This is my first Misting, so if I missed any jokes, tell me. Please note
that no insult to James Cameron or to anyone in this film is intended
(actually I like this movie). Aliens is owned by Twentieth Century Fox,
and the MST3K gang is owned by Best Brains incorporated. And awaaaaaaaaay
we go!
[SOL]
(CROW is staring blankly at a monitor that is sitting on the counter. TOM
enters.)
TOM: Hey what...(notices CROW)the hell? (attempts to get CROW'S attention.)
Hey Mike, could you come here for a second?
(MIKE enters)
MIKE: What's up Tom?
TOM: Could you wave your hand in front of Crow's eyes for me?
MIKE: Why?
TOM: Because my arms don't work! There! Are you happy now?!
(begins to sob, CROW suddenly wakes up and begins screaming)
CROW: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Nooooooooooo!
(GYPSY enters)
GYPSY: Mike wanna hear this new song I wrote? (begins to sing loudly)
MIKE: (amidst the chaos of CROW'S screaming TOM'S sobbing and GYPSY'S
singing) We'll be right back.
[Commercials]
[SOL]
(everyone has calmed down, GYPSY is gone.)
MIKE: Crow maybe you shouldn't play Brainscan anymore.
CROW: Are you kidding Mike? That game kicks my butt, you gotta try it!
TOM: Guy's why would we need to live out our worst fears? We do that
every week up here.
MIKE: Crow what scenario did Brainscan play for you?
CROW: Stephen Ratliff read me a bed time story.
TOM: Yikes!
MIKE: Oh wait, George and Lenny are calling. (hits button)
[DEEP 13]
(DR. F is looking into the camera with intense pride. In b.g. FRANK is
staring at the T.V. blankly)
DR. F: Well Bonzo it looks like your buddy has gotten into my most
Fiendish invention of all.
[SOL]
CROW: _You_ invented Brainscan?
[DEEP 13]
DR. F: Naturally, who did you think invented it? Bill Gates? My
invention exchange this week is quite simple. I've pirated the airwaves
and forced everyone in the world to play Brainscan.
[SOL]
MIKE: Wow, that's...evil.
[DEEP 13]
DR. F: Why thank you, I do try.
[SOL]
MIKE: Well, my invention exchange is sort of like Brainscan, only instead
of your worst fears, you live out your wildest fantasies.
CROW: I don't know about that Mike. In Star Trek we saw that that can
just as dangerous as living out your worst fears.
TOM: Trekkie.
CROW: Bite me.
[DEEP 13]
DR. F: Your experiment today Nelson is, Aliens. Nuff said. (grins) Send
them the movie Frank.
(FRANK gives no indication that he has heard DR. F. He continues to stare
at the TV)
DR. F: Frank? (turns and sees FRANK) Oh for crying out....I told you not
to watch TV today. Fine I'll do it myself. Here it comes suckers.
[SOL]
ALL: We've got Movie Sign!
5...4...3...2...1
(MIKE and THE BOTS enter the theater)
"ALIENS"
by
James Cameron
FIRST DRAFT
TOM: Uh oh.
May 28, 1985
MIKE: Oops, he forgot the class and period. I'm gonna have to take off
points for that.
------------------------------------------------------------
ALIENS
CROW: Just in case you didn't catch the title the first time.
FADE IN
SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE
TOM: (singing) Next Sunday AD....
- SPACE
MIKE: The final frontier.
1
CROW: 2
Silent and endless. The stars shine like the love of God...cold
and remote.
CROW: Not too cynical eh?
Against them drifts a tiny chip of technology.
CROW: The Potato Chip?
TOM: The Poker Chip?
MIKE: Yes.
'BOTS: Huh?
CLOSER SHOT It is the NARCISSUS, lifeboat of the
ill-fated star-freighter Nostromo. Without interior
or running lights it seems devoid of life.
CROW: Like this movie.
MIKE: Oh come on, it just started.
The PING
ALL: Ping!
of a RANGING RADAR grows louder, closer. A shadow
engulfs the Narcissus. Searchlights flash on, playing over the
tiny ship,
CROW: You in the life boat! This is the police!
as a MASSIVE DARK HULL descends toward it.
MIKE: So now we're watching ID4.
TOM: (shudders) Please Mike.
INT. NARCISSUS 2
Dark and dormant as a crypt.
CROW: (Crypt Keeper) Greetings boils and ghouls!
The searchlights stream in the dusty windows. Outside, massive
metal forms can BE SEEN descending around the shuttle. Like the
tolling of a bell, a BASSO PROFUNDO CLANG reverberates through
the hull.
ALL: Bong! Bong!
CLOSE ON THE AIRLOCK DOOR Light glares as a cutting
torch bursts through the metal.
CROW: That's very impressive but wouldn't it have been easier to just
light the torch and cut through the metal?
Sparks shower into the room.
A second torch cuts through. They move with machine
precision, cutting a rectangular path, converging.
The torches meet.
TOM: Exchange small talk.
Cut off. The door falls inward REVEALING a bizarre
multi-armed figure.
MIKE: Goro!
A ROBOT WELDER.
MIKE: Oh.
FIGURES ENTER, backlit and ominous. THREE MEN in
bio-isolation suits, carrying lights and equipment.
They approach a sarcophaguslike HYPERSLEEP CAPSULE,
TOM: Ignoring the hieroglyphics threatening a curse.
f.g.
LEADER
(filtered)
CROW: To insure that no bacteria get in.
Internal pressure positive. Assume
nominal hull integrity. Hypersleep
capsules, style circa late twenties...
MIKE: They had cryogenics in the twenties?
His gloved hand wipes at on opaque layer of dust on
the canopy.
TOM: Remind me to fire the maid. It's filly in here!
ANGLE INSIDE CAPSULE as light stabs in where the
dust is wiped away,
CROW: Killing the occupant.
illuminating a WOMAN, her face in peaceful
repose.
MIKE: Until she realizes she's being watched and screams in terror.
WARRANT OFFICER RIPLEY, sole survivor of the
Nostromo. Nestled next to her is JONES, the ship's
wayward cat.
TOM: Who is most likely dead, since Ripley is the _sole_ survivor.
LEADER
(voice over; filtered)
Lights are green. She's alive.
Well, there goes out salvage, guys.
CROW: Unless you kill her, then you get the salvage and we get out of
here, everybody wins!
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - TIGHT ON RIPLEY
TOM: Who immediately begins to suffocate until it's loosened.
MIKE: Huh?
- GATEWAY STATION 3
MIKE: What happened to Gateway Stations numbers one and two?
She's lying in a bed, looking wan, as a female MED-
TECH raises the backrest. She is surrounded by
arcane white MEDICAL EQUIPMENT. The Med-Tech exudes
practiced cheeriness.
MED-TECH
Why don't I open the viewport?
Watch your eyes.
Harsh light floods in as a motorized shield slides
into the ceiling, REVEALING a breathtaking vista.
Beyond the sprawling complex of modular habitats,
collectively called GATEWAY STATION, is the curve of
EARTH as seen from high orbit. Blue and serene.
MED-TECH
And how are we today?
CROW: (As Ripley) We? Don't patronize you son of a-!
RIPLEY
(weakly)
Terrible.
MED-TECH
Just terrible? That's better
than yesterday at least.
TOM: Ba dum _ching_!
RIPLEY
How long have I been on
Gateway station?
MED-TECH
Just a couple of days. Do you
feel up to a visitor?
Ripley shrugs, not caring. The door opens and a MAN
enters, although Ripley sees only what he is
carrying.
MIKE: The man is invisible.
A familiar large, orange TOMCAT.
ALL: Garfield!
RIPLEY
Jones!
She grabs the cat like a life preserver.
TOM: The cat hisses, as Ripley squeezes it to death.
MIKE: Jeez you two are dark today.
CROW: It's a dark movie.
RIPLEY
(cooing baby-cat talk)
CROW: As opposed to baby-human talk.
Come here Jonesy you ugly old
moose...you ugly thing.
TOM: (Garfield voice) Right now you're no prize yourself lady.
Jones patiently endures Ripley's embarrassing
display,
MIKE: Quietly plotting his revenge.
seeming none the worse for wear. The visitor sits
beside the bed and Ripley finally notices him. He
is thirtyish and handsome, in a suit that looks
executive or legal, the tie loosened with studied
casualness. A smile referred to as "winning."
MAN
Nice room. I'm Burke. Carter Burke.
ALL: Asshole!
I work for the company, but other
than that I'm an okay guy.
TOM: Ha. Ha.
Glad to see you're feeling better. I'm
told the weakness and disorientation
should pass soon. Side effects of
the unusually long hypersleep, or
something like that.
RIPLEY
How long was I out there? They
won't tell me anything.
BURKE
CROW: D'oh!
(soothing)
Well, maybe you shouldn't worry
about that just yet.
Ripley grabs his arm, surprising him.
ALL: Boo!
RIPLEY
How long?
Burke gazes at her, thoughtful.
TOM: (Burke) Hmmm...
BURKE
All right. My instinct says
you're strong enough to handle
this...Fifty-seven years.
MIKE: Burke's instinct proves wrong as Ripley dies of a heart attack.
Ripley is stunned. She seems to deflate,
CROW: (sound of air being let out of a balloon)
her expression passing through amazement and shock
to realization of all she has lost. Friends.
Family.
TOM: Her AT&T long distance calling plan.
Her world.
TOM: Then changes to one of elation as she realizes how much back pay she
is now owed.
RIPLEY
Fifty-seven...oh, Christ...
BURKE
You'd drifted right through the
core systems. It's blind luck that
deep-salvage team caught you when
they...are you all right?
Ripley coughs suddenly as if choking and her
expression becomes one of dawning horror. Burke
hands her a glass of water from the nightstand. She
slaps it away. It shatters with a SMASH. Jones
dives, yowling. Ripley grabs her chest, struggling
as if she is strangling. The Med-Tech hits a
console button.
MED-TECH
(shouting)
Code Blue! 415. Code Blue!
4-1-5!
Burke and the Med-Tech are holding Ripley's
shoulders as she goes into convulsions. A DOCTOR
and TWO TECHS run in. Ripley's back arches in
agony.
TOM: (as Burke) Nurse! The contractions are starting again!
RIPLEY
No...noooo!
They try to restrain her as she thrashes, knocking
over equipment. Her EKG races like mad. Jones,
under a cabinet, hisses wide-eyed.
DOCTOR
Hold her...Get me an airway, stat!
And fifteen cc's of...Jesus!
MIKE: Fifteen cc's of Jesus?
TOM: The miracle drug.
AN EXPLOSION OF BLOOD beneath the sheet covering her
chest! Ripley stares at the SHAPE RISING UNDER THE
SHEET. Tearing itself out of her.
HER P.O.V. as the sheet rises. A GLIMPSE OF the
CHITTERING HORROR...IT SCREECHES.
CROW: It's a boy!
TIGHT ON RIPLEY screaming, snapping up INTO FRAME.
Alone in the darkened hospital room. She gasps for
breath, clutching pathetically at her chest. There
is no demented horror rigging itself out of her.
TOM: Rigging itself out?
Her eyes snap about wildly, slowly focusing on the
reality of her safety. Shuddering, bathed in sweat,
she kneads her breastbone with the heel of her hand
and sobs.
CROW: I'd like to knead her-
MIKE: Shut up Crow.
A VIDEO MONITOR beside the bed snaps on. A MED-
TECH's face.
MED-TECH
Bad dreams again? Do you want
something to help you sleep?
MIKE: So I can have more bad dreams? Sure why not.
RIPLEY
(faint)
No.. I've slept enough.
The Med-Tech shrugs and switches off. Touching a
button on the nightstand she opens the viewport,
REVEALING Gateway and the turquoise Earth. She hugs
Jones to her and rocks with him like a child, still
shattered by the nightmare. Shivering. Sleep is
far off.
RIPLEY
We made it, Jones. We made it.
ALL: Broadway!
But at what price?
TOM: Do I hear 50 dollars?
CUT TO:
EXT. PARK 4
Sunlight streams in shafts through a stand of
poplars, beyond which a verdant meadow is VISIBLE.
TOM: And number four, The Larch.
EXTREME F.G. Jones stalks toward a bird hopping
among fallen leaves. He leaps. And smack into A
WALL.
ALL: (muted trumpet) Bwahh bwahh bwahh bwahh.
RIPLEY
(voice over)
Dumbshit.
TOM: (Butthead voice) Huh huh. You dumbass.
WIDER ANGLE as Jones steps back confused from the
HIGH-RESOLUTION ENVIRONMENTAL WALL SCREEN, a sort of
cinerama video-loop. Ripley sits on a bench in what
we now SEE is an ATRIUM off the medical center,
still somewhere in the bowels of Gateway Station.
MIKE: (southern accent) My name's Ellen Ripley. Some people call me
Ellen Ripley.
Benches. Some unenthusiastic potted trees.
CROW: Who hired those trees? I want that casting director found and
shot!
The sterile corridors VISIBLE beyond glass doors
b.g.
Burke ENTERS in his usual mode, casual haste.
BURKE
Sorry...I've been running behind
all morning.
Ripley seems healthier now, but still a bit brittle.
RIPLEY
Have they located my daughter
yet?
BURKE
Well, I was going to wait
until after the inquest...
He opens his briefcase, removing a sheet of printer
hard copy, including a telestat photo.
RIPLEY
Is she...?
BURKE
(scanning)
Amanda Ripley-McClaren. Married
name, I guess.
MIKE: (sarcasm) You think?
Age: sixty-six...at time of death.
Two years ago.
(looks at her)
I'm sorry.
CROW: Jeez, this guy's just a fountain of good news isn't he.
Ripley studies the PHOTOGRAPH, stunned.
The face of a woman in her mid-sixties. It could be
anybody. She tries to reconcile the face with the
little girl she once knew.
TOM: (singing) Is this the little girl I used to know?
RIPLEY
Amy.
BURKE
(reading)
Cancer. Hmmmm. They still haven't
licked that one.
CROW: (apoplectic) They have interstellar travel, and cryogenics but they
can't cure cancer?!
Cremated. Interred Parkside
Repository, Little Chute, Wisconsin.
No children.
Ripley gazes off, into the pseudo-landscape, into
the past.
MIKE: Into the deepest darkest regions of her soul.
RIPLEY
I promised her I'd be home for
her birthday. Her eleventh
birthday. I sure missed that
one.
CROW: Wakka wakka wakka.
(pause)
Well...she has already learned
to take my promises with a grain
of salt. When it came to flight
schedules, anyway.
Burke nods, a simpatico presence.
RIPLEY
You always think you can make it
up to somebody...later, you know.
But now I never can. I never
can.
Let's get one thing straight...Ripley can be one
tough lady. But the terror, the loss, the emptiness
are, in this moment, overwhelming. She cries
silently.
Burke puts a reassuring hand on her arm.
CROW: (Brak Voice) Don't Touch me!
BURKE
(gently)
The hearing convenes at 0930. You
don't want to be late.
TOM: Jerk.
INT. CORRIDOR - GATEWAY 5
Elevator doors part and Ripley emerges, in mid-
conversation with Burke. DOLLYING AHEAD OF THEM as
they move rapidly down the corridor.
RIPLEY
You read my deposition...it's
complete and accurate.
BURKE
Look, I believe you, but there are
going to be some heavyweights in
there. You got Feds, you got
interstellar commerce commission,
you got colonial administration,
insurance company guys...
MIKE: I'll trade you twelve lawyers and a congressman for them.
RIPLEY
I get the picture.
BURKE
Just tell them what happened. The
important thing is to stay cool
and unemotional.
TOM: In other words, don't act.
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - ON RIPLEY - GATEWAY 6
She's not cool. Not unemotional.
RIPLEY
Do you people have earwax, of
what?
MIKE: Well we hope they have earwax of Human Beings, but who can tell with
lawyers?
We have been here three
hours. How many different ways
do you want me to tell the same
story?
TOM: Well, let's see, you've done it scary, angry and sad...try funny.
She faces the EIGHT MEMBERS of the board of inquiry
at a long conference table.
CROW: (preview announcer voice) Eight Angry Men, the long awaited sequal
to Twelve Angry Men.
Gray suits and grim faces. They aren't buying.
MIKE: They're selling.
Behind Ripley on a large VIDEO SCREEN,
PARKER grins like a goon from his personnel mugshot.
His file prints out next to it. BRETT's face and
dossier replace it, and then the others as the SCENE
continues...KANE, LAMBERT, ASH the android traitor,
DALLAS.
VAN LEUWEN, the ICC representative, steeples his
fingers
CROW: (Exec voice) This is the church, this is the steeple...ho ho, I love
that one.
and frowns.
VAN LEUWEN
Look at it from our perspective.
You freely admit to detonating the
engines of, and thereby destroying,
TOM: Duh.
an M-Class star-freighter. A
rather expensive piece of hardware...
INSURANCE INVESTIGATOR
(dryly)
Forty-two million in adjusted dollars.
That's minus payload, of course.
VAN LEUWEN
The shuttle's flight recorder
corroborates some elements of
your account. That the Nostromo
set down on LV-426, an unsurveyed
planet, at that time. That
repairs were made.
MIKE: Wait when did it break?
That it resumed its course and was
subsequently set for self-destruct. By
you. For reasons unknown.
RIPLEY
Look, I told you...
VAN LEUWEN
It did not, however, contain any
entries concerning the hostile
life form you allegedly picked up.
Ripley sense the noose tightening.
CROW: Yes, tighter, tighter...
RIPLEY
Then somebody's gotten to it...
doctored the recorder. Who had
access to it?
The ECA (Extrasolar Colonization Administration)
Representative (ECA REP) just shakes his head.
ECA REP
Would you just listen to yourself
for one minute.
Ripley glares at the ECA Rep, a woman on the
ungenerous side of fifty. Van Leuwen sighs with
exasperation.
VAN LEUWEN
The analysis team which went over
your shuttle centimeter by
centimeter found no physical
evidence of the creature you
describe...
RIPLEY
(losing it)
That's because I blew it out the
Goddamn airlock!
CROW: Dammnit!
(pause)
Like I said.
INSURANCE MAN
(to ECA Rep)
Are there any species like this
'hostile organism' on LV-426?
ECA REP
No. It's a rock. No indigenous
life larger than a simple virus.
Ripley grits her teeth in frustration.
RIPLEY
I told you, it wasn't indigenous.
There was an alien spacecraft there.
A derelict ship. We homed on its
beacon...
ECA REP
To be perfectly frank, we've surveyed
over three hundred worlds and no one's
ever reported a creature which, using
your words...
(read from Ripley's
statement)
...'gestates in a living human host'
and has 'concentrated molecular acid
for blood.'
TOM: Jerry Garcia?
CROW: Jim Morrison?
Ripley glances at Burke, silent at the far end of
the table. His expression is grim. Her mouth
hardens as a bit of the old nail-eating Ripley
surfaces.
MIKE: In times of stress, Ripley often wished that she hadn't kicked her
nail eating habit.
RIPLEY
Look, I can see where this is
going. But I'm telling you those
things exist. Back on that planetoid
is an alien ship and on that ship
are thousands of eggs. Thousands.
Do you understand? I suggest you
find it, using the flight recorder's
data. Find it and deal with it --
before one of your survey teams
comes back with a little surprise...
VAN LEUWEN
Thank you, Officer Ripley. That
will be...
RIPLEY
(louder, stepping
on him)
TOM: Like the bug he is.
...because just one of those
things managed to kill my entire
crew, within twelve hours of
hatching...
Van Leuwen stands, out of patience.
CROW: So he sits out of impatience?
VAN LEUWEN
Thank you, that will be all.
Ripley stares him down, glowering at the board.
RIPLEY
That's not all, Goddamnit! If
those things get back here, that
will be all. Then you can just
kiss it good-bye, Jack!
MIKE: Wait, who's Jack?
Just kiss
CROW: my-
MIKE: Crow!
it goodbye.
Ripley turns sharply away, trembling with
frustration and anger. Dallas looks back at her
from the video screen, his eyes burning from the
photograph, as we:
CUT TO:
INT. CORRIDOR 7
Ripley kicks the wall
TOM: Stupid wall, stupid stupid wall!
next to Burke who is getting coffee and donuts at a
vending machine.
BURKE
You had them eating out of your
hand, kiddo.
CROW: Mike, I'm really starting to dislike Burke.
TOM: Mike, I'm really starting to dislike James Cameron.
RIPLEY
They had their minds made up
before I even went in there.
They think I'm a head case.
BURKE
(cheerfully)
You are a head case.
TOM: (as Ripley) Well at least you believe me Burke.
Have a donut.
INT. CONFERENCE ROOM - TIGHT ON RIPLEY - LATER 8
Van Leuwen clears his throat.
VAN LEUWEN
It is the finding of this board of
inquiry that Warrent Officer Ellen Ripley,
CROW: Is absolutely nuts and should be locked up.
NOC-14672. has acted with questionable
judgment and is unfit to hold an
ICC license as a commercial flight
officer.
Burke watches Ripley taking it on the chin, white-
lipped but subdued.
VAN LEUWEN
Said license is hereby suspended
indefinitely. No criminal charges
will be filed at this time and you
are released on own recognizance
for a six month period of
psychometric probation, to include
monthly review by an ICC psychiatric
tech...
MIKE: Psychiatric _tech_? I don't like the sound of that.
INT. CORRIDOR 9
DOLLY BACK
CROW: Back Dolly! Back!
as the conference room door bangs open and
Ripley strides through. She shrugs off Burke's
restraining arm and catches up to Van Leuwen walking
down the corridor.
RIPLEY
(insistent)
Why won't you check out LV-426?
VAN LEUWEN
(condescendingly)
Because I don't have to. The
people who live there checked it
out years ago and they never
reported
TOM: If they never reported, wouldn't that indicate that something was
wrong?
and 'hostile organism'
or alien ship. And by the way,
they call it Acheron now.
MIKE: We must be politically correct now.
RIPLEY
What are you talking about.
What people?
Van Leuwen steps into an elevator with some others,
but Ripley holds the door from closing.
