEARS FROM EARTH

Seated at his console in Pegasus Station's NAV-COM control room,

nineteen-year-old Radar Officer Thomas Sherryl stared through a wide

viewport at the swirling blues and reds of the Charybdis Quasar. He

looked past the whirlpool of gases, past the black hole lying at the quasar's

core like an interminably deep maw, until his inner gaze rested on a gentle

blue orb bathed in a soft glow. Earth. Homeworld. So near. So far.

Thomas Sherryl dreamed of things green. Of the smell and taste of real

air. Of foamy ocean waters rushing up and across his chest. Of beach

barbecues. Of bikinis. He no longer sat in his chair, surrounded by billions

of tons of durasteel and ice-slick rock; he no longer felt the rumble of the

naval base's enormous ion engines propelling the converted asteroid

deeper into the corridor; he no longer had to pull the graveyard shift and

oversee instruments that did a fine job of sweeping the sector without

human scrutiny. Thomas Sherryl had found his freedom. Goodbye towers,

gun emplacements, and antennae. Good-bye Confederation capital ships

sitting in your spacedocks. I'm no longer stuck on this rock. I got a ticket

out. And it's a ticket no one can take away.

"Hey, Tom? Can you cover for me? I gotta take a leak."

Robbed of his bliss, Thomas Sherryl scowled at fellow Radar Officer

Rick Adunda as the other man set down his half-full coffee mug and left

before Thomas replied.

With a loud sigh that drew stares from the other personnel on duty,

Thomas switched seats to Rick's console and resignedly studied the

long-range sensor report: a blank screen. He eyed his own short-range

display and found the same.

"I love my job," he moaned.

And, as though on cue, a mass of red blips suddenly rippled across the

screen.

Thomas's gaze shot up. Had someone hacked into the system to play a

joke? He studied the other officers. No smiles. No laughter. He felt a

tremor rise from his feet and rattle into his spine.

He looked to Rick's coffee mug as it began to vibrate.

A shadow wiped over the viewport, followed by a second, then a third.

Muffled explosions resounded from outside the control room.

Jakoby, the stocky security officer on duty, rushed to the viewport.

"Kilrathi fighters," he said stiffly.

Klaxons blared. Overhead lighting switched to the dim crimson of

battle. Behind Thomas a panel of life-support monitors sizzled and shorted

out, heaving a pungent scent that wafted through the control room. He

glanced to a bank of screens that showed images from the station's

external cameras:

Twelve comm dishes on the base's northwest side blew apart in

succession under the unrelenting Particle cannon and Meson fire.

Dozens of Dralthi medium fighters swooped down and caught the great

Confederation cruisers and destroyers still sitting helplessly in their

berths. The fighters resembled glistening gray discs cut through their

centers by sleek, single-pilot cockpits. Long, narrow laser cannons

extended from the pits and blazed unceasingly. Though only twenty-eight

meters long, the fighters' formidable, talon-like appearance made them

seem much larger. And they packed more than just laser cannons.

Heat-seeking missiles streaked away from the starfighters, locking onto

the Confed ships' now-warming engines. The cruisers and destroyers

retaliated with streams of tachyon fire, but scores of missiles navigated

through the glistening gauntlet to impact on and weaken the Confed ships'

shields. Another wave of those missiles would tear into hull armor, flesh,

and bone.

A resonant drumming seized the NAVCOM control room as

asteroid-based gun batteries finally came on line, belching out thick bolts

of anti-aircraft fire as they swiveled to track targets.

Thomas kept a white-knuckled grip on his chair as he continued to

watch with a horrid and inevitable fascination. Like an angry horde of

plastisteel insects, the fighters dove at the station, dropped their

poisonous barbs, and pulled up, leaving trails of floating debris in their

wakes. For every Dralthi destroyed, another soared through the rubble of

its predecessor.

One of the heavy cruisers, the Iowa, launched a half-dozen F44-A

Rapier medium attack fighters. The Rapiers' silver, battle-scored fuselages

and barrel-shaped rotating laser cannons that formed their brassy noses

gave them a fearsome if not sleek appearance. Short, slightly upturned

wings and huge twin thruster cones stated most clearly that the Rapier

had been built for speed. And it usually did an excellent job of catapulting

a single pilot across the laser-lit cosmos. But as the starfighters cleared the

flight deck, Kilrathi fighters methodically picked them off with salvos of

Meson and missile fire that fully obscured each ship before blasting it to

gleaming fragments.

