SHELTER IN PLACE
v4 · August 15, 2026
FADE IN:
1 — EXT. DEEP SPACE
A red star, sullen and enormous, alone in the black. Hold. Then we MOVE — slow at first — toward a speck of reflected light. The speck becomes a station: HELIOGRAPH · 7749-B, solar arrays spread like moth wings.
2 — INT. OBSERVATION DECK — NIGHT CYCLE
Amber monitor light. MAREN VALE (40s, practical, tired around the eyes) sits at the console taking measurements. Three monitors; on the left one, a mostly flat line. A small recording light glows.
MAREN
Hey, Bo. It's me again. It's sol 242, and time flies when you're having, uh — well. Whatever this is. (beat) Funny how we measure time out here — using this red beauty's one desolate planet's spin to keep count, when we've never even set foot on it. (beat) Just passed a milestone yesterday — two years left until decommission. It's definitely been cozier with half the station sealed off. Anyway. Things have been hopping. The measurements have gone wild the last few days. You would have loved it. Dream stuff, for nerds like us. (dry) You should have stuck around instead of drifting off.
A short laugh. It dies.
MAREN (CONT'D)
Whoever finds these logs is going to think I'm certifiable. (pause; her face going serious) But it keeps me together. So — no apologies. (a breath through her nose) Better head to bed. Don't freeze out there. Miss you.
She ends the recording.
3 — INT. OBSERVATION DECK — LATER
Darker. Maren has nodded off, slumped back in her chair, lit amber by the monitors. Two unobtrusive BEEPS. She stirs; a few seconds; sits up. Leans forward.
On the left monitor: the flat line has begun to CLIMB.
MAREN (VOICE A LITTLE ROUGH)
Oh wow. That's new.
She types. Glances to the middle monitor, then the right, then back to the left — the line still climbing.
MAREN (CONT'D)
Whoa. I think we might have a new record. Nothing this exciting since —
She trails off. Frowns. More typing. A couple of seconds later, two more URGENT beeps.
MAREN (CONT'D)
Uh oh. Take it easy there, red beauty.
The most urgent TONE yet. A calm female voice:
STATION (V.O.)
Solar flare incoming. Seek shelter immediately. E.T.A., two minutes.
Maren flips the lid on the RETRACTOR SWITCH and activates it.
4 — EXT. STATION — CONTINUOUS
The solar arrays begin folding inward. Moth wings closing.
5 — INT. OBSERVATION DECK — CONTINUOUS
Maren grabs her half-empty cup — cold coffee — takes a gulp, screws up her face. Snags a packet of CRACKERS and exits frame. The camera stays put. Receding footsteps.
6 — INT. SPINE CORRIDOR — CONTINUOUS
Dim. She stops at the RADIATION SHELTER — a pocket door. She slides it open with a little effort.
Inside: a padded two-person bench — buried in stowage. She makes room for herself, stacking things from one side of the bench on top of the things on the other side. Moves a couple of mops and brooms. Bolted to the back wall, half-buried: a sealed med case, stencilled ANTI-RAD.
Last thing: an old crate of FOOD BRICKS. She lifts it, coughs at the dust, and drops it a little carelessly in the corridor — the crate BREAKS OPEN, bricks skidding across the deck.
She looks at them a beat. Leaves them. Gets in, pulls the door closed.
7 — INT. RADIATION SHELTER — CONTINUOUS
Green strip light. Maren on the cleared half of the bench, crackers in her lap, the piled junk beside her on the other half.
INSERT — the DOSE RATE READOUT: coarse amber dot-matrix digits climbing. 0.4 ... 2.1 ... 11.8 mSv/h ...
8 — EXT. STATION
The flare arrives — a slow tide of light crawling across the hull, hard shadows bending and moving. (Effects per look book.)
9 — INT. RADIATION SHELTER
The readout receding: 6.2 ... 1.9 ... 0.3. A soft tone.
STATION (V.O.)
Radiation event concluded. All clear.
MAREN
Huh. Not bad. Here and gone. Didn't even have time to eat my crackers.
She slides the door open and leans out.
10 — INT. SPINE CORRIDOR — MOMENTS LATER
She walks back toward the observation deck. Then — somewhere, hollow but unmistakable:
BANG. BANG. BANG. Slow. Rhythmic.
She stops mid-step. Listens. Nothing. She resumes walking —
BANG. BANG. BANG.
She stops and waits again. A few seconds.
MAREN
Must be a coolant line torn loose. (sighs) Guess I'm doing a spacewalk tomorrow.
11 — INT. OBSERVATION DECK
She settles at the console. As her gaze shifts between monitors and she starts typing —
BANG. BANG. BANG.
She pauses, a little bewildered. Then it changes:
BANG-BANG-BANG. BANG — BANG — BANG. BANG-BANG-BANG.
On screen, letter by letter as each is banged out, SUPER: S ... O ... S
Full attention now, eyes wide.
MAREN
Morse code? That's impossible.
She gets up, hits a wall switch — the lights come up, the station waking dimly around her (ambience intact; nothing bright). The banging starts again.
MAREN (CONT'D)
That's no coolant line.
