STAR WARS - Episode I: Millennium's Dawn

00:49:00 - 01:00:00

INT. AMPHIBIOUS CRUISER

The inside of the cruiser is smooth and rosy, even organic like a seashell, with glowing lines connecting banks of elliptical computer consoles. The newcomers take in the beauty of the ship. The main cabin of the room flows seamlessly into the bridge, where Medora captains from a railed platform overlooking two stations, navigator and pilot. Behind the the platform is a large holo-table with a diagram of the planet glowing. The Naboo guards take their masks off. They are Naboo men and women dense with unique tattoos designs. Ransom looks at them with awe, and one of them winks at him. ODD-1 shamelessly examines everything in the ship with the usual point-blank interest.

MEDORA: Take us back down. Resume course.

The Crackling disconnects from the harness around Medora's neck, and four long legs reach out from the shell, each one feathered with rows of claws like a millipede, with large gripping talons on the extremities. The creature maneuvers up a periscope, carrying the oversize shell with it, and crawls into a niche in the ceiling. There, in the shadows, she turns around and looks back at the group of newcomers with piercing, glowing eyes. Medora, too, looks back to the new group.

MEDORA: You had all better sit down.

They scramble toward a table with benches as the floor starts sloping. Slate looses her footing in spilled lake water before Qui-Gon grabs her and reels her in. At the end of the table on the wall hangs the tattered and laser blasted flag of Naboo, blue on black, a crystal lantern with two wings of fire on either side, fringed with gold.

CUT TO:

EXT. NABOO - LAKE

Outside, the ship dives back down into the dark lake, the small tadpole-probe darting about taking a few extra readings before submerging after it. A few bubbles, and then it's just another peaceful lakeshore scene as if nothing had ever happened.

Deep underwater, the ship illuminates the walls of the submerged tunnel as it dives. When it reaches a larger oceanic cavern it starts to flatten out.

CUT TO:

INT. AMPHIBIOUS CRUISER

The floor starts to level again.

MEDORA: Correct planar attitude. Ahead full. And watch for lurks. They like these straits.

PILOT: Aye, Captain.

Satisfied with the ship's bearings, Medora walks over to the group huddled at the table. She finally takes her mask off. Her face is beautiful but heavily scarred, and of course the tattoos. It looks like whatever scarred her got the raw end of the deal. She keeps her gloriously-inked arms crossed before her. A window nearby shows the occasional bubble or eerie underwater glow from the guide lights.

MEDORA: So, Doctor. You've just arrived, and you already have a vaccine?

SLATE: That's right.

MEDORA: I find that rather incredible.

A clicking sound unsettles the group as they realize that 'Cricket' is moving toward them, scuttling from support to support along the porous, coral-like networks along the ceiling. The whole ship's interior starts to make sense as a kind of hybrid Human-Crackling ecosystem.

Slate pries her eyes off the disconcerting creature crawling toward them, and casts an uneasy eye toward Ransom, then to Qui-Gon.

SLATE: I had help. I had a sample of inoculated blood. I ... I haven't told you yet, Qui-Gon...