Relic Boards Movie

From RelicWiki

Written in 2000 by Blue Vorlon, the Relic Boards Movie is a screenplay of epic proportions from the dawn of the Relic Forums.

Featuring old legends Athexx, Sno, Sorak and Alex Garden as well as the current Lords of the Spire Dyntheos, Delphy, SoulBlighter and the unstoppable ÜberJumper, we follow their battles to defeat an insidious evil burrowing into the very heart of the forum even as another threat lurks in the background...

Contents 1 Scene 1: 2 Scene 2: 3 Scene 3: 4 Scene 4: 5 Scene 5: 6 Scene 6: 7 Scene 7: 8 Scene 8: 9 Scene 9: 10 Scene 10: 11 Scene 11: 12 Scene 12: 13 Scene 13: 14 Scene 14: 15 Scene 15: 16 Scene 16: 17 Scene 17: 18 Scene 18: 19 Scene 19: 20 Scene 20: 21 Scene 21: 22 We interrupt your transmission to bring you this message from our sponsors 23 Scene: 22 24 Scene: 23 25 Scene: 24 26 Scene: 25 27 Scene: 26 28 Scene: 27

Scene 1:

General Discussions: INT. DAY

Fade up from black

The scene opens to a wide shot of the General Discussions room. Its quite crowded people are huddled into groups talking, a number of newbies are lying unconscious on the floor. Many doors lead off the main room, on each door is a label, i.e 'in defence of science.

There's an air of relaxation about the room, Soulblighter, HV-Cruiser, and Tekron are talking in the centre of the room. The main doors open, we see sno enter the room in silhouette from the blinding light streaming through the double doors. The doors swing closed. Sno looks at Soulblighter, Silence dawns on the room, people slowly edge away, some hide behind hastilly propped up tables. Sno and Soulblighter still remain staring resolutely at one another. Soul pulls back his jacket to reveal a ban stick at his side. Sno looks carefully at the ban stick, then at soulblighter, then with a rush sno leaps into an empty room with a yell. Soul charges after him into the room. The door slams, sounds of furniture smashing is heard inside. Sno emerges being held by Soulbligher, Soul then wraps a chain around the door and padlocks it before talking sno away.

Athexx: (Voice Over- Film Noir style) *sighs* Just another day at the Relic Boards.

Cut To: Athexx's Control Room. INT. DAY

We see a gloomy dark control center. Athexx Sits at his desk surrounded by monitors, a large Ban Stick rests on the wall behind him. The only light in the room emanates from the computer screens.

Athexx: "Every day, I do my rounds, watching, waiting for the offenders to come,

As Athexx talks we cut to the different rooms, General Discussions resembles a large Lounge or Common Room. In Strategy Calaban and Majorfreak Push small army counters around maps wearing full battle dress uniform. Editing resembles an out of control science lab with Dmille, and Wulfius Khan Taking apart various computer systems. In Bug Submissions Shin Stands with a large hammer raised above a computer screen, whilst Uberjumper In full chemical warfare gear sprays a pile of homeworld discs.

Athexx: " I hope they wont but they always do... thats why I'm here, thats why they call me... administrator"

-Dramatic Music-

Run Credits...

Scene 2:

In the Sigma Room FoX is surrounded by several Animal Specimens in cages, he is wearing a white coat and holds a Syringe in his hand. Leaning over the operating Table we see him inject the syringe into something we cant yet see. Suddenly FoX backs away... we see a huge shadow of a thing advancing towards him...

FoX: "No, you cant be, I created you, keep back obey your master!"

The monster lunges at FoX. Before he can reach the alarm bell on the wall he is siezed in two huge jaws,

FoX: Aiiieeeeeeeee- *gurgle*

-Later that Evening-

Cut to: Website Forum. INT. NIGHT

Dmille Is patrolling the rooms. He is holding a flashlight and a Banstick. All the lights are off and we can see him slowly walking down the corridor. His footsteps echo eerily along the corridor. He approaches the website door. Brushing away the cobwebs he slowly pushes open the door. Sweeping the room with his flashlight he takes a few steps inside. Satisfied its empty he turns to go as he does we hear a sound. We cut to a Close Up of Dmille's Face frozen in fear,

Dmille: "what the?..."

sounds of munching...

Cut To: General Discussions.INT.

In Sharp contrast to the previous scene General Discussions is still well Lit. Normality (For GD anyway) Appears to have returned. Tekron is busy with a paintbrush painting His Sig in one of the rooms and a large crowd is watching him. We see downslope and Squiggle Deep in conversation standing by a vending machine.

Downslope: "No squig you cant seriously be teling me you think Ground Control is gonna be better than HW:C"

Squiggle: "Why not, Ground Control is a great game, its new its original, I dont see how HW:C, as an expansion could be better"

Downslope: "But its just Red Alert in 3d"

Squiggle: "Ahh come on slope, you know theres more to it then that."

Downslope: "well maybe, but I still think that-"

He is Cut off by FoX akwardly walking through the main doors. He is looking off balance and his white scientist coat is ripped in several places. Ungberg approaches him,

Ungberg: FoX man, you Ok? you look kind of... ill.

FoX: "yes... everything... is... f-...-ine"

Without waiting for a response FoX, eyes glazed over stumbles out the room

Scene 3:

Athexx's Control Room.INT.Day

Athexx is sitting in his chair studying something on his desk. We can only see him from behind his silhouette projected against the wall. We hold this for a moment before...

HarManOff: (Out Of View) "Erm... Ath, sir?"

Athexx Whirls round on his chair glaring at HarManOff who is standing in the doorway sheepishly.

Athexx: "Yes?! What do you want"

HarManOff: "Sorry to disturb you sir but erm... its FoX... theres something you should see"

Dissolve to:

Bug Submissions- Medical Emergency Thread.INT.day

The picture is blurry, as everything becomes clear we can see a white ceiling above us and a light is shining straight into the camera. Suddenly Athexx wearing a breathing mask Peers over at the camera. We realise we're viewing the scene from someones point of view. Athexx looks inquisitively at the camera,

Athexx: "Interesting... what's happened to him?"

The camera cuts back to showing the whole scene. FoX is lying strapped down on a table. Athexx stands up straight and looks at Toksin who is in full surgeons uniform scalpel in hand. Uberjumper, Soulblighter and RipperT Stand at the back of the room watching the proceedings. A large is crowd is pressed up against the windows.

Toksin: (In a bad German Mad Scientist Accent) "I cannot tell ze prescise cause of ze infection at zis time. I vill have to perform more tests."

Athexx: "Well do you have a rough idea of a prognosis..."

Toskin: "Vell... All I can say for sure is zat, (There is a dramatic pause) The virus is totally unlike anythink I 'ave ever zeen before. It is not of Relic Origin"

Athexx is visibly shocked by this. He takes a step back and beckons for the three moderators behind him to come closer.

We cut to the crowd outside. They can see whats happening but they cant hear anything.

Disco Stu: "Green keep your big head down I cant see whats going on"

TopTen: "Shhh I'm trying to listen!"

Malsar: "Ten... you fool its sound proof glass you cant hear anything anyway"

sno: "argh gerroff you newbie..."

We cut back to the examination room. Toksin is covered in blood and is peering into a microscope. Suddenly he backs away, face frozen in fear.

Athexx: "What is it?? Toksin? what have you found?!"

Toksin: (shaken) "ze virus it appears to be replicating itself... creating duplicate copies inside FoX's bloodstream... in less zan tventy four hours it vill be fully grown!"

Cue faces of shock from all around.

Scene 4:

#Homeworld (IRC room).INT.Day

We dissolve from the tension of the last seen to the relative bedlam of IRC.The room is relatively populated with various people/creatures of all shapes and sizes. Obithrawn is sitting on a comfy chair lazilly chucking paper aeroplanes around the room. HV-Cruiser is standing by the door holding a banstick in anticipation. In the corner a small anime creature: Mokachu is sitting on a table. At the end of the room Rupract, and Freeze are sitting on two thrones. Rup has a giant glove and a baseball cap bearing the slogan 'Spankmaster'. The door opens, Gfuggin (?) walks in.

Mokona: "Puuu Puu Puuu!"

Obithrawn: "y0's"

HV Cruiser eyes up the new arrival carefully,

Camtarn: "Gfuggin is on #sex #teens #brisbane #cyberchat!"

Gfuggin: "Hi"

(In slow motion) HV-Cruiser leaps through the air towards Gfuggin...

HV-Cruiser: Noooooooooo...

HVC swings the ban stick, Gfuggin looks up and is hit squarely in the face, He slowly sails through the air back out through the door. HV-Cruiser lands and Grins

Obithrawn: "Nice one cruiser"

Mokona: "Pu Pu-Pu PUUUUU!

It smiles. The room returns to relative normality again.

Mew-CK: "I hate those damn drifters-

The door creaks open again,

Mew-CK: (continued) -Oh man... not again!"

HV-Cruiser raises his ban stick again...Athexx, Flanked by Peregrine, and SockMe both in the full uniform of the Relic Board Defence Force, enters the room.

Athexx: "We're calling an emergency meeting, come to the Forum Issues room in 10 minutes. Its urgent... (he looks down) We're in serious trouble."

As quickly as they arrived Athexx & co. turn and leave. The various Inhabitants of #homeworld look at each other blankly.

We dissolve to:

EXT.Space.We see a small craft roar away from the Relic Mothership.

Transport Shuttle.INT.Day Pale sits in the shuttle looking thoughtfully back out at the rapidly shrinking Relic Mothership.

Pilot: "We're approaching the Sierra Nebula now sir..."

Pale: "Very good... bring us in"

The shuttle enters a brightly coloured gaseous region. In the center of the clouds a floating metropolis hangs in the sky. The shuttle's main engines kick in and it roars towards the station.

Pale: (Speaking into comm system.) "No I dont Have a landing Permit... I'm trying to reach Gromit The Moderator... (The ship rocks for a second) Woah! Wait... a minute! (A crackled voice is heard over the comm.)

Sierra Arrivals: "Very well, you're cleared to land in Homeworld General Discussions"

Cut To: Sierra Boards.INT.Day

In stark contrast to the yellow and blue of the Relic Boards the Sierra boards are painted in a brilliant white. People are wandering around, talking in groups. The Atmosphere is relaxed, Everyone has a picture attached to their face like a mask.

Pale Coughs. No-one notices. He coughs louder

Pale: if i- IF I COULD HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE... thank you. I have been recently contacted by Athexx, As you may or may not have heard the Relic Boards are in crisis. As a result Athexx has called a general meeting for all of you who are, of have been Relic Board members. I urge you to attend, The shuttles are ready outside if you could make your way...

A plascicine dog, Gromit pads up next to pale,

Gromit: I have also spoken to Athexx, He needs all of you, you have my permission, nay my encouragement. Go, save your home!

Gromit holds up the Flounder of Thwacking and the Cup 'O' Inebriation. Everyone cheers and slowly files out towards the exits.

We cut to a montage of shots of the various relic rooms, strategy,fiction, HW:C, editing. In each room the people are slowly leaving, making their way to the meeting.

Scene 5:

Forum Issues- Meeting Thread.INT.Day.

There's a large crowd all waiting for the meeting to begin. The RMBDF are dotted along the walls flamethrowers in hand. The various Moderators are standing by the exit, arms crossed waiting in silence. We hear a general murmur from the crowd, and cut to various faces. We cut to a close up of a worried looking dmille, he is pale and anxiously looking around the room.

With a whine of feedback Athexx followed by Toksin steps up to the podium, the room falls silent.

Athexx: Well firstly I would like to take the time to thank all of you for being here, I appreciate many of you have had to travel a long way to attend... (he coughs) As you may... or may not know the Sigma forum has been closed off and FoX has been taken... ill. We also believe some kind of creature may be habitating the now locked Sigma room, Toksin will explain exactly what we believe we're up against.

Toksin: Er Good Evenink everyone... from my preliminary analysis of FoX's infection it appears zat 'e 'as been bitten by... somethink... around ze lower torso area. The bite must ave carried an organism into his bloodstream. Zis organism appears to be... replicating itself using FoX as zome kind of a Host body for what purpose I 'ave not yet discovered.

There is a ripple of uncertaintity through the crowd.

Toksin: Ahem... Ze virus appears to need FoX alive for now, so at ze moment his condition is stable if dangerous-

Mantis : "So what are we going to do about this... thing then?"

Athexx steps forward

Athexx: We are planning... an expedition into the Sigma room to capture the creature... alive we may need to extract some s-

Sno: "I say we kill the fucker!"

The crowd turns to look at sno, half in encouragement half in disapproval,

Athexx: "WE May need to collect some samples... mindless violence wont solve anything..."

Sno: "Oh yeah?!" He raises the RTS?? Triple Barreled Shotgun "I say we go there... we find it.. and we blow it away!"

Cheers

Omnislash: "For once I have to agree with sno... there is obviously a hostile presence here... It needs neutralising"

SirGideon: " I really dont think going in there guns-a-blazing is the solution, we have no Idea of what it can do, if its alone, if-

Disco Stu: "-I agree with sno, lets fill the sucker full of lead!"

The_Preacher: "Well you would agree with sno wouldn't you stu?!"

Disco Stu: "Whats that supposed to mean Preacher boy...?!"

The crowd devolves into two shouting factions, each arguing with one another, the meeting looks like turning into bedlam

Athexx: "People! Calm down!"

No-one really notices, or is paying attention. Athexx nods to the RMBDF who begin to lock the exits. The moderators take a step forwards.

Athexx: "Please... (no effect) RIGHT! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS! (he raises his banstick...)

Everyone is shocked by Athexx's sudden display of anger, and stops to listen,

Athexx: "finally... anyone causing another disturbance will suffer the consequences... (the room quiets down suddenly) Thank you... now to business, we need a number of different tasks. Peregrine and Matt of the Relic Message Boards Defence Force are going to need help securing the forums... we need somepeople to help Toksin work on this virus, someone needs to talk to FoX, see if they can work out what he was working on in there. Finally we'll need a team to go in to the Sigma room... With me to... to... investigate, for this we'll need a number of different...

dmille Shakes his head and turns away towards the exit, scratching his head nervously the camera follows him as he slowly, slightly unstable, walks past the confused moderators out the main door. Athexx spots this and shoots a look at [b]Soulblighter, Soul shrugs and whispers a word into IcecreamLt.Dan's ear. Dan nods and hurriedly runs out following dmille. The music builds up towards a sinister pitch. IcecreamLt.Dan reaches dmille.

IcecreamLt.Dan: "hey dmille wait up!"

dmille: [i](without tunring round) "Go back to the meeting Dan."

IcecreamLt.Dan: "no seriously... dmille... whats up?"

dmille: "nothing, its, its... nothing."

Dan reaches dmille, he taps him on the shoulder. dmille begins to turn round. We cut back to the meeting

Athexx: "right if everyone has their assignments we should be able to sort this minor disturbance out and return to normality. Or (he smiles) whatever counts for normality round here..."

Everyone lets out a little laugh. dmille turns round, his eyes are glowing and he bares a mouthful of fangs

Athexx: (echoing) "return to normality"

The shadow of the dmille-beast rises up over Dan's shocked face. He opens his mouth but is too shocked to make a sound.

Athexx: "return to normality"

We cut to dmilles glowing eyes and then back to Dan's terrified face

Athexx: "or whatever counts for normality round here"

We see the shadow of something knocking dan to the floor before bending over him jaws open.

Fade to black.

Scene 6:

The screen is still black after the last horrific scene..

Packrat: (Voice Over): Personal log, StarDate 22.43.67.98.76.12.34.23.56.76.... (He carries on rattling off numbers for about 2 minutes)... etc.... Preparations have been hard, we've all been working flat out for days now.

We see a sequence of shots of various board members securing doors, loading weapons, peering over technical logs etc.

Packrat:... I dont really see why we're going to so much fuss over this one creature, I'm beginning to suspect that they know something we dont. Why their not telling us i'm not sure... but sooner or later somethings gonna give. And another thing...

He lowers his voice slightly as if someone might hear him,

Packrat: People have been disappearing... first its been dmille, then IceCreamLt.Dan, now some of the others have started to vanish. Everyone's not noticed yet... or they're pretending not to notice... And, the stress is beginning to get to some of them...

We see Soulblighter and Uberjumper throw a gibbering drooling Green 3 into a small side thread,

Packrat: But for the most part we're just about managing... but the kind of preparations we're making... It's as if we're preparing for an invasion or something. (He sighs) Close entry.

There's a beep. The screen fades up to show Packrat standing in a little side corner of the Strategy forum. He puts his log in his pocket and slowly walks into the main area of the forum. There is a large three dimensional model of the Relic Boards in the centre of the room. The lights are all on and the windows have all been nailed shut. Two RMBDF members are guarding the main door, a mass of machinery and equipment has been dragged into the forum and many of the threads have been commandeered for storage. In one of the side threads Calaban appears to be discussing defence tactics. We dissolve to...

Fiction.INT.Day

SockMe is adressing a group of boarders, he is holding a large machine gun in his hands and has assorted weapons and pieces of equipment around him. The boarders are all standing sharply to attention. The camera moves in slowly up to the window, we can see SockMe talking but we cant hear him, Suddenly we cut to a close up.

SockMe: "Right listen up you maggots... before you can join my Beloved Defence Force we're gonna have to knock you into shape. From now all You are all maggots... sorry did I say maggots?! Thats too good for you scum you're worse than maggots... you're just

He notices ceejayoz giggling slightly at the back...

SockMe: "I'm sorry... do I amuse you private?... DO I AMUSE YOU PRIVATE?!"

ceejayoz: "SockMe? uh... what's with this military crap?"

