Wision--SesQuaTercet USA ™ de facto trademark Petry System Family Wision USA

in conjunction with

project NEMO

presents

Professors' Spring Fling

an advanced space sciences romantic adventure comedy, PG-13 Sci4fi feature

Mr. Raymond Kenneth Petry, Strategic Director
a Wision--SesQuaTercet USA production

Four research professors took the ultimate Spring Break
out of this world, and this world wants to get it back.

(a division of Lanthus Corporation)

[index][script][music][sets&settings][budget][prospectus][roles]
[feature] Four university tenure-track researchers returned to Earth by UFO on Monday, escaped by submarine with a newly extant sister,- who's fiance wants her back and is willing to take the UFO from Area 51 and chase them across the universe and beyond.... An astronomical linguistical mathematical systematical exploration turning the universe inside-out, as you never learned in the common universities.
[Music specified in this screenplay is the Strategic Director's selection]

script

(Act 1)

PRELUDE AND FANFARE:
(music - sync'ed)
(music - sync'ed; dub "must try!")
FADE IN:
Orange dawn on a black horizon under purple sky.
TITLE:
EARLY NEXT MORNING
TRANSFORM TO:
EXT. DRIVEWAY - DIANA'S HOUSE - SPRING MORNING
Six Police cars parked in the driveway and along the curb are ultraviolet-sheen-white official-insignia "Protect / Harmonize / Defend" sedans with blue-bubble rooftop mounds; one sleek UV-sheen-black chase-car trimmed in white-hot "Golf Storm" and aero-dimpled over edges for laminar airflow.
Famous-look POLICE OFFICERS uniformed in violet-flowers-on-white-chameleon photochromic shirts, shorts, gold-petunia communicator badges: Five swarm the grounds;
Front door is open, cordoned-off by yellow "Police" ribbon.
A CAR PASSES, slowing to see the house:--
HARRY (30-35, med. tall sturdy male model, college-football-hero), Christian, Republican, nuclear chemistry professor: As in prequels but distinct coiffure, beard/shave, driving glasses, jewelry, watch, ring…
JAIME (22-29 younger shorter med. tall bosomy-showy female model), grad student, campus reporter;
Park up the street;--
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
SUPERIMPOSE title credits, dexter, University font:
Petry System Family Wision USA, -and-
N E M O Nuclear Emergency Management,
- present -
a Wision--Sesquatercet USA production
-EARLY THE NEXT MORNING-
-On a planet, very much like ours-
-Orbiting a sun very much like ours-
-In a galaxy, very much like ours-
-But not exactly, like ours-
-And not, exactly, in our time-
PROFESSORS' SPRING FLING
Raymond Kenneth Petry, Strategic Director
Quick-walk back … and up to the front porch;
Harry reaches through the ribbon and KNOCKS on the screen--
HARRY
(tentatively)
Hello!?
Superimposition vanishes.
HARRY
(knocks again)
Hello!?
POLICE OFFICER
(just inside: head only)
You've crossed a Police-line.
HARRY
Yes, sir: My fiancee Diana, and her sister Gwen, live here.
POLICE OFFICER
(back inside loud)
Captain: We've got a couple testimonies to take!
CAPTAIN (OS)
(outside the open back)
Bring them inside!
POLICE OFFICER
(head only)
Come-in,-- You are…
Harry ushers Jaime into the--
INT. LIVINGROOM - PER SPRING RETURNS - (CONTINUOUS)
Officers in blue-cameleon, search, gathering hidden audio cassette-recorders; LIEUTENANT, room-back; CAPTAIN, sunlit white-cameleon out the back window-wall; Sofa, table, HDTV; Harry, Jaime, show State Campus IDs (100% face-holographs):
HARRY
(answering)
Harry, -and Jaime,- from U-campus: Diana called me last night,-- said she and Gwen were leaving immediately.
POLICE OFFICER
(notes on e-pad)
And where you can be reached:-- phone or pager…
HARRY
Voice-e-mail: Harry-at-Nuke-U-edu …
(to e-pad)
Harry-at-nuke-dot-U-dot-edu;
(a beat)
And, Jaime-at-P-News … a dash … dot-U-dot-edu. I carry an e-mail pager,-- same e-mail address.
POLICE OFFICER
(notes)
And did they say where they were going?
HARRY
She didn't say-- but she'd told me this might happen: Something strange had developed this week.
POLICE OFFICER
(notes)
Do you know anything about their involvement with the nationwide hunt for the U-F-O aliens?
HARRY
(aback)
No-- but, several of our friends have been acting strangely about this:-- Daniel, especially: He and Peter, and Gwen, went to the desert for Spring Recess;-- I'd have gone with them, but we had data-trouble in a laboratory, and I stayed to investigate:-- When they returned, Daniel acted like I didn't exist!
POLICE OFFICER
(notes)
Not extraordinarily odd for friendships to lapse in times of trouble.
HARRY
I mean, He was astonished to see me: as though I couldn't possibly exist anymore!-- He got over it.
On cue, Jaime sly-notices the notations--
POLICE OFFICER
(notes-X)
Okay: That's extraordinary. Where-about in the desert?
HARRY
Nevada, near Area 51.
POLICE OFFICER
(notes)
Are you people, U-F-O groupies?
Jaime chuckles;--
HARRY
(smiles)
No,-- We fit the ordinary doctoral collegiate profile: We'd contracted to test extreme environment gear.
JAIME
(explains)
Extra-curricular financial gain,-- not extraterrestrial: Every crumb helps.
POLICE OFFICER
(notes)
And did they return on schedule:- Did they have one?
HARRY
They were a day late for resuming classes:-- Dan said their new wristwatches had reset the year.
POLICE OFFICER
(notes)
Does their attendance or absence affect the performance of others?
HARRY
Shouldn't, But yes for your report: All three are regular lecturers on the U-campus.
On cue, Jaime sly-notices the notations (again)--
POLICE OFFICER
(notes-O)
That is odd. You should tell them, Nevada Sheriffs Authority wants them in connection with the U-F-O:- Apparently they were picked-up by a senior citizen driving in the area, and taken to a local town, where they took a taxicab home --across stateline,-- and that's odd too. We got notification inter-State, with request to question them: what they saw and heard;- Did they relate any of their desert-visit?
HARRY
No: I was expediting to an evening colloquium when I stopped to pick-up Daniel;-- We crossed paths later several times: He observes at one of my lectures.
POLICE OFFICER
(notes)
And your fiancee-- Diana?
HARRY
Yes,-- She's a grad-student --not mine;-- She's been here all along:- Teaches two classes…. She said she left me some things in her bedroom: Might I retrieve them,-- please?
POLICE OFFICER
(notes)
I suppose that'll be all right. Did she tell you about leaving several tape-recorders running, hidden around the livingroom?
HARRY
No,-- just her vase with a bouquet I gave her for our engagement, and some legal papers.
JAIME
(to Officer)
Did you get a warrant to search the house?!
POLICE OFFICER
No, ma'am:- We're operating under hot-pursuit guidelines: We had the house under protective surveillance last night: Diana may be in danger: They didn't show for an interview with the station Sergeant this morning; and didn't answer the door; And we entered at 11-Oh-1.
JAIME
Diana's in no immanent danger with them: She went on her own will and recognizance;-- and it's Miss, not Ma'am.
POLICE OFFICER
Your right, Miss: But we'll leave the determination of coincidence of extraordinary and odd with the investigative team.
(to Harry)
Must be difficult to break-up suddenly.
HARRY
I was prepared in case: The C-E-O laid it out for us.
POLICE OFFICER
The C-E-O is …
HARRY
Campus Ethics Organization faculty, administrators, staff and students: Reviews and recommends procedures and conduct for maintaining social propriety: Diana and I met through Gwen,- They permitted our trysting with restrictions: She had to take other lecturers when available, We had to announce a year in advance, And the marriage had to be without encumbrances.
Captain enters, whites turning blue: notes their presence;
LIEUTENANT
(to Captain)
Captain, we've got a possible lead: 2-Navy-3 has newly released information on last night's dockyard disturbance: N-I-S is now tendering an admission, that, Some vehicular equipment scheduled for demolition was removed prematurely by unspecified persons.
CAPTAIN
Not much help: Follow-up through Robbery Division: If they are our bunch, N-I-S will have to tell us where they went.
LIEUTENANT
Yes, sir.
Harry, Jaime, nod,-- leave the Officer, and somber walk up the white-plush carpeted stairs …
int. stairs, ascending - nearing top
JAIME
(quietish)
Failed comedian:
(coins)
Coincidences of the Extraordinarily Odd … his, C-E-O….
HARRY
Police psychology ferets information by entertaining associations.
Arriving at the top of the stairs and proceeding--
INT. UPSTAIRS HALL
JAIME
He marks them with Ex's and Oh's….
(tug-inspects shirt)
Do I look like a mam, to you?
HARRY
I'd be amiss, just answering that.
(slight grins)
JAIME
(a beat)
What's with Diana's vase?
INT. DIANA'S BEDROOM - ENTRANCE - (CONTINUOUS)
Jaime ponders the room:
A glass vase of fresh flowers in water, with an elastic tied note; 5 VHS cassettes [Event Horizon, Lost In Space, Body Snatchers, The Shining, My Favorite Martian] with Cow-snout-on-TV stickers, stacked on a rental-receipt-slip on a loaded VCR on a console-TV; A labeled legal manila envelope on the desk, Harry retrieves;
HARRY
She said, It is the most important thing to her, in the whole, world.
JAIME
(interprets)
Whatever happened, she loves, you.
HARRY
Truly; but her tone wasn't amorous.
(looks at her a beat)
Ordinary bedroom,-- What's got your attention?
JAIME
I'm thinking: the way Diana thinks.
HARRY
Don't get any warm and fuzzy notions: Diana's not obsolete.
JAIME
(chuckling, enters)
Don't get them yourself:-- I've always liked you, Harry, but you're definitely Diana's think-mate;-- If I have to drag you along, to find her, I shall … I'm thinking what Diana did here,-- smart cookie: If she made recordings to be found,-- then she made one to not, be found:
(points)
Like that V-C-R on her T-V-console: Take those cassettes.
Harry picks-up the cassettes, boxes, receipt,- and presses the EJECT button, comparing the receipt:--
HARRY
(reads aloud)
The Shining; Event Horizon; My Favorite Martian; Body Snatchers; Lost In Space.
JAIME
A message.
HARRY
(extracts cassette)
What message?!
(boxes it)
JAIME
(muses)
Cosmic hints: U-F-O's, transmuted identities, homeless space-aliens; She's giving you up, for a bigger horizon, Harry! The Shining, breaks scheme, but that's Diana sometimes.
HARRY
Maybe she's trying to reconcile herself to the U-F-O.
JAIME
(rouses)
Now wait just a hesit: The Shining!
(approaches close)
She called me in a panic, in the middle of the night: She'd had a bad dream about Gwen and the guys:
(examines The Shining)
She could not reach them-- Behind, the shining, lights!
HARRY
You've got me worried for them, again.
(passes cassettes)
These are your genre.
And retrieves the vase--
And they exeunt for the stairs …
int. upstairs hall … and descending
Jaime takes and reads-over the VASE NOTE, and again aloud:
JAIME
(reading quietish)
Harry-love, Diana's, One-word.
HARRY
'Ah yuh'--not for public hearing.
JAIME
(reading…)
This vase contains something more-important than flowers and Reagent H-2-Oh water.
HARRY
(considers the vase)
'Hm!' Where'd she get that: We have Reagent H-2-Oh in the Lab, But, She doesn't have keycode access--to the ultra-purity Reagents Stores…
JAIME
(peers into the vase)
Something else maybe, D-2-Oh-water…
HARRY
Reagent Stores again, and it'd feel twice-as-heavy, and when mixed it'd reduce to D-H-Oh… which is found in natural tap water at .01%…
JAIME
Maybe she means the H-2-Oh-part or, maybe your techno-reagency-part, is not-the-important-part of lovelife…
(reading last…)
Signed, Diana-love, One-word.
HARRY
That-too is not for public hearing.
INT. LIVINGROOM, STAIRS, LANDING
Officer busy; Harry, Jaime, land with their articles:
HARRY
(at the Officer)
Thanks!
(gestures with objects)
POLICE OFFICER
What are you taking?
HARRY
(points to Jaime's)
Five video cassettes, rentals, to return to Moo-Vis-a-Vis--
(gestures with)
And the vase and legal papers.
POLICE OFFICER
Okay. We've got a lead on where they went: We'll e-mail you if their bodies turn-up.
HARRY
(contrite)
Thanks.
Exeunt via front…
JAIME
(with Harry)
Thank you, Officer.
HARRY
(to Jaime)
If you don't mind, we'll stop at Moo-Vis-a-Vis and return your cassettes; Then I need spend the rest of the day in lecture-prep.
JAIME
Okay by me:-- I've seen these.
And beyond the front porch, to the street….
FADE TO:
INT. PACKED UNDERGRADUATE AUDITORIUM - WELL LIT (EVENING)
700 STUDENTS, 100 SELECT, 10 SPECIAL, conservatively well-dressed, coats, sweaters, books, laptops. 15 Grads in front and aisle: Jaime; JOHN (22-29 equ. med. tall male), nuclear physics; GARY (22-29 med. male), electro-physics; JEFF (26-35 tall male), postdoc mathematics lecturer, helicopter pilot; SUSAN (28-35 tall female), postdoc physics lecturer; TOMMI (22-29 tall female); BRAD (22-29 male). Also 2 Profs: MIKE (26-35 med., trim strong build male), astrophysics professor, DSc summa cum laude, topgun helicopter pilot; DAVE (26-35 tall male), computation professor, super-center researcher strategist. UNDERGRAD BARKEL aka CADET (18-19 med.-to-tall female, especially pretty), demure unassuming, funny, Pittman Mathematics Scholar; PENNY (20-21 female swimmer), nuclear chemistry; CARL (19-21 male); WILLIAM (19-21 male). Most carry sunglasses. [Cinema 1st row can situate as contiguous-behind the classroom 10th row]
A Metric Hesit Clock on the wall reads 7.993 PM. (04:48 PM)
Dry-erase-chalk reads "NUKE-CHEM 409C" on the left wing far upper corner over electronic display lines of neo-chemistry from Harry's laptop-feed… and repeated on the right wing:
* denotes antHe(-2) entanglement
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
D (1) 1s:13.6 (eV)
He(2) 1s:54.4+24.6
Li(3) 1s:123.+75.6 2s: 5.4
Be(4) 1s:218.+154. 2s:18.2+ 9.3
B (5) 1s:340.+259. 2s:37.9+25.2 2p: 8
C (6) 1s:490.+392. 2s:64.5+47.9 2p:24+12
N (7) 1s:667.+552. 2s:97.9+77.5 2p:48+(44)
O (8) 1s:871.+739. 2s:138.+114. 2p:77+(104)
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
O+8 - C+6 ~ 1014. *0s-entangled O(1s)-C(1s)
O+8 - N+6 ~ 1219. *1s-entangled O(1s)-N(1s)
O*(6.25) O(2s)ring 1s*-offset: 0.192(1s)
O*(6.62) O(1s)ring 1s*-offset: 0.085(1s)
O*(6.6) 1s:596.+488. 2s:72.2+54.6 interpolated
0.5(O+8-6) ~ 805. O(1s-2s) e-exchange min.
0.7(O+8-6) ~ 1138. O(1s-2s) *-exchange max.
-20% *[4]:O[16] co-revolution max.
= 910. typ. O(1s-2s) exchange minimax.
-433. less *-driven ionization: O+6 max.
= 477. typ. *1s-landing minimax.
-(UNK) 1s-sub2s emissions
-(META) V*O(1s)-share
QED: Likely capture; highly stable.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
(*)C:D2O (below 1000°K)--> C(*D2):O (fusion)-->)
pnp, n, (or) npn, p; (*)C, O-2;
(eventually C + O --> CO)
(*)CO ++ D2O --> :(*)CO:D2O: --> :OC(*D2):O: -->)
pnp, n, (or) npn, p; (*)CO2-2 (*Ozone-2 dec.)-->
(*)CO-1, O-1 (or) (*)C, O2-2;)
(iterate, either).)
Widescreen main video above front-center and wide-monitor video-repeaters about the ceiling play [the podium table]:
On the podium table are his water-filled vase containing a single glowing antihelion dot barely visible, a D2O-filled flask, rubber-bulbed pipette, glass stirring rod, welder's goggles, rag-paper towels, a theater lighting control; his laptop is open, wired-up; a built-in VCR is ready, loaded:
He finishes chalking pseudocarbon-oxide-molecules drawings, carbon-water reaction energies, center board,-- and checks:
GLIDE BEHIND: Rightward of his work, is student handiwork:
/1/ Cantor can't or Cantor can /2/ torque Anne.
/1/ - Dr. Harry
/3/ Dr. Harry cannot prove this statement true.
/3/ - Dr. Cantor /4/ Cahn
He scans it, and erases it,--
Checks THE CLOCK,--
Turns to the table,-- and puts-on the microphone (PA-LOUD):
HARRY (+PA)
(adjusting microphone)
Thank you, all, for coming;- I hope there is sufficient room in this small,-semi-quadrant-amphitheater….
AUDIENCE GIGGLES.
HARRY (CONT'D PA)
This evening's lecture needs a spot of recent history;- We'll turn-down the lights, for a brief video.
(a beat)
Those of you who have Gwen's Math 5-71-C, Multi-Variate Statistical Methods on Octonion Manifolds, may have noticed her multi-conspicuous, absence today, and likewise Peter's and Daniel's students who are here, and our grads specially invited for this evening: It appears Gwen-et-al have followed an extraordinary lead quite outside the realm of their contract expedition; Along with my fiancee, I might add: who left us the following 20-dollar re-recording….
Controls the theater-remote:-- ROOM LIGHT DWINDLES;
HARRY (CONT'D PA)
(poses)
You recall our mention of the survival of antiprotons in a helium matrix: evidence of some stability, new, to physics, but not impossible at atomic radii…. After the video I will demonstrate what I believe is a similar experiment,-- also, left by our foursome: This was left on Diana's bedroom V-C-R. The Police Department has audio copies;- they apparently did not trace her remote cable T-V input switch.
VCR PLAYS-BACK Diana's livingroom scene [Spring Returns];
HARRY (PA)
(overlaps the start)
Note also: The Harry they speak-to, is not me,-- except Diana at first.
Full attention on main screen … repeaters … live-laptops …
Video runs till finished. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
LIGHTS COME-UP partially;--
HARRY (+PA)
Are there any questions?
FIRST-ROW GRAD
Harry, Are we to infer a connection with the U-F-O?
HARRY (+PA)
They contracted to test extreme-environment gear in the newly opened Area-51 public U-F-O-zone:-- the approximate location of the U-F-O atterrissage…. I should have gone-with, but we had laboratory data-malfunctions to exorcise.
ANOTHER GRAD
Who, is, the Harry, they talked-to?- He sounds like you, Harry.
HARRY (+PA)
(avoids)
I must confess, I don't know, -they didn't say;- Perhap he was someone they met in Area-51 … Let's begin….
(lectures)
Experiments since the 60's, attest the metastability of antiprotons in a helium matrix: 4-survivers in a hundred. Conversely, we assume 4-percent proton stability in anti-helium,-- had we enough. But conjecturably, possibly greater, metastability of single anti-helions in a hydrogen matrix: The Markov chain involves electron shielding….
(keys LAPTOP)
A CARTOON of a helion nucleus;
HARRY (CONT'D PA)
(sync's with LAPTOP)
Like, the alpha particle, the nuclear ant'helion or anti-alpha, sits within a 27-mega-electron-volt potential well, behind a 20-M-e-V barrier to antiproton-escape: a decade steeper than its nuclear surface potential … For a single proton to annihilate with an anti-helion, -as it can't extract an antiproton from the nucleus at its orbital radius of about 50-femto-meters,- it must plow-in or tunnel, passing the nuclear meta-surface positron shield, to reach one of the internal antiprotons: before it bounces away faster than a nucleus gyrates…. Meanwhile the ant'helion collects two protons --which gyrate like a clack-clack toy to fusion, eject a deuteron, and a neutrino;-- and the ant'helion starts again.
(prepares flask, vase)
Replacing protons by deuterons gets increased fusion energy release and products of tritons and helions, and protons, neutrons, gamma rays and, lumination:-- we get photons…. For my experiment, I've brought a flask of heavy water, an abundant source of deuterium; and the vase contains what I believe may be an antihelium atom nucleus: I find it glows in the dark, in plain tap-water, without nutrients.
(keys laptop)
A GRAPH of the thermal power spectrum, fast-run resolution, with spread-blur of the thick tall 650-700/cm peak by (O-He*~C*)O2-bend; spread-blur of the broad high 2200-2400/cm peak by (O-He*~C*)O2-straddle; identified tiny ozone peaks (-He*+O)O2 at 800/cm, 1000/cm; multiple spectra of major H2O vapor 1200-2100/cm unchanged, 500/cm;
FIRST-ROW GRAD
(catches)
Harry: You're casing cata-strictive cold-fusion by anthelion: What about oxygen capturing the anthelion?!
HARRY (+PA)
(interpolates)
I've spent the afternoon pondering oxygen chemistry:-- Heavy nuclei should fusion anti-helions-- three anti-helions making anti-carbon …
(pointing with LAPTOP)
A peek at the plain-water thermal spectrum reveals a hint of oxygen chemistry: strong lines shifted and spread of carbon dioxide suggesting it is already deeply involved-- but not explaining where. Tomorrow I'll run a taxonomic sort, and tangloid simulations for 4-with-2-leptons….
(phrasing)
Water is a polar molecule: oxygen negatively charged. After hydrogen nuclear fusion, the doubly negative oxygen radical avoids the doubly negative anti-helion catalyst,- till eventually, with increased partial pressure and temperature, an oxygen atom does capture the ant'helion….
(phrasing)
But then, Oxygen's closed 1-s-electron orbital shell may be firm against antihelion penetration, at point-4-electron-Volts in Extended Bohr Theory;- This firmness should be overwhelmed in lighter nuclei, by reason of antipodally shared kinetic energy: and the effectual collision energy can approximate double against the 1-s electron shielding in lithium:-- to be our last experiment.
(keys laptop)
A CARTOON of a He*O H2-fusion;
HARRY (CONT'D PA)
(sync's with LAPTOP)
An oxygen atom has 2-available 2-p electron valence orbitals; and the anti-helion sinks into one of these holes, wrestling the electrons and reconfiguring their orbitals, then crashes the underlying weak closed 2-s shell, raising 2-s electrons to 2-p, and thermalizing itself,- thus avoiding its plumb line fall to the nuclear center,- and imparting its kinetic descent energy to ionizing ejection of 2-s and 2-p electrons per Alfven Hot Plasma Rules, while splitting the strong 1-s orbitals to nonintegral avoidance-warped mid-energy orbits, -as there are no 1-p mid orbitals,- from which they immediately radiate and resettle, emitting photons;- And finally the ant'helion co-revolves 4-to-1 with the oxygen nucleus, and settles on the still filled 1-s shell that it cannot then penetrate,- having no longer sufficient energy to raise the 1-s electrons to 2-s, too-short a wave function to tunnel far below for that energy, neither speed nor freedom to close-out the 1-s shell against electron occupancy, and not near enough nuclear entanglement to reduce oxygen 2-s energy structures to corresponding carbon 1-s levels. Rather, it cools, and sits, in permanent ensconcement, awaiting the next deuterium pair.
(dons welder's goggles)
Well-below the 2-s valence shell, it denatures its oxygen host into eccentric augmented pseudo carbon, readily attaching deuterium-oxide; and gyrates-with and fusions pairs of deuterons. Products escape on 4-mega-electron-volts: a triton and proton, or helion-3 and neutron; The charged oxygen atom goes free, or eventually a neutral oxygen atom may be captured; and either pseudo carbon or its oxide attaches more D-2-Oh and fusions more deuterons. Higher oxides of pseudocarbon are unstable ozone-like molecules.
(a beat)
Reiterating: The ant'helion thrives in water, in its own pseudocarbon-ended oxygen molecule, accessioning and fusioning fresh deuterons, and releasing and replenishing oxygen and energy, in a regulated manner….
(pipettes glow-dot from vase)
This should be especially vigorous, and, very stable.-- If you see this little glowing point of light,…
(grins-up)
Don 'em, if you've got 'em!
Jaime, most audience, don SUNGLASSES (F÷2);
HARRY (CONT'D +PA)
(resumes)
I'm transferring the ant'helion to the flask of heavy-water….
(pipettes glow-dot to flask)
Diluting its containment drop….
(stirs with glass-rod)
Brilliant writhing-shimmering SKYBLUE-LIGHT BURSTS from the flask, illuminating the room, and streaking-up his goggled face;-- Harry wild-grins.
The flask quickly BOILS-UP-- and BUBBLES OVER,--
Harry steps back as it spills out onto the table:--
ONE SPOT FLICKERS and FLASHES in a frothing water puddle.
HARRY (+PA)
(excites)
This experiment is working better than expected!- Are there any questions?!
MID-ROOM STUDENT
Is this only one atom?!
HARRY (+PA)
Yes, I believe so!
ANOTHER STUDENT
For how much are you willing to part with it?!
AUDIENCE LAUGHS.
HARRY (+PA)
(grins)
You may have it for free, after the next experiment.
AISLE GRAD
Harry, Is it wise to subject the one known atom of anti-helium to destruction in lithium?!
HARRY (+PA)
It's an unknown experiment within a bounded result: Lithium is harmless chemistry otherwise.
OTHER STUDENT
(mock urges)
It's protected by the Endangered Species Act of '73!
ANOTHER STUDENT
Doesn't Congress have to specify its paucity first?
OTHER STUDENT
(mock pleads)
It has no, known, mating habits: This automatically ranks as an endangered species!
STUDENT WIT
(droll)
Or an act of specious endangerment.
AUDIENCE LAUGHS.
STUDENT NERD
(confides)
Federal agencies are required to provide protection where practicable, and promote recovery.
NEW STUDENT
Where would they get another like it, practicably?
HARRY (PA)
(ponders a beat)
If Diana's intuition is correct as to its origin, there should be more antihelium near the U-F-O: It is likely a rare byproduct in antimatter engines.
(readies pipette)
I shall now subject it to the lithium-test.