VAN LEUWEN
Terraformers...planet engineers.
It's what we call a shake 'n' bake
colony.
TOM: (announcer) New from Purdue Colonies!
They set up atmosphere
processors to make the air
breathable...big job. Takes
decades. They've already been
there over twenty years. Peacefully.
The door tries to close. Ripley slams it back.
People are getting annoyed.
CROW: As is the audience, get on with it!
RIPLEY
How many colonists?
VAN LEUWEN
Sixty, maybe seventy families.
RIPLEY
(low)
Sweet Jesus.
TOM: Cool, the Miracle Drug comes in different flavors.
ELEVATOR PASSENGER
Do you mind?
Ripley's hand slides off the door, strengthless.
TIGHT ON HER FROM INSIDE the elevator as the doors
close like fate on her lost expression.
EXT. ALIEN LANDSCAPE - DAY 10
A hideous, storm-blasted vista.
CROW: Boy, Storm really got pissed didn't she.
Tortured rock forms.
MIKE: Still refused to talk.
Bleak twilight at midday.
TOM: Place
PAN SLOWLY ONTO a CORRODED METAL SIGN set in
concrete pylons, which reads:
HADLEY'S HOPE - POP. 159
"WELCOME TO ACHERON"
TOM: Then slowly bring to a simmer for about two minutes.
Some local has added below in spray-can graffiti
"Have a nice day." Gale-force wind SCREECHES around
the steel sign, driving a freezing rain.
The COLONY, b.g., is a squat complex with lots of
floodlights.
EXT. COLONY COMPLEX 11
The town is a cluster of bunkerlike metal and
concrete buildings connected by conduits. Neon
signs throw garish colors across the vaultlike
walls, advertising bars and other businesses.
CROW: Such as Strip joints and-
MIKE: Shut _up_ Crow.
It looks like a sodden cross between the Krupps
munitions works and a truckstop casino in
the Nevada boondocks.
Huge-wheeled tractors crawl toadlike
TOM: Mike do toads crawl?
MIKE: I don't think so, but don't quote me on that.
in the rutted "street" and vanish down rampways to
underground garages.
ANGLE ON THE CONTROL BLOCK the largest structure.
It resembles vaguely the superstructure of an
aircraft carrier...a flying bridge.
VISIBLE across a half kilometer of barren heath,
b.g., is the massive complex of the nearest
ATMOSPHERE PROCESSOR, looking like a power plant
bred with an active volcano. Its fiery glow pulses
in the low cloud cover like a steel mill.
INT. MAIN CONCOURSE - NEAR CONTROL BLOCK 12
A central space, laid out like a scaled-down
shopping mall with no styling flourishes.
CROW: Even in space the Mall Virus has spread.
We SEE a cross section of the types of people who
have come to live on Godforsaken Acheron.
CROW: Eww, cross sections of People?
Tough. Pragmatic. "Grapes of Wrath" faces.
Calloused hands. Not too many interior
decorators. Some children race in the corridor on
things that look suspiciously like "Big Wheels."
ALL: (ominous musical chord)
INT. OPERATIONS ROOM - CONTROL BLOCK 13
Jammed with computer terminals, technicians,
displays...most of the business of running the
colony flows through here.
MIKE: (tour guide voice) And next on our tour...
It's high tech but used and scrungy. Papers
piled up. Coffee cup rings.
TOM: Boy talk about cheap, they make their rings out of coffee cups?
DOLLY AHEAD OF LYDECKER, the Assistant Operations
Manager, as he catches up to the harried Operating
Manager, SIMPSON.
TOM: (Mr. Burns) Simpson eh?
LYDECKER
You remember you sent some
wildcatters out to that
plateau, out past the Ilium
range, a couple days ago?
SIMPSON
Yeah. What?
TOM: Sorry I didn't hear you, the soundtrack is too loud.
LYDECKER
There's a guy on the horn,
MIKE: Honk honk!
mom-and-pop survey team. Says
he's homing on something and
wants to know if his claim will
be honored.
SIMPSON
Christ. Some honch in a cushy
office on Earth says go look at
a grid reference in the middle
of nowhere, we look. They don't
say why, and I don't ask. I
don't ask because it takes two
weeks to get an answer out here
and the answer's always 'don't
ask.'
LYDECKER
So what do I tell this guy?
SIMPSON
Tell him, as far as I'm concerned,
he finds something it's his.
TOM: Unless it turns out to be valuable.
EXT. ACHERON - THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE -
A SIX-WHEELED 14
TRACTOR - DAY
It roars across corrugated rock, blasting through
soggy drifts of volcanic ash.
CROW: (Announcer) It's the Acheron Monster Truck show!
INT. TRACTOR 15
At the controls, intent on a PINGING scope,
ALL: Ping! Ping!
is RUSS JORDEN, independent prospector. Beside him
is his wife/partner ANNE and in the back their two
kids are playing among the heavy sampling equipment.
MIKE: Well, not that independent.
JORDEN
(gloating cackle)
CROW: (wicked witch) I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog to!
Look at this fat, juicy magnetic
profile. And it's mine, mine,
mine.
CROW: Mine do you hear? Mine!
ANNE
Half mine, dear.
CROW: No! Mine!
NEWT, their six-year-old daughter, yells from the
back...
NEWT
And half mine!
JORDEN
I got too many partners.
TOM: I'll have to kill you then.
NEWT
Daddy, when are we going back
to town?
JORDEN
When we get rich, Newt.
TOM: (Falsetto kid) So, never?
NEWT
You always say that. I wanna go
back. I wanna play 'Monster Maze.'
Her older brother TIM sticks his jeering face close
to hers.
MIKE: (Nelson (Simpsons) voice) Ha ha!
TIM
You cheat too much.
NEWT
Do not. I'm just the best.
TIM
Do too! You go in places we
can't fit.
NEWT
So! That's why I'm the best.
ANNE
Knock it off! I catch either of
you playing in the air ducts again
I'll tan your hides.
CROW: And make clothing out them.
NEWT
Mom. All the kids play it...
JORDEN
(reverently)
Holy shiiit!
ALL: Not in front of the kids!
ANGLE THROUGH FRONT CANOPY ON a bizarre shape
looming ahead. An enormous bonelike mass projecting
upward from the bed of ash. The tractor slows.
TOM: It to, is awed by the sight.
Canted on its side and buckles against a rock
outcropping by the lava flow, it is still
recognizable as an EXTRATERRESTRIAL SHIP. Bio-
mechanoid. Nonhuman design.
TOM: That's usually what is implied by Extraterrestrial yes.
JORDEN
Folks, we have scored big this
time.
EXT. TRACTOR 16
Jorden and Anne step down, wearing ENVIRONMENT
SUITS. Carrying LIGHTS, PACKS, CAMERAS, TEST GEAR.
Their breath clouds in the chill air.
ANNE
You kids stay inside. I mean
it! We'll be right back.
CROW: I catch either one of you dead outside the tractor, I'll tan your
hides!
They trudge toward the alien derelict.
MIKE: You know you'd think they'd be more excited about this.
ANNE
Shouldn't we call in?
JORDEN
Let's wait till we know what to
call it in as.
CROW: How about a big extra-terrestrial ship?
ANNE
(nervous)
How about 'big weird thing'?
CROW: That works to.
They pause at a twisted gash in the hull. Blackness
inside.
TOM: (singing) And the void will be calling...
ALL: (singing) Let's do the Time Warp again!
CROW: We gotta get Forrester to let us watch that.
INT./EXT. TRACTOR
TOM: Huh?
17
Newt has her face pressed to the glass, steaming it.
Watching her parents enter the strange ship. Tim
GRABS HER from behind. She SHRIEKS.
CROW: And manifests her mutant power, shattering the glass and letting in
the poison atmosphere, killing them both.
TIM
Cheater!
EXT. LANDSCAPE - NIGHT 18
The tractor and the derelict are dark and
motionless.
MIKE: Like the plot.
The wind HOWLS around them.
Tim is curled up in the driver's seat. Newt shakes
him awake, trying hard not to cry.
NEWT
Timmy...they've been gone a
long time.
Tim considers the night. The wind. The vast
landscape.
TOM: And decides that they are spooky.
He bites his lip.
MIKE: The Donner Party of Acheron.
TIM
(quavering)
It'll be okay, Newt. Dad knows
what he's doing.
CROW: If your dad knew what he was doing he would have called in before
going into a completely unknown ship.
CRASH! Newt SCREAMS as the door beside her is
RIPPED OPEN. A dark shape lunges inside!
CROW: Yes! The action has started!
Anne, panting and terrified, grabs the dash mike.
CROW: Oh.
ANNE
Mayday! Mayday! This is
Alpha Kilo Two Four Niner
calling Hadley Control.
Repeat. This is...
As Anne shouts the mayday Newt looks past her, to
the ground. Russ Jorden lies there inert, dragged
somehow by Anne from inside the ship. There is
SOMETHING ON HIS FACE. An appalling MULTILEGGED
CREATURE, pulsing with obscene life.
TOM: Thing! Let go this instant!
Newt begins to SCREAM hysterically, competing with
the shrieking wind which rises to a crescendo as we:
CUT TO:
INT. RIPLEY'S APARTMENT - GATEWAY - DAY 20
Silence. Ripley, looking haggard, sits at a table
in the dining alcove contemplating the smoke rising
from her cigarette.
TOM: (as Ripley) Hmmm, smoke.
The place is modest, to be charitable,
and there are few personal touches. Though it's
late in the day Ripley is still wearing a robe. The
bed is unmade. Dishes in the sink. Jones prowls
across the counter. The WALLSCREEN is on, blaring
vapidly.
VOICE FROM VIDEO
(o.s.)
Hey, Bob! I heard you and the
family are heading off for the
colonies!
BON
CROW: Who's Bon?
(o.s.)
Best decision I ever made, Bill.
MIKE: Bill and Bob?
CROW: And Bon.
TOM: (Daffy Duck) Rednecks of the twenty-fourth and a half century!
We'll be starting a new life
from scratch, in a clean world.
CROW: Acheron? Clean?
No crime. No unemployment...
TOM: (little kid) No traffic accidents.
The door BUZZES.
ALL: Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Ripley jumps like a cat.
MIKE: And hisses at the door.
Jones doesn't.
TOM: Jones drinks decaff.
INT. CORRIDOR 21
Carter Burke stands in the narrow, dingy corridor
with LIEUTENANT GORMAN, Colonial Marine Corps.
Young and severe in his officer's dress-black. The
door opens slightly.
BURKE
Hi, Ripley. This is
Lieutenant Gorman of the...
SLAM. Burke buzzes again. Talks to the door...
TOM: Hello door.
BURKE
Ripley we have to talk.
MIKE: I've met someone else, It's Gorman, I'm sorry. I never wanted to
hurt you.
(pause)
They've lost contact with the
colony on Acheron.
The door opens. Ripley considers the ramifications
of that. She motions them inside.
INT. RIPLEY'S APARTMENT - A LITTLE LATER 22
Burke and Gorman are seated, nursing coffee.
CROW: Ouchie! My nip-
MIKE: Crow!
Ripley paces, very tense.
RIPLEY
CROW: (as Ripley) I told ya.
No. There's no way!
BURKE
Hear me out...
RIPLEY
I was reamed, steamed and
dry-cleaned by you guys...and
now you want me to go back out
there? Forget it.
We SEE that she's gut scared, covering it with
anger. Burke sees it.
BURKE
Look, we don't know what's going
on out there. It may just be a
down transmitter. But if it's
not, I want you there...as an
advisor.
MIKE: And monster bait.
That's all.
GORMAN
You wouldn't be going in with the
troops. I can guarantee your
safety.
ALL: (begin to snicker)
BURKE
These Colonial Marines are
some tough hombres, and they're
packing state-of-the-art firepower.
Nothing they can't handle...right,
Lieutenant?
ALL: (start to laugh harder)
GORMAN
(cool)
We're trained to deal with these
kinds of situations.
ALL: (out right laughter)
RIPLEY
(to Burke)
What about you? What's your
interest in this?
BURKE
MIKE: Purely platonic.
Well, the corporation co-financed
that colony with the Colonial
Administration, against mineral
rights. We're getting into a lot
of terraforming...'Building Better
Worlds.'
Burke is revealing his early days in sales.
TOM: (as Burke) By the way can I interest you in a set of encyclopedias?
RIPLEY
Yeah, yeah. I saw the commercial.
BURKE
I heard you were working in the
cargo docks.
CROW: Woah! A little warning before a change in topic would be
appreciated!
RIPLEY
(defensive)
That's right.
BURKE
Running loaders, forklifts, that
sort of thing?
RIPLEY
(shrugging)
It's all I could get. Anyway,
it keeps my mind off of...
everything. Days off are worse.
BURKE
What if I said I could get you
reinstated as a flight officer?
And that the company has agreed
to pick up your contract?
TOM: I can't and they haven't, but hypothetically speaking...
RIPLEY
If I go.
BURKE
If you go.
(pause)
It's a second chance, kiddo. And
it'll be the best thing in the
world for you to face this fear
and beat it. You gotta get back
on the horse...
RIPLEY
(frosty)
Spare me, Burke. I've had my
psych evaluation this month.
Burke leans close, a let's-cut-the-crap intimacy.
BURKE
Yes, and I've read it.
MIKE: Aren't those things supposed to be confidential?
You wake up every night, sheets
soaking,
CROW: She wets the bed?
the same nightmare over and over...
RIPLEY
(shouting)
No! The answer is no. Now
please go. I'm sorry. Just
go, would you.
Burke nods to Gorman who rises with him. He slips a
TRANSLUCENT CARD onto the table, heads for the door.
BURKE
Think about it.
EXT. ACHERON LANDSCAPE - NIGHT 23
As the wind HOWLS through tormented rock, BUILDING
IN PITCH until we:
CUT TO:
INT. APARTMENT 24
Ripley lunges INTO FRAME with an animal outcry.
ALL: Ahh!
She clutches her chest, breathing hard. Bathed in
sweat she lights a cigarette with trembling hands.
Do we hear a faint, desolate wind?
CROW: How the hell should we know?! You wrote the damn script!
TIGHT ON PHONE CONSOLE as Ripley's hand inserts
Burke's card into a slot. "STAND BY" prints out on
the screen and is replaced by Burke's face, bleary
with sleep.
ALL: Ahhh!
BURKE
(on video phone)
Yello? Oh, Ripley. Hi...
RIPLEY
Burke,
ALL: Asshole!
just tell me one thing.
That you're going out there to
kill them. Not study. Not bring
back. Just burn them out...clean
...forever.
BURKE
That's the plan. My word on it.
ALL: (chanting) Liar! Liar! Carter Burke's a liar!
CLOSEUP - RIPLEY taking a deep slow breath. It's
time to look the demon in the eye.
TOM: The Aliens don't have eyes.
RIPLEY
All right. I'm in.
She punches off before Burke replies, before she can
change her mind. She turns to Jones sitting on the
bed and her tone becomes admonishing...
RIPLEY
And you my dear, are staying
right here.
Jones blinks, cynical cat eyes..."count me right
out."
MIKE: The cat talks?
CUT TO:
EXT. DEEP SPACE - THREE WEEKS LATER 25
An empty starfield. Metal spires slice ACROSS
FRAME.
TOM: Cutting the film to shreds.
A mountain of steel following. A massive military
transport ship, the SULACO. Ugly, battered...
CROW: Dis
functional.
INT. CORRIDOR TO CARGO LOCK 26
An empty corridor, seemingly miles long. No
movement. The THRUMMING of hyperdrive engines.
MIKE: Has nothing to do with the movie, just thought you might like to
see it.
INT. CARGO LOCK 27
An enormous chamber, cavernous and dark. Squatting
in the shadows are two orbit-to-surface shuttles.
DROP-SHIPS. Heavy machinery all around them...
cranes, loading equipment.
INT. BRIDGE 28
Dark electronic womb. CAMERA DOLLIES SLOWLY among
murmuring instrumentation. A sudden high-pitched
TRILLING accompanies a sequence of lights. An
alarm.
INT. HYPERSLEEP VAULT 29
Blackness, until a bank of indicators lights up.
Hydraulics lift a grid of equipment from a row of
horizontal HYPERSLEEP CYLINDERS. It reaches the
ceiling. Locks.
CLOSE ON RIPLEY'S CAPSULE as trickles of water run
down the frosted canopy.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. HYPERSLEEP VAULT 30
MIKE: Dissolve to the same place.
Lit up, white and sterile.
The canopies of the row of capsules are raised.
Ripley sits up. Rubs her arms briskly. Next to her
Gorman and Burke are stirring and beyond them the
troopers, wearing shorts and dog tags. They are:
MASTER SERGEANT APONE UNIT LEADER
CORPORAL HICKS B-TEAM LEADER
CORPORAL DIETRICH (female) MED-TECH
PFC HUDSON COM-TECH
MIKE: General Goliath
CROW: Private Lexington
TOM: Corporal Mississippi
MIKE AND CROW: Huh?
TOM: I figured Hudson the Gargoyle for a sergeant.
PFC VASQUEZ (female) 'SMART-GUN' OPERATOR
PRIVATE DRAKE
CROW: Stupid Gun Operator.
'SMART-GUN' OPERATOR
TOM: Not So
PRIVATE FROST TROOPER
TOM: Private Cassidy.
CROW: No way either Frost or Cassidy would be privates.
PRIVATE CROWE TROOPER
CROW: Oh my God I'm in the movie!
MIKE: No the name is spelled differently.
PRIVATE WIERZBOWSKI TROOPER
MIKE: I give up, Where's Bowski?
TOM: Oh, bad Mike.
CORPORAL FERRO (female) DROP-SHIP PILOT
PFC SPUNKMEYER DROP-SHIP CREW CHIEF
The ship is fully automated in interstellar flight
so there is no crew, except for EXECUTIVE OFFICER
(ECA) Bishop, who supervises planetary maneuvering.
MIKE: Depending on what he means by Executive Officer, I can see Bishop
as that rank.
GROANS echo across the chamber.
MIKE: What? Was the joke that bad?
SPUNKMEYER
Arrgh. I'm getting too old for
this shit.
CROW: (pissed) He's ripping off lines from Danny Glover! That's it I'm
leaving.
(starts to get up, MIKE stops him.)
SPUNKMEYER says this sincerely, though he must have
enlisted underage not long ago. Looking surly,
DRAKE sits up. He's young as well but street-tough.
Nasty scar curling his lip into a sneer.
TOM: No one knew the deep, nasty emotional scar that caused him to sneer.
DRAKE
They ain't payin' us enough
for this.
DIETRICH
Not enough to have to wake up
to your face, Drake.
TOM: Ha ha, Kill Him.
DRAKE
Suck air. Hey, Hicks...you look
like I feel.
HICKS, an older lifer-type who keeps his own
counsel, just snorts good-naturedly.
MIKE: Steve Urkel joins the Colonial Marines.
Ripley scans the group as they shuffle past her to a
bank of lockers. Though not supermen they are lean
and hardened...tough, capable, jaded.
CROW: Like us.
They combine the specialized techno-combat training
of the twenty-first century fighting man with those
qualities universal to "grunts" through the ages.
SERGEANT APONE moves down the row of freezers.
MIKE: (commercial) Here at Sear's...
HUDSON
This floor's freezing.
APONE
Christ. I never saw such a
buncha old women. You want me
to fetch your slippers, Hudson?
ALL: Wuss!
HUDSON
Would you, Sir?
Ripley steps back as the troopers shuffle past
nodding cursory hellos. She feels isolated by the
camaraderie of this tightknit group.
VASQUEZ eyes her coldly as she passes. Like Drake,
Vasquez is younger then the rest and her combat-
primer was the street in a Los Angeles barrio. She
is tough even by the standards of this group. Hard-
muscled. Eyes cunning and mean.
HUDSON
Hey, Vasquez...you ever been
mistaken for a man?
VASQUEZ
No. Have you?
CROW: (sincere laughter)
MIKE AND TOM: (stare at him)
She slaps Drake's open palm and it clenches into a
greeting which is part contest. It gets rougher.
Painful. Until she cuffs him hard and they break
with vicious laughter. Dobermans playing.
Conscripted from juvenile prison, the two of them
were trained to operate the formidable "SMART-GUNS."
That is part of their bond.
MIKE: Nothing brings a family together like a few big guns.
BISHOP is helping everyone like a valet. As he
passes close to her Ripley notices a strange TATTOO
across the back of his left hand...an ALPHA-NUMERIC
CODE.
FROST
Hey, hand job, you take my
towel?
SPUNKMEYER
(overlapping)
I need some slack, man. How
come they send us straight back
out like this? We got some slack
comin', man.
HICKS
You just got three weeks.
SPUNKMEYER
I mean breathing, not this frozen
shit.
CROW: Which brings up an interesting question, how do they go to the
bathroom in hypersleep?
DIETRICH
Yeah, 'Top'...what about it?
APONE
You know it ain't up to me.
(louder)
Awright! Let's knock off the
grabass. First assembly's in
fifteen...let's shag it.
INT. SHOWERS 31
High pressure water jets and a blast of hot air when
you step out...a drive through car wash for people.
TOM: Wouldn't that be a _walk_ through car wash?
MIKE: Well if you want to be technical it would be a people wash.
Through the swirling steam Hudson, Vasquez and FERRO
are watching Ripley dry off.
CROW: Saaaay.
VASQUEZ
Who's the fresh meat again?
FERRO
She's supposed to be some kinda
consultant...
(exaggerated)
...She was an alien once.
TOM: She was? Let's see, she's been a primitologist, a demon, when was
she an alien?
MIKE: I don't know, I guess I missed that one.
HUDSON
Whoooah! No shit? I'm impressed.
APONE
Let's go...let's go. Cycle through!
INT. MESS HALL 32
An unconscious segregation takes place at the
troopers assemble at one long table while Gorman,
Burke, Bishop and Ripley sit at another. Everybody
is nursing a coffee, waiting for eggs from the
AUTOCHEF. Among the troopers dress discipline is
lax...fatigues customized and emblazoned with
patches. Drake's tunic is cut off to a vest and has
"Eat the apple and fuck the Corps"
CROW: Yikes.
stenciled on back. "Peace Through Superior
Firepower," "Pray for War" and "I've Served My Time
in Hell: Cetti Epsilon NC-104" are some others.
