Just a minute.
Got it.
I keep telling you, machines and women --
If you're too gentle with them,
you're asking for trouble.
Oh, another pearl of wisdom
from Franklin the knuckle scraper?
Put a lid on it, people.
Okay, here we go.
Uh, 7/17/63, 1800 hours, per s.O.P.
This is the visual log of science Officer William olsten
of the U.F.S. Mercury.
We were en route to the planet trion
when we received a distress signal
from the U.F.S. Rhesos, a c-Class battleship
which was returning from the planet.
We are preparing to board.
Captain Abbott, anything else you'd like to put on Record?
Uh, no, that's good.
Take a seat, prepare to dock.
( Hannah ) U.F.S. Rhesos, this is U.F.S. Mercury.
Just put this thing on.
Is this straight?
Did your mom have to dress you when you were a little kid?
You've seen my closet.
I need all the help I can get.
Yeah, you need to work on that.
U.F.S. Rhesos, this is U.F.S. Mercury.
Do you copy?
Slow and easy, Hannah.
Piece of cake.
Cuing the zoom.
Look at the size of that mother.
Still no response from the rhesos, --Captain.
Okay, let's go in.
Okay, docking on my mark.
10, 9, 8,
7, 6, 5,
4, 3, 2, 1.
Mark.
Nice landing.
Think you can do better?
Come grab the stick.
I got your stick, baby.
Hey, stow it.
It was a good landing, Hannah.
Umbilical locked.
Seal integrity high.
Taking Air sample from rhesos.
Scrubbers functioning,
air is breathable and sterile.
All right, let's do it.
50 Rounds per second.
Turn a horse into puppy Chow
before you can say "Fetch."
All right, let's do this right and tight, huh?
Hannah, you hold the Fort down.
Will, Megan, you come with me.
Franklin, bring up the rear.
Hey, why don't you also stay on board with Hannah?
What, why?
Because we're civilian consultants.
We're not here to become involved in military missions.
I was trained in military engagements
before I came on board, will.
Sorry, doc. I need every hand.
All right, let's keep the volume low and controlled.
All right?
No action without verification.
I don't want to put a hole in one of our own.
Did you hear that, Franklin?
All right, clear the Hatch open.
I love you, will,
but I do not need you thinking for me, okay?
Keep the motor running and the beer cold, sweetheart.
Try not to shoot yourself, sport.
( buzzer sounding )
Mercury Hatch sealed, sir.
This is the fun part.
All right, let's go in.
Well, hell.
Hannah, we just lost the light in the umbilical.
( Hannah ) My board's green, captain.
I can't explain it.
Just give me a sec.
Hey, Franklin.
See what you can do
about Getting some lights on in here, would you?
At least the generator's still on line.
Circuit override for the main lights
is probably on the bridge.
We're entering the rhesos now, Hannah.
Franklin.
Doc and I are going to head for the bridge,
see if we can gear up the ops.
You take Megan,
check out the crew's quarters, engineering.
Yes, sir.
Keep your heads, people.
Don't assume the worst.
Just find the crew and report.
I want to maintain constant radio contact.
Do you got that?
You got it, sir. Yes, sir.
Olsten, you're with me.
Let's go.
Olsten, let's go.
Where in the hell's the crew?
Doesn't make sense.
Should be 35 people here.
Franklin, report.
We're almost at engineering.
No one in Sight.
Everything seems to be in place.
No signs of struggle.
It's quiet as a damn grave.
Something about this doesn't quite feel right.
Bridge seems intact.
Everything seems to be operational.
Just in shutdown mode.
Captain?
Yeah.
Somebody didn't finish their lunch.
Or wasn't given the chance to.
( Megan ) Oh, my god! Will!
Franklin, report.
What is it?
Oh, god.
( control voice ) There is nothing wrong with your television.
Do not attempt to adjust the picture.
We are now controlling the transmission.
We control the horizontal
and the vertical.
We can deluge you with a THOUSAND channels
or expand ONE single image to crystal clarity
and beyond.
We can shape your vision
to anything our imagination can conceive.