(wets glow-dot)
Pipettes the cooled glow-dot into the lithium cup.
They wait a moment … then:
Brilliant RED LIGHT BLOOMS from the lithium cup,--
AND STOPS: There's no more glowing antihelion.
They pause in the dim-dark room light.
SOME STUDENT
(subdued blurt)
It's dead!- Harry slew the ant'he-lion dragon!
AUDIENCE CLAPS.
Harry doffs his goggles.
Jaime, most audience, DOFF THEIR SUNGLASSES (F×2);
JOHN
Harry, Lithium spectrum doesn't imply lithium fusion: Did you do the math on lithium-lithium fusion?
FELLOW GRAD
(answers)
John, Lithium reacts in water to form its hydroxide: If Harry's right about antihelion hiding below the 2-s orbital, then exothermic lithium, fission-fusion, could result: by spallation under hydrogen proton bombardment.
John 2-nods Yes.
SOME GRAD
Harry, Could this dramatically impact cosmogenesis theory?
HARRY (+PA)
Probably not: Antimatter-paucity is attributable to the cosmic electron surplus exponentially propagating antiproton decomposition in baryon-lepton collisions. Antihelions came much later: limiting the antimatter extinction era to no later than the early atomic epoch,- but I think we agree that was already the extremum of cases.
ADJACENT GRAD
(appends)
Harry, you may be understating it, if antihelion-induced fusion and helion-induced fusion race for mutual population inversion, before final extinction.
HARRY (+PA)
(ponders a beat)
The fine tail of the distribution.
STUDENT NERD
(a beat, asserts)
Now that the one, known, extant anti-helion is, not, How do we requisition more from the U-F-O? Army logistics are notoriously slow,-- except in time of war….
SOME STUDENT
We could start a war!
STUDENT 5-AWAY
Not on my deferment number!
OTHER STUDENT
We could invent a war for the Army's entertainment!
STUDENT WIT
(droll)
We'll have to, "Up, the ante"!
AUDIENCE LAUGHS.
NEW STUDENT
Let's visit the U-F-O site directly ourselves! We can fly-in overnight, and be there before sunup.
CLEVER STUDENT
(hand-up)
I know the address for a costume company: We can dress-up as an Area-51 A-I-Response-Team: walk-in, take-over, grab a few ant'helions.
A-STUDENT
How can we find antihelion quickly in the daylight,-- unless we take heavy-water squirt-guns?!
A GRAD
Harry, Mike and Jeff can fly us close by helicopter.
HARRY (PA)
Let me have a show of hands: Those on tomorrow's impromptu field-trip.
100-SELECT raise hands.
HARRY (CONT'D +PA)
We'll take the red-eye:-- meet at the airport tonight: Pack your bags for a weekender. Today's lecture is tabled until we return: Read-ahead sections 17-point-3-through-7 in Glasstone … Nuclear Science on the flyby, should be interesting.
He removes his microphone and gathers things; the audience exeunts QUIETLY TALKATIVELY; an aisle-seat Grad remains; Jaime approaches; Undergrad Barkel works her way forward; another Grad comes down to the empty right board and diagrams his joke;
MID SECOND-ROW AND THIRD-ROW undergrads articulate:
3RD:ROW#2
(to fore and aft)
It's proverbial stardust!
4TH:ROW#2
(following)
It should be called, Planck-ton-- after the physicist!
5TH:ROW#2
(grins to following)
Dilithium is better.
6TH:ROW#2
(following)
But anti-lithon expels un-pair-able electron triplets;- and its nuclear binding structure is weak, compared to antihelion-- It can't be stable!
5TH:ROW#2
(pouts about)
Well: that just debunks my favorite T-V show--!
(exaggerates)
I guess there's nothing really left on Earth… I'd rather go live on the farside of the cosmos…!
6TH:ROW#2
(emends)
May-be! They used helion-ant'helion pairs-- stabilized by laser-cooling to the 1-s orbitals:- bi-nillium-8: One nucleus stands-off the other's-anti, electron-orbitals; -a dimpled metastabililty;- preventing mutual-beta-annihilation and maintaining a triplet at 1-s and a fourth at 2-s:
(exuberant revelation)
Like! Quasi,-lithium… Sure--! Pauli mutual exclusivity for anti-coupled quantum number states in closebound paralleles, preventing both pairs occupying the same state or holding the identical boson-exchange energy state difference: One electron, or its anti, elevates to a 2-s orbital outside, the quasi-nucleus; to bond electro-covalently at a non,-ground state valence of,-- 1:-- just like, lithium; or selectably antilithium: Electro-chemically forming, quasi-dilithium,-16; --switchably anti--!
(turns up-aisle astounded)
A pseudo-degeneracy-stabilized bi-generate dense crystalline matrix form of quasi-di-matter…. I wonder how it's utilized!! --Or switched!
6TH-ROW#3
(turns with; adds)
Its primary crystalline form would be cubic because of the internally alternating nuclear charges … which would result in strong-focusing of permeating charged particle streams to atomic-width along three axes by convergent-divergent quadrupoles,-- like in a tevatron superconducting supercollider;- At proper operating energy levels the Mossbauer effect should completely stabilize it:- It could mix matter and antimatter on its supranuclear scale: create any ideal configuration: a pre-cosmic-expansion universe, in a microcosm: in your pocket … all with impunity!
5TH:ROW#2
(over-awed)
You mean, Dilithium, is real!?- Not science-fiction!?- What's the world coming-to?! This is heady--!!
They continue up-aisle among those exeunting into the b.g.
6TH:ROW#2
(on and on)
Electro-magnetic force is 43-orders of magnitude stronger than gravity: and the proton-anti-proton mix just shy of nuclear density can create a small black-hole of a kilogram with all the strange aether forces under control:- charge phasor corotation; photon-cloaking-decloaking; aether-zero-point energy flux; mass-energy base-density; antimatter-dominancy!
5TH:ROW#2 (CONCURRENT)
So we just skipped from the 20th to the 23rd century!?-- What, happened to the two intervening centuries…?!
6TH-ROW#3 (CONCURRENT)
(nonchalant future)
Famine, depression, war: The United States refused to fund a search for Pluton, Rebuked third-world nations developing nuclear heating, -Missed the opportunity to predict the next sunspot minima-… Three, little-ice-ages set-in: Famine, depression, war….
5TH-ROW#3 (CONCURRENT)
(lookback-tilt rebuke)
You Earthers are all still spacers in your technology-think: The real work is deep underground where the autologically-constructed computer of olivine-pyroxene semiconductors will be probed--and the structure determined by just asking it--and finding the earth is intelligent…!
The others look mock-miffed…
As Jaime reaches the table, and Undergrad Barkel nearly:
JAIME
Think there's room on one plane?
HARRY
Looked like about a hundred are going tomorrow.
UNDERGRAD BARKEL
Excuse me, professor!?
HARRY
Yes?
UNDERGRAD BARKEL
I have 5-71-C, with Professor Gwen; I'm having trouble with yesterday's assignment: The T-A today, couldn't answer my question: Can I ask you?- You know a lot about mathematics….
HARRY
(helpless look at Jaime… sincere at Undergrad)
Yes: What's your question?
UNDERGRAD BARKEL
(diagrams: pencil, paper)
It's Brouwer's Fixed Point Theorem on 3-space balls but with closed C-infinity smooth gradient-mapping:-- I thought I followed her lecture yesterday, but when I got home I found a confusion:
(phrasing)
Beginning with the hull-sphere of the ball, Collapse the sphere to the center … So then by the Hyper-infinitesmal Continuum Principle, the fixed point lies on some continuous curve, from its start on the hull-sphere, to the center; Or, it returns back to the hull, paired to the first fixed-point, but which was not required in the Given … Or, it finds some closed, sub-layer, in which to oscillate forever trapped…
(phrasing)
But now … Suppose I move the center during convergence-- letting the sphere collapse with curvilinear motion: Then-- any non-returning, non-oscillating, curve, can be drawn to any interior point… And--
(phrasing)
Since every point has infinitely many approaches, this means there must be infinitely-many-or-more, curves multiply-filling the ball…
(glums)
So, Either all interior points are fixable to the hull-sphere, or sub-ball thereof, Or some portion of fixed-point-lines end in trapping-spheres… which also trap any fixed-point-lines coming up from below … Or maybe there is no smooth mapping in 3-D … or … I'm, sinking in the black-hole of calculus…!
JAIME
(interjects)
Could any of those trapped curves be infinitely-long before falling below their trapping layers?
UNDERGRAD BARKEL
Good point.
HARRY
Not all three are simultaneously valid conclusions … Peter's grad-student, John, might answer that,-- that's his side-job as a math-tutor and math-assistant … and he's good with curl and divergence formulae: I'm not fast in mathematics: I didn't catch your error.
UNDERGRAD BARKEL
(slightly pensive)
Does that mean I have to go with you all tomorrow-- if John goes?
HARRY
Tomorrow's field-trip is voluntary.
UNDERGRAD BARKEL
(smiles vibrant)
Okay! Tomorrow it is!
(EXITS)
Harry finishes; Jaime extracts the video-cassette …
HARRY
(puzzles to Jaime)
Yes…?
JAIME
She wants to go, Harry:- She needed a reason.
HARRY
A reason-- to find Gwen…!?
JAIME
Or to join the team,-- to get the answer together….
HARRY
A continuum principle doesn't exist: A circle can be tangential to a line at just one point.
JAIME
She imagines the infinitesimal works smoothly, relative to its integral translation.
HARRY
A complex imagination,-- needs more realism.
JAIME
She is, taking math,- not just nuclear physics. And what about us-versus-Army, tomorrow? Shall I give them the AIR-Team bosom-job?!
HARRY
(leaving)
The what!?- Is that a non sequitur? Or, am I late for cookie-crumbling-therapy…?!
JAIME
(accompanies)
Didn't you ever play 'Area 51' at the video arcades? where the Alien-Intelligence Response-Team counters the insidious U-F-O Alien incursion forces?- Female AIR-Team attire was strictly bosomy:-- As if the horrid Aliens weren't interesting enough….
HARRY
Sort of Earth-beauty and the space-beast?-- No,- Celestial mechanics,- interplanetary navigator, zero-gravity racquetball, were my speed: Virtual-realism at full strength…. And, we'll only have 50-hesits to lift-off:-- if we're to survive the missiles they'll hurl at us.
JAIME
(surprised)
You intend to take, the U-F-O…!?
HARRY
(nears seats)
We owe it to Gwen and the guys, to match them.
AISLE GRAD
(seated)
Harry, Are we going to have a moment to discuss the Pitha abstracts on the proton spin crisis, tonight? I e-spressed you the '96 archive copies this morning. The authors suggested collective quark spin moment.
HARRY
(stops at seat)
You won't get a better guess from me at this time: I haven't reviewed it nor changed my opinion for quark asphericity-spin-precession…. Did you find the Deutscher citation on spin-challenged radiodecay in holmium-dysprosium-1-63 co-version?
AISLE GRAD
No-- Not yet: I've been through the Citation index: You sure it exists outside your nuke-chem handbook!?
HARRY
(intent to exit)
It's essential reading!-- Check Highbeam, too….
AISLE GRAD
(pointing at the board)
Before you go …
HARRY
(turns to the board loud)
Do you have something for me?
SILLY GRAD
(semaphoring his diagram)
I have your quantum, itinerary, Harry:
(chalk at each line)
Starting at Diana's,- your highest bound energy valiance,-
(chalk across eyes)
-Any beyond is eye-on-eyes'ed only-
(resumes chalk)
You dropped-by Moo-Vis-A-Vis-- and, through your ordinary work-function
(5-wiggler)
there remitted five Beta particles;
HARRY
(loud)
Those were V-H-S.
SILLY GRAD
(wipes, writes "VHS")
Oh, right:-- five V-H-S, particles.
(resumes chalk)
Then down to campus level where you
(a fat wiggler-arrow)
spontaneously desorbed Jaime,-- a female alpha, particle, -I'm sure:- Two fully-charged protons, and a pair of equally-massive neutrons.
JAIME
(restrained guffaw)
Oh, Brother…!
SILLY GRAD
(dithers next pair)
But you couldn't decide between O-chem and P-chem, --being coupled finely-split Harry states,--
(next)
And skipped to Q-chem,-- finishing your power spectra, in time for:--
(underscores final, QED)
Your classic ground state,-ments!
(hands up for crescendo)
Q-E-D! Q-E-F! Q-E-I!
HARRY
Very good,-- You get A, for today.
SILLY GRAD
But I've already graduated;- I was hoping you'd renew my stipend…!?
HARRY
(grins)
I didn't say, A-what … My office….
And they exeunt up the aisle, Grads too….
CUT TO:
FADE IN:
INT. HELIPORT OFFICE - AREA 51 - SUN UP (NEXT MORNING)
Desert, hangar in the background beyond parked rental cars; TECHNICIANS tend 2 rental helicopters idling …
Indoors, OWNER, Mike, Jeff, Harry, Jaime, SECRETARY, review and discuss Certificates, sign and exchange papers at the counter and desk. A hesit-day-clock on the wall; a xero-copier on the counter.
A small TV follows KRWN Eye-Storm UFO News-coverage [NEWS-ANCHOR Jane, KRWN-MIKE on her-monitor] …
MIKE
(hands certificate)
Qualified on everything the Army bought or procured: Attack, Recon, Cargo, E-War … and three it didn't.
OWNER
(signs papers)
We'll have to chat someday … Four-thousand dollars each for today:-- Return these by sundown: We frown on night-flying…. They're fueled--
(stretch-looks outside)
and idling…. You'll get 5-hundred
(hands contracts)
kilometers, or 6-kilohesits….
(copies Certificates)
If the desert wind picks-up, don't land:-- Wait!-- You have emergency pneumatic re-starters,-- but don't restart above 2-kilometers: Use your auto-rotation to descend to 2-K. No stunt-flying; We keep a copy of your Flight Certification, your Radio Clearance, and flightplan. Be careful of the U-F-O traffic: It's been hectic here every day!
(returns originals)
MIKE
(signs papers)
Conservative estimates.
JEFF
(signs papers)
Standard fare;-- pretty good price, for the hottest story in history…!
OWNER
I make my money by staying in business: We've brought-in ten more copters and we're getting good all-day turnover: Back by noon gets you 35-percent rebate.
(a beat)
What makes you guys so interested in the U-F-O?-- You seem more the college professor types;-- Public television?
HARRY
Inside information: We obtained a V-C-R of the Aliens' plot,-- with scientific evidences beyond our technologies: We thought we'd investigate promptly.
OWNER
Adventurous;- You are, coming back?
JAIME
Sure:
(grins)
If the Aliens don't take us to their leader.
All smile.
OWNER
(finished, leads exeunt)
You're all set.
They exeunt, except the Secretary, to the--
EXT. PARKING, HELIPORT FIELD, HELIPADS - (CONTINUOUS)
And saunter across … to Brad, Tommi, Susan, Dave, loading two helicopters …
A TECHNICIAN leaves,-- salutes Owner;
OWNER
(to them)
Helicopters were my first love…. Nothing compared to a U-F-O though. Wish I were going with you: You might be able to explain things to me: Propellerless levitation and flight: Imagine that:-- Wish our Pentagon guys could figure it out: It's the only thing I never liked about choppers.
(arriving)
Well: Best wishes,-- And best view:
(extends handshake)
Hope you get your money's worth.
JEFF
(handshakes)
Thanks.
MIKE
(handshakes)
Thank you, sir;- We'll take good care of your desert grasshoppers.
Owner salutes all,-- leaves; Technicians follow, saluting;
(00:00 - music timestep-sync'ed)
JAIME
(returns salutes)
All aboard!
(climbs aboard Jeff's)
Let's move out!
HARRY
See you there, Jaime.
(climbs aboard Mike's)
All eight board the two….
(00:08 clap)
ROTORS START, and WIND-UP …
Thumb-up signal each other:--
(00:20 gallop)
LIFT-OFF,--
And fly away …
Far away … Beyond the hills …
And abruptly descend, to--
EXT. FLAT LAND AMONG DESERT HILLS
LANDING adjacent to 2 cars, equipments …
John, Gary, in blue AIR-Team jumpsuits, functional headsets, deliver labeled packages to each as they debark:
JOHN
(one to Harry)
Harry: Put this on!
(and to next)
HARRY
What is it?!
JOHN
(handing to Jaime)
Your A-I-R-Team outfit:-- Official!
JAIME
(mutual to Harry)
I'm only here for the campus news:
(brave grin)
Trust me, Harry: This isn't news!
They don their jumpsuits; Jaime fits bosomy; John, Gary, squeegee-affix USA flag and "N.C.L.R. Nuclear Chemistry Laboratories Response" decals to the Helicopters …
They test headsets AD LIB; pack their clothes into bags; and load the last equipment … a radio transponder;--
HARRY
Where'd you get this transponder?
JOHN
Astrophysics Department: their high altitude sounder: They are set to track us-- even to the moon, Harry!
Now-10 climb aboard … (wind-up, fly-off, implied in music)
EXT. UFO LANDING SITE - DESERT HILLS
Urban helicopters hover within miles of the stealth black UFO 1 km long 100 m high and wide; an open portal mid-side, a breach at rear; US ARMY teams investigate, COL. REICHER in charge; 2 mobile KRWN Eye-Storm News CREW busy; AD LIB …
CU: RADTAC, Driver, in a Jeep at talking distance behind GENERAL, Driver, in the lead Jeep, relaxed watching …
RADTAC
(louder)
Roger!
(to the lead jeep)
General: Radar has a snake in the grass: Due west!
General lifts rectobinoculars (CU) to view west--
RECTOBINOCULAR VIEW:
(01:15 2nd kickstart)
The "N.C.L.R." Helicopters hop low hills, approaching …
GENERAL (OC)
Well, well: Grasshoppers too.
RADTAC (OC)
Same vector, sir.
And land nearish Col. Reicher and the UFO …
EXT. HELICOPTERS - IMPROMPTU LANDINGS - NEAR UFO
Harry, Jaime, John, Gary, Mike, Jeff, Brad, Tommi, Susan, Dave, debark in headsets, welder goggles, laden with squirt rifles, spray canisters, Geigers, the transponder, Mike's papers,-- and approach the UFO …
Col. Reicher confronts them --noticing Jaime's fit--
COL. REICHER
And where are we going, U-FO-bees?!
Jaime knows his look; Harry defers to Mike.
MIKE
(orders)
Alien-Intelligence-Response Team, Colonel:-- Clear your men off the platform: We've traced antimatter deployments to this vessel.
The others straighten-up their gear;
COL. REICHER
(guffaws)
This I've got to believe it, to see it!
(calls)
Sergeant!
JAIME
Good, Colonel: Your Sergeant will see it!
MIKE
(advises)
Colonel: We have work-completion on schedule, here.
SERGEANT walks-up,- just as General's jeep arrives;
COL. REICHER
Sergeant: Escort these civies to designated Area-51 Public Zone.
GENERAL
What have you got here, Colonel Reicher?!
Jaime reality-checks Col. Reicher;--
COL. REICHER
(shakes No, turning away)
A few overly ambitious …
MIKE
(quickens)
General,-- Sir:
(hands-over papers)
Alien-Intelligence-Response Team, Unit 4-0-9-C, Nuclear Chemistry Laboratories Response, Sir. We are here on orders to glean antimatter: Traces have emerged, from this vessel, Sir. Please, Have your Colonel recall his men,-- Sir.
COL. REICHER
Sir, these U-FO enthusiasts landed a moment ago.
GENERAL
(at papers)
Yes: We scoped their helicopters.
(and to Mike)
I don't recognize your unit, Commander: Where are you stationed?
MIKE
(subordinate)
California, Sir-- Santa Cruz: The Aliens were tracked there,-- where evidences of antimatter were discovered,-- Sir.
GENERAL
Have you any evidences to show us, Commander?
MIKE
Sir: It was destructively tested,-- annihilated, Sir,-- But a routine detection procedure inside the U-F-O, will ascertain whether there is any uncontained,-- Sir.
GENERAL
Colonel Reicher, have you tested for antimatter?
COL. REICHER
No, Sir: Bio-Rad certified it, Absolute:-- No gases, no spores, no radioactivity: Shirtsleeve environment; Five-hundred-percent oxygen concentration in unopened chambers, is the worst of it,- or the best of it, depending on which doctors we asked: No hazards until somebody sneezes;-- and there have been no annihilations.
JAIME
It has been found dangerous only on contact with flesh, Sir.
GENERAL
And, how do you propose to test for antimatter?
HARRY
(respects him)
General, The squirt-rifles are filled with heavy-water, -a source of deuterium:- Specifically, anti-helion promptly catalyzes water and fusions the deuterons. The fogging canisters also, have heavy-water….
GENERAL
And you're the thinker for this group.
HARRY
Principal Investigator.
GENERAL
(sighs)
Colonel …
COL. REICHER
(at a draw)
Sir, I really don't think we have …
HARRY
(overrides)
You don't, have, the necessary equipment, Colonel.
GENERAL
(to Reicher)
Can you have them test the entrance corridor, engine-room, and command-center?
COL. REICHER
Yes, Sir…. Sergeant: Escort one of these foggers into the U-FO.
SERGEANT
Colonel: Really, this is irregular: I can't direct my men to make way for civilian visitors …
COL. REICHER
(overlaps annoyed)
Do it, Sergeant:-- General's order!
SERGEANT
(accedes)
Yes, Sir.
(looks at Jaime)
You: Bring your gear:-- follow me.
(walks to UFO)
JAIME
(gathers-up)
Yes, sir.
(rechecks Reicher a beat)
COL. REICHER
(softly smiles: confides)
Seventh-generation grandfather.
JAIME
(hastens to Sergeant)
Don your sunglasses, sir.
EXT. UFO BASE ACCESS RAMP, ENTRY PORTAL - (MOMENTS LATER)
Jaime in welders' goggles and Sergeant in photochromic sunglasses, climb the ramp …
Atop they enter:-- Jaime sprays her canister about …
Instantly compounding writhing bluish-WHITEOUT CLOAKS THEM;
GLASSES BLACK-GOLD, Sergeant yells, running out and down--
SERGEANT
(expedites shouting)
Retreat!!-- Clear the U-FO!!
(back outside)
Platoon-Comm: Sound the Exit!!
BELOW: COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER radios …
MOMENTARILY …
Army Teams emerge from the bluish glare, wearing black-gold sunglasses and shielding their eyes …
EXT. HELICOPTERS
HARRY
General: We must de-anti the U-F-O, as soon as the Sergeant's men are out and clear … then return home.
GENERAL
Colonel!
COL. REICHER
Yes, sir.
(keys WALKIE TALKIE)
Sergeant: Give me your clear!
SERGEANT (DISTANT)
(shouts)
Yes, Sir, Colonel:
(to Comm)
Platoon-Comm: Follow-up!
COMM-OFFICER (DISTANT)
(shouts)
Yes, sir!
(resumes radio)
[COMM-OFFICER] (RADIOS)
Colonel has ordered evacuation!
EXT. UFO BASE RAMP - GLARING BLUISH EXIT PORTAL - (10 MIN.)
Mike et al lug equipments and transponder up the ramp;
The Army, General still in his Jeep, wait, watching below;
And HORDES of visitors far beyond, in the Public Zone.
Atop, they don welder's DARK GOGGLES (F÷4);
Tommi adjusting hers,-- pauses pensive, both hands holding:
SUSAN
(watching her, humors)
Anyone bring a Trick-or-treat bag?
TOMMI
(a beat solemn)
I didn't bring my Passport.
JEFF
We'll still be in Nevada, inside.
TOMMI
Inside, is not what bothers me.
They giggle mutually uneasily, and advance inside …
INT. UFO ENTRY CORRIDOR - PALE BLUE WASHED - (CONTINUOUS)
Trotting-in, passing numerous brilliant FLARING SPOTS …
And catch-up to Jaime spraying ahead, just as--
3 NEW FLARE-SPOTS BLOOM;--
MIKE
(smiles)
Jaime!
JAIME
(turns, smiles)
Hi, guys: Come help Spring cleanup!
(more to Mike)
That was a lot of yessir-ing, Mike: Think you guys bought us 51-hesits?
MIKE
Well-founded habit;-- sure hope so.
JOHN
Any clues where's the control room?
JAIME
A lot of troops came-out this way.
(leads-in)
HARRY
Let's go, guys!
She leads them TROTTING …
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
Momentarily finding the--
AUTO-ESCALATOR, TO COMMAND DECK - OMNILIT (CONTINUOUS)
Jaime, Mike, John, Harry, Tommi, Susan, step-ride up; Jeff, Gary, Brad, Dave, trot away with the transponder:
JAIME
(stepping onto)
This way: Let's go up, top level.
NOW ESCALATING.
GARY
(running away)
I'm checking the perimeter, Harry!
JEFF
(following)
I'm with Gary: Catch you upstairs!
MIKE
(behind Jaime)
Dangerous?- Only on contact with flesh, Jaime?- He didn't have any heavy-water handy …
JAIME
He could have been a former college football hero, brought-up drinking heavy-water to put-on weight….
(a grin)
Mike bites air.
They DOFF THEIR GOGGLES (F×4);
And at the top level, trot-in …
INT. STARSHIP COMMAND ROOM - (CONTINUOUS)
Trotting, Jaime sits center-left at the Helm, Mike stands behind and directs; John sits center-right at Navigation:
MIKE
(entering)
Simple enough! John take the Helm.
(points room-center)
Jaime, help John: Everybody, controls: Get this boat fired-up!
Harry, Tommi, Susan, wander the periphery back-left-right: All scatter-chord on displays, panels, pads, keys …
JAIME
(pokes)
Hello!?
But no results … no hints … 10 sec.…
JAIME
(pauses, exasperates)
Gwendolyn Rachel,--
ALL DISPLAYS [GWEN] PAUSED: Forward, soffits, stations.
JAIME (CONT'D)
Where are you leading your sister?!
(looks up abruptly alert)
All Displays have lettered keypads with sample guess-words, technicals, damage warnings, navigations; (Gwen eyes, hair, adjust live continually, cf late Spring Break);
VOX ACTUATED--
[GWEN:VIDEO]
If this is an emergency, depress A-C-O on your alpha-pad … Square-pads have position controls; Circle-pads have attitude controls … Your auto-interpretive emote-controls actuate in two-hundred hesits: six minutes…
AUTO-PAUSED.
All silent, hesitant or looking about …
MIKE
(restarts)
Do it!
All key their lettered display-pads but not blank manuals …
JOHN
Nothing…!
(to Jaime)
Try your blank manual keypad:--
(points)
Computers can't be sure what the display is showing in an emergency start-up sequence.
JAIME
(match-keys manual "ACO")
A … C … O.
ACTUATED--
[GWEN:VIDEO]
You have actuated for emergency operation. If this is a nuclear missile assault, depress K-C-X. If this is for conventional weapons, depress N-P-D. If this is a positional hazard, depress X-Q-E. You may actuate additional emergency coefficients.
AUTO-PAUSED.
HARRY
