TRIUMVIRATE SE Chapter One
By The Host
"TRIUMVIRATE"
(Revision I)
(Previously titled “Gemini’s Redemption” – Revision IX)
by
MATT BOUDREAU
Copyright (C) 1994-2003
Draft begun 8-15-02; completed 12-29-02
Revision I begun 3-28-03; complete 4-1-03
HOLD BLACK FOR SEVERAL SECONDS
CUT TO:
CLOSE-UP: JACK DAVIES
A bead of sweat slowly crawls down the left side of JACK
DAVIES’s face, leaving a snail trail of moisture from jowl
to brow. The young, handsome man stares forward, eyes wide.
He blinks, breathes in, wipes his mouth with a gloved hand.
INT./EXT. SPACEFIGHTER COCKPIT – MOVING
A NEW ANGLE reveals his cramped cockpit; sleek instruments
at weird angles and everything ten shades of black. Space
streaks by but his wingmen remain constant. Jack glances
down at a computer display, then quickly forward again. The
glowing lines of his HUD reflect back onto his face. He
sniffs. His hand again shoots up and wipes his nose and is
back on its allotted instrument in a flash. Mr. Davies is
tense.
ROBERT JOHNSON (O.S.)
Jack, you scared?
DAVIES
No.
(His voice cracks; he exhales
strongly)
Shitless.
Davies smiles slightly but doesn’t look back. Behind him and
slightly above, in the vessel’s gun pit, LIEUTENANT ROBERT
JOHNSON, older and taller and lankier and more aristocratic
than his flightmate, smiles too.
JOHNSON
Don’t be. If we screw up, we’ve
got twenty-nine thousand nine-
hundred ninety-nine of our friends
to clean up after us.
Johnson considers this, and smiles. Davies, chuckling,
ventures a quick glance back. Then, gaze forward again, the
earnest tension strays back to his features.
FROM OUTSIDE
The nine sleek fighters of Davies’ flight wing fly through
space in a perfect v-formation.
SUPER OPENING TITLES
Not far behind Davies’ wing flies another flight group, and
behind that another, and another, and several all around:
above, below, to the left and to the right and far ahead.
Then a massive capital ship speeds by, unbelievably complex,
its engines glowing, its hull pierced by innumerable
pinpoints of light flickering through portholes and windows.
It is pulled by a dozen tiny tugs, each one attached to the
larger vessel by its own tenuous umbilical.
Then, after these massive ships, follows open space, but
only for a moment. Hundreds of bulkier fighters form a wide,
gently curving protective screen around a vast grouping of
even larger capital ships. Swift small gunships sweep
through and around the circle, roughly orbiting and
protecting the fleet’s flagship, the USS Glory. Emblazoned
with a simple white cross, it dwarfs all the vessels around
it: the gunships are mere mosquitoes to this interstellar
cow.
Another narrower screen of fighters takes up the rear, and
then we see from a NEW ANGLE the fleet in its entirety: not
thirty thousand men but thirty thousand ships. The forward
fighters form a three-dimensional pattern like the teeth of
a saw, pushing forward before the medium capital ships, and
behind all trails the well-protected flagship and its
supporting vessels. As the dense swarm of steel falcons
passes on, we see that their destination is a planet – a gas
giant, its surface swirling a rich shade of scarlet.
INSIDE HIS COCKPIT, Davies’ face is drenched with sweat. His
breathing is faster, shallower; his heart pounds. His voice
is thin and warbling, wobbling on the edge of tears.
DAVIES
Think I can get out of here now?
JOHNSON
Shut the door on your way out,
will you?
Davies chuckles lightly and gulps. He flinches as a droplet
of sweat streams into his right eye; he squints and rubs it
with his hand.
JOHNSON (CONT'D)
Jack.
DAVIES
(Staring straight ahead)
Um-hm?
JOHNSON
It’ll be okay. Don’t worry. Hell,
they’re at least as bad as we are.
The last time anybody was in a
battle was...
(Shaking his head)
...I don’t know.
(No response)
Anyway, look, I know I’m not gonna
die, so I’d say your chances are
good.
Davies smiles.
JOHNSON (CONT’D)
Oh, you can see the gun
emplacement up ahead.
Davies turns suddenly grave. He leans forward, searching.
DAVIES
Where? You see it?
JOHNSON
There.
THE FLEET MOVES THROUGH SPACE toward a distinct line of
twinkling lights set against the atmosphere of the blood-red
planet, which now looms near.
INSIDE DAVIES’ FIGHTER the Heads-Up-Display triangulates on
the line and highlights it; it slowly pulses with light
flanked by the words: GUN EMPLCMNTS (DIST. 0.768… CP) AX7-
0cY 0.11 OK.