For the next hour,
we will control all that you see and hear.
( ♪ )
you are about to experience the awe and mystery
which reaches from the deepest inner mind
to --The outer limits.
Human history is marked by our desire
to expand our boundaries.
But what happens when our reach exceeds our grasp?
It's been about half an hour since we discovered engineering,
so far the only sign of the rhesos' --35-Person crew.
The remains are so small that only a dna analysis
will be able to accurately determine
exactly how many people actually died in that room.
Whether it was an accident or an act of violence
is also unclear.
There's no detonation device Nor residue
That would suggest an explosion.
Not quite what you expected
when you signed on to terraform trion,
huh, doc?
You okay?
Thanks.
We may be civilian consultants, captain,
but this is hardly our first jump to a new planet.
I don't doubt your ability, doctor,
it's just that military procedures can be unpredictable.
Franklin, what do you got on the logs?
I've skimmed over the official versions.
I haven't gotten to the personal entries yet.
Their mission seems to be a textbook dust-Off.
Dust-off?
You throw in some three-Megaton neutrons.
Bye-Bye to Bambi and his little friends.
Basically wipes out every living thing.
Not standard operating practice, I know,
but in this case it was necessary.
Apparently the indigenous wildlife on the planet
was what you'd call rather Ferocious.
What else you got, Franklin?
Everything on the rhesos was done by the book
until two days ago.
Then transcripts, crew data, they just stop.
That's when the distress signal came in.
But check this out.
Every Officer is required to keep a log, right?
It's pretty dry stuff.
We've just taken off from Planet trion
after our last bombing run.
This is rhesos' first Officer.
Yeah, Virgil Mason.
The mission was a complete success.
No bio readings from the planet.
The trionids proved to be far more frail than we thought.
Captain O'Brien has ordered the cooks to pull out the stops
for a special celebration.
Okay, he goes on to describe a routine system check,
what they had for dinner -- Very exciting stuff.
But look at this next entry.
It's two days later.
I've ordered a search for captain O'Brien.
He's gone missing.
I keep...
I keep thinking about my '44 vette.
It's in pristine condition,
no different from the day my father bought it.
Driving along the coast with the top down.
Sunsets.
My head feels like there's this...
what?
Okay.
Is that all there is?
That's it.
Run it back four frames.
Right there.
So he was pulled off.
Right.
I want you to pull up the off-Mic line.
( distorted voice )
Clarify it with the computer.
( distorted voice )
Sounds like "Core-Test."
Again.
( distorted ) Cortez.
There's no crew member on board named Cortez.
Could have been a stowaway.
Or someone boarded the ship to kill the crew.
Space Pirates?
Yeah, space pirates. It happens.
If that's what's going on on this ship,
why didn't they plunder the ship?
Normally They steal everything that isn't nailed down.
What about the Hatch openings?
The ship has an onboard computer
that records all Hatch activity.
Okay, here we go.
The Hatch was opened only once in the last week.
It was by us.
Before that?
Back up, more, more.
Okay, we got a half a dozen times in 3 1/2 hours.
Before that, nothing else since the trion.
Six times in three hours.
Why?
Might explain what we saw in engineering.
No, no, explosive decompression
doesn't turn a body into confetti.
Yeah, besides, nothing else on the ship was disturbed.
You open a Hatch, the place is going to be messy.
So why was the Hatch opened?
Bodies.
Someone was doing some house-Cleaning.
Flushing the crew into Space.
Yeah, but if somebody cleaned up,
then that person or persons,
they're still here.
Ah!
It's okay, it's all right.
It's just a grounding discharge.
The son of a bitch is supposed to be shielded.
All the Hatch activity has to be authorized.
Can you tell me who opened the Hatch last?
Captain milius O'Brien.
You want to bet he's still aboard?
If he is aboard, we're going to find the good captain,
but this time we all stay together.
Stay close to me, please.
What if something got on board when it landed?
Like one of these trionids.
Especially if they're as wild as They would indicate.
No, the rhesos --Didn't land until After they dropped the bombs
and no biologic can survive a neutron blast.
