"ALIENS" (Continue)
GORMAN
(voice over;
filtered)
Second team, move up.
Flanking positions.
INT. COLONY - MAIN CONCOURSE 55
DOLLYING SLOWLY FORWARD, following Vasquez and Apone as
they move into the broad corridor. A few emergency
lights are still on. Wind moans along the concourse.
Pools of water cover the floor. Farther down, rain drips
through blast holes in the ceiling. Evidence of a
fire fight with pulse-rifles.
ON VASQUEZ moving forward. Taut. Alert. Her smart-gun
cannon swinging slowly in an arc. She studies the
video aiming monitor, looking down rather than ahead.
Their footsteps echo.
INT. APC 56
Ripley watches as the bobbing images reveal the empty
colony building.
GORMAN
Quarter and search by twos. Second
team move inside. Hicks, take the
upper level. Use your motion
trackers.
INT. MAIN CONCOURSE - SECOND LEVEL 57
Hicks leads his squad up the stairwell to second level.
They emerge cautiously. An empty corridor recedes into
the dim distance. Hicks unslings a rugged piece of
equipment. Aims it down the hall. He adjusts the
"gain." It remains silent.
HICKS
Nothing. No movement.
They pass rooms and offices. Through doors they see
increasing signs of struggle. Furniture overturned.
Papers scattered...floating sodden in the puddles.
INT. APC 58
Ripley et al watching.
BURKE
Looks like my room in college.
Nobody laughs.
INT. SECOND LEVEL 59
Hicks' group passes several burnt-out rooms. There are
no bodies. In several offices the exterior windows are
blown out, admitting wind and rain. Hicks picks up a
half-eaten donut beside a coffee cup overflowing with
rainwater.
INT. LOWER LEVEL - QUARTERS 60
Apone's men are searching systematically in pairs. They
pass through the colonists' modest apartments, little
more than cubicles. Hudson, on tracker, flanks Vasquez
as they move forward. Hudson touches a splash of color
on the wall. Dried blood. His tracker BEEPS.
Vasquez whirls, cannon aimed. The BEEPING grows more
frequent as Hudson advances toward a half open door. The
door is splintered partway out of its frame. Holes
caused by pulse-rifle rounds pepper the walls. Vasquez
eases up to the door. Kicks it in. Tenses to fire.
Inside, dangling from a piece of flex conduit, a
junction-box swings like a pendulum in the wind from a
broken window. It clanks against the rails of a child's
bunkbed as it swings.
INT. DROP-SHIP - APC 61
Ripley watches Hicks' monitor.
RIPLEY
Wait! Tell him to...
(plugs in
headset jack)
...Hicks. Back up. Pan left.
There!
TIGHT ON MONITOR as the image shifts, revealing a
section of wall corroded almost through in an irregular
pattern.
TIGHT ON RIPLEY knowing what it is.
HICKS
(voice over;
filtered)
You seeing this okay? Looks
melted.
Burke raises an eyebrow at Ripley.
BURKE
Hmm. Acid for blood.
HICKS
(voice over;
filtered)
Looks like somebody bagged them
one of Ripley's bad guys here.
INT. FIRST LEVEL 62
Hudson is looking at something.
HUDSON
Hey, if you like that, you're gonna
love this...
WIDER ANGLE showing the trooper standing beneath a
gaping hole. Another hole, directly beneath, is at his
feet. The acid has melted right down through two levels
into the maintenance level. Revealing pipes, conduit,
equipment...eaten away by the ferocious substance.
APONE
Second squad? What's your status?
HICKS
(voice over;
filtered)
Just finished our sweep.
Nobody home.
APONE
(to Gorman)
The place is dead, Sir. Whatever
happened, we missed it.
INT. APC 63
Gorman turns to the others.
GORMAN
All right, the area's secured.
Let's go in and see what their
computer can tell us.
(into mike)
First team head for operations.
Hudson, see if you can get their
CPU on line. Hicks, meet me at
the south lock by the up-link
tower...
INT. FIRST LEVEL 64
GORMAN
(voice over)
...We're coming in.
HUDSON
(cupping his mike)
He's coming in. I feel safer
already.
VASQUEZ
(sotto voice)
Pendejo jerkoff.
EXT. COLONY COMPLEX 65
Lights arc across the dormant buildings as the APC turns
onto the "main drag." It trundles down the rutted
street, throwing up sheets of filthy water as the
massive wheels hit pondlike potholes. Windblown rain
lashes across the headlights.
Hicks emerges from the south lock just as the APC rolls
up close to the entrance. The crew-door slides back.
Gorman emerges, followed by Burke, Bishop, and
Wierzbowski. Burke looks back to see Ripley stop in the
APC doorway, eyeing the ominous colony structure. She
meets his eyes. Shakes her head "no." Not ready.