Davies looks back to Johnson.
DAVIES
How far out do you suppose the
outer patrols would be?
JOHNSON
This far!
Davies swings around in time to see a vessel fly perilously
close to his and then explode into a ball of flame. Davies
inhales deeply and suddenly, suppressing a shriek. Wingman
DANIEL O’SHEA appears on one of the computer monitors,
speaking from his own cockpit.
DAN
Jesus, Jack, you awake?
Davies breathes heavily as Dan’s face is replaced by that of
WING COMMANDER HARTLEY, whose deep voice reverberates
throughout the cockpit.
HARTLEY
That one was a rare stray. Outer
patrols are pretty light and we’re
well-fenced in here, so I wouldn’t
worry. What worries me is them
guns up ahead. By the time we get
to ‘em there’s likely to be no one
left between us and them. We’re
gonna need fast flyin’ and faster
shooting, and take out what you
can, but we wanna pass through if
we can, that’s priority, then turn
around and open on ‘em from
behind. That’ll be tough, with
fighters swarming on the other
side, but we’ve gotta take those
guns out before the caps arrive,
they’re what’s important.
DAVIES
(To Johnson)
We’re bloody expendable.
HARTLEY (CONT’D)
Good shooting and good luck. We’ll
be there in fifty seconds.
Hartley disappears. There is a moment of silence. The line
of lights moves discernibly closer.
DAVIES
Jesus. Fifty seconds. The front
lines’ll be there any second.
JOHNSON
Let’s hope they do their job.
Davies slowly moves his hand from one instrument to the
next, staring ever forward. He licks his lips, then rubs
them slowly with his gloved hand.
THE GUN EMPLACEMENTS are bulky, squarish objects bristling
with weaponry. Most prominent on each is a single large gun,
mounted on a pivot which is itself attached to a track that
circles the gun platform so that the gun can move from front
to rear.
THE OUTERMOST SHIPS approach the regular pattern of guns
with blinding speed. They draw nearer, nearer, ever nearer,
but still the guns do not open fire. The forward vessels
launch a volley of missiles, nearly simultaneously; these
are tracked by the guns and shot down by the farther ones,
but the nearest gun emplacements cannot wheel around in time
and the projectiles slam into them, exploding the objects in
furies of fire.
JACK DAVIES watches dozens of tiny explosions in the
distance, almost blending into the planet’s tumultuous
surface.
DAVIES
Is that us or them?
JOHNSON
Them, I think. Sure it’s them.
The vanguard of assault fighters are upon the guns now, and
altogether suddenly a clash of laser beams opens up, and a
hell of fire. The gun emplacements spit out deadly laser
beams at an incredible rate, the turrets wheeling and
spinning to match the advance of the fighters. Almost all of
this first wave of attackers is destroyed instantly, in
dozens of stunning fireballs, charred debris flying in all
directions, but still several are able to take out a gun and
some others two before they themselves are destroyed.
DAVIES can see the melee ahead, near, too near, and ever
nearer. His jaw is set, his face grim and grey.
DAVIES
Ready?
Johnson says nothing, just fingers the controls of his gun
turret.
Up ahead Davies clearly sees a ship explode. The guns are
still there – dozens, maybe hundreds of them, angry inhuman
sentinels. Davies’s chest heaves but he remains silent and
set. Another fighter explodes, this one closer. Then the
forward ship in Davies’s wing explodes; a piece of flying
debris strikes the forward window with a shriek of metal
against glass.
DAVIES
Shit!
And they’re faced now with no man’s land and the line of
guns, laser blasts streaking all around them and Davies’s
numb hands shaking as he flies directly ahead. Johnson spins
and whirls, shooting furiously at the gun emplacements
around him; Davies keeps the vessel steady and straight,
unflinching. The ship nearest them peels away and is shot;
it about-faces and slams into a fighter behind it, both
exploding in a peal of flame. Davies’s own ship continues
ahead in a straight line, now somewhat ahead of the others.
A laser blast scathes one wing of the fighter. Johnson,
still firing intently, shouts to Davies.
JOHNSON
Jesus, Jack, do something!
DAVIES
What?!
JOHNSON
I dunno, turn!
Davies suddenly pulls up and away right, jarring his
shipmate, and finds his nose pointed straight at a gun
emplacement, frighteningly close.
JOHNSON (CONT'D)
Not that way!
