The Expanse (2015) s02e03 Episode Script

NAOMI: Previously on The Expanse FRED: It'll be a ship no one will ever forget.
You're about to send your best and brightest Mormons on a hundred-year voyage to a new world.
MILLER: Eros is an experiment on Belters.
HOLDEN: Someone was testing a weapon.
And they're beaming the data here.
HOLDEN: We have to take that station.
ALEX: Hang on! (GASPING) We lost a pod! MILLER: I need these scientists alive! Nothing happens to this guy! The protomolecule wasn't sent here by accident.
If we master it, we can apply it.
We become our own gods.
Without this work, humanity will be left unarmed (GUNSHOT) Mars destroyed an abandoned and expendable base.
We must make a strong response.
CHRISJEN: Deimos was the smallest move the Secretary General could swallow.
It's mostly automated, minimal personnel, casualties will be light.
You want us to attack a Martian moon? That's a declaration of war.
(BEEPING) NEWS REPORTER: All 17 people in the station were killed instantly.
The massive explosions shattered the moon, and the resulting orbital debris has forced planet-wide flight restrictions that will remain in effect.
As Congress convened in emergency session, Defense Minister Korshunov denounced the sneak attack as a lawless and cowardly act - by Earth that would not go unanswered.
- They ruined our goddamn sky.
Take a load off your heavy bones.
There's no way this goes anywhere but war.
HILLMAN: I always knew Earth would strike first.
Right, Earther? - What're you calling me? - Oh, you heard me.
Not today! You hear me, soldier? I will not have you disrespecting a fellow Martian.
He's got as much dust in his blood as the rest of us.
Marines.
Who do we fight for? BOTH: Mars.
Who do we fight for? - ALL: Mars! - Suit up.
We need to train.
War is coming.
Mars still hasn't issued an official statement.
They haven't retaliated yet, either.
(INHALES) We named our planets after the ancient gods.
Deimos wasn't a god.
He was a representation of the horrific fear that comes with war.
Can you imagine what it would be like to lose the moon? Our moon? To never see it in the night sky again? It's not the same.
From Mars, Deimos is just a little dot, the same as Venus is to us.
I know you're worried about Arjun and the grand kids, but we're more than capable of protecting Luna.
CHRISJEN: What we should be doing is trying to get out of this mess while we still can.
SADAVIR: I'm not scared.
Our navy might be older and slower, but the numbers are still on our side.
We have enough ships to shoot theirs down.
We could knock Mars out of our sky for good.
If it comes to that.
CHRISJEN: Did you know that Martian Marines always train at one G, Earth gravity? They fly at the speed of war.
It won't end out there.
If we continue to force their hand, sooner or later, they will invade.
Mars is an island.
If we cripple their navy now, they can't touch us.
CHRISJEN: But if they do? A few strategic bomb drops, most certainly on this wretched building, and we'll be staring into the faces of Martian Marines.
This could be our last chance to win, Chrisjen.
It's like you always said.
"Earth must come first.
" (THEME MUSIC PLAYING) (BEEPING) NAOMI: (OVER RADIO) Amos, how's it look? Outer door and blast shields are shot to shit.
I can't get a seal.
We're gonna have to jet it out the cargo bay.
All right, then.
Let's check our thruster packs.
Spin's about 40 meters a second.
Gonna be a hell of a jolt when we leave the ship.
It's gonna take more than a couple of Band-Aids to get the Roci back on her feet again, you know.
The Roci's the least of our goddamn problems now.
- Let's go! - You love killing Belters? FRED: Diogo! Get these men to holding.
Under guard.
DIOGO: Miller, too? - Leave him here.
- HOLDEN: Hey! I don't want him anywhere near the prisoners.
He won't be.
And get these people to holding! - Sure thing, boss man.
- Come on! Without any further harm! We clear? - You shouldn't even be on this station.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Hey, hey.
That's something you need to get off your chest there? - You're damn right! - Stop! Stop it.
Holden.
Come on.
(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER) He's had a tough day.
Dozens of ships leave here every day.
Pick one, and I'll get you on it.
It's time for you to go.
(WHIRS) Can I have my gun back? - (CLUB MUSIC PLAYING) - (INDISTINCT CHATTER) Captain had us clean out your quarters.
Naomi dropped a few cancer med chargers in there for you.
Hey, you want a snort? Free booze is free booze.
Tina.
Well, they let me keep the bottle to save her the trip.