12 — INT. SPINE CORRIDOR
She moves down the corridor, casting around at each burst of banging — and passes the large window onto the airlock interior.
Through the small viewport in the EXTERIOR hatch: a SPACESUIT HELMET.
She recoils, badly startled. Her voice breaks; her lips quiver.
MAREN (STAMMERING)
Impossible. There's no one around for fifty million clicks.
13 — INT. AIRLOCK ANTECHAMBER — CONTINUOUS
Her hand hovers at the palm button in its welded steel ring — PUSH / OPEN. She hits it. The sound of a heavy LOCK unlocking.
The exterior door opens. An ASTRONAUT steps in — the suit scorched down one entire side, char on bone-white. The astronaut hauls the door closed. Sits heavily. Begins taking off the helmet — metal sliding over metal.
The helmet lifts off.
Maren is staring into her own face.
The other woman — FUTURE MAREN — hair longer, face thinner, something scraped-out around the eyes — looks back with an expression that is somehow both apology and homecoming.
A long moment. Maren's voice, breaking, one word:
Future Maren answers by leaning over and vomiting on the airlock floor.
14 — CARE MONTAGE — VARIOUS
— Maren yanks the ANTI-RAD med case off the shelter's back wall, blows off dust, cracks the seal.
— Crew quarters: an injector against Future Maren's arm; Future Maren grey-faced in Maren's bunk.
— Maren holding Future Maren's hair back over a basin.
— Maren asleep in a chair pulled to the bedside, one hand resting on the blanket.
MAREN (V.O.) (LOG)
Hey, Bo. Sol 246. So — funny story. You know how I said I wanted to be a million miles from everybody? Turns out the universe called my bluff and sent me... me. (beat) You should have stuck around. You could've had two of us. (a laugh that goes wobbly) I forgot what it does to you — another voice in this place. Another heartbeat. I was so sure I wanted the silence after you left. Then a person knocked, and I opened the door, and I've been holding on to her like — (stops) — like someone who wasn't fine. All those logs where I told you I was fine.
15 — INT. CREW QUARTERS — NIGHT CYCLE (SOL 255)
Future Maren, better — sitting up, some color back. Two mugs. Mid-conversation.
FUTURE MAREN
— a year, near enough. Give or take.
MAREN
So wherever I am right now... you already were.
FUTURE MAREN
Roughly. Different universe. Same furniture, more or less.
Maren turns her mug in her hands.
MAREN
Then tell me something. (beat) Does it get easier?
A long pause.
FUTURE MAREN (HONESTLY)
A little.
Maren laughs — and the laugh cracks in the middle and folds, and suddenly she's crying, one hand over her mouth, completely broken. Future Maren sets her mug down and gathers her in, her own eyes swollen.
FUTURE MAREN (CONT'D)
I know. I know exactly.
Nobody has ever meant that literally before.
16 — INT. GALLEY — DAY CYCLE (SOL 270)
Seventies bones: burnt-orange seat pads, wood-grain laminate, a coffee unit that belongs in a museum. The two at the table, easy now, mid-laughter over coffee.
MAREN
— you realize when the pickup ship gets here, in what, two years, we are going to be the entire debrief. They'll write papers.
Something in the tone. The laughter drains.
FUTURE MAREN (CONT'D)
I won't be here when the ship comes. (beat) I've got maybe six months.
MAREN
What are you talking about? You're better. The radiation sickness — I've watched you get better —
FUTURE MAREN
The sickness, yes. (beat) It's cancer. From the dose.
MAREN
You can't know that. There's nothing on this station that could tell you —
FUTURE MAREN
Because we all do. Every one of us. Every time one of us takes the ride.
Silence.
MAREN
...Every one of who?
FUTURE MAREN
You think I'm the first? (shakes her head) This has happened a dozen times that we know of. A Maren rides a flare, and it throws her sideways — some other universe — and back. About a year back. Give or take. (beat) Always give or take.
FUTURE MAREN
Full exposure. Outside the hull — nothing shielding you, nothing holding you to the station. The pass takes whatever isn't attached. (quietly) That's the whole trick. That's all it costs. Everything.
Maren goes very still. Something assembling itself behind her eyes.
Future Maren says nothing. Maren gets up —
17 — INT. CREW QUARTERS — CONTINUOUS
— opens a drawer. Beneath folded clothes: a coiled length of bone-white UMBILICAL LINE, charcoal band, quick-disconnect at one end. The other end —
18 — INT. GALLEY — CONTINUOUS
She sets it on the table between them. Future Maren picks it up gently. Turns the cut end to the light: a clean perpendicular face, hundreds of filament ends — and around the rim, a hair-thin ring of amber. Like a singe.
FUTURE MAREN
Nothing cut this. No edge does this. (touching the rim) The boundary of the pass does. It takes what isn't attached... and seals what it leaves behind.
MAREN (BARELY AUDIBLE)
He didn't die.
FUTURE MAREN
He rode. Same as me. Sideways and back — into some universe where there's a Maren who hasn't lost him yet. Where he can grab his own shoulder and say: on the day of the storm, don't you dare go outside. (beat) If he landed in time.
