Emerald Flight: "Rules of Engagement" (continued)

80. INT. CONFERENCE ROOM

Devereux is seated at the table. She is studying her tablet.

Rusty and Elizabeth enter. Elizabeth pauses for a moment, as if surprised to see Devereux already there. Rusty continues on and drops into a chair.

Hawkes enters, pausing in the hatchway to quickly survey the room before entering and taking his customary seat.

Hope enters. All eyes but Devereux follow her in some way as she makes her way to a seat.

The officers all wait quietly for several moments until Devereux looks up from her tablet.

DEVEREUX

Okay, let’s start with our repair status. (to Rusty) Chief?

RUSTY

All of the major breaches have been repaired; the rest should be finished before we are.

DEVEREUX

That’s good news. Anything else?

RUSTY

The worst of the damaged areas have been cleaned up and are mostly functional again. We’re in pretty fair shape.

DEVEREUX

So we could hold our own if the Udossians find us?

RUSTY
(alarmed)

Whoa! I said we were in pretty fair shape. I didn’t say we could took another thrashing.

DEVEREUX
(grimly)

How long?

RUSTY

Two weeks at least. (beat) In drydock.

HAWKES

There’s nothing more you can accomplish?

RUSTY

Look what they managed to do to us when we were in pretty close to peak shape.

DEVEREUX

They had the element of surprise.

RUSTY

And I’ll be surprised if she’ll stay in one piece after more than a half dozen good hits.

DEVEREUX

Then we’d better make sure they don’t get the chance. (beat) Can we make it to a station?

RUSTY
(nods)

As long as we don’t run into nasty on the way there. (beat) As I told you before, the engines are fine. It’s the rest of her that’s not at her best.

[insert more here]

Devereux points to the floating holographic representation of the alien vessel.

The image contains more detail than it did during their previous. Some sections contain more detail than others. Some areas remain relatively plain.

DEVEREUX

We have three survey teams over there now. So far, they haven’t learned much more about the ship--or what happened to its crew--than we already knew, but they have provided us with additional detail about its interior.

The sections of the holographic image with the greatest detail are each enlarged in turn.

DEVEREUX (CONT’D)

We’ve also learned that the Command Center is locked down tight. (zooms on that section) All of our efforts to get inside through those hatches have failed, short of trying to cut through the bulkheads around them.

RUSTY

That’s a lot of area for three teams to cover.

DEVEREUX
(nods)

Which is why I’m not too surprised that they haven’t discovered anything new yet.