Conventional, Jaime:-- any moment….
JAIME
(keys manual "NPD")
N-P-D.
TACTICAL WEAPONS replaces the Display visual,--
[GWEN:VIDEO] (OC)
You have actuated for conventional weapons. Manual weapons-actuation is onscreen. You may actuate additional emergency coefficients.
AUTO-PAUSED.
JAIME
(keys manual "XQE")
X-Q-E.
HELM details on Jaime's; NAV-damages on John's;--
JAIME (CONT'D)
Positional, Harry.
VOX ACTUATED--
[GWEN:VIDEO] (OC)
You have actuated for a positional hazard. Your manual Helm actuation is onscreen. You may actuate additional emergency coefficients.
AUTO-PAUSED.
HARRY
Prepare to lift off.
JOHN
(points)
We've got some red-lights:- Damage.
EXT. NEAR BASE OF UFO
Strong wind blows outward: Helicopters auto-rotate, tipple:
THE UFO-BLACKNESS IS UPRIGHTING …
KRWN-MIKE
(narrating-about)
Jane, A desert storm is winding-up.
GENERAL
(urgently)
Get them out of there!
UFO LIFTS SLIGHTLY …
GENERAL (CONT'D)
(furious)
Get them out!- That's, my, U-FO!!
(furiouser)
Bring, them, down,-- Colonel!!
KRWN-MIKE
(reports-about)
Jane, the General is furious about… Jane!- The U-FO is lifting-off! The General definitely wants his U-FO!
Troups prepare, aiming bazookas, missile launchers;
UFO rises slowly … clearing heads … drifting aside …
COL. REICHER
(belays)
Hold positions!-- Sergeant!
ARMY-team MEDICS rush-in LOUDLY AD LIB below the UFO, as it glides aside toward the hills, revealing--
3 white-dressed BODIES near a squashed utility-car:
KRWN-MIKE
(seeking-about)
The troups are preparing to fire on the U-FO: They're aiming bazookas, and missile launchers … Jane!--
(finding the focus below)
There's a breaking story here: Open the studio-lines, Jane: This one is big!- There's vehicle wreckage, and something… white bodies below where the U-FO has rested all this week!- The Army Medic-Team is moving-in!
Mobile KRWN MOVES IN THE FLOW …
INT. HELICOPTER OFFICE - (AS CONTINUOUS)
TAXI-DRIVER [late Spring Break] drives-up with passengers … who pay, and all come in…. Owner is sitting-back absorbed watching the TV [KRWN crowds-in with Army doctors around the bodies: glimpses of apparents Gwen, PETER, DANIEL]:
[KRWN-MIKE]
(strides)
We're getting a definite new report on the U-FO, Jane: There are three, bodies lying under it, dressed in white; where it was: two men …
[NEWS-ANCHOR]
(calm)
Get me close-up, Mike.
TV [ZOOM-IN: bodies dressed as formal space-admirals];
[KRWN-MIKE]
(crowds toward bodies)
This is real, Jane: This is not, a hoax! The Army doctors are checking the bodies: They are fully clothed bodies, Jane: There is no evidence of hanky-panky: This is not, divine retribution: This is clear murder!
[NEWS-ANCHOR]
We're following you all the way, Mike: Get me audio of the Medics.
TAXI-DRIVER (CONCURRENT)
(entered already)
Hi,-- more customers.
(watches TV)
[KRWN-MIKE]
(reports)
Can't get near enough, yet, Jane,-- hang-on.
(to cameraman)
Cam … yeah, Point your mike first.
TV [AIM WOBBLES: including various medics AD LIB];
[KRWN-MIKE]
(re-pumps)
Jane: These are Americans down here!
OWNER (CONCURRENT)
Hi. It's gone,-- The U-FO's gone.
[KRWN-MIKE]
(reports)
Army Radio Chief Smithers says: The President has, been notified: Three Americans have been killed by the U-FO … Hold-on, Jane … We're mixing front-line reports … Jane!-- One of the bodies has moved!-- The female, Jane! An American woman-- and she's still alive! Isn't this exciting, Jane?!- Keeping-up with the flow of information:- Live history changes, right here! -Jane!- We're getting a new report: The woman's body is speaking … Her message is: "Call … Kings …" … We could be witnessing a soul-body transfer-- live-- on television, Jane!
TV [ZOOM-IN: body of Gwen-apparent];
[NEWS-ANCHOR]
May be just an N-D-E, Mike, --under duress,-- a Near-Death Experience:- Keep us posted on her.
TAXI-DRIVER (CONCURRENT)
(recognizes)
I've seen that woman:-- picked her up a week ago;-- strange bunch: All three of them, dressed in white … Drove them to California bay area….
[KRWN-MIKE]
(reports)
Jane!-- Army Medic-Chief Ryan now reports, All three bodies have, moved: They're alive, Jane! They're critical hydration-starved: They've been out here a week in the desert! They're garbed in some kind of hostile-viro-wear! Chief Ryan is saying, they may recover, Jane!
[NEWS-ANCHOR]
Youth hostel, Mike? Are they school students?
Army assault-vehicles race toward the UFO direction …
[KRWN-MIKE]
(reports)
Adults, Jane-- like you and me: They're wearing hostile-environment suits: which may have saved them from total dehydration! Jane! We're getting a forward-scout report: The U-FO has gone-down,-- nearby: Jane: This changes things again: The Army is sending-out armed vehicles …
INT. STARSHIP COMMAND - OVER HILLS - SHADED WINDOW
Tommi, Susan, are reviewing operations with Jeff, Gary, at perimeter right, left: instructing, poking displays, pads;
The ship descends wobbly among low hills;
HARRY
(answers impositions)
… I don't know, how, Gwen learned so much about this,-- nor how she programmed it:- They didn't tell me: Maybe they took a ride in it!
MIKE
But the U-F-O appeared only this week, Harry: the very day they were to return from this area!- And, no other Aliens were observed near it: She must have been on it earlier-- and long-enough!
JEFF
Suppose she, -they,- were abducted, early last week: That'd explain their nonchalant late return: Maybe they escaped from the Aliens,- and landed this U-F-O on their own…!
MIKE
But then, why didn't they plan on retaking this U-F-O?-- Their plans called for a submarine polar route: something else they must have found or learned: That must have been one busy, week, for Spring Break!
GARY
The Aliens must still be up there-- somewhere: at their mother-ship,-- waiting for us to come up!
JOHN
(leans to Jaime)
Jaime: Would you prefer to switch with me,- Let me take the Helm?
HARRY
(catches)
John: Stay put: We need teamwork right now;- And we all need learn all these controls,-- and Jaime has soloed private jets.
(mildly exasperates)
Mike: Why are we descending?!
MIKE
Quick stop, Harry: More supplies;-- and attach the tracking-transponder to the hull.
HARRY
We don't have time: Install it from inside at the hull breach.
JEFF
Either way, Harry, we have to re-open its sealed shut-out hatches.
A ROOM-SHAKING THUMP as the ship touches down,-- and
TILTS.
Harry notices the HORDE OF THOUSANDS CONVERGING outside, just viewable below,-- and hundreds of vehicles beyond.
Jeff, heeled by Gary, rush-EXEUNT:
GARY
(charging down-escalator)
This'll be quick, Harry: We've rehearsed it!
MIKE
Wasn't made for landing on Earth….
HARRY
(seeing outside: excited)
Who are all those people…?! Did we crush any…?!
JAIME
Never seen your Nuke-Chem class, outdoors!?
HARRY
We left them back at the Area 51 public-zone…!!
JAIME
That was the public: Your students waited here: They're coming, Harry.
HARRY
With us!?- We can't take them with us!-- We can't take them all:-- we weren't going to take you, Jaime! This was planned by and for nine researchers!
JAIME
Harry, You gave them a smattering, of real, antimatter: Now they want more--! And, I want Diana back, as much as you!
JOHN
(inserts to Jaime)
An anti-smattering….
HARRY
(beat)
But, those under-21:-- This is statutory kidnapping!
MIKE
They came voluntarily, Harry.
HARRY
(upsets)
The 'death' penalty isn't voluntary in California!
JOHN
Nevada, Harry:--
(grins)
Plead insanity by reason of dislocation of the West-Coast.
HARRY
(wanders)
Why didn't you tell me?!--
(reconsiders)
We can't start with a mutiny on our bounty! We'll have to employ them:- Contracts;- Student Waivers;- Workmans' Comp;- Benefits …
JOHN
(interrupts)
Good name, Harry: This is now, the pirated Alien spaceship, Bounty!
JAIME
(whines)
Harry, Two hectahesits inside an Alien U-F-O and you're reverting to an aboriginal bureaucrat…!
Harry bites air.
JOHN
(enunciates)
Her Majesty's Green-Alien Bounty!-- sounds like an English pug-apple….
HARRY
(thinking aloud)
We'll have to organize them: Divide them into ten teams: hundreds each … How…?! Outfit them … Feed them …
AUTO-WEAPONS DISPLAYS UP.
HARRY (CONT'D)
(puzzled-look forward)
How…?!
Multiple-source TRACER VOLLEY ERUPTS outside forward,-- SHUDDERING THE SHIP;-- destroying incoming missiles afar;
HARRY
(distracted)
Now, what?!
JOHN
(to Jaime's controls)
We've just auto-volleyed, Harry: At incoming missiles over the hills, I guess: Emote-controls are now 'on'.
(resumes watching)
HARRY
Get those kids on-board, now! Prepare to launch immediately! They're not safe out there!
LAST MISSILES DESTROYED; They're watching for more …
MIKE
(low, to mouthpiece)
Jeff, Gary: Status: We're under live missile-fire: Get them in-now: No casualties! Give me your clear!
JOHN
(to Jaime's controls)
Correction: We had, in-coming:--
(faces Harry)
It took them out, Harry!
HARRY
Expedite this, Mike: The Army won't quit here!
JAIME
(hands stuck to pads)
Expediting!…
EMOTE-CONTROLS (sticky-gel hand-pads), DISPLAYS EMOTE DATA;
JAIME
(testing both-handed)
Whoa,-- Easy, boy: We've got full emote-control!
(feels, a live smile)
It's: warm!
Information Displays dense: Starship is fully up….
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
EXT. UFO BASE - 7 QUICK-RIGGED ENTRY RAMPS - DESERT
Thousands of students daisy-chain holding hip-belts stream into portals; Jeff, Gary, Brad, Dave, AD LIB on BULLHORNS …
INT. STARSHIP COMMAND
They busy-watch [HATCH-CAMERA] MONITORS: The boarding ends…
[JEFF] (MIKE-HEADSET)
Mike, They're all aboard;-- Closing hatches: Must be thousands of them: just poured-in … Never seen such a successful fire-drill!
MIKE
(to mouthpiece)
All right! Jeff, Thanks!--
(to all)
Harry, They're all aboard! Proceed to launch the U-F-O, Jaime!
JAIME
Aye, Commander Michael.
(controls, giggling)
Or should I say Arch-Alien Michael?
STARSHIP RIGHTS under them …
MIKE
(bracing)
We're not Aliens --not yet,-- and certainly not first: We've got to get this into outer-space, first.
And lifts-up from the ground …
More INCOMING MISSILES TRACK on Displays …
JOHN
(excited at Jaime's data)
Mike, Jaime's got incoming-- again.
JAIME
(to controls)
Thanks, John: Guys make war first: Dance second.
JOHN
(keys)
Hang-in, Jaime:- Stay with it: This thing is going to volley, any …
John's NAV-display brings-up ship tactics technicals;
Jeff, heeled by Gary, bolt up-escalator, into the room-- and sit at their perimeter stations right and left:
JEFF
(in, sits)
Must be airborne already: Felt the ship set-up, like on water,-- then absolute calm!
MIKE
Hold-on to something, guys: We're into live-action!
TRACER-FIRE ERUPTS forward toward distant hills--
EXPLOSIONS flare along the horizon;
MIKE
Full elevation, Jaime!
JAIME
(watches hands)
Try again.
(fingers emote-controls)
SHIP FORWARDS … to 70 mph …
JOHN
Too-much acceleration and we're liable to create hurricane season.
MIKE
An acceptable risk; Jaime, Give us forward thrust as soon as possible.
JAIME
It is, already, Mike: 70-meters-per-hesit,- though… mostly…
(contrite)
attributable to my learning curve….
MIKE
We didn't feel any forward, acceleration: Give us more…!
JAIME
(gently controls)
Forwarding acceleration.
Ship accelerates … to 100 mph … 150 … in 3 sec.…
JOHN
(to Jaime)
We can do better than freeway speed, Jaime.
JAIME
(reports)
56-meters-per-hesit-per-hesit: and increasing: 59 … 60 … 61 … at least it says so!
JOHN
(to his controls)
Navigation confirms significant forward motion: 3-hundred meters… 3-50…per-hesit, increasing rapidly: Speed-of-sound shock-wall in 7-, 6-more hesits … But it's incredibly calm for 1-point-5-gee, Mike: Must have an acceleration damper field.
MIKE
(commands)
Rotate! Jaime, get us up there now!
JAIME
(controls)
Aye … Up-see-dai-sy … Yee-haw!--
Starship ROTATES SKYWARD; 0.2-1.0 mi./sec. in 5 sec.…
Racing into sky cloud layers … through and …
Above, the sky clears … darkening to black: NAV shows their rapid ascent outer-spaceward 5 sec.…
JOHN
(to Display)
Ten kilometers up, already….
JAIME
(watching forward)
Darn your booties: This baby's hanging-out of the crib!
JEFF
Harry: We've got shipwide public-address: Got any messages for your crew…?
HARRY
(happily surprised)
Let's try it.
(sits in Command chair)
Put me on.
HARRY (CONT'D +PA)
(as testing microphone)
I'd like to take this moment to formally welcome our student-crew, aboard the N-C-L-R Starship Bounty.
(enjoys; assigns)
Your first crew assignment, is: Tie-in to every computer display: Learn how this vessel operates and navigates…. The command bridge is restricted to personnel, please-- there are too many of us for visits up here: Brad, Dave, Susan, Tommi, sometimes Jeff and Gary, are your command-crew liaisons.
(a beat)
Second assignment: Implement crew log-in and recording procedures: Everyone aboard must be registered, presently: We will be implementing duty-divisions commensurate with individual work-study programs….
JAIME
(grins)
Professor Commander Administrator--
HARRY (+PA)
Third, --for extra-credit,--
(grins)
First crew-student to find me a rib-eye steak, wins, bridge-visitation privileges.
JAIME
(head to one-hand-free)
Queeg!
Surprised, She plays with alternating one-hand-stuck …
JOHN
(to Jaime)
Some-one's got to find these things, Jaime: We're not coming-back to Earth, for dinner:
(looks ahead: sighs)
Nor even this solar system!
Stars litter the black sky beyond the west full moon …
Red-laser-light twinkles-about the outer window edges …
John, Jaime, busy but exchanging brief half-looks:--
JOHN
(resumes half-at Jaime)
This U-F-O sure beats the antigravity-ring project.
JAIME
(half-at John)
Antigravity is science-fiction stuff.
JOHN
(half-at Jaime)
Not at all!--
(for Jaime)
The, geometric, anti-gravity ring, is one of the real possibilities for a space-elevator,-- comparable to Doctor Clarke's geo-rope trick:
(constructs)
Consider, a ring, in space, around the Earth, with heavy sliders moving faster than orbit-speed,- which buoy-up the whole ring.
JAIME
(half-at John)
That's ordinary massive celestial mechanics, not anti-grav.
JOHN
(for Jaime)
Next add a second ring in parallel, with sliders running the other way: Works the same, but the sum angular momentum is now zero.
JAIME
(considers for John)
O-kay… -a standing wave-
JOHN
(half-at Jaime)
Now let the ring-pair be segmented:
(busy but for Jaime)
Each segment-pair gets a pair of counter-sliders, so that the sum total motion is equivalent: Half the sliders are running forward,- half, back:-- At any one moment the same momentum, but each segment is closed,-- just touching adjacently.
JAIME
(for John)
O-kay… I'm picturing your segments are atoms…!
JOHN
(for Jaime)
Exactly!… And covalent electrons are ultra-fast sliders!
JAIME
(three-quarter-at John)
You mean, Put a wire around the Earth, And it floats: Antigravity?
JOHN
(for Jaime)
Nooo:- Two thirds of the electrons cross the wire, with no buoyancy effect … But covalent electrons can be realigned in strongly magnetic mu-metal: and that may help!
JAIME
(weird grin full-at John)
That's really neat!
(busies but for John)
You mathematicians surely have curious theories:
(sobers)
Why haven't they built it?
JOHN
(for Jaime, frenchly)
'Zh'n say qwah': Covalent electrons orbit at a tenth of light-speed;- Electrons have a 37-hundredth of a deuteron mass;- Alignment factors cut 70-percent…. Double-bonded carbon-12 chains might have enough covalent electrons: It might work around the moon I think, not Earth.
JAIME
(smiles)
Something for a rainy day,- and a blue moon…. Would a diamond ring around the moon be stable? Or would it fall down, on one side?!
JOHN
(full-at Jaime)
Entirely self-stabilizing, by celestial mechanics:
(busy but for Jaime)
The electrons move too fast at apo-luna: and that raises the peri-luna side;-- and too slow at peri-luna, lowers the apo-luna:- The ring will center itself around the moon.
JAIME
(stares ahead 2 beats)
John,…
(gushes)
Have you ever thought of dedicating your moon-ring to a woman friend?!
JOHN
(to controls)
No,-- I hadn't.
(switches)
Mike: We've passed-up 3-hundred-20 kilometers.
MIKE
(studies)
Yes,- And it sure is quiet!- They must be planning something …
JAIME
(reminds)
The News reported a volley of anti-ballistic-missiles failed to aim when the U-F-O came-in this week: Maybe they're not wasting their missiles on us,-- or maybe they're afraid of more hurricane-winds, and letting us go peaceably:- We're not their Aliens!
MIKE
(mulls)
The military mind-set won't allow that, Jaime:-- There's something black in their wait … What?! Laser? Jaime,-- Give us positional dither, and axial roll.
JAIME
(controls)
Rolling, the boat….
THE SKY REVOLVES SLOWLY about their heading …
CUT TO:
FADE IN:
INT. COMMAND - MOON SPACE - LOW SOFT LIT (HOURS GONE-BY)
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
Lit by myriad displays, controls, wall-glows; the full moon 100x large and bright above, approaches rapidly … till the WEST SIDE close-up fills the entire side view,--
Then slowing to a fast orbit-like path …
Harry's e-mail PAGER TWINKLES, surprising them;-- He looks;
JEFF
Harry: That's your e-mail pager!- They've identified you;- not that it makes a difference.
GARY
Might be over-the-horizon beam-lobe defraction.
JEFF
Not at the moon's distance, unless there's ionospheric curvature-focus.
JAIME
Maybe it's the Galaxy-6 satellite that went askew.
(surprised-excited)
Harry! Maybe the Police have found Gwen or Diana!
JOHN
Do we have a way to read your e-mail out here?
JEFF
(a beat, offers)
We can dub key messages into the transponder.
GARY
(completes aloud)
… Downlink … Tap into the uplink control-sequence: I'll check that later: see what we can rig-up; Should be interesting, what Astrophysics thinks of our tracking-telemetry.
MIKE
(2 beats, concerned)
We still haven't met their design … This worries me, Harry!
HARRY
This vessel should be capable to handle anything:- It came back to Earth, under military barrage with only Gwen's crew of three:- fairly self-sufficient.
MIKE
We haven't seen what Earth's going to throw at us:
(a beat)
Harry: Do we, have anything on the lunar farside?- I keep-up on these military things … but wonder….
HARRY
Nothing I know-of, Mike: State professors don't rank top-secret clearance.
MIKE
(retries)
Just thinking of your Nuclear Chemistry Research.
HARRY
Ah-yuh…. Still, nothing I know-of, Mike: Need-to-know, cancels a lot of information passing.
MIKE
(postulates)
Then again, it could be conventional:
(thinks a beat)
No! Harry: It's got to be nuclear: warmed-and-ready nuclear rocketry.
HARRY
Sorry, Mike:-- that's just not my information.
MIKE
(retries)
Then tell me, Harry: Is there anything I should do?!-- Make it a whim, -a fun something:- ten exercises: maneuver preparedness training…. Harry: Just don't leave us wide-open to nuclear assault!-- We're no longer under direct Presidential command!
The hilly mottled lunar terminator approaches far ahead …
Newly attired YEOMAN-CADET Barkel in avant-garde black-white-gold-motif space-formal suit with jacket, enters …
HARRY
(confides)
I won't leave you open to expectable nuclear assault: If I think of something pertinent… I'll train you on it: Rendezvous with the moon is no easy task.
CADET
(inserts-tenders)
Hello?-- Professor?
HARRY
(turns to new voice)
Yes!- What can I do for you?
CADET
We didn't find any rib-eye steaks, anywhere, But we did find a galley, and quarters:-- yours, too; And outfits like these …
(models-spins)
And the dinner-party's at 1-P-M, if we may have it.
HARRY
Thank you: You may stay and watch.
CADET
Thank you, sir.
(sits with Gary; scans)
They also voted me First-Student-Crew, and gave me the title of, First Crudent….
Gary lips-pursed laugh-grins at that….
Lunar terminator passes-- INTERIOR LIGHTS RAISE …
JAIME
(announces to controls)
E-T-A 2-hecta-hesits … Appears we have a backside rendezvous …
(looks ahead)
I wonder what's out-back….
Mike sits.
JOHN
(quips)
Lunar curvature, mostly.
Overtake an abandoned Apollo 'LM' LUNAR MODULE ASCENT STAGE GLISTENING in orbit sunlight …
BLACK MOON, a blotch of floodlight racing parallel below …
A RED BLAZE on the horizon;--
JAIME
Lunar terminator, folks! And, Looks like someone's been waiting for us!
JOHN
(watching the module)
That's a Lunar Module Ascent Stage; And our exterior floods, footprint.
JAIME
(urges, points ahead)
No:-- On the horizon!
JOHN
(to Jaime's Display)
Oh-oh!
(keys-up; military tenor)
Mike: We've got incoming missiles: forward horizon!
MIKE
(orders)
Go to Red Alert!
JEFF
(keys)
Undiscovered, Mike: Use your command P-A audio.
LUNAR DARKSIDE SHADOW.
MIKE (+PA)
Red Alert! Go to Red Alert! We have incoming missiles on the horizon!
Shipwide KLAXON runs up scale twice: surprising them;--
[FEMALE-COMPUTER]
(alerts over klaxon)
AHT-TAHN-TZION-- ROTE ALERT: DEY-FAHNSE: ROTE ALERT --AHT-TAHN-TZION
JEFF
(satisfied smile)
Discovered-- undergraduates!
MIKE
Seatbelts!
4 GYRATING RED BLAZES APPROACH ahead …
Jaime controlling, SHIP VEERS UP from the moon;--
MIKE
Jaime: Take us down to the lunar surface: Try hiding in the craters.
JAIME
(controls)
Down we go.
SHIP VEERS DOWN … LOW … for her live-video-game:
MIKE
Harry: What are these?!
HARRY
I don't know, Mike: If you want my suggestion, Presume nuclear: Volley and shield yourself behind mountain peaks: But you're the military commander, Mike.
MIKE
(authorizes)
Jaime!
JAIME
(controls)
Yes, sir:-- Understood…!
Looses a TRACER VOLLEY at 2 nearest red blazes, and drops behind a ridge mount,-- hover-gliding sideways across …
JOHN
(busy reviewing weaponry)
Can we reverse thrust at them?- Push-cannons? De-tractor beams?
Pops up-out the other side,-- loosing another volley;--
Dropping back behind just as THE RIDGE MOUNT EXPLODES in WHITE FLASH ENGULFING all sides, the obliterated VIEW AUTO-DARKENING to diagrammatic simulation … and the DUST-BLAST WHELMS against the windows just RETURNING TO NORMAL VIEW;
MIKE
(loud over the blast)
Nuclear!- Stay with it, Jaime!
Traversing quickly farther, low across the crater ridge face, hiding from the next 2 oncoming missiles …
INT. MISSILE - DIGITAL-ELECTRONIC HUNT PROCESSOR (SIMULATED)
TARGET-MASS pops up-out from behind a terrain mountain-- looses A VOLLEY-- and drops behind: TRACKING COMPUTED--
Pops out the other side-- ANOTHER VOLLEY-- and drops back behind: TRACKING RECOMPUTED as the missile VEERS CENTER …
INT. STARSHIP COMMAND
The missiles combine explosion in DOUBLE WHITE FLASH behind the ridge mountain, canopying above, illumining below: the VIEW ABOVE AUTO-DARKENING to SIMULATION … and DUST-BLAST WHELMS against windows just RETURNING TO NORMAL VIEW …
And all quiet again …
JOHN
(to Jaime)
You didn't learn that, soloing in your daddy's business two-holer…!
JAIME
(pumped grin)
Every kilohesit-logged helps!
(controls)
Starship rises above the dust-venting ridge …
JEFF
Those missiles did-not aim smart …
HARRY
Mass-movers, Jeff: Not military …
Horizon is clearing … Starship hovers in solemn vigil …
MIKE
(side-eyeing Harry)
Harry, We need talk in your office.
(points, leads)
HARRY
(look follows pointer)
My office…?
MIKE
The glass room at the back.
HARRY
(along)
All right.
MIKE
(ushers in: FOLLOWS)
What, did you not,-tell me? And When did-you-not-tell-me it…?
(a beat)
And Why…
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
LAST WORDS TRAILING INTO THE SILENCE--
INT. GLASS-WALLED COMMAND OFFICE - (AS CONTINUOUS)
Those outside (MOS) monitor the office and space-ahead as the ship glides onward across the lunar face.
HARRY
I told you all I know.
MIKE
'Mass-movers' … Not military…?-- Whose nukes, Harry?- The Russians, you think? The Germans? California?
HARRY
No: Those were verifiedly not made by the Russians.
MIKE
Whose, then?!-- The Indians have nukes, but not lunar rockets…. The Chinese have rockets --and nukes:-- but forswear themselves to uranium: Plutonium is facile, and necessary, for lunar nukes! … California is as nuclear earthquake trigger-happy as former Governor 'Nuke'm-again', but hasn't fallen into the ocean yet! … Whose nukes, Harry?!- The Aliens!?
HARRY
I don't know of any.
MIKE
Harry, Don't toy with my request for information: We have a thousand people aboard:- your students, in fact: We can't risk them like this!
HARRY
Who brought them on board?
MIKE
51-percent irrelevant, Harry!- War-commanders do-not ask, who created 3-hundred million Americans: They are here; We love them!… We agreed this command structure should give us the best advantage against all possible scenarios save mutiny, And greatest flexibility! You entrusted Jaime:-- You alone knew she's good!
HARRY
I didn't bring Jaime:- She came by herself.
Mike hesitates in reconsideration …
Moon-port guide-lights are in view: leading …
INT. COMMAND - LUNAR HANGAR AHEAD - (CONTINUOUS)
(0-:-- -resume from 1st stop-)
Mike, Harry, (MOS) continue discussion AD LIB;
GARY
(turns to Cadet)
You're a mathematician;-- Do you know about anti-gravity, rings?
CADET
(unassuming)
Like a gyroscope, ring?- We all do.
GARY
How's that?
CADET
A ring spinning at escape-velocity tries to fly, to space, everywhere along the ring;-- Antigravity…!
GARY
(astonished ahead)
So, That's, how U-F-O's work…!?
CADET