Huh.
Here's how.
(GROANS) So, I'm dipped in shit right now? Oh, no, this shit is permanent.
Captain doesn't want you around anymore.
Hmm.
We don't want you around neither.
Huh.
For what it's worth, I get it.
He killed your girl, and you shot him.
No.
Just a guy who needed to go down.
The captain always gets a little jumpy when you kill people without talking it over first.
Yeah, I'm sure you would've asked for permission too.
Well, here's the thing.
You and me, we're a lot alike.
We've been around.
But the captain, he's as close to righteous as it gets out here.
So when he says you're out, that's just how it is, because the way I figure it, he's probably right.
Sure as hell has a better chance of being right than I do.
Hmm.
(EXHALES) You keep picking fights with the wrong people.
(GRUNTS) (KNOCK ON DOOR) (SIGHS) Come in.
Not too shabby, right? And since Fred's picking up the tab until the Roci's livable, I figured we'd order a lot of room service.
(SIGHS) Let it go.
We fought for nothing.
People died.
We nearly died.
And Miller just He got you out of Eros alive.
He shot an unarmed man right in the head.
An unarmed mass murderer.
(SIGHS) Are you defending him? You can't understand The only thing he was out for was revenge.
No, he cared about all of us.
We had Dresden.
He was going to talk, we could've used him We could've what? Worked out a deal? With a man who casually murdered countless Belters.
A man who was a threat to all human life, and that is why Miller shot him.
He didn't have the right to make that decision.
But you do? What I have to do now is clean up his mess.
(CLUB MUSIC PLAYING) Hey.
Hey.
Hey, hey.
- Careful.
Easy.
- Hey.
- Yam seng.
- Yam seng.
Guys.
I'm a little busy here.
You kill the biggest dick in the universe, beratna.
We make a big party for you.
You a hero, man! No, don't say that.
I ain't Don't say that.
We wanna space all them prisoners, too, but the big man say no.
Earther.
I'm just, just a cop.
A cop.
A guy who used to be a cop.
Hey.
You're tapped out.
- (LAUGHS) - That's my tip.
Time to go home.
DIOGO: Okay, okay.
Where's your house? Ooh.
You electric.
I like you.
Hmm, you wouldn't know what to do.
Oh, you gonna need that for your heart after Diogo! Oi! Pampaw! - You old lady put you out? - Yeah.
Something like that.
- So what, you go to hotel? - Maybe.
Oh, shit, Miller, you ain't got no scrip! What, you sleep on the dock? Aw, yeah.
Sure, sure.
Ah, come, come, you stay with me.
- You one of us now.
- Oh, no, no This way.
This way.
There's multiple PDC and rail gun impacts, but we have the panel stock here to fabricate replacements for the holes too big to patch.
(LAUGHS) That one just missed puncturing your reactor, see? You guys would have melted.
Instantly.
Jesus Christ.
One almost punctured me.
Wow.
If that had gone through to the inner hull, your girl would have snapped in two.
Most ships would have been blown to scrap after that kind of beating.
Yeah, well, not the Roci.
I'm actually impressed as hell you were able to make it back here.
You're a Martian, right? You still got people there? - I don't know.
- You didn't reach out? After Deimos, I mean.
They think I'm dead.
That I went down on the Donnager.
Died a hero.
So is the Roci gonna be okay, or what? Don't worry, we're gonna treat her like one of our own.
In the meantime, you look like you could blow off some steam.
I see you're from some rock, care to put the ball to the wall? Pashang, yeah! (CHUCKLES) The station was lightly garrisoned, and my soldiers were more trigger happy than I would've liked.
Those are the survivors.
Mostly low level tech and security types, with the exception of that one.
He was in the data center.
So we're going to interrogate him first.
He has to know more about the protomolecule than anyone else.
Not more than Dresden.
We got ID scans for the whole lot of them.
The last two years are completely blank for everyone, but before that, they all worked for the same company, Protogen.
- Hey! - It's an Earth-based bio-tech contractor with facilities throughout the system.
Including the one destroyed on Phoebe.
Get in there! Against the wall.
Now! This should be an interesting conversation.
Here.
Try this one.
Crafty.
Well, I thought it'd be motivation.
It's a loving recreation.
Are you starting with me again? Take a compliment.
Texas looks perfect.
It's your hometown, right? Your hometown's only named after you because your family infested it like some hyper-breeding rats.
Well, we need more real dust-eating Martians.
