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Darkness of Space
By J-Francis-C
MILLS
Mr Marquis, nice you decided to join us.
Laura turned around smiling and walked over towards Rodrigues.
RODRIGUES
I thought, it was kind of rude not meeting everybody.
LEVINE
We we’re starting to think we had Count Dracula on board the Upton and Clark.
RODRIGUES
Just following my orders.
LEVINE
Don’t give me that, what’s going to happen are the prisoners just going to come out of cryo sleep?
Come on, you just think that your better than us.
MILLS
Mr Levine!
LEVINE (staring at Rodrigues)
I don’t know captain, there’s something funny about him.
LAURA (talking to Rodrigues)
You’ll have to ignore Levine he suffers from an intolerable active imagination.
LEVINE
Whatever.
Thomas and Jones got up from the table and moved towards the exit.
JONES (yawning)
Going to bed.
LEVINE
Together?
THOMAS (stretching his back)
No... I’ve got to finish off, sweeping the third level.
Thomas picked up his mop and left the bridge with Jones.
MILLS (talking to Rodrigues)
Do you want something to eat Mr Marquis.
RODRIGUES
Yes... I’m starving.
MILLS (shouting to wake Moncrieffe up)
Moncrieffe get up and cook, that’s what your paid for.
Moncrieffe woke up suddenly, seeing Mills shouting at him he went back to sleep.
LAURA (talking to Rodrigues)
Don’t worry, I’ll cook you something.
RODRIGUES
Thanks.
MILLS
You shouldn’t have to.
LAURA
Really, I don’t mind.
Mills turned his chair around and again glanced towards space.
Jones and Thomas made their way along a corridor.
JONES
Are you sure it was him?
THOMAS
Swear to God, but his chamber it was sealed up, so you couldn’t see him.
JONES
Don’t worry, I’ve got a code for that.
The two men arrived at the chamber hall doors, Thomas entered. Jones turned around to see if
anybody had been following them.
In the bridge. Rodrigues sat down eating some scramble eggs. Laura sat next to him and Moncrieffe
was still sleeping opposite them.
Laura noticed a scar on Rodrigues arm, Rodrigues looked up at her.
RODRIGUES (touching the scar)
A Sonoc Tarantula.
LAURA
A spider did that.?
Rodrigues nodded his head.
LAURA
I hate spiders always have.
So are you on leave, when we reach earth?
RODRIGUES
Maybe, I’m not sure.
LAURA
Go, see your wife maybe?
RODRIGUES (smiling)
First, I’m going to make sure, my cargo gets to its destination in one piece.
Jones and Thomas were in the chamber hall. Thomas was leading the ways towards the alien chamber,
Jones stayed behind, they reached the chamber.
Thomas wiped away some condensation of the face of the chamber.
THOMAS
This is it.
Jones looked at the chamber and saw a type pad on the side, he typed into it.
JONES
Doesn’t say, Blake Slater.
THOMAS
What does it say?
JONES
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
THOMAS
It’s got to be him.
JONES
OK, I’ll carry on, if your sure?
Jones punched a code into the pad.
JONES
Open sesame.
The metal sealed cover of the chamber opened up, unveiling what was inside.
In the bridge Moncrieffe started to snore.
Mills turned around in his captain’s chair.
MILLS
Somebody shut him up..
Levine raised his arm to indicate silence.
LEVINE
No wait captain, lets see if we can get him to talk again.
RODRIGUES
What does he say?
LEVINE
Loads of shit, last time he started talking about his dad hitting him and his mother.
Laura moved forward and shook Moncrieffe, he woke up.
Inside the chamber hall the two men stared at the chamber.
JONES
What the hell is it?
THOMAS
Sure is ugly.
Thomas pressed a button on the pad, and the chamber door open, water flooded out.
Jones grabbed Thomas wrist but it was to late.
JONES
Thomas, what the hell you doing?
THOMAS
Trying to work out, what it is.
JONES (annoyed)
Go get your goddam mop.
Thomas moved away heading towards the exit. Jones bent down looking at the alien organism, a liquid
lump which started to move.
JONES (whispering)
What are you?
In the bridge, Levine jumped up in celebration of winning another game of cards,
LEVINE
I win again.
WALTON
Jesus, how do you do it.
Walton got up moving towards the coffee machine.
Levine turned around looking at Mills.
LEVINE
How about you let us see Slater, kiss him goodnight.
MILLS
The man’s a stone cold murderer, don’t fuck around.
LEVINE
The man was a national hero, and then the country he loved betrayed him.
WALTON
If he would have killed the judge and only the judge, that would have been OK, Bu the kept on killing, like... like he liked it.
LEVINE
None of his victims was innocent.
RODRIGUES
I remember reading about the Judge, Judge Ramirez, who ordered the execution of Slater’s wife and daughter.