SockMe punches ceejayoz squarely in the stomach, ceejay doubles up and collapses on the floor. Athexx walks in the door.

Athexx: "What's going on here?"

SockMe whirls round sees Athexx then looks back at ceejay. He scratches his head

SockMe: "Sorry ath... I guess I've been watching too much full metal jacket, perhaps I got a bit carried away."

Athexx gives a knowing smile gestures for the assembled crowd to sit down.

Athexx: "well... as you know you have been picked as the team to go with me into the sigma forum and to... to... erm... to... Chris??!"

Everyone turns in the direction of Athexx's gaze. Chris Is standing in the doorway resplendent in High Heels, a blonde wig and a dress. Everyone is momentarily dazzled at the huge amounts of makeup he has plastered over his face.

Chris: "Sorry I'm late"

Silence

Chris: "... erm guys? (He realises what he's wearing) oh this, Well isn't it obvious?"

Silence

Chris: "I'm sarah michelle gellar I thought that she's such a badass in Buffy that perhaps the thing will have watched the show and seeing me, or 'sarah' will immediately run away in abject terror"

Everyone looks at chris with utter amazement.

Chris: "You see... you didn't think of that one did ya guys! Told you it was a good idea to bring me along."

Athexx sighs, shrugs and gets on with his briefing.

Cut to: Int.Bug Submissions.FoX's Medical emergency thread

FoX is lying strapped down to the bed. He is hooked up to various machines, wires and gizmo's. Toksin walks in carrying a clipboard with FoX's chart,

Toskin: "Tekron, you can begin studyink ze notes vrom FoX's last experiment here, ([i]he gestures to a chair besides one of the more hefty looking machines) ... Tekron? Tek vere are you?"

Toksin turns round and puts his hands on his hips

Toskin: "Tekron hurry up please"

Tekron: (out of view) "Sorry Doc... its hard y'know"

As tekron enters we see why he has taken so long, he is dragging his sig behind him and the weight is slowing him down

Tekron: "I tell you what... these .JPEG's: small in file size... but damn heavy!"

Tekron props his sig against the wall and goes and sits down confronted by a huge stack of notes.

Toksin: "Vell then... how you say? lets get crackink?"

We see time lapse footage of Tekron peering over pages and pages of derranged scribbles that constitute FoX's notes, the pile of Papers becomes smaller and smaller as Tek works his way through them. The room goes black. The_General enters the room with a flashlight, he searches the room until his light passes upon the sleeping form of Tekron, head down on the desk surrounded by papers. He's snoring.

The_General: "Tek? what are you doing still here?"

Tekron: "What? huh? I'm up I'm up! oh...(He realises where he is) Oh man... I've been scouring these stupid notes for Hours now, Nothing, Zip Its all rubbish (he throws a handful of papers up in the air) Its crap! Meaningless Garbage!

In frustration He Kicks the table. A piece of paper slowly falls past his eyes. He slowly bends down and picks it up

Tekron: "Oh my god... this is it This is what he was doing! He was... Oh dear..."

His face turns from delight to shock. He drops the paper.

Tekron: I know whats in there... what he created. We've got to warn Athexx! Quickly general!"

The two of them charge out the door. The camera settles slowly turns to the single sheet that caused so much fear in tekron. Only a few words and a hastilly scribbled diagram is visible, the words "Amazingskills" "sno" "AOL" and "Sorak" are ringed.

Scene 7:

Corridor.INT.Night

Its dark, outside the sigma forum Athexx and his squad of marines lie in wait. They're all wearing hi-tech body armour and appear to be armed to the teeth with Assault Rifles, grenades, handguns et al. Of the marines we can see, Sno is wearing a pair of 'Arnie' sunglasses and carries obsessively large shotgun. Omislash has 'Lord Science' daubed on his helmet and appears to have strapped a bunsen burner to the side of his rifle as a quasi-flamethrower. Squiggle has plastered camo paint all over himself and instead of the usual assault rifle is armed with a very scary looking minigun. Matt (the pimp) Has painted his body armour sheet black and buzzing, ( See if you get that one -blu) is heard from his backpack. Peregrine, in second command, Is holding a motion scanner ahead of him, His rifle lazilly slung on his shoulder. SockMe Has forgoed his normal combat helmet and instead is wearing a large Stetson and a pair of sunglasses. He has 'born to surf' scrawled on his gun. Chris Is equipped with a very pointy stake, some stillettoes and a blonde wig that causes his Helmet to be elevated about 6 inches off his head.

Athexx gestures for everyone to keep back as he approaches the door. Taking a deep breath Athexx takes a swing at the door with his banstick. The heavy door is comes crashing down a haze of dust and splinters under the force of the blow, Ath switches on the flashlight on his helmet and takes a careful first step into the forum, he makes sure the lobby is clear before gesturing for the others to follow him. The room is pitch black only illuminated by the multiple beams of light shining over the various junk lying round.

Peregrine: "Ok people, split up check each thread one by one just like we said"

The Camera follows various pairs of marines as they gingerly open each thread door, carefully checking inside. We cut to various overhead shots, and tracking shots illustrating the vunerability of the characters. Mantis and Green 3 are carefully checking through various animal cages and medical equipment in one of the abandoned threads,

Green 3: "Sure is creepy in here"

Mantis: "Uh-Huh"

Green 3: "All these wierd experiments that must have gone on here... splicing animals together and stuff..."

Mantis: "Yeah you hear the stories... "

Green 3: "heres a good one... what if you crossed a "

Mantis: "Very funny Green, take a look over by that stack of boxes would ya..."

Green 3: "Sure"

Green goes over and starts checking behind and under a large badly stacked pile of boxes. Suddenly something flashes past the camera, Green catches it in the corner of his eye

Green 3: "What the f-

Green Opens Fire, Liberally strafing the room with bullets the noise is deafening in such a enclosed space, Mantis charges up to green Holding his rifle in front of him

Mantis: "What?! What is it!"

Green 3: (Whispering) Over there... something... Green starts backing away slowly.

Mantis shines his torch on the area green points to, With a large hissing noise Mr Fluffers comes darting out of his hiding place, snarls at mantis and vanishes into the gloom.

Mantis: "Green you idiot it was only Mr Fluffers!"

Green 3: "wha- what?"

Mantis: "It was a cat!"

Mantis' comm-link crackles and splutters into life

Peregrine: (Through Comm-Link) "Mantis? Green 3? report We heard gunfire?"

Mantis: "Its nothing sir, Green thought he saw something and got a little trigger happy... its nothing to worry about it. We're clear here Peregrine"

Peregrine: "good, tell Green 3 to keep that itchy trigger finger of his under control ok?."

Mantis: "Green, Peregrine says cool it in future ok?"

Green 3: "Okay... sorry Mantis It wont happen ag-"

There is a slight rush of air past Mantis' head

Mantis: "Green?... Green? He begins to get worried and nervously starts looking around Where the hell are you man! This isn't funny I tell you..."

Mantis stops walking... he sees a trail of blood along the floor leading around the corner he's just about to go round

Mantis: "Oh man..."

He checks the ammo capacity on his rifle, grits his teeth and with a roll throws himself round the corner

We Cut to INT.Sigma forum- disused thread.

Squiggle and HarManOff are working their way through a long dusty corridor aside from the twin beams of their torches its almost pitch black. All we can hear is the echoing of their footsteps against the metallic floor. Suddenly the sound of distant gunfire can be heard, both of them stop dead. HarManOff reaches to his comm-link.

HarManOff: "Uh... what's going on out there? Soulblighter?..."

A crackled voice comes over the comm

Peregrine: "Mantis is reporting contact, he needs assistance fast Squiggle, Harmanoff, Disco Stu, Sno. Your pairs are closest to his position lend the guy a hand okay"

HarManOff: "Squig we gotta move Mantis is in trouble"

Squiggle: "Shhhh!..."

HarManOff: "Whadda you mean shhh? we gotta move Squig (He rams a clip into his rifle and turns round to face squiggle) "Stop playing around and get yo-"

Squiggle is crouched down looking towards a strange shadow being cast upon the wall. Harmanoff takes a deep breath

Squiggle: "I think... we've got company" (He brings his weapon up and very slowly begins to advance)

HarManOff: "Squig... get back don't get any closer!"

Squiggle: "This bastard's mine"

As harmanoff raises his rifle his torchlight catches the creature for a second. We can only see a glimpse but the light glints off something resembling very sharp claws. The shadow jerks up instantly and what appears to be a head turns to look at Squiggle

Squiggle: "Dammit!"

Squiggle opens fire with a roar as his Minigun lets rip, in the muzzle flash something leaps through the air with a loud hiss towards him. Before we can see what happens the camera jumps back to Peregrine and Soulblighter co-ordinating the operation from the main Sigma Lobby. We can hear faint shouting and sporadic bursts of stattaco machine gun fire echoing down the corridors.

Peregrine: "Squiggle?! HarManOff!... Soul this is rapidly turning into a nightmare, Now there's two of them"

A beep comes out from his motion scanner

Peregrine: "three of 'em!. (He taps a button over his comm system) "cenjpas, Starblade watch it contact heading your way... 10 metres to your left side"

Another beep is emitted

Peregrine: "No hang on... that cant be right..."

beep

Peregrine: "Oh man... Soul..."

Soulblighter: "Yeah?"

Beep-Beep

Peregrine: "Theres one of em heading straight to us..."

Soulblighter: "What? There cant be look there's nothing there... its open ground"

Beep-Beep,

Peregrine: "7 metres" Beep-Beep

Peregrine: "5 metres!"

Soulblighter: "But theres nothing there"

Beep-Beep...Beep-beep

Soulblighter frantically scans the area around him... Peregrine is scrambling for his gun

Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep

Peregrine: "3 metres!" He slaps a clip into his rifle and involuntarily steps back

Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep

Peregrine: "Its right on top of us!"

Soulblighter: "But.."

The beeping becomes one continous noise. Soul Suddenly spots something,

Soulblighter: "Dammit there it is!"

He spins round and opens fire, the camera begins to slow down, in slow-motion he pours fire up towards the ceiling, the camera slows down to an almost standstill, we fade out

Scene 8:

Strategy Forum

Kyra_Maanan sitting in his command chair Is trying to co-ordinate the chaos that is rapidly developing in the Sigma room. He is desperately shouting orders down the comm-system whilst people scurry around him carrying out various tasks.

Kyra: "Soulblighter? Peregrine?... please respond? Soul?"

We hear the empty hiss of static emerging from the comm,

Kyra: "oh man... right Sno, Disco Stu pull back to the main lobby, go look for Peregrine and Soulblighter... watch yourselves, these things seem to be coming out the walls."

Disco Stu: "Confirmed"

Kyra turns to look at the tactical map for a second, he lets out a sigh as he see's more and more blips heading towards the rapidly decreasing circle of marines. He turns to look at Manticore busy on a seperate console. Manticore shakes his head.

Kyra: "Right thats it we're pulling them out of there"

He reaches over to the comm system before he can touch the transmit button a loud voice rings out.

dmille: "Stop."

Kyra: "what the... (he turns round to see dmille standing in the corner of the room) dmille? Where have you been?"

dmille: "You can't pull them out of there kyra, not now..."

Kyra: "Look, look at that screen... they're outnumbered and surrounded, we need to get them out... NOW"

dmille: "If you cause them to retreat their efforts will be in vain"

Kyra: "Unless you want the blood of those marines on your hands they must fall back.."

dmille: "Are you countermanding my authority Kyra?"

Kyra looks a way for a minute and sighs... dmille allows himself a small smile. Kyra suddenly snaps back,

Kyra: "Yes sir... I am"

He storms over to the console

Kyra: "All marines, i repeat ALL marines fall back, get out of there now, they've won this round"

A chorus of acknowledgements emerge from the comm-channel. Dmille glares at Kyra, we slowly zoom in, closer and closer until we can see only his eyes. We cut back to:

Sigma Forum.INT.Day - We initially can see only a pair of eyes as in the scene before the camera pulls out quickly to see HarManOff breathing heavilly leaning on a wall, he has a number of horrific looking scratches on his body and is bleeding slowly but surely. He is still clutching his assault rifle like his life depends on it. (Which it does... really). Suddenly we hear a sustained roar of a gun and an alien screech. As the camera pans round we (and HarManOff) see Squiggle emerging from a side passage holding a smoking minigun in one hand and a grotesque alien head in the other. Squiggle also appears heavily wounded.

Squiggle: "Stupid ugly things..."

In an act of frustration more than anything else Squiggle hurls the head at the wall, it hits with a sickening screech and hits the floor. Squiggle Looks down at it, from his POV we finally see what one of the aliens looks like, it appears a horrific melding of a human and some sort of giger-esque (You couldn't of guessed it huh? -blu) animal. While retaining some resemblances of human features it has been grossly distorted into something completely different. The mouth in particular is far larger and has row upon row of small razor teeth, it resembles a sharks mouth more than anything.

HarManOff: "Where are these things coming from??"

Squiggle: "Your guess is as good as mine Harm..."

The comm-link splutters into life. We hear Kyra's general retreat.

HarManOff: "Aha... time to go children."

Squiggle: "Indeed... discretion is the better part of valour Harm."

They begin half running, half walking back... constantly checking every opening, every airduct and passageway as they go,

HarManOff: "very poetic Squig."

Squiggle: "Why thank you..."

We cut to see Mantis sitting against a wall, bleeding profusely. He is still holding his pulse rifle. We slowly pan round and see a number of alien corpses ahead of him lying in a pool of green ichor and blood. He slaps another clip into his rifle and looks around him. We hear a hissing sound coming from somewhere in the near vicinity, Mantis twists round and opens fire with a deafening clatter at a blur of movement up ahead of him. The rifle dies and we hear the echoing noise of the empty bullet cases hit the ground. Mantis obviously half delirious with pain is still vainly squeezing the trigger and the click-click of the empty gun echoes throughout the cramped corridor, we hear the hissing again... this time much louder and closer. Mantis looks up and sees one of the creatures above him peering down. We cut to a medium shot and see the Creature leap of the top of the shelves onto him. Mantis desperately struggles with the creature holding its snapping jaw no more than a couple of inches away from Mantis's own face. Suddenly he rams his hand down the creatures throat.

Mantis: "You want to eat me? Eat this!"

With a gentle pinging noise we see a pin from a grenade hit the ground, Mantis grins at the drooling visage that confronts him.

We cut to a shot of Disco Stu running back towards the main lobby where Soulblighter and Peregrine were earlier, Suddenly with a deafening bang one of the threads to the right of him Erupts into flames in a gigantic explosion. Stu has to shield his eyes for a second because of the intensity of the flames. He manages to regain his composure and carries on through the thick dust and smoke generated by the explosion, as he gets nearer and nearer the exit we can see flashflight and the muzzle flash of a machine gun in the distance. Stu breaks into a run towards the light, we begin to see the figure of Soulblighter emerge from the dust he is standing next to the prone body of Peregrine and is desperately holding off almost half a dozen creatures hell bent on his demise. Disco Stu joins soul, his pulse rifle echoing the automated chatter of Soul's.

Disco Stu: [i](between fire) "Need a hand soul?"

Soulblighter: "Glad you could make it! Gah!" (One of the creatures is torn in half by a burst of his rifle)

Disco Stu: (Shouting above the noise) "We're pulling out of here!"

Soulblighter: "I know, let me hold these demon-spawn off whilst you get out"

The aliens are using the smoke now as cover, darting in and out of vision like shadows. Soulblighter spots one coming up on Stu.

Soulblighter: "Stu! Get down,

The Creature leaps at Disco Stu, at the same instant Stu drops to the ground and Soulblighter opens fire, hitting it in mid-air and knocking it into the wall.

Disco Stu: "C'mon soul this is too much we gotta get out of here now"

Soulblighter: "There's more marines still out there... their all My Responsibilty now... I've got to make sure they come back in one piece"

As if on cue Squiggle and HarManOff come through the gloom

HarManOff: "Screw this for a 'quiet' recconaisance mission"

Squiggle: "Indeed... Soul this is turning into a warzone out here"

Soulblighter: "I know, I... I Don't know what went wrong..."

HarManOff: "There's gonna be hell to pay when we get back to GD I can tell you"

He wipes some of the blood of his combat suit and winces at the pain from the deep tears in his armour.

Disco Stu: "Harm.. I think theres something behind you!"

HarManOff takes a second to react before quickly pulling out a pistol from his belt and whirling round on the spot. Its a second too late and he's confronted by a snapping mass of teeth and claws, HarManOff squeezes the trigger and a heavy slug connects squarely with the creatures leg sending it crashing on top of him. We hear HarManOff scream before suddenly going quiet. Squiggle roars and charges at the creature pulling a knife from his boot,

Squiggle: "You ugly son of a..."

Squiggle stabs down hard, his knife going straight through the creatures ribcage and pinning it to the floor. Squig takes HarManOff's pistol from his limp hand and Fires one shot straight into the thing's head. Before Soulblighter and Disco Stu can reach squiggle they see Starblade Chris leading a group of Marines back to their position. Amazingly Chris still has his Wig on and is taking on one of the creatures in hand to hand with a dazzling array of Buffy-Style high kicks. The other marines give cover to this retreating group.

Soulblighter: "All right everyone, suppressing fire... fall back slowly... "

The Marines form a lose shrinking semi-circle that is slowly making its way back to the exit. Once they make it back everyone bundles through the exit Soulblighter is the last to leave, he surveys the deserted burning remains of the forum and with a sigh slams the door shut behind him.

Scene 9:

INT.Corridor Outside Sigma Forum.DAY.

