"Design"
ACT FIVE
CUT TO INT. KAHL’S QUARTERS-SPACE
KAHL, MOG, and MAG are standing outside the Guest quarters as Starfleet and Marine officers search their rooms. Everybody is being very polite and the searchers are very respectful but the Klingons still look pissed. KAHL looks amused by something.
MAG
So this is how Starfleet treats those it “protects”? With suspicion?
CALLAHAN
We’re just following procedure. There’s no need to get upset.
MAG
It was my own brother attacked in your hallway, why do you not search the Orions?
CALLAHAN
We’re searching the entire ship, including your room just as a formality. We don’t suspect you or anyone connected to the Klingon delegation-
MOG
And yet you send us into the hallway as you tear apart our quarters!
CALLAHAN
Sir, please-
MAG
I demand to speak to your superior!
SARA (off screen)
Then turn around.
SARA has just exited the turbolift, head held high.
MAG
Commander, tell your female to leave my presence.
SARA
Lieutenant Callahan has orders to search the delegation’s rooms; Lieutenant Callahan’s going to carry them out.
MAG
And yet you have not clearly explained the need for such a search! Why search our quarters? What purpose would that serve when you know that the culprit could only be one of the Orions!
SARA takes a deep breath. Calms herself.
SARA
At this stage in the investigation, we don’t know anything. We’re just trying to eliminate any threats before they arise. (to KAHL) Surely you see the practicality in searching the room of a potential victim for anything dangerous?
KAHL stares at her a moment with an unreadable expression.
KAHL
I do, but only within reason.
SARA
It’s for your own safety.
KAHL
Then by all means continue. I…we, have nothing to hide.
CALLAHAN takes that as permission to continue and motions to the marines to get back to work.
CUT TO INT. BRIDGE-SPACE
WALSH and FROST are standing in front of WALSH’S workstation, watching a computer screen.
FROST (annoyed)
What do you mean you don’t have it?
WALSH
I mean I don’t have it, it doesn’t exist.
FROST groans as WALSH continues.
WALSH
There’s no internal sensor telemetry for that hallway, I’m sorry.
FROST
But how is that even possible?
WALSH
It’s possible because this ship is a broken down piece of shit.
FROST (annoyed)
Crewman, I’d like to hear some thing a little more specific then “broken down piece of shit”.
WALSH rolls his eyes and starts typing.
WALSH
Specifically, our computer has the processing power of a gerbil on a hamster wheel. It’s a twenty third century broken down piece of shit.
FROST
But the sensor array-
WALSH
Yeah, I know, the sensor array is state of the art, but the ship’s computer is hard wired into the Nelson’s infrastructure, we can’t replace it and we can’t update it. Now the sensors can see everything, thirty trillion terabytes of information a second, but the computer only has the ability to process a quarter of that.
WALSH’S screen changes to show a very un-detailed map of the ship’s hallway and little dots representing people.
WALSH
So that’s what we get instead of internal sensor telemetry.
FROST bites his lip, clearly frustrated. There’s a pause.
FROST
Show me what you do have.
CUT TO INT. KAHL’S QUARTERS-SPACE
The Marines are still going through the room, carefully. A few of the diplomats are watching, they’ve got this “you’re gonna pay for this” look in their eyes. SARA and KAHL are on the far side of the room, eyeing each other with masked contempt.
CALLAHAN and JIMENEZ are picking through the luggage of some nameless Klingon.
JIMENEZ
You know that the Major’s gonna have a fit when he hears about this don’t you?
CALLAHAN
Just do as you’re told, Sergeant.
JIMENEZ
It makes no sense! We should be searching the Orions.
CALLAHAN
Kid, leave the thinking to the guys with the big pay grades.
JIMENEZ rolls his eyes.
JIMENEZ
You’ve been watching those
CALLAHAN
Maybe.
JIMENEZ
(Heavy sigh) Quit calling me kid, I’m two years older then you.
JIMENEZ lifts up the bed…
…and discovers a blinking, flashing device attached to the underside.
There’s an audible whine from the inside of the device and a strange blue energy begins to pulse and flicker. CALLAHAN grabs JIMENEZ.
CALLAHAN
Void Ripper! GET DOWN!
The entire room dives for cover as the blue energy blossoms into a black sphere of death. Everything it touches disintegrates. People start scrambling for the door as the ball of death increases in size.
Everyone pours into the hallway. The ball of death has fill the entire room and pushes into the hallways just past the frame of the door. The wall around the room vaporizes as the ball touches it. It suddenly stops, blinking out of existence.
Everyone in the hallway, specifically JIMENEZ, CALLAHAN, SARA, AND KAHL stare in shock at what remains of the room. An emergency force field has shuttered into place around a gigantic spherical hull breach…there is no room anymore.
View from inside the room, dolly back to show the gaping wound in the ship’s saucer.