HUDSON
(voice over;
filtered)
Sir, the CPU is on-line.
GORMAN
Okay, stand by in operations.
(to those present)
Let's go.
INT. APC 66
The crew-door cycles home with a clang. Ripley sits in
the dark interior, lit by the tactical displays. The
wind howls outside, an incredibly desolate sound. She
hugs herself. Alone. Unarmed. She knows she's in a
tank, but remembers the acid. Leaps up. Hits the door
switch.
EXT. APC - SOUTH LOCK 67
The crew-door opens and Ripley emerges. In time to see
the lock doors rumbling closed.
RIPLEY
(shouting)
Burke!
The wind snatches her words away. The crew door whines
shut behind her. She walks to the exterior lock
door-controls and studies them. She punches some
unfamiliar buttons. Nothing happens. She looks really
nervous, alone in the howling wind. She hits another
button. The door-motors come to life and she relaxes
a little. Glances behind her. AND SCREAMS! There's
a face right there! Right at her shoulder. She jumps
back, gasping for breath.
WIERZBOWSKI
Scare you?
RIPLEY
Christ, Wierzbowski!
WIERZBOWSKI
Sorry. Hicks said to keep an
eye on you.
He gestures for her to precede him inside.
INT. CONTROL BLOCK CORRIDOR 68
Ripley catches up with the others as they move into the
bowels of the complex.
GORMAN
(to Burke)
Looks like you company can write
off its share of this colony.
BURKE
(unconcerned)
It's insured.
ON RIPLEY as they move along the corridor...reacting to
the fact that she is back in alien country. She sees
the ravaged administration complex. Fire-gutted offices.
Hicks notices her looking around nervously. He motions
to big Wierzbowski with his eyes and the trooper casually
falls in beside her on the other side, rifle at ready.
a two-man protective cordon. She glances at Hicks. He
winks, but so fast maybe it's something in his eye.
Trooper Frost emerges from a side corridor ahead.
FRONT
Sir, you should check this out...
He leads the way into the corridor.
INT. CORRIDOR 69
This wing is completely without power. The troopers
switch on their pack lights and the beams illuminate
a scene of devastation worse than they have seen. Her
expression reveals that Ripley is about to turn and flee.
FROST
Right ahead here...
They approach a barricade blocking the corridor, a
hastily welded wall of pipes, steel-plate, outer-door
panels. Acid holes have slashed through the floor and
walls in several places. The metal is scratched and
twisted by hideously powerful forces, peeled back like
a soup can on one side. They squeeze through the
opening.
INT. MEDICAL WING 70
They pack-lights play over the devastation of the
colonists' last ditch battle. The equipment of the med
labs has been uprooted to add to the barrier. The walls
are perforated by pulse-rifle fire and acid. Scorched
by untended fires to bare metal. A few instruments glow
with emergency power.
WIERZBOWSKI
Last stand.
GORMAN
No bodies?
FROST
No, Sir. Looks like it was a
helluva fight.
TIGHT ON RIPLEY transfixed by something.
RIPLEY
(low)
Over there.
The others turn and approach, seeing what she sees. She
has entered a second room, part of the med lab area. In
a storage alcove at near eye level stand seven
transparent cylinders. STASIS TUBES. They glow faintly
with an eerie violet light given off by the field which
preserves the specimens inside.
They look like jars containing SEVERED ARTHRITIC HANDS,
the palsied fingers curled in a death-rictus.
Structurally they are more like spiders with sickening
translucent skin, a flacid scrotal body, gill-like
organs underneath drifting in the suspension fluid.
Something you definitely do not want on your face, for
example.
BURKE
Are these the same...?
Ripley nods, unable to speak. Burke leans closer in
fascination. His face almost touching one cylinder, is
lit by its glow.
RIPLEY
Watch it, Burke...
The creature inside lunges suddenly, slamming against
the glass. Burke jumps back. From the palm of the
thing's handlike body emerges a pearl-escent TUBULE.
like a tapered piece of intestine, which slithers
tonguelike over the inside of the glass. Then it
retracts into a sheath between the "gills."
HICKS
(to Burke)
It likes you.
Only two of the creatures seem to pulse with life.
Burke taps the other stasis cylinders but the
hand-things remain inertly clenched.
BURKE
These are dead. There's just
the two alive.
On top of each cylinder is a file folder. Ripley takes
a folder from above one of the live specimens. Inside
is a medical chart printout with handwritten entries.
RIPLEY
(reading)
Removed surgically before embryo
implantation. Subject: Marachuk,
John L. Died during procedure.
(looking up)
They killed him getting it off.
HICKS
Poor bastard.
They are startled by a LOUD BEEP. They turn. Hicks
is intent on his motion tracker, aimed back toward the
shattered barricade. BEEP. BEEP.