- Too many Earthers as it is.
- GUNNY: Hey.
What? I see the way you all look at me.
Huh? Like I don't belong here.
No one's questioning your patriotism.
Simmer down, there, cowpoke.
You know something, I earned my iron, Hilly.
Your family just bought your way into the Corps.
- That's enough.
- SA'ID: Settle down.
Go fetch.
Hey! Hey! God damn it.
AMOS: Have a seat.
FRED: Paolo Cortazar.
You were a member of the team studying Eros I'm a specialist.
Nanoinformatics.
- That sounds important.
- It is.
We want to know about the protomolecule.
Then you should talk to Dr.
Dresden.
- He's dead.
- What? He can't control you anymore.
The project, what about the project? You're going to have to answer for it.
The genocide on Eros.
Or, you can work with us.
Are you taking up the project? We need you to make a vaccine.
Why would I want to do that? I understand you grew up in Londrina, on Basic.
That must've been hard.
Only if you can't find a way out.
It's especially admirable for you, after the loss of your mother.
I can't imagine what it must have been like, watching your mother die.
Type-C Huntington's Disease.
That's just so ungodly cruel.
She never complained.
Is that why you went to work for Protogen, to find a cure? To keep others from going through what she went through? Because I can't imagine a more noble endeavor.
We can get you back there.
If you help us.
Her brain was fried.
She didn't think anything was wrong with her.
Even when the drool was hanging from her lip for hours on end, until it crusted to her chin, or she fell off the toilet while taking a piss.
She just kept going.
Serene as the Buddha.
So, not a bad way to die, actually.
It's different on Eros.
There's real pain and death.
You're free now, to do the right thing.
Dresden is gone.
You don't have to answer to him anymore.
If he were here, I'd thank him.
He made me what I am today.
(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER) Bring up my last battle simulation.
Use all the sensor data from the actual raid to correct flight parameters.
Now run the sim from the beginning.
Right.
Nine degrees, three-G burn.
Target PDC's.
Fire.
Go back one minute.
Run it again.
(BOTH GRUNTING) (LAUGHS) (GROANS) What are you laughing at, loser? It's just, I feel good.
(PANTING) - It's been a while.
- Come on.
We should hydrate With some beers.
(LOUD MUSIC PLAYING) Can you please turn this shit off? This is the new banger, fresh out of Eros! There's no music coming out of Eros.
We make it here, but it come from there.
What do you mean, what are you talkin' about? The rock talking, pampaw.
It sing.
Are you telling me that those sounds are coming off Eros? Hottest beats-maker on Tycho.
Mad OPA pirate, too.
She jacked a crypted data stream off that station we kill, - but it come from Eros - Turn it off.
(MUSIC STOPS) Those Belters you're jamming to are dead or dying.
Or worse.
That's why it's our anthem, pampaw! - A call to war.
- Oh, yeah? You going to war now? Hmm? Everyone's goin' to war.
Earth, Mars, Belt.
You'll never even know what you were fighting for.
You kill that guy.
What you fighting for? (SIGHS) I cut off one head.
Plenty more where he came from.
So we cut off all the heads.
Rule the whole system.
The system rules you, kid.
Always has.
Even more reason I choose to fight.
You don't choose anything.
You're born into it, man.
One side or the other.
You play it out.
When those Inners, they figure out what's on Eros, they'll kill every last one of us to get it.
- Us? - Belters.
Us Belters.
Beltalowda.
(MUSIC RESUMES) Target PDC's and Fire! Go back one minute.
Son of a bitch! The neurons in his right temporal parietal junction have been impeded.
Faulty wiring? Oh, he wasn't born this way.
He was altered, probably transcranial magnetic hyper stimulation.
Part of his temporal lobe has been effectively erased.
Which part? DOCTOR: The part that governs empathy.
You can do that with a magnet? I've only read about the procedure.
It's not that simple but it's not complicated either.
It's non-invasive.
So someone waves a magnet at the right side on my head, and suddenly I can watch 100,000 people die in agony and not give a shit? I've checked the other prisoners, it's been done to all of them.
The security guards on that station were armed with riot bullets.
Probably to keep them from murdering each other.
DOCTOR: Well, he's not a homicidal maniac, he just no longer has the capacity to consider any life other than his own meaningful.
Is his condition reversible? I'm afraid not.
HOLDEN: How do you reach a guy like that? Can you tell me how Private Travis ended up with a fractured orbital? - Sir.