(nonchalant ahead)
A loadup of matter-and-anti-matter co-spinning at subatomic sub-light speed, will lift you right-off the Earth; Another use for anti-helon!
GARY
Did, you, invent this…?
CADET
(shakes Innocent-No)
My high school Chemistry, teacher.
GARY
(mock nonchalant)
The dark-mass of galaxies … I think we're heading into a physics-storm!
A rectangular surface opening, lit to receive ships.
Apparent moon motion slowing …
JOHN
It may be permanent and automated: Everything else has been computer-controlled. Better inform the crew.
CADET
(apprehensive)
Are we invited?!
JAIME
We're not exactly moon-party crashers…. Broadcast a landing-advisory, Crewman!
CADET
Me?!
(rises, approaches)
Yes, ma'am!
(sits in Command chair)
JAIME
(winces, mouthes quiet)
Mam…!
CADET (+PA)
All starship personnel: This is Yeoman Barkel:-- Prepare for automated landing on the moon!
JOHN
Yeoman?
CADET
Should I have said, Yeo-woman?
EXT. MOON PORT SPACE - STARSHIP DESCENDS
LIGHT FROM BELOW SPLATTERS the moonscape rising …
Via the open hangar doors …
The column-zone of the portal glows sparkly-pink 360-around for 100 meters -an atmosphere plasma-trap-field;- They feel permeated, weighed-down; and steady themselves upright …
Ship settles below the trap-field …
Hangar-doors close above: port light intensity increases …
FADE TO:
INT. PORT-STATION CAVERN - PAVIS-LIGHTED - (HOUR LATER)
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
Aluminum construction; Miles extent beyond the rail.
The last-100 spread-in, admiring, mill-about, AD LIB after-dinner-party amicably, all wearing avant-garde black-white-gold-motif space-formal suits with additional arrival-party overwear, boots, caps, commendation bars/stripes/circles, logos, insignias, of various rank: [stars-over-sun-over-moon-crescent-rising]
Subgroupish-30's stroll variously to and along the rail … meandering toward the Elevator crowding …
10th/25
(admires ceiling)
I wonder who pays their moon-gas-and-electric bill!?
11th/25
(also ceiling)
And, what lunar custodian replaces all the bulbs?!
10th/25
(directly)
Probably moonlights for a living.
12th/25
(a beat, wits)
Must be on a universal union scale: All the bulbs work!
13th/25
Who would foot the bill for that?!
12th/25
(wits)
Impracticable to foot anything up here: Low gravity: All loans float!
10th/25
Who'd balance their bank accounts?!
14th/25
(wise-cracks)
Zero-Sum Bankers superconglomerate!
12th/25
(wit rhymes "eights")
Exchanged in currency denominations of Iterates, and giga-Iterates…!
(grins)
11th/25
(still admiring)
How many engineers do you suppose it took, to install all the lights?
13th/25
(sincere)
Twen-ty-…
(grins)
How many?
14th/25
One.
13th/25
Just-- one!?
14th/25
(wise-cracks to ceiling)
Yes; But He, waited three days for the planets-- to screw into place: before turning them all On.
They build a giggle …
AT THE RAILED LEDGE:
A group stands awed at the depths--
Miles deep, stealth-black spaceships, starships, decks. 500 crew swarm below (cf Spring Break, Spring Returns):
3rd/15
(awed hush)
Jingle Bells! Santa Claus was here!
4th/15
(awed equal)
A spaceships-R-us, shopping spree!
5th/15
(awed)
Kilo-meteors deep!
(ponders)
Do you suppose these were made here?- Or imported!
6th/15
(awed)
When do they open for spacer-public shopping?!
5th/15
(squealy grin)
Every new moonth: I can't waitth!
4th/15
(scans excited)
Where's the self-scan check-out counter?!- Find me an M-L-M Rep!
7th/15
(points big-happy)
I want, That one: It'll do Mars on a dime!-- Or fifteen cents!
5th/15
What if this station is abandoned?
(projects a plan)
We should move-in and take-over: There must be a hundred spaceships, here;-- and probably dozens-more caverns…. We can sell them to Earthers on buy-back policies … But how do we amortize irreplaceable spaceships?-- We'll have to corner the market with Options, Time-shares, Raffle rides …
(smiles broadly)
3rd/15
Where would we go?! There are only eight planets,- give or take a few million asteroids….
4th/15
(erudite)
Retirement communities over Venus; Glass-blowing schools on Mercury; Rocket-ball courts on Mars; Horse-shoes on Pluto-Charon; Live Pac-man olympics in Saturn's rings; Pinball among Jupiter's moons-- and, Shoot-the-red-spot … Or, We can go to the Oort clouds,- maybe the near stars!
5th/15
(under breath)
What if they don't work any more?- How do we pick a used spaceship?-- Kick the anti-rubber tires!?
(mock-awes)
Might blow your moon-bootee off!
All grin.
8th/15
(a beat, cowboy-wags)
Never, look, a gift-hoss, in the mooth!
9th/15
(wags back)
Never look gift-hose in the moth!
7th/15
Never look a gift-house in the math!
6th/15
Never look gift-halos in the myth!
5th/15
Never look a gift-hearse in the mirth!
All wince, giggling …
4th/15
(recovering)
This cavern is well-lighted, and clean; The other caverns could be broken, empty, smashed … This is probably maintained:- maybe robots. Let's explore the merchandise!
3rd/15
(points near a big ship)
There's an elevator, down the side.
(leads-on to the landing)
GLASS-ELEVATOR LANDING, same level:
A last-10-of-30 are entering, centerward:
FRONT LEFT
How can you tell which floor ours is on? The spaceships are all different sizes!
FRONT RIGHT
Maybe they're built with regularly spaced entrances: You could have a 4-floor planet-going spaceship, or a 10-floor galaxy-cruiser, or a 2-floor solar-dingy!
25th
(entering)
Are we all going to the same floor?
26th
This is the elevator for: Meteor-shower curtains, Solar wind-ows, Asteroid em-bedding, Spatial vacuum cleaners, Martian gardener supplies and Ion im-plantations, Cosmic-ray guns, Fire-ball bearings, Paper-e-clips, Orbiting stationery, Space-shuttlecocks, Universary reminders, Big-aste-risk insurance policies … Moonshine … Sun-dries …
Last few in, as the door begins closing--
8th
(mothers)
Now,-- I want to remind you-all: When we get to the bottom floor: There is to be no, leap-giraffing around:- Just moon-walk normally.
9th
(presidential bass)
I suppose you are all wondering, why, I called this meeting …
SILENCED AD LIB: the door is closed,-- LOCKS.
Elevator descends before the yet-remaining-30 crowd.
Distant elevators ascend and descend.
Spaceships below move slowly, some elevating …
Hangar doors open to starry black sky: Ships continue up and out the sparkly-pink-glowing column-zone …
MAIN ENTRANCE ON THIS FLOOR:
The space-admirals arrive: Harry, Jaime, Mike, Gary, Jeff, Penny, top Seniors, Juniors; (Other grads at the landing);
Yeoman-Cadet Barkel in ear-gear approaches from a distance;
GARY
It must store all its maintenance information,- then give it to the robot-tech's: whatever those are.
JEFF
Where do you suppose they keep its spare parts?
GARY
There wasn't that much loss: a few cracked, damaged, exterior panels: The Area-51 Army must have tried entering the hard-way.
JEFF
(quips distracted)
A veritable, bounty, of pickles!
MIKE
We're still following Gwen:-- Best have it fixed to perfect operation.
JAIME
It didn't give me any troubles, Mike: Once it sealed its bulkheads, it just smiled contently.
JEFF
(looking at the crowds)
Looks like the party moved into space-drive out here.
CADET
(yet-distant, hails)
Grand-Admiral,-- Sir!
HARRY
(tries)
Grand, Admiral?
JEFF
Sure, Harry: It suits you:- Rank of space nuclear theater Commander-in-Chief:- You've got the universe for oceans, whole planets for shores,-- and your attire: It's grander than Solomon's naval fleet on Earth…!
(winks at Jaime)
JAIME
Don't say it, Jeff.
JEFF
(mock superior)
Some day you'll make Grand Rear Admiral, Jaime.
JAIME
Thanks: That's better than what I had in mind.
CADET
(nearing, excited)
Grand-Admiral! -Professor:- Sir:-- This cavern is stacked with ninety, spaceships, And we've located three dozens more caverns! We can replace our starship,- divide-up the crews: They're already spreading … We can Christen an entire star-fleet!- And there's one thing more to show you: No one is touching it: We think it's yours!-- Come!
Leads to gather at the rail, lecturing (MUSEUM-LIKE ECHO):
CADET
(museum-guide gestures)
Most of these vessels you see here are prepared for local solar system transport and transportation:-- perhaps a conquering fleet never used by victors; perhaps a fleet that never had a conquest at Earth. There are approximately thirty-six caverns that can be explored: all apparently like this one…. Cavern mare-breccia is 2-point-6-billion years old;-- the moon-port complex and the installed ships we estimate approximately 4-million, years old: a determination based on structural deformity of in-situ boro-carbon-composites before-replacement…. At this depth despite their incredible age these specimens are clean, warm and ready: There is little dust in this space port,- and, there are electronic mechanisms built into the walls to keep dust off and out.
Leading along the rail, toward the elevator …
JEFF
How do you know the age of the cavern walls?
CADET
We measure the age of accessible cavern substrata by alpha-spectra ratiocinating pocket-geiger device: The estimate is cumulative of three long-lived radioisotopic daughter-lines:-- It uses a semiconductor, solidstate transducer head, and an integral arithmetic digital-process unit…. The instrument itself is on loan, accessioned from Geo-Physical Sciences, at the University…. This breccia appears to be an epochal remelt,- probably an early luna-historic cometary strike,-- which may have caused an age-metric readjustment.
GARY
How will you return your loaner?
CADET
We will address the issue of the loaner at a later meeting of the Lunar Physical Sciences Society.
(arm over the rail)
The excavation you see proceeding below, presently, consists of the removal of six top-layers comprised chiefly of class-M spaceships, and class Q-starships: forty and fifty each.
Starships of 6 layers remove,-- uncovering A GOLDEN SHIP;
CADET
If you look deeply into the bottom of the hive, you will see a golden ship which has lain hidden, until the entire fleet be activated!- We discovered it in the seventh layer dating to the quarante millième siècle, B-C. We are tentatively designating it, the Flagship: It is similar in size and structure to the large starship class of vessels of no known nomenclature, but has an additional floor of equipments: We do not yet know the nature of this extra equipment: we suppose a technological advance: There is no other known flagship in this fleet.
(a beat)
If you have further questions, one of our on-site tertiologists can help you.
AT THE LANDING:
They meet-up with John, Susan, Brad, Tommi, Dave, and enter except Penny mingles with friends remaining to take Bounty.
The door closes …
VANTAGE - SPANNING THE CAVERN - (MINUTE LATER)
And far below, their elevator arrives at Golden …
Door opens,-- they EXEUNT, filing into the Flagship….
INT. GOLDEN STARSHIP - FLAGSHIP COMMAND - CAVERN LIT
A Command upgrade, 360-surround-window view of the cavern:
They enter and take their stations: Jaime, John, sit center Helm, Nav; Mike, Command chair center-back, Harry standing behind; Tommi, Jeff, room-back-right; Susan, Gary, back-left; Cadet lean-sits by Gary:
JEFF
(strolling, looks out)
This begins to feel like home…!
GARY
(sits)
If, you were brought-up on spacer-movie-games.
They activate their primary controls and displays:--
SPACESHIPS REMOVE AROUND, clearing a path afore and above,- as their Flagship extricates … and elevates …
JAIME
(chides)
Inasmuch as Earth is no longer so inviting, for us, I'd say this is, our home-- permanently!
CADET
(counters)
We could take this ship back to Earth at nighttime, sneak into bed for a quick nap, and leave before dawn…! We could even buy, Grand Admiral, a rib-eye steak!
All sympathetic smiles.
JEFF
(to cadet)
Daydreaming, on the emptiness of outer-space! That's probably why Jehovah came to Earth:
(feels)
A child, a garden, a river, a fruit tree!-- Ahhh!
GARY
And a rib-eye steak!
Passing the sparkly pink column-zone collar they feel permeated and heavy-weighted-- and steady themselves:
HARRY
(uprights)
Atmospheric damping field is heavy!
CADET
(upright)
Yes, professor: All hangars have a plasma-trap-field for moon-station atmosphere! There's abundant energy resource here: Your anti-helion, we may presume, has its uses.
EXT. LUNAR SURFACE SPACE - BLACK - BELOW A MYRIAD STARS
Hangars open and disgorge starships splattering light on the moonscape features, lifting up-away without exhaust …
Flagship surfaces … flush … exceeds … and COMES UP TO--
EXT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - VISIBLE INSIDE LIT
Light expanding from below, splashes distant crater walls:
HARRY (VO)
Let's join the fleet for training exercises, Mike.
MIKE (VO)
(commands)
Jaime! John!
JAIME (VO)
(controls)
Aye, sir:- We're joining the fleet.
[ADMIN] (VO PA)
Welcome to the space-war games, Grand Admiral!
MIKE (VO)
(orders)
Communications: Acknowledge that!
JEFF (VO)
(keys)
Acknowledging…!
FADE TO:
EXT. STARSHIP FLEET - FAR MOON SPACE - (A DAY LATER)
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
20 starships, 20 spaceships, exercise before Harry's golden Flagship Fleet-command, maneuver pass-encounters in fours:- Pairs of pairs practice firing laser-locator-tags and mild Q-blasts (streak-splash):
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - RED-RUNNING LOW SOFT LIT
Numerous displays, myriad panel-controls, wall-glows.
Grand-Admiral Harry stands amid his newly efficient command crew, all wearing Flagship insignias, color-bars/trims, communications halo-gear,-- directing Fleet exercizes:
CU: Mike listens to the grading report:
[ADMIN] (MIKE-HALO)
… Sequest, 83; PlenRa, 90; Farside, 67-upgrade-85; Perquisitor, 95; SpinShock, 49-and-93-averaging-71; CosMost, 99; CosRock, 84; Glax, 79; StarGrazer, 91-regrade-82; VecThor, 75; Pickel, 61; RoGator, 97…. Overall-84, Sigma-9; One bordering root-2-pi-sigma. Confidence B-plus. That'll do it, Mike: Good job!
MIKE
(into mouthpiece)
Is Bounty now officially, Pickel?
[ADMIN] (MIKE-HALO)
Admin-okays unanimous crew request.
MIKE
(into mouthpiece)
What's the regrade on StarGrazer?
[ADMIN] (MIKE-HALO)
Renormalization of laser-peen count methodology…. Admin, out!
MIKE
(into mouthpiece)
Thanks, Jean;-- Mike, out!
(loud)
We've got a class of graduates!
HARRY
Proceed to eights, Mike.
MIKE
(orders)
Communications: Put me on fleetwide broadcast!
JEFF
(keys)
Fleetwide -okay- trying open hail….
MIKE
Harry: We should be trying 5-on-3's and tri-quads, too.
HARRY
As you see fit, Mike.
PA MULTI-CHIRPS.
JEFF
You're fleetwide, Mike.
MIKE (+PA)
Attention,-- all fleet crews: This is Flagship Commander Michael with the Grand-Admiral:-- You have made passing grade--!
(smiles)
O.S. VOICES below the escalator CHEER congratulations;
SHIPS FLASH THEIR FLOODLIGHTS, SPORADIC, like a holiday;
JOHN
(grins to Jaime)
Undergraduates are luminaries in the making.
MIKE (+PA)
Okay,-- teams: Quad-up with your counter pairs; Select one or two neighbor quads to counter next, And exercise in eights or twelves this round. You'll have tentative solar system assignments as soon as your perquisites are sorted, approved, and scheduled by the Grand-Admiral.
MIKE (CONT'D)
(orders)
Helm: Bring us around to far field:
(confides)
We need monitor Pickel performance, closely: Its maneuvers haven't been effectual: Either repairs on Bounty are incomplete, Or we may have to dissolve crew if it fails again.
JAIME
(controls)
Aye.
(worries to John)
Their Captain is straight-A-athlete and their Command is no less…!
Flagship glides to cross-view starship Pickel (former UFO Bounty) as fleet ships maneuver encounters by 4's in groups of 8's and 12's, practice firing; Displays monitor close-in successive starships, and several Displays fix on Pickel …
JEFF
(pauses intently)
Mike: I think: Allow me the crew is doing all right: It's the telemetry stream that seems indecipherable:-- Pickel repeatedly asks-for but then rejects-- assistance. Maybe it's … Mike: Maybe Pickel is not ours…!
MIKE
(considers)
Bounty's original station not ours?
JEFF
That's what I'm worrying,- But its telemetry protocols, are, signal-compatible:-- I'm wondering whether we're just not convincing-society.
JOHN
(offers)
Mike,- Jeff: Let me have a crack at decrypting its codes: This Flagship has a lot of computational thrust, and Navigation has full access to Communications: I can run a variety of analyses on their data stream: Maybe there's a transparent over-code I can crack.
MIKE
(orders)
Get onto it!-- Jeff: Assist John, what time you can--!
John applies himself;
MIKE (CONT'D)
Let's figure-out what Pickel is doing out-here.
CADET
(to Gary)
What's an overcode?
GARY
A pattern in the data stream event-processing order: It must latch-in some unsuspected data-priority else it locks-up action on the decrypted responses.
CADET
(mildly blurts)
Like talking about sex before marriage!?
GARY
Yyyeah… like talking oranges before apples: The data stream must be temporally noncrucial, so it's over-coded elsewhere already!
CADET
Can it be overridden?
GARY
Now, There's a thought.
JEFF
(reports)
Equipment-requests are piling-in … acknowledging … plenty from Pickel…
JOHN
Got it!-- It's not transmission trouble:-- we have full-duplex…! It's not Astrophysics' transponder, interference; Not a decoding error: E-B-over-N-0 is 10-D-B;- Tag-fields correspond: We're fully compatible! Furthermore, Outloaded telemetry is on their deck-- They are, using it, in their navigation calculations--!
(thinks aloud)
It must be some kind of sub-object data-trusting: a co-operative … passive verification …
(keys)
Maybe the path-history has cipher-injection: I can reroute internal…
MIKE
Can we re-prioritize data-trusting from this side?
JOHN
It's a thought:
(keys)
I can skip-route some, calculation;
(keys)
Verify and substitute telemetry …
(keys)
I can inform it that its requests are data-trusted --without telling it that we access better-trusted data,-- and watch the adjustments in its path-history …
(keys)
MIKE
Keep trying!
They busy themselves-- watching the games outside:
GARY
(to Jeff)
What are the telemetry protocols?
JEFF
(to Gary)
Basic L-D-R stealth-bit-rate is a kilobit-per-hesit convolved; System clocks are multi-prioritized and it discards occasional bits … M-D-R is a megabit; H-D-R, giga; V-H-D-R is…
GARY
(clips)
Regular? dropouts on the low data-rate?-- Maybe it's hopping during a whole bit-time:-- That'd require a sub-unit coding-rate, of course.
JEFF
A reasonable conjecture; And A-G-C-sampling the frequency domain … But dropouts are irregularly placed-- probably super-coded against intra-fleet decryption … It's probably using semi-coherent differential coding. Or, maybe it's hunting for other nodes in those bits …
GARY
(ponders)
Not much better than MILSTAR …
(reconsiders, smiles)
Woops,- sorry, guys: I shouldn't have said that:-- You are hereby debriefed.
CADET
(cute to Gary)
Amazingly, They still use radix-2 bits for arithmetic: They probably look like us stick-figures, too.
(grins)
GARY
(misses jest)
I suppose…
(to Jeff)
Jeff, If they came from a different part of our galaxy, lightyears from us, maybe their trouble is spatial-to-linear coordinational mapping: A paradox … Radix-grafted arithmetic is 25-percent efficient in four-space:- Even several co-iterations will leave sporadic gaps … Maybe their space-zero fails; Maybe they haven't re-sorted their database….
JEFF
Citified metrics are absurd imposed on absolute frame coordinates in a remote space: And they wouldn't use sequential access storage without massive parallelity. But you have a point: Relative coordinates differ by indices, offsets, orientations, taking volumes of remapping … They perform well independently but they must be adapting our telemetry at a processing overhead, and ignoring our results until they finish.
(keys)
We might accelerate the adaptation: We have the advantage of our extra computational level;-- We can open our processor-base to free query in exchange for agreeable deductions, until it surfeits and supplants….
GARY
(gloats)
The advantage of having superior intellectual and computational-power resources.
JEFF
Mike, I'll out-load three copies of our space-ephemerides-base: This'll be more reference-frames for them to trust,-- with your permission….
MIKE
Go ahead, Jeff.
JOHN
(busy beats)
It's switching modes:-- It's sent a data-object reprogramming request …
JEFF
(to Gary)
And it is significantly better than MILSTAR, Gary:--
(grins)
It's using line-of-sight U-H-F neutrino radio: right through its adversary…!
JOHN
That's it:-- We're in-sync!-- Go ahead, Jeff:-- Out-load to Pickel at this spectral header synergy.
JEFF
(keys)
Outloading reenabled to Pickel;-- transmitting, now.
Starship Pickel passing behind its quad, fires multi-angled sliding-sequenced interstitial practice shots: like a pro …
GARY
(watching)
Hot shot! Score one for yeo-woman!
(smiles to Cadet)
CADET
(to Gary)
Does U-H-F neutrino radio transmit through planets?
GARY
Yes of course: microvolt neutrinos…
JEFF
(inserts, at controls)
Pickel is now accepting telemetry from its quad!
GARY
(resumes)
…disperse more than solar neutrinos through the Earth: U-H-F neutrinos, go through light-moments of rubber!
(grins)
JOHN
(watches)
That's it:-- A-plus for Pickel…!
MIKE
(officially satisfied)
Okay! Upgrade accomplished! Move-on: Let's watch the rest, of this simulation-game!
They watch busy as the Fleet exercise proceeds;
CADET
(to Gary)
What propellant do these starships use?- It's invisible!
GARY
Mass-momentum-coupling, we suppose: directly pushing-off the moon-- and pulling.
CADET
But that only propels in line with the moon!
GARY
You get cross-thrust by push-pull, twisting: when you're near enough.
CADET
But at great distance, how does it couple efficiently?
GARY
The impulsor engine emits self-siphoning field-solitons: At proper wavelength, these momentum-solitons refract into the moon sphere, and retroflect perfectly like the glass microspheres in a road sign retro-reflector! And these can be reused, until absorbed or missed.
CADET
But the wavelength must adjust as we move away!
GARY
Not by much: It could be pulsed. And we've discussed alternate theories.
CADET
What would they be? There's nothing out here!
GARY
Similar: coupling momentum directly into the aether.
CADET
But aether is so tenuous and mass-less and uniform!
GARY
Mass is not needed to transfer momentum.
CADET
But, energy expenditure is a square of potential: Ideal momentum-drive must use picovoltage, and extremely high tera-frequency! But isn't that contradictory or fractional charge?
GARY
We conjecture there is a frequency, or frequencies, at which the aether resonates: Electrons and protons, are our basically stable wavicles:- Other particles in the same general mass-range are unstable and quickly degenerate into these. Photons are quantized in energy-by-wavelength, because electrons-- are uniform.
CADET
But the mean diameter of an electron wavicle is 6-femtometers, while the half-wavelength of a one-volt infrared photon is 6-hundred nanons: If the electron were a photon-half-wave, it'd have 50-mega electron-volts mass-energy,-- but electrons are only half a meg!
GARY
And a lot of empty space!-- Also, multiply by six for three space-quadratured dimensions…. But to answer you: An electron is, the quasi-equivalent of a gamma ray: being half the pair in positron-electron annihilation,-- with that hundred-times longer photon-wavelength! Meaning theoretically, there must be an intrinsic ontical winding process within the photon, that is a tiny fraction of its length: about the width of an electron: And that process is essentially an aether-resonance.
CADET
(catches)
Could that be the quark?!
GARY
More likely the gluons: The classic quark model shows quark mass, but the proton spin model has not much quark spin, which appears likelier in the gluons which spin like half-photons or neutrinos: Now, if there is, some way of generating gluon-waves, at that length, there may be a momentum-wavicle; maybe it's the stuff of evaporating dark-matter hawking-holes as dark-energy accelerating the expansion of the cosmos…
CADET
(as to all, sincere)
That makes physics so bizarre and paranormal-- and, I thought only U-F-O's were bizarre and paranormal!
Gary bites air.
CUT TO:
FADE IN:
EXT. MOON BACKSIDE - 'LM' ORBIT - NEARING FLEET (NEXT DAY)
The Fleet sans Pickel swarms about Flagship, all gyrating, diving, dodging, practice firing …
POV: Chasing 'LM' through … All avoiding but blasting--
The escaping smoldering 'LM' no longer looks like original…
POV: Afore 'LM' leaving Fleet: This side of terminator a moonbase HANGAR OPENS BRIGHT-- and disgorges a starship …
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - SKY WHIPPING-GYRATING-ABOUT
Grand-Admiral Harry admires the total Fleet exercise …
Cadet hands Mike a printout, nods and resumes sitting;--
Mike reads it --concerned-- and looks outside …
EXT. FLAGSHIP - DANCING AMID THE GYRATING SWARM
The distant moonbase HANGAR BRIGHTNESS RECLOSES …
JEFF (VO)
(interrupts)