HICKS
Behind us.
He gestures at the corridor they just passed through.
RIPLEY
One of us?
GORMAN
(into headset)
Apone...where are your people?
Anybody in D-Block?
APONE
(voice over; filtered)
Negative. We're all in Operations.
Vasquez swings the smart-gun to ready position on
its support arm, locking it with an authoritative
CLICK. She and Hicks head toward the source of the
signal, the others following.
INT. CORRIDOR 71
Hicks' tracker is reading out more rapidly. They
turn into the kitchens, a stainless steel labyrinth.
Ripley hangs back. Then realizes there is nothing
behind her but darkness. She catches up to the group.
INT. KITCHENS 72
The troopers enter, their lights bouncing around the
stainless steel surfaces.
HICKS
It's moving.
Vasquez is scanning, gaze intense. The other troops
grip their weapons tightly.
VASQUEZ
Which way?
Hicks nods toward a complicated array of food
processing equipment. They move forward, weapons
leveled.
Ripley shuffles forward in the dark. Wierzbowski
trips over a metal cannister, sending it CLANGING.
Ripley half climbs the wall.
Hicks' tracker beeps steadily. The beeps merge.
Become a solid tone. CRASH. Something moves in the
dark, toppling a rack of stockpots.
ON VASQUEZ pivoting smoothly to fire. In the same
instant Hicks' rifle slashes INTO FRAME. Slams
Vasquez' barrel upward. A STREAM OF TRACER FIRE rips
into the ceiling, the rounds SEARING LIKE LIGHTNING.
VASQUEZ
You fuck!
Hicks ignores her, moving past and aiming his light
under a row of steel cabinets. He gestures to Ripley,
who steps forward. Trusting his judgment. She
crouches beside him.
RIPLEY'S P.O.V. lit by Hicks' pack-light...a tiny
cowering figure. A very dirty, very terrified
NEWT JORDEN. She clutches a plastic food packet in
one hand, its top gnawed partway through. In the other
hand she grips the HEAD OF A LARGE DOLL, holding it by
the hair. Just the head. Eyes staring. Newt is
pathetically emaciated...fragile-looking as Dresden
china, her hair tangled and matted.
RIPLEY
(soothingly)
Come on out. It's all right...
Ripley moves toward her, reaching slowly under the
cabinet. Newt backs away, trembling visibly, her
vision fixated like a rabbit blinded by headlights.
Ripley's hand almost reaches her.
The kid bolts like a shot, scuttling along beneath the
cabinetry. Ripley scrambles to follow...to keep her
in sight. Crabbing frantically sideways. Hicks makes
a grab, catching one tiny ankle. He snaps his hand
out a moment later.
HICKS
Ow! Shit. Watchit, she bites.
The girl reaches a ventilation duct set in the
baseboard, its grille kicked out. She scrambles
inside, her tiny body barely fitting, wriggling like
a fish.
In his bulky armor Hicks knows he'll never make it
into the tiny duct. Ripley dives. She squirms into
the duct without thinking. Just ahead she sees Newt
enter a dark space and slam a steel hatch. Ripley
pushes the hatch open before the child can latch it,
and crawls in after her.
Newt is backed into a cul-de-sac in the tiny steel
chamber. Ripley shines her light around in amazement.
It is a NEST. A nest built by a child. Wadded up
blankets and pillows line the space, mixed up with a
haphazard array of TOYS, STUFFED ANIMALS, DOLLS, CHEAP
JEWELRY, COMIC BOOKS, EMPTY FOOD PACKETS, even a
battery operated TAPE PLAYER. All foraged from the
wrecked colony. Ripley marvels at the child's
incredible adaptability, the ability to functions even
in this nightmarish environment.
Newt edges along the far wall and dives for the hatch.
Ripley grabs her, controlling her in a bear hug. The
kid struggles wildly, like a cat at the vets. Eyes
wide, hands lashing out in a frenzy...but silent. No
scream.
RIPLEY
It's okay, it's okay. It's over...
you're going to be all right now...
it's okay...you're safe...
Newt goes limp, almost catatonic.
CLOSE ON NEWT'S TRAUMATIZED, VACANT STARE her lips
are white and trembling, her eyes track wildly and
she flinches from unseen terrors. We READ a dark
nightmare world in her eyes.
Ripley's light falls on something amidst the debris...
a FRAMED PHOTOGRAPH of Newt, dressed up and smiling,
a ribbon in her hair. In embossed gold letters
underneath it says:
FIRST GRADE CITIZENSHIP AWARD
REBECCA JORDEN
INT. OPERATIONS - ON NEWT - MANAGER'S OFFICE 73
sitting huddles in a chair, arms around her knees.
Looking at a point in space.
GORMAN
(o.s.)
What's her name again?
DIETRICH
(o.s.)