Did you ask Private Travis, sir? - Don't give me that, Gunny.
Are we going to just keep eating shit from Earth or are we going to take them out and end this? What does that have to do with one of my sergeants assaulting a private? You can only get slapped around for so long before it boils out one way or another.
I'm well aware of Private Travis' background.
And the shit that he gets for being born on Earth.
And if he'd been willing to talk, you'd be thrown in the brig right now.
But he wasn't.
That's how Martian he is.
Current appearances to the contrary, he is one of the toughest Dusters I've served with.
So this is about you.
We trained all our lives for this.
Now it's here and we just want to use it.
The sooner we have it out with Earth the better.
Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you.
We're not going to Earth.
We've been ordered to Ganymede Station to secure the food supply.
Farm patrol? We're Marines And we serve where we are ordered to serve.
Now you and your team will carry out your orders with the pride and dedication befitting soldiers of the Martian Republic.
Are we clear, Gunny? - Yes, sir.
- Dismissed.
(THUNDER RUMBLING) Is this what I hope it is? A secure channel to Fred Johnson.
Yes.
Give it to me, please.
(CHUCKLES) Despite the satisfaction it would give me to see you arrested All you need to tell me is that it can't be traced, and that the message will get to him.
It's solid.
But the OPA leaks like a sieve Then just give it to me and go.
Right now, this is just a bad idea.
But you hit send and it's treason.
If I do nothing, millions could die.
Please.
Give it to me and go.
There is no need for us to hang together.
Oh, I'm sure they'll hang us separately.
You'll get a better view.
Colonel Johnson.
I am Chrisjen Avasarala.
The things you've no doubt heard me say, the things I blamed on you, those words were lies, a facade to protect myself, because you were right.
There are people in my government who are willing to take us to the brink of annihilation, for reasons that I still cannot fathom.
But like you, I want to stop this war.
So, now, I'm asking you for help.
I need evidence.
Anything I can use to turn the guns of Earth and Mars away from each other before it's too late.
If you have any cards left in your hand, the time to play them is now.
I never thought I'd see the day.
You think this is for real? Yes.
I think I got something she can use.
You spaced a Black Sky faction leader because they put a hit out on that woman.
If they learn that you're helping her, the OPA will put a hit out on you.
Well then I guess it's gonna have to be our little secret, then, huh? I was on Eros.
I saw Julie Mao.
Have a seat.
In the hotel room where we found her? It was a wreck.
All the screens and the lights were smashed to pieces.
But it wasn't strategic violence, not like you cracking that guy's head because he messed with your stuff.
That was a problem, and you found a solution.
No, in that hotel room, there was madness.
And it stank of sick death.
See, you and I, we're both from the slums.
So I know you know the smell that I'm talking about.
And there was a puddle, blue-brown slime, in the center of the bed and it smeared down, across the floor.
She must've dragged herself, like a dying animal.
Blue-brown, metabolic excretions.
And she was sitting on the shower floor.
Blue barnacles jutting out of her mouth, out of her body, snaking out of her hair, growing up against the walls.
And there she was, naked as Eve - Beautiful.
- Dead.
Beautifully dead.
Not dead.
Becoming.
The barnacles? An expression of pattern-matching systems, lattices that mimic beta sheets, and expand on them, but capable of control systems like brain tissues, two-stage pumps adapted from hearts.
And at the very center, a particle nothing leads to, like a Like a seed crystal that requires, and provides, a massive amount of energy.
That's why she smashed the lights and the screens? She was trying to take away its power source? Did it work? Was it still moving? I know what it looks like.
What was it doing? Wait! Don't go.
Please! Tell me! What was it doing? (PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) McCANN: Can I help you? Yeah, maybe.
I don't know.
You seem a little anxious.
Are you okay? Well, I am kind of in a hurry.
Where are you going? Well, that's the thing.
I've seen your sign outside.
It says "We know where we're going.
" (SIGHS) I think maybe I know where I need to go now, too.
What would make you positive? Well, why don't you tell me a little bit more about your journey? I was born into this, but I've never doubted it No, no, no.
I mean the big one.
The Nauvoo.
Have you ever talked to a pedophile? Uh You try to ask them stuff, and they're not going to just talk about raping little kids.
But if you show them pictures of kids, then they'll go on and on and on.
I had a private chat with Cortazar.
And Eros is his pedophilia.
You were talking about stopping it, taking it away.