What if it wasn't an alien?
What if o'Brien just lost it?
I served under the man for five years.
He was solid as a rock.
There are lots of cases of hysteria
and paranoia in space.
This ship wasn't out long enough
for that, Megan.
I heard a story once about a ship in the riga system.
They found it adrift, every crew member gone.
Even found their meals on the table in the galley.
Like they'd been snatched while they were eating lunch.
I heard the same story.
It's apocryphal, and you know it.
Yeah, even Fairy Tales start somewhere.
( sighing )
this one.
This is O'Brien's quarters.
Watch my back.
Holy...
( Megan ) What does it mean?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Oh, yeah, cop.
You're right -- This guy is a rock.
Guess we found our killer.
You don't want to piss me off
right now, Franklin.
Trust me.
Captain, I'd like to check O'Brien's personal log.
There might be something there.
You do that.
Megan, stay with him.
Franklin, you come with me.
Right behind you, captain.
Over here, Megan.
Let's see what we can see.
Look at this.
The captain's log postdates the official ship's log.
They're not dead.
I can feel them while...
going to get us all.
I can't let them...earth... can't get there.
Only one way.
He's either lost it, or someone's driven him to this.
Either way, we can't assume he's alone.
There appears to be a portion of the log
that can only be accessed with a beta-Level encryption code.
( banging )
Open the door.
( breathing heavily )
( Megan screaming )
is it going to work?
Looks that way.
Hey, you okay?
I'll live.
You're sure it was O'Brien?
Yeah, he was a mess, but it was definitely him.
The guy's a nut.
He cut his crew up into little pieces
And shot them out the airlock.
Either that or he ate them.
I doubt he was a cannibal, Franklin,
but there is something very strange here.
Hmm, stranger than this?
Well, if psychotics clean up a murder scene
they'll obsessively scrub it down, right?
Well, O'Brien got rid of the bodies
but then left blood everywhere, so he wasn't cleaning up.
He had another agenda.
How do you explain the writing, doc?
Well, looks latin.
I only read cicero.
He studied it.
Mundus est intermea.
Hannah.
Hannah, you watching this?
Yes, captain.
Can you give me a translation, please?
Okay, just a moment.
Damn it.
Okay, here it is.
"The world is within me."
What the hell's that mean?
It means he's a nut.
Or it could be a clue to what's going on.
Hannah, shut down the access code
to the Hatch on the mercury.
I don't want O'Brien to be able to get to you.
Hannah, did you copy?
Affirmative.
Entry code's locked out.
All right, keep in touch.
Safeties off.
Going to try and take O'Brien alive,
but we protect ourselves first
till we make a clean sweep of the ship.
We don't know if anybody else is on board.
Let's go, Franklin.
Franklin, move! Let's go.
Right behind you.
Will, what if they picked up some kind of foreign virus
from the planet?
Could they transmit it other ways besides the air?
No, no, not likely.
There would have been a total scrubdown
After Every recon mission outside
and any standard Scan would turn up an alien virus.
It could be food poisoning, lead or mercury.
We need to check the medical records.
It wasn't poisoning or a virus.
You want to know what it was?
Yeah, what?
Ghosts.
Ghosts in the machine, Willie-Boy.
Ghosts.
That's, uh, that's very funny, Franklin.
There he is!Where?
I saw him.
Franklin, get back here!
He went through here. I saw him.
I gave you a command, soldier.
Franklin!
I'm not crazy.
I saw him.
Nobody said you were crazy, all right?
Nobody said that.
If he was here, he's not here now.
But we'll find him, all right?
Now let's go.
What are you looking at?
Captain, I'd like to get to the infirmary,
check the crew's medical charts.
Might give us a better idea
of whether O'Brien's breakdown
was an isolated illness or something bigger.
We'll go, but we stay together.
No running off. You got that?
You got it?
Ah!
Damn it.
All right, stand clear.
It's O'Brien.
He's here.
Hey, milius.
It's me, Sam. Sam Abbott.
Vox Clemantis en deserto.