Rebecca.
WIDER ANGLE REVEALING Gorman sitting in front of her
while Dietrich watches the readouts from a
BIO-MONITORING CUFF wrapped around Newt's tiny arm.
GORMAN
Now think, Rebecca.
Concentrate. Just start at
the beginning...
No response. Ripley enters, carrying a coffee mug.
GORMAN
Where are your parents? You
have to try...
RIPLEY
(sharply)
Gorman! Give it a rest would
you.
Gorman stands with a sigh of dismissal.
GORMAN
Total brain-lock.
DIETRICH
(shrugs)
Physically she's okay.
Borderline malnutrition, but
I don't think any permanent
damage.
She unsnaps the bio-monitoring cuff.
GORMAN
Come on, we're wasting our
time.
Gorman and the others exit, leaving only Ripley with
Newt. Through the window of the office, out on the
main floor of the operations room, we SEE Gorman
join Burke and Bishop at a computer terminal.
Ripley kneels beside Newt, brushing the girl's unkempt
hair out of her eyes in a gentle, maternal fashion.
RIPLEY
Here, try this. A little
instant hot chocolate.
She wraps the child's hands around the cup. Raises
it to her lips for her. The girl drinks mechanically,
spilling down her chin.
RIPLEY
(soothing)
Poor thing. You don't talk
much do you? That's okay by
me. Most people do a lot of
talking and they wind up not
saying very much.
She sets the cup down and wipes the child's chin clean.
RIPLEY
Uh oh. I made a clean spot
here. Now I've done it. Guess
I'll just have to do the whole
thing.
She pours water from a squeeze bottle onto a small
cloth and gently washes the little girl's face.
Newt's eyes seem to focus on her for the first time.
RIPLEY
Hard to believe...there's a
little girl under all this.
And a pretty one at that.
Newt gazes at her. Ripley smiles.
INT. OPERATIONS 74
The ground teams are gathered around a terminal in
the computer center. Hudson has the CPU main computer
on-line and reading out.
TIGHT ON MONITOR SCREEN as an abstract of the main
colony ground plan drifts across the screen.
Searching.
Hudson bashes at the keyboard, his fingers dancing
expertly.
BURKE
(to Gorman)
What's he scanning for?
GORMAN
PDT'S. Personal-Data Transmitters.
Every adult colonist had one
surgically implanted.
HUDSON
If they're within twenty
klicks we'll read it out here,
but so far...zip.
INT. OFFICE 75
Ripley is washing Newt's tiny hands with a cloth,
pink skin emerging from black grime.
RIPLEY
I don't know how you managed
to stay alive but you're one
brave kid, Rebecca.
Newt's voice is almost inaudible.
NEWT
N-newt.
Ripley leans closer. Feels like she's breathing
on coals. The sound was incomprehensible.
RIPLEY
What did you say?
NEWT
Newt. My n-name's Newt.
Nobody calls me Rebecca except
my dork brother.
Ripley grins inanely, not wanting to move or speak...
or break the spell.
RIPLEY
Well, Newt it is then. My
name's Ripley...and people
call me Ripley.
Ripley picks up her tiny limp hand, shaking it
formally.
RIPLEY
Pleased to meet you. And who
is this? Does she have a
name?
Newt glances at the disembodied doll, still clutched
in one filthy hand.
NEWT
Casey. She's my only friend.
RIPLEY
What about me?
Newt's reply is flat, neutral.
NEWT
I don't want you for a friend.
RIPLEY
Why not?
NEWT
Because you'll be gone soon,
like the others. Like
everybody. You'll be dead
and you'll leave me alone.
Ripley gazes at her, chilled both by the ominous
statement and by the situation which could have
produced this outlook in a child.
RIPLEY
Oh, Newt. You mom and dad
went away like that, didn't
they?
Newt nods, staring at her knees.
RIPLEY
(soothingly)
They'd be here if they could,
honey. I know they would.
NEWT
(with cold certainty)
They're dead.
RIPLEY
Newt. Look at me...Newt. I
won't leave you. I promise.
NEWT
You promise?
RIPLEY
Cross my heart.
NEWT
And hope to die?
Ripley smiles grimly at the inadvertently macabre
expression.
RIPLEY
(quietly)
And hope to die.
And because she's a child, the darkest terrors, even
the ones seen and not imagined, can still be banished
by a smile and a single promise.
Newt's eyes brim as she gazes at Ripley. Her lower
lip starts to tremble, and her face slowly deforms
into an abject mask. She sobs as she clamps her arms
around Ripley's neck. The sobs come in waves as
Ripley rocks her, tears of suppresses terror and
grief and hurt rolling down her face. It is a
breakthrough.
Ripley closes her eyes, hoping that this promise
can be kept.