SARA
FADE TO INT. CONFERENCE ROOM-SPACE
The Senior Officers (MUKET, SARA, WOLFE, NERI, CALLAHAN, and DECKER), minus FROST, are sitting at the table as MUKET presents his findings.
MUKET
A small scale mass generator…first time I’ve seen one used like a weapon though.
NERI
I thought mass generators were used in physics experiments? Why would someone turn it into a bomb?
CALLAHAN
Because when you stuff enough mass into a small space you get a black hole.
Everyone stares are her a minute, surprised she knows that.
CALLAHAN
What? I took physics.
WOLFE
We call them “void rippers” basically somebody takes an ordinary mass generator, attaches a new power source, turns it on to the point of failure and throws it at whoever they want dead.
MUKET
The bomb created a 90 second wormhole inside the ship, anything it touched got sent two light years away from our current location.
DECKER (to SARA)
Sounds like you’re lucky to be alive, sir.
CALLAHAN
It wasn’t luck; the bomb had some kind of defect.
That catches SARA’S attention.
SARA
What kind of defect?
CALLAHAN
Some kind of delayed deployment program, we were all out in the hallway before it swallowed the room.
FROST walks into the room, pushes MUKET out of the way and turns on the small view screen at the front of the room.
FROST
I think I found our assassin.
The viewscreen becomes the crude ship outline with dots, there’s a time code in the lower left corner. FROST taps a button and the time code shifts to the time of MOKAR’S assault.
FROST
This is the hallway just before the attack on Mokar. Notice the dots. (points to two green dots) the green signifies ship personnel, distinguished using their comm badges and the biometric scans in their personnel files. This one’s Neri, this one’s Wolfe, and these three (points to the three yellow dots in the room with WOLFE) the computer doesn’t have their identity on file but we know they’re Wolfe’s brothers, so the computer makes a best guess and says three Klingon life forms who have permission to be aboard.
He taps a button on the viewscreen.
FROST
Watch what happens…
The time code advances and the attack plays out in dot form, WOLFE, MAG, and MOKAR turn the corner, bump into NERI, MOKAR hangs back near the door. Suddenly a red dot appears right next to MOKAR. Every body in the room looks stunned.
WOLFE
Fuck.
DECKER
What is that?
FROST taps the screen.
FROST
That is a single Orion life sign, not recorded previously, it appeared just before the attack Mokar, then disappeared
He freezes the screen.
WOLFE
We didn’t see anyone.
FROST
Nobody did, so I took another look at the telemetry from the General’s quarters.
FROST taps the screen again and the room changes to a dot view of the General’s room. Three Klingon life forms are in the room.
FROST
Mag, Mog, and the General’s personal secretary are in the room.
Two of the dots leave.
FROST
Mag and the other man leave…
The red dot appears near the bed, right behind MOG’S dot.
FROST
Our Orion guest shows up and…
MOG’S dot walks right past the Orion dot.
FROST
…Mog doesn’t even see him.
DECKER
A personal cloaking device?
FROST
Maybe. The funny thing is that after the life sign disappears the door doesn’t open again until just before the bomb exploded-
WOLFE’S comm beeps.
JIMENEZ (Over comm)
Security to Major Wolfe.
WOLFE
(taps comm) Go for Wolfe.
CUT TO INT. HANDBASKET LOUNGE-SPACE
JIMENEZ is part of a small group of Security officers and Marines, gathered in a semi circle around a group of angry Klingons and Orions.
JIMENEZ
I’ve got a situation down here, sir.
The two sides have divided the bar and things look like they’re about to turn violent. MAG, MOG, and MOKAR are at the center of it all.
ORION PIRATE
What did you call me, Klingon dog?
MOKAR
I called you a lying pig, that’s what I called you!
ORION PIRATE
Say one more word and I’ll gut you where you stand!
MOG
Try it greenskin and you will spell your own death!
PROVIX fights his way through the crowd to stand between the two groups of combatants.
PROVIX
Break it up, damnit! Or do you want me to start cracking heads?
MAG
You threaten your guests? Such generous hosts!
PROVIX
I just don’t want to start a war in the middle of my break room, now stand down!
That seems to calm everybody down a little, everyone except MAG, MOG, and MOKAR.
MOKAR
You side with them? TWICE THEY HAVE TRIED TO SPILL OUR BLOOD! TWICE!
PROVIX
We’re still investigating the cause-
MOKAR (enraged)
I woke up in an infirmary with an Orion’s knife in my side! I KNOW THE CAUSE!
The ORION PIRATE has turned his back on the Three Brothers. Before PROVIX can stop him, MOKAR grabs the nearest chair and tosses it at the ORION’S head. It connects and the room erupts in violence.
The Marines struggle to keep order but the Orions are too strong and the Klingons are too fast. People are pulling hidden knives out of nowhere, breaking bottles, and grabbing chairs. This is now an alien brawl. One of the Orions looks right at the camera, roars, and throws a punch into the fourth wall…
Smash cut to black.