"We're gonna lose," an astounded navigator said behind Thomas.

Rick Adunda pounded over, his young face creased in terror. "Get out

of my chair."

With a shudder, Thomas returned to his own station as Rick dialed up

a commlink so they could listen to the skipchatter from outside.

"Goddammit! Cut our moorings! Get us out of here!" a capital ship

commander cried, her voice already hoarse.

"Mooring release systems, uh, damaged," came a nervous ensign's

reply. "Unable to... to initiate."

A fighter pilot cut into the channel. "Christ almighty! They're

everywhere! Bug out, people. Bug out. Regroup at the southern pole. Go

now!"

"Belay that order," shouted the capital ship commander. "We need air

support, Lieutenant—not your announcement of retreat."

"Forget it, Commander. We… are… outgunned," the pilot said, spacing

his words for effect. "There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity."

"See you at your court-martial."

"If we live that long."

"Mayday! Mayday! This is Senior Spacehand Eric Popkin in

Watchtower Three. We can't hold 'em back anymore. Batteries are wasted.

They're coming over the fence. Wait. What's that? Ohmygod. OHMYGOD!

AHHHHHH!"

"Popkin? Report! Popkin, do you copy?"

"And it is you, Dear Lord, who will deliver us from this evil because we

ask it in your name, and—"

"You wanna piece of me? I don't think so. Open wide…"

Something struck heavily on Thomas's shoulder. He turned to find Rick

staring wide-eyed at him. "What are you doing?"

"I, uh, I don't know. I guess, well—"

"Make your report!"

'Thomas swallowed and regarded his scope. "I count one-nine-zero

bogies inbound. Vector three-seven-four, attack formation."

"Shields are not responding," Security Officer Jakoby announced.

The viewport filled with a harsh white light that peeled off the

blackness of space. A tremendous thunderclap shook through the entire

station as though a fusion bomb had detonated at its core.

"What the f—" Rick began, then shielded his face as his console sparked

and smoked.

"I don't believe it," Ordnance Officer Scott Osborne said, squinting at

the viewport as the glare subsided. "That was the Iowa." He turned

toward Thomas, his face paling.

"Confirmed," Comm Officer Rene Gemma said. "The Iowa is gone. And

the Kobi."

Loud footfalls caught Thomas's attention. He cocked his head toward

the lift doors as Admiral Bill Wilson double-timed into the control room

with an armored Confederation Marine in tow. Twin rows of large buttons

on Wilson's dark uniform flashed as they caught the overhead lights. He

wiped the sweat from his balding pate, and his face seemed to grow more

gaunt as he took in the scene with weary eyes.

Rick, who had moved to the console on Thomas's left, tipped his head

in Wilson's direction and muttered, "It's about freakin' time."

Wilson turned toward them. "Status?"

Thomas jerked and studied his screen. "Four Kilrathi capital ships

coming to bear, Admiral. They are powering weapons."

With a crooked grin, Wilson asked, "How did they get past our

patrols?"

"We lost contact with our patrols for a few minutes," Comm Officer

Gemma said. "But we reestablished. I thought it was quasar interference.

The enemy must've taken them out and transmitted false signals."

Before Wilson could respond, a low-pitched alarm added its voice to the

already rising din of the control room.

Security Officer Jakoby bolted to his terminal. He touched the screen

several times, then winced. "We have a station breach. Levels seven,

eleven, and thirteen. Kilrathi Marines."

Wilson hurried to a bank of security monitors beside Jakoby. Thomas

stood to peer over the admiral's shoulder.

Towering forms in copper-colored armor skulked through the dim

corridors, throwing markedly inhuman shadows on the walls. Rebreather

tubes partially concealed their faces and snaked down from elongated

heads to bulging chests. Exhaust fumes lingered behind them as they

forged efficiently and inexorably forward.

A pair of Confed security officers fired upon them suddenly, but two of

the Kilrathi withstood the point-blank hits and thundered on to seize the

officers. Thomas turned away as he listened to the women shriek, gurgle,

and fall silent.

"They're headed for Command and Control," Jakoby reported.

Thomas may have only been a radar officer, but he knew very well what

the aliens wanted. He flicked his gaze to the opposite end of the control

room, to the massive computer system shielded by a synthoglass wall, a

mainframe that represented the very heart and brain of Pegasus Station.