HUDSON
Hey, 'Top.' What's the op?
CROW: He's a poet and he don't know it.
APONE
Rescue mission. There's some
juicy colonists' daughters we
gotta rescue from virginity.
CROW: I'm beginning to like these guys.
TOM: You would.
Apone is stocky, grizzled, with peregrine eyes. He
runs it loose and fair, but only because he knows
his people are the best.
SPUNKMEYER
Shee-it. Dumbass colonists.
What's this crap supposed to be?
TOM: Finally, something we can relate to.
MIKE: Oh come on the food's not that bad.
WIERZBOWSKI
Cornbread, I think. Hey, I wouldn't
mind getting me some more a
that Arcturan poontang. Remember
that time?
HICKS
(low)
Looks like that new Lieutenant's
too good to eat with us grunts.
MIKE: Apparently Hicks would rather forget about that time.
WIERZBOWSKI
(glancing
over shoulder)
Yeah. Got a corn cob up his ass,
definitely.
TOM: Sounds painful.
Across the room, at the other table, Gorman sits
with his creases perfect...the consummate strack
NCO. Bishop takes a seat beside Ripley, who
pointedly gets up and moves to the far side of the
table. He looks wounded.
BISHOP
I'm sorry you feel that way
about Synthetics, Ripley.
CROW: (disappointed) Ripley's a racist?
Ripley spins on Burke, her tone accusing.
RIPLEY
You never said anything about an
android being here! Why not?
CROW: I wanted it to be a surprise.
BURKE
Well, it didn't occur to me. It's
been policy for years to have a
synthetic on board.
BISHOP
I prefer the term 'artificial person'
myself.
TOM: Let's be politically correct now.
Is there a problem?
BURKE
A synthetic malfunctioned on her
last trip out. Some deaths were
involved.
BISHOP
I'm shocked.
CROW: (deadpan) Oh dear. How could such a thing happen.
Was it an older model?
BURKE
Cyberdyne Systems 120-A/2.
MIKE: Is that a yes?
TOM: Wait! Cyberdyne? They're the same one's who made Skynet! No
wonder Ash tried to kill them!
Bishop turns to Ripley, very conciliatory.
BISHOP
Well, that explains it. The
A/2's were always a bit twitchy.
That could never happen now with
out behavioral inhibitors. Impossible
for me to harm or, by omission of
action, allow to be harmed a
human being.
CROW: What'd he say?
TOM: He can't hurt anybody or allow anybody to be hurt without trying to
stop it.
CROW: Proof that James Cameron knows nothing about robots.
TOM: He's an android.
(smiling)
More cornbread?
WHAM! Ripley knocks the plate out of his hand,
halfway across the room.
CROW: Jeez, he's kind of a weak robot isn't he?
TOM: (slightly annoyed.) He's an android.
RIPLEY
Just stay away from me, Bishop!
You got that straight?
Burke and Gorman exchange glances.
MIKE: (places hands over the Bot's mouths) Piers Anthony already made
that pun guys.
Wierzbowski, at the next table, shrugs and turns
back to the other troopers.
WIERZBOWSKI
She don't like the cornbread
either.
CROW: Ha.
INT. READY ROOM - TIGHT ON APONE - ARMORY 33
MIKE: Wait! What about the ready room?
bellowing.
APONE
Tench-hut!
WIDER ANGLE as the troops snap to from their
lounging among the racks of high-tech weaponry.
Gorman enters with Burke and Ripley.
GORMAN
At ease. I'm sorry we didn't
have time to brief before we
left Gateway but...
HUDSON
Sir?
GORMAN
(annoyed)
Yes, Hicks?
TOM: Twin joke! Duck! (ducks)
HUDSON
Hudson,
ALL: Wuss!
Sir. He's Hicks.
GORMAN
What's the question?
HUDSON
Is this going to be a stand-up
fight, Sir, on another bug-hunt?
GORMAN
All we know is that there's
still no contact with the colony
and that a xenomorph may be
involved.
WIERZBOWSKI
A what?
HICKS
(to Wierzbowski;
low)
It's a bug-hunt.
(louder)
So what are these things?
MIKE: Xenomorphs. Weren't you listening?
Gorman nods to Ripley, who stands before the troops.
She sets some RECORDING DISKETTES on the table.
RIPLEY
I've dictated what I know on
these.
APONE
Tease us a bit.
MIKE: (Ripley) O.K. Behind you!
SPUNKMEYER
Yeah...previews.
RIPLEY
Okay. It's important to understand
this organism's life cycle. It's
actually two creatures. The first
form hatches from a spore...a sort
of large egg, and attaches itself
to its victim. Then it injects
an embryo, detaches and dies.
It's essentially a walking sex organ.
MIKE: Not a word Crow.
The --
HUDSON
Sounds like you, Hicks.
CROW: I'm really starting to warm up to these guys.
RIPLEY
(controlled)
The embryo, the second form, hosts
in the victim's body for several
hours. Gestating. Then it...
(with difficulty)
...then it...emerges. Moults.
Grows rapidly --
VASQUEZ
I only need to know one thing.
RIPLEY
Yes?
VASQUEZ
Where they are.
TOM: Most likely on Acheron.
Vasquez coolly points her finger, cocks her thumbs,
and blows away an imaginary alien.
TOM: (little kid) I shot you you're dead!
DRAKE
Yo! Vasquez. Kick ass!
VASQUEZ
Anytime. Anywhere.
HUDSON
Somebody said alien...she
thought they said illegal alien
and signed up.
MIKE: Huh?
VASQUEZ
Fuck you.
HUDSON
Anytime. Anywhere.
CROW: (sincere laughter)
MIKE: Crow get your mind out of the gutter.
RIPLEY
(icy)
Am I disturbing you conversation
Mr. Hudson?
TOM: Won't you share you thoughts with the whole class?
Hudson settles down, smirking. Ripley locks eyes
with Vasquez.
RIPLEY
I hope you're right. I really
do.
BURKE
(to all)
I suggest you study the disks
Ripley has been kind enough to
prepare for you.
GORMAN
Are there any questions? Hudson?
MIKE: (Hudson) Nope, no question here.
HUDSON
How do I get out of this
chicken-shit outfit?
Gorman scowls then, thanking Ripley with a nod,
takes over the predrop briefing.
GORMAN
All right. I want this to go
smooth and by the numbers. I
want DCS and tactical database
assimilation by 0830.
CROW: What time is it now?
(some groans)
Ordnance loading, weapons strip and
drop-ship prep details will have
seven hours...
EXT. SPACE - ACHERON 34
They have arrived. From orbit the planet looks
serene...Pearlescent cloud cover masking the
environmental torment beneath. The SULACO floats,
its MANEUVERING JETS FIRING. A bluish glow. Then
twice more, rapidly.
INT. BRIDGE 35
Bishop is installed in his command seat,
CROW: Oh I hate those games that have to be installed before you play them.
hemmed in by instrumentation.
TOM: He feels trapped.
BISHOP
(into mike)
Attention. This concluded final
maneuvering operations. Thank
you for your cooperation. You
may resume work.
MIKE: The captain has turned off the fasten seatbelts sign.
INT. LOADING BAY - TIGHT ON MASSIVE FORKS
TOM: Spoons and knives.
- CARGO LOCK 34
sliding into a heavy ordnance rack with an echoing
CLANG.
ALL: Clang!
PULL BACK as the rack of tactical missiles is
lifted, REVEALING two powerful hydraulic arms.
Spunkmeyer, seated inside a POWER LOADER, swings the
ordnance up into a belly nacelle of the DROP-SHIP
where it locks into place. As he exerts pressure
with his hands against the servo-controls the
hydraulic arms move correspondingly...but with a
thousandfold increase in power. The forklift-style
CLAWS on each arm can crush with tons of pressure.
The loader has an open ROLL CAGE to protect the
operator, and is supported by squat HYDRAULIC LEGS
which also move correspondingly with the driver's
movements.
CROW: Cool!
You have never seen anything like this before.
Advanced as it is to us, it's only an old forklift
to them...battered and well used. Covered with
grease. Repainted many times. Across the back is
stencilled "CATERPILLAR."
Spunkmeyer's machine swings out from under the drop-
ship and we become aware of the intense activity
throughout the cavernous loading bay. Troopers on
foot or driving TOW-MOWERS,
MIKE: They're mowing the cargo bay?
OVERHEAD LOADING ARMS...all in motion.
Hicks checks off items on an electronic manifest.
CROW: Wax lips?
TOM: Check.
CROW: Abbys' fanfics?
TOM: Check, don't leave home without them.
INT. READY ROOM - ARMORY 37
Wierzbowski, Drake and Vasquez are fieldstripping
light weapons with precise movements. Around them,
in racks, is an arsenal of advanced personal
artillery.
CROW: Crowe's dead meat.
MIKE: Why do you say that Crow?
CROW: He's only been mentioned once, and he's never shown up since.
Vasquez likes the feel of the guns, the weight...the
authority.
CROW: The-
MIKE: Uh, uh, Crow.
Her hands move without hesitation. CLACK.
CLACK. CLACK. She swings one of the SMART-GUNS out
on a work stand. Using a body brace and GYRO-
STABILIZED SUPPORT ARM, it is a computer-aimed,
video targeted automatic weapon. The futuristic
equivalent of a .30 caliber light machine gun. Sort
of a steadicam that kills.
INT. LOADING BAY - ANGLE ON BURKE AND GORMAN 38
with pre-flight activity b.g.
BURKE
Still nothing from the colony?
GORMAN
Dead on all channels.
TOM: They lost cable.
Ripley watches the drop-ship being loaded. A cross
between a Huey Aircobra gunship and the space
shuttle might describe it.
TOM: But not likely.
An orbit-to-surface troop carrier, heavily armed for
the close support of ground missions.
She watches a six-wheeled APC,
CROW: Why does everything have six wheels?
ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER, being raised
hydraulically into the ship's belly. Ripley looks
around as Frost wheels a rack of incomprehensible
equipment toward her.
FROST
Clear, please.
Ripley jumps aside, nodding apologetically. She
turns. Steps hastily back. Hudson cruises by with a
laden forklift.
HUDSON
Excuse me.
MIKE: Ripley get out of the cargo bay!
ANGLE ON APONE standing with Hicks, as Ripley
approaches him
RIPLEY
I feel like a fifth wheel
here.
CROW: Finally! (embarrassed) Y'see, five wheels and everything's got
six...
Is there anything I can
do?
TOM: (Groucho Marx) Yes but I'll talk to you about that later.
APONE
I don't know. Is there anything
you can do?
MIKE: (Ripley) Sorry, is there anything I _may_ do?
RIPLEY
(pointing)
I can drive that loader.
TOM: There, see? You've answered your own question.
I've got a Class Two rating. My
latest career move.
Apone turns. A SECOND POWER LOADER sits unused in
an equipment bay.
TWO SHOT APONE AND HICKS skeptical. Considering.
TIGHT ON POWER SWITCH as Ripley's finger punches it
on.
A RISING WHINE of power.
TOM: Introducing the new Binford 5000 Power Loader! (Tim Allen "power
grunt".)
TIGHT ON THE HYDRAULICS as the massive machine
stirs to life.
FULL, as the loader starts. Ripley is strapped into
the safety cage, her arms and legs inserted in the
servo-sensor assemblies. She takes a step. BOOM!
Two tons of hardened steel takes a step.
Ripley spins the wrist servos. The huge claws
swing, open...slide smoothly into lifting brackets
on a cargo module, nearby. She raises it deftly.
MIKE: Unfortunately, it was supposed to stay right where it was.
RIPLEY
Where you want it?
CROW: Woah baby!
MIKE: (smacks CROW in the back of the head.)
Hicks looks at Apone, cocks an eyebrow
appreciatively.
TOM: (Apone) Saaay.
INT. READY ROOM - ARMORY 39
The troopers are suiting up for the drop. Strapping
on their bulky COMBAT-ARMOR...interlocking plates
like football padding. They tape their wrists.
MIKE: Video or audio?
Draw on segmented boots.
TOM: They couldn't afford real boots, so they had to draw them on.
The sole cleats CLACK like hooves
ALL: Clip, clop, clip, clop.
on the deck plates. Lockers SLAM.
TOM: Into one another forming an impromptu mosh pit.
WEB BELTS. PACKS. HARNESSES. HELMETS. COM-SETS.
Their fingers move methodically over the fastenings.
It has its own rhythm...CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.
ALL: (singing) Down through the chimney with good Saint Nick.
APONE
Let's move it, girls!
MIKE: Just the girls, the men stay here.
On the ready line. Let's go,
let's go.
INT. DROP-SHIP - APC 40
Ripley, wearing a flight jacket and headset, files
into the ship with the hulking troopers. Inside
they pass directly into the APC we saw loaded
earlier and take seats facing each other across a
narrow aisle. They will drop already strapped into
their ground vehicle for rapid deployment. A KLAXON
SOUNDS, signalling depressurization of the cargo
lock.
TOM: Wait I'm not in yet! (suffocating noises)
Hudson prowls the aisle, his movements predatory and
exaggerated. Ripley watches him working his way
toward her.
HUDSON
I am ready, man. Ready to get
it on. Check-it-out. I am the
ultimate badass...state of the
badass art. You do not want to
fuck with me. Hey, Ripley, don't
worry. Me and my squad of
ultimate badasses will protect you.
Check-it-out...
MIKE: Ah the humorous machoism of Hudson.
He slaps the SERVO-CANNON controls in the GUN BAY
above them.
HUDSON
Independently targetting
particle-beam phalanx. VWAP!
CROW: (giggling) Vwap?
Fry half a city with this puppy.
We got tactical smart-missles,
phased-plasma pulse-rifles,
RPG's.
MIKE: How the hell are Role Playing Games gonna help?
We got sonic eeelectronic
ballbreakers, we got nukes, we
got knives...sharp sticks --
TOM: We get the point! Shut up!
Hicks grabs Hudson by his battle harness and pulls
him into a seat. His voice is low, but it carries.
HICKS
Save it.
HUDSON
Sure, Hicks.
Ripley nods her thanks to Hicks. MOTORS WHINE and
the craft lurches. Burke, next to Ripley, grins
eagerly like this is a sport fishing trip.
BURKE
Here we go.
MIKE: Shut up.
She looks like she's in a gas chamber waiting for
the pellet to drop.
EXT. SULACO 41
The drop-ship lowers from the cargo-lock on a
massive launch rig. The night side of Acheron yawns
below...enigmatic.
INT. COCKPIT 42
Ferro and Spunkmeyer run rapidly through the
switches.
CROW: (Ferro) Okay, maybe this one releases us...no.
TOM: (Spunkmeyer) How about this one...no.
FERRO
Initiate release sequencer on my
mark. Three. Two. One. Mark!
EXT. SULACO - DROP-SHIP 43
Hydraulic WHINE. Clamps SLAM BACK. The ship drops.
INT. DROP-SHIP - APC 44
Apone, stalking the aisle, snatches for a handhold.
MIKE: Sir maybe you should buckle up.
Bishop, Burke and Gorman groan at the sudden gees.
Ripley closes her eyes...the point of no return.
MIKE: Yeah, up till now they could have turned the ship around and gone
home.
EXT. DROP-SHIP 45
It screams down through the stratosphere, plunging
into dark turbulence.
INT. COCKPIT 46
Beyond the canopy is gray limbo. The craft shudders
and lurches.
FERRO
(icy calm)
Switching to DCS ranging.
SPUNKMEYER
Two-four-o. Nominal to profile.
Picking up some hull ionization.
FERRO
Got it. Rough air ahead.
INT. HOLD - APC 47
TIGHT ON HICKS asleep in his harness.
MIKE: Jeez, he fainted!
FERRO
(voice over;
filtered)
Stand by for some chop.
TOM: Ladies and Gentlemen this is your captain speaking, please return
your seatbacks and tray tables to their upright positions.
TIGHT ON GORMAN as the ship begins to buck, his
eyes closed. Pale. Sweating. He rubs his hands on
his knees repeatedly.
RIPLEY
How may drops is this for you,
Lieutenant?
GORMAN
Thirty-eight...simulated.
VASQUEZ
How many combat drops?
GORMAN
Well...two. Three, including
this one.
CROW: Oh good, a qualified leader.
Vasquez and Drake exchange do-you-believe-this-shit
expressions. Ripley looks accusingly at Burke.
TOM: (Ripley) You ate my candy didn't you.
INT. COCKPIT 48
FERRO
Turning on final.
TOM: I'm very disappointed with some of these grades.
Coming around to a seven-zero-niner.
CROW: Mike I haven't understood one word of what she's said.
MIKE: It's pilot talk...I think it means their in for a tough landing.
TOM: No I think it means she peed in her pants.
MIKE: Really?
Terminal guidance locked in. Where's
the damn beacon?
TOM: (Spunkmeyer) I thought you had it.
EXT. DROP-SHIP 49
It emerges from the low cloud ceiling. From the
twilight haze ahead the distant colony LANDING
BEACONS become visible.
INT. HOLD - APC 50
Stumbling as the ship pitches, Ripley makes her way
forward to the MOBILE TACTICAL OPERATIONS BAY
(MTOB), a control console lined with monitor
screens. She joins Burke watching over Gorman's
shoulder as the Lieutenant plays the board like a
video director.
CROW: (Gorman) O.K., in this next scene...
TIGHT ON MONITOR CONSOLE REVEALING screens labeled
with the names of the troopers. Two for each
soldier. The upper screens show images from the
IMAGE-INTENSIFIED VIDEO CAMERAS in their helmets.
TOM: This way, if anything funny happens they can send it in to Funniest
Home Videos and win big bucks.
The lower screens are BIO-MONITORS: EEG, EKG, and
other graphic life-function readouts.
TOM: The IAM's are all flatlining.
MIKE: IAM's?
TOM: Individual Acting Meters
Other screens show EXTERIOR VIEWS.
GORMAN
Let's see. Everybody on line.
Drake, check you camera. There
seems to be a...
CLOSE ON DRAKE as he whacks himself on the head
with an ammo case.
TOM: They're on the express elevator to wackiness!
A familiar malfunction.
GORMAN
(o.s)
...that's better. Pan it around
a bit.
APONE
Awright. Fire-team A. Gear up.
Let's move. Two minutes.
Somebody wake up Hicks.
CROW: Wake up Wussy boy! The scary part's over!
A clatter of activity as they don backpacks and
weapons.
MIKE: I guess the Appalachian Trail can get a little rough.
Vasquez and Drake buckle on their smart-gun body
harnesses.
Ripley watches the AP station loom on the exterior
screens.
TOM: Trying to figure out why a colony with such advanced technology
needed a loom.
RIPLEY
That the atmosphere processor?
BURKE
Uh-hunh. One of thirty or so,
all over the planet. They're
completely automated. We
manufacture them, by the way.
CROW: (Burke) Could I interest you in a Life Insurance policy?
EXT. SHIP - AP STATION 51
The tiny ship circles the roaring tower.
CROW: Shooting at the Giant Ape on top.
A metal volcano thundering like the engines on God's
Lear jet.
MIKE: You know God's Lear Jet is even bigger than Trump's.
INT. HOLD - APC 52
Gorman plays with the controls,
CROW: (Gorman) What does this button do?
zooming the image of the colony.
CROW: (Gorman) Cool!
GORMAN
(to Ferro via mike)
Hold at forty. Slow circle of
the complex.
RIPLEY
The structure seems intact. They
have power.
On the screen the colony buildings loom in and the
low visibility like wrecks of freighters on the sea
floor.
GORMAN
(to Apone)
Okay, let's do it.
CROW: (Apone) Right here?
MIKE: I'm warning you...
APONE
Awright! I want a nice clean
dispersal this time.
TOM: Why? What happened last time?
Ripley turns as Vasquez squeezes past her.
VASQUEZ
You staying in here?
RIPLEY
You bet.
VASQUEZ
(turning away)
Figures.
TOM: (Vasquez) Wuss.
GORMAN
(to Ferro via mike)
Set down sixty meters this side
of the telemetry mast. Immediate
dust off on my 'clear,' then stay
on station.
APONE
Ten seconds, people. Look sharp!
MIKE: The boss is coming in for an inspection!
EXT. COLONY COMPLEX 53
Landing beacons sweep harsh light across the wet
Tarmac. The ship roars down, extending the loading
ramp. Slams down on hydraulic LANDING LEGS. The
APC hits the ground
CROW: So the APC left the ship before it touched down?
a moment later, pulling away from the ship as it
leaps up in a cloud of spray and peels off,
circling.
The APC pulls to the edge of the complex. The CREW
DOOR opens. Troopers hit the ground running.
Spread out. They drop behind immediate cover. Apone
scans with him image intensifier visor lowered.
APONE'S P.O.V. through the starlight-scope visor.
Bright as a sunny day, though contrasty and lurid,
we SEE the colony buildings. Trash blows in the
street.
MIKE: One word about Streetwalkers Crow and I'll deactivate you.
No other movement.
GORMAN
(voice over;
filtered)
First squad up, on line. Hicks,
get yours in a cordon. Watch the
rear.
APONE
Vasquez, take point. Let's move.
Sprinting in a skirmish line, Apone's team advances
on the colony main entry-lock.
TOM: He makes it sound like Photon or High-tech capture the flag.
Parked tightly across the doors are two heavy-duty
tractors. Vasquez reaches one of the tractors,
looks inside. The controls are ripped out, as if by
a crowbar or axe. She moves on.
CROW: Boy they really didn't want anybody stealing their tractors did they?
EXT. COLONY BUILDING 54
Vasquez reaches the main doors, Drake flanking on
the right. Apone tries the door controls. Nothing.
APONE
Sealed. Hudson, run a bypass.
Hudson, all business now, moves up and studies the
door control panel. He pries off the facing and
starts clipping on the bypass wires.