INT. OPERATIONS 76
Everyone jumps as Hudson cries out triumphantly.
HUDSON
Hah! Stop your grinnin' and
drop your linen! Found 'em.
GORMAN
Alive?
HUDSON
Unknown. But, it looks like
all of them. Over at the
processing station...sublevel
'C' under the south tower.
TIGHT ON SCREEN showing an amoebalike cluster of
flashing blue dots clumped tightly in one area.
HICKS
Looks like a Goddamn town
meeting.
GORMAN
Let's saddle up.
APONE
Awright, let's go girls, they
ain't payin' us by the hour.
EXT. ACHERON - TWILIGHT 77
The APC roars across the stygian landscape, traversing
the causeway which connects the colony to the
ATMOSPHERE STATION a kilometer away. Behind it the
drop-ship settles to the ground at the colony landing
field.
PAN WITH THE APC TO REVEAL the massive structure.
Like a vast foundry the conical exhaust tower
flickers with spectral light.
INT. APC 78
The troopers sit, more subdued now, swaying and
bouncing in the heavily sprung vehicle. Wierzbowski
is in the saddle. Ripley and Newt sit side by side
just aft of the driver's cockpit.
NEWT
I was the best at the game.
I knew the whole maze.
RIPLEY
The 'maze'? You mean the
air ducts?
NEWT
Yeah, you know. In the walls,
under the floor. I was the
ace. I could hide better
than anybody.
RIPLEY
You're really something, ace.
Ripley's gaze shifts out the windshield as the
processing station looms ahead.
EXT. APC/STATION 79
The vast structure towers above the parked personnel
carrier. Deploying in front of the APC, backlit by
its lights, the troopers cast long shadows. They
look ominous. Hulking techno-samurai.
The base of the station is a depthless maze of
conduits and pressure vessels, like an oil refinery.
Or a Dantean version of one. The THRUM of
functioning machine systems echoes through the
labyrinth.
GORMAN
(voice over; static)
Forty meters in. Ramp on
axial two-two. Access to
sublevels.
The troopers start down the open rampway. Light
filters down through several levels of steel mesh
floor, catwalks and pipes. Below that is darkness.
GORMAN
(voice over; static)
B-Level. Next one down.
The thrumming of machines grows louder as they
descend.
INT. APC 80
Huddles around the screens are Ripley, Burke and
Gorman. Newt squeezes in from behind. Gorman is
doing his video wizard bit, dancing on the buttons.
GORMAN
(to team)
We're not making that out too
well. What is it?
HUDSON
(voice over; static)
You tell me. I only work
here.
INT. COMPLEX 81
The group stands before a bizarre tableau. Among
the refinerylike lattice of pipes and conduits
something new and not of human design had been
added.
It is a structure of some sort, extending from and
crudely imitating the complex of plumbing, but made
of some strange encrusted substance. It vaguely
resembles the chambered nests of swallows on a much
larger scale, and it attenuates so gradually into
the original hardware that it is hard to see where
one ends and the other begins.
The alien structure seems to extend far back into
the complex of machinery. The plant thrums loudly,
its functioning seemingly not impaired.
INT. APC 82
Ripley stares at the scene in dread fascination.
GORMAN
What is it?
RIPLEY
I don't know.
GORMAN
(to team)
Proceed inside.
INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 83
They enter the organic labyrinth, playing their
lights over the walls. Revealing a BIO-MECHANICAL
LATTICE, like the marrow of some vast bone. The air
is thick with STEAM. Trickling water. The place
seems almost alive.
INT. APC 84
They watch in various helmet-camera P.O.V.'s of the
wall detail.
RIPLEY
(low)
Oh God...
CLOSE ON VIDEO as it PAN SLOWLY...REVEALING a
bas-relief of detritus from the colony: furniture,
wiring, human bones, skulls...Fused together with a
translucent, epoxylike substance.
DIETRICH
(voice over; static)
Looks like some sort of secreted
resin.
GORMAN
They ripped apart the colony
for building materials.
RIPLEY
And the colonists...When they
were done with them.
(turning)
Newt, you better go sit up
front. Go on.
INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 85
Steam swirls around them as the troopers move deeper
inside.
FROST
Hotter'n hell in here.
HUDSON
Yeah...but it's a dry
heat.
INT. APC 86
Ripley leans forward suddenly, studying the graphic
readout of the STATION GROUND PLAN.
RIPLEY
They're right under the
primary heat exchangers.
BURKE
Yeah? Maybe the organisms like
the heat, that's why they built...
RIPLEY
That's not what I mean. Gorman,
if your men have to use their
weapons in there, they'll rupture
the cooling system.
BURKE
(realizing)
She's right.
GORMAN
So.
RIPLEY
So...then the fusion
containment shuts down.
GORMAN
(impatient)
So? So?