Harry, Grand-Admiral, Sir: Starship Pickel, near moonbase, reports an unidentifiable exit from an unknown cavern:-- a starship of the grand class,- Running silent!
INT. COMMAND
Still busy in outer space gyrations.
MIKE
John,- Are they challenging us?!
JOHN
(at controls)
No, They're accelerating away …
(looks-up, keys again)
Passing us at a distance, now …
(looks-up again)
SKY-WHIPPING SUSPENDS-UNSTEADY amid the yet-busy swarm:
A starship passes afar, slowly, for deep space …
JAIME
(recognizes)
Gwendolyn!
HARRY
(excited, orders)
Operation Diana!- Let's Go!
MIKE
(countermands)
Belay that!
(unpockets his printout)
HARRY
(sees mutiny a beat)
Mike … What, do you mean?!-- You committed to… This team committed to, issue and execute promptly every reasonable order!?
MIKE
This is not mutiny, Harry: Read--
(extends it at him)
This mission has been compromised.
HARRY
(retrieves, scan-reads)
… Astrophysics … three, positively identified … critical ward … Alive.
(reads 2 beats; distrust)
How long have you had this? Did you board with this information, Mike?!
MIKE
(still thinking)
No, Harry: The message came today a Demur ago. I authorized Pickel crew to rig the transponder to extract a data stream from control sequences: We have rudimentary duplex e-mail….
(half a beat)
You of-course want to locate Diana … but we, have no further mission commitment: They are still on Earth … Critical, But we can't return nor do anything for them --out here:-- We're stuck in empty space…!
HARRY
Then-- who-- just passed us…?!
(realizes, excited)
Diana's been abducted by impostors! Space Aliens!- We're chasing space-aliens!?-- Who, knows about this, Mike?!-- Have you informed Astrophysics?!--
(scans all: reasserts)
Who's not, going?!
MIKE
(quick)
Yes, Harry: The University has been informed. Furthermore, Area 51 also knows about us,- And moreover, they agree with you: Those lunar nuke missiles were not, made on Earth!
All mildly surprised.
MIKE
(calms)
Harry, I can go the chase with you:
(checks two)
Our core team can go… if we return: Gwen, Peter and Daniel need us here … Pickel is on Trojan-horse-mission to sneak back and retrieve them…. And, I have my ulterior motive:--
(confides)
I want to learn this Flagship:-- I want this Flagship for my command!
HARRY
(accedes)
Looks like we'll have to arrange this: I'm amenable;-- Jeff? Gary?
JEFF
Okay by me, Harry: I'll come back, with Mike:- Same reason: I came for Gwen, not Diana,-- much as I love her too and wish you both the best.
GARY
I'll return to Earth-space, Harry: This new fleet needs us all,-- You too but we must let you find Diana.
Harry looks to John …
JOHN
(advances)
Harry, I'm optional at this point: I'll go,-- but, I've no pressing necessity to return here.
JAIME
(appends)
Me, too-- I'm:
(half-reads John)
Optional….
HARRY
(urges)
Then-- Let's go: Operation Diana!
MIKE
(orders)
Communications: Put me on fleetwide broadcast!
JEFF
(keys)
Hailing fleetwide …
MIKE
Helm: Lock-in navigation telemetry with Quest-Set:- Ready Operation Diana!- Comm: Outload assignments, as-are: Grand Admiral's approval.
PA MULTI-CHIRPS.
JEFF
You're fleetwide, Mike. Outloading…
MIKE (+PA)
Attention, Space-Com' Fleet crews! This is Commander Michael, CINC-SPAC: Quest-Set is ordered to Operation Diana!- The remainder of the fleet is receiving assignments under Commander David of starship U-S-S Regents, your interim Earth-Fleet Commander.
(orders)
Implement-- now!
JAIME
(controls)
Aye, Captain: Implementing: Operation, Diana!
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
PIVOT: Jaime: Flagship comes-about for deep-space …
And accelerates out from the group, with 2 starships …
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - NEPTUNE SPACE - LOW LIT (NEXT DAY)
They watch in awe: Surround-windows show Jaime's display of rapidly EXPANDING GRID-CORRIDORS emanating from the target sphere ahead in steady stellar background, lines modulating minutely as-if parametric-binary-coded …
JAIME
(answers to her display)
No: It's just a corridor:- I have a choice of corridors; Star Quest and Stark Easter are in two corridors;- Gwen's starship is in another.
Strange-Neptune and its giant moon Triton approach and pass minuscule to majuscule to minuscule, 5 sec.…
JOHN
(inserts)
Passing Neptune: Point-98 light-speed-- relative to known pulsar data,-- and still accelerating.
JEFF
Space-Alien technology is fast and far-out, but, it's still a long way to the stars at the speed of light!
MIKE
What's our E-T-A?
JAIME
1-hundred-43 hesits,-- but there's nothing there!
MIKE
(ponders)
Just a coordinate point in 3-space: 4-space…?- Are there no other known objects out here?- Evaporated quark stars? Micro black-holes?-- Where's Pluto-Charon?!
GARY
Out of phase, Mike; I've never read of any thing but magnetic anomalies of the solar wind and comet hordes.
JOHN
At least the Aliens, know where they're, going!
COMPUTER CHIRP-CHIRP-CHIRPS: DISPLAYS BLINK YELLOW as usage increases; Ship-to-ship Navigation assistance is requested:
ORDINATEUR SURFEIT 0.231 (increasing to 0.558)
DEMAND OPERA-DIANA 0.932 (increasing to 1.000)
DEMAND STARKEASTER 0.858 (increasing to 1.000)
DEMAND STARQUEST 0.773 (increasing to 0.964)
JOHN
(perks)
Mike, Our computational fraction is expanding: We've doubled to quarter of capacity…!
JEFF
(clips)
Mike, We're receiving an equipment-request for navigation-computation assistance to the lead ship!
MIKE
Give it to them.
HARRY
(prompt)
Hold on that, Mike!- The lead ship is Gwen's starship!
MIKE
Harry, It's a reasonable request: We've got the necessary computing power, And we're following them, not apprehending them:-- We can't allow an emergency situation to develop….
HARRY
Reasonable-request, applies to our team only: Is it an emergency call, presently, Jeff?!
JEFF
No emergency:- An omni-cast simple-net request: They don't know we're in the vicinity … They've canceled navigation target-lock but haven't broken away …
(keying)
We have equipment-requests from the others: Stark-Easter at 1-hundred-percent but no declared emergency;- Star Quest is still climbing at 92…
MIKE
(prompt)
Now or never, Harry: Diana may be suborned: She's still our charge … It's only the automated operating system, not a user request: There's no need to deny.
HARRY
So go the Aliens: We cannot help their abduction: Maintain passive forward telemetry: Give assistance to Quest-set fleet only!
MIKE
(yields, orders)
Support Quest-fleet, Jeff!
(opines)
Autonomous bureaucrats never learn: They exceed themselves to judgment.
JEFF
(keys)
Aye: Supporting Quest-fleet-- now.
MIKE
(worries)
John, What are we getting-into…?
JOHN
No direct indication, Mike: Maybe the approach proximity … course corrections … corroborations … confirmations … Our computational drain has stabilized at 56-percent: Maybe this is why we have the extra equipment level…
SPOTTY EYESIGHT-FLASHES, 2KHz BUZZ (VHF 'C'): They flinch, wince, gasp, flail, (like a thin photo-op) 2 sec.…
IN THE TARGET SPHERE: Pluton HYPER-POINT BLOOMS briefly,-- NAV POPUP: Neutrino-event BURST-ANALYSIS … Usage resumes:
DEMAND ORDINATEUR 0.104
DEMAND OPERA-DIANA 0.659
DEMAND STARKEASTER 0.637
DEMAND STARQUEST 0.590
JEFF
(excited)
What, was, that?!
JOHN
(elated at displays)
Computation load has dropped back!- Nominal 10-percent!- Navigation telemetry assist has terminated; The lead starship has reacquired target lock-in!-- And that, was a neutrino burst event, folks: We've just experienced a local supernova! Hang around for the exploding star!
GARY
(a beat, doubts)
How did that all coincide?!-- Did our starship computer just predict a supernova…?!
All mutually puzzled.
JEFF
(a beat, surprised)
Maybe a neighbor black-hole crushed a planet, to nuclear density:--
(invents)
A micro-super re-nova…
GARY
What information did our computer have on that…?
JEFF
(proffers)
Something starships must monitor to avoid, maybe…?
JAIME
(reports)
E-T-A 97-hesits: Course is locked-in:-- No more options!
MIKE
How near is the interstellar rogue?
JOHN
(thinks-up)
We can calculate by triple ratio-circulation of processor-loads …
(hand-draws it together)
Telemetry from Star Quest and Stark Easter: Presume identical starships as neutrino detectors … indicating their intensities … Factor-in their separations … and Gwen's to reject spurious angles and scales …
DISPLAYS: NEUTRINO BLAST RATIOS, 15 AU AHEAD.
JOHN
Uh-Oh-- Mike:-- The neutrino source is local to our solar system ahead!
GARY
The famed Planet-X is a black-hole?
JEFF
(keys)
And we're heading straight for it: Time to duck, mites!-- Fleetwide!
PA MULT-CHIRPS.
MIKE (+PA)
All hands: This is the Captain!-- Our Flagship present velocity is near light-speed: We are possibly encountering a micro black-hole: Ready for time-warp dilation and redirection!- Captain: out.
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - (3 MIN. LATER)
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
FILLED GRIDS ALTERNATING PINK-WHITE 'zone-approach' and a hyperbolic-passing course with recalculating variances …
JOHN
Still no detectable evidence of the lead starship: Whatever's out-there swallowed them entirely!
JAIME
(reports)
We're entering the primary zone: Point-99 light-speed.
MIKE
Recheck your seatbelts,- and hold onto something: This could be a significant redirect!
GRIDS SOLID-FILLED RED …
JAIME
Final stretch!-- E-T-A 5-hesits …
(a beat)
4 …
(2 sec.)
3 …
(2 sec.)
2 …
4 sec. later THE SKY FLIPS to head into the galaxy;-- GRID CLEARS; the SKY ASIDE ABERRATES forward …
STARS ACCELERATE passing; They check their coordinates; Nav plots on a galactic grid as speed ramps-up to 6.7 million;
JEFF
(worries)
We've lost contact with Star Quest and Stark Easter!
MIKE
Give them a few hesits, Jeff: They're a few mega-kilometers behind us … John: Where are we?
JOHN
We're in a corridor above the solar system plane; Gwen straight-ahead.
(reviews displays)
Light-speed no longer exists…!
MIKE
What's our velocity?
JAIME
It's listed as an astro-referenced distance skip-rate, fluctuating about 7-point-4 million times light-speed; E-T-A 50-kilohesits,- late tomorrow …
JOHN
(clips)
We're gaining rapidly on the lead starship!- Navigation is requesting we pass them!
MIKE
Jaime: Keep us back, for now!
(consults)
Harry,- this could be important: Do you want us in front of Gwen when we arrive?
HARRY
Advise Star Quest and Stark Easter fully, first: I don't want Gwen intercepting our telemetry.
One additional starship enters the corridor-diagram …
JEFF
(relieved)
Stark Easter is in, the corridor!- We're waiting on Star Quest.
INT. COMMAND - NEAR GALAXY CORE - RED-RUNNING (NEXT DAY)
Stars denser, more passing rapidly; EXPANDING GRID AGAIN …
HARRY
Any time you're ready, Mike.
MIKE
(orders)
Helm: Prepare to pass the lead…!
JAIME
Ready for acceleration to passing.
MIKE
(scanning fore-and-aft)
E-T-A…?
JAIME
1-hundred-70-hesits, galaxy core.
CADET
(to Gary)
How can we tell where we are in the galaxy? We don't have 3-D star-maps except around Earth!
GARY
(to cadet)
We're estimating by the telemetry readouts, we've gone 60-kilohesits, a day and a half, astro-skipping 7-million times light-speed:-- about 10-million light-days, 30-thousand light-years in the direction of the galaxy center: We must be somewhere near there … Density looks right …
MIKE
Put me on fleetwide!
JEFF
(keys)
Hailing …
PA DOUBLE-CHIRPS.
JEFF
You're fleetwide local-set.
MIKE (+PA)
Attention, Quest-Fleet! This is Commander Michael: Flagship is ready to pass and escort the Alien vessel: Remaining fleet shall maintain the rear; Telemetry and communications shall now silence: We'll see you all at the terminus:
(orders)
Implement-- now!
MIKE (NORMAL)
Jaime: Let's take it.
JAIME
(controls)
Initiating acceleration sequence:-- 7-point-4-million light: E-T-A 20 …
CADET
(to Gary)
What's at the center?- Just a giant black-hole?
GARY
(to fore)
4-million-sunfuls! Plasma streamers swirling about swept-up in magnetic fields: a billion stars everywhere, one per cubic light-year-- Just!
CADET
(a beat)
Olber's night-games: a para-nox.
GARY
(breaks a smile)
Aptly put.
JOHN
(reports)
Lead starship telemetry is changing modes: They're moving aside in the corridor: They know we're passing!
MIKE
Maintain progress!
JOHN
Slowing-- nearly stopped-- well, a hundred thousand light-speed,- and that past-tense: We've passed them!
MIKE
Proceed to terminus! Where are Star Quest and Stark Easter?
JOHN
(at display)
They've slowed, well-behind Gwen.
MIKE
Jaime: Slow to maintain our lead 50-hesits!
AN HOUR LATER: YELLOW-ALERT is active.
Mike, Harry, return from the glass office:
JAIME (CONCURRENTLY)
(mid countdown)
9-hundred-40-thousand …
(2 sec.)
4-hundred-30 …
(2 sec.)
2-hundred-10 …
(2 sec.)
1-hundred-5 …
(2 sec.)
51-thousand …
(2 sec.)
25 …
(2 sec.)
12 …
MIKE
(smiling with Harry)
Hypervelocity rail-gun Q-bomblets and reflected-neutron proximity-detonated nuclear tunnel-fission impactors … Pentagon engineering makes science grand--! Forewarned is forearmed;-- Thanks!
(sits)
HARRY
(security mindset)
Don't, mention it.
MIKE
(a beat, submissive)
Yes-sir.
ALTERNATING PINK-WHITE ZONE GRID; near stars slow rapidly, amid a bright billion de-aberrated fixed-stars background;
JAIME (CONCURRENTLY)
(continuing)
7-thousand …
3-thousand …
(pauses)
sub-thousand:
7-hundred …
4-hundred …
2-hundred …
sub-hundred, 90 …
60 …
40 …
20 …
JOHN
Harry, Mike: Destination is near.
MIKE (+PA)
Attention, Flagship crew: We're arriving at our terminus presently.
(orders)
Ready for Alien contact: Red Alert!
KLAXON sounds twice; RED-ALERT FLASHES; Jaime's station-display shows a red-centered expanding grid;
JAIME
3 …
2 …
1-point-6 …
1-point-3 …
1-point-1 …
1-point-0, light-speed …
Holding at 1-point-0 …
A distant multiply-ringed 3Msun gravity-black-hole with luminous pole-jets, approaches at light-speed, 20 sec.…
CADET
(exults)
It's, beautiful: The queen, of the cosmos!
GARY
One of trillions, of queens.
CADET
(excited)
Can anyone live out here?!- Imagine coming home to this, every night!
JEFF
Better than H-D-T-V…!
(grins)
GARY
The stereo-3-D effect disappears as we slow down: I'll keep my H-D-T-V.
CADET
(exults)
The stars are the streetlamps, of the galaxy center! The rings around the hole, the freeway cloverleafs!
Flagship slips into orbit around its equator, and thence …
ASIDE A RING CITY splash-shimmering colors to the horizon …
4 Alien STARSHIPS APPROACH at a distance …
JEFF
(urgent)
We're being telemetry-queried!
MIKE (+PA)
(orders)
Battle-stations! Full-evasive!
Jaime and John fly at their controls …
4 WEAPONERS bolt-up-in to operate the peripheral stations …
JEFF
Telemetry modes changing …
JOHN
(clips)
Formation maneuvering to crossfire!
They maneuver about the ring-city …
The spreading Aliens erupt with rapid LASER STREAKS and Q-BLASTS, frequently glancing off the ring-city;
SKY-VIEW MULTI-TRACKS blasting at 4 dodging sources …
Battle intensity increases, 15 sec.…
EXT. COMMAND - RING-CITY RELATIVELY GYRATING-ABOUT
Their battle-crew works furiously against blast flack …
The battle closes-in, 10 sec.…
INT. COMMAND - WEAPONS' MULTI-SUSPENDED SKY-VIEWS
One Alien starship deflects attention by enhanced surface image of itself receding while sideslipping obtusely …
Tactical displays add 3 Alien specks: MISSILES--
Flagship RETURNS TRACER-FLACK DESTROYING each missile …
MIKE
Lead them around: Put Stark Easter behind them!
JOHN
(keys)
Fine-adjusting lead-spacing …
JEFF
They're launching nukes!
MIKE
Take us away from the ring-city!
Jaime fingers her control-panel:--
Flagship veers sideways across, away from the ring-city …
6 MORE SPECKS: Alien missiles, tracking-across …
A KLAXON runs up-scale twice,--
[FEMALE-COMPUTER]
(alerts over klaxon)
AHT-TAHN-TZION-- ROTE ALERT: DEY-FAHNSE: ROTE ALERT --AHT-TAHN-TZION
Missiles track-streaks gyrate independently …
JAIME
Grab your spouses: Here they come!
(keys)
Flagship maneuvers down-around the ring-city …
MISSILES EXPLODE SEQUENTIALLY-- TO DIAGRAMMATIC FLASHES--
BACK-LIGHTING WINDOW SIMULATION-DIAGRAMS …
JEFF'S TELEMETRY EMBELLISHES;--
JEFF
Stark Easter crypt-telemetry!--
(keys)
Acquisition,- Right, on, cue!
DUST-BLAST WHELMS against WINDOWS RETURNING TO NORMAL VIEW… STARK EASTER EVASIVE LASERING MAD-FURIOUSLY on the Aliens, amid A SWARM OF 12 SPRITELY GYRATING MISSILES--
JEFF
(finishes over noise)
Fire-control out-loaded!
MISSILES EN MASS CROSS-STREAK TO REPROGRAMMED-TARGETS: 6 by 1-or-2-per Alien, 6 to 1-per-inter-Alien position--
MASSIVE ALIEN-LASERING-RESPONSE FOCUSED on the 6-direct,-- 6-FIREBALLS VOLLEYING on-before all 4 Aliens …
RAPID ALIEN-LASERING ON THE REMNANT HORDE OF PIECES …
12-WAY-ALIEN-ALIEN-CROSSFIRING ERUPTS ON MISSILES-BETWEEN …
6-FIREBALLS:-- ONE ALIEN OBLITERATED; Two scatter-skirt Stark Easter, back into the Earthward aether slipstream …
Last Alien escapes, farther, into its own slipstream …
They watch and wait … a long moment …
JOHN
(to controls)
Out-bluffed … One going out its own corridor … Two out ours for Earth … One missing in 10-megaton debris.
HARRY
Let them go, Mike: Catch them later: Let's get Diana.
JAIME
(keys)
Aye!
MIKE
Jeff: Fleet-cast a Proceed-alert!
Flagship glides toward the ring-city …
Stark Easter and now-distant Star Quest also approach …
FADE IN:
INT. COMMAND - NEAR ALONG RING CITY - RED-RUNNING
Gliding swiftly, they inspect the battle-scarred metal-ring city somewhat broken in places; its undersides red-lit; The galaxy center stars fill the sky; the black-hole below …
The Weaponers EXEUNT, scanning all views, hep-saluting (cf flusher-handle, windshield-wiper-finger, two-hand-stack).
Gwen's starship is docked far ahead, untouched …
HARRY
They took reckless aim.
MIKE
Their equipment is inferior, or reduced to manual controls: Could be an ego-projected mindset.
CADET
Maybe they thought they could fool us with bank-shots ricocheted off the city like multiple sources.
GARY
Did too much damage to the city: Even if we were their dupe, they wasted shots;-- Maybe they gambled.
JOHN
(lax-ponders)
Statistically senile in a markovian chain-space.
JEFF
(grins)
Aliens with a seniority complex, John!?- Maybe their starship is wearing-out: Maybe they haven't put into repair dock in years.
JAIME
Gwen's starship is ahead.
MIKE
Take us in, Jaime!
JAIME
Aye:-- Rendezvousing with Gwen's starship … Space,-Alien,-Gwen!
(heaves)
'Woow': This could be momentous…!
MIKE
Jeff: Put me on fleetwide!
JEFF
(keys)
Fleetwide.
PA MULTI-CHIRPS.
MIKE (+PA)
Well done…!- Flagship will dock by Gwen's ship; Stark Easter and Star Quest, proceed to near docks: 50-percent personnel have tentative liberty … watchful for Aliens: Man starship bridges on Stations-alert!
INT. RING CITY - DOCKSIDE - INFINITE HALL - OMNILIT
PEERING OUT INTO: Flagship Command docking adjacent Gwen's:
Jaime, Harry, Gary with Cadet, Susan, EXEUNT; Mike, Tommi, John, Jeff, remain; Stark Easter passes to dock ahead …
35 Landing Party, and Brad, enter: AD LIB battle-heroics, equipments, performances, dosages of neutron-wind, gamma …
On-into the Hall … and spread and mill-about …
CADET
(just-there, ethereally)
Reminds me of dreams of floating through campus …
(realizes timid shock)
They've got blastmarks, inside!
THE HALL STRETCHING TO INFINITY without curvature:- doors, doorways, cross-corridors, much-blastmarked:
GARY
(worry-grins)
Disgruntled Alien spacemasters!? Truant elementary space students!? Rowdy space party crashers!? Weird Alien space promenade wildings!?
HARRY
(entering with Jaime)
Shall we visit Gwen?!
(walks through them)
Space Aliens not withstanding!?
They proceed to Gwen's-starship dock (cf Spring Returns) …
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
And out the gantry … into the ship command--
INT. GWEN'S STARSHIP COMMAND - LIT (NEAR CONTINUOUS)
ARRIVING AT THE TOP OF THE ESCALATOR …
Jaime, to her presumed seat; Displays have lettered keypads left up, with sample guess-words, technicals, navigations …
HARRY
Jaime: Do the honors, please!
JAIME
(grins, enunciates)
Gwendolyn-Rachel: Are you here?!
[Alien-Gwen hair moves fully, cf Spring Returns]
[GWEN:VIDEO]
(overlaps)
If this is an emergency, depress A-C-O on your alpha-pad … Square-pads have position controls; Circle-pads have attitude controls … Your auto-interpretive emote-controls actuate in two-hundred hesits: six minutes…
AUTO-PAUSED.
JAIME
(keys manual "ACO")
A … C … O.
[GWEN:VIDEO]
You have actuated for emergency operation. If this is a nuclear missile assault, depress K-C-X. If this is for conventional weapons, depress N-P-D. If this is a positional hazard, depress X-Q-E. You may actuate additional emergency coefficients. If this is you, Harry, depress H-A-X.
AUTO-PAUSED.
All stunned … to Harry;--
JAIME
(keys manual "HAX")
H … A … X…?
[GWEN:VIDEO]
You may actuate additional emergency coefficients … Harry, I'm sorry, we missed you, dear! I hope you are well;- We can't wait at the ring city: An Alien starship passed us in the aether slipstream … We're taking the elevator to the garden: Please, come-up and join us: This is our permanent decision:- Earth was no longer what we expected. The elevator code shall be my telephone number. Otherwise, this ship is at your disposal: It's a new one,-- same model: We left the other ship in Area-51 desert: We'd encountered nuclear missiles behind the moon and skipped straight to Earth, nearly destroying it. Best wishes, wherever you choose to go, Harry! I'd leave a longer message, but we're nearly there.
All examine Harry:
BRAD
For being Aliens… they sure don't think very alien…!
HARRY
(defends)
I know nothing about this, guys: I didn't go with them to the desert:- I'm the real Harry:- Our Harry: She must have been addressing their Alien double.
GARY
That's certain, Harry;- And so is your future: You've got to face your double,-- as well as Diana:
(grins)
who's probably fallen for the guy-- I hope he's not a lizard inside…!
CADET
(profuses)
So, What's Gwen's telephone number? I hope it's the same as our, Gwen's number: 'Whew' this is strange: How in the world did they find a double world?! I wonder if their Harry has taken the elevator…!
GARY
(hand-consoles her)
Easy:-- This is Harry's decision….
HARRY
I've committed to retrieving Diana: Any who wish to follow, this could be a new world: I'll understand if most of you will return to Earth:- Our, Gwen, Peter, and Daniel, have survived:- They'll need your help.
JAIME
(blurts)
We'd better find you the elevator, Harry, And get ourselves back home!
SUSAN
(approaches resolute)
Harry,-- I'll go with you: This may sound silly but Daniel and I split-up when we were teens:- He couldn't let me attend his bar mitzvah: He's just my best friend ever since;- It should be interesting, to meet his Alien double … And there'll be four guys, three gals up there: If Diana rejects you for your Alien-other, I'll stay with you,-- Harry!
(a worry-hug)
All paused …
JAIME
(blurts utter finality)
Let's go…!
And leads EXEUNT down the Escalator …
INT. RING CITY CORRIDOR - (MOMENTARILY)
Mike, Tommi, await at Gwen's dock … As they enter,--
MIKE
Quest-set is secure:- No incoming Aliens within a kilohesit.
They stroll-on, passing doorways into a side-hall AD LIB …
AN INNER CORRIDOR
Jaime stops at THE COSMIC ELEVATOR--
JAIME
(solemn)
This appears to be the elevator.
(touches hand-plate)
Gwen's phone number …
(keys Gwen's 10 digits)
THE DOOR SLIDES ASIDE: A small spacious circular room with cushioned bench seating around the sides; surround-windows to the outside billion bright stars; control-PANEL LIGHTS TWINKLE on the wall …
Jaime looks-in … Enters, inspecting--
JAIME
Best guess: this will suffice.
Harry, Susan, Mike, follow-in:
MIKE
(solemn)
Harry,-- Suse,-- We'd best say our good-byes now: You've got a cosmic conquest to call your new home;- We've got to return to Earth and protect the fleet. We surely don't want to walk-out on you-two, But the Aliens pose an imminent threat and our Flagship holds a key to the solution; And we're committed to establishing this new technology for the betterment of all survivors…. After we open the galaxy to interstellar flight, -and this may take a few years,- we'll return and catch-up with you: We won't leave you unconnected up-there forever!
(handshakes Harry, Susan)
Harry … Susan….
JAIME
(tears, hugs Susan)
Bye, dear. God-be with you!
HARRY
Go in peace, Mike: Do your duty: We'll expect you.
JAIME
(hugs Harry)
Bye, Harry: We'll sure miss you….
SUSAN
Bye, Jaime, Mike,-
(to those at the door)
Tommi … Brad … Gary … everyone: I hope you all return and join us….
Jaime, Mike, exeunt out;--
Susan touches her control panel … Waves good-bye, as--
THE DOOR SLIDES CLOSED …
GEARS WIND inside the door-- and LOCKS CLACK.
A silent moment.
THE OUTSIDE PANEL LIGHT TURNS RED.
JAIME
They're gone….
MIKE
Let's break for the Flagship!
And leads exeunt trotting for their starship docks …
INT. RING CITY - DOCKSIDE - FLAGSHIP
PEERING OUT INTO: Flagship Command: John, Jeff, await …
Jaime, Mike, Gary, Cadet, Tommi, enter to their stations …
Flagship tugs back away …
And turning eastward to leave orbit--
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - RED-RUNNING (AS CONTINUOUS)
Turning eastward, Forward, along the metal-ring-city …