MIKE: Even electronic locks are easy prey for a Kender.
APONE
First squad, assemble on me at
the main lock.
CROW: Woah!
MIKE: Shut _up_ Crow.
The wind roars around the bleak structures. A neon
sign creaks overhead. Hudson makes a connection.
CROW: Wait a minute, no signs of life, lost contact, Ripley says there
are monsters on this planet...OH MY GOD!
The door shrieks in its tracks and rumbles aside.
It jams partway open. Apone motions Vasquez inside.
She eases over the wrecked tractor, through the
doors. The others follow.
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.
MIKE: They're gonna have a hard time finding a buyer for this place.
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.
TOM: And she immediately bumps into a wall. Hilarity ensues.
Their footsteps echo.
INT. APC 56
Ripley watches as the bobbing images reveal the
empty colony building.
GORMAN
Quarter and search by twos.
TOM: No you idiot! That's what always gets people killed!
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.
MIKE: James Cameron's office?
INT. APC 58
Ripley et al watching.
BURKE
Looks like my room in college.
ALL: Shut up!
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.
CROW: (Tim Curry) Very well, I know who did it. The police.
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.
ALL: Aahh!
Vasquez whirls, cannon aimed.
MIKE: Shoots Hudson.
TOM: And there was much rejoicing.
ALL: Yay.
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.
MIKE: BOO!!
'BOTS: Ahh!
CROW: Mike don't do that!
TOM: We finally get some suspense and you ruin it.
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.
MIKE: Who, Hudson or Gorman?
TOM: Both.
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.
TOM: Unloved.
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!
ALL: Asshole!
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.
MIKE: (computer voice) Thank for activating the Self Destruct Mechanism.
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?
CROW: (Ripley) No you idiot I just did that for fun!
RIPLEY
Christ, Wierzbowski!
WIERZBOWSKI
Sorry. Hicks said to keep an
eye on you.
He gestures for her to precede him inside.
TOM: (Ripley) No after you.
CROW: (Wierzbowski) No, after you.
TOM: (Ripley) No I insist.
INT. CONTROL BLOCK CORRIDOR 68
Ripley catches up with the others as they move into
the bowels of the complex.
MIKE: No anatomy jokes.
GORMAN
(to Burke)
Looks like you company can write
off its share of this colony.
BURKE
(unconcerned)
It's insured.
CROW: It's insured against Alien attack? That's a pretty
thorough insurance policy.
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
ALL: Who's 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.
CROW: Remember the Alamo.
MIKE: Why?
CROW: No reason.
WIERZBOWSKI
Last stand.
TOM: Custer's 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.
TOM: Hey it's the lab where they made the crawling hand.
MIKE: The what?
CROW: Before your time Mike. Don't worry about it.
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.
MIKE: (Sarcasm) Gee, I wonder what they are.
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...
ALL: Ass hole!
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."
MIKE: I didn't need to see that.
TOM: That sums up the entire movie.
CROW: Does that mean we can go now?
MIKE: No.
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.
CROW: He wanted to see that again?
BURKE
These are dead. There's just
the two alive.
TOM: Thank you mister Wizard.
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.
CROW: Is that what "Died during procedure means".
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?
CROW: Naw Homie, ain't no one over here in de 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.
CROW: Let's all go see the monster!
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.
CROW: Of course it's moving that's what set off the tracker in the first
place!
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.
TOM: (singing) Spider Man, Spider Man, doin' the things a Spider can!
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.
MIKE: Don't cross the streams!
VASQUEZ
You fuck!
Hicks ignores her, moving past and aiming his light
under a row of steel cabinets. He gestures to
Ripley,
TOM: (Hicks) Ripley, you go ahead of us, and if it eats you,
we know it's a monster.
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.
CROW: She'd eaten the rest of it.
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.
TOM: Mike do fish wriggle?
MIKE: They do when they're on a hook.
In his bulky armor Hicks knows he'll never make it
into the tiny duct. Ripley dives.
CROW: Earning a score of straight 5.0's.
She squirms into the duct without thinking.
TOM: Wait, I don't care how skinny Ripley is, she's a well
fed adult, and Newt's an emaciated child. If Newt barely
fit, there's no way Ripley could have followed her.
MIKE: Tom, there's only one response to a comment like that.
TOM: What?
MIKE: It's a movie. Reality has no place here.
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.
MIKE: Ripley found the nest!
A nest built by a child.
MIKE: Oh.
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.
MIKE: However, we who have done the same merely feel we have
found a kindred spirit.
Newt edges along the far wall and dives for the
hatch.
Ripley grabs her, controlling her in a bear hug.
CROW: Lucky kid.
The kid struggles wildly, like a cat at the vets.
Eyes wide, hands lashing out in a frenzy...but
silent. No scream.
MIKE: (Newt) To scream is to admit defeat.
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.
MIKE: Bad trip.
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:
ALL: If you can read this, you don't need glasses.
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...
CROW: Just the facts maam.
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.
CROW: Hey!
MIKE: Not us Crow.
DIETRICH
(shrugs)
Physically she's okay.
Borderline malnutrition, but
I don't think any permanent
damage.
She unsnaps the bio-monitoring cuff.
TOM: (Dietrich) Oh my God! She's flatlining! Oh, wait...heh heh.
GORMAN
Come on, we're wasting our
time.
MIKE: So are we, what's your point?
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.
TOM: (Gorman) The hell? You've been playing Quake all this
time?
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.
MIKE: (singing) But Mister Ed will never speak unless he has
something to say.
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.
TOM: (Newt) I'm a boy!
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.
CROW: Why does Gorman know that and not Burke?
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.
CROW: (Newt) They called him Salamander.
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.
MIKE: (Gump) My name's Forrest Gump. People call me Forrest
Gump.
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.
CROW: (doll) I'm Little Lucy, and I don't like you.
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.
CROW: (Hudson) Touchdown! Yes!
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?
TOM: No, Doom.
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.
TOM: (Jim Carrey) You don't have to tell me, I was there.
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.
MIKE: Gorman get down from there this instant!
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.
CROW: A fine consultant you are.
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.
TOM: It's Tin Man!
CROW: No it's the Borg!
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.
CROW: (Newt) Aww mom, just when it was getting good.
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.
MIKE: Start using some question marks James.
RIPLEY
So...then the fusion
containment shuts down.
GORMAN
(impatient)
So? So?
MIKE: What kind of Commander is this?
TOM: Must be related to Riker.
BURKE
We're talking thermonuclear
explosion.
CROW: (Gorman) So?
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.
CROW: Hicks is gonna be the film's ass-kicker. I can tell.
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.
MIKE: Get me out of this film.
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.
TOM: Oh come now, the movie's not that bad.
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.
CROW: (Beavis) Cool! Fire! Cool!
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.
MIKE: (Hudson) What do you want to talk about?
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.
TOM: That's the smartest thing anyone's ever said in this film.
CROW: Naturally they won't listen.
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.
TOM: (singing) Two silhouettes on the shade!
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.
ALL: D'oh!
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.
CROW: Like that chick from the latest Bond Movie.
TOM: Only not as good looking.
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!
CROW: That's right ladies and gentlemen I'm back and ready to kick some
ass.
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!
TOM: They brought her as a consultant so why isn't anyone listening to
her?!
CRASH! Crowe's telemetry cuts off like the plug was
pulled. Flat line.
CROW: Ahh! (falls out of his chair and sticks his legs and
arms in the air) Aww! Crud they got me and I didn't even
get a shot off! (Gets back in his chair, dejected)
GORMAN
Uh,...Apone, I want you to
TOM: (90's teen): like,
lay down a suppressing fire
with the incinerators and
TOM: (90's teen) like,
fall back by squads to the
APC,
TOM: (90' teen) and stuff.
over.
APONE
(voice over;
heavy static)
Say again? All after
incinerators?
MIKE: Someone's transmitting Ratliff's version of the
script!
Ripley watches it fall apart.
GORMAN
I said...
INT. COCOON CHAMBER 96
Apone adjusts his headset.
GORMAN
(voice over;
static)
...lay down (garbled)
CROW: Don't ask don't tell.
...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!
ALL: They're _but_ off?
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.
CROW: (Ripley) Stupid switch, stupid stupid switch!
GORMAN
Ripley, what the hell...?
She slams the tractor into gear.
MIKE: What happened to the APC?
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.
'BOTS: Cat fight!
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 --
CROW: (British) He's get-
TOM: (British) Wait for it!
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.
CROW: (awed) Woah.
MIKE: (awed) Wow.
TOM: That was the best action sequence I've seen...ever.
Granted that's not saying much given the movies we watch,
but still, there it is.
CROW: Forrester blew it this time.
TOM: Don't jinx it Crow. We've still got at least half the
movie to go.
MIKE: I think we need a break.
1...2...3...4...5...6
(MIKE and TOM are sitting at the counter. MIKE is drinking
coffee.)
MIKE: So what do you think of the movie so far Tom?
TOM: Well, the plot took a really long time to get going,
but once the action started it went all out. I give it one
thumb up. Or I would if I could.
MIKE: I agree, I-
(CROW enters with a Colonial marine helmet on and carrying
a motion tracker and pulse rifle.)
CROW: All right Girls look sharp! Shag it! We've got a
monster to stop!
MIKE: Crow what are you doing?
CROW: I've joined the Colonial Marines, Nelson! The few!
The proud!
TOM: The sexually deprived.
CROW: Hey f-
(MIKE quickly clamps his hand around CROW'S beak.)
MIKE: Okay Crow, I realize that you like the Marine
characters, one had almost the same name as you, and you
were impressed by the action, and you're a complete
loony. But don't you think you're carrying this a bit too
far? There's not even any monster on board. (Buttons start
to flash) We'll be right back.
(commercials)
(they are back in the theater)
INT. APC 107
Ripley, still running on the adrenalin dynamo, spins
out of her seat into the aisle.
MIKE: And falls flat on her face, she's so dizzy.
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.
TOM: Baby Jessica, stuck again.
She is trembling, and looks terrified, but it's not
the basket case catatonia of before.
TOM: Basket case and catatonia don't belong in the same sentence.
RIPLEY
You okay?
Newt gives her a THUMBS-UP, wan but stoic.
CROW: (Full House's Michelle) You got it dude.
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.
CROW: (Hudson) They crucified him, I can'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.
HICKS
Hold it. Hold it. Back off, right
now.
Vasquez releases Gorman. His head smacks the deck.
Ripley opens Gorman's tunic,
CROW: Saaaay.
MIKE: Crow, I give up.
revealing a bloodless purple puncture wound.
RIPLEY
Looks like it stung him.
HUDSON
Hey...hey! Look, Crowe and
Dietrich aren't dead, man.
TOM: Now Crow.
CROW: (British) I'm not dead, I'm getting better.
They turn to see Hudson at the MTOB monitors,
pointing at the bio-function screens.
HUDSON
They must be like Gorman. Their
signs are real low but they ain't
dead!
Hudson is pale, panicky, and his voice echoes around
the tiny metallic space and comes back to all of
them as the near hysteria they all feel, fluttering
just at the edges of their minds.
RIPLEY
You can't help them. Right now
they're being cocooned just like
the others.
HUDSON
(sagging)
Oh, God. Jesus. This ain't
happening.
MIKE: Denial, first sign.
TOM: Of what?
MIKE: Everything
Ripley and Vasquez lock eyes. Ripley doesn't want
it to be "I told you so" but Vasquez reads it that
way. She turns away with a snap.
INT. MED LAB 108
Bishop is hunched over an occular probe doing a
dissection of one of the dead parasites. Spunkmeyer
enters with some electronics gear on a hand truck
and parks it near Bishop's work table.
SPUNKMEYER
Need anything else?
Bishop waves "no" without looking up.
EXT. COLONY - DROP-SHIP 109
Spunkmeyer emerges, crossing the Tarmac to the
loading ramp of the ship. As he nears the top of
the ramp, his boot slips...skidding on something
wet. Kneeling, he touches a small puddle of thick
slime.
CROW: (Spunkmeyer) Oh jeez, who blew their nose?
He shrugs, and hits the controls to retract the ramp
and close the doors.
INT. APC 110
ON VASQUEZ wired and intense.
VASQUEZ
All right, we can't blow the fuck
out of them...why not roll some
canisters of CN-20 down there.
Nerve gas the whole nest?
HUDSON
Look, man, let's just bug out and
call it even, okay?
TOM: Wuss.
RIPLEY
(to Vasquez)
No good. How do we know it'll
effect their biochemistry? I say
we take off and nuke the entire
site from orbit. It's the only
way to be sure.
MIKE: No wait! I got it, let's call the Orkan Man!
BURKE
Now hold on a second. I'm not
authorizing that action.
RIPLEY
Why not?
Burke senses the challenge in her tone and
backpedals flawlessly into conciliatory mode.
BURKE
Well, I mean...I know this is an
emotional moment, but let's not
make snap judgments. Let's move
cautiously. First, this physical
installation had a substantial
dollar value attached to it --
RIPLEY
They can bill me. I got a tab
running. What's second?
BURKE
This is clearly an important
species we're dealing with here.
We can't just arbitrarily
exterminate them --
RIPLEY
Bullshit!
VASQUEZ
Yeah, bullshit. Watch us.
HUDSON
Maybe you haven't been keeping up
on current events, but we just got
out asses kicked, pal!
Ripley faces Burke squarely and she's not pleased.
RIPLEY
Look, Burke.
ALL: Ass hole!
We had an agreement.
TOM: (Darth Vader) I am altering the deal. Pray I do not
alter it any further.
Burke moves in, lowering his voice. He takes her
aside from the others.
BURKE
I know, I know, but we're dealing
with changing scenarios here. This
thing is major, Ripley. I mean
really major. You gotta go with
its energy. Since you are the
representative of the company who
discovered this species your
percentage will naturally be
some serious, serious money.
TOM: (Russian) Capitalist pig!
Ripley stares at his like he's a particularly
disagreeable fungus.
RIPLEY
You son of a bitch.
BURKE
(hardening)
Don't make me pull rank, Ripley.
RIPLEY
What rank? I believe Corporal Hicks
has authority here.
BURKE
Corporal Hicks!?
MIKE: Yeah you know, that quiet guy with the sawed off
shotgun.
RIPLEY
This operation is under military
jurisdiction and Hicks is next in
chain of command. Right?
HICKS
Looks that way.
Burke starts to lose it and it's not a pretty sight.
CROW: Oh man, get some Depends!
BURKE
Look, this is a multimillion
dollar operation. He can't make
that kind of decision. He's just
a grunt!
(glances at Hicks)
No offense.
HICKS
(coolly)
None taken.
(into mike)
Ferro, you copying?
TOM: (Ferro) Yep, how many more copies you want?
FERRO
(voice over; static)
Standing by.
HICKS
Prep for dust-off. We're gonna
need an immediate evac.
(to Burke)
I think we'll take off and nuke
the site from orbit. It's the
only way to be sure.
MIKE: (Nelson, the Simpsons bully) Ha ha.
He winks. Burke looks like a kid whose toy has been
snatched.
BURKE
This is absurd! You don't have
the authority to --
CLACK! The sound of a rifle bolt snapping home
truncates his rant. Vasquez has a pulse-rifle
cradled, not exactly aimed at Burke but not exactly
aimed away either. Her expression is masklike. End
of discussion.
CROW: Apparently James is a big believer in Might Makes
Right.
Ripley sits behind Newt, putting her arm around her.
RIPLEY
We're going home, honey.
EXT. DROP-SHIP 111
The ship rises through the spray thrown up by the
downblast of the VTOL jets, hovering above the
complex like a huge insect, its searchlights
blazing.
EXT. APC 112
The group is filing out of the personnel carrier,
which is clearly a write off. Hicks and Hudson have
Gorman between them, and the others emerge into the
wind. They watch the ship roar in on its final
approach.
INT. DROP-SHOP COCKPIT 113
Ferro flicks the intercom switch several times.
Thumps her headset mike.
FERRO
Spunkmeyer? Goddammit.
The compartment door behind her slides slowly back.
FERRO
(turning)
Where the fu --
Her eyes widen. It's not Spunkmeyer.
CROW: It's Pat!
Am impression of leering jaws which blur forward,
then a whirl of motion and a truncated scream. The
throttle levers are slammed forward in the melee.
EXT. APC - LANDSCAPE - STATION 114
They watch in dismay as the approaching ship dips
and VEERS WILDLY. Its main engines ROAR FULL ON and
the craft accelerates toward them even as it loses
altitude. It skims the ground. Clips a rock
formation. The ship slews, sideslipping. It hits a
ridge. Tumbles, bursting into flame, breaking up.
It arcs into the air, end over end, a Catherine
wheel juggernaut.
TOM: They should never have let Value Jet build that thing.
RIPLEY
Run!
ALL: Run away! Run away!
She grabs Newt and sprints for cover as a tumbling
section of the ship's massive engine module slams
into the APC and it explodes into twisted wreckage.
The drop-ship skips again, like a stone, engulfed in
flames...AND CRASHES INTO THE STATION. A TREMENDOUS
FIREBALL.
The remainder of the ground team watches their hopes
of getting off the planet, and most of their
superior fire power, reduced to flaming debris.
There is a moment of stunned silence, then...
HUDSON
(hysterical)
Well that's great! That's just
fucking great, man. Now what the
fuck are we supposed to do, man?
We're in some real pretty shit now!
CROW: An oxymoron.
HICKS
Are you finished?
(to Ripley)
You okay?
She nods. She can't disguise her stricken
expression when she looks at Newt, but the little
girl seems relatively calm. She shrugs with
fatalistic acceptance.
NEWT
I guess we're not leaving, right?
RIPLEY
I'm sorry, Newt.
NEWT
You don't have to be sorry. It
wasn't your fault.
HUDSON
(kicking rocks)
Just tell me what the fuck we're
supposed to do now. What're we
gonna do now?
BURKE
(annoyed)
May be could build a fire and
sing songs.
ALL: (singing) Kum ba yah, my lord...
NEWT
We should get back, 'cause it'll
be dark soon. They come mostly
at night. Mostly.
CROW: (singing) The freaks come out at night!
Ripley follows Newt's look to the AP station looming
in the twilight, the burning drop-ship wreckage
jammed into its basal structure.
EXT. CONTROL BLOCK - NIGHT 115
The wind howls mournfully around the metal
buildings, dry and cold.
INT. OPERATIONS 116
The weary and demoralized group is gathered to take
stock of their grim options. Vasquez and Hudson are
just setting down a scorched and dented packing
case, one of several culled from the APC wreckage.
Hicks indicates their remaining inventory of
weapons, lying on a table.
HICKS
This is all we could salvage. We've
got four pulse-rifles with about
fifty rounds each. Not so good.
About fifteen M-40 grenades and
two flame throwers less than
half full...one damaged. And
We've got four of these
robot-sentry units with scanners
and display intact.
He opens one of the scorched cases, revealing a
high-tech servo-actuated machine gun with optical
sensing equipment, packed in foam.
RIPLEY
How long after we're declared
overdue can we expect a rescue?
MIKE: (Hicks) Rescue? We're Marines, what rescue?
HICKS
About seventeen days.
HUDSON
Man, we're not going to make it
seventeen hours! Those things
are going to come in here, just
like they did before, man...
they're going to come in here
and get us, man, long before...
TOM: Someone hit him, his record's broken.
RIPLEY
She survived longer than that
with no weapons and no training.
Ripley indicates Newt, who salutes Hudson smartly.
MIKE: Smart ass.
RIPLEY
So you better just start dealing
with it. Just deal with it,
Hudson...because we need you and
I'm tired of your bullshit. Now
get on a terminal and call up some
kind of floor plan file.
Construction blueprints,
maintenance schematics, anything
that shows the layout of this
place. I want to see air ducts,
electrical access tunnels,
subbasements. Every possible way
into this wing.
Hudson gathers himself, thankful for the direction.
Hicks nods approval of her handling of it.
HUDSON
Aye-firmative. I'm on it.
BISHOP
I'll be in medical. I'd like to
continue my analysis.
RIPLEY
Fine. You do that.
CROW: (Ripley) Stinkin' robot.
TOM: He's an android!
INT. OPERATIONS 117
Burke, Ripley, Hudson and Hicks are bent over a
large HORIZONTAL VIDEOSCREEN, like an illuminated
chart table. Newt hops from one foot to the other to
see.
RIPLEY
This service tunnel is how they're
moving back and forth.
HUDSON
Yeah, right, it runs from the
processing station right into
the sublevel here.
He traces a finger along the abstract ground plan.
MIKE: Wait, if it's abstract, then how can they figure all this out?
RIPLEY
All right. There's a fire door
at this end. The first thing we
do is put a remote sentry in the
tunnel and seal that door.
HICKS
We gotta figure on them getting
into the complex.
RIPLEY
That's right. So we put up
welded barricades at these
intersections...
(pointing)
...and seal these ducts here
and here. Then they can only
come at us from these two
corridors and we create a free
field of fire for the other
two sentry units, here.
TOM: This is beginning to sound like the SNES Alien 3 game.
Hicks contemplates her game plan and raises his
hand,
CROW: (teacher) Yes Mr. Hicks, you have a question?
satisfied.
HICKS
Outstanding. Then all we need's
a deck of cards. All right, let's
move like we got a purpose.
MIKE: Staying alive isn't a good enough purpose?
HUDSON
Aye-firmative.
NEWT
(imitating Hudson)
Aye-firmative!
TOM: Copy-cat.
INT. SERVICE TUNNEL - SUBLEVEL 118
A long straight service tunnel, lined with conduit,
seems to go on forever. Vasquez and Hudson have
finished setting up two of the robot sentry guns on
tripods in the tunnel.
VASQUEZ
(shouting)
Testing!
MIKE: One, two three...
She hurls a wastebasket down the tunnel, into the
automatic field of fire. The sentry guns swivel
smoothly, the wastebasket bounces once...and is
riddled by two quick bursts of EXPLODING 10MM ROUNDS
into dime-sized shrapnel. They retreat behind a
heavy steel FIRE DOOR which they roll closed on its
track. Vasquez, using a PORTABLE WELDING TORCH,
begins sealing the door to its frame, as Hudson
paces nervously.