FUTURE MAREN
The year is approximate. Land early enough, you save him — that couple never loses anybody, and it ends there. Land late... (she opens a hand: here I am) ...you're a widow arriving at a widow's door. Every one of us that we know of landed late. That's why there keeps being a next one.
MAREN
You went looking for your Bo.
FUTURE MAREN
A month after my visitor came, my flare came. She'd told me everything I'm telling you. I suited up anyway. Every Maren has. It's who we are. (beat) And you close the loop. Your flare's tomorrow — I've watched this month from the other side of the table, remember. Tomorrow, as sure as I sit here. And you'll choose what all of us chose. You'll take the ride.
MAREN
And who takes care of you while you get sicker? What kind of person leaves —
FUTURE MAREN
The kind every Maren before you was. Including me. (steady) I left mine with the drug locker and a wave. She knew what I'd choose. She'd chosen it herself. (leaning in) You have to go. You have to. You're the one who ends this. You go back, and you find him — or some version of him. And if you don't — every one of us has at least gotten to hope that one of us, eventually, would.
Maren looks at the cut end of the tether for a long time.
19 — INT. SUIT LOCKER — DAY (SOL 271)
Future Maren steadies the rear-entry hatch of the bone-white suit as Maren climbs in and pulls the internal lanyard. Ordinary, practiced movements — both of them crying and pretending not to.
MAREN (V.O.) (LOG)
Last one of these, Bo. And I'm saying that on the record: last log. If this works the way they say it does... the next time I say your name, it won't be into a recorder. (beat) Wish me a good landing.
20 — INT. AIRLOCK — CONTINUOUS
Maren in the chamber, helmet under her arm. Future Maren before her. The goodbye is wordless until it isn't —
Maren suddenly grabs Future Maren and KISSES her, hard, on the mouth. Pulls back.
MAREN
Twelve of us said goodbye in this room. I'd bet you everything not one of them did that.
FUTURE MAREN (A WRECKED LAUGH)
No.
She puts the helmet on. Seals it. Future Maren steps out, closes and secures the inner door. A last look through the window. Then, crying, she hits the palm button.
STATION (V.O.)
Airlock armed. Depressurization on occupant's mark.
Future Maren turns away from the window — she cannot watch — and comes apart. Hand pressed over her mouth, shoulders heaving. It goes on. (Hold as long as it will bear.)
Finally she turns back —
Maren is still there. The exterior door unopened. Helmet on. Unmoving. Watching her.
Future Maren lunges for the INTERCOM, thumbs the bar.
FUTURE MAREN (THROUGH SNIFFLES)
Go. You have to go now. You've only got a few minutes left.
In answer, Maren releases the seals and lifts the helmet off. Drops it. It rolls.
Future Maren wrenches the inner door open, steps in, right up to her.
FUTURE MAREN (CONT'D) (VERY EMOTIONAL)
What are you doing?
A pause. Maren — teary, trembling, and completely certain:
21 — INT. RADIATION SHELTER — LATER
Green light. The alert tone, muffled, winding down outside. The two of them side by side on the bench — the junk long gone; room for both. The dose readout climbs. Neither looks at it.
Maren holds out the packet of crackers. Future Maren takes one.
FUTURE MAREN
You know these are terrible.
A laugh — small, real. Future Maren leans her head onto Maren's shoulder. The readout crests. Recedes.
22 — CODA MONTAGE — VARIOUS
— Galley: the two of them laughing hard at something we don't hear.
— Observation deck: coffee, both chairs occupied now, pointing at the monitors, talking with their hands.
— Crew lounge: a couch, the flicker-glow of a movie on their faces, one's arm around the other, a blanket over both.
MAREN (V.O.) (LOG)
Sorry, Bo. I know I said the next time I said your name, it'd be in your arms. But we both knew that was always a long shot. Either you'd already be gone from the radiation — or I'd arrive carrying what she carries, and you'd have to lose me all over again. Nobody deserves that pain twice. (beat) So wherever you landed — I've decided you landed early. You're the one who closed the loop. You warned them, and that universe's Maren and Bo are having coffee right now, complaining about the crackers. I've decided that. And out here, sol by sol, what I decide is what's true. (beat) And the Maren who's here — if the cancer comes, she'll need someone to hold her hair back, and sit the night shifts, and carry her through the end of it. And if by some miracle it doesn't come — she'll need what I needed. Which, it turns out, was never silence. (beat) I cleared out the shelter, by the way. Both seats. It always fit two, Bo. I just kept your side full, so nothing else could sit there.
23 — INT. OBSERVATION DECK — NIGHT CYCLE (SOL 290)
Maren at the console, recording. Behind her, soft galley sounds — someone else moving through the station. She smiles at something off-screen, turns back to the lens.
MAREN
Goodnight, Bo. Don't freeze out there. (beat) We won't.
She ends the recording.
24 — EXT. DEEP SPACE
The station, arrays spread again, windows warm. We PULL BACK — the station shrinks to a speck against the red star. Hold on the red star, alone in the black.
FADE OUT.
THE END