We pick off almost immediately after the previous scene, most of the Marines, bruised bleeding and tired are making there way back to their quarters for a well deserved rest, Athexx is personally reinforcing the Sigma door making sure nothing comes back through. Soulblighter is taking a final headcount before everyone leaves,

Soulblighter: "Ok everyone lets see who's here and who... isn't."

The Marines wearily form a line ready to be counted, Soul consults a list of names,

Soulblighter: "Chris,

Chris: "Yes sir"

Soulblighter: "cenjpas?"

Cenjpas: "Yep soul"

Soulblighter: "Dyntheos,"

Dyntheos: "Yes sir,"

Soulblighter: "Disco Stu"

Disco Stu: "Yeah"

Soulblighter: "Green 3,"

Silence.

Soulblighter sighs and crosses out the name.

Soulblighter: "HarManOff?"

Squiggle coughs slightly and shakes his head. Soul again writes something on the list,

Soulblighter: "Mantis.... mantis? (he again crosses the name out)

Soulblighter: "Omni?"

Omnislash: "Here sir"

Soulblighter: "Peregrine? Oh he's in medical..."

Soulblighter: "sno.... sno?"

Silence everyone looks around the room then at Disco Stu,

Disco Stu: "We we got seperated... I thought he'd made it back...maybe.. maybe... oh man"

Stu is suddenly hit by the realisation of what happened. In a he storms out the room,

Soulblighter: "Leave him... (He crosses sno's name out on his list)

Soulblighter: "Starblade?"

Starblade: "Yes sir.."

We slowly dissolve from Soul's register to The depths of the sigma forum, its dark, we can see in the distance a flashlight flickering slightly as It moves slowly towards us. Its silent... after a few moments we can hear the *very* faint sound of a pair of Footsteps can be heard echoing down the corridor. After what seems an agonising wait a Figure begins to accompany the light and the footsteps. As he gets closer we realise It's sno. Unlike the other marines He appears to be unmarked and is resting his shotgun Nonchalantly on his shoulder. We follow sno through the corridor as he reaches the Exit of Sigma. Breathing a sigh of relief sno reaches out for the handle. We cut to a slow-motion close up of his hand, as we do a blurred out of focus shape drops down behind him. We hear something hit the floor then a loud hissing noise as one of the creatures Rears up above sno's head. Sno turns round and with a weary expression Punches the Terrifying creature in the face. It goes down cold.

sno: "Welcome To Relic" (He drags it out through the door.)

sno: “You must be a newbie, you’ve gotta understand to post something more intelligent than ‘ROAR’… you’ll get banned you know.”

He slams the door behind him. We cut to black

Scene 10:

Athexx's Control Room>INT.Day

Athexx is sitting brooding in his chair, watching the few disparaged members of the boards wander around. Morale appears to be low... nobodby quite knows what to do with themselves. There is a loud knocking at the door. Ath sighs and turns round, Tekron is standing at the door,

Athexx: "Tekron, hi, please come in,"

Tekron: "Thank you sir."

Tek walks in and nervously sits down on a chair facing Athexx. He is carrying a large stack of notes.

Tekron: "err I was going through FoX's notes which I have here with me, most of its rubbish of course, just strange scribblings, and other rather strange notes but I did find one thing I think you should see..."

He confidently reaches for the top piece of paper on the pile, still grinning from ear to ear he takes a quick glance at the paper, his smile drops

Tekron: "Ah... this isn't the exact one I was looking for... hang on a second"

Tek starts working his way through the various stacks of paper he's brought with him... some his own some FoX's ,

Tekron: "It's gotta be in here somewhere..."

He keeps looking frantically spreading various sheets all over Athexx's neatly organized desk.

Athexx: "Err Tek... why don't you just tell me what it says... I'm sure you remember"

Tekron: "Oh yes... of course, all up here (He taps his head) well erm, ok (he clears his throat and stands up)

Tekron: "Well from what I've gathered FoX recieved certain transmissions from an outside source, these... transmissions gave him certain instructions...

Scene 11:

INT.Athexx's Control Room.Day

We pick up from pretty much where we left off in part 10... Tekron is staring at the newly emerged sorak, whilst Athexx is sitting watching the bemused tekron with a grin.

Tekron: "But... Buh... But... your back"

Sorak: "Yes... thank you for that warm welcome Tek, its good to see you too" He laughs

Tekron: "of course, but... erm, when did you get back?"

Sorak: " A couple of days ago... i got a call from Athexx explaining whats going on and I felt duty bound to come back and see if I could lend a hand."

As sorak is speaking we see a quick flashback scene of Sorak lying on a beach wearing sunglasses and really, really garish beach shorts, a bikini clad woman hands him the phone. Sorak listens before jumping up and running off down the beach. We dissolve back to the contol room.

Tekron: "Thanks... why do it in secret though?"

Athexx: "We thought it would be best not to tell everyone yet... especially if Sorak has to leave when this is over again. People might get the wrong impression that he's staying an-"

Sorak: "-Although now I think... after what just happened in Sigma... we should perhaps say hello, give everyone something to think about, something else to think about."

We cut to a close up of Sorak's face before slowly dissolving to...

INT.General Discussions.Day

The forum is unusually quiet, there is a sombre atmosphere hanging over everyone. Sorak, Tekron and Athexx enter the room, at first no-one notices... then slowly a murmur begins to go round the room. A few people begin sneaking glances at this new arrival trying to see if it is who they think it is... A voice breaks the hushed quiet.

Raptor: "Is that... Sorak?"

Tuxedocat: "Sorak! Your back!"

A crowd begins to form and move in on the two Administrators.

Epi: "Who's sorak?"

Revived Ender: "Who's Sorak?! Do you know anything?"

Epi: "Hey... I've never seen him before... how should I know..."

Revived Ender: "You haven't seen him before because your a newbie dirt spammer Epi"

Revived Ender laughs, Epi hesitantly laughs to, they both turn back to watch Sorak greeting the crowds. Ender gives Epi a huge Slap round the back of the head once he's occupied. Epi crashes to the ground with a thud and a groan of suprise, Ender grins again...

Revived Ender: "You should respect your elders...." (He helps Epi back up again)

Ender is about to speak but is cut of by Sorak clearing his throat before beginning to speak to the crowd.

Sorak: "Yes it is me... nice to see most of the old faces again... and some new ones I see, as you have so perceptively noticed I am back, for how long I'm not sure but I am here to try and help Ath.. and all of you in dealing with the threat we appear to be... to be... facing..."

Sorak suddenly seems preoccupied... his gaze is locked past the crowd on something unseen to us. Gradually the crowd begin to follow the line of Sorak's vision, as they turn to face the doors a figure stands there... sno is standing in the doorway dragging a lifeless alien by its feet, he spots sorak at the opposite end of the room.

sno: "Sorak...."

Sorak: "sno..."

Sorak takes a few steps forward...

Sorak: "we meet again at last... the circle is now complete... when I left you were but the learner... now I am still the master"

sno: "Only the master of UBB sorak"

Sorak suddenly brings out his banstick... touching a button on the side it 'ignites' and a faint humming can be heard emanating from it. The two figures square off against one another.

We cut to: #Homeworld, IRC room. We are greeted with the usual mess of #homeworld. Obithrawn is sitting at a table with Tosh, AlphaDuck 88x, Middlename and ShortBoySlim, In the corner HV-Cruiser is poking a tied up Music-9-Dave with a pointy stick whilst Mokona is making some instant noodles.

Obithrawn: "So maybe thats why everything tastes like chicken?"

Mokona: "Puu Puu Puuuu!"

Shortboyslim: "Oi stop with that pokemon crap mok,"

Mokona: "Its NOT pokemon... how many times have i told you that Pokemon is a poor relation of good quality-

All:(Chorus Style) "Good quality Japanese Anime Shows like Macross"

Tosh: "We know mok."

Mokona: "you know... I hate you guys sometimes..."

Before anyone can reply an out of breath Mew-CK bursts through the main doors,

Mew: "Its... Sorak... He's back and fighting sno."

Everyone rushes out of the room jumping over the table on their way out. Only a frantically struggling Music-9-Dave remains in the corner.

We jump back to General Discussions. sno and sorak are midway through a furiously high paced Kung Fu bout. sno suddenly leaps over Sorak's head in a breathtaking display of agility and skill. Sorak spins round and delivers a sharp kick to sno's chest, sno hurtles across the room smashing into the wall.

Sorak: "Good... adaptation and improvisation, but your weakness is not your technique-"

sno nods before knocking Sorak's banstick out of his hand with a kick and launching into a furious Martial Arts assualt, Sorak fights back blocking every strike sno throws at him and begins to push back.

Sorak: "Come on... stop trying to hit me and hit me!"

sno ducks a punch of sorak's before jumping up and lunging out with a kick, he connects with sorak's jaw squarely before knocking him to the floor.

Revived Ender: "I dont believe it..."

Athexx steps forward trying to reassert his authority on the situation.

Athexx: "Alright people... we've all had our fun, sno I suggest you take that thing down to Bug Sub... Uberjumper, Toksin and delphy are all working down there."

sno walks towards the door... grabbing the prone aliens foot he begins to leave, just as he's about to walk out of the door he turns round and winks at Sorak. The door slams shut.

Scene 12:

INT.Bug Sub. Day

We are greeted by the barely controlled experimental chaos that is Bug Submissions. The forum has appears to have been converted to a makeshift Medical Facility, Toksin in full Medical Garb is rushing about from patient to patient busily tending to wounds Chris now dressed up as a nurse is following him around putting in IV lines and giving injections. Uberjumper is trying to assist along with shin who try as they might look far less confident curing a patient than curing someone’s Driver Conflicts for Homeworld. The camera zips about the room jumping from patient to patient ER style. All we can hear is the background chatter of Medical Jargon combined with the low moaning of the injured.

The door flies open and a grinning sno enters the room dragging his disgusting genetically engineered prize behind him, Toksin rushes over to sno.

Toksin: “Is that what I think it is?”

Sno: “Yep”

Toksin: “Good god… right come with me we’ll take him to Xenobiology”

Toksin hurriedly drapes a sheet over the creature and guides sno off to a side thread. Reaching the door he quickly taps a few buttons on the keypad and the door slides open accompanied with a Star-Trek style ‘swoosh’. He gestures for sno to enter.

Toksin: “Chris. Could you hold the fort for a bit?” Chris: (In a high pitched feminine voice) “of course doctor”

We dissolve to...

INT .Bug Submissions –Xenobiology Thread.Day

In sharp constrast to the hectic mayhem of the previous room we are confronted with a calm laboratory like atmosphere. Tekron and Nematrix are bickering in the corner, it appears they’re arguing over a set of combat data from the last mission. Sno, and Toksin enter from the far doors allowing a shaft of light to momentarily comes flooding into the room before the door snaps shut again leaving the lab lit only in an ethereal blue glow from the various sidelights.

Toksin: “Ionstorm? … Bullfrog?” prepare ze Quarrantine chamber…”

The two figures of Ionstorm and bullfrog scuttle out of the shadows and after a few taps at a wall mounted console a large glass barrier slides out of the floor sealing off a large section of the room. Both Ionstorm and Bullfrog drag the now covered alien body into the quarrantine chamber and with a swift button press from Toksin and a hiss of pressurization the chamber is sealed.

Toksin: “right… ze specimen is now zecure in zis chamber… I vill begin my preliminary examinations immediately”

Toksin pulls out a clipboard and begins peering intently into the quarrantine chamber.

sno: “Well I guess my work is done…”

Tekron: “Oh sno… delphy, soulblighter, and Wulfius Khan want to see you and the rest of the marines in Editing… they’ve been working on some stuff they want you to look at”

Sno: “fantastic… (He sighs) a trip to see the ‘clever’ people… and a moderator aswell, just what I need after battling the legions of hell”

He laughs quietly and approaches the exit to the lab, just as he’s about to leave the door flies open and an extrremely flustered Uberjumper and Chris come hurtling through the door.

Uberjumper: “Toksin! We’ve got a problem here…”

Chris: “One of those things got into the strategy room… we’ve got more wounded”

They all charge out the door blinking as they emerge into the harsh lighting of the medical room. They are stopped mid run by the sight that confronts them. dmille is standing in the centre of the room a bleeding, wounded Kyra_Manaan in his arms… there are countless bodies lying on the floor in various states of injury, Uberjumper is the first to react.

Uberjumper: “dmille? What… what happened?”

Dmille: “One those things… got into the, into the strategy room… it was just too fast… too fast… all claws and… teeth”

dmille appears deeply in shock, and Is stuggling to get the words out. As if waking from a trance Toksin and shin rush over and take the lifeless Kyra’s body out of dmille’s arms… everyone begins to attempt the mammoth task of treating the freshly injured boarders. dmille slowly staggers out of the room still deep in shock. Tekron moves over to the comm-link on the wall.

Tekron: “Yes… Athexx? We’ve got a problem here, yeah apparently one of those things got into the strategy forum…. No I don’t know how… yeah… you’d better get down here we’ve got a lot of wounded….

As he talks we cut to a shot of dmille stumbling out of the medical bay and off down the adjacent corridor. We can still hear Tekron talking as we see this. Dmille once he’s rounded the first corridor suddenly straightens up and begins walking as if nothing had ever happened, he runs his fingers through his hair and brushes the sweat off his brow. Putting his hands in his pockets he strolls off down the corridor.

Tekron: “I don’t even want to think of what would’ve happened if dmille wasn’t there… no he helped bring the injured down to sick bay… yeah he must have dragged them down their he was literally covered in blood….”

Dmille reaches the Moderator’s quarters… pressing his hand on the scanner the computer confirms his identity with a beep before opening the door accommodatingly, dmille walks through and the door silently slides back behind him. We fade out..

Scene 13:

We fade back to INT. #General.Discussions.Night

Its later on in the day, outside the stars outside the Relic Board Mothership glint invitingly. Its quite dark and only a few lights are on around the walls. GuaRRanD, RBA-Noname_MIB, [b]Disco Stu and Aura are sitting at the bar.

GuaRRand: “No I’ve heard that they’re planning to send some of us in again”

Disco Stu: “What… back into sigma?”

GuaRRand nods and finishes his drink slamming it theatrically on the table.

Disco Stu: “That’s crazy… I mean you saw what happened last time… Green 3, HarManOff, Mantis are all gone. And they want to send us in again?”

GuaRRand: “I’m not sure… I’ve heard rumours you know, its one of the perks of working at the… the… gire… guide… g”

Aura: “Guidestone?”

GuaRRand: “That’s the one… thanks kite, I mean Aura… whoever you are”

Noname: “Guarr, how many of those have you had?”

GuaRRand: (His brow is furrowed in concentration and he vainly tries to add up on his fingers) erm… urr… too many…”

Disco Stu: “Speaking of which. (He puts down his empty glass) Whose up for another?”

Noname: “Sure why not… everything’s going to hell might as well join it”

GuaRRand groans feebly and raises his arm,

Disco Stu: “Well I gathered you were up for one… Aura?”

Aura: “I shouldn’t really”

Noname: “Why’s that?”

Aura: “well… y’know we’ve got work to do, and if like Guarr said we’ve got to go back in there…”

Disco Stu: “your coming with us?”

Aura: “Oh nothing’s gonna stop me joining you guys this time, I want a piece of the action as well”

Disco Stu: “you think that’s…. wise?”

Aura (Half standing up glaring down at Stu) : “Whats the problem? Afraid a little girl like me can’t handle herself?”

Disco Stu looks up at Aura trying to decide whether she’s joking or not.

Disco Stu: “Not at all… I might need you there to protect me”

Noname: “well in that case your definitely going to need a drink. Bartender?”

Notso aprroaches the group,

Notso: “Noname?”

Noname: “Get us four Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters”

Notso’s eyes suddenly glint and he grins

Notso: Ok guys coming right up.

Disco Stu: “Pan Galactic what?”

Aura: “gargle blaster”

Disco Stu: “which is what exaclty?”

Aura: “I have no idea”

Noname: “You guys ever read the hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy?… it’s a relatively rare drink with all the subtlety of ‘a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick’

He takes the tray of drinks and hands one out to each of them,

Noname: “Its supposedly the best drink in the universe… cheers”

All four raise their glasses in unison and then down their drinks. Aura finishes first and slams the glass down. The others follow suit before doubling over coughing and reeling from the strength of the alcohol. Aura looks quizzically at the three gasping figures with a smile.

Disco Stu: Hoarsely “I see what you mean Noname”

Noname: “Its very cough good isn’t it…”

Disco Stu: “I expected it to have a little bit more kick…”

Stu nods sagely before slowly toppling off his stool. Noname watches with amusement before following suit and crashing on top of Stu. GuaRRand is lying asleep on the bar. Aura shakes her head.

Soulblighter and Peregrine emerge from the far end of the room and approach the bar.

Soulblighter: “Hi Aura… we’re spreading the word. Athexx has got an announcement to make to everyone. It’ll be broadcast in all the main forums at about 4pm tomorrow.”

Aura: “Ah I see… you want me to pass the message along?”

Peregrine: “If you could that’d be great Aura.”

Soulblighter: “Yeah make sure all the people know, speaking of which… what happened here?”

Aura shrugs

Aura: “I guess some people cant hold their drink”

GuaRRand begins to snore.

Soulblighter: “… right. ( He glances curiously at Aura) anyway… do you know where dmille is? Athexx and I would like a word with him.”

Aura: “I haven’t seen him actually… hang on, wasn’t he involved in that terrible attack by those things in the Strategy room?”