MIKE
Feels different without Harry watching over us.
JOHN
Welcome, to Star Fleet, Grand Admiral, Michael.
Passing Gwen's ship …
MIKE
(smiles … orders)
Take us out of orbit, Helm!
JAIME
(controls)
Aye:-- Home, we go!
And Stark Easter …
JEFF
Stark Easter is leaving dock now … Star Quest is staying,-- with the Grand Admiral's permission…!
Accelerating … climbs above the battle-scarred ring-city …
MIKE
Bless them with Best Wishes: I hope no more Aliens show-up here soon…!
JEFF
And, Mike, Earth fleet acknowledges our advisory on the Aliens …
Pulling away, forward very fast gliding up over;
MIKE
We have communication with Geo-set?
(resolves a beat)
Diana's video!-- Their, Harry, was here all along…!
GRID-LINES FLOW … And the ring city recedes far below;
JAIME
(controls)
Entering the aether slipstream…!
MIKE
Give us maximum-performance speed!
FINAL GRID;--
JAIME
(controls)
Aye: Maximum-- Speeeed…!
The galaxy core hole, rings, pole jets, diminish behind …
MIKE
Jeff, Can we locate the Alien vessels in the stream?
JEFF
They are maintaining radio silence.
IN THE AETHER-SLIPSTREAM, --galaxy center stars aberrate …
JOHN
Mike,- Navigation shows objects far ahead 7-point-4-million light-skip: Should be them on 3-kilohesit lead: We'll have to exceed 7-point-8….
NEAR STARS PASS, ASTRO-SKIP-RATE ramps-up for 7.8 million …
MIKE
Push the envelope, Jaime!
JAIME
(controls)
Aye: And lick it and stamp it, too.
(grins)
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. STARSHIP USS REGENTS COMMAND - MOON EAST - NEVADA DAWN
CINCSPAC Earth-Fleet East Team starships hover poised above moon mountains, waiting in the silence of outer space:
ACTING CINCSPAC CMDR Dave meanders attentively and watching deep space, AD LIB (MOS) instructively ordering his crew of 10 Undergrads at their stations in space formals with Chief Command insignias, color-bars/trims, halo-gear …
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
DAVE (VO)
(answers to deep space)
No, I think we maintain absolute radio silence: Flagship has a best advantage of surprise if we do not contact them during Alien-approach.
NAV (VO)
Commander: We have two starships approaching extraordinarily fast!-- Point-0-0-4:-- They'll have to stop at untested retro-pulsion rate!
(00:-- swells to full)
INT. CINCSPAC COMMAND - (CONTINUOUS)
DAVE
(meanders, appends calm)
… Or skip-pass us:--
(scans deep space)
Watch for loose debris when they shift aside … And keep us posted …
(to comm)
Comm: Prepare me for fleetwide and net-closure.
COMM
(keys)
Fleetwide ready, And net-closure…!
DAVE
Nav…?
NAV
(to Display)
Range: Exo-lunar space 6-hundred mega-meters; E-T-A 2-hundred-20-hesits … Ponder and Lust-Test are switching-off beacons. And there's a third starship at 25-hundred,--
(wind-whistles 'whew')
Don't they know about sub-light?!- Point-0-1-7,-- Brace yourselves: Same E-T-A: They will overtake!
HELM
We'd better warn Earth for ultra-harsh storms!
DAVE
Agreed. Comm: Relay advisory for Earth broadcast;--
(emotes)
We've just become Americans again!
LUNAR 6 NUCLEAR-MISSILES STREAK-away for the incoming …
NAV
(excited)
And meteor impacts!-- Debris is confirmed and wandering for Earth-collision … Computation is busy with link-closure …
(at missile-tracking)
'Hey'-- We've got company: missiles going-out for the Alien greeting: Helpful, hopefully…!
DAVE
(training calm)
Maintain position:-- Let them sort this out.
Displays show crosslinked navigations,-- They await …
INT. SAME - (7 MIN. PASS)
Armageddon approaches …
DAVE
(ponders irony: sublime)
Did mankind increase local entropy positively?- Or negatively!?
NAV
(cues: time's up)
E-T-A 20-hesits: They are here: Two lead starships, And ten ballistics!
DAVE
(sits, orders)
Closure, now!
Comm keys:--
ALL DISPLAYS ENLIVEN … PA MULTI-CHIRPS.
COMM
Net is closed: You're on fleetwide!
DAVE (+PA)
Armageddon has begun: We are under imminent fire:- Team Out, Commence response: Maximum evasive: We have two confirmed Alien starships, and ten pieces of hyper-flack; Team In, Trim your pre-chase: E-T-A-moon-15.
HELM
(keys)
Auto-evasive is verified operating.
5-starship Team Out above moon backside maneuvers evasively with LONG-DISTANCE LASER-STRIKES and Q-BLASTS sparkling the nearing Alien 2 starships and 14 debris clusters …
THE IMAGE OF ALL THINGS: SQUIRMS AND WARPS, as incoming starship aether-resonant-soliton-drives decelerate …
ENG
Retro-pulsors pack a cosmic wallop!
The Aliens decelerate into lunar space:--
NAV
E-T-A 10-hesits!-- Aliens shifting moon-east our side! Wake-up angels!
DAVE (+PA)
Team East, Ready on flyby: Commence firing: Maximium evasive, Maximum response; Moon-east is confirmed!-- Teams North, South, West, Scramble!
NUCLEAR-WHITE FLASHES engulf the Aliens, AND, Team Out:--
PARTIAL-WINDOW-SPOTS AUTO-DARKEN to diagrammatic … till the expanding flashes dissipate and VIEWS RETURN TO NORMAL …
NAV
Hyper-flack revised to 14 clusters: Three passing E-T-A 5-hesits!-- Debris Impact Lunar in 3-hesits!
Team Out and Team East 4 EVASIVELY ENGAGE LASER-VOLLEYS and Q-BLASTS with the nearing-to-pass Aliens …
NUCLEAR-WHITE FLASHES obliterate deep-space view,-- FACING WINDOWS AUTO-DARKENING to diagrammatic simulation …
DUST-BLAST WHELMS against windows RETURNING TO NORMAL VIEW;
(0-:-- pensive calm)
COMM
Team Out intact: No significant damage.
FARSIDE-EAST 3+ BLAST-GEYSERS brilliant-white turning-red …
NAV
Missiles hit debris;- Two Aliens passing momentarily! Four debris clusters passing for Earth!
WHITE FLASHES ABOUT THE ALIENS …
COMM
Ten moon-strikes confirmed; Team East is scoring minor hits …
(0-:-- grates)
Alien starships blur-by at a distance, 0.5 sec:--
HELM
(points-follows)
There!
NAV
Alien starships still intact, and continuing to Earth!
A WHITE FLASH engulfs the Aliens,-- the VIEW AUTO-DARKENS.
DAVE (+PA)
Teams Inside: Aliens have arrived: Two confirmed! Close-in and pursue: Commence firing at will:-- Maximum evasive, Maximum response!
COMM
Geo-set maintaining Comm-silence …
DAVE
(orders)
Commence CrypTag-stealth-insertion!
COMM
(keys)
CrypTag Team … Actuated!
DAVE
Activate Geo-set, Now!-- Draw the net tight!
COMM
(keys, reports)
Geo-set … activating!
NAV
Third starship at 90-mega-meters!-- E-T-A 15-hesits, Still point-0-0-8: Brace yourselves:- They're pushing the moon out of orbit…!
SLIGHT DUST SPLATTERS against the windows …
Team In 5 forechase the Aliens to Earth, EXCHANGING LASER-STRIKES and Q-BLASTS, EVASIVELY WHILE CLOSING …
WHITE FLASHES engulf both: WINDOW SPOTS AUTO-DARKEN …
NAV
(abrupt worry)
We have a Computation weak-point!
COMM
(amends)
Star Tempest, is reducing crosslink bandwidth: Primary Nav-link failing data-bit-rate, Systemic integrity parameters vacillating,-- Manually overriding: Transferring telemetry-load to hot-secondary …
NAV
(completes)
Significant neutron damage…!
(a half beat)
Third starship at 30-mega-meters, shifting moon-east: E-T-A 7-hesits.
COMM
(keys, updates)
Star Tempest hot-secondary is fully operational, Switching-out primary.
(a half beat)
Hail-channel has opened!-- It's …
(facing awed)
Grand-Admiral Michael: Flagship!
DAVE
Out-load net-closure telemetry!
COMM
(resumes: keys)
Out-loading net-closure…!
NAV
Navigation load is re-balancing:-- Prime-net is secured!
CONTINUAL DUST-SPLATTER INCREASES, from distant nukes …
THE IMAGE OF ALL THINGS: SQUIRMS AND WARPS, as incoming Flagship soliton-drive just now decelerates …
WHITE FLASH CENTERS ONE ALIEN starship: DIAGRAMMATIC,--
NAV
Flagship passing pres-ent-ly…
(looks-up worried)
There's nothing left of one Alien starship…!
HELM
Direct hit!
DAVE
(sombers)
Oh, Lord: Murder becomes our soil in outer space…!
They share a silent moment …
CUT TO:
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - PASSING MOON EAST - RED-RUNNING
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
BANKED DOWN IN PURSUIT: Grand-Admiral Mike's command, added undergrad Weaponers, in a calm sprint to catch the Aliens …
HUGGING THE MOON, Earthward, 1.5 sec.…
JEFF
Prime-net closure, telemetry in-loaded,-- Secured.
UN-BANKING UP … TO UPRIGHT …
MIKE
(uncrosses legs, orders)
Commence fire on the Aliens!
OUTSIDE FLICKERING ERUPTS,
MIKE
Allocate 20-percent computation-load to the net!
MASSIVE LASER-VOLLEYING FORWARD into thick space-haze,--
Aimed to a moving distant space-war-fire-ball consisting of the remaining Alien forechased by Team In and surrounded by Teams Inside, Geo-Set Earth-Fleet, 20, converging, dodging, diving, volleying Q-BLASTS, STREAKING LASER-FIRE, salted with frequent ENGULFING WHITE FLASHES-- AUTO-DARKENED …
DUST-BLAST WHELMS WINDOWS noisily afore …
MIKE
Couple soliton-regeneration energy to the lasers!-- Bring us to bear directly on the Aliens!
JEFF
20-percent allocated to prime-net.
GARY
(follow-up keys)
Laser cannons at 3-hundred-percent.
15 Geo-Fleet spaceships join the foray from Earth …
JOHN
(follow-up keys)
Geo-Fleet has joined-in … E-T-A Alien starships 65-hes…it…
(pauses puzzled)
There's only one Alien starship!
JAIME
(quick-searches the sky)
Where's the other, John! Behind us?
JOHN
(keys, to display)
An expanding sphere of rubble where Nav-com projected the Aliens….
JAIME
Jetsam trick!?
JOHN
(somber)
Debris mass 10-mega-tons: No trick…
JEFF
They overrode computation-overload to stay in battle, And gang-linked navigation with independent dither.
GARY
(eulogizes to cadet)
Life is rough outside your gravity playpen,- And starships fragile,-- But, Never leave home without one…!
MIKE
(orders)
Prepare for battlefield insertion!
GRID FLOWS: OUTLINING EARTH, for final deceleration …
JEFF
(surprised worry)
Mike, The Alien starship is picking on CeeBird, --planetary spaceship class,-- Heavy barrage engagement…!
MIKE
Insert computation-assist on CeeBird deflection!
JEFF
(keys)
Not possible:-- Deflection is realtime-only calculation.
MIKE
(re-orders)
Then,-- Computation-assist on navigation dither!
JOHN
(keys)
Navigation-assist commencing …
JEFF
(reports)
Alien barrage increasing … CeeBird hit-rate holding, but it's heavy … CeeBird is taking intense damage!
JOHN
(re-keys frantic)
We've lost CeeBird nav-link-assist! CeeBird navigation has ceased!
JEFF
(excited)
Hull buckling: Emergency operation!
MIKE
E-T-A!?
JOHN
35-hesits CeeBird E-T-A …
(half a beat)
Starship Pickel has interposed in the line of Alien fire!
MIKE
Jaime, Can you get a fix on them?!
JAIME
(exasperates)
All, good, shots, Mike!- The Alien pilot is a deft dodger!- And the nuke-dust-storm is thick-as-fog!
JEFF
(worried quickening)
Pickel, has overridden auto-dither-avoidance!-- Reversed,-synchronized the Alien: They're blocking fire on CeeBird and taking hits!
MIKE'S HORRIFIC SILENCE, 2 sec.…
JEFF
(spins to look)
Sir…!?
JOHN
(turns, scolds)
Mike…!
MIKE
(HORRIFIC ORDER)
Do it, John…!!
JOHN
(snaps fore, keys)
Yes, Sir!-- Assisting Pickel Nav…
MIKE
(rapid orders)
Jeff, Command-dump Pickel telemetry damage reports, Maintenance, PERT-logs, upgrades, versions!- Allocate 25-percent computation to failure-distribution prediction!- John, Augment Pickel rotation and skew:-- Spread their damage…!
JEFF
(reports)
Telemetry in-loading: Pickel laser-peen-deflection-sweep is up-double!
Flagship arrives at the hazy fire-ball and fierce exchange between evasive starship Alien and Pickel closing gyrating laser-peening missiles double-volleying unyielding CeeBird…
JOHN
Pickel is accelerating to ram the Alien!-- E-T-A CeeBird 8-hesits!
MIKE
Maintain Pickel-navigation-assist…!
(bright corollary)
Jeff!-- Tempest-crypto gang-control the Alien starship-navigation:- Use their galaxy-core ephemerides…!
JEFF
(keys nonchalant)
Worth a try … Computer, says, Ready to insert co-encodes.
MIKE
John: Gang-command the Alien backup 10-kilometers! Jaime restrain fire!
JOHN
(keys)
Gang-commanding Alien retreat 10-K…
A moment for crypto-insertion to succeed … then--
PING!-- The laser-volley stretches-out 10Km, diminishing …
MIKE
Cease fire…!
FLEET-VOLLEY CEASES … The Alien reluctantly follows suit …
Last missiles destroyed, The Fleet surrounds the one Alien.
CADET
(quiet gratitude)
It worked!- They must have the same manufacturer…!
GARY
(for Cadet)
And this Flagship has the master codes, this side of the universe.
JEFF
(mildly surprised)
The Aliens are hailing us!
MIKE
Put me on Fleetwide;- Prepare to accept the Alien link, Display…!
Jeff keys … PA MULTI-CHIRPS;==
JEFF
You're Fleetwide; Alien-link ready!
MIKE (+PA)
Geo-Fleet is ordered to remain on guarded cease fire!- And, Ready for Alien communications link-up!
THE ALIEN ICON SPLASH, for starship video communications:--
Mike faces a bedraggled wearied [ALIEN COMMAND] on display: Classy handsome pure-white-haired white-face super-senior citizens wearing remote-design avant-garde black-white-gold-motif space-admiral suits with foray-party overwear …
JEFF
(announces)
Aliens, Onscreen!
All look:--
[ALIEN HELM] is Mike's grandmother-apparent,--
[ALIEN HELM]
(exuberant)
Little Mikey…!
(slowly stands)
How you've grown!-- So good of you to come play with your grandmother!
MIKE
(surprised)
Grand-ma-- Bertha!?
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
CADET
(subdued loud)
Careful, sir: It may be directed hypnosis: like Professor Gwen's, alien-double!
GARY
(subdued to Cadet)
His grandma passed-away a year ago.
VIDEO RESUMES:
[ALIEN HELM]
We miss you so, Mikey,- your grand-dad and I: We wished you had called first!
MIKE
(befuddled)
I'm sorry,- We didn't know your new address!
[ALIEN HELM]
Oh, that's alright, Mikey,-- We understand:
(smiles)
But you will, call us next time, sweetie!?
MIKE
I-- we-- don't play so-- dangerous…
[ALIEN HELM]
(conciliatory)
Oh, Mikey, dear, it's all right: We can fix these;-- And you've learned your lesson,-- haven't you?!
MIKE
I-- yes-- sure …
[ALIEN HELM]
I'll visit again, real soon: We can play again with your space-toys and you can come visit me … Remember to bring your Mommy and your Daddy…. Bye-bye, darling….
(a grandmotherly wave)
MIKE
Bye.
(waves childish shyly)
[ALIEN HELM]
(proudly to her captain)
My little grandson, Mikey!
WHITE FLASH ENGULFS,-- AUTO-DARKENING … and dissipates …
The Alien starship is accelerating away to escape …
DUST-BLAST WHELMS noisily …
JOHN
(over noise)
Command-telemetry-override is broken: The Alien starship is accelerating to leave!
MIKE
(regains composure)
Let them go!-- Advise Stark Easter and Star Quest…! And Jeff: Shuttle-over the commander of Pickel: I want her face-to-face, on my deck!
(exiting for his office)
GARY
Mike,- They are sure to return with more Aliens!
Mike nods Yes … stopping for:--
CADET
(defensive)
Sir, Commander Penny is just an undergraduate, like most-all of us: She did what was needful: She's one of your best: And she's also one of Professor Harry's A-students: Maybe in his absence we're all…
MIKE
(clips)
I, cannot have, reckless neo-heroic loners, commanding my Geo-set Fleet starships!
CADET
(subordinates)
Yes, sir.
JEFF
Mike, Pickel is returning to the moon for repairs; CeeBird is being towed-back for scrap; CeeBird crew sustained insignificant injuries:- jostled when acceleration-damping quit and lost outer-hull segments. They're transferring to Racyon … They want a new command: together.
MIKE
(EXITS to glass office)
Granted to CeeBird crew and debrief them … Jaime, Parallel Pickel … And Jeff, Broadcast a 'Well-done' with Commendations, and Liberty for 50-percent of personnel…!
JAIME
(controls)
Aye, sir!
Flagship pulls away from the Fleet in remnant-thin haze …
JAIME
(a beat fore)
To moon again moon again, quiggity-quick.
GARY
(grins big, to Jeff)
Maybe they'll just get, de,-burred.
JEFF
(grins to Gary)
And get clob-bered again,-- like a, jay,-bird.
CADET
(grins to both)
They've already gotten, em,-bered!
GARY
(grins to fore)
And at that, they were ex,-'perdt!'
JAIME
(smiles to John)
Does, liberty, in space, mean, we turn-off gravity?
John smiles back.
FADE TO:
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - PASSING BEYOND MOON WEST
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
Flagship parallels starship Pickel.
Jeff quiet in a halo, adjusts his vidlink by modes for a TV image from Earth: corrects pixel-interleaving, frame-rates, sync, compression-coefficients, color-sync, digital codes …
CADET
(to Gary)
What were the co-encodes to command the Alien gang-navigation?
GARY
(to Cadet)
Communications, are encrypted by irreducible codes, fully decodable. Override protection, is afforded by irresolvable codes, e.g., reducible exponents and square components not fully decodable, though statistical methods help:- Both sides co-encode the same command set,- The receiver compares signals with the possibles only the manufacturer can specify….
CADET
Okay,-- I'm studying statistical methods with Gwen. Second question: How do solitons retroflect through a moon or planet? They should pass out the other side: symmetrically.
GARY
(conciliatory)
There's a lot we don't know about photons and wavicles: especially at quantum and subunit wavelengths: If a planet-sphere focuses transversal wavicles to a neutral point on its far surface, --if it can do so,-- we're guessing maybe it reflects at that surface…. We know these Alien U-F-O's work somehow; and we can't throw-out good evidences, for our theories; nor throw-out theories, for evidences…. For example:--
(tutors)
Our, science, cannot distinguish between gamma rays generated by the decay of positron-electron pairs, from gamma rays that passed-through each other,-- yet, by conservation-of-information, there must be some, difference: an over-code imposed or under the gamma-wavicle-envelope:-- Maybe this Alien technology knows that code well-enough to select and enhance reflectivity. But as I say, we're guessing deep on this … Our theories must get beyond the merely spectral, and find and understand the aether substance.
CADET
Okay,- Third question: How did the soliton drive create global gales?- Momentum-wave refraction in the atmosphere should be less than at the surface of the Earth,-- or even at the surface of the oceans.
GARY
Depends on the wavelength: Did your school-chemistry teacher give you the Density Test: where the plot of Density versus Index-of-refraction spells out the word, "No"?
CADET
No,- But I heard, about that … But, What makes the atmosphere refract solitons? Better impedance-matching … or, Does the ground-air interface couple momentum…?!
GARY
(erudite)
Alien, U-F-O, technology, equals, science,-- And, science, equals, mathematics: Only imagination flies faster but must remain substantial-to science only as it's based-upon, corroborates, is conducive-to, and remains relative-to, science: These must fly together, else you have neither, at any speed of light.
Pickel CMDR Penny arrives at the top of the Escalator;-- Cadet ups and walks to Mike's office …
GARY
(as-if snubbed, to Jeff)
You have a malfunctioning display…?
Vidlink displays have an acceptable-resolution image …
JEFF
(into mouthpiece)
Okay, It looks better … Now, what?
[TECH-AIDE] (JEFF-HALO)
As far as we got: Pixel-coordinates are bit-reversed, x-y-interleaved and exor'ed, to infinite precision…
PENNY
(inserts)
Hello…!?
GARY
(nonchalant to Penny)
Yes?-- I suppose you may come in: It's relaxed up here momentarily.
PENNY
(still formal)
I'm Commander Penny of starship Pickel.
GARY
(sits-up, louder)
Oh-- Yes!-- Come, right in!--
(looks for Mike)
CINC-SPAC is somewheres about…!
Jaime, Others, turn-at-ease to look at Penny …
CADET
(at office door)
Sir, Commander Penny, from starship Pickel, is here.
MIKE
(rises)
Bring her in.
CADET
(to Penny, motions)
Come…!
Gwen, Peter, Daniel, arrive, in similar space-formalwear but as boarding-party guests;--
Jaime jumps-up, and trots to greet them--
JAIME
Out of the desert frying pan, And into the Alien line of fire!--
(halts: challenges Gwen)
You guys are not still critical!?
GWEN
(calmly)
I'm all right.
JAIME
(elated hug)
Good to see you, girl!-- We read about you on Pickel's transponder e-mail … Hi, Guys!
(hugs each)
CADET
(ecstatic)
Professor Gwen!- Welcome to outer-space!
MIKE
(coming out enthusiastic)
Gwen! Peter, Daniel:-- We're relieved!-- We chased your Alien-doubles halfway across the galaxy,- Then raced-back to rescue Earth …
(welcome-hands each)
It's good to see you-all alive and…
(realizes the horror)
Well… You, were on Pickel?-- Who…?-
(looks to Penny also)
Pickel's heroics bore a rather amateurish signature:-- Admittedly it surprised the Aliens too … Who, ordered that line-of-fire maneuver?
GWEN
(a beat)
Commander Penny ordered aid given to CeeBird.
PENNY
(explains)
CeeBird was requesting assistance, and we were essentially nearest …
DANIEL
Peter suggested maximizing laser-sweep-peening.
PENNY
We overrode computation-loading factors: We believed we had the most experience …
PETER
Gwen said we might do better nearer the line of fire.
PENNY
I ordered--
(remissively)
I said, "Do it…!"
MIKE
(nods shy of smiling)
Commander Penny, I must formally reprimand you:-- You put your superiors in the awkward position of having to order assistance to your possible harm …
(as an order)
Never, again,---- Commander!
PENNY
(subordinate)
Yes, sir!
MIKE
I'm glad we did not need your damage-telemetry!
PENNY
(agrees subordinate)
Yes! Sir!
Vidlinks display the [USA PRESIDENTIAL SEAL] in color:
JEFF
(announces)
Mike,-- E-T-A communication in 46-hesits: The President will speak to you directly. We have vidlink fully H-D-T-V-compatible:- color sync'ed pretty good;-- Had to bit-reverse, x-y-interleave and exor, the pixel-index: Similar to television except the coding…. You've got vox-pause and fast-remind.
INT. OVAL OFFICE, WHITE HOUSE - WORK MIDMORNING
Smarmy Oxfordian lawyer PRESIDENT, sits banging a running-shoe on the broken end of the oval desk; The shoe's sound, RUNNER HEAVY-BREATHING, pervades; SECRETARY, ASSISTANT, in electronic earpieces, watch; WWDC-TV CREW finishes routing floor cables to 2 cameras on the President, who will speak by prepared-flowchart; An E-VOICE-CLOCK is counting-down …
PRESIDENT
(3 bangs synchronously)
Kill! Kill! Kill!
Stops,-- RUNNER BREATHING CEASES;--
PRESIDENT
(glares over shoes)
'Fricken snacken wrecken snork'!-
(irked)
What's wrong with these shoes?!
SECRETARY
Those are your ReeBoxer Pan-Terrans your spouse gave you for spring-cleaning; We sent your Nukee Grunts to the factory: They promised they could re-cover them: You recall the yellow paint: We couldn't save your running-shorts … And the Department of Transportation has promised to degrease the new Bott's-Dots on Pennsylvania Avenue.
President bangs shoe-- RUNNER BREATHING 1 SEC. --glowers.
ASSISTANT
We vidlink net-sync. in 25-hesits.
PRESIDENT
(tosses shoe, rolls-in)
My presidential signature pens…!?
SECRETARY
You won't need them till the Chinese arrive. And the emergency courier van was commandeered this morning during U-F-O Media reports. The pen company president promised he'll personally rush-deliver a box by midmorning….
(checks watch, softer)
Your visiting hometown kindergarten class thought it was funny to chew them all … Not sure who told them.
ASSISTANT
(directs)
Sir, Remember: The U-F-O mothership is parked beyond the moon, half-a-million kilometers away: When you listen to their replies, they are speaking in a 2-hesit loop-delay:--
(confides)
They'll be answering old questions.
PRESIDENT
(grins broadly)
How politically astute…!
KLAXON INTERRUPTS TWICE--
All dive to crouching behind desks and armchairs …
[AUTOSECURITY] (PA)
* INTRUDER * ALERT *
Background [REVELERS] shouting and horning (1KHz MHF 'C' octave below the starship-heard neutrino buzz)--
[REVELERS] (PA)
(HORN-'C' … shout)
The trumpet of the angel!
(HORN-'C' … shout)
The horn of Revelation!
(HORN-'C' … shout)
The trumpet of the angel!
(HORN-'C' … shout)
The horn of Armageddon!
(da capo diminishing away)
SECRETARY
(resitting, exasperates)
Three days, that's been going-on!
Front-gate Security [SERGEANT SMILLISH] comes on--
[SMILLISH] (PA)
Front Gate Security, Sergeant Smillish … We have an older man attempting to rush our gates:-- Claims to be 'the President of Pennsylvania and', then he says, "Oink-Oink" … Very strange, Sir.
SECRETARY
(leans to President)
Pen-cil, Ven-ue, And, Ink-- Inc-orporated: Your signature pens….
ASSISTANT
(a beat, urges)
Sir: You're On, in 5-hesits.
The Voice-Clock is louder the last 5 hesits (WWDC-TV CAMERAS CAPTURE THIS SCENE for Flagship vidlink):
VOICE-CLOCK (CONCURRENT)
(countdown per 2.2 sec.)
5-hesits…
4-hesits…
3-hesits…
2-hesits…
PRESIDENT
(reseated: easy-going)
Hold him tight, Sergeant:
(straightens coat, tie)
We'll answer him next.
(gathers-rectifies notes)
[SMILLISH] (PA)
Thank you, sir;-- Security, out.
PA OFF: No background.
SECRETARY
(sighs, relieves)
Such a humanitarian!
VOICE-CLOCK
(last count with "s")
1-hesits.
President looks-hurt at clock.
SECRETARY (OC)
(smarts, apology)
Pre-Cambridgean period, Sir.
PRESIDENT (CONCURRENT)
(low to Secretary)
Get an Aide out there for Smillish.
ASSISTANT
(TV-intro)
Ladies and Gentlemen:-- Your, President: Head, of the United States of America….
Secretary calls on her cellphone …
PRESIDENT
(to TV camera)
Good morning, my fellow -audited- taxpayers.
SECRETARY
