The Stars Came Back (40 page)

Lag: GET
ABOARD!

Trask: The Pilot! And the
cases in back! Get the attaché cases!

Lag
charges back into the cabin of the small flier.

CUT TO

INT
- DAY - Cockpit of flier

The pilot is slumped in his seat, part of the side crumpled into him
, impaling his chest. Lag checks his neck pulse briefly then heads for the back.

CUT TO

EXT
- DAY - Ground outside the crashed flier

Lag emerges with two large
attaché cases. Penger Trask and Lucretia are limping up the stairs while watching the flier. Lag runs to the hatch, throws the boxes aboard ahead of them, shakes his head to them about the pilot, and turns back. Lucretia starts crying as Trask helps her up the stairs into the ship. Lag emerges with one more attaché case and runs for the hatch just as the flier explodes in flames. Lag glances down the side of the ship, sees some people headed for his side door, runs up the stairs and tosses the box in. He brings his rifle to a low ready, clearly willing to use it to prevent boarding, and hits the side button to close-up the side entry. The people headed for the side hatch stop, yelling and angry as it closes in front of them.

CUT TO

INT
- DAY - Cargo bay, view of side door hatchway

Trask emerges, supporting his crying and bloody wife on one side, carrying a box in the other hand. Lag is right behind them, carrying two boxes.
A cluster of refugees huddle by the opposite door, being corralled by Allonia (looking no-nonsense in camo and light armor, hair in a braid, carrying a carbine slung across her chest) and John (Kwon’s son, similarly dressed). Quinn peeks out stairwell.

Lucretia
: That poor pilot!

Lag: Worry about yourself right now. Get up to sick bay. QUINN! Show these two to sick bay! On the double, soldier!

Trask: What are you doing here? I thought-

Lag: What’s in the boxes?

Trask:
Very
important paperwork. But what-?

Lag: We can talk later. How important?

Trask: Very.

Lag looks at Trask acutely, evaluating the expression on Trask’s face. Lag opens a hatch next to the airlock entry; it’s a small storeroom, mostly full. He tosses the boxes in and shuts the
hatch with a thud.

Lag:
Tajemnica
, lock and secure, sensitive materials. (To Trask) You can get ‘em later. Follow Quinn to sick bay. Quinn, show ‘em up, then back to your post in case we need you again.

Trask: Why are you-?

Lag: Just go, we’re kinda busy.

Quinn: Come ON, sir.

They head off for the stairs. Lag strides across to the group of refugees. He looks them over. There are about twenty of them, mostly family groups with kids.

Lag: Any adults here without small children?

Two raise their hands, a man and a woman.

Lag: You stay here! We’ll find a place for you later. The rest of you, follow me.

Lag leads the group towards the stairs.

Lag:
Can anyone tell me what’s been happening?

Several of the refugees talk at once.

Lag: One at a time, please! (Pointing) You first. Walk and talk! Keep moving! Go ahead now-

DISSOLVE TO

EXT - DAY
- Cargo bay ramp

The refugee
crowd has swelled, it’s clear there will not be room for everyone. They get louder, more mob-like.

Kaminski scans the
young, sketchy-looking man standing nervously in front of him.

Homney
: (Anxiously) John Smith, I work in security.

INSET - Scanner blinks red “ID FAIL: Homney, Jonah- unemployed convict, no known residence.

Kaminski looks at Jonah sharply. Kaushik comes to low ready with his rifle.

Kaminski: Clear out!

Homney: You can’t leave me here! They’re coming! If you leave me here I’ll be conscripted! You can’t do this!

Kaushik: (
Raising rifle to point it at Jonah’s chest) Clear out! NOW!

Homney
backs up, still protesting and waving his arms around. Crowd murmurs louder.

Kaminski: (
Under breath to SGT Kaushik) Shit!
Not
good.

F
rom behind the soldiers the jointed mechanical arm snakes from a side hatch with the machine gun it picked up earlier mounted. Homney runs for cover and plunges into the crowd. The gun aims down at the ground near the crowd, in front of the boarding ramp. It rips out a dozen rounds in an arc on the ground around the ramp. From above a harsh, metallic voice, sounding vaguely like Helton roars out.

Ship AI: (OC
on loudspeaker) NOBODY AND NOTHING CROSSES THAT LINE!

Most people cringe back from the shooting and the command.

Lag: (OC, over personal com) Status?

Kaushik: (thumbing mic) Warning shots to keep ‘em back.

Lag: (OC) OK. Keep loading as long as it’s safe. Tell Cooper if it’s time to bounce. Stay frosty.

Kaushik nods automatically, gets both hands back on his rifle.
A good-looking young woman steps from the crowd with a bundle in her arms that looks like a swaddled baby clutched to her chest.

Refugee7: (
Indignantly) You can’t do that! We have a right to leave!

She steps defiantly across the line of bullet marks on the ground.

The gun on the mechanical arm swings crisply and precisely around to her, firing a burst of six shots in a line across her body from her hip to shoulder, including two into the bundle held to her chest. Blood splashes from the four hitting only her, and she collapses like a marionette with the strings cut, hitting the ground on her back.

Ship AI: (OC, more harsh
ly) NO ONE AND NOTHING!