HUDSON
Hudson here. A and B
sentries are in place and
keyed. We're sealing the
tunnel.
INT. SECOND LEVEL CORRIDOR 119
Hicks pauses in his work.
HICKS
(into mike)
Roger.
TOM: Rabbit.
He and Ripley are covering an air duct opening with
a metal plate, welding it in place, showering sparks
in the dark corridor. Behind them Burke and Newt
are moving back and forth with cartons of food on a
hand truck, stacking it inside the operations
center.
CROW: Mike, what are they doing? It's obvious this didn't
work the first time.
MIKE: They need to pad the film. It's supposed to add
suspense.
Hicks sets down his welder and pulls a small object
out of a belt pouch. A braceletlike EMERGENCY
LOCATING BEEPER.
HICKS
Here, put this on. Then
I can locate you anywhere
in the complex on this --
He indicates a tiny TRACKER hooked to his battle
harness. He shrugs, a little self-consciously.
HICKS
Just a...precaution. You
know.
MIKE: It doesn't mean we're going steady or anything.
Ripley pauses for a moment, regarding him
quizzically.
RIPLEY
(strapping
it on)
Thanks.
HUDSON
Uh, what's next?
She consults a printout of the floor plan.
MIKE: Which magically appeared in her hand.
EXT. CONTROL BLOCK 120
The wind has died utterly and in the even more eerie
stillness a diffuse mist has rolled into shroud
the complex. Visibility is low in the fog.
TOM: Wait, is it mist or fog?
MIKE: It's foggy mist.
CROW: Or is it misty fog?
Everything looks underwater.
TOM: (singing) Under the sea.
There is no movement.
INT. CORRIDOR 121
In the barricaded corridor sentry-gun "C" sits
waiting, its "ARMED" light flashing green. Through
a hole torn in the ceiling at the far end of the
corridor the fog swirls in. Water drips. An
expectant hush.
INT. MED LAB ANNEX - OPERATING ROOM 122
Ripley carries an exhausted Newt through the inner
connecting rooms of the medical wing. She reaches
an OPERATING ROOM which is small but very high-tech
...vaultlike metal walls, strange equipment.
Several metal cots have been set up, displacing O.R.
equipment which is pushed into one corner.
Newt is resting her head on Ripley's shoulder,
barely awake...out of steam.
MIKE: She needed more coal.
Ripley sets her on one of the cots and Newt lies
down.
RIPLEY
Now you just lie here and
have a nap. You're exhausted.
NEWT
I don't want to...I have
scary dreams.
TOM: Nightmare on Elm St.: 2099
This obviously strikes a chord with Ripley,
CROW: B flat minor to be specific.
but she feigns cheerfulness.
RIPLEY
I'll bet Casey doesn't have
bad dreams.
Ripley lifts the doll's head from Newt's tiny
fingers and looks inside. It is, of course, empty.
MIKE: So Casey's related to Aaron Spelling?
RIPLEY
Nothing bad in here. Maybe
you could just try to be like
her.
Ripley closes the doll's eyes and hands her back.
Newt rolls her eyes as if to say "don't pull that
five-year-old shit on me, lady. I'm six."
NEWT
Ripley...she doesn't have
bad dreams because she's just
a piece of plastic.
CROW: Then try to be like a piece of plastic you smart-ass kid!
RIPLEY
Oh. Sorry, Newt.
NEWT
My mommy always said there
were no monsters. No real
ones. But there are.
Ripley's expression becomes sober. She brushes damp
hair back from the child's pale forehead.
RIPLEY
(quietly)
Yes, there are, aren't there.
NEWT
Why do they tell little kids
that?
TOM: (Ripley) There's also no Santa Clause, I may as well
tell you that now.
Newt's voice reveals her deep sense of betrayal.
She's seen that the world can be just as terrifying
as her most primal child's nightmare if not more
so, and that's a lot worse than finding out there is
no Santa.
RIPLEY
Well, some kids can't handle
it like you can.
CROW: You mean like withdrawing into herself and becoming
feral?
NEWT
Did one of those things grow
inside her?
Ripley begins pulling blankets up an tucking them in
around her tiny body.
RIPLEY
I don't know, Newt. That's
the truth.
NEWT
Isn't that how babies come?
I mean people babies...they
grow inside you?
RIPLEY
No, it's different, honey.
MIKE: (falsetto) The stork brings them honey.
NEWT
Did you ever have a baby?
RIPLEY
Yes. A little girl.
NEWT
Where is she?
RIPLEY
(quietly)
Gone.
NEWT
You mean dead.
TOM: (Billy Crystal) Yes, and thank you for bringing up such
a painfull subject, while you're at it, give me a nice paper
cut and pour alien blood on it!
It's more statement than question. Ripley nods
slowly.
She turns, reaching for a PORTABLE SPACE HEATER
sitting nearby, and slides it closer to the bed.
She switches it on. It HUMS and emits a cozy orange
glow.
NEWT
Ripley, I was just thinking...
Maybe I could do you a favor and
fill in for her. Just for a
while. You can try it and if
you don't like it, it's okay.
I'll understand. No big deal.
Whattya think?
Ripley gazes at her a long time before answering...
a conflict between the urge to crush the child to
her in a forever hug and the knowledge that neither
of them may see another dawn.
RIPLEY
I think it's not the worst idea
I've heard all day. Let's talk
about it later.
She switches off the light and starts to rise. Newt
grabs her arm. A plaintive voice in the dark.
NEWT
Don't go! Please.
RIPLEY
I'll be right in the other
room, Newt. And look...I can
see you on that camera right
up there.
Newt looks at the VIDEO SECURITY CAMERA above the
door.
TOM: (Newt) Hi mom!
Ripley unsnaps the TRACKER BRACELET given to her by
Hicks and puts it on Newt's tiny wrist, cinching it
down.
RIPLEY
Here. Take is for luck. Now
go to sleep...and don't dream.
Ripley walks away and Newt rolls on her side,
hugging Casey and gazing at the hypnotically pulsing
function light on the bracelet. The space heater
hums comfortingly.
INT. MED LAB 123
ECU Gorman, his eyelids slitted open like those of a
corpse, but with the eyes tracking erratically. The
only sign of life.
TOM: In the entire film. Let's see some more action, it's
the like the light at the end of the tunnel.
RIPLEY
(voice over)
How is he?
Ripley stands over the Lieutenant, who is lying
motionless on an examining table. Bishop looks up
from his instruments nearby, the light of a single
gooseneck lamp giving his features a macabre cast.
BISHOP
I've isolated a neuro-muscular
toxin responsible for the
paralysis. It seems to be
metabolizing. He should wake
up soon.
RIPLEY
Now let me get this straight.
The aliens paralyzed the colonists,
carried them over there,
cocooned them to be hosts for
more of those...
Ripley points at the stasis cylinders containing the
face-hugger specimens.
RIPLEY
Which would mean lots of
those parasites, right? One
for each person...over a hundred
at least.
BISHOP
Yes. That follows.
RIPLEY
But these things come from
eggs...so where are all the
eggs coming from.
CROW: And where did all our question marks go?
BISHOP
That is the question of the
hour. We could assume a parallel
to certain insect forms who
have hivelike organization.
An ant of termite colony, for
example, is ruled by a single
female, a queen, which is the
source of new eggs.
RIPLEY
You're saying one of those things
lays all the eggs?
BISHOP
Well, the queen is always physically
larger then the others. A
termite queen's abdomen is so
bloated with eggs that it can't
move at all. It is fed and tended
by drone workers, defended by
the warriors. She is the center
of their lives, quite literally
the mother of their society.
MIKE: Next time on "National Geographic", we explore the
fascinating society of Aliens.
RIPLEY
Could it be intelligent?
BISHOP
Hard to say. It may have been
blind instinct...attraction to
the heat of whatever...but she
did choose to incubate her eggs
in the one spot where we couldn't
destroy her without destroying
ourselves. That's if she exists,
of course.
Ripley ponders the ramifications of Bishop's
analysis.
RIPLEY
(rising)
I want those specimens destroyed
as soon as you're done with them.
You understand?
Bishop glances at the creatures, pulsing
malevolently in their cylinders.
BISHOP
Mr. Burke have instructions
that they were to be kept alive
in stasis for return to the
company labs. He was very specific.
Ripley feels the fabric of her self-restraint
tearing.
CROW: (Ripley) Whoops! I'll have to sew that up.
She slaps the intercom switch.
TOM: Stupid-
MIKE No we did that twice already.
RIPLEY
Burke!
ALL: Asshole!
MIKE: Well that gag's exhausted.
INT. MED LAB ANNEX 124
In a small observation chamber separated from the
med lab by a glass partition, Ripley and Burke have
squared off.
CROW: Ding! And there's the bell!
BURKE
Those specimens are worth
millions to the bio-weapons
division. Now, if you're smart
we can both come out of this
heroes. Set up for life.
RIPLEY
You just try getting a dangerous
organism past ICC quarantine.
Section 22350 of the Commerce Code.
BURKE
You've been doing your homework.
Look, they can't impound it if
they don't know about it.
RIPLEY
But they will know about it, Burke.
From me. Just like they'll know
how you were responsible for the
deaths of one hundred and fifty-seven
colonists here --
CROW: Woah! Back up! When did this happen?!
BURKE
Now, wait a second --
RIPLEY
(stepping on him)
You sent them to that ship. I
just checked the colony log...
directive dates six-twelve-seventy-nine.
Signed Burke, Carter J.
CROW: Oh.
Ripley's fury is peaking, now that the frustration
and rage finally have a target to focus on.
RIPLEY
You sent them out there and you
didn't even warn them, Burke.
Why didn't you warn them?
CROW: (Brak) You big dumbhead!
BURKE
Look, maybe the thing didn't even
exist, right? And if I'd made it
a major security situation, the
Administration would've stepped
in. Then no exclusive rights,
nothing.
He shrugs, his manner blase, dismissive.
MIKE: Oh man she's gonna kick his ass.
BURKE
It was a bad call, that's all.
Ripley snaps.
TOM: Burke's neck.
MIKE: She begins to cluck like a chicken and hop around the room on one
foot.
She slams him against the wall, surprising herself
and him, her hands gripping his collar.
RIPLEY
Bad call? These people are fucking
dead, Burke! Well, they're going
to nail your hide to the shed...
and I'll be there when they do.
MIKE: August 29, 1997! Everyone will die!
She steps back, shaking, and looks at him with utter
loathing, as if the depths of human greed are a far
more horrific revelation than any alien.
MIKE: Obviously she doesn't know about Ferengi.
BURKE
(sadly)
I expected more of you, Ripley.
I thought you would be smarter
than this.
RIPLEY
Sorry to disappoint you.
She turns away and strides out. The door closes.
Burke stares after her, his mind a whirl of options.
INT. CORRIDOR 125
Ripley is walking toward operations when a STRIDENT
ALARM begins to sound. She breaks into a run.
INT. OPERATIONS 126
Ripley double-times it to Hicks' TACTICAL CONSOLE
where Hudson and Vasquez have already gathered.
Hicks slaps a switch, killing the alarm.
CROW: Die alarm! Die! Hahahahahaha!
HICKS
They're coming. They're in
the tunnel.
The TRILLING of the motion sensor remains, speeding
up. TWO RED LIGHTS on the tactical display light up
simultaneously with an echoing crash of gunfire
which vibrates the floor.
HICKS
Guns A and B. Tracking and firing
on multiple targets.
The RSS guns pound away, echoing through the
complex. Their separate bursts overlap in an
irregular rhythm. A counter on the display counts
down the number of rounds fired.
HUDSON
They must be wall to wall in
there. Look at those ammo counters
go.
TOM: They keep going, and going, and going.
It's a shooting gallery down there.
INT. SERVICE TUNNEL - TIGHT ON RSS GUNS 127
blasting stroboscopically in the tunnels. Their
barrels are overheating, glowing cherry red. One
CLICKS empty and sits smoking, still swiveling to
track targets it can't fire upon.
INT. OPERATIONS 128
The digital counter on B gun reads zero.
HICKS
B gun's dry. Twenty on A.
Ten. Five. That's it.
SILENCE. Then a GONGLIKE BOOMING echoes eerily up
from sublevel.
RIPLEY
They're at the fire door.
The BOOMING INCREASES in volume and ferocity.
HUDSON
Man, listen to that.
MIKE: Catchy beat.
Mixed with the echoing crash-clang is a nerve-
wrecking SCREECH of claws on steel. The intercom
buzzes, startling them.
ALL: AAAHH!
BISHOP
(voice over)
Bishop here. I'm afraid I have
some bad news.
HUDSON
Well, that's a switch.
TOM: Ha ha, Kill him.
INT. OPERATIONS - MINUTES LATER 129
Everyone, including Bishop, is crowded at the
window, intently watching the AP station which is a
dim silhouette in the mist. Suddenly a column of
flame, like an acetylene torch, jets upward from the
complex at the base of the cone.
ALL: Oooooooo! Aaahhhhhhhh!
BISHOP
That's it. See it? Emergency
venting.
RIPLEY
How long until it blows?
BISHOP
I'm projecting total systems
failure in a little under four
hours. The blast radius will be
about thirty kilometers. About
equal to ten megatons.
MIKE: Give or take a pound.
HICKS
We got problems.
HUDSON
I don't fucking believe this.
Do you believe this?
ALL: No, we don't believe this.
RIPLEY
And it's too late to shut it down?
BISHOP
I'm afraid so. The crash did too
much damage. The overload is
inevitable, at this point.
HUDSON
Oh, man. And I was gettin' short,
too!
TOM: Five two to be exact.
Four more weeks and out. Now I'm gonna
buy it on this fuckin' rock. It ain't
half fair, man!
VASQUEZ
Hudson,
ALL: Wuss!
MIKE: Okay that's done too.
give us a break.
They watch as another gas jet lights up the fog-
shrouded landscape.
RIPLEY
(to Hicks)
We need the other drop-ship. The
on one the Sulaco. We have to
bring it down on remote, somehow.
HUDSON
How? The transmitter was on the
APC. It's wasted.
RIPLEY
(pacing)
I don't care how! Think of a
way. Think of something.
MIKE: Scotty would know.
HUDSON
Think of what? We're fucked.
RIPLEY
What about the colony transmitter?
That up-link tower down at the
other end. Why can't we use that?
BISHOP
I checked. The hard wiring
between here and there was severed
in the fighting.
Ripley is wound up like a dynamo, her mind spinning
out options, grim solutions.
RIPLEY
Well then somebody's just going
to have to go out there. Take a
portable terminal and go out there
and plug in manually.
HUDSON
Oh, right! Right! With those
things running around. No way.
BISHOP
(quietly)
I'll go.
RIPLEY
What?
TOM: He said "I'll go." Pay attention already!
BISHOP
I'm really the only one qualified
to remote-pilot the ship anyway.
Believe me, I'd prefer not to. I
may be synthetic but I'm not stupid.
'BOTS: Damn Right!
MIKE: Let's hear it for the robot!
TOM: HE'S AN ANDROID!
RIPLEY
All right. Let's get on it. What'll
you need?
VASQUEZ
Listen. It's stopped.
They listen. Nothing. An instant later comes the
HIGH-PITCHED TRILLING of a motion-sensor alarm.
Hicks looks at the tactical board.
HICKS
Well, they're into the complex.
MIKE: (Hicks) Oh well.
INT. MED LAB 130
One of the acid holes from the colonists' siege has
yielded access to subfloor conduits. Bishop lying
in the opening, reaches up to graph the portable
terminal as Ripley hands it down to him. He pushes
it into the constricted shaft ahead of him. She
then hands him a small satchel containing tools and
assorted patch cables, a service pistol and a small
cutting torch.
BISHOP
This duct runs almost to the
up-link assembly. One hundred
eighty meters. Say, forty minutes
to crawl down there. One hour
to patch in and align the antenna.
Thirty minutes to prep the ship,
then about fifty minutes flight time.
Ripley looks at her watch.
RIPLEY
It's going to be closer. You
better get going.
BISHOP
(cheerfully)
See you soon.
She squirms into the shaft, pushing the equipment
along
ALL: She?
ahead of him with a scraping rhythm. The diameter
of the conduit is barely larger than the width of
his shoulders. Vasquez slides a metal plate over
the hole and begins spot welding it in place.
INT. CONDUIT 131
Bishop looks back as the welder seals him in. He
sighs fatalistically and squirms forward. Ahead of
him the conduit dwindles straight to seeming
infinity. Like being in the bore of a very long
Howitzer.
TOM: Only different.
INT. MED LAB 132
Ripley jumps as an ALARM suddenly blares through the
complex.
HICKS
(voice over)
They're in the approach corridor.
RIPLEY
(into mike)
On my way.
Ripley jumps up, unslinging a FLAMETHROWER from her
shoulder in one motion, and sprints for Operations
with Vasquez. The sound of SENTRY GUNS opening up
in staccato bursts echoes from close by.
INT. OPERATIONS 133
Ripley runs to the tactical console where Hicks is
mesmerized by the images from the surveillance
cameras.
MIKE: (Hicks) Wow.
The flashes of the sentry guns flare out the
sensitive video, but impressions of figures moving
in the smoky corridor are occasionally visible. The
robot sentries hammer away, driving streamers of
tracer fire into the swirling mist.
HICKS
Twenty meters and closing.
Fifteen. C and D guns down
about fifty percent.
The digital readout whirl through descending
numbers. An inhuman SHRILL SCREECHING is audible
between bursts of fire.
RIPLEY
Now many?
TOM: Hell, then many. Now, not as many.
HICKS
Can't tell. Lots. D gun's
down to twenty. Ten. It's out.
Then the firing from the remaining guns stop
abruptly. The video image is a swirling wall of
smoke. Small fires burn, dim glows in the mist.
There are black and twisted shapes, and pieces of
twisted shapes, scattered at the edge of visibility.
However, nothing emerges from the wall of smoke.
The motion sensor TONE shuts off.
RIPLEY
They retreated. The guns stopped
them.
The moment stretches. Everyone exhales slowly.
CROW: And breathe in, and breathe out.
HICKS
Yeah. But look...
The digital counters for the two sentry guns read
"0" and "10" respectively. Less than a second's
worth of firing.
HICKS
TOM: Stop,
Newt time
TOM: Heh.
then can walk right up and knock.
CROW: Mike did you understand any of that?
MIKE: No.
RIPLEY
But they don't know that. They're
probably looking for other ways
to get in. That'll take them awhile.
HUDSON
Maybe we got 'em demoralized.
TOM: Stupid guns.
HICKS
(to Vasquez
and Hudson)
I want you two walking the perimeter.
I know we're all in strung out
shape but stay frosty
ALL: (singing) the snowman, was a jolly happy soul...
and alert. We've got to stop any entries
before they get out of hand.
The two troopers nod and head for the corridor.
Ripley sighs and picks up a cup of cold coffee,
draining it in one gulp.
HICKS
How long since you slept?
Twenty-four hours?
Ripley shrugs. She seems soul weary, drained by the
nerve-wracking tension. When she answers, her voice
seems distant, detached.
RIPLEY
(grimly)
They'll get us.
TOM: Thank you Miss Doomsayer.
HICKS
Maybe. Maybe not.
RIPLEY
Hicks, I'm not going to wind up like
those others. You'll take care of
it won't you, it if comes to that?
HICKS
If it comes to that, I'll do us
both.
CROW: What?!
MIKE: Crow just stop.
Let's see that it doesn't Here, I'd like
to introduce you to a close personal
friend of mine.
He picks up his pulse-rifle and with the casually
precise movements of long practice he snaps open the
bolt, drops out the magazine and hands it to her.
MIKE: (Mr. Rogers) Here's my friend Mr. Pulse Rifle.
HICKS
M-41A 10mm pulse-rifle, over and
under with a 30mm pump-action
grenade launcher.
TOM: How much would you pay?
Ripley hefts the weapon. It is heavy and awkward.
But there is an irrational promise of security in
its lethal cold steel lines, to at least the sense
that she will be in some greater measure the master
of her own fate. She raises it clumsily.
RIPLEY
What do I do?
MIKE: Ever use a camera?
INT. CONDUIT 134
Bishop is in claustrophobic limbo between two
echoing infinities. The pipe rings with his
scraping advance. He approaches an irregular hole
which admits a tiny shaft of light. He puts his
eyes up to the acid-etched opening.
HIS P.O.V. as drooling jaws flash toward us,
SLAMMING against the steel with a vicious scraping
SNAP.
ALL: Aaaahh!
Bishop flattens himself away from the opening and
inches along, looking pale and strained. He glances
at his watch.
INT. OPERATIONS 135
Ripley has the stock of the M-41A snugged up to her
cheek and is awkwardly trying to keep up with Hicks'
instructions. The Corporal is standing close behind
her, positioning her arms. It's intimate but that's
the last thing on their minds.
CROW: Yeah right.
HICKS
Just pull it in real right. It
will kick some. When the counter
here heads zero, hit this...
He thumbs a button and the magazine drops out,
clattering on the floor.
TOM: You broke it!
HICKS
Just let it drop right out. Get
the other one in quick. Just
slap it in hard, it likes abuse.
CROW: (Opens his mouth)
MIKE: (smacks the back of his head)
CROW: Ow!
Now, pull the bolt.
CLACK.
CROW: Mike that hurt!
MIKE: I warned you.
HICKS
You're ready again.
Ripley repeats the action, not very smoothly. Her
hands are trembling. She indicates a stout TUBE
underneath the slender pulse-rifle barrel.
RIPLEY
What's this?
HICKS
Well, that's the grenade launcher
...you probably don't want to
mess with that.
TOM: (Ripley) What, you're afraid I'll blow something up?
RIPLEY
Look, you started this. Now show
me everything.
TOM: (suggestively) Everything?
(MIKE covers his face and shakes his head.)
I can handle myself.
HICKS
Yeah. I've noticed.
CROW: Except she's likely to drop the gun or miss, the way she's shaking.
