Episode 6 – Rogue

JOSEPHINE: Sorry- I just saw- Oh god- I don’t- it was Jacque, she was- oh- fuck- Maria I-

MARIA: Hey, slow down. What’s happened? Are you alright?

JOSEPHINE: It’s Jacque, Maria. I saw her- she- she’s dead!

MARIA: You saw her where?

JOSEPHINE: (Keeps going) In the dining room! She’s dead. Jacque’s really dead! She was
cut in half Maria! Straight down the middle like a goddamn bread roll! What
the hell? What could have done something like t It was horrifying. What the
hell is going on Maria!?

MARIA: Oh no… He’s moving toward us

JOSEPHINE: Oh no? What do you mean ‘oh no’? What’s moving? Who is moving?!

SFX MARIA begins walking swiftly down the corridor. A short pause before JOSEPHINE’s
footsteps follow hers. Steps continue underneath dialogue.

(Yelling) Maria?! What do you mean? Where are you going?

MARIA: The flight deck. I need to find him

JOSEPHINE: Find who!? What’s going on, Maria, you’re scaring me

MARIA: Josephine, please, shut up. Whatever this is, we’re going to need level heads to
get it under control

JOSEPHINE: (Unsure) Okay

MARIA: So, I may have neglected to share some significant findings from my research
with the rest of the crew. I happened upon a particularly interesting specimen
and things appear to have escalated much faster than I anticipated, but I’m
confident we can get it back under control promptly

JOSEPHINE: What do you mean? What the hell kind of specimen could you have found,
Maria? You’re a glorified botanist!

Long pause

Holy shit, you didn’t find an alien, did you?

MARIA: Why is that always the first guess?

JOSEPHINE: So you did!?

MARIA: It’s not an alien. Well, not technically

SFX Flight deck doors opening. Doors closing

JOSEPHINE: What the hell do you mean technically? Either it is or it isn’t

SFX Footsteps end

MARIA: All it is, is a small fungus that I found on one of my Boston Fern samples.
That’s it. We must have missed it in the final inspection. This is a gross
oversimplification, but it appears that the pressurisation of the ship and
exposure to solar radiation caused the fungus to mutate into a somewhat
sentient parasite. It’s quite marvellous actually. I like to call him Boston

JOSEPHINE: Boston? What? I’m sorry? Okay. Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you or did
you not stumble upon a fucking mutant mushroom in your lab and you A.)
didn’t think to mention it to anyone, and B.) thought it would be a good idea to
leave it unsupervised! What in the name of God possessed you to think that
was a good idea?!

SFX Mechanical tying on keyboard. A couple beep boops as MARIA clicks through channels

MARIA: Don’t be so dramatic, Josie. It’s fine. Here, I’ll just pull up the recent security
footage, we’ll figure out where Boston is and contain him. Simple as that

JOSEPHINE: Are you kidding me? I can’t believe you. You know, you’ve always been
dedicated to your research, but this is a whole new level of ludicrous

MARIA: The situation is under control

JOSEPHINE: Is it? Because from where I’m standing, it looks a whole lot like you knew
what this thing could be capable of and kept it to yourself to see what you
could-

SFX Growing and gurgling plays from the flight deck speakers

JOSEPHINE screams

JOSEPHINE: Oh my… Freda?

MARIA: That’s brutal

JOSEPHINE: …Brutal? Brutal? Is that all you can say? Brutal? She’s getting her fucking
ribs tor- (she begins to sob) And, Derek, no… (heaves and coughs) Derek,
what happened… (sobs harder)
FREDA: Mission log 6. No luck so far in making contact with Earth. Still getting
nothing but static up here. Our systems are pretty banged up, but my best
guess is that our salvaged orbit doesn’t pass over the range of any transmission
centre or ground station on Earth. Which, for all intents and purposes, means
we’re on our own.

However, in lieu of establishing immediate communication and rapidly falling

into a pit of despair, I’ve taken to repairing our ship’s transmitter. Well.
Repairing might not be entirely correct. More like repurposing. The thing’s
only about a third fried, so there’s still parts in working condition. I’m hoping
that I can use those parts, as well as some bits and pieces around the ship, to
make our transmitter into a rudimentary and frankly insultingly basic space
relay. Now, I don’t want to go naming names, and pointing fingers, but I was
the one who insisted the Intuition use a relay instead of a transmitter, precisely
because of situations like this one. But nooo, we just couldn’t get any more
funding approved. Yeah, sure. I wonder why.

Anyway. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s the best option we’ve got at the
moment. If I can repurpose the transmitter, then our shitty orbit won’t matter,
and with any luck we’ll finally be able to phone home. End miss-

SFX ECHO cuts the transmission

ECHO: End of transmission

SFX Whirring, banging, cranking noise as HOLLAND repairs the outer ship. SFX distortion
over HOLLAND’s voice as she breathes in the space suit and radios back to MARIA

MARIA: How much longer is this going to take?

HOLLAND: (Grunting) You got something better to do?

MARIA: Yes actually. My job

HOLLAND: I hate to break it to you Solis, but your research ain’t going to see the light of
day until this stupid module gets fixed. And while Jacque is busy trying to re-
plot our navigation, you’re stuck with me. So suck it up princess, and make
sure I don’t die out here

MARIA: God, you’re insufferable

HOLLAND: You’re no picnic either, love

MARIA: How much oxygen do you have left?

HOLLAND: About half a tank that’s running out pretty quick. You plannin’ on keeping me
out here long enough to run it down or what?

MARIA: Believe me Ford, I want nothing more than to return to my lab as soon as
possible

HOLLAND: Sure. I’ve just got one more panel left, can you reel in the tether?

MARIA: Reeling the tether