Nobody's going to hurt you, Milius.
Look.
Have a sedative ready, doc.
It's me. It's Sam.
Nobody's going to hurt you.
Vox Clemantis en deserto.
Franklin, be ready.
Nobody's going to hurt you.
It's me.
Franklin.
He was right behind us.
( yelling )
Tie him to the bed.
God, he bit me.
Son of a bitch.
That son of a bitch bit me.
Looks like he broke the skin.
I'm going to give you an antibiotic injection.
Ah!
Where the hell's Franklin?
Franklin!
Hannah.
Hannah, is Franklin with you?
Hannah, do you copy?
( gunshots, alarm sounding )
( Megan ) it's coming from the bridge!
Lieutenant, hang on.
Franklin, what are you doing?
Lieutenant, I command you to stand down!
Can't you see them?
Can't you see the little bastards?
They're everywhere!
I can't stop them.
Stay here.
I can't -- my god, they're everywhere.
Franklin! Franklin! Franklin! Franklin!
Franklin, put your weapon down.
Franklin, calm down, just calm down, Buddy.
Franklin, I see them too. I see them too.
Just calm down. Just put the weapon down.
Thatta boy.
Just set your weapon down.
Everything's going to be all right.
It's okay.
Jesus!
I got shot.
Ghosts in the machine...
Franklin!
Franklin, talk to me.
Stay with me, Buddy.
Stay with me.
Franklin, Franklin.
He's dead.
I don't understand it.
Franklin could be a pain in the ass
but he was not psychotic.
It's bad.
Long-Range communications are down.
Rhesos --is still on a course for earth,
but the navigational system needs heavy repairs.
I rerouted life support, so that's working.
Main Power grid seems intact, so does propulsion,
but without navigation, it's useless.
I thought you said it was bad.
All right, doc, it's your turn.
First O'Brien, now Franklin.
Well, it's not my field,
but Franklin seemed schizophrenic.
So does O'Brien.
Yeah, but one couldn't have caught it from the other.
Schizophrenia's not a contagious disease.
If that's even what we're dealing with.
I'd like to test Franklin's blood.
In the meantime, nobody leaves this ship.
If there's some bug trying to make us crazy,
I don't want it to infect the mercury.
I'm going to try Hannah through the Hatch com.
Franklin's blood has an extremely high level of nts.
English, doc. English, please.
Neurotransmitters.
Uh, an extremely high level means that impulses
keep firing across synapses.
The brain literally short-Circuits.
But in order for the sym to be so acute,
something must be causing...
I'd like to inject us all with l-Thora.
It's an anti-Psychotic.
Go on. Do it.
There's no response, captain,
and she's disabled the outer Hatch.
Get in there, it's your turn.
Trust me.
Till we find Hannah, we have to assume that we're alone.
I'm going to head down to engineering
and try to get the navigation system running.
You two head to the infirmary, do your tests on O'Brien.
Wait a minute.
Megan is rated for Delta 9 electronics.
If she stayed here and got the com Patch working
then we'd have communications again.
Do it.
Any sign of threat at all, shoot to kill.
O'Brien.
( muttering )
Hold still.
Raised Nts just like Franklin.
I'll give you a dose of l-Thora
and a stimulant, captain.
It should help.
Who are you?
I'm Dr. William olsten of the U.F.S. Mercury.
Can you tell me anything that you remember
about what happened, sir?
Trion, bomb, planet, lives, bodies...
all bodies.
Lives, then darkness.
A darkness...
Ex spiritus sanctus -- the darkness.
Did anything get on the ship, sir?
Yeah.
We took some of them on.
Froze them like popsicles.
Trophies for the big boys.
Trophies, trophies, Cortez, Cortez--
Beware Cortez, beware.
Conquistadors March.
Time marches on.
Ides of March.
Just rest for now.
Rest for now.
Yeah, rest.
Rest.
Froze them.
What the hell?
( banging )
( ship's voice ) Warning --
Outer Hull stress levels exceed maximum allowance.
Hannah, it's Megan. Can you hear me?
Come on, Hannah, listen to me. It's Megan.