INT. CORRIDOR 136
DOLLYING WITH Ripley walking down the corridor, now
carrying the newfound friend, the M-41A. Gorman
steps out of the door to the med lab, looking weak
but sound. Burke is right behind him.
RIPLEY
How do you feel?
TOM: (Spock) I do not understand the question.
GORMAN
All right, I guess. One hell
of a hangover. Look, Ripley...
I...
MIKE: Suck.
RIPLEY
Forget it.
She shoulders by him into the med lab. Gorman turns
to see Vasquez staring at him with cold, slitted
eyes.
GORMAN
You still want to kill me?
ALL: Yes we do!
VASQUEZ
(turning away)
It won't be necessary.
INT. MED LAB - ANNEX 137
Ripley crosses the deserted lab, passing through the
annex to the small O.R. where she left Newt.
INT. MED LAB - O.R. 138
Entering the darkened chamber, Ripley looks around.
Newt is nowhere to be seen. On a hunch she kneels
down and peers under the bed. Newt is curled up
there, jammed as far back as she can get, fast
asleep. Still clutching "Casey."
CROW: (little kid) Mommy! Mommy there's a kid under my bed!
Ripley stares at Newt's tiny face, so angelic
despite the demons that have chased her through her
dreams and the reality between dreams. Ripley lays
the rifle on top of the cot and crawls carefully
underneath. Without waking the little girl, she
slips her arms around her.
CROW: Saaay, ah it's no fun anymore, there's just too many.
Ripley becomes merely the larger of two children
huddling together in the darkness under their bed.
Newt's face contorts with the externalization of
some tormented dreamscape. She cries out, a vague
inarticulate plea. Ripley rocks her gently.
RIPLEY
There, there. Sssshh. It's all
right.
EXT. Up-LINK TOWER - VIEW OF AP STATION 139
A VIEW OF the processing station from the colony
landing platform. A rising wind is clearing out the
low fog and the silhouette of the station grows
sharper. Several systems of high pressure conduits
at the base of the conical tower are actually
glowing dull red with heat in the darkness. High
voltage discharges arc around the upper latticework,
lighting the blighted landscape with irregular
glaring flashes.
PAN ONTO BISHOP, F.G. hunched against the wind at
the base of the telemetry tower. He has a TEST-BAY
PANEL open and the portable terminal patched in.
His jacket is draped over the keyboard and monitor
unit to protect it from the elements and he is
typing frenetically.
BISHOP
(to himself)
Now, if I did it right...
CROW: I'll get free cable.
He punches a key marked "ENABLE."
INT. SULACO CARGO LOCK - IN ORBIT 140
The drop bay is empty and silent, with the remaining
ship brooding in the shadows. A KLAXON sounds and
rotating clearance lights come on. Hydraulics whine
to life. Drop-ship two moves out on its overhead
track and is lowered into the drop bay fro launch-
prep. Service booms and fueling couplers move in
automatically around the hull. A recorded
announcement echoes across the huge chamber.
FEMALE VOICE
Attention. Attention. Automatic
fueling operations have begun.
Please extinguish all smoking
materials.
TOM: And return your seat backs to their full upright
positions.
INT. OPERATING ROOM - TIGHT ON RIPLEY - MED LAB 141
as she awakens with a start. She checks her
watch...an hour has passed. She gently disengages
herself from Newt and is about to crawl out from
beneath the cot when she sees something and FREEZES.
MIKE:(nature show host) When the Paranoid Xenophobe senses
danger it freezes to avoid detection.
Across the room, just inside the door to the med
lab, are two innocuous but nonetheless chilling
objects. TWO STASIS CYLINDERS.
CROW: But she knew about those.
Their tops are hinged open, and the suspension
fields are switched off. They are both EMPTY.
Ripley feels a slow upwelling wave of terror
rise through her in that silent frozen moment...the
inescapable certainty of a lethal presence. Unable
to move or breathe, she looks around frantically,
assessing the situation.
TOM: Stasis chambers are open, bad, definitely bad.
RIPLEY
(whispers)
Newt. Newt, wake up.
CROW: It's time for school.
NEWT
Wah...? Where are...?
RIPLEY
(whispers)
Sssh. Don't move. We're in
trouble.
Newt nods, now wide awake. They listen in the
darkness for the slightest betrayal of movement.
The scrabble of multiple legs across the polished
floor, for example.
MIKE: Oh, the Facehuggers are loose.
There is only the droning HUM of the little space
heater. Ripley reaches up and, clutching the springs
of the underside of the cot, begins to inch it away
from the wall.
The SQUEAL OF METAL as the legs scrape across the
floor is jarringly loud in the stillness.
ALL: Ahhh!
When the space is wide enough she cautiously slides
herself up between the wall and the edge of the cot,
reaching for the rifle she left lying on top of the
mattress. Here yes clear the edge of the bed.
ALL: What?
CROW: I'm telling you Ratliff is trying to contact us from
the beyond.
TOM: He's not dead Crow.
MIKE: More's the pity.
The rifle is GONE.
She snaps her head around. A SCUTTLING SHAPE LEAPS
TOWARD HER from the foot of the bed! She ducks with
a startled cry. The obscene thing hits the wall
above her, legs moving lightning fast. Reflexively
she slams the bed against the wall, pinning the
creature inches above her face. Its legs and tail
writhe with incredible ferocity and it emits a
demented, piercing SQUEAL.
CROW: I think another good scene is coming up.
TOM: Don't jinx it Crow.
Ripley heaves Newt across the polished floor
MIKE: That's it, Ripley's flipped.
and in a frenzied scramble rolls from beneath the
cot. She flips it over, trapping the creature
underneath.
They back away, gasping. Ripley's eyes flash around
the shadowed room where every corner of space
between equipment holds lethal promise. The
creature scuttles from beneath the bed and
disappears under a back of cabinets in a blur.
Ripley hugs Newt close and heads toward the door,
moving as if every object in the room had a million
volts running through it. She reaches the door.
Hits the wall switch. Nothing happens. Disabled
from outside.
CROW: Okay so the stasis chambers are open, her gun is gone,
and she thinks the door will work?
She tries the lights. Nothing. She pounds on the
door. The acoustically dampened door panel thunks
dully. She moves to the observation window,
glancing frantically over her shoulder. The bare
floor behind her is like a screaming threat.
RIPLEY
(shouting)
Hey...hey!
She pounds on the window. Through the double
thickness window we can SEE that the lab is dark and
empty. Ripley whirls, hearing a loathsome
scrabbling behind her. Newt starts to whimper,
feeding off her fear. She steps in front of the
video surveillance camera and waves her arms in a
circle.
RIPLEY
Hicks! Hicks!
INT. OPERATIONS - TIGHT ON VIDEO MONITOR 142
showing Ripley waving her arms. There is no sound,
a surreal pantomime.
ALL: Mime?! Noooooo!
A hand ENTERS FRAME and switches off the monitor.
Ripley's image vanishes.
WIDER ANGLE as Burke straightens casually from
the console. Hicks is talking via headset with
Bishop and hasn't noticed Ripley's plight or
Burke's action.
HICKS
(into mike)
Roger. Check back when you've
activated the ship.
(turning)
He's at the up-link tower.
BURKE
(calmly)
Excellent.
TOM: He's Monty Burns all of a sudden.
INT. OPERATING ROOM 143
Ripley picks up a steel chair and slams it against
the observation window. It bounces back from the
high-impact material. She tries again.
REVERSE ANGLE from the med lab side, showing her
futile efforts, the chair hitting with a dull THWACK
barely audible through the double thickness pressure
port.
Ripley turns, studying the room. She fumbles
through a clutter of equipment on a counter next to
her and finds a SMALL EXAMINATION LIGHT. Snapping
it on she plays the beam over the walls. Tall
assemblies of surgical and anaethesiology equipment
loom in the dark. She hears, ot thinks she hears,
movements. The light spins across the room,
swiveling and bobbing frantically. Like an
indicator of her growing panic. Newt starts a thin,
high wailing.
CROW: Air raid!
NEWT
Mommy...mommmyyyyy...
Ripley steadies herself, realizing Newt's terror and
the child's dependence on her. She plays the beam
across the ceiling. Holds on something. Gets an
idea. She removes her lighter from a jacket pocket
and picks up some papers from the counter. Moving
cautiously she boosts Newt up onto the SURGICAL
TABLE in the center of the room and clambers up
after her.
NEWT
Mommy...I mean, Ripley...I'm
scared.
RIPLEY
I know, honey. Me too.
Ripley lights the papers and holds the flaming mass
under the temperature sensor of a fire control
system SPRINKLER HEAD. It triggers, spraying the
room from several sources with water. An ALARM
sounds throughout the complex.
INT. OPERATIONS 144
Hicks jumps at the sound of the alarm, finally
identifying its source among the lights flashing on
his board. He bolts for the door, yelling into his
headset as he moves.
HICKS
Vasquez, Hudson, meet me in
medical! We got a fire!
MIKE: Get the marshmallows!
INT. OPERATING ROOM 145
Ripley and Newt are drenched as the sprinklers
continue to drizzle in the darkness. The SIREN
hoots maniacally, masking all other sound. Ripley
scans the room with her light, her hair plastered
to her face, wiping water out of her eyes. She is
eye level with a complex surgical MULTILIGHT. She
looks into its tangle of arms and cables, inches
away. Looks away. Her eyes snap back. SOMETHING
LEAPS AT HER FACE. She SCREAMS and topples off the
table, splashing to the floor. Newt shrieks and
scrambles away as Ripley hurls the CHITTERING
creature off of her. It slams against a wall of
cabinets, clings for a moment, then leaps back as if
driven by a steel spring. Ripley scrambles
desperately, pulling equipment over on top of
herself, clawing across the floor in a frenzy of
motion. In a blurr of multijointed legs the
creature scuttles up her body.
She tears at it, but it is incredibly powerful for
its size. It moves like lightning toward her head,
avoiding her fumbling hands. Newt screams abjectly,
backing away, until she is pressed up against a
desk in one corner.
Ripley has both hands up, forcing the pulsing body
back from her face. The thing's tail whips around
her throat and begins to tighten, forcing the
underside of its body close to her. Ripley thrashes
about, knocking over equipment, sending instruments
CLATTERING. Water streams over her, into her eyes,
blinding her and making it impossible to get a grip
on the creature's body.
ANGLE ON NEWT as crablike legs appear from behind
the desk, right behind her. She sees it and,
thinking fast, jams the desk against the wall,
pinning the writhing thing. The desk jumps and
shudders against all the pressure her tiny body can
bring to bear on it.
CROW: Which shouldn't be much.
She wails between gritted teeth as the second
creature gets one leg free, then another and
another. Squeezing itself inexorably onto the desk
top...toward her.
The legs of the chittering thing claw at Ripley's
head, getting a surer grip even as she whips her
head from side to side. The obscene TUBULE extrudes
wetly from the sheath on the creature's underside,
forcing itself between the arms she has crossed
tightly over her face.
A figure appears at the observation window, a
silhouette
TOM: Of evil.
behind the misted-over glass. A hand wipes a clear
spot. Hick's eyes appear. He steps back. WHAM! A
burst of pulse-rifle fire shatters the tempered
glass. Hicks dives into the crazed spider web
pattern and explodes into the room in a shower of
fragments. He hits rolling, his armor grinding
through the shards, and slides across to Ripley. He
gets his fingers around the thrashing legs of the
vicious beast and pulls. Between the two of them
they force is away from her face, though Ripley is
losing strength as the tail tightens sickeningly
around her throat. Hudson leaps into the room,
flings Newt away from the desk to go skidding
across the wet floor,
CROW: Boy Newt's just getting abused left and right today.
and blasts the second creature against the wall.
Point-blank. Acid and smoke.
Gorman appears at Ripley's side and grabs the tail,
unwinding its writhing length like a boa constrictor
coil from her throat. All of them grip the
struggling, SHRIEKING creature.
MIKE: (Hicks) Great! Now what!
HICKS
The corner! Ready?
CROW: Look! A question mark!
HUDSON
Do it!
Hicks hurls the thing into the corner. It scrabbles
upright in an instant and leaps back toward them.
WHAM! Hudson gets it clean.
TOM: So instead of a dirty facehugger coming after them they
have a clean facehugger after them.
Ripley collapses, gagging. The alarm and sprinklers
shut off automatically. Hicks sees the stasis
cylinders.
RIPLEY
(coughing)
Burke...it was Burke.
TOM: (Hicks, condescending) No, it was a facehugger.
MIKE: Let's get out of here guys.
(CROW rushes past MIKE, knocking him over the back of the
seat.)
MIKE: Woah!
(Door sequence)
(SOL bridge. TOM and CROW are at the counter playing cards.
Their conversation is a variation on the Saturday Night Live
skit, "I hate when that happens".)
CROW: (Billy Crystal) So the other day, I'm just kicking
back, after killing some aliens, and I just took some of
that...
TOM: Alien blood?
CROW: Yeah. And I just slapped some of it on my face like
after shave.
TOM: Oh yeah, that stings.
CROW: Yeah, I hate when that happens.
TOM: What's worse than that though, is like the other night,
I took one of those...
CROW: Alien Facehuggers?
TOM: Yeah. And I just stuck it on my face. Two days later
on of those...
CROW: Alien Chestbursters?
TOM: Yeah. Any way it just pops right out of my chest just
as pretty as you please.
CROW: Ouch, I hate when that happens.
(MIKE enters, holding something that looks remarkably like
an open Alien Egg.)
MIKE: Hey guys, check this out.
TOM: Hey what you got there Mike?
MIKE: I don't know, I found it behind my seat.
(lights flash)
ALL: We've got movie sign!
(Door sequence)
INT. OPERATIONS - ANGLE ON HUDSON 146
looking decidedly stressed-out.
MIKE: So what else is new?
He grips his rifle tightly, AIMED RIGHT AT CAMERA.
ALL: Don't shoot we're just the audience!
HUDSON
(intense)
I say we grease this rat-fuck
son of a bitch right now!
TOM: Dare we hope he means James Cameron?
THE GROUP is gathered around Burke who sits in a
chair, maintaining an icy calm although beads of
sweat betray intense concealed tension. Only a few
minutes have passes and everyone is still buzzed on
adrenaline, as if the whole group is charged with
high voltage.
TOM: Zap!
CROW: (Ripley) Ow! Stop touching me Hicks!
HICKS
(pacing)
I don't get it. It doesn't
make any Goddamn sense.
TOM: They've just found out that Burke tried to kill Ripley.
CROW: Their reaction?
ALL: Dull surprise!
Ripley stands in front of Burke, every fiber of
her being accusing him with absolute outrage. Burke
tries to break Ripley's stare, which is like a
diamond drill. He can't.
RIPLEY
He wanted an alien, only he
couldn't get it back through
quarantine. But if we were impregnated
...whatever you call it...and then
frozen for the trip back at just
the right time...then nobody would
know about the embryos we were carrying.
We and Newt.
MIKE: He was gonna impregnate everyone with just two
facehuggers?
Ripley glances at the little girl, a frail figure
sitting nearby, hugging her knees and watching the
proceedings with somber eyes. She is all but lost
in an adult jacket someone has found for her, and
her still damp hair is plastered to her forehead and
cheeks.
HICKS
Wait a minute. We'd know about it.
RIPLEY
The only way it would work is if
he sabotaged certain freezers
on the trip back. Then he could
jettison the bodies and make up
any story he liked.
MIKE: (Hudson) How'd you figure all that out?
TOM: (Sherlock Holmes) Elementary my dear Hudson.
HUDSON
Fuuuck! He's dead.
(to Burke)
You're dogmeat, pal.
ALL: Yaaaay!
BURKE
This is total paranoid delusion.
It's pitiful.
CROW: He just described this movie to a tee.
RIPLEY
(wearily)
You know, Burke, I don't know
which species is worse. You don't
see them screwing each other over
for a fucking percentage.
CROW: No, they do it in private.
MIKE: This is your last warning Crow.
CROW: What?!
HICKS
(serious)
Let's waste him.
(to Burke)
No offense.
Ripley shakes her head, the rage giving way to a
sickened emptiness.
RIPLEY
Just find someplace to lock him
up until it's time to --
THE LIGHTS GO OUT. Everyone stops in the sudden
darkness,
MIKE: You idiot, you turned off the movie!
realizing instinctively it is a new escalation in
the struggle. Hicks looks at the board. Everything
is out. Doors. Video screens.
RIPLEY
They cut the power.
TOM: Those wacky aliens.
HUDSON
What do you mean, they cut the
power? How could they cut the
power, man? They're animals.
Ripley picks up her rifle and thumbs off the safety.
RIPLEY
Newt! Stay close.
(to the others)
Let's get some trackers going.
Come on, get moving. Gorman, watch
Burke.
MIKE: (Gorman) Why? What's he gonna do? A trick?
Hudson and Vasquez pick up their scanners and move
to the door. Vasquez has to slide it open manually
on its track.
INT. CORRIDOR 147
The two troopers separate and move rapidly to the
barriers at opposite ends of the control block.
DOLLYING WITH VASQUEZ as she moves forward with
feral steps in the darkness.
ON HUDSON scanning the med lab and the nearby
barrier.
RIPLEY
(voice over)
Anything?
BEEP. Hudson's tracker lights up, a faint signal.
HUDSON
There's something.
He pans it around. Back down the corridor. It beep
again, louder.
HUDSON
It's inside the complex.
VASQUEZ
(voice over)
You're just reading me.
HUDSON
No. No! It ain't you. They're
inside. Inside the perimeter.
They're in here.
RIPLEY
Hudson, stay cool. Vasquez?
ANGLE ON VASQUEZ swinging her tracker and rifle
together. She aims it behind her. BEEP.
VASQUEZ
(cool)
Hudson may be right.
TOM: First time for everything.
INT. OPERATIONS 148
Ripley and Hicks share a look..."here we go."
ALL: (singing) Into the wild blue yonder!
HICKS
(low)
It's game time.
CROW: (Hicks) I get first pick.
RIPLEY
Get back here, both of you. Fall
back to Operations.
INT. CORRIDOR 149
Hudson backtracks nervously, peering all around. He
looks stretched to the limit.
MIKE: And as we all know, if it stretches to far, it could
snap!
HUDSON
This signal's weird...must be
some interference or something.
There's movement all over the
place...
RIPLEY
(voice over)
Just get back here!
Hudson reaches the door to operations at a run, a
moment before Vasquez. They pull the door shut and
lock it.
INT. OPERATIONS 150
Hudson joins Ripley and Hicks, who are laying out
their armament. Flamethrowers. Grenades. M-41A
magazines.
CROW: (British) Banannas.
Hudson's tracker beeps. Then again. The tone
continues through the SCENE, its rhythm increasing.
(Another CROW silhouette rises into frame at the far side of
the theater. It looks towards Tom, then sinks back down.)
HUDSON
Movement! Signal's clean.
He pans the scanner. Stops. The range display
reads out, counting down.
HUDSON
Range twenty meters.
RIPLEY
(to Vasquez)
Seal the door.
Vasquez picks up a hand-welder and moves to comply.
HUDSON
Seventeen meters.
(The silhouette rises again, a little closer.)
HICKS
Let's get these things lit.
He hands one flamethrower to and begins
priming the other himself. It lights with a muffled
POP. Ripley's lights a moment later. Sparks shower
around Vasquez as she begins welding the door.
Hudson's tracker is beeping like mad now, as fast as
their hearts.
RIPLEY
They learned. They cut the power
and avoided the guns. They must
have found another way in, something
we missed.
HICKS
We didn't miss anything.
TOM: Well obviously you did.
HUDSON
Fifteen meters.
(again, a little closer. This time, TOM senses the
presence, but just as he looks, it drops out of sight.)
RIPLEY
I don't know, an acid hole in
a duct. Something under the
floors, not on the plans.
I don't know!
She picks up Vasquez' scanner and aims it the same
direction as Hudson's.
HUDSON
Twelve meters. Man, this is a big
fucking signal. Ten meters.
TOM: Mike did you see something?
MIKE: Not now Tom.
RIPLEY
They're right on us. Vasquez,
how you doing?
CROW: I'm in good health, you?
Vasquez is heedlessly showering herself with molten
metal as she welds the door shut. Working like a
demon.
HUDSON
Nine meters. Eight.
RIPLEY
Can't be. That's inside the room!
HUDSON
It's readin' right. Look!
(once again, right beside TOM. It grabs him and pulls him
down.)
TOM: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!
MIKE: Wha?
CROW: Oh my god, it's Timmy!
MIKE: Who?
CROW: I'll explain later! Come on!
(They exit the theater.)
(door sequence)
(Bridge. TOM is once again stuck to the wall.)
TOM: Waaaah!
(Crow is fighting TIMMY and winning. It is reminiscent of a
Kirk fight scene.)
CROW: You are responsible....for holding everyone....in a
state of war!
(MIKE enters carrying a monitor, he is averting his eyes)
MIKE: Point him over this way Crow!
(CROW does so, TIMMY stops moving, then explodes)
TOM: Mommy?!
MIKE: Close enough. C'mon let's go check for anymore eggs.
(Door Sequence)
(All enter theater. MIKE looks behind seats.)
CROW: All clear Mike?
MIKE: Yup, here's to no more interruptions.
Ripley fiddles with her tracker, adjusting the
tuning.
HICKS
Well you're not reading it right!
MIKE: It's a bunch of dots on a screen, how hard could it
be?
TOM: To read it?
MIKE: No, to misinterpret it.
HUDSON
Six meters. Five. What the fu --
CROW: I've just about enough of your dirty mouth young man!
He looks at Ripley. It dawns on both of them at the
same time. She feels a cold premonitory dread as
she angles her tracker upward to the ceiling, almost
overhead. The tone gets louder.
ALL: Do'h!
Hicks climbs onto a file cabinet and raises a panel
of acoustic drop-ceiling. He shines his light
inside.