BURKE
We're talking thermonuclear
explosion.
GORMAN
Shit.
(into
mike)
Apone, collect magazines
from everybody. We can't
have any firing in there.
INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 87
The troopers look at each other in dismay.
WIERZBOWSKI
Is he fucking crazy?
HUDSON
What're we supposed to use,
man? Harsh language?
GORMAN
(voice over; static)
Flame-units only. I want
rifles slung.
APONE
Let's go. Pull 'em out.
He walks among the troopers, collecting the magazines
from each one's weapon.
Vasquez turns hers over reluctantly.
The three who are carrying them get out small
incinerator units. When Apone moves on, Vasquez
slips a spare magazine from concealment and inserts
it in her weapon. Drake does the same. Hicks hangs
back in the shadows. He opens a cylindrical sheath
attached to his battle-harness. Slides out an
old style PUMP TWELVE-GAUGE with a sawed-off butt
stock. Chambers a round.
HICKS
(low,
to Hudson)
I always keep this handy.
For close encounter.
APONE
(o.s.)
Let's move. Hicks, back
us up.
INT. LARGER CHAMBER 88
The air is thick. Lights flare.
GORMAN
(voice over;
very faint)
Any movement?
Hudson watches his tracker, scanning.
HUDSON
Nothing. Zip.
Apone stops, his expression changing. They face a
wall of living horror. The colonists have been
brought here and entombed alive...
COCOONS protrude from the niches and interstices
of the structure. The cocoon material is the same
translucent epoxy. The bodies are frozen in
carelessly twisted positions. Macabre image of
frozen agony. Many are disiccated. Skeletal.
Rip-cages burst outward, as if exploded from within.
Paralyzed, brought here, entombed in living death
as hosts for the embryos growing within then.
Dietrich moves close to examine one of the figures,
perhaps the most "recent." A WOMAN, ghost-white
and drained. The WOMAN'S EYES SNAP OPEN...They
seem to plead.
DIETRICH
Sir!
The woman's lips move feebly.
WOMAN
Please...God...kill me.
INT. APC 89
Ripley watches the woman, white knuckled. The
sound of RETCHING comes over the general frequency.
INT. COCOON CHAMBER 90
The woman begins to convulse. She SCREAMS, a
sawing shriek of mindless agony.
APONE
Flame thrower! Move!
Frost hands it to him. Suddenly, the woman's chest
EXPLODES in a gout of blood. A SMALL FANGED HEAD
EMERGES, HISSING VICIOUSLY.
Apone pulls the trigger. Then the other troopers
carrying flame throwers open fire. An orgy of
purging fire. The cocoons vanish in the shimmering
heat.
A SHRILL SCREECHING begins, like a siren made from
fingernails on blackboards.
ANGLE ON WALL as something begins to emerge. Dimly
glimpsed, a glistening bio-mechanoid creature larger
then a man. Lying dormant, it had blended perfectly
with the convoluted surface of fused bone. The
troopers don't see it. Smoke from the burning cocoons
quickly fills the confined space. Visibility drops
to zero.
HUDSON
Movement!
APONE
Position?
HUDSON
Can't lock up...
APONE
(with an edge)
Talk to me, Hudson.
HUDSON
Uh, seems to be in front
and behind.
INT. APC 91
Gorman is plating with the gain controls on the
monitors.
GORMAN
We can't see anything back
here, Apone. What's going on?
Ripley senses it coming, like a wave at night. Dark,
terrifying and inevitable.
RIPLEY
(low)
Pull you team out, Gorman.
INT. COCOON CHAMBER - TIGHT ON SEVERAL WALLS AND 92
CEILING NICHES
as they come alive. Bonelike, tubelike shapes shift,
becoming emerging ALIENS. Dimly glimpsed...glints
of slime. Silhouettes.
APONE
Go to infrared. Looks sharp
people!
The squad members snap down their image-intersifier
visors.
HUDSON
Multiple signals. All round.
Closing.
Dietrich turns to retreat, her flamethrower held
tightly. A nightmarish silhouette materializes out
of the smoke behind her! It strikes like lightning.
SEIZES HER. She fires reflexively, wild. The jet
of flame engulfs Frost nearby.
Apone spins as the double SCREAM. Can't see anything
in the think smoke.
INT. APC 93
Ripley watches Frost's monitor go black. His
bio-readouts flatten. The other screens show glimpses
of shimmering infrared silhouettes of the aliens, the
images bobbing and panning confusedly.
INT. COCOON CHAMBER 94
Vasquez nods to Drake with grim satisfaction.
VASQUEZ
Let's rock.
They OPEN UP simultaneously, lighting up the smoke
like welders' arcs.
GORMAN
(voice over; static)
Who's firing? I ordered a
hold fire, dammit!