LEVINE
That’s nice for you.
In the chamber hall, Jones got up and turned his back on the liquid lump. He moved towards the chair
where Rodrigues had previously been sitting. On the chair was the book he had been reading. Jones
picked it up and examined it.
JONES (to himself)
Must be (looking at the place where the bookmark was set.
He turned around hearing something, the liquid mass disappeared.
JONES (to himself)
Must have melted.
A drip came from the ceiling.
Another drip came down hitting Jones on the shoulder, he looked at it, poked it with his finger and
smelt it. He turned his face away in disgust at the smell.
There was a movement behind him, he turned around there was nothing there.
Growling could be heard, it was coming from the corner behind a big cargo box. Jones moved forward
slowly.
The growling got louder.
Jones was about to look behind the cargo box, when a dog (Dixon) jumped towards him, knocking him
backwards. Dixon sitting on his chest started to lick his face.
JONES (laughing)
You got me there.
I’m going to kill Moncrieffe.
The dog became alert, it looked at something behind Jones, Dixon started to growl. Jones turned his
head to look behind him there was nothing there.
JONES
What is it, you stupid dog?
The dog jumped off Jones and ran towards the exit.
JONES
Stupid Dog.
There was a bang to the left of Jones behind the chambers.
Jones brought out his electric prod.
JONES
Thomas, is that you?
The alien came down from the ceiling and landed behind Jones. It’s tail became erect and punctured
Jones through the base of his spine, the tail came out of Jones chest, spilling his guts. Jones looked
around in alarm as the alien lifted him off the ground and then the alien ripped his head off spilling
blood everywhere.
In the bridge, Mills was looking at the security cameras, as the images passed from every camera on
the ship.
Mills stopped at one camera view.
MILLS
Where’s Thomas we got a mess in the chamber hall.
Rodrigues looked up in alarm.
RODRIGUES
What mess?
Mills touched the screen and the camera was projected and blown in the middle of the bridge, it was of
the chamber hall. Jones’ bloody body sat in the middle of the room unrecognisable.
Mills pointed towards Jones.
MILLS
That mess.
Levine and Walton turned around from playing cards, they stared at the projected image. Moncrieffe
walked over eating staring at the image.
On the image Thomas could be seen entering the hall, with his cleaning cart.
LEVINE
Here he is.
Thomas could be seen looking down at the mess, he looked alarmed and frightened.
Everybody in the bridge stared at the screen.
Rodrigues got up and started to head towards the exit, picking up his gun on the way.
Levine pointed towards Thomas.
LEVINE
What the hell’s wrong with him?
Mills saw Rodrigues leave the bridge running.
MILLS
Levine and Walton go with him.
Thomas could be seen starting to run away on the projected image.
Levine grabbed his electric prod, he squeezed it an electric beam came out of it,
LEVINE
Ready and waiting.
Levine and Walton rushed out of the room, Laura followed them.
Rodrigues arrived outside the chamber hall door. In front of him he could see Thomas’ bloody body
being dragged away by the alien.
Rodrigues fired his laser gun, but missed the alien. The alien turned around and dropped Thomas to
the floor and then exploded into a pool of liquid.
Rodrigues moved forward firing at the pool of liquid.
The pool moved towards a drain and passed through it.
Rodrigues bent down and looked down the drain. A growl could be heard in the distance.
RODRIGUES (whispering to himself)
Jesus.
Levine, Walton and Laura came around the corner. They looked at the bloody body of Thomas. Walton
looked suspiciously at Rodrigues.
WALTON
Did you do this?
RODRIGUES
Off course not.
Levine bent down checking Thomas for a pulse, signalled he was dead.
LEVINE
What the hell did that, looks like... like.... like... Jesus I don’t know what he looks like.
Laura ignored Levine and moved towards Rodrigues.
LAURA
Are you all right?
RODRIGUES
Yes, but it’s only going to get worse, a whole lot worse.
Rodrigues started to move away.
LAURA
Why?
RODRIGUES
You’ll see, just wait.
LEVINE
What the hell’s that supposed to mean?
WALTON
Ignore him, help me pick him up.
Walton grabbed Thomas body by his shoulders.
WALTON
It’s not him, I’m worried about, Slater man he’s going to come and get us.
Rodrigues stormed onto the bridge, he got into the middle of the bridge and then sighed and stopped
looking around.
MILLS
What happened down there?
RODRIGUES
It got out.
MILLS
What got out?
Levine and Walton came running onto the bridge, Laura followed them walking.
LEVINE (out of breathe)
Captain, their dead.
MILLS
Whose dead?
LEVINE
Jonesy and Thomas.
Mills looked astonished at the news.
LAURA
It’s true.
MONCRIEFFE
Did you see my dog, Dixon?