HICKS' P.O.V. 151
A soul-wrenching nightmare image. Moving in the
beam of light are
MIKE: Ratliffs.
aliens. Lots of aliens. They are crawling like
bats, upside down, clinging to the pipes and beams
of the structural ceiling, not touching the flimsy
acoustic panels. They glisten hideously as they
claw their way forward in silence. They cover the
ceiling of the operations room. The inner sanctum
is utterly violated.
ON HICKS 152
blasted by fear.
TOM: And smacked silly by impatience.
Something moves...he snaps the light around. It's a
meter behind him. IT LUNGES! He drops reflexively,
the claws raking across his armor.
Hicks falls into the room just as the creatures
detach en masse from the handholds. THE CEILING
EXPLODES, raining debris. Nightmare shapes drop
into the room. Newt screams. Hudson opens fire.
Vasquez grabs Hicks, pulls him up, firing one handed
with her flamethrower. Ripley scoops up Newt and
staggers back. Gorman turns to fire and Burke bolts
for the only remaining exit, the corridor connecting
to the med lab. In the strobelike glare of the
pulse-rifles we SEE flashes of aliens, moving
forward in the smoke from the flamethrower fires.
They move like nothing human...
MIKE: Well, they are aliens.
leaping quick as insects at times or gliding with
powerful, balletic grace.
MIKE: The Aliens perform the Nutcracker Suite.
RIPLEY
Medical! Get to medical!
She dashes for the corridor.
CROW: So that it wouldn't have to.
INT. MED LAB CORRIDOR 153
DOLLYING BEHIND HER as she sprints, the walls
becoming a frenzied blur. Ahead of her Burke clears
the door to the med lab. HE SLIDES IT CLOSED.
Ripley slams into the door. Tries the latch. Hears
it LOCK from the far side.
RIPLEY
Burke! Open the door!
CROW: Pretty please with sugar on it!
NEWT
Look!
Behind her an alien is moving down the corridor like
a locomotive,
ALL: Chuga chuga, chuga chuga, whoo whoo!
a graceful skeleton shape as lethal and
inhuman as you can imagine. Strobe flashes
backlight the demented silhouette. Shaking, Ripley
raises her rifle. She squeezes the trigger.
NOTHING HAPPENS. The creature HISSES, baring its
teeth as it advances. Ripley checks the SAFETY. The
safety is off. The DIGITAL COUNTER. The magazine
is full. Newt begins to wail. Ripley's hands,
slick with sweat, are trembling so much she almost
drops the rifle. Panic screams in her brain. The
thing is almost on her, filling the corridor, when
she remembers. She snaps the bolt back, chambering
a round. Whips the stock to her shoulder. FIRES.
FLASH-CRACK! A FLASHBULB GLIMPSE OF shrieking
jaws as the silhouette is hurled back, screeching
insanely.
Ripley is slammed against the door by the recoil,
blinded by the flash and deafened by the concussion.
INT. OPERATIONS 154
Hicks looks up. Fires POINT-BLANK at a leaping
silhouette. SCREEEECH! The fire-control system has
tripped, with sprinklers spraying the room and a
mindless SIREN wailing. Total pandemonium.
CROW: Oh, chaos rains.
TOM: D'oh!
HUDSON
(hysterical)
Let's go! Let's go!
HICKS
Fuckin' A!
Hudson screams as floor panels lift under him, and
clawed arms seize him lightning fast, dragging him
down. Another skeletal shape leaps on him from
above. He disappears into the subfloor crawlway.
Hicks, Vasquez and Gorman make it to the med lab
access corridor.
MIKE: Hudson's dead?
'BOTS: Yaaay!
INT. CORRIDOR 155
Stunned, Ripley sees through dissipating smoke the
creature rising to advance again. Flinching against
blast and glare she drills it POINT-BLANK
CROW: Where'd she get a drill?
with a BLINDING BURST that carries the M-41A's
muzzle right up toward the ceiling. Newt covers her
ears against the CONCUSSION.
HICKS
(o.s.)
Hold you fire!
TOM: Yo! Wassup!
The troopers seem to materialize out of the smoke.
MIKE: Oh my god they're crossing over with Star Trek!
'BOTS: Ahhhh!
RIPLEY
(indicating door)
Locked.
HICKS
Stand back.
Hicks snaps the torch off his belt and cuts into the
lock. Inhuman shapes enter the far end of the
corridor. Vasquez hands her flamethrower to Gorman
and unslings her rifle. She starts loading 30mm
grenades into the launcher, like oversize 12-guage
shells.
GORMAN
You can't use those in here!
VASQUEZ
Right. Fire in the hole!
She pumps a round up and fires.
CROW: Damn right!
The grenade EXPLODES and the blast almost knocks
them down. Hicks kicks the door open, molten
droplets flying.
HICKS
(shouting at Vasquez)
Thanks a lot! Now I can't hear shit.
TOM: Who want's to listen to shit in the first place?
VASQUEZ
(shouting)
What?
INT. MED LAB ANNEX 156
Vasquez slides the door almost closed, then fires
three grenades rapid-fire through the gap. She
slams the door home as the grenades detonate, the
explosion sounding gonglike through the metal.
ALL: Gooooong!
Ripley sprints across the room, trying the far door.
Burke has locked it as well.
CROW: Did she think he wouldn't?
Hicks switches his hand-torch from CUT to WELD and
starts sealing the door they just passed through.
INT. MED LAB 157
Burke, hyperventilating with terror, backs across
the dark chamber. Gasping, almost paralyzed with
fear, he crosses the chamber to the door leading to
the main concourse. His fingers reach for the
latch. It moves by itself. The door opens slowly.
ON BURKE his eyes wide, transfixed by his fate. We
hear the BULLWHIP CRACK of a tail-stinger striking
as we:
ALL: Yaaay!
CUT TO:
INT. MED LAB ANNEX 158
The door dimples with a clanging impact, separating
slightly from its frame. Another crash, the squeal
of tortured steel. Newt grabs Ripley by the hand
and tugs her across the room.
NEWT
Come on! This way.
She leads Ripley to an air vent set low in the wall
and expertly unlatches the grille, swinging it open.
Newt starts inside but Ripley pulls her back.
RIPLEY
Stay behind me.
Ripley trades her rifle for Gorman's flamethrower
before he can protest and enters the air shaft,
which is a tight fit.
Newt scrambles in behind, followed by Hicks,
TOM: Cut! If it's a tight fit for Ripley, there's no way
Hicks could fit!
Gorman and Vasquez on rearguard. Glancing back
fearfully Newt pushes on Ripley's butt as they crawl
rapidly through the shaft.
CROW: (Newt) Move your ass!
TOM: D'oh!
NEWT
Come on. Crawl faster.
RIPLEY
DO you know how to get to the
landing field from here?
NEWT
Sure. Go left.
MIKE: (Short Round) The left tunnel Indy! The left tunnel!
Ripley turns into a larger MAIN DUCT where there is
enough room to crab-walk in a low crouch. She runs,
scraping her back on the ceiling. The troopers'
armor clatters in the confined space. They approach
an intersection. She fires the flamethrower around
the corner, the looks. Clear.
NEWT
Go right.
They sprint into the narrow connecting duct, the
maze becoming a blur. Ripley fires the flamethrower
periodically, as they pass side ducts covered by
louvered grilles or vertical shafts going to higher
or lower levels.
HICKS
(into headset)
Bishop, you read me? Come in, over.
There is a long pause then Bishop's VOICE, almost
unintelligible with interference, comes over the
radio.
BISHOP
(voice over;
static)
TOM: Ten four good buddy.
Yes, I read you. Not very well...
TOM: I'm almost illiterate...
EXT. UP-LINK RELAY - LANDING FIELD 159
Bishop is huddled against the base of the telemetry
mast, out of the wind which is now gusting
viciously.
BISHOP
(yelling;
over enunciating)
The ship is on its way. ETA
about sixteen minutes. I've
got my hands full flying...
the weather's come up a bit.
Bishop's fingers are blurring over the terminal keys
and he squints, watching the screen as the flight
telemetry updates rapidly.
In the b.g. the AP station has become a raging
demon, wreathed in boiling steam and electrical
discharges.
TOM: I am the Great and All Powerful Oz!
INT. AIR DUCT 160
HICKS
All right, stand by there. We're
on out way. Over.
The beam of Ripley's light wavers hypnotically in
the tunnel ahead. She blinks, seeing
something...not sure. A GLINTING OBSCENE FORM MOVING
TOWARD THEM, filling the tunnel at the absolute
limit of the light's power.
RIPLEY
Back. Go back!
They try to crawl back, jamming together. Behind
them, the way they have come, a GRATING is battered
in with a FEROCIOUS CLANG and the deadly silhouette
of a warrior flows into the duct. They are trapped.
Vasquez uses her flamethrower, bathing the tunnel in
fire. Hicks snaps out his hand-welder and cuts into
the wall of the duct. Molten metal spatters him, as
sparks fill the tunnel with lurid light. Vasquez'
flamethrower sputters.
VASQUEZ
(icy)
Losing fuel.
CROW: I get it! Icy, not much flammable liquid left Ha ha!
(MIKE and TOM look at him strangely)
CROW: I mean, it, heh heh.
Between eye-searing bursts of flame Ripley sees the
glistening apparitions closing in. Hicks' torch
feathers out. Empty. Bracing his back he kicks
hard at the cherry-hot metal.
MIKE: How hot is Cherry-hot?
It bends aside.
Beyond is a narrow SERVICE WAY, lined with pipes and
conduit. Hicks slides through the searing hole,
lifting Newt safely through as Ripley hands her out.
Ripley follows and turns to help Gorman. Vasquez'
flamethrower goes dry. She draws her SERVICE
PISTOL. Suddenly she looks up as a WARRIOR SCREECHES
DOWN FROM A VERTICAL SHAFT, right above her.
She fires with incredible rapidity...BAM! BAM!
BAM! Rolls aside. It lands on her legs and she
snaps her head to one side just as its TAIL STINGER
buries into the metal wall beside her cheek. She
fires again, emptying the pistol, kicking the
thrashing shape away.
Acid cuts through her chickenplate armor,
MIKE: Her armor's made from chickens?
searing into her thigh. She cries out, gritting her
teeth against the white-hot pain. Gorman sees
Vasquez hit, unable to move. Sees the creatures
coming the other way...and turns away from the
escape hole. He crawls back to her, grabs her
battle harness and starts dragging her towards
safety. Too late. The approaching alien warriors
have reached and passed the opening. Vasquez sees
him, barely conscious.
VASQUEZ
(hoarse whisper)
You always were an asshole, Gorman.
TOM: (Gorman) You're welcome.
She seizes his hand in a deadly drip, but we
RECOGNIZE it as the "power greeting" she shared with
Drake...something for the chosen few.
TOM: Another Kodak moment from James Cameron.
Gorman returns the grip. He hands her two grenades
and arms two himself as the creatures are upon them.
CROW: Just what I've always wanted! You shouldn't have.
INT. SERVICE WAY 161
RUSHING WITH Ripley, Newt and Hicks as a full tilt
run. The service way lights up with a POWERFUL BLAST
behind them and they stumble with the shock wave.
Newt breaks out ahead and it's all Ripley and Hicks
can do to keep up.
NEWT
This way. Come on, we're almost
there!
RIPLEY
Newt, wait!
The kid moves like lightning, diving and dodging
around obstacles. If it wasn't clear before it's
clear now that we are on her turf, and she's the
ace. Running on and on, their breathing loud and
echoing...the walls a directionless blur. Newt
never hesitates.
They reach a junction with a narrow ANGLED CHUTE
which runs upward at a steep 45 degrees.
NEWT
Here! Go up.
INT. CHUTE 162
Ripley looks up the angles shaft, seeing light at
the top...an exterior vent hood. The sound of wind
booms down from above. Like blowing across a bottle
top vastly amplified.
Ripley enters, bracing her feet on perilously narrow
side ribs in the shaft. She looks down. The chute
descends far into the depths, lost in shadow.
CROW: Why must they always look down?
She starts to climb with Next behind/below her, and
Hicks, just emerging from the side duct.
TOM: But where's Newt?
NEWT
Just up there --
Newt slips, a rusted rib collapsing under her foot.
She slides...catches herself with one hand. Ripley
reaches for her, dropping her light. The hand-light
goes skittering and bumping down the chute, around a
bend, and disappears.
Ripley strains, reaching, her hand groping for
Newt's. They miss, inches apart.
NEWT
Riiiiipppleee --
She slips. Hicks lunges, grabbing her oversized
jacket. AND SHE SLIPS OUT OF IT. With an echoing
scream Newt plummets, sliding down the chute into
darkness.
MOVING WITH HER, the walls racing by in a dizzy blur
like a bobsled ride. THe shaft pitches left. Newt
bounces, sliding halfway up the wall. The chute
forks ahead. Newt tumbles into the right shaft,
which drops at a steeper angle into the depths.
Just disappearing down the LEFT SHAFT we SEE
Ripley's light.
Ripley looks Hicks in the eye. And kicks
free...sliding down the chute after Newt.
ALL: Wheeee!
Ripley slams her feet into the side-ribs, bracing
herself in a controlled descent. Ripley reaches the
"V." Sees the glow of the light in the left fork.
She goes left.
RIPLEY
Newt!
She hears a plaintive reply, so echoey and distorted
it has no direction.
TOM: Like any teenager's life.
NEWT
(o.s.)
Mommy...where are you?
CROW: She's dead! You said so yourself!
Ripley reaches the bottom of the chute where it
intersects with a HORIZONTAL SERVICE TUNNEL. The
light is lying there, but no Newt. The echoing wail
comes again.
NEWT
(o.s.)
Moooommeeee...
Ripley starts down the tunnel, answering. Newt's
call comes again. Fainter? She can't tell. She
spins in a growing panic, starts the other way.
RIPLEY
(to her headset)
Hicks, get down here. I need
that locator.
CROW: You need to find yourself?
MIKE and TOM: Huh?
CROW: Well, Hicks doesn't know that Ripley gave the homing
device to Newt.
MIKE and TOM: Oh.
INT. SUBBASEMENT 163
Newt is in a low grottolike chamber, filled with
pipes and machines. It is flooded, almost up to
Newt's waist. She looks up, seeing light streaming
through a grating. Ripley's voice seems to come from
there.
TOM: A talking grate?
RIPLEY
(o.s.)
Newt! Star wherever you are!
ALL: Huh?
Newt climbs some pipes, straining to reach the
grating.
INT. SERVICE TUNNEL 164
Hicks joins Ripley, unsnapping the emergency-locator
from his belt. They follow the signal into a
lighted area where the power apparently was not cut.
HICKS
This way. We're close...
CROW: Warm, getting warmer...
Following the signal they come to a grating set in
the floor.
CROW: Hot! Boiling volcano, fourth of July, all time
record breaker!
NEWT
Here! I'm here. I'm here.
MIKE: Newt, you've completely missed the point of Hide and
Seek.
Ripley runs to the grating. Looking down she sees
Newt's tearstreaked face. Newt reaches up. Her
tiny fingers wriggle up through the bars of the
grate. Ripley squeezes the child's precious
fingertips.
MIKE: Of gold.
RIPLEY
Climb down, honey. We have to
cut through this grate.
Newt backs away, climbing down the pipe as Hicks
cuts into the bars with his hand-torch.
INT. SUBBASEMENT 165
Newt, standing waist deep in the water, watches
sparks shower blindingly as Hicks cuts. She bites
her lip, trembling. Cold and terrified. Silently a
glistening shape rises in one graceful motion from
the water behind her. It stands, dripping, dwarfing
her tiny form. Newt turns, sensing the
movement...She SCREAMS as the shadow engulfs her.
INT. SERVICE TUNNEL 166
Ripley panics, hearing screaming below, then
splashing. She and Hicks kick desperately at the
grating, smashing it down. Heedless of the cherry-
hot edges Ripley lunges into the hole with her
light.
RIPLEY
Newt! Newt!
The surface of the water reflects the beam placidly.
Newt is gone. Bobbing in the water, eyes staring,
is "Casey" the doll head. In sinks slowly,
distorting, vanishing in darkness.
CROW: Was that symbolism? I think that was symbolism.
Hicks pulls Ripley away from the hole. She
struggles furiously, trying to tear out of his grip.
RIPLEY
No! Noooo!
He drags her back. It takes all of his strength.
HICKS
(intense)
She's gone! Let's go!
He sees something moving toward them through a
lattice of pipes. Ripley is irrational.
Hysterical.
RIPLEY
No! No! She's alive! We
have to --
HICKS
All right! She's alive. I
believe it. But we gotta get
moving! Now!
He drags her toward an ELEVATOR not far away at the
end of the tunnel. Gets her inside, slamming her
against the back wall. Hits the button to go to
surface level. An alien warrior leaps into the
tunnel, starts toward them. The doors are closing.
Not fast enough. The creature gets one arm through,
the doors closing on it. THEY OPEN AGAIN, an
automatic safety feature.
TOM: Was that irony? I think that was irony.
THE WARRIOR HISSES, LUNGING. Hicks FIRES, POINT-
BLANK. It spins away, SCREECHING. Acid sluices
between the closing doors, across Hicks' armored
chest plate, as he shields Ripley with his body.
The lift starts upward. Hicks' fingers race with
the clasps as the stuff eats its way toward his
skin. Galvanized out of her hysteria, Ripley
claws at his armor, helping him as much as she can.
He screams as the acid contacts his chest and arm.
He shucks out of the combat armor like a madman,
dropping the smoking pieces to the floor. Acrid
fumes fill the air, searing eyes and lungs. The
elevator stops. The doors part and they stumble
out, Ripley supporting Hicks who is doubled over in
agony.
RIPLEY
Come on, you can make it.
Almost there.
EXT. LANDING FIELD 167
Drop-ship two descends toward the landing grid,
side-slipping in hurricane gusts. Bishop stands,
guiding it with the portable terminal. The ship
sets down hard. Slides sideways. Stops. Bishop
turns as Ripley and Hicks stumble out of a doorway
in the colony building behind him. He goes to them,
helping to support Hicks and they run toward the
ship, buffeted by the gale. Ripley shouts, her words
barely audible over the wind.
RIPLEY
HOW MUCH TIME?
TOM: (Bishop) What?
BISHOP
PLENTY! TWENTY-SIX MINUTES!
RIPLEY
WE'RE NOT LEAVING!
The loading ramp deploys and they run into the ship.
EXT. PROCESSING STATION 168
An infernal engine, roaring out of control. Steam
blasts and swirls, lightning zaps around the
superstructure and columns of incandescent gas
thunder hundreds of feet into the air.
TOM: Diarrhea is like a storm raging inside you.
We APPROACH, hypnotically. The drop-ship ENTERS
FRAME, moving toward the station. It pivots,
hovering in the blasting turbulence, and settles
onto a NARROW LANDING PLATFORM ten levels above the
ground, or about a third of the way up the enormous
structure.
INT. DROP-SHIP 169
Ripley finishes winding tape around a bulky object
and drops the roll. She has crudely fastened a M-
41A assault rifle together, side by side, with a
flamethrower. A massive, unwieldy package of
absolute firepower. Her movements are curt,
precise...determined. She works rapidly, snatching
magazines, grenades, belts and other gear from the
fully stocked ordnance racks of the drop-ship.
CROW: So, all of the sudden she knows what she's doing?
Bishop comes aft from the pilot's compartment to
help Hicks dress his injuries. Hicks is sprawled in
a flight seat, the contents of a FIELD MEDICAL KEY
strewn around him.
TOM: Well, that's all fine and good, but what I think they
really need is a medical kit.
He's out of the game...contorted with pain.
CROW: I can play Coach! Really I can!
MIKE: Sorry son, with those kinds of injuries I'm afraid
Little Billy's gonna have to go in for you.
BISHOP
Ripley...
RIPLEY
She's alive. They brought her
here and you know it.
BISHOP
In seventeen minutes this place
will be a cloud of vapor the
size of Nebraska.
Ripley is stuffing gear rapidly into a satchel, her
hands flying.
MIKE: On wings of love.
RIPLEY
Hicks, don't let him leave.
HICKS
(grimacing with
pain)
We ain't going anywhere.
She hefts the hybrid weapon, grabs the satchel and
spins to the door controls. The door opens. Wind
and machine-thunder blast in.
RIPLEY
See you, Hicks.
Hicks is holding a wad of gauze plastered over his
face.
HICKS
Dwayne. It's Dwayne.
Ripley grabs his hand. They share a moment, albeit
brief. Mutual respect in the valley of death.
ALL: (singing) We been spendin' most our lives living in
this satellite paradise!
RIPLEY
Ellen.
HICKS
(nods with
satisfaction)
Don't be long, Ellen.
Ripley runs down the ramp, crossing the platform to
the open doors of a LARGE FREIGHT ELEVATOR. The
doors close.
CROW: But did Ripley get on?
INT. FREIGHT ELEVATOR 170
The elevator descends. Bars of light move
rhythmically across her as Ripley stands facing the
doors, watching the landings go by. The heat grows
more intense. Pipes glowing cherry-red pass by.
Steam hisses and billows. The lift clatters in a
steady beat. Hypnotic.
MIKE: You are getting sleepy, you will agree to do a bad
sequel to this movie.
Ripley removes her jacket and dons a battle harness
directly over her T-shirt. Her hair is matted, and
she glistens with sweat. Her eyes burn with a
determination that holds the gut-panic in check.
CROW: Helloooooooooooooo Nurse!
The elevator descends. She checks her weapon.
Attaches a BANDOLIER OF GRENADES to her harness.
Primes the flamethrower. Checks the rifle's
magazine. Racks the bolt, chambering the first
round. She checks the MARKING FLARES jammed in the
thigh pockets of her jump pants.
TOM: So tell me, is that a flare in your pocket or are you just happy to
see me?
She drops an unprimed grenade, trembling,
forcing herself to be strong. We SEE she doesn't
know doodley about grenades.
ALL: Uh oh.
This is the most terrifying thing she has ever done.
She begins to hyperventilate, soaking with sweat.
Her fingers slick and slippery on the rifle. The
elevator descends.
The lift motors whine, slowing. It hits bottom with
a bump. The safety cage retracts. Slowly,
expectantly, the doors open.