There is a quick, sharp gasp and stifled screams, then everyone stands silently for a second, shocked, absorbing what they just saw. Folks near the line back away, and people
become even more nervous, backing away from the body, licking lips, trying to not look anyone in the eyes, holding hands up to show they are empty. The machine gun on the mechanical arm looks almost alive, waving jerkily back and forth, keeping an eye on everyone, daring them to make a wrong move. Kaminski has his rifle at low ready, too.

Kaushik: Keep calm, and we’ll process and take who we can
for this trip! Anyone gets outta line, ain’t goin’! (Nods toward body) Clear?

The
soldiers look around at the crowd, rifles shouldered and ready. Kaushik motions with his rifle to the front of the line.

Kaushik:
You two next! Come on, ain’t got all day!

The couple move
timidly forward, inching past the bullet line holding their breaths, glancing at the body. As they pass it, and the gun on the mechanical arm seemingly ignores them, they give a slight sigh of relief. Kaminski lowers his rifle, takes up the scanner.

They walk up the ramp to be scanned.
They start to give name and occupation.

CUT TO

W
ide angle view at ground level, angling up toward the interior of the ship. In the foreground lies the dead woman at an awkward angle, blood dribbling from her mouth. Barely exposed under the slightly pulled back swaddling is not a baby wrapped up, but a gun barrel, a com antenna, and some electronics destroyed by a bullet. The bundle is obscured to anyone standing nearby or from on board the ship.

FADE TO BLACK

Setup

FADE IN

INT - DAY - Middeck passageway next to a closed cargo bay window

Lag, Helton, Bipasha, and Cooper look at the growing crowd
of refugees, now up to several hundred, on the cargo deck.

Lag: I think we are being set up.

Bipasha: But I checked the contract source, it was good, the payment bond posted!

Cooper: Well, it damn sure ain’t what I was expecting.

Helton: (To Lag) Why?

Lag: Every
one said they were being driven toward here; other routes closed, and posters and broadcasts saying this was the place to go. A regular campaign for the last five days. Led to believe there were a lot of ships here to fly them to safety, but always anonymous and unsourced.

Bipasha: That’s
not what the news was saying.

Helton: But why?

Cooper
: Doesn’t make a difference.

Helton:
Maybe it does.

Lag: Knowing
why
would shed light on what to do. How many?

Cooper:
More than we can take, for sure.

Bipasha: How many
can we take? If we put some on A Deck, we could-

Helton:
No
. Can’t let them get into crew areas and engineering. We don’t have anywhere close to enough security for that. Maybe a few more families with children on B-deck.

Lag: Right. With that many, any sort of panic would be impossible to control if they are on all decks. We keep
them on the cargo deck, secure the side doors; not comfy for them, but safe for us. If we stack’em standing like spoons there… (brows furrow as he does a quick mental calculation) maybe 3000?

Bipasha: Then we take 3000.

Helton: Can’t.

Bipasha:
He just said-

Cooper: We don’t have the oh-two capacity right now for that many people breathing for more than maybe thirty minutes.

Helton: How long to the refugee center?

Cooper: An hour minimum, if nothing goes wrong. And if we
are
being set up-

Bipasha:
Fly low, keep the aft ramp down.

Helton: Piled with beans, remember? Besides, if we are low enough to not freeze or depressurize them,
we’re an easy target for ground fire. We don’t know what they have or where it is. At that altitude we’ll have to go slow, so it’ll take closer to twelve hours. That solves the air problem, assuming we don’t get one good hit that makes us all dead, but then we have water and sanitation problems. Packed that tight they’ll just have to sweat, shit, stay thirsty and hungry where they stand. Many are already in rough shape, so a riot and crush is likely. Medical problems will just have to suck it up and stand there, might get us targeted as profiteering war-criminals even if we don’t get shot.

Bipasha looks aghast, Lag nods agreement.

Cooper: Isn’t this thing armored?

Helton:
With the cargo doors open it may not do a lot of good. It’s great armor, but I’m not betting my life on it against heavy ground fire if I don’t have to. Impact from a ship is one thing, high explosives and hardened penetrators are another.

Bipasha:
Why not 1500?

Lag: Still have to go low and slow, or high and fast and just let
‘em pass out. They’ll be stacked like dropped toys, half could get crushed and suffocate on the bottom of the heap anyway, especially if we try to take more women, children, or injured.

Cooper: Oh, fer fuck’s sake, how about a thousand, and make
several fast trips?

Helton:
If we
have
been set up every trip increases our chance of being shot. You saw what they did to Trask’s flier.

Bipasha: So we might have to
just leave most of them standing?

Lag: Yes… And we can’t tell the last one in line that we
’re coming back or we raise the risks even higher as word spreads. When Helton or I say ‘lift’, we go
right then
. No countdown or warning. The drives are still hot, right?

Cooper nods affirmative.

Helton: Back to square one; how many, and what course?

Lag: If we knew who and why…

Helton: Piss anyone off lately?

Lag: Lately? (
Snort) You?

Helton: Right. Dumb question.
So, who gains from a refugee problem and us dying so much they’d pay us to come?

Bipasha
: We only get paid on return.

Lag: A politician might use it
to push an agenda. Hmmmm…

Bipasha: Seymore and Darch Industries handle most of the local transport contracts-

Lag: And Councilman Darch just lost a son-

Bipasha
: So getting us killed in revenge, he doesn’t pay out
and
it jacks up the rates, and takes a cut through insuring the ships he knows won’t get shot. Packed full it would make for huge news. People would demand that they do something. Revenge, political leverage,
and
profits. So, now what?