Davies’s hands fumble; he finds a trigger and his ship’s
forward gun shoots rapid-fire just as the big gun turret
ahead swings around and fires at Davies. Now Davies acts
quickly; he dives under the fire, deftly missing the
emplacement itself, and as they pass Johnson shoots at it
from his place. It explodes behind them. Davies is ecstatic.
He turns to Johnson smiling widely.
DAVIES
Did you see that?
JOHNSON
(Breathless)
Yeah.
Davies looks forward again, turning the ship towards another
emplacement.
DAVIES
That was great!
Davies fires this time without hesitation, as does the gun
emplacement. Before Johnson can get off a single shot Davies
pulls the ship into a wild corkscrew, his trajectory still
toward the gun emplacement ahead. He pulls away at the last
possible moment, just as the gun explodes, rattling his
cockpit.
JOHNSON
What the hell was that?
DAVIES
Basic pilot training.
JOHNSON
They teach you that in flight
school?
Davies smiles broadly and careens toward yet another gun,
but it doesn’t work this time, he can’t hit the gun, and he
barely pulls away from a barrage of fire. When he pulls up
he sees the next gun in line explode before him – victim to
a wingman’s missile.
DAVIES’S FIGHTER loops around the floating wreckage of a
mostly-intact ship, keeps going, jinks out of the way of
enemy fire, and passes the last gun platform. Johnson heaves
with effort and relief; Davies smiles still. The fighter is
in the outer fringes of the planet’s atmosphere, glowing
with the heat of entry and scarred by the heat of battle.
Tattered red clouds lay ahead of them, the planet’s murky
whirlpool in that direction will soon engulf them.
DAVIES
What’s left of us?
JOHNSON
We seem to be okay.
DAVIES
I mean the rest of our flight
group.
JOHNSON
I don’t know.
Davies presses a button on his computer monitor and speaks.
DAVIES
Commander Hartley, we’re through.
There is no response.
DAVIES (CONT'D)
Commander? Dan? Anyone?
A moment passes.
DAVIES
(To Johnson)
Is—
JOHNSON
(Looking at his own monitor)
Comm system’s fine. We went
through the magnetic shield ages
ago.
A pause. Davies looks at the crimson clouds rushing towards
him, the outermost around him.
DAVIES
The inner patrols must be near
ahead.
JOHNSON
They won’t want to get too close
to those guns right away.
DAVIES
I suppose we should turn around.
JOHNSON
Do you think they’ll really need
our help back there?
DAVIES
They might.
COMMENTARY:
So I’ve been writing this story for close to a decade now,
over and over again, trying to get it right. And it has
always been the opening that has given me the most trouble.
The earliest versions of the screenplay, back when it was
called Gemini’s Redemption, featured an alien attack on an
Al T’Haran vessel in a prologue occurring fifty-four years
before the main body of the story. It was an effective
scene, but one which established a back story that was
wholly eliminated from later versions of the story, and thus
became irrelevant. Later versions of the story had instead a
more low-key opening, establishing the characters of Davies
and Johnson at Starbase One One Four before delving into
action. I was dissatisfied with what I felt to be a rather
lackluster opening. I imagined a grand and furious opening
battle scene, taking place before and then within a gas
giant; thirty thousand ships engaged in crossfire to the
pounding rhythms of Holst’s Mars: Bringer of War. But how to
fit it in, I wondered? The solution was forthcoming after
almost two years of failed starts and writer’s block – to
see this solution you must read on.
But first, just a bit about the way this scene plays out. I
wanted to start with something close, personal, intimate and
tense – the bead of sweat on Jack’s cheek – and then
smoothly zoom out to show the epic proportions of the battle
ahead. In a way it is intended to be a microcosm of the
entire story, which shows just a couple of regular soldiers,
two of millions, in so grand a movement . . . To show such
great and terrible battles yet find the most exhilarating
and intense moments to be those quiet moments alone with the
characters. To that end I intended to fuel these opening
scenes in particular with realistic dialogue. I imagined
myself as Davies; here’s a guy who’s damned scared and,
heck, wouldn’t you be? This is no rip-roaring adventurer,
although he seems to find his courage. Not really, though;
Davies is, I think, actually pretty spineless; but in his
naiveté he gets caught up in the excitement and forgets
about the pressing danger. My hope in writing this was that
readers would, too, and therfore I paid close attention to
pacing. A deliberate build-up, with quicker cuts from scene
to scene as the heroes draw closer to the jaws of war, and
then finally action breaks loose . . . The rest of the scene
is hopelessly generic, and, if I could, I’d like to make it
a little more imaginative than it is as exists. Nonetheless,
I’m rather satisfied with it.
NEXT CHAPTER
SCENE ACCESS
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