What the hell's going on?
Shut up!
Hannah, turn off the engines!
No, no lies. I know what you are.
I've been listening.
You've all been infected.
You want to kill me, I know.
Don't deny it! I know!
( engines rumbling )
Hannah, listen to me.
You have got to disconnect the umbilical.
You're going to tear the Hatch off the mercury.
( banging )
We've lost the mercury.
Hannah and Franklin are dead.
The lower three decks of the rhesos --Were compromised
when the mercury --Hit us,
but so far the emergency bulkheads are holding
and we're still on course for earth.
I'm still not sure what's affecting us
or what killed the rhesos --Crew,
but the l-Thora injections seem to have stabilized
our mental degradation.
And I found something.
Something terrible.
How's O'Brien?
He's sleeping.
You wanted to talk to me about something?
Yeah.
Over here.
That's an ugly mother.
Yes, we were told that the indigenous population
of the planet were all vicious, predatory creatures.
But look -- a humanoid.
Opposable Thumbs and other bipedal qualities.
So?
So...
so we just committed wholesale murder of this species,
one which actually showed signs of advanced evolution.
I know what this is.
Our leaders found the easy solution
to earth's overpopulation.
They wipe out this species and they move on in.
Not that that would be the first time.
O'Brien told me a little something about Cortez.
No, we already established
that there was no crew member named Cortez.
Cortez was a conquistador.
His army killed thousands and thousands of indians,
conquered a continent because they thought
it was their right, their manifest destiny.
Listen, I appreciate the history lesson.
I'm a little more concerned
with the safety of my crew right now.
I found something else,
something I think you will be interested in.
( sighing )
Now, like I said, this creature
is on the evolutionary scale of early man,
which means it should have an advanced brain, right?
Well, look what I found during the autopsy.
Yeah, I'd say that's a brain, all right.
Look at the convolutions.
The cerebral cortex is smooth.
It's too smooth.
Oh, come on, doc.
This brain hasn't passed
the evolutionary level of a house cat.
I did analysis on the blood.
See this yellow tint
and how it turns green as it dries?
That means it's rich in copper.
The blood is rich in copper.
This creature's entire body is
highly conductive of electricity.
Now, I asked myself how Hannah could have been infected
since she wasn't breathing our air.
Then I remembered all these electrical shocks
we've been getting,
so I pulled up the record of our conversation
with Hannah in O'Brien's cabin.
Yes, captain.
Okay, just a moment.
Damn it.
There.
When she first said that,
I thought it was her frustration
at not being able to find the translation,
but what if she...
She got shocked.
She got shocked, like the rest of us.
Exactly.
I think that this illness is somehow transmitted
through the electrical circuitry.
It's as if the trionids are able to transfer
their neural engrams into electrical Impulses
and then somehow infect our nervous system.
We shut down the main power grid.
We shut it down and then we isolate--
We should be able to stop our mental degradation.
It's worth a try.
All right, here's what we do.
You get to the main bridge,
shut down the main power supply, all right?
Switch it over to Manual override.
I'll go to engineering,
I can shut it down the rest of the way from there.
Now, when it's down,
we'll get the emergency power packs,
we'll try firing it up then.
If it works, if it works...
Wait, wait, wait.
Here, take these.
They're insulating gloves.
We should avoid contact
With anything that harbors electrical current.
What are you doing here?
We're going to shut down the main power grid.
Here, put these on.
Will...
they're insulating gloves.
If you shut down the power,
how are we going to run communications?
We're going to run it through emergency POWER packs
once you've got the com repatched.
Captain Abbott, you can start your shutdown of the grid.
Captain Abbott.
( yelling )
That sounded like O'Brien.
Where's your gun?
My gun? I...I have no idea.
Here, just take mine.
Close this bulkhead door behind me, understand?
And don't open it for anyone, you understand me?
I'll be back.
It's O'Brien.
I heard him scream.
By the time I got back here, he was gone.
Come on, what are you waiting for?
He'd tear the whole ship up.
He could make the ship explode.
Where's your gun?