That's why he wouldn't help you.
That's Phoebe Station.
I was there.
That's the Martian science team.
What happened to them? Clearly, we used them.
To observe the progress of the infection in a human host.
You infected them and watched them die? We watched it work.
The protomolecule is the first evidence of a tree of life apart from our own, it didn't come with an instruction manual.
We nurtured it the best way we knew how.
But Phoebe wasn't enough for you.
We didn't control the station, so we incinerated the Martians, erased the data cores and left.
Dr.
Dresden used two ships, one for our team, one for the sample.
There were contamination concerns.
He was right to be concerned.
It got out on the Anubis.
I saw the results.
You did? What did it do? - Killed everyone aboard.
- Obviously.
But then what? And be specific.
Please.
Tell him about the reactor.
The power was shut down when we arrived.
The protomolecule was frozen around the reactor core.
It was starving.
Did you turn the power back on? Mmm-hmm.
It started moving.
Reaching out to me.
Is there anything more that I could see? We nuked the ship.
And everything on it.
(MOANS) But it's still going strong on Eros.
- Were you there, too? - Mmm-hmm.
It learns, you know.
It does something different every time.
The more biomass you feed it, the faster it learns, the more it changes.
So you fed it Eros.
A whole station.
A hundred thousand people.
A hundred thousand opportunities.
We can only learn by letting it learn.
Can it be controlled? That's what we were trying to do.
Can you control it? I'd need my data.
And everything coming off Eros.
That's the only way I can tell you more.
Two kilometers long, half a kilometer wide.
Ten levels of environmental engineering, crew quarters, schools, wastewater treatment, machine shops, forges, and at the center A piece of Earth, curved back on itself.
Our Eden.
Well, I've never been to Earth, but it kinda looks like a big, huge metal rock tunnel to me.
The cylinder will be sealed, and after the initial acceleration, the body will begin to spin.
- All this will be farmland.
- Shit.
It's designed to give the illusion of light and heat that is as gentle and warm as a summer's day.
You guys ready? I'm ready.
We're just waiting on the ship.
Well, what, uh What's the hold up? Well, the engines burn like a dream.
But the atmosphere systems have been an issue since day one.
When you're going 100-plus years on only the air that you bring in with you, loss tolerances are stricter than normal.
Our contractors were sometimes less than cooperative.
You're having a little union trouble? Some felt that taking entire families on a journey that their grandchildren wouldn't see the end of was inhuman.
Well, I've seen inhuman and This ain't it.
This is our Temple.
You are welcome here.
We can offer you salvation.
Boy, it sounds like just what I need.
Is that It's one of the data streams that Dresden was collecting.
It's coming directly from Eros.
I've heard that shrieky shit in the bars.
I thought it was just bad music.
It's new.
Give it to me.
(DISTORTED VOICES ON DEVICE) The universe just kissed me on the cheek.
Are those people talking? Not people, pulses.
Steady, like a clock.
No, no, speeding up.
No.
Counting down.
It's building.
Building something.
Building what? We're going to find out.
(TONE RINGING) What the fuck is this? (INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER) ALEX: God damn it! All right.
Start again.
Right from the top.
What are you doing? - You can see what I'm doing.
- Alex.
Twenty-five people on that pod we lost.
It was my job to protect them.
You saved Amos.
And we lost 25 people because I made that choice.
- There's no point in - The point is, next time I'm gonna save 'em all.
Run it again.
Right from the top.
HOLDEN: You hurt yourself? I just overdid it a bit.
I'm fine.
It's nice to see the Roci back in one piece I need us to be okay.
We're fine.
There's something happening on Eros.
The protomolecule is building something - and we don't know what.
- How We got one of the prisoners to cooperate.
There are words in the data stream.
- Voices.
- People talking? But we saw what happened to Julie Mao.
Are you saying those people are still alive? The only person who could answer that is dead.
Eros isn't over yet.
And I don't think we can save it.
But I do know we need to do something.
And I know I can't do it without you.
We'll do it together.
(SIGHS) (DEVICE WHIRRING) I take it this means you know where you want to go? Eros.
What? Something really bad is going on down there Yeah, we know.
Then you know we have to destroy it.
(SIGHS) I think you're right.
I know that you know that Dresden was gonna get away with it.
I didn't kill him because he was crazy.
I killed him because he was making sense.
Any idea how we can take out a whole asteroid? Yeah.
With that.