At the system's center lay that small, most precious black box with the

letters NAVCOM stenciled across its side.

Clenching his teeth, Wilson charged toward the computer system.

"Destroy the NAVCOM AI. Now!" he ordered Benjamin Ferrago, the chief

navigator.

Ferrago typed frantically on his touchpad, then, balling his hand into a

fist, he smashed a glass panel to gain access to a red handle. Grimacing,

he threw the handle forward and looked to the black box.

Nothing.

He tried the handle a second time, his eyes now glassy.

No response.

"What's wrong, son?" Wilson demanded.

Ferrago shook his head. "Command codes have been overwritten."

Wilson whirled and seized the Confed Marine's conventional rifle,

dropped the slide back, then aimed at the NAVCOM. Thomas flinched as

uranium-depleted rounds ricocheted off the synthoglass. Wilson emptied

the entire clip before turning the rifle around. With a howl, he charged

toward the NAVCOM and drove the rifle's butt into the glass. The stock

shattered.

"Back off," Jakoby said, pushing the button on a concussion grenade

the size of a ballpoint pen. He tossed it at the synthoglass.

The others retreated as Thomas crouched behind his console and held

his ears. The grenade went off with a terrific boom. He lay there, listening

to his own breath for a moment.

"Did it work?" someone asked.

Someone else cursed.

Peering furtively above his instrument panel, Thomas glimpsed the bad

news.

Another concussion echoed from outside. The lift's massive, reinforced

doors began distorting, bending in, as the Kilrathi Marines outside

unloosed a flurry of rifle fire.

"Here," Rick said, slapping a sidearm in Thomas's hand. He winked.

"Special arakh rounds. Kilrathi catnip. We Terrans stick together."

"Where'd you get this? We're gonna get in—"

"Big trouble? You kidding me?" Rick clicked off the safety of his own

pistol. "Let's go."

Remaining hunched over, Thomas followed Rick past the radar and

navigation stations to a partition opposite the lift doors, where they

huddled and watched the doors grow hotter and weaker.

Admiral Wilson regarded Comm Officer Gemma with a grave look.

"Prepare a drone. Get me a coded channel."

Gemma seemed lost for a moment, then she touched the correct keys

and nodded to the admiral.

Wilson faced the camera at Gemma's station as it pivoted toward him.

"This is Admiral Bill Wilson, Pegasus Station commanding officer. Four

Kilrathi capital ships are closing. Station has been breached. They want

the NAVCOM. Repeat. They want—"

The lift doors blew off their glide tracks and thwacked the deck with

twin thuds. A cloud of toxic smoke swelled into the control room. Within

that smoke, Thomas made out the unnerving outline of a Kilrathi Marine

as it hunkered down and ignited its weapon.

Rick pumped rounds into the smoke, as did some of the others. Thomas

saw a half-dozen more outlines appear behind the first, and the sight sent

him ducking behind the partition.

"Drone away!" Gemma shouted.

Thomas looked back at the viewport. The tiny drone streaked away

from the dying station, bound for the nearest Confederation carrier, the

Concordia, some twelve hours away. It passed in front of the Kilrathi

battle group that included a dreadnought, two destroyers, and the largest

vessel, a Snakeir-class cruiser. Transports and smaller escort ships flew

abreast of the capital ships, exploiting their cover.

An explosion stung Thomas's ears, and he saw Rick fall against the

partition, his uniform melting into a black cavity in his chest.

Thomas wanted to act, but he could only tremble. He detected heavy

footsteps. Close. Loud breathing, mechanized. Oh, God. What's that smell?

He looked over his shoulder at the Kilrathi Marine standing over him, its

polished armor reflecting explosions from outside, its pale yellow eyes

wide, menacing, drinking him in with sinister delectation as it breathed

through its tube.

Shoot him! he screamed at himself.

He lifted the pistol.

The Kilrathi plucked it effortlessly from him, grunted, and kicked him

onto his back. The soldier pressed its boot on his chest, cutting off his air.

A rib popped.

In those last seconds, Thomas took himself away from Pegasus, through

the jump point at Charybdis, and back home, where palm trees bowed to

the coastal wind, where waves lapped endlessly at the shore, where he lay

under a canopy of fronds and drank from the lips of a dark-eyed woman

until night fell.