I, uh, I left it with Megan.
All right, here, take this one.
What are you waiting for?
Come on, soldier.
O'Brien, he's one hell of an Officer.
He's smart, cagey.
Under the influence of these creatures,
there's no telling what he's capable of.
I think we should go back and get Megan.
You don't have to worry about Megan.
She's solid as a rock.
What you got to worry about, boy, is the situation.
Yeah, one situation at a time, soldier.
Sir, what situation are you talking about?
I know that you and O'Brien talked.
Now, what I want you to do is I want you to tell me
exactly what you talked about.
Do it right now.
Sir, I already told you--
don't lie to me!
Don't you lie to me.
From the very start
it's been lies and insubordination.
Oh, god.
Sir?
Drop the gun, sir. Please just drop the gun.
You're not well,
and I don't want to have to hurt you.
You don't want to hurt me.
You think you're man enough to hurt me?
You think you're soldier enough to hurt me?
Well, then do it. Go ahead.
Shoot me.
I said, shoot me!
They work better when they're loaded.
You're not dying so easy, traitor.
I want some answers first.
Captain, please, listen to me!
I know what you really are
ever since I got bit
and you infected me.
Now you're trying to get inside my head,
aren't you?
You're trying to get inside my head.
You're one of them.
what?
No, captain.
Please just...
what did you think I was going to do?
Did you think I was going to let you and your filthy race
take over the earth?
Huh?
Did you think I was going to let you take over my mind
like you did Hannah and Franklin and olsten?
What?
No, please, captain,
captain, just listen to me please, okay?
Look, I am olsten.
Okay?
You're very, very sick.
Shut up.
There's some sort of electrical--
Shut the hell up!
What are you doing to me?
( panting )
Megan, if you can hear me, captain Abbott...
captain Abbott's gone crazy.
Do you hear me?
He's gone crazy.
Whatever he says, whatever he does,
do not let him onto the bridge.
Don't let him onto the bridge.
Will?
Will, I know you're here.
Whatever you are...
whatever you are...
O'Brien!
Enough of this!
( gun firing )
Megan!
Megan, if you can hear me
Megan, if you can hear me,
I'm on my way back to the bridge.
( panting and gasping )
( gasping and groaning )
I...I understand it now.
I can hear them --
they're in my head like voices.
No, not voices.
Like some sort of basic consciousness driven by revenge,
spinning around in my head like bees -- Desperate, angry.
They fear, anger.
Millions... we killed millions of them
and now, now, now they fight to the death
like some sort of, some sort of doomsday virus,
and now they're in our heads.
In our heads and in our ship.
Megan, we've got to warn them,
we've got to warn them away from the ship.
Megan, we've got to call earth.
Fixing the com may be our only hope.
I heard you, will. Don't you trust me?
Always treating me like some delicate doll,
watching...watching over my shoulder!
What are you... what are you doing, Megan?
It's done.
( screaming )
no! No! No!
No!
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
Will.
No, you're okay.
Everything's going to be okay.
I'm sorry.
No.
( crying )
No!
Everyone's dead now.
All dead.
And I'm on the devil's chariot.
And they're going round and round inside my head...
like rats.
No, like bees.
Buzzing.
The conquistadors killed the indians,
but the indians got them back.
The indians infected them with syphilis.
Gave them a little going away present.
And we killed millions and millions of trionid bodies
and now their consciousness is here inside our heads,
infecting us.
Another little going away present.
One that Fries our brains
and makes us crazy.
Oh, Megan.
I loved you.
And I failed you.
And now there's only one thing left to do.
Our arrogance, our manifest destiny,
masters of the universe,
whatever you do,
don't touch anything on this ship.
Don't touch it.
The trionids are here.
They're waiting.
They're waiting to run.
Stop there.
Lieutenant, have we...
sir.
We've already downloaded everything
from the rhesos --to earth.
No.
( control voice ) Ultimately, our survival May depend less
on our ability to overcome our enemies
than the weakness of our own character.
Captioning performed by
Western captioning service ltd. Vancouver, B.C. 2000