Soulblighter: “yeah, it appears so… well if you see him tell him to go talk to Athexx or Sorak as soon as possible”

Soul turns to leave,

Aura: “where’s Athexx anyway? He’s been a bit scarce recently”

Soulblighter hesitates for a moment before turning round,

Soulblighter: “Athexx is currently… occupied, he’s really busy at the moment… as is understandable bearing in mind the current state of affairs round here…”

Aura begins to reply but before we can hear what she’s saying we dissolve to. INT. Elevator Carriage. Night.

We see Athexx travelling down… he quietly whistles to himself as the elevator goes even further down into the depths of the Boards. After what seems like an age the elevator stops with a cheery ‘ding’. A metallic voice pipes up,

Computer: “This level is restricted, only people with Moderator Access or above may enter”

Athexx: “identify, Athexx, Administrator, Identification Code 0432109A, Password: seventhrank”

With a beep of Acknowledgement the elevator doors part. Athexx steps out before being stopped in his tracks by what he sees. He is in a long white clean looking corridor, there is what looks like an airlock at the end of the corridor. The heavy looking security door has been blown open, and is emitting sparks from torn wires at irregular intervals. A guard who was obviously guarding the door Is lying unmoving in a pool of blood.

The sign above the door says ‘AmazingSkills Containment Area’

Scene 14:

INT.Sorak’s Command Center.Night.

We begin with the camera very slowly panning round the dimly lit dusty hub of the forums. Most of the meagre light in the room is provided by the many monitors and screens liberally dotted around the room, in the backround we can hear a conversation although the voices are familiar we can’t see the participants.

Uberjumper: “So I guess we now know how FoX got the Amazingskills DNA.”

Athexx: “We do indeed”

SirMolle: “Of course you guys now realise that we now have two Rogue moderators on our hands, however one of them isn’t currently fighting for his life in the infirmary. I mean it would take someone who knew our security measures well enough to firstly break AmazingSkills out in the first place and then keep him hidden from us for all this time.”

The camera finally pans round enough to see the conversation, Athexx, Sorak, UberJumper, SirMolle,and Soulblighter are all sat around a large conference table. Their faces show the subdued atmosphere of the evening. RipperT is sitting in the corner in the shadows not making a sound.

Soulblighter: “Perhaps its time to pay dmille a little visit…”

Athexx: “Easy soul… first theres a few things we need to make sure of, Ok I checked the prison sector and none of the other inmates have gone”

Uberjumper: “I never thought we should have held him here in the first place”

Sorak: “We don’t need to go into past mistakes here Uber,”

Uberjumper sighs and shrugs nonchalantly,

Athexx: “Ok next thing is preparing for the upcoming Sigma mission…”

SirMolle: “So we’re definitely going ahead with this then?”

Athexx: “It looks that way, Soulblighter is again going to head up the Marines and p-“

SirMolle: “I really don’t think that after what happened last time…”

Soulblighter: “It’ll be a lot different this time, Molle, we’re prepared now… Delphy’s been cooking up some new hardware to play with”

Uberjumper: “Athexx I request to be allowed to join the mission”

Athexx: “Uber, I told you before your too valuable, we need you here working in Bug Sub and co-ordinating our defences in case anything goes wrong.”

Uberjumper: “I’m sorry sir but cant someone else take care of it? I cant stand by and watch these people march in there knowing what they’ve got to face, Let me accompany them Ath, I’ve got military experience heck I’ve got more experience than most of us here…”

Sorak: “Uber we need you here… your no use to us if one of those things manages to sink its claws into that genius brain of yours”

Uberjumper: “Oh come on guys… if Aura’s going I don’t see why I can_”

Athexx: “Aura’s part of the team?! Since when!” (he turns to soul)

Soulblighter: “Whoah! If looks could kill that one would’ve levelled several small towns…”

Athexx: “Soul…”

Soulblighter: “What can I say… she’s very persuasive… have you seen her keep some of those Lunatics In GD in line? I’d be afraid to cross her…”

Athexx sighs

Athexx: “Alright Uberjumper We’ll take it under advisement”

They begin to discuss the next item but are drowned out as the we dissolve to,

INT.Bug Sub. Night

The screen fades up to a clean, orderly small room set just aside of the main Bug Submissions Forum, we can hear the slow constant beeping of an EKG (Heart Monitor) the camera slowly pans round the room. There is one door at the far end and in the centre FoX lies unconscious in a hospital style bed. He’s attached to various wires, and very expensive looking pieces of equipment. The camera focuses on FoX, he’s momentarily stirring in his coma-like state, against the shuttered windows we see a shadow pass by. The camera cuts back to FoX. We hear the door being very gently pushed open and footsteps as someone enters the room. We can see a pair of dark boots and a figure stand over FoX, in true cinematic style his face is in shadow and hidden from us. He pulls out a simple looking pistol and very carefully screws a silencer to the barrel. He places a pillow over FoX’s head and presses the gun into it. He whispers something and pulls the trigger. The steady beeping turns to a single tone. The camera cuts to the flat-line on the heart monitor. We hold the shot for a few moments, there is gentle click as the door is shut again, we dissolve from the flat line on the EKG to a horizontal shot of HarManOff lying on the Sigma floor. His skin is pale and blood has trickled down his forhead. We very slowly pull back until suddenly with a jolt he opens his eye to reveal two glowing red pupils… we carry on pulling back and at the same time we fade out to black.

Scene 15:

INT. Sierra Forums- General Discussion. Day.

he camera fades up to the bright airy main room of the Sierra Forums, its not too busy, people are still getting up and those around are clutching hot caffinated beverages and shaking the morning free from their eyes. MyK and a large orange orangutang- The Librarian are sitting on a comfy looking sofa (couch for you americans – Blu )

Myk: “So you checked the morning papers today?”

The Librarian: “oook”

MyK: “ah… well no problem, take a look”

MyK hands The Librarian a rolled up copy of ‘The Guidestone’… The Librarian unfolds it and takes a look at the front page,

The Librarian: (sharp intake of breath) “ooook… ook ook”

MyK: “I know… terrible isn’t it.”

The Librarian: (nods his head) “ook”

He turns the paper over, folding it back on itself so we can see the front page. In bold type the words...

‘Moderator Conflict At Relic Boards: Sorak facing Catastrophe” besides a large group photo of all the moderators and admins together and smaller photos of dmille and FoX.

We zoom in on the front page until it fills the camera,

MyK: (out of shot) “I always said Relic was in a downward spiral…”

The Librarian: “Ook.. Oo-ook”

The Shot dissolves slowly to a close up of Athexx holding the paper in the same way The Librarian was. It appears that only the background changes as the main focus of the shot: The Front Page: remains the same.

MyK: -V.O (Voice Over): “Yeah I know… If it all goes down It’ll be sad to see the old place go up in flames…”

Athexx throws the paper down on his desk, the camera pans out to see, [b]Soulblighter, and Sorak sitting at the table.

Athexx: “I take it you’ve all seen this?”

Soulblighter: “Don’t act so surprised Ath, It was gonna happen… if anything it’ll bring public opinion on our side..”

Athexx: “On our side? Saying the boards are on the verge of self destruction? I expect they’ll be leaving in their droves…”

Soulblighter: “Oh come on yo-“

Athexx cuts him off,

Athexx: “More to the point… up until now we’ve managed to keep the full impact of this down, now every boarder from strategy to demo feedback will be influenced by this reactionary bullshit”

Soulblighter: whistles “Woo… harsh language their Athexx, they’ve really put the wind up your sails haven’t they”

Athexx turns and glares at soul

Sorak: “Quiet. There’s nothing we can do about this now, we’ve got to stay focused and prepared, firstly Soul go find Uberjumper see if he can persuade Shin to put our side of the story across, I’ll get on the comm to Fireflight at RN and ceejayoz at HFC. Lets see if we can use this media coverage as an advantage.”

Soulblighter: “Right on my way.”

Sorak: “Ath, we still on schedule for the Sigma Mission?”

Athexx: “Yeah… on course, delph, peregrine, toksin, and… sno… are briefing the troops”

Sorak: “Sno?!… that lunatic is preparing the marines before they go to…”

Soulblighter: “Sorak the guy found himself alone in that hellhole, got almost a dozen confirmed’s and brought back one of those things… alive I think he’s proved quite adept in combat…”

Sorak sighs and gives a reluctant shrug of acceptance,

Athexx: “Ok, next is dmille…”

Sorak: “Well so far he’s been evading our tracking systems… We’re not quite sure how, I’ve got Madhatter to direct the RMBDF in patrols… I don’t think he can elude us for ever, I am worried however about what he’s capable of doing and what his motives might be-“

At the end of Sorak’s sentence as if to illustrate his point with a click the entire room is plunged into pitch black, all the monitors are turned off and everyone stands stunned for a moment in silence.

Soulblighter: “Bastards cut the power…”

Athexx: “That means we’re blind, and most of our auto-defense units are down…”

Sorak: “Well done… perfect for an attack”

As if on cue we can hear the faint sounds of rapidly growing chaos developing in the distance,

Soulblighter: “Oh man…”

Soul flicks on a maglight on the rifle slung round his shoulders… he points it at Athexx,

Soulblighter: “… here we go again”

whilst Sorak inspects the dead console controlling the forum’s camera’s and electronics Soulblighter and Athexx charge out of the room.

The noise grows louder and louder

We begin to hear faint shouts and gunfire,

The shouts start to turn to cries and then screams,

The door slams shut.

Scene 16:

Editing – R & D area.INT.Day

We jump straight to a dim, grey walled secure area deep within the caverns of the Editing forum. It appears to be a long firing range, empty but lined with sandbags and bearing the pockmarks of bullet holes. At the beginning of the range delphy[/bin a white lab coat is standing next to a table covered in various pieces of equipment. He is addressing a huddled group of marines, all of who are watching the eccentric, nervously excited inventor with attentive eyes.

The Camera is still slowly moving in and we can see the whole scene without progressing to any close ups.

delphy: - which also comes with a simple sliding cartridge mechanism, for quick and easy reloading, especially useful in the thick of things so to speak.

He puts something gently down on the table before picking up a bulky cumbersome looking, weapon/

delphy: “Now this… this is one of my personal favourites-“

He chuckles quietly,

delphy: “I’m sure you’ve all heard rumours about experimental, man-portable high-energy weapons… and yes we have been working on them for a while now, until recently without much success… problems with energy focus and heat disipation and such forth. But here we have the first really viable model.”

He looks up into the control room high above him and nods. With a humming two holographic targets begin to materialise up the firing range. Delphy turns around gets down on one knee and rests the weapon on his shoulder,

delphy: “advanced motion sensor and laser targetting systems.”

He presses a button, a scope clicks into position along the barrel. Delphy looks down it,

delphy: “High power storage capacity”

He flicks another button, the gun begins to hum.

delphy: and of course…

The two glowing targets are finally rendered by the holoprojector and suddenly two soldiers carrying assault rifles are standing in the firing range. They rush forwards before dropping into firing positions, suddenly the room is lit up as an immensly bright red beam pulses across the range, the first soldier is vaporised completely in one blast.

delphy: “… the portable, reduced Ion Beam emitter, which can be used like that in pulsed bursts or in continous mode.”

He flicks another switch and pulls the trigger, a continous beam of ruby red energy roars forth sweeping across the firing range scorching and burning the hardened plasticrete wall and burning the second holo-soldier to a proverbial cinder. With a sudden decrease in volume the beam vanishes.

The crowd of watching marines blink slightly before overcoming their shock and breaking out into spontaenous applause.

Delphy: “Like that.… ”

Delphy turns to the applauding crowd, half excited half embarrassed by the support.

delphy: “Thank you… we have a couple of these, tactical recommends at least one member of each fire team is equipped with one. They are still slightly unstable so try to use them in moderation to avoid an overheat.”

Disasterman: “An overheat?? That doesn’t sound too good…”

Viingx: “Especially given your record D-Man…”

Disasterman: “Yeah… better not give that one to me.”

Viingx: “Kabooom!”

everyone laughs lightly

delphy: “Now as we saw in our last encounter you will most likely engage in combat with these things in a claustrophobic environment,

He takes a keypad from his labcoat and presses a switch, with a whirr we see footage of the marines last encounter in the sigma forum being displayed,

delphy: “with this in mind and after seeing the effectiveness of Omnislashes jury-rigged quasi flamethrower

Omnislash grins as everyone turns to look at him.

Delphy continues, raising his voice a notch.

Delpny: “- we have modified your standard pulse rifles with a secondary flame unit,”

He picks one of the chunky looking rifles from the table,

delphy: “this is activated from a switch here…”

With a click the rilfe shoots a constant burning stream of fire down the range for a few seconds.

“this secondary fire mode is limited in fuel, but very effective in the terrain we expect to be perfroming this mission-“

Click

The Room is plunged into darkness, with a murmur form the now unseen marines,

Delphy: “ – in… oh dear,”

We can gain hear some commotion coming from outside the door,

Vaarok: “That sounds ominously like trouble…”

Scene 17:

We pick up from exactly where we left off last time, delphy, peregrine and shin head towards the small security station at the end of the room, whilst most of the marines struggle to navigate through the darkness, Dyntheos makes it to the door, with a paint whirr it opens although the corridor outside is still just as dark as inside.

Dyntheos: “It looks like the powers out all throughout the boards”

Snow_Breeze: “If that was an accident surely the auxhiliaries would cut in wouldn’t they?”

HV-Cruiser: “Unless they’re down as well…”

Snow_Breeze: “That’d be one hell of a coincidence…”

peregrine and shin emerge from the far end of the room and address the crowd.

peregrine: “Alright Listen up, we’ve had reports of power shortages all over the boards, it seems someone… or something has cut the power… we’ve also had sporadic reports of engagements in most of the sectors…”

shin: “it appears initially that we’re being hit, and being hit hard all the way across the boards… the main Auxiliary generator is not far from here… we need a small team to go down and start it up manually… the rest of us will head up towards GD and work our way through the forums”

A murmur goes through the crowd… with a faint hum the a dim glow illuminates the room,

delphy: (out of shot, muffled) “Ok I’ve managed to re-route the power for the lights here… but nowhere else… I don’t know how long it’ll last for.”

Peregrine: “Alright, Squiggle I want you, Disco Stu, SirGideon, and Dyn to go and restore the power… if you have any problems with the generator talk to shin…. the rest of you follow me…”

The marines troop out dutifully… we dissolve to:

General Discussions. INT. Day

We join GD in the midst of complete chaos, the boarders have constructed a rough barricade of chairs furniture, anyhitng they can get their hands on and are desperately trying to stave off the tide of clawed and fanged death rushing towards them. Soulblighter and the few other boarders who are armed are relentlessly pouring gunfire into the mass of creatures as they desperately try to scrabble over the top of the barricade. Other boarders are retreating back out of GD and towards safety.

Soulblighter: “Keep shooting! We can’t let them get through…”

Vmax: “I fear we’ll run out of ammunition long before we run out of targets…”

Soulblighter: “Then we’d better make sure its not for nothing…. Gah!”

Soul swings the butt of his rifle round stunning a creature that clawed it’s way over the wall, he turns and delivers a burst of fire directly into the things chest.

We hear a thud and a metallic voice from the background,

Maskari: “perhaps it is a good day to die”

The Maskari Mech emerges from the gloom and wades into the fray guns blazing,

TopTen: “They’re everywhere… we cant hold them all for long”

Maskari: “Agreed this position is becoming unviable”

Soulblighter: “No… I will not give up this forum to these… these things…”

GuaRRand: “Why not… its nothing different from the usual GD crowd…”

Soulblighter: Through gritted teeth “Nice to know you haven’t lost your sense of humour GuaRR”

He steps back as more and more of the creatures come over the top…

Soulblighter: “All right everybody fall back… fall back…”

The marines begin to slowly retreat still keeping up a deadly fusilade of fire,

We jump to...

Maintenance Area. INT. Day

Squiggle and the other boarders chosen to fix the power creep nervously though pitch black, ominous access corridors that appear to have rarely been used. The only visible light is from the maglights attached to the squad’s weaponry, and from the ever burning flame on the end of Squiggle’s flamethrower,

Dyntheos: “Squiggle how did you get that thing?”

Squiggle: “This?”

Dyntheos: “Yah”

Squiggle: “delphy left one lying around in editing… I saw it and I just had to have it”

SirGideon: “you do know that thing could be completely unstable”

Squiggle: “possibly… Lets hope we don’t have to find out.”

They reach a large rusty door, Disco Stu punches the keypad. Nothing happens… Scanning the wall with his maglight SirGideon opens a rusty access panel and peers inside… there is a small dusty wheel buried beneath a mountain of spiderwebs,

SirGideon: “I guess this is the manual release,”

He rests his rifle on his shoulder and with great effort starts turning the wheel despite the whines of protest from the door which begins ever so slowly opening.

SirGideon: “Man this isn’t easy”

Disco Stu who has been particularly quiet and thoughtful up to this point takes a few steps back…

Stu: “Uh guys… I think we may have a problem…”

The door judders open enough to let one person through at a time, as Dyntheos looks in a with his torch. Sweeping through the darkness the beam briefly passes over a dark shape and a pair of glowing eyes. With a shriek and a hiss, a blur of movement leaps forwards through the air and straight into dyntheos knocking him to the floor claws raised…

Dyntheos is knocked to the floor by a snarling mass of claws and teeth, by reflex he rolls to his left as he hits the ground narrowly avoiding a claw which would have done an efficient job of removing his head from the rest of his body. As dynth struggles to hold the thing back, SirGideon charges forwards pulling a wicked looking sword from his side, out of the corner of its eye the creature spots him and, dyntheos suddenly forgotten leaps forwards straight at SirGideon who is taken by surprise and lashes out wildy before throwing himself out the way. The creature screams and hits the ground awkwardly, bleeding profusely from a large cut in its abdomen. Disco Stu hastily rams a clip into his rifle swinging it down to target the wounded thing in front of him, as he pulls the trigger it dodges again, remarkably agile considering its injuries.