(feints faint: squeaks)
American, taxpayers: American!
PRESIDENT
(to TV camera)
I am taking liberties as your Commander-…
CUT TO:
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - FAR BEYOND MOON (CO-CONTINUOUS)
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
[EDIT-BLIPPING on vidlink]
At 500,000Km, moon west and Earth inching, Mike sitting, CMDR Penny, Gwen, Peter, Daniel, standing; All await the interview with the President: [LOOPED]
Vidlink TV-images display the [USA PRESIDENTIAL SEAL] …
JEFF
(announces)
E-T-A 3-hesits … You have a 5-hesit broadcast-delay: 2-hesit live-loop.
[ASSISTANT (VO)]
(TV-intro over Seal)
Ladies and Gentlemen:-- Your, President: Head, of the United States of America….
[Presidential Seal dissolves to Broadcast, Edited]:
[PRESIDENT]
Good morning, my fellow
(BLIP "audited")
[PRESIDENT (VO DUB)]
-American-
(BLIP DONE)
[PRESIDENT]
tax-payers.
(pauses)
I am taking liberties as your Commander-IN-Chief, to bring you, live, our first meeting with space-aliens…. Our chief engineers have established a network-live-T-V-type link with the Alien mothership … Space-Com surveillance has located it beyond the moon.
(pauses)
I remind you that until this moment we have not known what space-aliens looked-like: Be prepared to comfort your littlest children.
Jaime and John share silent lingering disbelief …
[PRESIDENT]
We do know they can communicate in simple English; and, I want you to be with me live for this momentous first-contact.
(a beat)
We have several
(BLIP "cunning")
[PRESIDENT (VO DUB)]
-shrewd-
(BLIP DONE)
[PRESIDENT]
linguists ready on our supernet web-connection to assist us. We hope this first meeting will not preclude further contacts with space-aliens. Therefor I ask your patient acceptance of U.S. Policy protocols:-- If necessary, our engineers can break the link….
(to Assistant)
Chief: If we are ready …
[ASSISTANT (OC)]
(to engineer)
Engineer: Close the connection.
(a beat, to President)
We have linkup: You may begin, sir.
TV [ZOOMS TO LIVE] newer image covering old …
[Replies cross 1.7 sec. delay to Earth, 3.5 sec. total: Vidlink pauses for loud locals, then resumes normal play after fast-catch-up filling silent segments, triple-speed paralleling; Alternates images with replay tail-reminders; VOICE-OPTIMALLY-PLACED MULTIPLE-CAMERAS with auto-select.]
[PRESIDENT]
Hel-lo;-- Greetings, from Earth!
VIDEO PAUSES, for.
MIKE
(loud: first try)
Hello, sir: Good morning to you.
VIDEO RESUMES.
[PRESIDENT]
I understand we must wait two-hesits for your reply.
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
MIKE
No worse than early Internet video sessions.
VIDEO RESUMES.
[PRESIDENT]
(grins)
I can do a lot of talking in two-hesits….
INT. OVAL OFFICE - (CO-CONTINUOUS)
[No edit-blipping; no fast-remind technology]
[Grand-Admiral Mike] talks from the large-screen display of his Flagship Command-- picking-up relayed mid-sentence: [missing the President's first reply about Mike's visage similarity and English fluency]
[MIKE]
… Internet video sessions.
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
PRESIDENT
(to TV camera)
Our world-wide-web video-stream! Have your people been to Earth, before?
VIDEO RESUMES.
[MIKE]
Quite, sir: And you speak immaculate Cambridgean, yourself.
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
PRESIDENT
(puzzled)
We should arrange for an ambassador: It could be an enlightening experience for us.
VIDEO RESUMES.
[MIKE]
Yes: I'm a full professor in astrophysics at the U, in California.
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
PRESIDENT
(exasperates)
You've infiltrated our national security research facilities!?
VIDEO RESUMES.
[MIKE]
That should not be necessary: The Internet will do.
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
PRESIDENT
(flusters-down papers)
I should say, not! What's going on here?! Who are, you people?!
VIDEO RESUMES.
[MIKE]
(delayed calm)
We are already enlightened, thank you sir.
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
ASSISTANT (OC)
(detects)
Calm down, sir: Remember your delay loop!
VIDEO RESUMES.
[MIKE]
No, sir:
(reassures)
We are, your people: We are ordinary professors and students at the U; We commandeered the U-F-O from Area 51 while operating under hot-pursuit guidelines for cosmic abductions…
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND - (CO-CONTINUOUS)
[EDIT-BLIPPING on vidlink]
Picking-up ahead: [skipped UFO rescue and Alien-chase]
VIDEO PAUSED.
MIKE
(to forward)
… attack Earth, we caught them, and defeated them in space battle.
VIDEO FAST-CATCH-UP.
[MIKE:REMIND]
…ready enlightened, thank you sir.
VIDEO RESUMES.
[ASSISTANT (OC)]
(detects)
Calm down, sir: Remember your delay loop!
VIDEO FAST-CATCH-UP.
[MIKE:REMIND]
… guidelines for cosmic abductions…
VIDEO RESUMES.
[PRESIDENT]
(infuriated)
Our, people!?--
(BLIP)
(BLIP)
(BLIP)
You've destroyed a thousand-- trillion-- dollars-- of Earth resources, --International assets--
(BLIP)
(BLIP)
And you call yourselves,-- Americans!?-- We don't have money denominations that big!!
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
MIKE
Yes, sir: And we're ready to talk with you, about America.
VIDEO FAST-CATCH-UP.
[MIKE:REMIND]
… defeated them in space battle.
VIDEO RESUMES.
[PRESIDENT]
(restraining tears)
Your spacewars comets have destroyed, Mount Cheyenne, and pushed the entire community of Kennebunkport Maine, into the ocean;-- unleashing global mega-storms: The N-O-A-A is predicting profoundly disturbed global weather patterns, persisting beyond the next election…!
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
MIKE
Sir: We have discovered technologies that didn't come from hard-partying, nor inhaling a smoky stench; and we'd rather make progress with what we've accomplished here.
VIDEO FAST-CATCH-UP.
[MIKE:REMIND]
…talk with you, about America….
VIDEO RESUMES.
[PRESIDENT]
(clearing)
You have but a few tricks, our scientists can learn: when we get hold of the renegade U-F-O.
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
MIKE
Actually, sir: We have a fleet of forty starships and spaceships-- all with nuclear authority-- and many more available: And, I might suggest, as my first, sir: your scientists be allowed those additional starships. Meanwhile, we will return Pickel to Area 51-- your U-F-O, sir, slightly repaired at the factory: And you can restart your Army-agenda to destroy it: to learn what you want from this technology.
VIDEO FAST-CATCH-UP.
[MIKE:REMIND]
… discovered technologies that …
VIDEO RESUMES.
[PRESIDENT]
(smirks)
You want patent rights, salvage rights-- mineral rights-- military passages: You think you're bigger than the Koresh of Waco!?
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
MIKE
(formidably)
This technology has been here for millions of years; Earth science in only recent decades has come close: In the early '70's we had miniature nuclear engines of 500-tons thrust, running on …
INT. OVAL OFFICE - (CO-CONTINUOUS)
[No edit-blipping; no fast-remind]
Picking-up: [missing of both as paragraphs lengthen]
[MIKE]
(formidably)
… had miniature nuclear engines of 500-tons thrust, running on water … but one of your predecessors canceled the follow-ons. It'd be a pity to waste this newer technology on Earth-star-wars before we learned to benefit from it.
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
PRESIDENT
(challenges)
Then, what is it you really want from America?!
SECRETARY
(pleas to President)
Sir, please: These are university trained college students, noble men and women like yourself; not militant extremists. They took risks to save their friends trapped below the U-FO.
PRESIDENT
(erupts)
But how did they know that?! And when did they know it?!
SECRETARY
(pleads)
But, sir: that's for Presidents,…
PRESIDENT
But, rules apply to all persons!
SECRETARY
(pleads)
But, Presidents decide the need-to-know arbitrarily, sir-- civilians don't authorize …
PRESIDENT
(adamant)
But, the President is, a civilian:
(to TV camera)
Who just runs our country!
(checks)
VIDEO RESUMES.
[MIKE]
(formidably)
Sir, the high commands of technology are for those preeminently qualified: as Presidents once were, but have since become politicians-of-all-trades: commanders in the drug-war camps, equivocators, hand-shakers, military pendants,… plow-shirking curtain-irons:
(energizes)
The new-technology learning curve is too steep-- too non-linear, too, exponential; and talk is too cheap! We desire to maintain this formidable space-command to the benefit of all mankind: on Earth; in heaven-- as the U.S.A. once did its own liberty!
EXT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND/INT. SOUND - (CO-CONTINUOUS)
[EDIT-BLIPPING on vidlink]
Starships come and go about.
VIDEO PAUSED.
MIKE
… those who wish to return to Earth: they came freely-- they were but undrafted students: Yet they return as victors of Earth's first spacewar. Those who wish to stay, may continue here: Earth needs them most out-here: out to Pluto and beyond-- to the Oort Clouds: even, to the nearest stars!
VIDEO FAST-CATCH-UP.
[MIKE:REMIND]
… plow-shirking curtain-irons:…
VIDEO RESUMES.
[PRESIDENT]
(develops excitement)
We need, to keep, our perspective on this: High-technology is one fine discipline for students-- some of my wealthiest constitutents are high-tech'ies-- but, America's, students, shall be well-rounded: Our systems of education, shall-not mass-produce, spacewarrior automaton indoctrinees in droves: We shall-not squander our nation's education ethic!
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
MIKE
(emphasizes)
Sir: We, are not, mass-hypnotizing graduates here: We are keeping the students' perceptions, alive: with the possibilities of acceptable achievements-- not merely lurid prospects of otiose enjoyments! I suggest leaving the space-orbit command under Presidential direction and communication-- but with autonomous response and controls.
VIDEO FAST-CATCH-UP.
[MIKE:REMIND]
… U.S.A. once did its own liberty!
VIDEO RESUMES.
[PRESIDENT]
(grins)
I see you aliens and I, think a lot alike. Perhaps we can come to some agreement: when you return your impressed abductees; a Presidential pardon, for pirates perhaps.
(checks)
VIDEO PAUSES, for:
MIKE
(wisely)
Sir: A Congressional pardon is far better than the Presidential variety. Our fellow professors, Gwen, Peter, and Daniel are on-board by their freewill; they are also co-heroes! However, sir: The escaped spacewar Aliens may return: There are space-Aliens in the star lanes; and star lanes throughout the galaxy;… the students have work to do, up here, sir. We ourselves shall take our Flagship Golden, and starships Stark Easter and Star Quest, and return to the deep galaxy. The remainder of Earth-set fleet here is on their own.
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND (CONTIGUOUS)
Moon west is very slowly, nearly eclipsing Earth; Vidlink TV-images display the [USA Presidential Seal]: their remote interview has finished abruptly. Other vidlinks have [starship Regents CMDR Dave] as High Command-- they recommit Mike's surprising ultimatum:
JAIME
(irked)
Did we get to discuss this?!
GARY
(put-off)
What is this Congressional pardon? We haven't committed any crimes; We saved Earth!
MIKE
(forces calm)
Congress alone, has Constitutional authority forgiving Treasons.
GARY
(reasons rapid)
No treason, Mike! We didn't usurp the authority of the U.S. military! Gwen, Peter, and Daniel found the U-F-O first! We took-up chase to rescue them under hot-pursuit guidlines for abduction cases! And only after we secured it of military personnel! We launched with the undergrads still aboard, only when the U.S. Army fired-upon us-- upon them! And windstorms are classified as acts-of-God!
JEFF
So are comet strikes-- if we didn't help direct them.
GARY
(snips)
The Aliens were in front of us.
JAIME
(reemphasizes)
Just listen, to this attitude-- we didn't cross-over: And we've operated quite outside national borders!
JOHN
(inserts to Jaime)
Outside national orbits, too.
JEFF
(admits)
Except for taking the U-F-O in the first place.
GARY
Abandoned vehicle removal is not a national security objective.
MIKE
(forces calm)
Anyone may, return to Earth-- but just know: your return may not be such as you left it: Presidents take-over America, as much as any enemy would: except Presidents are usually on our, side.
JOHN
Your plan when you left Star Quest at the ring city!?
MIKE
They are covering our aether corridor other end-- I hope: both, in and out.
JAIME
(summarizes)
It looks like we're going out!
CADET
What about the other captains and commanders? Are we giving-up on them?!
JOHN
(resumes)
Mike-- you're worried your attitude may reflect on their acceptance back into mainstream society: Don't, Mike: You've established a thought-pattern to be followed: And there's no giving up a mindset before any treaty.
GARY
(quips)
They don't formalize mindsets with ambassadors.
JEFF
(extends)
Only our presence will insure their safe return, on Earth; as surely as their safe return to space … Mike: You're a station, in outer-space!
CADET
Things are really different out-here!
GARY
(to Cadet)
Just more metaphysical.
[DAVE]
Mike, you're right: There'll be thousands of U.S. space-troops up here when this opens up; and we can't have two, commanders-in-chief.
CADET
(tentative)
Maybe they could recommission Mike-- we did!
GARY
Protocols and ranks-- wouldn't work: It's tougher on the wrong side of political opinions: It was easier for America to revolt against England.
JEFF
(quips)
Just American faces on British drug lords, two centuries later!
GARY
(quips)
And a lead-ringer in a three-clown circus!
[DAVE]
(somber)
It does seem wise to keep the Flagship out of reach; let the fleet develop with equality of authority-- same reason America has never had its own king.
JEFF
(agrees)
And staying, will invite unreasonable competitions--
(worries)
But they are, going to call on us, some time: What then?!
CADET
We'll have to keep in touch, wherever we go.
JEFF
(French "fait accomplis")
Fet-ah-come-plee! But, how far can we string our communications cord?
(turns, keys)
JOHN
Mike-- you wanted to return to the elevator: Looks like we'll have to stay ourselves, until we relinquish Golden to another Grand Admiral.
JEFF
(at keys)
Mike: We're getting a report from moonbase: Commander Carl of starship Sequest.
MIKE
(orders)
Put it on a screen!
Jeff keys: [Starship Sequest CMDR CARL] TWINKLES-IN paused.
CADET
How do we train another Grand Admiral, without the due process of challenge? We can't go challenging Aliens everywhere!
GARY
(to Cadet)
Perhaps that's what the Aliens were doing to us: training their High Command.
MIKE
(order to [Dave])
Dave: Collect a consensus on command infrastructure!
[DAVE]
All right, Mike-- get back to you in a hectahesit.
TWINKLE-OUT-- [Dave] replaced by internal operations:
MIKE
(to [Carl])
Carl-- what have you?
VIDEO RESUMES CARL:
[CARL]
(greets)
Hello-- Grand-Admiral Michael: We've got a lunar news-update for you:
(reads-out)
The Alien comet flack destroyed one cavern-- and another lost its air supply, and power is out, but its structure seems sufficiently intact; we can probably get some starships out-- slowly. One more suffered minor damage of several wall structures rubblized. And overall, it appears we have 33-good caverns,-- and a thousand vessels: Have you got plans?! Oh, and Pickel equipment is fully reparable: We estimate a day or so. The crew is taking liberty to scout caverns!
(smiles)
MIKE
Thanks, Carl.
(checks)
TWINKLES-OUT [Carl replaced by Sequest logo]; [Swooped S-path to a distant bright star, inscribed 'Quest']
They discuss their new prestige:
MIKE
(smiles, resumes)
O-kay! We do have a star-fleet to deploy: Do we deploy it before the President's men get here?
PENNY
(steps forward)
Sir-- if I may interpret: The President may be believing we have boarded pirates: Our Gwen, Peter, and Daniel did not take the U-F-O, nor shoot-down the Air-Force jets last week: That responsibility was of Alien-Gwen's team.
GARY
Good point, Penny: That'd be an inferred treasonable association: They have information on three persons, not six.
JEFF
(adds)
And operating equipment that automatically, shoots-down jets: They'll have to prove in Court, that we knew, it was automatic:
(grins)
For a handsome lawyer's fee, we probably did not:
(smirks)
Anyone, could presume it's capable: presumption, being above the law!
PETER
But that may jeopardize our staying aboard.
MIKE
(cheery)
Pete, you guys are always, welcome! And, you have the legal right to have your adversary, -and their witnesses,- appear before you in Court:- And that puts the burden on the United States, to produce the space-aliens, and Alien-Gwen et al. Meantime you're ordered confined to starship vicinity-- your selection: Pickel when it's repaired, if you like…. Of course, we'd be delighted to have you-three aboard Golden,- till your Courts Spatial--
(postulates)
Estimably, 20-thousand years away!
DANIEL
(tentatively)
And, at the speed-of-light, if we understand all this!?
Continuing more conversationally, till [Dave] returns:
GARY
(mock-officiates)
I suppose, you are all wondering why, we called you, here:-- The question before this Congress, is: What do we do with ourselves out-here?- Ideas…!-
(half a beat)
Do we locate sources of antihelion mass-production,- for heating and nightlighting swimming pools…?!
JEFF
(quips; grins)
That'd be anti, mass-production….
GARY
(caught)
Ah-yuh!
CADET
(exacts)
For heavier,-water swimming pools….
GARY
(caught tighter)
Ahhh…yeah…!
PENNY
(offers)
We can develop a lunar residency at the moon-port; Also install science base colonies on Jupiter's moons.
JAIME
(offers)
We might build John's luna-metric antigravity rings.
JEFF
(proffers)
We can redirect asteroids onto the Martian poles and recover its ocean water and carbon dioxide atmosphere for a millennium greenhouse effect.
GARY
(to Jeff)
We should do something like that for Venus:- maybe seed its clouds.
JOHN
(one-ups)
We can dump antihelion in Jupiter's deuterium layer to make it warm and illuminate Europa … Open outworlder mud-spas …
(revises for approval)
Or detonate missiles in the Uranian and Neptunian atmospheres deuterium substrata to yield quantities of gas to their moons, and build traditional cold colonies.
CADET
(proffers)
We can explore the Solar system out to the Oort clouds: -Planet-X, may yet be found;- And search for near-solar-system rogue neutron stars … That'll keep us preeminently busy in Mission Earth Guard….
PETER
Are we planning to publicize U-F-O technologies?
DANIEL
We can create a multi-level-market of galactic vacation ventures, And sell U-F-O, T-shirt periphernalia.
(wince-grins)
GWEN
(to Daniel)
We might do better conducting scientific expeditions.
DANIEL
(shrugs)
A million dollar M-L-M buys a baccalaureate, these days.
JAIME
(a beat, confides)
That-all doesn't seem like much.
JEFF
Must be those off-campus champagne dinners, and Statistics Department cheese-and-wine fests,-- sooner or later mock our better efforts….
[Dave] TWINKLES-IN, returned to his vidlink displays;
GARY
We should outlaw cheese and wine in outer-space, And do what the makers of these starships had in mind, did have, a whole lot, in mind…!
MIKE
(to [Dave])
Dave, What have we from the ranks?
[DAVE]
Pretty-much what we'd expect, Mike: The captains are willing to accede to U.S.A. control, But all want to stay-on: They're worried how, both, can be achieved.
MIKE
(orders)
Put me on fleetwide broadcast!
Jeff keys.
MIKE
(to all)
Have we conscientious objectors?!
(awaits … none)
[DAVE]
None here, beyond the usual Earth-liberty requests, and applications for benign-duty missions.
PA MULTI-CHIRPS.
JEFF
You're fleetwide:-- Give the order!
MIKE (+PA)
Attention, all star-fleet and space-fleet crews: This is Flagship Grand-Admiral, Michael. We have reviewed the directorial consensus and decided on the recusal of starship Golden. Any personnel on any vessel may re-station to Earth, full pardon recommended,- Or, be clandestinely set down near Area 51 Public Zone: I recall a few of you left your automobiles there.
JAIME
(guffaws to John)
Duhhh-- What is, auto-mo-bile?!
(grins)
MIKE (+PA)
Those remaining afleet shall train without the benefit of the singular Flagship command. Golden in retreat to the galaxy center, shall train several candidates for the rank and command of Grand-Admiral;-- I shall retire at an early opportunity….
JOHN
(to Jaime)
The first, absolute, vacation, achieved by science.
(grins)
Jeff busies himself keying-up an INCOMING-DATA-receipt …
MIKE (+PA)
Earth fleets shall remain under Commander Dave: Your response to the incursion was exemplary, under his execution as acting Commander-IN-Chief! We are syllabus'ing an agenda of accomplishments. Flagship expects to return a yearly visit.
JEFF
(low voice)
We're accumulating a transmission relayed from U-campus,-- Mike: What do you want me to do with this?
MIKE
(low to Jeff)
Display On-hold.
Jeff keys: A female [REPORTER at a TV-news-room desk] appears paused on TV-image displays, mid-sentence.
MIKE (+PA)
I want you to keep good care of your planet Earth-- and barring an Alien fleet, invasion, you shall.
(to [Dave])
Commander Dave: They're your fleet! Flagship Grand Admiral Michael, out!
JEFF
(keys)
Replay: onscreen.
CONCURRENT: TV: low conversation overlaps without vox-pausing it until the final loud exclamations:
[REPORTER]
… as a reprieve now seems possible. Hundreds of students at the U in California, flooded the President's Office with e-mail messages regarding the course they were taking under one of the professors in the U-F-O drama; And now, it seems the lead professor had already been granted by the Defense Department's Nucleonics Clear-command Division, in Omaha, to conduct an investigation of evidences leading to the possible recovery of abductees and Aliens. The President's Office sees this as sufficient to warrant a retraction, and is preparing announcement of a modified renormalization package for the crews of the star fleet under the self-styled Grand Admiral. A student spokesperson is on vidlink with us….
(awaits TV-ADJUSTMENT)
GARY
(low voice)
I thought they all, came with us!
(grins about)
Junior high school graduate female [STUDENT] MIKEE appears for interview by vidlink; Gary develops surprise (he's her older brother [REF: The StarTrails Game, the para-quell])
[REPORTER] (CONCURRENT)
Michelle: what do you think affected the President's decision most: the amount of e-mail he received, or your ability to link classified documents? And, how did you do that?
GARY
(hushed, blushes)
I told her, to not, tell anyone!
[STUDENT] (CONCURRENT)
It would have to be the authority, by which we conducted our information campaign: This cannot be dealt-with lightly, by officialdom.
JAIME
(low voice back to Gary)
That's your little sister-- junior high-- isn't she?!
GARY
(nods yes)
She wanted to know why I was packing.
[STUDENT] (CONCURRENT)
All document pages were filled and sent in PDF or HTML-5. We log-on'ed the E-1 connection at my brother's Supernet sub-node on U-campus, and used a combination of metasearch mirrors to pull-down dot-gov forms we'd-never-heard-of-before… and we sorted clues on Crypt-Lock's A-I-Master-- it's mostly administrative gibberish… From these we generated status-query lists, forwarded the appropriate department secretaries, thereby retrieving a respectable profile on the team, and 'voi-la'…!
JEFF
How'd she make it look realistic.
GARY
She uses official remailers-- she's an anonymity-nut; practicing member of A-A: user-handle, Anonymo…. She started, Equal-Rights-Anonymous…
JAIME
(low agast)
Your, little MiKee!? She's a bit young for that!- I had no idea;- I thought Anonymo was egregious!
JOHN
(to Jaime)
Of course not: She's anonymous!
(grins)
[STUDENT] (CONCURRENT)
We got e-mailing addresses from the online student handbook; correlated names with the college class-lists; and e-mailed them for permission to mention-- we desiderated that those aboard the U-F-O were automatically permission-granted…. Reconstruction of a mission prospectus on the team was manual labor,--but conferencing helps. And this we mass-e-mailed to find routes to the President:-- as you may know the President's In-box is filtered and anything on U-F-O's goes to c-g-i-bin-13…. Nothing is really classifiably secret on the Supernet when you know how to think like an administration--
(grins)
And tie-up Mae-West or Mae-East for a kilohesit. We could have finished faster if we hadn't pinged spammers hacking the campus stealth server, and re-D-N-S'ed their I-S-P's by temporarily surrogate-share hosting a virtual net of a hundred stealth-servers and overloading their hub….
GARY
(feels surpassed)
Anonymics Anonymous…. She preaches absolute Constitutionality; insists 3-5ths of a vote belongs to Aliens on visa; mass-e-mailed the Attorney General when the F-E-C clamped-down on a resident German donator;- got her I-S-P real suspicious about all that traffic…. Her slogan is, Don't e-mail me if you're-not-nobody. She even threatened to get-even with nobody, when she couldn't register no-where-dot-com. Kids think that's funny.