Vasquez rips off her headset. She is riveted to the
targetting screen, moving ferret-quick in a pivoting
dance. Thunder and lightning. Better than sex for
her. FLASH-CRACK! An alien SCREECH from the darkness.
INT. APC 95
The battle of phantoms unfolds on the video screens.
Ripley flinches as another scream comes over the
open frequency. Wierzbowski's monitor breaks up.
His life signs plummet. Voices blend and overlap.
HUDSON
(voice over)
Let's get the fuck out of
here!
HICKS
(voice over)
Not that tunnel, the other
one!
CROWE
(voice over)
You sure? Watch it...behind
you. Fucking move, will you!
Gorman is ashen. Confused. Gulping for air like a
grouper. How could the situation have unravelled
so fast?
RIPLEY
(to Gorman)
GET THEM OUT OF THERE! DO
IT NOW!
GORMAN
Shut up. Just shut up!
CRASH! Crowe's telemetry cuts off like the plug was
pulled. Flat line.
GORMAN
Uh,...Apone, I want you to
lay down a suppressing fire
with the incinerators and
fall back by squads to the
APC, over.
APONE
(voice over;
heavy static)
Say again? All after
incinerators?
Ripley watches it fall apart.
GORMAN
I said...
INT. COCOON CHAMBER 96
Apone adjusts his headset.
GORMAN
(voice over;
static)
...lay down (garbled) ...by
squads to...(garbled)
Gorman's voice breaks up completely. A SCREAM.
Apone whirls, uncertain.
APONE
Dietrich? Crowe? Sound
off! Wierzbowski?
Nothing. He spins. Almost blows Hudson's head
off.
HUDSON
(freaked)
We're getting juked! We're
gonna die in here!
Apone hands him a magazine. Hudson slaps it home,
looking truly terrified.
APONE
Yeah. Right. Right! Fuck
the heat exchanger!
He FIRES. Vasquez, nearby, is laying down a
horrendous field of fire. Strobe-bright flashes
sear the darkness. She pivots, firing mechanically
in controlled bursts. Scoring points in her own
private video game.
She SPINS as Hicks approached laterally. WHAM! She
fires "at" him. Hicks whirls...to see a nightmarish
figure right behind him, catapulted backwards by
Vasquez' blast.
INT. APC 97
Apone's monitor SPINS CRAZILY AND GOES DARK.
GORMAN
(distantly)
I told them to fall back...
RIPLEY
(viciously)
They're but off! Do something!
But he's gone. Total brain-lock.
TIGHT ON RIPLEY as she struggles with a decision.
She's terrified...of what she knows she's about to
do. But more than that, she's furious. Shouldering
past a paralyzed Gorman she runs up the aisle of the
APC.
RIPLEY
(in passing)
Newt, put your seatbelt on!
Ripley jumps into the driver's seat of the APC. Takes
a deep breath. Starts slapping switches.
GORMAN
Ripley, what the hell...?
She slams the tractor into gear.
EXT. APC 98
as the drive-wheels spin on the wet ground. The
massive machine leaps forward.
INT. APC 99
Ripley sees smoke pouring out of the complex ahead
as she slides sideways onto the descending rampway.
She slams the left and right drive-wheel actuators
viciously, spinning the machine in a roaring pivot.
Gorman lunges forward along the aisle, abandoning
his command center.
GORMAN
(shrill)
What are you doing? Turn
around! That's an order!
He claws at her, hysterical. Burke pulls him off.
INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 100
The APC roars down into the smoky structure, tearing
away outcroppings of alien-encrustation. Ripley hits
the floodlights. Strobe-beacon. Siren. She homes
on the flash of weapons fire ahead.
INT. COCOON CHAMBER 101
The APC crashes inside, showering debris. Hicks,
supporting a limping Hudson, appears out of the smoke.
The APC pulls up broadside and Burke gets the crew-door
open.
Drake and Vasquez back out of the dense mist, firing as
they fall back.
Drake goes empty, slams the buckles cutting loose his
smart-gun harness, and unslings a flame thrower.
Hicks pushes Hudson inside, leaps in after him and
drags Vasquez inside, massive gear and all. She sees
a DARK SHAPE lunge toward Drake. She fires one burst,
prone. Clean body hit.
The flash lights up the hideous inhuman grin, blowing
open the thing's thorax. A spray of BRIGHT YELLOW
ACID slashes across Drake's face and chest, eating
into him like a hot knife through butter. He drops
in boiling smoke, reflexively triggering his flame
thrower.
The jet of liquid fire arcs around as he falls,
engulfing the back half of the APC.
INT. APC 102
Vasquez rolls aside as a gout of napalm shoots
through the crew-door, setting the interior on fire.
Hicks is rolling the door closed when Vasquez lunges,
clawing out the opening. He stops her, dragging her
inside.