Disco Stu: “Dammit”

He whirls round and drops into a firing position on one knee but realises the thing has vanished.

Disco Stu: “What the?”

Squiggle: “There!”

Squiggle spots a dark shape hanging from the ceiling, crawling into a small hole,

Squiggle: “It’s going into the ventilation shaft”

He flicks a switch and grits his teeth before sending a burning fireball at the ceiling, the entire room is bathed in red and orange as Squiggle pours a stream of fire into the shaft. He finally lets go of the trigger and the noise and light slowly dissipate. He breathes a long sigh of relief.

Disco Stu: “Well I guess we can confirm that, your flamethrower works squig”

SirGideon: “Definitely does”

He Coughs, and winces from the exertion of it. Blood is slowly staining his shirt from a deep claw wound in his side.

Squiggle: “SirGid you allright?”

SirGideon: “What a –cough- stupid –cough- question…”

He very shakily crawls to his feet.

SirGideon: “I’ll live”

Disco Stu: “That’s the spirit man”

Dyntheos appears, slightly shaken, and bruised,

Dyntheos: “C’mon guys… we better get moving… he looks akwardly at the floor Gideon… thanks, for back there I mean, It was real-“

SirGideon: “Don’t worry about it dynth”

Dyntheos grins

Squiggle: “Well lets move out guys”

They slowly and rather cautiously make their way back down the corridor,

We dissolve to INT. General Discussions. Day

Soulblighter has managed to get everyone out of the forum, and is backing off with his small band of defenders blazing away at the mass of creatures rapidly taking apart their makeshift barricade.

Vmax: “Soul! Its time to go… we’ve got to get out… Lock the doors..”

GuaRRand: “Lets go!”

Soulblighter: “I can’t lock the forum… I don’t have that kind of clearance to seal off an entire sector…”

Vmax: “Well where’s Athexx?”

They reach the huge main doors and step into the corridor beyond,

Soulblighter: “He’s dealing with an attack somewhere in the strategy room… we’re being hit everywhere… and hit hard”

Maskari: ”We cannot continue to retreat indefinitely”

Soulblighter: “Goddammit… (he flicks a button on his communicator…) Sorak?! Sorak… we need help here now! Get to general discussions…”

Vmax pulls a grenade from his waist and hurls It into the incoming wave of creatures… with a deafening explosion it rips through the forum. The boarders all cover there eyes from the blinding flash of light.

Vmax: coughing from the smoke and blinking “I hope that stopped them… That was my last one”

Soulblighter: Loading his weapon “I think this is it”

Through the thick acrid smoke a dark shape appears… the shape slowly coalesces into a dark cloaked man wearing a top hat. He seems utterly unaffected by the explosion the smoke, or the creatures who he dispatches lazily with a pistol or a banstick

“Come on soulblighter… don’t give up just yet”

He fires a round directly into the skull of one of the monsters that charges at him,

GuaRRand: “Who is that!”

Soulbighter: “MadHatter!… impeccable timing as usual”

Madhatter: “Always one to make an entrance”

He reaches the desperate looking group, and turns to a large panel by the door

MadHatter: “Ok this wont take a moment..”

Soulblighter and the others step forwards with renewed vigour holding back the hordes with a veritable wall of bullets… With a cheerfully confirming beep the lights around the door go red and the huge doors slowly begin to swing closed... The boarders back off reloading weapons and checking the corridor ahead for anything else. With a reassuring Thud both the doors lock together and all that can be heard is the frantic tapping and clawing of the things now locked inside…

MadHatter: “So hows everybody else doing?”

Scene 18:

Maintenance Area. INT.

We dissolve from the last scene to a still view of a dark, empty corridor. In the background at regular intervals we can hear the echo of water gently dripping onto the metal floor of the access corridor. We keep this shot for a few moments before very, very faintly we can hear a noise in the distance echoing its way down the corridor. Gradually the sound gets louder until we can see the silhouette of something at the end of the tunnel. Gradually the sound coalesces into footsteps, rapid footsteps pounding along the metal grille of the floor. We can hear frantically shouted voices bouncing off the walls…

Disco Stu: “Great Idea squig… ([I]he imitates squiggle badly) “Lets Distract Them!… lets draw their fragging attention!!”

Squiggle: “Hey I didn’t hear you having any better ideas!”

Disco Stu: “That’s because you were too busy finding the scariest bug-eyed aliens in the universe and really pissing them off!”

Squiggle: “Hey it worked?!”

Disco Stu: “Yeah… We’ll put that on your tombstone…”

We can now see Disco Stu and Squiggle desperately sprinting down the corridor… We cut to a close up, Disco Stu turns round and catches a glimpse of the horde of creatures rapidly catching up with them…

Disco Stu: “They’re catching us up…”

Squiggle: “Probably because we’re out of shape and they’re bio-engineered killing machines”

Disco Stu: “Probably”

Squiggle: “Is that a ladder? Up ahead..”

Disco Stu: “I think so… If we could reach it before being turned into entrée’s it could lead us into the ventilation shafts…”

Squiggle: “Relic Boarder Soup…”

The ladder at the corridor’s junction point is closing fast, as are the hordes of creatures on the heel’s of the two hapless boarders. For a for almost a minute it looks like they’re not going to make it, until with a final burst of speed- and desperation- both of them scrabble halfway up the ladder, Squiggle looks down at the sea of things below him and pulls the flame-thrower from his back and roasts one trying to claw its way up the ladder. With a whine the grille leading to the access shaft swings open.

Disco Stu: “We’re in!”

Squiggle: “Au Revoir Mes Amis…”

He leans back and liberally douses the snapping legions below him with flames before disappearing up the grille into the darkness. Inside the dark cramped tunnel Disco Stu turns his head back to squiggle as they both crawl awkwardly down the shaft.

Disco Stu: “Out of interest what’s to stop them following our lead…”

Squiggle: “Coming up here you mean?”

Disco Stu: “Yeah, If I’m not mistaken that’s how they got the drop on us last time…”

Squiggle: “This is what’ll stop them…”

He turns round and flames the entrance until it begins to glow white. Slowly the light created by his flamethrower fades.

Squiggle: “Fused the hatch to the wall… nothing’s coming in that way for now”

Disco Stu: “Alright, now lets see if we can make our way to the generator room and meet up with Dynth and the others.”

Squiggle: “You think they’re allright?”

Disco Stu: “Well yeah… with your diversions I doubt any enemies from here to Sierra weren’t following us.”

Squiggle: “Then the plan worked… c’mon admit it”

Disco Stu: “Possibly, just about, alright it barely worked… now, let’s try and keep ourselves alive just a little bit longer”

Scene 19:

Cut to: Homeworld Cataclysm Forum.INT.Day

Athexx Is desperately shepherding a frightened crowd of people towards a small exit in the darkened, chaotic confinements of the cataclysm thread, at the far end of the room, the large main entrance has been sealed shut and locked, from the otherside of the door we can hear screeching and growling sounds. At regular intervals the entire door shakes with a large impact. A few beleagured looking boarders who have somehow managed to arm themselves stand, their guns trained on the shaking entrance. Athexx and Uberjumper are trying to help people through and evacuate the forum. With the cries and screams of the boarders, the Screeching and clawing of the creatures trying to get in, and the various flashlights flitting all over the forums the scene is chaotic to say the least.

Athexx: “That’s it… right, if you could all please calmly move along… yes, everything is under control… (his communicator beeps) “Soul? I’m in the Cat forum… we’re under attack, yeah, I think we have them held off for now… yeah… They’ve hit around half of the forums… without power, lights, defences, turbolifts, we have to fall back… I don’t know where to yet… how about one of the abandoned forums…. Website sounds good… tell the others….”

Uberjumper: “Okay people… we’re all evacutating now… anyone still waiting please make your way over here to the exit please”

The remaining stragglers, and those watching the main door begin to move towards Uberjumper and Athexx.

Suddenly without warning the huge main door judders, and with a torturous noise of twisted and broken metal slowly crashes forwards, the silhouettes and shadows of a swarm of creatures, only half visible in the gloom surge forwards, those moving back spin round and open fire with whatever weapons they have, the room is filled with cries and screams, both alien and human as the flashing and noise of weapons fire only adds to the chaos.

Uberjumper: “Get them all out safely Ath!”

He pulls out his banningstick and twirling it round in his hand (a la obi-wan) charges forwards, lashing out he skewer’s a particularly ugly creature about to tear Ionfish limb from limb.

Ionfish: “Woah… thanks”

Uberjumper: “No problem, He swings round and connects with another one leaping through the air at them both.

Ionfish: “I feel however…”

He steps back and opens fire the roar of his assault rifle drowning out the cacaphony of combat.

Ionfish: “You’re just delaying the inevitable”

Silhoutted against the light coming from the edge of the room, three figures stand in the centre of the swirling melee going on around them, They speak in a voice that whispers and screams at the same time in the heads of the hapless boarders. As they speak the creatures stop attacking, sidling back into the shadows around the heels of the three figures. The confused and relieved borders back off slowly to the exit.

Dmille: “Your too late Uberjumper”

HarManOff: “You can’t stop us all”

IcecreamLt.Dan: “Give in to the future”

Dmille: “Join us”

Athexx: “Join you? Become one of the ”

HarManOff: “If you will not join then die…”

IcecreamLt.Dan: “There is no escape from the forums”

They turn and vanish into he smoke and darkness,

For a second there’s silence, then with a fury they strike again, a tide of monsters sweeping towards the small huddled group of boarders still standing,

Uberjumper: “Get back! Get out now!”

Ionfish: “Here they come” He pulls out a pair of sunglasses and carefully puts them on before loading his rifle

Athexx: “Time to move people”

They all run out of the door except for Uberjumper who charges forwards into the fray,

Uberjumper: “dmille! You don’t get away that easily”

Ionfish charges after him,

Ionfish: (firing his gun) “Uberjumper! Wait”

Athexx hesitates and looks after his friend knee deep in corpses, Uber’s fighting well but is being overwhelmed,

Ionfish: (Turning back) “Ath, get out… get out now… Seal this room, don’t let anyone through… Anyone!!”

He turns round and wades forwards, gun blazing,

,,A hand reaches on Athexx’s shoulder, he turns round to see Malsar

Malsar: “Ath, its over… they knew what they were doing, we have to close this place off, we have to get these people to safety… ath come on”

Athexx sighs deeply, with one last look he turns and inputs the keycode combination, as the side-door slams shut the camera focuses on the scene behind, as the two tiny figures are finally puilled down by swarms of clawed shadows.. Athexx spins round and storms off in disgust.

Scene 20:

Forum Control Centre.INT.Day

Sorak Is standing over a row of neatly blanked out monitors in the dark confines of the main control centre, the only light is his flashlight and that is trained on the Heavy metal door a few feet away from him, breaking his concentration the comm link pinned to his chest crackles and bursts reluctantly into life.

Soulblighter: (On the other end of the comm) “Sorak? Sorak?… are you there? What is your position and status?”

Sorak: “Soul! Good to hear from you… I’m holed up in the control room, oh its great fun in here… a right one-man party. Unfortunately…”

He turns to look at the door, which jumps and shudders from a heavy impact,

“Theres a few guys outside who’d like to gatecrash”

Soulblighter: “We ran into the same bunch… I guess they’re really looking for fun…listen, General Discussions is closed off, I’ve had word from Athexx that Homeworld Cat is too… we’re pulling back to website, and praying that we can get the power back online…”

Sorak: “Yeah, if we can I can close of the air vents, cut off their main access points, start up the auto defence mechanisms, get into the communications array. We cant send any signals aside from these little Comm units at the moment”

Soulblighter: “Well I have word from Delph, and Peregrine his crack squad are onto it, no need to worry there, they'll get it done, they’re the best. We have”

As he says this we dissolve out to INT.Storage room – Maintanence Area.Day

We can see SirGideon and Dyntheos crushed together in a small storage room already half full with empty paint tins and various other cleaning equipment, the one lightbulb swings preacriously from its socket in the roof and buzzes incessently.

SirGideon: “How come this section has power?”

Dyntheos: (showing little or no interest) “The maintanence section runs on its own power grid… I guess they didn’t take that one out”

SirGideon: “Oh”

Dyntheos: “Yup, so we have power at least”

SirGideon: “Do you reckon they’ve all gone now… is it safe to come out?”

They both nervously eye up the door crudely barricaded shut,

Dyntheos: “Possibly… perhaps we should give it a few more minutes…. Just to be safe”

SirGideon: “Yeah…. Just to be safe of course”

Dyntheos: “Can’t rush into anything, people are counting on us”

SirGideon: “Yeah…”

There is a long awkward silence,

Dyntheos: “So…. Who do you reckon would win in a fight then? Darth Vader or Darth Maul?”

SirGideon: “Hmmm… good question, I’d say that if-“

He is interrupted suddenly by a loud clang, the two freeze up instantly, another loud sound rings out, this time from the dirrection of the roof. They both begin to stand up when with a loud crack and two screams a large portion of the roof where crumbles and dramatically collapses closely followed by the terrified forms of Disco Stu and Squiggle who crash into the rubble covered in white plaster dust and bruises. For a moment nobody moves or says anything,

Squiggle: “okay maybe it wouldn’t take our weight”

Disco Stu: (groans) “Anyone get the number of that missile destroyer?”

There is another silence

SirGideon: “So yeah, I thought Vader because of his dark force choke and for generally being evil…”

His words trail off as we fade out

Scene 21:

INT.Near Website Forum.

Athexx and his group of boarders round a corner of the corridor and slowly cautiously traipse towards the point where the access tunnel to the website forum is kept. Athexx, Event-Horizon and Kyp lead the way. They are one of the few to be armed and carry flashlights which they are using to illuminate the darkened confines of the corridor.

Atthexx: “Those motion scanners still clear guys?”

A176: “No signals in radius Ath.”

Atthexx: “Good, keep scanning, I don’t want anything to slip by undetected.”

Cut to: INT.Editing Forum.

We can see what looks like the aftermath of a skirmish, piles of Creature corpses lie piled up against the walls and feet of the wearied looking boarders who have formed a desperate defensive circle.

Thrawn: “Anything guys?”

Snow Breeze: “Cant pick up any- hang on a sec…”

-beep-

Snow Breeze: “One signal! Coming in at mark thr-“

He is interrupted by a brilliant blast of orange light as a small ion beam roars past him and utterly obliterates a creature trying to make its way towards the group. Snow Breeze turns round to look at a grinning Omnislash,

Omnislash: “These things are amazing! …. Scientiffically speaking of course…”

Snow Breeze: “Omni Next time could you make that blast a little closer to my face please? Because I’m not quite toasted enough yet!”

Omnislash: “Oh sure, next time I Won’t save your butt when one of those things comes-a-“

Delphy: “Guys, I know how fond you two are of each other but we have to move…”

Delphy smiles and begins walking forwards towards the access tunnels at the end of the hall. Snow Breeze scowls at Omnislash who smiles and waves his finger disapprovingly. The crowd move off at a slow cautious pace whilst we fade out to,

INT.Forum Lobby.

Soulbighter, is taking a breather to recover after his last confrontation, His group of charges are looking much the worse for wear, some are tending to the wounded whilst some are taking a much needed rest. MadHatter is standing in the corner, his cloak gently moving with the current from the air recylclers which are still working despite the power outtages…

Soulblighter: “Ok guys, lets move on, we don’t know how safe this area is and we have to get to the website forum to regroup and take stock of the situation.”

GuaRRand: “Oh man… soul your sounding more and more official by the day, I think this moderator job is getting to you.”

He very reluctantly hauls himself to his feet, and with a chorus of groans and muttering is accompanied by the other boarders.

Soul: “Now I believe the safest way to website is….. this way.”

He begins to set off hoisting his rifle onto his shoulder and flicking on his maglight. In the background MadHatter coughs.

MadHatter: “We could of course take the admin tunnels”

Soulblighter: “Admin tunnels?”

MadHatter: “Every administrator is granted access to a special transport link through the centre of the boards. We go straight where we want to get to, in the fastest possible time”

Soulblighter: “(after a long pause) And why didn’t you tell us this before??!”

Madhatter turns round and presses his hand against a certain wall panel, it glows green and with a beep a large section of wall slides away to reveal a dark cavernous secret passage.

MadHatter: “(already disappearing into the tunnnel) You never asked”

GuaRRand: “You’re sounding more like a vorlon the more I talk to you MadHatter….”

MadHatter: “Good”

They walk into the tunnel, we fade out...

We interrupt your transmission to bring you this message from our sponsors

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FoX: “Hi… I’m FoX…. You may remember me from such boards as Sigma… and NSP, I’m here today to tell you about my latest discovery in the field of interstellar research…. Clee-San Industries!”

He steps back and we see a series of images of the Clee- San vessel in various exotic locations.

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He points at the camera. We see a clip of the Clee-San examining various artefacts, ships,

FoX: “I thought the world of deep space research and exploration was out of my reach until a friend told me about Clee-San… So now here I am!”

Camera Cuts back to an external Shot of the Clee-San in space, we can just about see FoX standing in front of a window waving

FoX:” In fact, I’m busy investigating my own derelict life pod we expect to be over one million years old!… Think of how trawling for deep space artefacts could gain you the perfect christmas present, a keepsake for your husband or wife, or just that little thing to brighten up your home, not to mention the scientific acclaim if you uncover a truly groundbreaking find,

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Clee-San research division is waiting for your-

There is a deafening thud and the whole room begins to shake, we can hear frantic voices in the background and FoX falls over out of shot, after a few seconds the voices turn to screams and the walls begin to glow red, the lights cut out for a few seconds and when they come back FoX is standing, awkwardly in front of the camera. His eyes have glazed over and are glowing red and his suit is ripped.