LEVINE
Jesus, forget about the dog.
Captain, I don’t know what happened but Slater got out.
MILLS
It’s not Slater.
Mr Marquis, who was your prisoner?
WALTON
Jesus, Blake Slater.
MILLS
It wasn’t Slater.
WALTON
How do you know?
RODRIGUES
My ship received a distress call from a small mining planet Saturn nine. We set down to answer it, I was part of a twenty man marine
platoon, that was sent to answer the call. We encountered an alien organism, it seemed like a pool of liquid, but it could change, it had
an original form like a lizard, but it could change.
LEVINE
A fucking lizard?
RODRIGUES
It killed everyone except me.
LAURA (whispering)
Jesus.
RODRIGUES
That’s not all, this creature could manipulate your fears, drive you crazy.
LEVINE
I don’t believe this shit.
RODRIGUES
It’s true, every bit. I managed to escape using an escape pod on the ship I found on the planet. Latter on, I found the organism had got
on the pod, they froze it at recon.
LEVINE
What makes you so special?
RODRIGUES
What?
LEVINE
There was twenty marines and you were the only survivor, no offence but your no John Rambo or Arnold Schwarzeneggar, why didn’t
it kill you?
WALTON
Jesus, we’re all going to die.
MONCRIEFFE
I’ve got to get Dixon.
Mills started to type on his keyboard, a red layout of the ship was projected in the middle of the ship
where Rodrigues was standing, Rodrigues stepped back.
Mills stood up and walked over to the layout.
MILLS
Computer, life sign on the ship, please.
On the red layout appeared six blue dots on the bridge and a blue dot on the other side of the ship.
MILLS
There you go, Mr Marquis your pet project is in engineering.
MONCRIEFFE
No, that’s Dixon.
RODRIGUES
Captain, I don’t think the alien has showed up.
WALTON
It could be anywhere, it could be outside the door and we wouldn’t know about it.
MILLS
What the hell, is it doing on my ship anyway?
RODRIGUES
The corporation, who owned my set of marines, the corporation that own this ship, wished for the organism to be taken back to earth.
LAURA
To study?
Rodrigues nodded his head in agreement.
LEVINE
That’s just fantastic.
What we going to if it gets on earth?
MILLS
Well, we’ll have to flush it out and kill it before we reach earth.
RODRIGUES
No... two men are dead, already.
MILLS (surprised)
No, what should we do?
RODRIGUES
I wouldn’t worry about it getting on earth.
MILLS
Why?
RODRIGUES
Part of my mission, was to evaluate the situation at any point of my mission, and take appropriate action.
MILLS
Appropriate action?
RODRIGUES
On my way to the bridge, I transmitted a code to earth.
MILLS
To do what?
RODRIGUES
In just eleven hours as we near earth’s atmosphere, a missile launcher from earth will fire a laser missile, that will blow the Upton and
Clark to a million tiny pieces.
WALTON
O... Jesus.
LEVINE
Why....Jesus...Why?
RODRIGUES
It’s not getting on earth.
MILLS
Did you ever consider that we might have destroyed the alien before we got to earth.
RODRIGUES
I’m sorry.
LEVINE (angry)
Your sorry, listen you may have signed up for a suicide mission but we didn’t, we’re all going to die and it’s all your fault.
Levine pushed Rodrigues in the chest.
MILLS (shouting)
Levine, your out of order.
Listen... we don’t have to die, there’s an escape pod on the other side of the ship, we can make it.
RODRIGUES
You beat me, that was my plan.
LEVINE
What about it? (meaning the alien)
MILLS
Mr Marquis, what do we need?
RODRIGUES
Guns, lots of guns.
Rodrigues picked up an electric prod and threw it away in disgust.
MILLS
We don’t usually have a need for guns around here.
LEVINE
Jesus, we haven’t got guns.
RODRIGUES
That’s not true.
MILLS
Where are they then?
The group made their way along the corridor. Mills was leading the way using his gun to check all
angles. Mills walked past a door.
RODRIGUES
This is it?
MILLS
No, that’s just the maintenance room, spare space chambers.
RODRIGUES
Just open it up.
Mills took out a security card and opened the door.
The group entered the room it was completely dark, Mills wavered his hand in front of a panel and the
lights came on. In front of the group was row after row of laser guns and other weaponry.
LEVINE
Why didn’t anybody, tell me about this place?
Rodrigues moved forward and picked up a gun, and then started passing them around to the group.
MILLS
Mr Marquis, when did you manage to get this on board my ship?
RODRIGUES (ignoring Mills)
This guns are laser, you’ll never run out of bullets as long as you have enough juice.
MILLS
Laser C310?
RODRIGUES
Laser C410.
Mills nodded his head in appreciation, Levine looked down at his gun.
7/27/2002 9:19:58 AM
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