VASQUEZ
Drake! He's down!
Hicks screams right in her face.
HICKS
He's gone! Forget it, he's
gone!
VASQUEZ
(irrational)
No.. No, he's not. He's --
Burke and Hudson help him drag her from the door.
HICKS
(to Ripley)
Let's go!
Ripley jams reverse. Nails the throttle. The APC
bellows backward up the ramp. Hudson disappears
under a pile of equipment as a storage rack breaks
free. Hicks gets the door almost closed. Suddenly
CLAWS appear at the edge. Newt screams. Against
the combined efforts of Hicks, Burke and Vasquez
the door is being SLOWLY WRENCHED OPEN FROM OUTSIDE.
Hicks yells at a paralyzed Gorman.
HICKS
Get on the Goddamn door!
Gorman backs away, eyes wide. Hicks jams his shoulder
against the latching lever and frees one hand to raise
his 12-gauge. An alien head wedges through the opening,
its hideous mouth opening. And Hicks jams his SHOTGUN
MUZZLE between its jaws and pulls the trigger! BLAM!
The creature is flung backward, its shattered head
fountaining acid blood. The spray eats into the door,
the deck, hits Hudson on the arm. He shrieks. They
slide the door home and dog it tight.
EXT. APC 103
The armored vehicle roars backward up the ramp. Slams
into a mass of conduit. Tears free. Ripley works the
shifters, pivoting the massive machine. Everybody's
shouting, trying to put out the fire. Pandemonium.
INT./EXT. APC 104-
105
Something lands on the roof with a metallic clang.
Gorman has plastered himself against a wall, as far
from the door as possible. A latch lever behind his
head turns. The small hatch against which he was
leaning is ripped away and SOMETHING snatches him out
the opening He disappears to the waist with a shriek,
legs kicking. The alien clings to the roof, pulling
him out. Its tail whips over, scorpionlike, and
buries a four inch stinger in Gorman's shoulder.
Hicks grabs a joy stick at the FIRE-CONTROL CONSOLE
and turns it rapidly. On the roof the alien looks up
as servo-motors whir. A remote control turret cannon,
a 20mm chain-gun, swivels toward it in a curt arc.
VOOM. The creature is blasted off the vehicle's
armored back and tumbles away. Gorman, slumped
unconscious, is dragged back inside.
The APC rips away a section of catwalk and heads for
clear air, its flank trailing fire like a comet.
Ripley fights the controls as the big machine slews,
broadsiding a control-room out-building. Office
furniture and splintered wall sections are strewn in
the APC's wake.
Suddenly, an alien arm arcs down, right in front of
Ripley's face. It smashes the windshield. Glistening,
hideous jaws lunge inside...
Ripley recoils. Face to face once again with the same
mind-numbing horror. She reacts instinctively. Slams
both sets of brakes with all her strength. The huge
wheels lock. The creature flips off, landing in the
headlights. Ripley hits full throttle. The APC roars
forward, smashing over the abomination. Its skeletal
body is crushed under the massive wheels. It rolls,
tumbling...lost in the darkness behind as the machine
thunders onto the causeway and away from the station.
A sound like bolts dropped in a meat grinder is coming
from the APC's rear end. Hicks eases Ripley's hand
back on the throttle lever. Her grip is white knuckled.
HICKS
It's okay...we're clear. We're
clear. Ease up.
The grinding clatter becomes deafening even as she
slows the machine.
HICKS
Sounds like a blown transaxle.
You're just grinding metal.
EXT. APC 106
The tractor limps to a halt. A HALF-KILOMETER from the
atmosphere processing station. The APC is a smoking,
acid-scarred mess.
INT. APC 107
Ripley, still running on the adrenalin dynamo, spins
out of her seat into the aisle.
RIPLEY
Newt? Where's Newt?
Feeling a tug at her pants leg she looks down. Newt
is wedged into a tiny space between the driver's seat
and a bulkhead. She is trembling, and looks terrified,
but it's not the basket case catatonia of before.
RIPLEY
You okay?
Newt gives her a THUMBS-UP, wan but stoic. Ripley goes
back to the others. Hudson is holding his arm and
staring in stunned dismay at nothing, playing it all
back in his mind.
HUDSON
Jesus...Jesus...I don't believe
it.
Burke tries to have a look at Hudson's arm.
HUDSON
(jerking away)
I'm all right, leave it!
Ripley joins Hicks who is bent over Gorman, checking
for a pulse.
HICKS
He's alive. I think he's paralyzed.
VASQUEZ
He's fucking dead!
She grabs Gorman by the collar, hauling him up roughly,
ready to pulp him with her other fist.
VASQUEZ
(to Gorman)
Wake up pendejo! I'm gonna kill
you, you useless fuck!
Hicks pushes her back. Right in her face.
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