FoX: in a sinsiter echoing drawl “We…. Live…. AGAAIIIN!”

He turns to stare directly at the camera…

FoX: “Must have parts!…”

He stumbles awkardly over the camera, and grabs it, with a whirr we lose the picture and are left with static....

Scene: 22

Int.Maintenance Bay.

Disco Stu, Squiggle, Dyntheos and Sir Gideon are all looking over hastilly scrawled hand written map that Stu is holding up, we can only see their faces from the reflected light from the various torches.

Disco Stu: “So… if bay three-stroke-B is…. There”

We follow Stu’s hand as he points a trail on the map

Sir Gideon: “and we are-“

Disco Stu: “Here… and the corridor to our right is four two stroke nine…”

They all shuffle right in unison

Squiggle: “And the main access shaft is behind us…”

They all turn around

Disco Stu: “Then the generator room is here”

He grins triumphantly

Squiggle: “Except that’s where we are….”

Disco Stu: “Oh yeah…. Hang on??! You mean we’re IN the generator room?”

Sir Gideon: “It looks like it”

Disco Stu: “No that can’t be right…”

Squiggle: “Maybe we took a wrong turn somewhere…”

They all peer in confusion at the map

Dyntheos: “Or maybe we didn’t”

The others turn to look at Dyn, they lower the map and follow the direction of his gaze, as the map is lowered we can see a HUGE cobweb covered, and very dusty Cylindrical Generator going at least thirty feet up to the ceiling and through to the floor above.

Sir Gideon: “Yes… maybe not…”

They rush towards the generator, we dissolve to...

.INT.Website forum entrance.Day

Athexx, Soulblighter and their respective groups are all milling around outside the large double blast doors to the Website forum.

Atthexx: “Soul!”

Soulblighter: “Ath, glad you could make it man… you look worse for wear..”

Atthexx: “Thanks, you don’t look the best yourself, what could you have been doing to look like that,”

He shoots a knowing smile at Soul

Soulblighter: “Still the good Atthexx of old…. Appalling jokes…Speaking of which where’s Uberjumper?”

Atthexx: “Ah… “

Soulblighter: “Ah? Oh… poor Jumper”

Atthexx: “He went bravely… He saved most of our lives…”

Soulblighter: “God dammit… why does this have to happen to us? I mean, His voice begins to shake slightly and become unsteady Its UberJumper, he was one of us… one of us mods, I’ve seen too many good people, friends even, too much,

Atthexx: “Its ok soul, we’ll make sure Uber doesn’t remain un-avenged”

Soulblighter: Straightening up and regaining any hints of losing his composure “Oh you try and stop me….”

We dissolve to an almost black shot, we can only pick up hints of walls and surroundings to let us know we’re somewhere very, very dark, we can hear gentle breathing echoing lightly in the depths of wherever we are. A dark shape flashes in front of the camera, and suddenly with a click a light suddenly illuminates our surroundings, we can make the dark figure holding the light to be Dmille. He removes his large hood attached to the dark tattered robes he is wearing and blinks his two bright red eyes. The camera pans round to see a figure chained to the wall in front of dmille, on close inspection the figure is a very battered, very bloody but still very much alive Uberjumper

Dmille: [I]In a hissing beast-like drawl “So, Moderator Pause how are you feeling? Don’t worry we’ll make you feel so much better, we have certain…. Methods…”

We fade out to black

Scene: 23

INT.Maintenance Area.

Squiggle, and Disco Stu are both struggling to hold back the door to the power station which is shuddering from various large impacts, Sir Gideon (Now known as Xypher) , and Dyntheos are both looking over the control console for the various power generators.

Xypher: “Its no good… the entire console’s been totally locked out…”

He taps a few more keys only to be greeted with a harsh sounding negative beep.

Dyntheos: “Maybe if we re-routed the control access to….”

Squiggle: “Guys! This isn’t going to hold much longer”

Disco Stu: “I know you have to be thorough… but I’m sure you could SPEED IT UP A LITTLE”

The Door shudders violently again, Disco Stu is nearly knocked over by the impact.

we cut to INT.Website Forum.Day

The website forum has been transformed into a hastilly constructed refuge for the boardies, On one side of the hall a number of the wounded are being tended to by SquidDNA and Malsar,

SquidDNA: “Malsar? Could you just come over here and help me with this patient? He’s in a pretty bad shape…”

Malsar: (Bones Voice) “Goddamit Squid I’m a strategist not a doctor!”

Squid: “Malsar!”

Malsar: “Coming, coming…”

The Camera pans round to see Athexx, Soulblighter, and Event Horizon surveying the masses from a raised balcony.

Event Horizon: “So, whats the plan from here on In?”

Soulblighter: “The plan?”

Event Horizon: “Yeah, You guys do have plan to get us through this don’t you?”

Athexx: “I’m still shocked we’re mostly all alive… or uninfected”

Event Horizon: “But there’s nowhere to run from here is there…”

Soulblighter: “Not anymore..”

Athexx: “If we can hold out here long enough and the power gets back we could call for help”

Event-Horizon: “Who can help us… it’s not like Relic themselves could come down and help us is it…”

Silence

Event Horizon: “Is it?…. Guys? Ath?”

Athexxr: “You never know…”

Soulblighter grins and looks down over the balcony

Event Horizon: “Soul whenever you grin like that I just know there’s going to be trouble…”

Athexx: “Look around event, it’s all relative”

The Camera Pans round again to see a number of boarder’s constructing defensive structures, sandbag walls and the like, all opposite the main door to the forum. RBA-Armageddon is barking orders frantically although no-one appears to be paying him much attention. The three Giant Mechs of Daishi, Masakari and WarHawk are standing in the corner discussing defensive operations.

Daishi: ”I estimate the chances of our survival are approximately foruteen thousand, nine hundred and seventy-three to one”

Masakari: ”This is perhaps… true”

Warhawk: ”However Daishi your calculations all depend on the humans in engineering… and whether they will succeed in their task”

Daishi: “Agreed… Warning, I’m picking up signals… movement signatures detected up ahead”

WarHawk: ”What distance”

Daishi: “Approximately 3 kilometres in bearing five-four-zero… closing on our position”

Masakari: ”We must warn human-Atthexx”

Masakari turns and stomps off towards the moderators on the balcony

Dissolve to:

Xypher is still furiously working away on the console trying to disable the security lockouts, Disco Stu, Squiggle and now Dyntheos are all trying to hold back the door,

Dyntheos: “I can’t hold it anymore…”

Squiggle: “Just a bit longer, if we c-“

With one violent impact the large door shudders, and a crack slowly trickles down its steel surface accompanied by the screech of the metal buckling. The three boarders look at the crack, turn and look at each other before throwing themselves away just as the door gives way and clatters to the ground in several torn pieces.

Disco Stu already has his gun out and flicks the safety catch off before opening fire, liberally strafing the smoke filled opening. Dyntheos slaps a cartridge into his rifle takes aim at the various silhouette’s heading towards them…..

Scene: 24

Title Card: Meanwhile – Back at Relic Entertainment HQ

We fade up to Relic HQ.INT.Day

We are greeted with a coffee cup strewn, pizza box infested typical game developers office. A number of programmers are lying asleep at their workstations, heads resting on their keyboards in stupor.

Rupract is torturing the jibbering work-experience guy by continually poking him with his Xena-Sword.

Plaz is conducting what looks like a anarchic Football/Hockey game through the maze of computer stations and desks. Plaz leaps past a startled looking secretary before knocking Quinn down into the corner and hurling the ball through the air towards Flako Cut to slow motion shot of the ball heading towards the intricate matchstick model of the Kushan Mothership on a pedestal in the centre of the office.

Flako: “-(Slow-mo) Noooooooooooooo….”

Flako launches himself into the air, arms outstretched towards the flying ball

We cut to the ball,

We cut back to Flako,

Cut back to everyone’s face, watching in twisted agony and suspense.

As Flako reaches the ball the camera slows down, down, and down, then with the ball inches away from the model, and Flako’s fingers touching the ball we come to a complete stop. Slowly, in Matrix style bullet time the camera whirls around the office and flako it does ¾ of a complete revolution before we suddenly jump back to normal speed.

Flako snateches the ball out of the air and into his hands before hitting the round and in one swift motion rolling forwards and leaping back up onto an empty desk.

Flako: “Game over”

Flako flicks the ball up into the air before sending it hammering into the office wall with a kick

Flako: “Yesssss!”

Plaz: “We win…. Again!”

Flako jumps down from the desk arms raised in triumph.

Quinn: “Nice moves Flako”

Flako: “yeah, maybe if you watching closely enough, you could pick some up of your own in time for the next game… might give you a chance”

Flako grins, Quinn makes a grab for him

Quinn: “Why I oughhta –“

Before he can finish the door slams open and AlexG strides through in a cloud of smoke musical accompanyment. He’s wearing combat fatigues, a [Wang Fu] PA T-shirt, a stetson, and dark glasses.

Alex: “Ahh… (he sniffs the air and surveys his dumbstruck team) I love the smell of the office in the morning…”

Cut back to:

INT.Relic Boards. Maintenance Section.Day

With a roar, Squiggle flicks his Flame thrower on full spread and charges into the horde of creatures spilling out of the open doorway

Squiggle: “Xypher! Get the power on and get everyone out! That’s all that matters”

Squig grits his teeth and wades through the pile of char grilled corpses continuing to spray fire everywhere. Disco Stu takes careful aim before putting three rounds through one of the aliens creeping up behind squiggle.

Disco Stu: “Squiggle, holding action! Don’t let them –Dakka- Through! –Dakka-Dakka-“

Squiggle: “Ah stu… never fear… I have a plan”

Disco Stu: Narrowly avoiding a pair of razor sharp claws before unloading half a mazgazine through the offending creatures chest “Oh great… we know *all * about your amazinf plans….”

Squiggle: “Ye of little faith stu”

We hear a positive sounding beep. The camera cuts back to Xypher working away on the power console with Dyntheos desperately providing covering fire

Xypher: “There we go… re-initialising drivers….. start-up sequence online…. Power up, NOW!”

With a low rising hum the lights begin to flicker and warm up, lights of the consoles on the walls begin to glow.

Suddenly, with a discordant warble, the screen on Gideon’s console goes blue and the lights and power dies.

Xypher: “Dammit!…. I thought I’d fixed it… it, everything’s working normally! It’s not my fault!

Dyntheos turns round and looks behind Xypher, the ventilation shaft on the far wall clangs open and more creatures begin to emerge,

Dyntheos: “Oh great, that’s JUST what I needed… classic pincer movement”

Dynth locks a magazine into his rifle before leaping over Xyoher’s workstation and taking up a firing position at the base of the plaztform

Xypher: “Abort Retry Fail?!…. Dammit…. Nothing works! This thing hates me!”

He pulls out his sword and begins smashing it down on the console, every word is punctuated with a beat of his sword

Xypher: “This –crash- Is –crash- How –crash- we –crash- fix –crash- things –crash- at –crash- the –crash- Guide -crash- stone!”

On his final beat, the computer, as if in defeat, bleeps in acknowledgement and the light goes green

Disco Stu: “you fixed it!”

Xypher: “ I did?… I did!”

He taps a few keys, and emergency door swings into place in front Squiggle who is still buring anything in sight, automatic defence guns dotted around the room power up with a whine and despatch the few remaining creatures with highly accurate bursts of heavy weapons fire.

We cut to various shots of Rooms lighting up, systems coming online and boarders glancing up in surprise as their comm systems come online.

Sorak watches with a sly grin as his main console splutters to life

Sorak: “Well I’ll be…. They fixed it!”

He slams his hand on the table

Sorak: “Ath? –(crackling of his link) Ath… we’re back in business!”

Scene: 25

We jump to Athexx standing over a balcony, surveying the lines of defences arrayed in front of him,

Athexx: “Masakari, Warhawk, Atlas. How close are those traces?”

Masakari: ”Signals have stopped at approximately 200 metres beyond this main door.”

Athexx turns to Soulblighter and MadHatter

Soulblighter: “I have no idea ath”

MadHatter: “Perhaps… they are waiting for something”

Athexx: “Well I’m not going to complain”

Soulblighter: “Err, Ath, if They have to wait for something before attacking us I’d really not like to see what it is….”

Athexx: “That’s…. a very good point.”

Soulblighter: “The longer we stay here we’re vulnerable”

Athexx: “I’m not taking my chances out there again…”

MadHatter: “… this place has become tainted…”

Athexx: “No. MadHatter, we’re not giving up this forum… we’ve lost too much already”

MadHatter: “To remain is futile”

Soulblighter: “We could always…. Evacuate”

Athexx: “What?! I’m not losing everything we’ve built here… we can beat these things”

MadHatter: “Not without help”

Athexx sighs… and lowers his head. He clicks a button on his wrist communicator.

Athexx: “Sorak… send the signal”

Soark: “You sure?”

Athexx: “Yes”

Sorak: “Sending signal…”

Soulblighter: “That is to who exactly?”

Athexx: “Our help”

Warhawk: “Picking up new traces… three… slow moving approaching the main group awaiting outside”

Athexx: “Three?”

Warhawk: “Sending data now”

Athexx’s datapad he’s holding beeps noisily

Athexx: “oh”

Soulblighter: “What is it?”

Athexx: “They’re big….”

Soulblighter: “Big? How big…”

Athexx: “Very big”

Dissolve to:

.EXT. Space - Outside the Relic UBB Mothership

The camera swoops lazily round the Huge, clunky looking craft as it plows it’s way through space. The camera slows for a second, before diving low towards the ship skimming over the hull, flashes of colour and blurs of windows, and engines flicker past the camera as it continues it’s flyby. Suddenly we loop up and around flashing back into open space before panning round once more filling the frame with the huge spacecraft, slowly the camera pulls back until we can see the entire ship. We sit there, hanging in open space.

Squiggle: (Voice Over) “Ack, it smells like a car crash in here”

Disco Stu: (V.O) “Well that might be something to do with your gasoline powered incendiary exploits back there”

Squiggle: (V.O) “Yeah well maybe”

As they talk the camera slowly begins pushing forward again towards the mothership, we can hear the echoing footstep of the characters

Xypher: “Yeah Squig, the chargrilled look suits you perfectly”

Dyntheos: “Makes an improvement on his earlier appearance…”

Squiggle: With mock outrage “Dyntheos! I am shocked that such words would come out of your mouth…”

By this point the camera has closed in one particular section of the hull, we continue to push forwards towards one of the windows on the surface

Dyntheos: “Out of interest… does anyone know where we’re going?”

Silence.

The camera reaches the large viewport just as Dyntheos walks carefully past it on the inside of the ship, he turns slightly and allows himself a gaze out at the stars

Disco Stu: “Oh you know us, we’ll find a way”

We finally cut to close up of Disco Stu. This is the first time the camera has changed shot in the entire sequence

Xypher: “Find a way to where exactly?”

Squiggle: “We need to meet back with Ath…. We just… don’t , quite, know where they are yet…”

We dissolve to...

INT. Main Control Room. Day

Sorak is standing in his control room, breathing heavily. In front of him is a barricade of chairs, desks and other furniture in front of the torn remnants of the door to the room. Sorak throws an empty shotgun down on the floor and moves over to the main control console. He begins typing in commands.

Computer Voice: “Acknowledged. Signal broadcast set to continuous. All frequencies.

Sorak: “Manual Lockout. Freeze all further commands from this station. Administrator access.”

Computer Voice: “Acknowledged. Lock out initiated”

Sorak pulls out a sleek looking pistol from a holster on his side, and draws his banstick in his other hand before picking his way through the barricade barring the way in or out of the control centre.

Sorak: (Buzzing) “Ath? I’m on my way back…”

Dissolve to:

INT.General Discussions Forum.

Dmille is standing in the middle of the wrecked and battered remains of the General discussions forum. He looks over the shattered furniture and bullet ridden walls and a thin smile appears on his face. He slowly approaches one of the windows on the wall. In the silence his footsteps echo throughout the huge, empty expanse of GD. The camera turns past him, following his gaze out into space, in the glass of the window we can see his burning red eyes reflected, layered over the starfield. HarManOff approaches.

HarManOff: “Is everything in place?”

Dmille: “Yes… it wont be long now”

The camera focuses back to the Viewport, far off in the never-ending backdrop of stars we can see a particularly bright spot blinking in the background.

Dmille: “They’re on their way…”

Jump Cut to:

EXT. Space.

With a roar a blur of grey flashes past the camera, we pull back and are momentarily blinded by the vibrant blue glow of the engines of the ship that has suddenly came into view. The ship roars off into the distance, engines pushing it at great speed, It banks right lazily and as the camera tracks it we can see the Relic UBB Ship in the distance, the unknown ship hurtles towards the Mothership and the camera begins to pull back.

INT. Relic HQ Command Ship - Cockpit

We cut back to the close up of a man, bathed in green from the instruments all around him. He is wearing a pair of goggles and a flight helmet. He reaches down and presses a button on a panel in front of him.

Pilot: “Alex? Sir? We’re approaching the vessel now”

INT. Relic HQ Command Ship – Main Hold

Alex Garden stands holding onto a rail above his head, he is being shook violently by every move of the ship. All around him marines are standing checking weapons, and putting on equipment.

AlexG: “Roger that… Hail them”

Pilot (crackling across communicator “Yes sir”

Rupract: “Hail them? What are you Captain Picard?”

