Bloodsuckers
The year is 2210. Humans have moved out into space. In doing so, they have
encountered several alien races -- like the Leatherfaces and the Vorhees -- all
of them vampiric. In order to make space safe for humans, V-San (Vampire
Sanitation) crews serve as advance teams, sweeping planets of vampires and
making them habitable for humans. The V-San crew of the Heironymous is
captained by Nicholas Churchill [Joe Lando], who loves his job as vampire hunter. First
officer is Damian Underwood [Dominic Zamprogna], new to the job after being hand-picked by
Churchill after Damian was blacklisted by Star Fleet for leading a mission that
got his entire crew killed. Damian would rather do almost anything but V-San
work, but Churchill isn't about to sign for Damian's transfer, not when he can
get a cheap but top-notch Star Fleet educated commander who needs just a bit of
training (and stomach) in vampire killing. Rosa Wong [Leanne Adachi] and Roman Kuchinsky [Aaron Pearl] form the rest of the human crew. Then there is Quintana [Natassia Malthe] -- beautiful, telepathic,
and born a vampire-human of two humans who were vampirized. Quintana has chosen
to side with humans in the intergalactic war against vampires, but that doesn't
stop Rosa and Roman from questioning her loyalty and making snide remarks to
her face.After cleaning up the mess following a Vorhee [flesh- and organ-eating
vampires that must be staked to be destroyed] attack on Earth Base Quantum in
the Takai System, the Heironymous receives a distress call from a scared
soil-sample technician on Basra 14, a remote mining colony. Fiona Kennedy [A.J. Cook] is
the sole survivor of an attack by Leatherfaces [primitive vampires who wear
facemasks made of their victims' skin but who can be killed with bullets]. His
stomach still churning from his first experience hunting vampires, Damian
follows the captain into the mining shafts, where they are trapped and the
captain is captured and killed. Suddenly, Damian is catapulted to the position
of Captain pro tem of the Heironymous V-San crew, but Rosa and Roman make it
clear they aren't going to take orders from Damian. They feel the captain's
death was Damian's fault for not doing enough to save him from the Leatherfaces.With no further assignments in the roster, the Heironymous puts down at
Transit Station DHF in the Millerton Quadrant to drop off Fiona and allow the
crew a little R&R while awaiting orders. After an evening at the clubs, Damian
tries to get his crew back to the ship only to find that Rosa and Roman are
refusing to reboard. Instead, they have put in for a transfer and intend to go
clubbing in the interim, but their retinal scans and IDs suddenly won't work.
They have been classified as V-San persona non grata and now have nowhere to go
but back to the ship where Damian offers them a deal. One more assignment
together and he'll sign for their transfers. Until then, all protocols must be
followed under his command, and the bickering between Rosa, Roman, and Quintana
must stop. After more bickering, they agree.Suddenly, an urgent SOS comes in from the Transit Station. They are under
attack. By the time the Heironymous returns, everyone is dead. After a
preliminary investigation of the dead bodies, Quintana admits that she doesn't
recognize the vampire species but can tell that they kill by injecting a venom
that causes immediate necrotization of the tissues; it is on the dead, rotting,
warm flesh that these vampires feed. The hunters go in search of the vampire
and find him feeding; they shoot him but, horror upon horror, a number of
leech-like vampire worms crawl out of his mouth. Quintana now recognizes Vermis
nosferati, a species of wormlike vampires that lives inside the body of a host
and comes out only to feed. After the crew stabs and shoots all the vampires
until the last one emerges from a hole in the vampire's stomach (think
"Alien"), Quintana tries to talk to it. It will say nothing but rant about the
arrogance of humans. Remembering how vampires killed his entire family when he
was a child, Roman shoots it, which starts another big row between Quintana,
Rosa, and Roman.Meanwhile, watching from closed circuit cameras, Fiona and her friends
Gilles [Michael DeLuise] and Vondi [Peter DeLuise] criticize the arrogance of their human species and
applaud the work their group has accomplishedin their efforts to put
a monkeywrench in "unbridled Earth imperialism." Convinced that the Earth's
declaration of Manifest Destiny is a plague on the galaxy, they have been
plotting with Muco [Michael Ironside], leader of the Vorhees to stop the intergalactic expansion
of humans and end prejudice against vampires.Back on the Heironymous, Damian is attempting to fit the pieces together.
One thing he noticed in both the last two attacks is that, although the vampire
species involved were different, the electronic defense systems of both
stations had been shut down. He also noticed that Fiona's body was not amongst
the dead found on the Transit Station and wonders if she might be the key.
Fiona goes to a station, he reasons, and dismantles the electronic defense
system. When the vampires come in, Fiona gets out and moves on to her next
target. Reasoning further that Fiona must have left the Transit Station just
before they returned, Damian calls up the record of her departing flight plan
and learns that it leads to Cosmosis. Just then, they get a call from HQ
directing them on a search and destroy mission in the Knobe System, but Damian
and the crew decide that taking a little detour to Cosmosis is necessary to
revenge Captain Churchill's death, even if it means they'll all be fired. The
crew doesn't know that Damian made up the assignment from HQ, but it served the
purpose of uniting the crew.While the crew catches some zzzz's, the Heironymous follows Fiona's ship,
which leads them, instead, to Dhiagalev 8, a depleted ore planet. Just after
they land, they are attacked by a small craft that Roman manages to shoot out
of the sky. Unfortunately, it lands on the Heironymous and blows it up.
Stranded, they decide to head for the old colony, looking for a way off the
planet. They find the colony, and they also find Fiona and vampires. Fiona
promises that no one will get hurt if Damian goes with her. She leads him to
Muco and Captain Churchill, who has been turned into a vampire. Churchill
explains how the vampires want to learn from humans --things like compassion
and cooperation -- so that they can unite and take over the world. Damian
refuses to teach them, so Muco orders Damian and his crew killed. Fiona,
realizing that Muco has lied to her, challenges Muco to show the other vampires
what he is capable of, so Muco capably fires a bullet into her stomach.While Churchill and Damian duke it out, Gilles and Vondi, after seeing the
ease with which Muco killed Fiona, convince the vampires holding the
Heironymous crew that Muco has ordered them released. Gilles and Vondi grab
weapons and escort Rosa, Roman, and Quintana to the room where Churchill
has almost bested Damian. As they enter, Gilles and Vondi toss the weapons back
to the crew and they open fire on the vampires. Damian stabs Churchill in the
heart with a shard of glass, then sneaks up on Muco and stabs him.
Their work done here, Damian and crew head back to HQ to get a new ship.
[Original synopsis by bj_kuehl]
violence