[STUDENT]
(grins)
That was funny: We created a subnet for them, reallocated their I-POOP, and retro-piped their live spam-traffic!
[REPORTER]
The 'spam'ers' I-poop…
[STUDENT]
Their Internet Point-Of-Origin Protocol: it's the I-P of the Internet Service Provider where they were connected, not their-own-I-P which was a faked path-history…
(resumes)
We reallocated their I-POOP to Sing-Sing Prison.
(big grin for grins)
The flagship crew are STIFLING outright laughter...
[REPORTER]
That would cause a security stir…
[STUDENT]
Yeah but a few hours downtime at Sing-Sing wouldn't disrupt anything important worldwide… it's like mustard, to spam…
JOHN
Is MiKee inventing, this stuff--Why give away a good rerouting…
TV-PAUSE.
JEFF
(keying: abrupt loud)
Mike! We're getting a distress signal from Star Quest!
MIKE
(orders)
Respond, Quest-set! Go to Red, Alert…!
REVERBERATING
SPLICE-DISSOLVE TO:
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND, GALAXY CENTER - RED-ALERT (3RD DAY)
REVERBERATING:
KLAXON sounding, RED ALERT FLASHING, as they slow in the aether corridor, for light-speed entry; Mike, Penny, stand at the Command chair-center; additional 4 WEAPONERS:
JOHN (CONCURRENT)
(measuredly)
2-point-5 …
1-point-9 …
1-point-5 …
1-point-2 …
1-point-0 …
MIKE
(next order)
… Battle stations! Jeff-- any word from Star Quest!?
JEFF
(pauses keying)
No-- and they can't just miss us:
(worrys-keys)
We should have received reply in the slipstream: We know that works!
JOHN
(last measured)
Speed-of light, now!
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
THE METAL-RING CITY: DESTROYED-- gangly segments, twisting, spinning, flipping, precessing, slowly nutating vertically; fragments. Those looking, GASP DISBELIEF,-- at a distance:
CADET
(hands at mouth squeal)
Ahhh!
Jeff turns,- looks;
CADET
(lowers hands: horrific)
They've destroyed, the ring-city…. Where's the elevator?!
JAIME
(somber)
Absolute vacation, absolutely postponed!
CADET
(worried)
Where's Harry and Susan?!
GARY
If they left here on the elevator 4 days ago, they should be safely up, somewhere-- high.
JEFF
But, does this elevator push-up, or, pull-up?!
CADET
We … do we have the technology to repair this?!
GARY
Not on-board: Even repair of this ship requires the moonbase.
CADET
Then we're essentially on leash from our solar system!
GARY
More likely there are moonbases abundant, near every likely planet, around every likely star.
CADET
Then, we need to find, them: before the Aliens destroy, them all!
GARY
An exordium among a trillion stars. More likely they're challenging us, as at Earth; a tough-friend-ship;
(cold quips)
A space-cold-war 3-degrees Kelvin,-
(idles)
Though it must be warmer by a hole…
CADET
(irked)
A waste of installed proficiency!
JEFF
(keying)
Ahhh: We've got a call-- Mike! But it's not, Star Quest!- Nor Gwen's ship -Alien-Gwen's--
(puzzles)
But it must be Aliens,-…
(keys)
MIKE
(inserts, orders)
Put it onscreen!
JEFF
(resumes)
… though not those we've met so far; none of … onscreen!
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN data-analysts starship crew] TWINKLES-IN-- wearing intergalactic-admiral outfits, supercosmosian robe jackets and communications headgear, in their Command.
Flagship skirts twirling librating pieces:
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(protolinguistic)
Allu: Veh-neh!
MIKE
Hello!?
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(cleared English)
Yes-- hello: Welcome to your galaxy center.
MIKE
The ring-city has been destroyed!
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
Yes, we have found this-- it will be repaired automatically in ten mega-hesits: There is nothing more we can do here. From whence do you hail?!
MIKE
We are from planet Earth in a Solar system 20-thousand light-years out: 3-hundred-giga-hesits: 60-kilohesits by aether slipstream: We encountered belligerent starships, and yourselves.
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
We are a cosmos data analyses team: We arrived after the elevator failure.
MIKE
Can you tell us what has become of the elevator? We sent-up two persons, 2-hundred kilohesits ago.
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(gasps)
They, should be safe, at a distance,…
(thinks)
A few kilohesits after they entered:
(explains)
The elevator system ties into quantal vortices in the cosmic rotation of the mass-hole aether superfluid…. But, why are you sending people up?! You'll never see them here again!
MIKE
We-- they went after a friend.
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(surprised)
More!? Why did your friend go up the elevator?!
MIKE
She was abduc'…
(calms)
She went with others-- four of them, maybe five-- they all went-up. Where does the elevator go?
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(unrevealing)
Well-- it goes, up-- outside.
(checks Helm)
MIKE
(learning)
Outside-- our galaxy!?
JEFF
(keys, quick, low)
Mike-- Stark Easter has arrived.
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(works at Helm)
Yes-- no, not simply: Well-outside: the cosmos….
(interrupts)
We are noting the arrival of other starships!
(rechecks)
JEFF
(keys, quick, low)
Star Quest and Gwen's starship are approaching-- but, they're still not transmitting response codes! 99-percentile,- passive identification.
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(worries)
Are these your belligerents?!
(rechecks)
MIKE
No-- these are our team: starship Stark Easter-- and starships Star Quest and, DiAnaStar;
GARY
(low quips)
Good ad-lib, Mike: Di-ana-star.
MIKE
(continues)
They encountered the belligerents with us-- whom we routed back into the aether slipstreams. But, from what direction did you come, that you did not pass the other starships?!
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(unrevealing)
We are on a data-gathering mission in this cosmos: to characterize and establish precise mass-hole aether density, quantal spin moment, vortex sheer, several orders of cosmic C-P-T nutation, and charge stratification closure, of the cosmos. We've taken readings in several core galaxies, and were to return by the elevator, ourselves.
MIKE
I'm sorry to hear that: Where will you go from here?
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(unrevealing)
We are cut-off for the duration-- there is only one elevator in this galaxy…. We shall meanwhile extend our primary data mission, in this galactic cluster … and yourselves?
MIKE
We have taken-on a command-training mission-- to foretell and forestall further belligerent incursion; Our theatre of operations is to-be-determined: We'd be pleased to have you join us.
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(checks crew)
We, can-- we'd appreciate your protective cover: You're commanding an irregular vessel: What is it?
An ordinary starship is attached to a librating piece of ring city. Jaime guides around it:
MIKE
It's an extended version of starship, with an extra stage of computation….
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(elates)
Then we would very much like, to join your team! We have data from 57 core galaxies on this visit, and we would like to process and cross-correlate it with the local cosmic cluster: This'll recover our schedule nicely.
JAIME
(points-out)
There's a starship attached to the ring-city.
JEFF
(keying: quick, low)
That's the supercosmosian's vessel. And, Mike: Gwen's starship is hailing us; but still, not transmitting response codes!
MIKE
(aside orders)
Put them on, concurrently.
(to supercosmosians)
Where is there another, cosmos?!
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
It won't merge for a peta-hesit-- your time; From the inside that's incommensurate, of course. It was captured a hundred peta-hesits ago-- not long after this cosmos inverted; Presently it's in decaying orbit. We're collecting data for an extra-cosmic event.
MIKE
(concerned)
Outside? What sort of event?!
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
It's a scarcity-- an unknowable statistical possibility: In about another ten giga-hesits-- outside-- this cosmos will be swallowed in a monster, mass-hole-complex of a trillion cosmoses-- quite unknown within our local-domain data-classes; It has been so-far impossible to fathom-- and that is our mission: preparing data-gathering posts inside this cosmos; The data-team shall solve the equations, and their descendants shall exit with that information; The now-merging cosmos is just one in its perimeter.
JEFF
(to himself)
Maybe that's what that is …
(busily keys)
[Undergrad CMDR WILLIAM] TWINKLES-IN-- vidlink from Gwen's starship: [look-alike famous: eg. a President]
MIKE
(smiles at [William])
Well-- our prodigal sons' starships return.
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
We'd be pleased to meet your team.
(watches)
MIKE
They are presently …
[WILLIAM]
(overrides pause)
Grand-Admiral Michael, I hope!
GARY
(grins to cadet)
This one is no hallucinated alien spoof!
MIKE
(recalls)
William-- I recall!?
[WILLIAM]
(proudly)
Yes, sir! On the Operation-Diana starship.
JEFF
(keys)
I'll notify Quest-set fleet of its new proper name.
MIKE
Welcome home, young man! They gave you the command of the DiAnaStar!?
[WILLIAM]
(proudly)
Yes, sir: It's my shift: Five of us chain two-each of ten 4-kilohesit shifts under the supervision of two graduate students, for three days, or till you should return!
MIKE
Very good.
(smiles)
And, where have you been, commander?
[WILLIAM]
(admits)
We ventured into aether slipstreams: You'd given us no assignment, so we created one: We found some planets, using long-range nav; and visited one pair of inner planets, ordered much like our own solar system but further from their sun, and their Earth and Venus pair are both habited-- their cultures are primitive, pre-nuclear scientific: We named them, Mearth, and, Earthenus:
(smiles, quickens)
With your permission, sir!
MIKE
(worrying duty)
You landed, on another planet!?
(self-answers)
Permission granted, commander: We'll discuss planetary excursion directives, later.
(orders)
Prepare for taking-on your new commander!
[WILLIAM]
(dutiously)
Yes, sir!
MIKE
(to Penny)
Commander: The ship is yours!
PENNY
(dutiously)
Yes, sir!
(catches surprised)
Gwen's new starship!?
(elated neck-hug kiss)
Thank you, sir!!
(EXITS)
Leaving him standing, pondering his grand-admira-bi-lity….
INT. COMMAND, RING CITY FRAGMENT - WILD SKY (MINUTES LATER)
John navigates a co-gyrating approach about the twirling librating piece with the supercosmosian starship attached; Jaime adjusts the moving course:
JOHN
(for Jaime)
Power-docking has its advantages.
JAIME
(braves a smile)
Makes my task a little easier.
JEFF
Mike--
(sits back, puzzles)
Ask your data-analysts what this message means: I've got an alert that's been sitting here for a week: It claims to be Emergency-Omni-Beacon-3, and broadcasts temporal telemetry: just time data: the longest datum being less than an exa-hesit: 50-billion years; But the signal source is utterly omni-directional!
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
(preventing Mike)
Sir:
(bows)
If I may be so bold addressing an empirator: Sir. Omni-Beacon-3 orbits outside the cosmos and broadcasts in the giga-cycle range, the positional coordinates of this cosmos,- But owing to time-dilation and mass-renormalization at the bottom of this cosmic mass-hole gravity well, it warbles X-rays sporadically in the kilo-cycle range. Apparently your extraordinary vessel can decode it!
JEFF
Then what is it telling us, sir?
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
A lot-- I think:
(considers)
It broadcasts monitored coordinate telemetry; but your computational equipments have interpreted that as an alert situation. This may mean the second cosmos is now merging. And that tells us something more, too: If your starship is made to detect the outer cosmos, then perhap it can travel, outside, or to, the outside, without need of a mass-hole driven elevator; Furthermore, your starship must have been manufactured at the outer zone of the cosmos: That'd explain why it is a new design: They must have removed these inward, for safety. And-- we can go view the cosmic merger process: if you wish!
JEFF
That must require incredible, energy storage!
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
Not greatly: The class of vessels we use outside, contain their energy reserves in localized aether-space wells: You're riding in the visible portion: The manufacturer of your vessel may have adapted the technique into a trans-cosmic utility--
(grins)
It's not unlike the experience of tying your boating gear and fuel cans to fishing-line, and floating them overboard while you bail-out your leaking dingy and paddle for shore:-- if you've enjoyed that competition sport.
MIKE
(smiles)
It'd take aeons to traverse the cosmos, even so, at aether slipstream skip-rates.
[SUPERCOSMOSIAN]
Actually not: By using the same technology, we can be there in less than a giga-hesit, except we'll never return to this exact time-space-- the same as your friends in the elevator.
MIKE
I'll take this under advisement-- thank you.
(turns, orders)
Jeff: Get me a consensus!
INT. SAME (LATER)
With Peter, Gwen, Daniel, standing around, and Jaime frequently leaning to watch: John keys a diagrammatic simulation of a photon-wavelet entering a black-hole: The view with graduated reticules, magnifies as the wavelet spirals-in toward the center, till reaching the photon roche-limit, below which it breaks-up fuzzy as it enters the delineated false-vacuum threshhold at a few electron-radii and increased to an exavolt:
PETER
(answers a question)
The photon deflects into the intensified gravity field.
JOHN
(sweep-points)
The approaching photon slows, rising in energy, and defracts against the gravity aether-ripple; and disrupts at the tidal-shore of the inner cosmos: photons become less stable above a teravolt.
DANIEL
If a photon wavicle sinks directly into the center, its ends wrap around to meet on the opposite side!?
JOHN
A diminishing likelihood as its wavelength contracts: If ever does, the oppositely polarized ends of its wavefront will crash, showering gamma ray flashes inward: That's telescopically unusable background noise; however, the femto-mass wavicle-shower from a photon renormalizing below the photon roche-limit should be visible, though not very well focused: As a photon attains the cosmic interior false-vacuum, it disintegrates in a shower of photons and particles, depending on what the boundary conditions are like: It'll seem to focus, there, rather than at its source. We might construct a concave lens for undoing the effect of cosmic gravity lensing: should be easy!
PETER
Renormalization of wavicles is like the dimpling around an upwelling in a calm pool of water!?
JOHN
Yes: good analogy, Pete: exact, even:
(smiles)
What is mere noise on a photon outside the cosmos, becomes full-size photons, to us inside.
JAIME
What forms the boundary?
JOHN
A collapsed mass-hole is sustained by the interior aether-flux entropy-- transparent to us: gravity takes its toll on the outer boundary, layer-- while inside the aether is compressed and photons travel straight across to the opposite gravitational wall of the cosmos: and bounce-back.
JAIME
But isn't gravity increasing outward from the center?
JOHN
Slightly; only as the aether density changes: At a certain density the aether liquifies and refracts photons no further. Remember that the aether is made of the same constituency as of photons, leptons, gluons, quarks … gravity requires concentration of aether-flux-mass, thus giving rise to a radial density gradient, which acts to slow, and draw-in passing photons. The cosmos interior domain exhibits an inversion, where the aether has halted its radial gradient-- this occurs in collapsing mass-holes, because they collapse outside-inward, rather than inside-first: Curious, but this designates and explains the cosmic-collapse halting-problem: why the cosmos exists at all, and does not collapse forever.
JAIME
But if we're inside a collapse-halted cosmos, why does gravity exist, in here?
JOHN
There's plenty of mass-energy to make our cosmos: The aether-mass in our cosmos is substantial: Wavicles in this cosmos are quantum vortex sub-fragments floating on it's 3-D-sur-space: And the depth of aether causes a slight difference in charge-flux velocity, too-- like wave crests traveling faster than wave troughs, because crests are slightly deeper than troughs: Though the difference is slight, it likely gives rise to the predominance of protons and electrons: rather than antiprotons and anti-electrons.
JAIME
Then the big bang wasn't really a big bang, after-all: Rather, just a big bounce!?
JOHN
Mmmm-- not easy to determine the best explanation: The cosmic collapse bounced; but it also renormalised into micro-mass, and clarified into our present cosmos: Which came firstest, is new theory.
JAIME
Then how are you going to see out?
JOHN
Model the cosmos as a superdense ball of glass with a radial density gradient more extreme than anything we have in the optics lab: Photons may spiral-in, winding hundreds of times around the central cosmos, before reaching; Computations must distinguish and correlate photons at slightly different angles caused by that winding;-- then remove the mess left by cosmic surface ripples and oscillations…. Maybe we have sufficient computing power-- maybe we'll see an interference pattern: maybe a multi-lensed approximation.
JAIME
Like a bumble-bee's compound eye: We'll look out of this cosmos and prove our theories can fly, even though physicists say we can't!?
JOHN
Yup:
(grins)
A bumble bee in a nut shell!
Jaime's baby announcement evokes a spat of humor:
JAIME
Speaking of which--
(to Mike, louder)
I think, John and I should tell you now, Mike….
MIKE
(happy grins)
Congratulations, Jaime!
(chin-hand elbow rest)
JEFF
(looks up,- to Gary)
Did I miss something there?
GARY
(grins)
In the zero gravity of deep-space, a bouncing baby is a hit just once!
CADET
(grins to Jeff)
Jaime's graduated from campus news-reporting to campy news rearported!
JEFF
(laughingly to Cadet)
What, did you say, you're majoring-in?!
CADET
(affects to Jeff)
Mathema-ticklish prooves: I'm a pith-man schooler in the theater of the surd.
JEFF
(chuckles)
That really takes the cake!
GARY
(ejaculates)
The pie!
CADET
(elates)
I could go a cherry pop pie, right now!
GARY
(blushes)
We have the fastest star-skippers in the cosmos, but it still takes a hesit to zip-up our pants.
(grins)
JEFF
(proffers)
Is all this talk about black holes, cosmic mergers, gravity gradients, and big bangs, getting you down, faster than you're getting-up?!
JOHN
(restrains loudly)
O-kay! I set-up the experiment a kilohesit ago: Early results should be, in: Let's take a look.
(keys)
JEFF
(inserts)
Mike: The data-analysts have boarded. And we have your consensus 79-percent in favor, 21-percent spread-- zero against; and no, regrets!
MIKE
(resolves)
Thank you, Jeff--
(orders)
Prepare Quest-set, and the data-team! Jaime-- whenever our fleet is ready: We're, gone'rs!
(grins)
Get us out of here, before you guys explode in whimpled machicolations: Let's hit the cosmic wall!
JAIME
(controls)
Aye-aye, and, Grand aye-aye, Grand-Admiral! We hit the walleyed cosmos!
GARY
(chuckles)
Before we wholely collapse in self-ridiculations.
CADET
(grins)
Before we renormalize in giga-giggles of nano-laughs.
JEFF
Disintegrating nuance to neutrinos.
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
Flagship leaves the broken ring--
EXPANDING GRID exit-corridor …
John keys, presenting his computed-lens construction for looking outside the cosmos--
Which blurry-resolves the whole cosmos background to a bright white smudge surrounded by diminishing blurrier concentric rings of replications, interference pattern of that white smudge, on mottled black background:
PETER
(watching, to John)
You were saying….
JOHN
This starship's outer-hull is covered with a photo sensor array, wideband radio-wave to gamma ray: it can be synchronized and analyzed-- I've been taking 90-percent of our computing power.
GWEN
(observes)
Concentric ring-matrixing: a linear bee's-eye effect!?
JOHN
Yes-- the first-order pre-processed image, raw data, with interference patterns of this main bright spot:
(points to dot)
Let me take that out.
(keys)
DANIEL
(emotes)
A rudimentary cosmic quadrille pad!
IMAGE CLEARS TO ONE SMUDGE.
PETER
(quips)
That's why they call it, the universe-city, Daniel.
(to John)
Are you sure that's fully processed? What is, that single bright smudge?
GWEN
Did the data-analysts say the mega-hole is black?
DANIEL
Interesting point, Gwen-- I'd have thought it was the cosmic pole-jet, in-line with our view; but then there should be two bright spots.
(thinks)
Or, if it were the merging cosmos blazing an entry….
JOHN
For better results we must relocate to cold space, absolute zero velocity relative to the cosmos-- to read-out the COBE-type background-radiation.
JAIME
Would that be anywhere nearby?!
(unanswered)
(0-:-- 'zyoop')
INTO THE AETHER CORRIDOR-- speed ramping-up …
EXT. FLAGSHIP, LEAVING GALAXY CORE, PLANE (HOURS LATER)
(00:00 - music time-sync'ed)
LOOKING BACK on Flagship: the whole galaxy recedes to small, spinning and supernovae flicker-rippling backward:
INT. FLAGSHIP COMMAND, INTER-GALAXY SPACE (HOURS LATER)
Speeding-on ever faster: [optional starships coterie]
Ahead, thousands of supernovae burst, bloom, fade, each within its own expanding light-ring-ripple enhancing the sparkling image-structure of each rotating galaxy before them,- increasing in number and shrinking as speed climbs to above 1000 million astro-skip-rate….
The Supercosmosians enter and greet all; loosely enclosing
CLOSE: Jaime looks forward to their future:
JAIME
(mulls)
Since the beginning of cosmic time; and trillions, of trillions, of starships, each factory-made by billions of intelligent mankind:--
(sighs)
I hope my addition of one makes a difference.
GWEN
(a pat, smiles-back)
Positively, dear.
DANIEL
(to Peter)
A horrid thought just occurred to me: What if the merging cosmos is, antimatter?!
PETER
(to Daniel)
Shouldn't make a lot of difference: Interstellar space is mostly empty: Most all their stars would miss our stars except occasionally a few would crash and burn: like supernovae type-3; spreading their antimatter vapors into the vacuum more tenuous than a nightmare's breath.
DANIEL
But in eventual quadrillions of years, this cosmos would self-annihilate!
PETER
More importantly, before that could ever occur: Astrophysics would have lost its antimatter paradox: There'd be near-equal extancy of both matters for paradoxic theories explaining it.
GWEN
(to Peter)
Then no other people may ever escape this cosmos: One way or the other, they may all stay unbelievers in the next new-age astrophysics!
CADET
(to Gary)
Why are we seeing supernovae burst? Shouldn't the relativistic-effect cause galaxy-time to run more slowly?
GARY
But we are moving toward, the galaxy faster than cosmic light-speed outside our stream: We're catching-up on their history, millions of years.
CADET
(realizes)
Oh-- o-kay-- inter-galactic distances are millions.
JAIME
(emotes)
It's beautiful-- sparkling like a wedding-ring!
DANIEL
A disco-tech encore of cosmic proportions!
PETER
(concludes)
And light, is our pilot! Wave!
(waves to the future)
INT. COMMAND - COSMOS - CREDITS - (CONTINUOUS)
FINAL CREDITS SCROLL;
Flagship Golden zooms-on across the cosmos of galaxies of flicker-rippling supernovae, time sped-up: forward, centrally before, with progressive novae; less, off-centrally aside, with slower, fewer novae; backward, centrally aft, with regressive 'un-novae'….
LONG SHOT: Jaime and John lean and kiss, backdropped by a sparkly galaxy-pair intertwining live with arms splaying;…
Pass through the core-- and far beyond, as that rewinds….
Eventually reaching the merging cosmos: [zooming-in blue-shifted blooming super-super cluster-cluster]
Last credits, windows, graphics.
FADE OUT
THE END.

[credits] [1st prequel] [2nd prequel]



Screenwriter: Raymond Kenneth Petry
Strategic Director: Mr. Raymond Kenneth Petry, Director, SesQuaTercet
Registrar: Wision--SesQuaTercet USA (division of Lanthus Corporation, USA)
Recipient: project N E M O Nuclear Emergency Management Organization
Registered Owner: Lanthus Surrogate Executive Accessions Management

The theory of measurement propounded in this work is not to be cited (as) considering contraband or corpses; Nor are the intellectual appurtenances hereïn to be used for or in the commission of crimes against persons, peoples, properties, or powers (States).
COPYRIGHT: BASIC LIBRARY RULES: NONTRANSFERABLE: READ QUIETLY
© [1997] 1998-2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2019 Mr. Raymond Kenneth Petry