AlexG: “Hey! I’ve always wanted to say that… don’t ruin my moment…”

Rupract rolls his eyes in desperation

EXT. Space

The Relic Vessel flashes past the rapidly tracking camera with a roar getting ever-closer to the UBB ship

INT.Website Forum

Panther is sitting working at a console with a pair of headphones on, he turns round and shouts up to Athexx, on the balcony

Panther: “Ath!, Transmission for you!”

Athexx: “Ah good… patch it through panther!”

We cut back to Ath, who presses a button on his communicator, Soul and MadHatter crowd round to here

AlexG: “Hey there Ath… heard you- -oys could -.. eed a hand?”

Athexx: “Alex… you’ve no idea how glad I am to hear your voice…”

Warhawk: “Athexx!”

Soulblighter: “He’s busy!”

WarHawk: “Acknowledged… but we have Incoming….”

INT. Relic Command HQ – Main Hold

AlexG: “Ath? You there? We’re almost with you…”

Pilot voice: (Over intercomm.) “Alex… sir… we have another signal on our scopes…”

Plaz: “Another signal?… Where?”

Pilot: “Coming in right on top of us…”

AlexG: “What is it?”

Pilot: “Uncomfirmed… presumed hostile… approximately Destroyer class… with several escorts…”

AlexG: “Battle Stations! Power up main weapons, raise shields… all hands brace for impact!”

Flako: “And you guys said this was going to be easy….”

Scene: 26

EXT. Space.

The Relic Dev teams ship swoops in past the camera and begins to lazilly bank round, in the background, barely audible we can hear the Alex Garden frantically barking orders. Suddenly all audio is drowned out as with a huge roar of engines a dark ship cuts above the camera (a la Star Wars a New Hope)

INT. Bridge of Unknown Ship

We cut to a dark gloomy bridge, the only illumination available is from the multiple instrument panels which bathe the scene in a green haze. We can see two figures standing in Silhouette in front of a huge viewscreen

Unknown Voice: "Send them a signal… keep our weapons locked on at all times. I want to talk to them.."

Crewman: "Yes sir"

INT. Bridge of the Relic Command Vessel

The two crewmen in the pilot and co-pilot’s chairs are frantically pressing buttons and flicking switches as the starfield in the front viewscreen blurs and rolls as the ship peels around. With a loud beep one of the buttons over the pilot’s head begins blinking incessantly. We cut back to the hold, where Alex and the rest of the HW dev team members are strapping themselves in and bracing themselves for combat.

Over Intercom. Pilot: "Enemy ship is holding position, weapons hot and locked on….. sir…. They’re hailing us"

Quinn: "Now’s your chance to be a proper Picard…"

AlexG: "I always fancied myself as a bald starship captain… * coughs* Put him through"

There is whine of feedback and static, everyone momentarily winces, then a voice cuts through with suprising clarity

Unknown Voice: "Relic vessel… you will halt and power down your engines and prepare for boarding, this area is under our control"

AlexG: "Your control? This is neutral space… we’re on a rescue mission to an unarmed UBB vessel… who are you to stop us?"

The first voice begins to speak, before he can a second voice cuts in,

2nd Unknown Voice: "YOU HAVE NO HONOR!"

Alex’s eyes widen in realisation

2nd Voice: "THIS IS GRAND ADMIRAL NEWBIE OF THE CRAP ARMADA, ABOARD THE DESTROYER ‘WITH ANGRY NEW GUNS’ OR WANG FOR SHORT. WE ARE IN CONTROL HERE, BUT WE WILL ALLOW YOU ONE CHANCE TO JOIN US"

Rupract: "You gotta be kidding me…"

AlexG: "Take us out of here, ignore these clowns"

The ship begins to Hum as the engines fire up again. We can see the small Relic ship begin to move off.

Suddenly one of the main cannons on the destroyer opens fire, the relic vessel is thrown sideways by the force of the blast

Rupract: "Ok… maybe they’re not kidding…"

AlexG: "Pilot, take us in, evasive manoeuvres, full weapons spread…."

Pilot: "Roger sir"

Cut to:

INT. Website Forum.

Soulbligher Is pacing behind his lines of boarders all taking up defensive postions behind whatever cover they can find. All eyes are on the huge door on the other side of the forum. Athexx, and MadHatter are heatedly discussing something in the corner with a small group of boarders. Soul rams a cartridge into his rifle and pulls out a cigar.

Soulbligher: "People, this is it. You all know what twisted knightmares lie beyond that door… and in any second now,

He pauses, and watches his cigar smoke lazilly float up to the ceiling

Soulblighter: "They’re gonna come in here, intent on ripping us all to pieces. Now I’ve never been wonderful at these motivational speeches but, we’re going to show them exactly what hell feels like, because each of you is a true relic boarder and this is your home, and if you are worth that member tag you proudly wear you will fight to defend it.

And Besides, if you don’t… I’ll ban the lot of you.

He grins and stops pacing

We cut back to Athexx, still huddled in the corner with Panther and a few others.

Athexx: "What do you mean no response? They were just here! I just spoke to Alex for heavens sake!"

Panther: "I… I don’t know, They’ve just vanished, stopped acknowledging all transmissions"

Athexx: "Keep transmitting, Tell me if we have a response!… We need to open the main hangar bay to let them in, Hatter?"

MadHatter’s hands fly over his datapad

MadHatter: "I’m working on it… it seems like dmille’s managed to gain some control over the ship systems, shouldn’t be too hard to crack. But it’ll take some time."

Athexx: "Good, now-"

There is a loud thud coming from behind Athexx

Soulbligher: In the distance "Ath….!"

Athexx: "Ok people here we go, keep it up we need to get those guys aboard"

He draws his rifle and begins sprinting down the staircase leading to Soulbligher and his hastilly armed Defense unit

Athexx: (Muttering)[I] "Be an administrator they said…. Easy life they said…. Stupid fool I was for taking this Job!"

Just as he finishes the Door squeals and with an earshattering thud crashes to the floor, before it hits the ground dark shapes begin flashing out of the smokescreen

Soulblighter: "Open Fire!"

The screeches and whines are joined by the constant staccato drum beats of assault rifles opening up at once, countless enemy creatures are torn to pieces in this initial onslaught, time begins to slow down until it flows like treacle and the scene begins to take on a ghost like atmosphere. We can hear distorted sounds of Humans, Aliens, Gunfire and screams out of sync with the slow motion blurred visuals.

We hold this atmosphere for a few moments, long enough for it to become unsettling and uncomfortable.

Gradually Panthers frantic voice begins to cut through the background noise, becoming louder and louder.

Panther: "Do you respond? We are Under attack… I repeat, Under attack. We have lost you from our scopes, this is Relic UBB Mothership calling the-

We jump violently to

INT.Bridge of the Relic Command vessel

The jump to this scene coincides with a huge jolt of the camera as the ship takes another crushing impact. We can see through the front viewport GAN’s destroyer rapidly drawing closer.

Over Intercomm. Panther: "Calling the Relic Command vessel ‘Stone Soup’, Once again, please respond… we are under heavy attack and request URGENT military assistance"

AlexG: "We’ve kinda got out hands full here guys!"

As he speaks the ‘Stone Soup’ roars over the surface of GAN’s Lead destroyer strafing it mercilessly with a barrage of plasma bombs.

As the stone soup pulls away a group of patchwork frigates open fire, despite their erratic fire patterns and the sleek evasive flight-path of the Relic ship, sheer weight of fire means that they take a number of hits.

Pilot: "Taking fire… shields are holding, just about."

Alex G: "How many more of those can we take?"

Pilot: "Not many, that destroyer packs a powerful punch"

Alex G: "damage to the enemy?"

Pilot: "Some, all superficial"

Alex G: "Ok.. Come round for another pass… target their weapon systems. I’ve got something I have to do"

Pilot: "Roger that sir"

Alex disappears out of the cockpit. We cut to an exterior shot as the Stone Soup flits up and around and powers back towards GAN’s fleet.

We cut to GAN’s gaudily painted destroyer, from it’s flanks numerous support frigates and a carrier slowly move forwards, like buzzing insects hordes of ramshackle interceptors and scouts craft roar towards the camera. They flick past in a blur of speed before one interceptor flies straight into the screen, we can glimpse the pilot inside for a second before cutting to black as the ship flies through the camera

INT. Website forum

The camera sweeps overhead in a long pan of the Website forum, we appear to join midway through the battle. The defence line of boarders is roughly intact, corpses, both Human and Alien are littered everywhere, there is still the constant drill of assault rifle fire and smoke from weapon discharges and grenades is flowing between the line of defenders and the constant flow of attackers swarming at them. We can see that slowly, inexorably, the boarders are being forced back.

Soulblighter: Blowing away a creature "I see they’ve given up any type of stealth…"

GuaRRanD: "Well when you’ve got this much of a number advantage who cares…"

Soulblighter: "We’re doomed aren’t we?"

Masakari: "That would be a likely probablility"

Soul shrugs, takes a deep breath and leaps up with a roar, rifle at the ready. Instead of the stream of creatures in front of him… the room is empty. He stands up fully and looks around carefully. All along the line of defence people are doing the same, scratching heads and exchanging puzzled glances. Athexx glances over the railing from his vantage point. A strange look on his face as if he’s staring at a dream. All we can hear is the moans of the wounded as their friends tend to them the best they can.

Soulblighter: "Did we just… win?"

Athexx: "I wouldn’t say that… you might just jinx it"

Soulblighter: "People! Reload your weapons, and secure your stations, I want a head count of everyone left alive here…"

MadHatter walks slowly into the middle of the room, and looks up at the ceiling in concentration. It is as if he’s straining to hear something only just audible

MadHatter: "I’m sorry to repeat such a cliched line…. But…. I have a bad feeling about this"

For a moment there is silence.

Then there is a huge thud that echoes around the room and the shockwaves of which send a few people onto their knees.

Athexx: "What the hell did you have to say that for! Everyone knows when anyone says that line something bad is about to happen! It’s one of the universe’s few unbreakable truths! Dammit Hatter!"

There is a noise like end of the world as with an ear-splitting tearing of metal and steel the entire side wall of the forum is pierced and then torn down by four huge claws that are slowly revealed to belong to an enormous hulking behemoth confronting the terrified boarders. Everyone slowly backs away as the thing just stands there, surrounded by the debris and wreckage of the wall, power cables are snaking round sparking madly, and a klaxon can faintly be heard in the distance.

Soulblighter: Looking up in awe "Ath… you were right"

Athexx: "What?"

Soulblighter: "It Is big…"

Cut to EXT. Space.

The Stone Soup effortlessly rolls away from a stream of mass driver fire with the agility of a fighter, as it roars past the camera we can see it is being relentlessly pursued by a hungry pack of strike craft. It jinks left again as a burst of fire sparks off it’s shields.

INT. Stone Soup Bridge

Pilot: "We need those point defense guns online now… I don’t care what you have to shut off to do it, I just need a little space to make my approach…"

Engineering (Over comm.) "Received… we—see wha- -- can do"

Pilot: "Alex? We’re almost set…"

We cut back to an exterior shot. The stone soup desperately rolls and slides again trying to shake it’s pursuers. After a few moments with a slight hum small defenseive emplacements all over the ship open up with a fury. The stone soup loops round lazilly, iridescent pulses of energy rippling outwards from her weapons batteries. In only a few seconds the enemy fighter formation is cut to pieces, explosions and debris fill the once empty void as the Relic ship slices through.

INT. GAN’s Destroyer, bridge.

Amazingskills: "They’re pulling away from the fighters…"

GAN: "BAH, THEY CANNOT ESCAPE THE MIGHTY CRAP ATTACK FLEET. LOOK SEE HOW MY FRIGATE GROUPS MOVE TO INTERCEPT THEM…"

Amazingskills: "Do you rerally have to talk in caps? It’s kinda irritating…"

GAN: "YES."

Amazingskills: "Why?"

GAN: "YOU QUESTION MY METHODS LITTLE HACKER MAN?"

Amazingskills: "Well… yes…"

GAN: "THAT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO HONOR! YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE A RANK IN THE CRAP NAVY. YOU ARE LUCKY I EVEN LET YOU WATCH FROM THE BRIDGE.."

Before amazingskills can answer one a loud alert begins to wail slowly

Crewmen: "Sir… they’re moving into attack formation…"

GAN: "WHAT? THEY CANNOT HURT GAN’S FLAGSHIP…"

Crewmen: "They’re coming in… fast… weapons hot"

GAN: "RAISE SHIELDS, OPEN FIRE WITH ALL GUNS"

The Ship rocks as the two main cannons on the Destroyer open up with a vengance, the Stone Soup effortlessly slips underneath the energy blast and accelerates even further.

From the bridge of GAN’s destroyer the speck on the front viewport of the Stone Soup becomes larger and larger with frightening speed, heading straight for the bridge

Amazingskills: "Intensify forward firepower! Don’t let them get through!"

GAN: "INTENSIFY FORW—"

Before he can finish the enemy ship opens fire, electric blue plasma blasts cascade all over the destroyer’s shields, it still accelerates heading straight for the main viewscreen. GAN and the rest of the bridge brace themselves. At the last second the stone soup flicks up skimming over the bridge of the destroyer and straight past her.

Crewmen: "Collision alarm deactivated… they’ve headed straight past us, continuing on course, towards the Relic Board Mothership"

GAN: "THEY HAVE NO HONOR! THEY CANNOT FIGHT THE CRAP NAVY IN A STRAIGHT BATTLE… SEND THE FLEET IN! DESTROY THEM!"

The stone soup continues towards the huge bulk of the Board mothership at a frightening rate, as it approaches close distance numerous small pods shoot off the side of the Hull. Each pod twinkles against the starfield as it’s own tiny engine flares into life, and begin in unison to head for the mothership

Pilot: "It’s all yours Alex, Boarding pods away…"

He pulls up and the Relic vessel veers away sharply

INT. Website Forum. Day

Soulbligher stands atop one of the barricades rifle in hand. He takes aim and squeezes the trigger. We hear multiple ricochets and pan round to see bullets bouncing off the armoured head of the huge creature.

Soulblighter: "Wow, it’s got a skull almost as thick as yours ath…"

The creature begins rumbling towards Soulblighter, many boarders lie at it’s feet, whilst others are quickly heading towards any exit’s or hiding places they can find.

Athexx: "Great move soul!"

He ratttles off a burst to similarly little effect.

Soul leaps off his position and sprints towards the staircase leading to Ath’s vantage point.. In frightening speed the creature is upon him. Soul rolls forwards as a huge claw flies over his head and stops abruptly as another punctures into the floor no more than a couple of inches in front of him. Soul looks up at the ugly gaping mouth of the creature before leaping over it’s claw and continuing onwards. The creature roars and pursues. All around it bullets are bouncing off it’s armoured shell like they were made of plastic. There is a mechanical thud, and a green laser beam punches into the creatures chest. It turns round to see Masakari behind it, weapons smoking. Soul takes his opportunity to charge up the steps to safety.

Masakari unleashes another blast from it’s laser cannonn, it knocks the creature sideways but doesn’t puncture it’s armour. In repsonse a large claw slices through Masakari’s shell and tears off one of his arms in a shower of sparks.

Athexx: Speaking into his comm., which comes through the PA system throughout the ship "This is Athexx, this ship has been irreversibly compromised ALL personnel head to the evacuation shuttles as soon as possible, be warned there is still a hostile presence throughout the ship, be careful out there…"

With a whine of feedback the speakers shut off

Athexx: "Come on soul… let’s get the hell out of here"

They turn round to see the Creature punch straight through the shell of the already limping Masakari. The mech crashes to the floor with a few spasmodic twitches but is no more. Soul shakes his head and follows Ath towards the nearest exit. They join Warhawk, GuaRRanD, A176, and Ethan at the doorway. Athexx reaches forwards to tap in the keycode to open the door, we cut to a slo-mo of his hand stretching out before seeing the entire wall in front of him spilt open like tinfoil under three huge lunges from the claws of another two giant creatures suddenly dwarf the small group of humans. Suddenly Athexx and the rest are forced into a rapidly decreasing circle as the Three huge beasts close in inexorably.

Scene: 27

Cut to: INT. Escape Pod Bays.

Sorak silhouetted by the sharp beam of light streaming in through the doorway he’s just entered from slowly walks into a dark expanse of nothingness, we can just about make out a few outlines of walls and suchlike.

Sorak: Clearing his throat “Computer… lights…”

There is a low distant hum, and we are assaulted by a barrage of flickering beams as lights reluctantly switch themselves on Sorak blinks as he adjusts to the change and the camera pulls back slightly.

After a few seconds we realise that the room we’re in is not a room at all, but rather a truly gigantic hangar bay, all along the near side are lined rows upon rows of pressure doors leading to escape hatches. Various shuttles, fighters and support craft all in various states of disrepair are scattered throughout the bay. Sorak turns and raises his communicator,

Sorak: “Ath? Ath are you there? I’m in position now… are you guys making your way here? Ath?”

As sorak speaks the camera shifts focus from Sorak to Uberjumper standing a few metres behind him who has just appeared out of nowhere.

Sorak: “Ath? Soul? Anyone? Can you he-“

Uberjumper: Cutting him off – Out of breath “They can’t hear you sorak… last I checked they were holed up in the Website forum, and there’s heavy fighting been reported all over that sector”

Sorak: “Uber! You made it out alive… I heard…”

Uberjumper: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated…”

They both grin warmly and hug each other in that-manly-afraid-of-looking-gay-kinda-way. We cut to a close up on Uber

Sorak: “Its good to see you man!”

Uberjumper: “You too sorak…”

Uber’s eyes flicker for a second and a red haze swims over his pupils for a moment. The slight trace of a smile appears on his mouth.

