CORRIDOR OF ENTERPRISE framing a LONG SHOT IN PERSPECTIVE as Beckwith races toward the transporter chamber. There is a guard on the door, but Beckwith rushes INTO FRAME at such a breakneck pace that he is on the guard, and smashes him to the deck before the other can raise his weapon to challenge. Beckwith plunges through the hatch into the chamber, and the hatch sighs shut behind him, even as a throng of Enterprise crewmen—led by CAPTAIN JAMES KIRK, Spock, YEOMAN JANICE RAND and DR. McCOY—fill the frame and dash away from us, down the corridor toward the chamber.

McCoy drops, to aid the guard who lies twisted at an odd angle, possibly dead. Kirk and Spock find the hatch sealed from the other side. Yeoman Rand breaks out a phaser and begins to puddle the sealtite as they HEAR the SOUND of the SHIP’S TRANSPORTER. As they burst through the hatch, into the transporter room, they find the transporter still glowing, the TRANSPORTER CHIEF half-conscious, struggling to sit up and pointing at the still-active machine. “B-Beckwith…” he mumbles.

“He’s loose on that planet down there,” Kirk says tightly. “Let’s go get him…”

CAMERA HOLDS on Kirk as the crew rush everywhichway to get a patrol ready to transport down after the killer. CAMERA HOLDS as Kirk turns to stare at the still-glowing transporter and on that eerie humming as we FADE OUT.

ACT ONE:

FADE IN the surface of the dead world. CLOSE ON booted tracks as CAMERA ANGLE WIDENS to show us the terrain. A featureless ball of silver-gray mists and dust-like powder that covers the ground. As though some cosmic god had flicked an ash and it had grown into a world. As CAMERA PULLS BACK we see the tell-tale shimmering and coalescing that mean crewmen from the Enterprise are materializing from the transporter. As Kirk, Spock, Yeoman Rand and FIVE ENLISTED CREWMEN appear, we HEAR the VOICE of KIRK OVER:

KIRK’S VOICE OVER

Ship’s Log: star-date 3134.8. This cinder, this empty death of a planet. This desolate mote in the emptiest reaches between galaxies. Its loneliness has the men of my patrol on edge. I know what they feel. This is the source of the peculiar radiation that had our clocks running backward. And now, Beckwith is down here—somewhere. Oh, we’ll find him, we have to. But there is something more important that has them frightened. A dead world such as this should be frigid, it should have no atmosphere.

(beat)

But we aren’t cold—and we can breathe.