Cut to: Website forum. INT.

We come to back to where we left before, Athexx and the few remaining boarders have formed a final defensive circle, still infecctually blazing away at the hulking behemoths coming towards them…

Athexx: “Hey! Don’t we need a fat lady or something…”

Soulblighter: “I suppose it would be fitting…”

Athexx: “Maybe you can give us a number soul”

Soulblighter: “You ath… are something else, here we are, faced with imminent death-by-sharp-claws and your still making jokes!”

Athexx: “Perhaps you’d prefer a tearful emotional speech?”

GuaRRanD: “I’d like some beer…”

Suddenly, there’s a blinding flash of red light, Everyone momentarily shields their face reflexively. Soul winces, and gingerly opens his eyes…

Soulblighter: “What the hell was….”

Before he can finish he looks up, one of the monsters is standing in front of him towering above him ominously. Hhowever… where its head used to be now there is only charred smoking flesh. Slowly, the thing topples over and crashes down at Soul’s feet.

Soulblighter: “….that….”

Delphy: “Evening all… not too late are we?”

The camera pans round to see Delphy, Omnislash, standing holding smoking ion-cannons with grins on their faces… behind them are the other boarders who we last saw in the editing forum

Shin: “The battle is joined friends…”

On cue a huge explosion comes rocks the forum, Athexx turns round to see Mokona piloting a Heavy Arms Gundam charging towards the nearest creature, guns blazing. Behind him are a rag-tag army of IRC regulars brandishing various weapons.

MadMerchant: “We 0wnz j00!”

FlyMolo: “Unf Unf Unf… CHARGE!”

Ungberg: “GG Aliens!”

In moments the creature is surrounded by a sea of bodies all hacking into it, each blow chipping away its armour and bone. It roars and vainly tries to fight back, claws flailing against the mass of bodes. Mokona strides through the hordes and jams its cannon into the beast’s mouth.

Mokona: “Puu-puu-PUU!”

there is a muffled explosion and the creature’s head explodes messily

Athexx: “Where’s the other one?”

He spins round to see Rupract standing atop the corpse of the last huge beast, pushing his Xena-Sword into its neck. The rest of the relic team are standing nearby.

Rupract: “A bit of excersise always wakes me up in the morning…”

Plaz: “Spoken like a true spankmaster rup,”

Rupract: “Why thank you..”

Soulbligher: “Fashionably late Alex?”

AlexG: “Well… you know us developers, we’re just such a cool bunch of guys…”

Athexx: “Lets get the hell out of here… we don’t know when, or what’s coming back…”

Cut to Space. EXT

The Stone Soup comes in fast, roaring underneath the camera straight to the middle of GAN’s battlegroup, rolling and twisting the ship punches through a gap between the wall of ships, lasers and cannon fire whistling past her hull..

We jump to the interior of the bridge.

Pilot: “Transferring power to starboard shields… here we go again… engines at maximum”

The starfield visible through the windows of the cramped bridge lurch suddenly as the ship rolls, GAN’s destroyer rolls into view and the stone soup powers towards it.

Pilot: “Arm all weapons, prepare to engage…”

Co-Pilot: “Weapons green. Ready to fire”

Pilot: “Here we go…”

The ship begins an erratically spinning attack run, lasers and ion cannons slam into the enemy ships hull and missiles fly between the two ships in waves.

INT. Maintenance Elevator.

Dyntheos, Xypher, Squiggle and Disco Stu are all cramped in the small maintenance elevator which is currently roaring its way noisilly throughout the ship.

Dyntheos: “Are you sure this thing is safe squig?”

Squig: “Of course… used it many times. Should take us straight to the escape pod bays, where no doubt Ath is waiting for us Medals in hand”

Xypher: “You and your delusions of grandeur squig…”

Squig: “Oh really?! When have I ever let you down before…”

The other three look at each other and sigh noisilly

Disco Stu: “I don’t think we have enough time to list them all squig…”

Squiggle: “Oh ye of little faith, you’ll see,

Elevator grinds to a halt, there is a loud ding

Squiggle: “see! Watch, you unbelievers, I’ve guided you all back….

The door creaks open, we are confronted with a cavernous, icy storage facility, there are shelves full of boxes all frozen near solid as far as the eye can see.

Elevator voice: “Welcome to level 43, foodstuff, medical and waste storage facilities, where the temperature is a balmy minus twenty-seven degrees”

Everyone glares at squiggle

Squiggle: “…. Safe and sound….”

Xypher: “Oh wonderful, I didn’t know the escape pods were located in THE FREEZER!”

He sighs and reaches over to the control panel on the elevator door. Before he can hit a button the car is rocked by a huge shockwave, everyone grabs on to the walls or eachother to stop themselves from falling, after the rumbling subsides Xypher picks himself up again, and dusts himself off.

Xypher: “Ok…. What the –“

INT.Escape Pod Bay

Soulblighter: “ – Hell was *that*”

Athexx: “I don’t know…. Last time you said that twenty foor aliens head got blown off by a portable ion cannon. Who knows what’ll happen this time.”

He presses his hand against a panel leading into the hangar bay, the door slides open. Ath aand soul lead everyone into the room

AlexG: “Alright people, if you could all line up alongside the far wall, Athexx and the rest of us can take a quick rolecall.”

Uberjumper: “better hurry it up Ath…”

Athexx: “Uberjumper! How in the… how did you…. When did you…..”

Uberjumper: “It’s a long story and we don’t have much time…. These tremors we’ve been experiencing, well… it appears that dmille-“

There is a low rumble and the entire hangar bay begins to shake violently, everyone struggles to keep their balance as the quake goes on. Finally it stops, Uber shakes his head and dusts himself down.

Uberjumper: “Dmille has somehow hacked into the computer systems, he’s gone into the Mainframe and set the reactor to overload… this entire place is going to blow any minute now”

Athexx: “What? How did he get in?”

Uberjumper: “I don’t know… he shouldn’t have the access for something like that.”

Athexx: “Well can you fix it? I always assumed we’d have a home to come back to, even if we are abandoning it temporarily”

Uberjumper: “I don’t know… the systems pretty chewed up from the inside, I can try.”

Athexx: Get to it then. He turns round to address the awaiting mass of boarders lined up against the wall Soul, Hatter, Tekron, take a quick headcount. Has anyone seen sorak by any chance?

Everyone looks blankly and shrugs

Soulblighter: “He said he was on his way…”

Uberjumper: “I’m sure he’ll arrive at some point, its not exactly a safe place anymore. Could be hazardous.”

The ground begins to shake again, more violently now then before. And for a much longer period of time.

Athexx: “Woah, ok this place is going to shake itself apart. Shin, Delphy, Omni, Event, I need you guys to set up guards round the exits here, there’s still people trying to make it back. Uber, have we still got communications?”

Uberjumper: “All primary systems are intact yes,… for now”

Athexx: “Good… here’s what I want you to do…”

Bridge of GANS Flagship WANG.INT

The previously spotlight bridge room is now bathed in a red emergency glow, many crewmen lie dead and sparks sporadically erupt from some of the damaged consoles.

Amazingskills: “They’re retreating! Send in the rest of the fighters, finish them off.”

GAN: “NO. WE WILL HAVE THE HONOR OF KILLING THEM OURSELVES. THEN WE WILL TAKE OVER THAT PATHETIC RELIC MOTHERSHIP AND APPOINT ME AS ADMINISTRATOR. PURSUE THE ENEMY. FASTEST SPEED.”

.EXT. Space. SFX

The destroyer rumbles slowly forwards as her huge engines struggle to propel her through the void. The stone soup can be seen in the distance accelerating away from the CRAP navy, apparently in full retreat.

INT. Escape Pod Bays.

MadHatter, and Soulblighter are guiding people into the escape pods as the tremors become ever more frequent, we can hear a klaxon wailing in the distance and many of the lights across the immense hangar bay are flickering on and off incessantly.

Soulblighter: “Come on people, there’s enough room for everyone. We’ll have no leonardo diCaprio’s or Kate winslets here. That means you Aura and Paladin… (He rolls his eyes at the two of them standing in line,)

Aura: “Aww… likkle soul’s getting jealous? She grins evilly… Can you really see me as the helpless heroine of this scenario?”

Soulblighter: “You aura? No. Paladin on the other hand, looks like he could do with some rescuing…”

Aura chuckles quietly. Soul continues guiding people into the escape pods despite the almost continual shaking of the floor and walls.

Athexx: “Uber? Any luck?”

Uberjumper: “I’m making progress… but dmille’s done all he can to wreck the system when he exited it. I’m having to find backups, write new pathways to counteract the old ones.-“

Athexx: “Good, just keep it up, we haven’t got long…”

The relic boys appear in the background,

AlexG: “whats this, as soon as we get here your all leaving again?”

Athexx: “Sorry alex, unless you want to be vapourised when this entire place goes up your going to have to take the luxury four star accomodation of our escape pod deluxe model.”

He grins and guides the Relic staffers to one of the pods.

Athexx: “Business class of course, easy enough to accommodate two to three.”

Rupract: “whats the inflight movie?”

Athexx: “don’t get cheeky rup..”

Rupract grins, and the rest of the relic team clamber aboard their various escape pods. The camera pans round to see Soulblighter closing the hatch of the last one.

Soulblighter: “That’s all non-command personell Ath.”

Athexx: “Alright, escape pods away. Signal the stone soup to pick them up when they get here.”

Uberjumper presses a button. With a roaring noise the airlock doors slam shut and the various escape pods are fired out of their repsective bays. We jump to an exterior shot as hundreds of small cylinders are ejected from the hulking mothership erratically spinning their way past the camera.

MadHatter: “away they go”

There is another furious roar as a tremor rocks the bay, this time everyone’s knocked off their feet by the force of it.

Athexx: “Uber! We haven’t got much time… tell me your almost there.”

Uberjumper: “Almost… I just have to subvert the main command files for the engineering database..”

“Its too late for that now…”

Athexx turns round to see IceCreamLt.Dan, HarManOff, and Ionfish, enter the room. There are a small group of creatures accompanying them.

Harmanoff: “Some of you may have got away…”

IceCreamLt.Dan: “…but you have been left…”

Ionfish: “For us…”

With a screech the creatures suddenly lunge at the group of moderators. Almost impercetibly quickly soul rolls backwards picking up his rifle as he does so and blows three of them out of the sky. MadHatter skewers one of them with his banstick in midair, whilst Athexx manages to decapitate another. There is a short struggle but in moments al of the aliens lie dead. Soulblighter looks up, The three subverted humans are standing in the center of the room still. However, there are three rifles in their hands.

Soulblighter: “Move!”

Suddenly in slo-mo Harmanoff, Dan and Ionfish open fire, the roars of their assault rifles sounding distorted and echoing in the slowed down time. Soul throws himself left and rolls behind a table whilst Ath, MadHatter, and Uberjumper dive for cover. Soulblighter jumps to his feet and opens fire, Dan takes three rounds in the chest and is thrown backwards, soul takes two slugs into his side and goes down. Suddenly there is a clatter and a ventilation shaft in the roof hits the ground. In moments Squiggle, Disco Stu, Dyntheos and Xypher hit the ground. Squiggle charges forwards instantly dousing Ionfish in flames before Harmanoff pulls out a pistol and blasts squiggle squarely in the chest, squiggle collapses to the ground awkawardly. We cut to Squiggles POV as Harmanoff looks down at him, red eyes glowing. Squiggle watches as his former partner points a gun at his face.

There is a loud bang.

Squiggle shuts his eyes relfexively as Harmanoff hits the ground. The focus of the shot changes and we can see Disco Stu standing in the background holding a smoking rifle. Athexx and MadHatter are suddenly beside squiggle checking his life signs frantically and administering CPR. After a few minutes Athexx sighs and closes squiggles eyes for the last time

Athexx: “Right that’s it, we’re leaving.”

He stands up. A sudden look of determination on his face. Blood on his hands. MadHatter picks up the already bleeding Soulblighter and walks over to the escape pod. Disco Stu, Xypher and Dynth all carry squiggles body over to the pods. The tremors begin to increase in intensity again. Gas begins to be vented from the walls as sparks fly and various consoles across the walls begin to spark crackle as they lose their power. Uberjumper’s datapad suddenly emits a high pitched humming noise before crackling and smoke begins to vent from the console he’s desperately working at.

Athexx: “uber. Its over, lets go.”

Uberjumper: “Just give me a few more…”

There is a muffled explosion in the distance and the entire room shakes again

Athexx; “There is no more time uber!”

Uberjumper taps a few more keys, before sighing and hurling his datapad across the room. He quickly sprints over to Athexx standing by the last escape pod. The others are already closing the hatches to theirs.

Athexx takes a look around the room quietly. This is probably his last sight of the boards before they are destroyed. He sighs and turns round, hitting the button to open the last escape pod. As the door opens we can see the bleeding body of Sorak lying face down on the floor. A look of realisation crosses Athexx’s face and he turns round to see Uberjumper standing beside dmille eyes burning with a red glow.

Suddenly Athexx slams a button next to him and the last two escape pods with the remaining boardies are launched. We can see a glimpes of their helpless faces as they watch Athexx turn to face dmille and Uberjumper before they are fired away from the mothership with a roar.

Athexx: “Pretty good act Uber. But its too late, you’ve lost, this place is about to go up and take both of you with it.”

Dmille: “Maybe so… but at least I get the pleasure of watching you die at the hands of one of your friends…”

As if on cue Uber screeches and lunges at athexx, banstick in hand. Already Athexx is prepared and parries with his own banstick. Uber launches into a lightning fast assault, banstick whistling through the air as he forces Athexx back with a series of quick assaults. Ath ducks under a particularly heavy slice before leaping back over a rail landing on the deck below.

Athexx: “Uber! Don’t do this…can’t you see what your doing… Its me!”

Uber only snarls and lands beside him. Athexx stabs forwards but his banstick meets nothing but air as Uber deftly sidesteps before swinging his foot round in a high kick. Ath is taken by surprise and is sent sprawling to the floor. We hear heavy footsteps as Uberjumper slowly walks up to his prone body. Banstick held aloft he prepares to deal the finishing blow.

Uberjumper: “You pay the price for not joining us”

He stabs down violently, at the same time Athexx rolls away leaving ubers blow to tear into the metal floor. Ath is suddenly on his feet and spins round Banstick in hand. Uber howls and we can see a wound across his arm, blood dripping onto the floor and collecting at his feet. His strength fading Uberjumper lashes out wildly, Athexx skilfully whips his banstick up knocking Uber’s weapon from his hand and sending it clattering across the floor. Athexx points his weapon at Uberjumper, ready to finish it once and for all.

Athexx: “I… I … Can’t do this… not to a friend…. A moderator.….”

He lowers his weapon

Dmille: “You see human… your mind fails you at the last moment, proving your weakness. And your ultimate failure.”

Dmille delivers a cracking blow across Athexx’s back causing him to clatter into the ground. He hands Uberjumper his banstick

Dmille: “End this now Uberjumper. Surpass Athexx where his weak and feeble brain failed him.”

Uber gets to his feet and raises his banstick once more. Athexx closes his eyes. We suddenly hear a voice in the background.

“I, on the other hand. Have no such problems with disposing of moderators”

There is a loud bang and Uber hits the floor next to Athexx. We see sno standing behind him, a smoking Shotgun in hand. Athexx opens his eyes and is suddenly on his feet. Sno tosses him a pistol, in slow motion Athexx grabs it in mid air turns and fires a single shot through dmille’s forhead. Dmille crumples to the ground.

Sno: “I can’t believe I just saved your sorry hide Athexx…”

Athexx: “I can’t really believe it either…”

Sno: “I must be getting old and mellow or something.”

He takes the wounded Athexx on his shoulder and they stumble towards the last escape pod. The hangar bay begins to shake itself apart as it’s rocked by ever increasing tremors. They both stuggle through the airlock.

Athexx: “Sno… I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

He laughs and hits the release button on the escape pod. The door closes behind them and the last pod. There is a hiss and then a sudden roar of ignition. We see the mothership suddenly accelerate away from their point of view as the escape pod is blasted out of the bay. The starfield visible through the main window spins and swirls as they float through space.

Space. EXT.

The stone soup roars through space past the mothership, it’s hangar doors are open and many of the pods are being drawn into it through the invisble tractor beam. It accelerates past the smoking relic mothership.

Bridge of GANS Flagship

GAN: “SEE, THEY HAVE ABANDONED THEIR HOME, ITS RIPE FOR A TAKEOVER.”

Pilot: “We’re approaching weapons range of the enemy vessel now sir.”

GAN: “GOOD, PREPARE TO FIRE… TAKE US ALONGSIDE THE MOTHRSHIP ASWELL. PREPARE BOARDING PARTIES.”

Pilot: “Yes sir.”

Amazingskills: “Massive Energy readings coming from the UBB Ship!”

GAN: “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”

Amazingskills: “Oh no…”

We begin to hear the Adagio for strings in the background.

The mothership, now clearly visible in the main window of the Destroyer’s bridge suddenly erupts into a white ball of flame. For almost a second there is silence, then the blast totally obliterates GAN, his flagship and the entire CRAP navy in burning white plasma.

We cut back to the stone soup. Now a safe distance away, we can see the incandescent blast light up the picture. The stone soup is hauling in its last escae pod, the camera swings right past, up to the main window. We can see Soulblighter, now bandaged up sitting by the window a faint smile on his face.

Music: - Just by Radiohead

Soul turns to look at the camera and smiles, slowly, faintly his eyes begin to glow red until they almost look like they’re burning. Just as the chorus of the song crashes in, Soul looks straight at us, and winks at the camera.

We cut to black and roll credits.