TOM: (Bela Lugosi) Enter freely, and of your own will.
HER P.O.V. THROUGH the parting doors...an empty
corridor.
CROW: Know what would have been scarier than nothing?
TOM: What?
CROW: Anything!
Dark, swirling with steam, a ruddy glow VISIBLE here
and there. It seems to have been a descent
into Dantean Hell. The air itself vibrates with
heat distortion. Couplings groan. Machinery whines
and throbs. Like the beating of a vast heart the
pounding of massive pumps echoes through the
station.
INT. CORRIDOR 171
Ripley moves out of the lift, knuckles white on the
rifle. Her eyes dart, straining to penetrate the
lethal gloom. Behind her we SEE a SECOND ELEVATOR
next to hers, its lift cage somewhere on a higher
floor. Ahead the corridor is encrusted with the
alien excressence and not far down the bio-mechanoid
catacomb begins. She enters the maze, darting
glances at Hick's LOCATOR, taped to the top of her
kludge weapon.
MIKE: Her what weapon?
A VOICE echoes down the tunnels, calm and
mechanical.
VOICE
Attention. Emergency. All
personnel must evacuate
immediately. You now have
fourteen minutes to reach
minimum safe distance.
TOM: Mike why do all computers sound exactly like the one on
Star Trek?
INT. CATACOMB 172
Range and direction read out in rapid-fire alpha-
numerics on the locator display.
Ripley blinks sweat out of her eyes, moving through
the swirling steam of the alien maze. She
approaches an intersecting tunnel. Flashing
emergency lights illuminate the insane fresco of the
walls. She spins, firing the flamethrower. Nothing
there. She whirls back. Moves forward, trembling
and adrenalized.
Skeletal figures drown in the walls, frozen in
macabre tormented positions like human insects in
amber. Steam blasts, blinding her. The locator
signal strengthens an she turns, crouches through a
low passage, turns again. At each intersection she
quickly lights a FIFTEEN-MINUTE MARKING FLARE and
drops it. For the way back. She has to turn
sideways, inching through a fissure between two
walls of death...cocoon niches, human bas-relief
sealed in resin.
SUDDENLY SOMETHING SHOOTS OUT, GRABBING HER! A
hand. She recovers , then recognizes the face sealed
in the wall. Carter Burke.
BURKE
Ripley...help me. I can feel
it...inside. Oh, God...it's
moving! Oh gooood...
CROW: Oh good?!
She looks at him. No one deserves this.
CROW: Oh, I bet I can think of someone.
ALL: Ratliff!
RIPLEY
Here.
She hands him a grenade, wrapping his fingers around
the spoon,
MIKE: She gave him a spoon?
and pulls the primer. She moves on.
VOICE
You now have eleven minutes to
reach minimum safe distance.
Ripley moves ahead. The locator signals shows she
is almost there. A CONCUSSION rocks the place, like
an earthquake, jarring her almost off her feet.
Then another. The whole station seems to shudder.
A SIREN begins to wail a demented rhythm. Following
the tracker she turns a corner and stops. The RANGE
INDICATOR READS ZERO. She looks down, horrified to
see Newt's tracer bracelet lying on the floor of the
tunnel. All hope recedes, disintegrating into
mindless chaos.
INT. EGG CHAMBER 173
Newt is cocooned in a pillarlike structure at the
edge of a cluster of upright OVOID SHAPES...alien
eggs. Her eyelids flutter open and she becomes
aware of her surroundings. The egg nearest her
begins to move...opening like an obscene flower at
its top to reveal something stirring within. Newt
stares, transfixed by terror, as the jointed legs
appear over the lip of the ovoid one by one. She
SCREAMS.
INT. CATACOMBS 174
Ripley hears the scream and breaks into a run.
INT. EGG CHAMBER 175
Newt watches the face-hugger emerge and turn toward
her. Ripley runs in just as it is tensing to leap,
and FIRES, blasting it with a burst from the assault
rifle. The flash illuminates the figure of an
adult warrior, nearby. It spins, moving straight
for Ripley. Firing from the hip she drills it with
two controlled bursts which catapult it back. She
steps toward it, FIRING AGAIN. Her expression is
murderous. AND AGAIN. It spins onto its back.
She unleashes the flamethrower and it vanishes in
a fireball. Ripley runs to Newt and begins tearing
at the fresh resinous cocoon material, freeing the
child. She swings her up onto her back.
NEWT
(weakly)
I knew you'd come.
RIPLEY
Newt, I want you to hang on,
now. Hang on tight.
Groggily Newt hooks her arms and legs through the
belts of Ripley's battle harness as Ripley picks up
her weapon. More warriors are moving toward her
among the eggs. She fires the flamethrower. The
eggs are engulfed. One of the warriors lunges
forward, a living fireball. She blasts it in half
with two bursts from the M-41A. Ripley retreats,
ducking under a glistening cylindrical mass. A
PIERCING SHRIEK fill the chamber. She turns. And
there it is.
A massive silhouette in the mist, the ALIEN QUEEN
glowers over her eggs like a great, glistening black
insect-Buddha. What's bigger and meaner than the
Alien? His momma.
MIKE: Yo momma so ugly, she scared away an Alien Queen!
'BOTS: Ouch.
Her fanged head is an unimaginable horror. Her six
limbs, the four arms and two powerful legs, are
folded grotesquely over her distended abdomen. The
egg-filled abdomen swells and swells into a great
pulsing tubular sac, suspended from a lattice of
pipes and conduits by a weblike membrane as if some
vast coil of intestine were draped carelessly among
the machinery. Ripley realizes she ducked under
part of it a moment before. Inside the abdominal
sac can be SEEN the forms of countless eggs,
churning their way toward the pulsating ovipositor
where they emerge glistening, to be picked up by
DRONES. The drones are tiny scuttling albino
versions of the "warrior" aliens we have already
seen.
Ripley pumps the slide on her grenade launcher. She
fires. Pumps and fires again. Four times. The
grenades punch deep into the egg sac and EXPLODE,
ripping it open from within. Eggs are tons of
gelatinous matter
MIKE: Really?
pour across the chamber floor. The Queen goes
berserk, SCREECHING like some psychotic steam
whistle. Ripley lays about her with the
flamethrower, igniting everything in sight with an
insane fury. Eggs shrivel in the inferno, and
figures of warriors and drones vanish in frenzied
thrashing. Over all is the Queen's shrieking as she
struggles in the flames. Two warriors emerge from
the boiling smoke, closing on her. She pulls the
trigger...an empty click. DIGITAL COUNTER flashing
crimson zeroes. She drops the magazine, grabs
another from her belt, rams it home and OPENS UP.
The creatures vanish in rapid-fire flashes. Ripley
backs away, venting her terror in a sustained orgy
of fire as she blasts everything that moves in one
long eye-searing expenditure of energy. Then she
dashes into the catacombs, navigating by sheer
primal instinct.
CROW: Carnage!
TOM: Violence!
'BOTS: More!
INT. CATACOMBS 176
Ripley runs, blindly, with panting intensity verging
on hysteria. Impressions crash upon her...the maze
blurring by, sirens howling, the station rocking
with explosions, emergency lights flashing, steam
blasting, red-hot steel hissing. Reality itself is
reduced to a concussive series of strobelike
instants of relentless forward motion.
She sees one of the flares she dropped and turns.
Sees another, sprinting toward it as the foundations
of the world shake.
INT. EGG CHAMBER 177
Lashing in a frenzy, the QUEEN DETACHES FROM THE EGG
SAC, ripping away and dragging torn cartilage and
tissue behind it. SEEN DIMLY THROUGH swirling
smoke, it rises on its powerful legs and steps
forward.
INT. CATACOMBS - CORRIDOR 178-179
Ripley uses the flamethrower ahead of her, firing
bursts of pulse-rifle fire down side corridors at
indistinct shapes and shadows. The weapon is empty
when she reaches the freight elevators. A mass of
debris, falling down the shaft from a higher level,
has demolished the life cage she descended in. She
slams the control for the other cage and hears the
sound of the LIFT MOTOR'S WHINE as it begins its
slow descent from several levels up. AN ENRAGED
SCREECH ECHOES in the corridor. Ripley sees a
silhouette moving in the smoke...a glistening black
shape which FILLS THE CORRIDOR TO THE CEILING...THE
QUEEN. Her last cartridge is reading zeroes. The
flamethrower sputters uselessly when she tries that.
The grenades are gone. Ripley drops the weapon and
looks up the shaft to the descending lift...then at
the approaching FIGURE. The elevator won't be in
time. She runs to a ladder set in the wall as a
horrendous screech beats in her ears. She scrambles
up the rungs.
TOM: You're not supposed to use the elevator in an emergency
anyway.
INT. SECOND LEVEL 180
Ripley struggles up through a narrow hatch, Newt
clinging to her. She dives aside as a POWERFUL
BLACK ARM shoots up through the opening, its
razor claws slamming into the grille-floor inches
from her. Looking down through the grille she
sees the great horrifying jaws directly below her,
wet and leering. She scrambles up, running, as
the grille-floor lifts and buckles behind her
with the titanic force of the creature below.
It hurls itself with insane ferocity against the
metal, pacing her from below as she runs.
INT. STAIRWELL 181
Ripley reaches an open-grid emergency stairwell and
sprints upward. It rocks and shudders with the
station's death throes.
VOICE
TOM: (voice) Rosebud, Rosebud!
You now have two minutes
to reach minimum safe
distance.
INT. CORRIDOR - ELEVATORS 182-183
The lift reaches bottom, the doors rolling open.
The Queen turns and freezes, as if contemplating
the open lift cage.
CROW: (Chancellor from Dark Crystal) Hmmmmmm.
INT. STAIRWELL 184
Ripley stumbles, smashing her knees against the
metals stairs. As she rises she hears the LIFT
MOTORS start up. Looking down through the lattice
work of the station she sees the life cage start
ominously upward. She knows there is only one
explanation for that.
CROW: The elevator was chasing her.
She runs on, the stairwell becoming a crazy whirl
around her.
CROW: (Jerry Lewis) Wa-ho! The spinning, with the weed and the stoned!
EXT. LANDING PLATFORM 185
Ripley, with Newt still clinging to her, slams
through the door opening onto the platform.
Through wind-whipped streamers of smoke she
sees...THE SHIP IS GONE.
MIKE: All right last one, ready?
ALL: Bwahh, bwahh bwaaaahhh!
RIPLEY
BISHOP!
TOM: Cable!
MIKE: Pheonix!
CROW: Tyler!
Her shouts become inarticulate screams of hatred,
outrage at the final betrayal. She scans the sky.
Nothing.
TOM: The sky is gone! Aaahhh!
RIPLEY
(hysterical)
BISHOP!
Newt is sobbing.
CROW: (Tom Hanks) Are you crying?!
The lift rises ponderously INTO VIEW. Ripley turns,
backing away from the doors toward the railing.
There is no place to run to on the platform.
EXPLOSIONS detonate in the complex far below and
huge fireballs swell upward through the machinery.
The platform bucks wildly.
CROW: Yeeeeehah!
Nearby a cooling tower collapses with a THUNDEROUS
ROAR and the SHRIEK OF RENDING STEEL. More
EXPLOSIONS, one after another, rocketing up from
below.
MIKE: Oh, she's at a KISS concert.
Ripley stares transfixed as the lift stops. The
safety cage parts.
RIPLEY
(to Newt; low)
Close your eyes, baby.
CROW: (Newt) What, and miss the good part?
TOM: (snooty) Oh yes, if I close my eyes the bad monster
will go away.
The lift doors begin to open. A glimpse of the
apparition within.
TOM: Honey, I'm home!
ANGLE ON RIPLEY AND NEWT as the drop-ship RISES
RIGHT BEHIND THEM, its hovering jets roaring.
VOICE
You now have thirty seconds to
reach...
ALL: Shut up!
Ripley leaps for the loading boom projecting down
from the cargo bay and it raises them into the ship.
A TREMENDOUS EXPLOSION RIPS THROUGH THE COMPLEX
nearby, slamming the ship sideways. Its extended
landing legs foul in a tangle of conduit, grinding
with a hideous squeal of metal on metal.
INT./EXT. DROP-SHIP - STATION 186-187
Ripley leaps into a seat with Newt, cradling her.
Begins strapping in. Bishop wrestles with the
controls.
TOM: (announcer) And he's on the top rope..Oh, that had to
hurt!
The landing legs retract, ripping free. Ripley
slams her seat harness latches home.
RIPLEY
Punch it, Bishop!
MIKE: Bishop does, ripping a large hole in the console.
The entire lower level of the station disappears in
a fireball. The air vibrates with intense heat
waves and concussion. The drop-ship engines fire.
Ripley is slammed back in her seat. The ship vaults
out and up, Bishop standing it on its tail, pouring
on the gees. Ripley and Newt see everything shake
into a blur.
EXT. STRATOSPHERE 188
TOM: Can't get much more exterior than that.
The drop-ship lunges up and out of the cloud layer
into the clear high night. Below, the clouds light
up from beneath from horizon to horizon.
A SUN HOT DOME OF ENERGY bursts up through the cloud
layer, WHITING OUT THE FRAME. The tiny ship
CROW: (singing) was tossed. If not for the courage of the
fearless crew, the drop ship would be lost.
is slammed by the shockwave, tossed forward...and
climbs, scorched but functioning, toward the stars.
INT. DROP-SHIP 189
Ripley and Newt watch the blinding glare fade away
and they sit, wide-eyed, trembling,
TOM: Blinded.
realizing they are finally and truly safe. Newt
starts to cry quietly, and Ripley strokes her hair.
MIKE: She's safe, and she's crying?
RIPLEY
It's okay, baby. We made it. It's
over.
CROW: It is? Yes! (starts to get up)
INT. SULACO CARGO LOCK - IN ORBIT - LATER 190
CROW: Oh.
The scorched and battered ship once again sits in
its drop-bay, steam blasting from cooling vents
beside the engine. Rotating clearance lights sweep
the dark chamber hypnotically.
ALL: (hypnotized) Yes master.
INT. DROP-SHIP 191
Bishop stands behind Ripley as she kneels beside a
comatose Hicks.
BISHOP
I gave him a shot,
MIKE: To the kidney.
for the pain. We'll need to get a
stretcher to cart him up to medical.
Ripley nods and, picking up Newt, precedes Bishop
down the aisle to the loading ramp.
BISHOP
I'm sorry if I gave you a scare
but that platform was just becoming
too unstable...
INT. CARGO LOCK - DROP-SHIP 192
Bishop continues as they move down the ramp.
BISHOP
I had to circle and hope things
didn't get too rough to take you
off.
Ripley turns to him, stopping partway down the ramp.
She puts her hand on his shoulder.
RIPLEY
CROW: You're dogmeat pal.
You did okay, Bishop.
BISHOP
Well, thanks, I --
He notices a tiny innocuous drop of liquid splash
onto the ramp next to his shoe. SSSSSS. Acid.
SOMETHING BURSTS FROM HIS CHEST, spraying Ripley
with milklike android blood. It is the razor-sharp
scorpion TAIL of the alien QUEEN.
TOM: Wha?! How'd she fit inside Bishop?!
Driven right through him from behind.
TOM: Oh.
Bishop thrashes, seizing the protruding section of
tail in his hands, as is slowly lifts him off the
deck. Above them the Queen glowers from its place
of concealment among the hydraulic mechanisms inside
one landing-leg bay. It blends perfectly with the
machinery until it begins to emerge. Seizing
Bishop in two great hands it rips him apart and
flings him aside, shredded, like a doll. It
descends slowly to the deck, the rotating lights
glistening across its shiny black limbs, dripping
acid and rage. Still smoking where Ripley
half-fried it. The Queen is huge, powerful...and
very pissed off. It descends slowly, its six limbs
unfolding in inhuman
CROW: lewd gestures.
(MIKE begins smacking him on the head)
CROW: Owie! All right I give up!
geometries.
Ripley moves with nightmarish slowness herself,
staring hypnotized...terrified to break and run.
She lowers Newt to the deck, never taking her eyes
off the creature.
RIPLEY
(to Newt)
Go!
Newt runs for cover. The Alien drops to the deck,
pivoting toward the motion. Ripley waves her arms,
decoying.
RIPLEY
Here!
TOM: There! Everywhere!
CROW: Over here! I'm open!
Without warning it moves like lightning, straight at
her. Ripley spins, sprinting, as the creature leaps
for her. Its feet slam, echoing, on the deck behind
her.
MIKE: Is anyone else reminded of Jurassic Park?
TOM: (Jeff Goldblum) Must go faster, must go faster!
She clears a door. Hits the switch. It WHIRRS
closed. BOOM. The Alien hits a moment later.
CROW: (Looney Toons theme.)
INT. DARK CHAMBER 193
Ripley moves ferret-quick among dark, unrecognizable
machines.
VARIOUS ANGLES VERY TIGHT ON what she is
doing...her feet going into stirruplike mechanisms.
Velcro straps fastened over them. Fingers stabbing
buttons in a sequence. Her hand closing on a complex
grip-control. The HUM of powerful motors. The
WHINE of hydraulics.
INT. CARGO LOCK 194
The Queen turns its attention from the doors to Newt
as the little girl crawls into a system of
trenchlike service channels which cross the deck.
The channels are covered by steel grillework and
barely big enough for her to crawl through.
INT. CHANNEL 195
Newt scurries like a rabbit as the looming figure of
the Alien appears above, seen through the bars. A
section of grille is ripped away behind her. She
scrambles desperately. Another section is ripped
away right at her heels. Light pouring in. The
next will be right above her.
TOM: (Elmer Fudd) Ooo, you wascwy wittle human you!
INT. CARGO LOCK 196
The Queen spins at the sound of door motors behind
her. The parting doors REVEAL an inhuman silhouette
standing there.
Ripley steps out, WEARING TWO TONS OF HARDENED
STEEL. THE POWER LOADER. Like medieval armor with
the power of a bulldozer. She takes a step...the
massive foot CRASH-CLANGS to the deck. She takes
another, advancing.
MIKE: Oh man, this is gonna be cool.
Ripley's expression is one you hope you'll never
see...Hell hath no fury like that of a mother
protecting her child and that primal, murderous rage
surges through her now, banishing all fear.
RIPLEY
Get away from her, you bitch!
The Queen SCREECHES pure lethality and leaps.
WALLOP!
TOM: I love that word! Wallop. He he. wallop.
A roundhouse from one great hydraulic arm catches
it on its hideous skull and slams it into a wall.
It rebounds into a massive backhand. CRASH! It
goes backward into heavy loading equipment.
RIPLEY
(screaming)
Come on!
CROW: You wanna start something? You wanna piece o' me?
Come on ya little pansey!
MIKE: Crow! Calm down!
The Queen emerges as a blur of rage, lashing with
unbelievable fury. The battle is joined.
MIKE: Cat fight! Cat fight!
Claws swipe, tail lashes. Ripley parries with
radical swipes of the steel forks. They circle in a
whirling blur, demolishing everything in their path.
TOM: James Cameron watched too many Godzilla movies.
CROW: Hey! I like Godzilla!
MIKE: What?!
CROW: Well, the new series anyway.
The cavernous chamber echoes with nightmarish
sounds...WHINE, CRASH, CLANG, SCREECH.
They lock in a death embrace.
TOM: I love you!
Ripley closes the forks, crushing two of the
creature's limbs. It lashes and writhes with
incredible fury, coming within inches of her
exposed body. She lifts it off the ground. The
hind legs rip at her, slamming against the safety
cage, denting it in. The striking teeth extend
almost a meter from inside its fanged maw, shooting
between the crash-bars. She ducks and the teeth slam
into the seat cushion behind her dead in a spray of
drool. Yellow acid foams down the hydraulic arms
toward her. The creature rips at high-pressure
hoses. Purple hydraulic fluid sprays...machine
blood mixing with alien blood. They topple,
off balance. The Queen pins her. Ripley hits a
switch. The power loader's CUTTING TORCH flares on,
directly in the thing's face. They roll together,
over the lip of a RECTANGULAR PIT, A VERTICAL
LOADING AIRLOCK.
INT. LOADING LOCK 197
They crash together four meters below, twisted in
the loader's wreckage. The Alien shrieks, pinned.
Ripley pulls her arm out of the controls of the
loader and claws toward a panel of airlock actuating
buttons. She slaps the red "INNER DOOR OVERRIDE" and
latches the "HOLD" locking-key down. A KLAXON
begins to sound. She hits "OUTER DOOR OPEN" and
there is a hurricane shriek of air as the doors on
which they are lying separate, REVEALING the
infinite pit of stars, below.
TOM: (Freud) Zo, how long have you been zuizidal hm?
All this time the Alien has been lashing at her in a
frenzy and she has been parrying desperately in the
confined space. The airlock becomes a wind tunnel,
blasting and buffetting her as she struggles to
unstrap from the loader. The air of the vast ship
howls past her into space as she claws her way up a
service ladder.
INT. CARGO BAY 198
Newt screams as the hurricane airstream sucks her
across the floor toward the airlock. Bishop, torn
virtually in two, his pastalike internal organs
whipped by the wind,
ALL: Eww!
grips a stanchion and reaches desperately for Newt
as she slides past him. He catches her arm and
hangs on as she dangles, doll-like, in the airblast.
INT. LOADING LOCK 199
The Alien seizes Ripley's ankle. She locks her arms
around a ladder rung, feels them almost torn out of
their shoulder sockets.
The door opens farther, all of space yawning below.
The loader tumbles clear, falling away. It drags
the Alien, still clutching one of Ripley's lucky hi-
tops, into the depths of space. Its SHRIEK fades,
it gone.
TOM: Y'know Mike, that answers a question I've been
wondering about for a long time.
MIKE: What's that Tom?
TOM: Well y'know, why do you always see a lone shoe orbiting
a planet?
With all her strength Ripley fights the blasting
air, crawling over the lip of the inner doorway.
She releases the OVERRIDE from a second panel. The
inner doors close. The turbulent air eddies and
settles.
She lies on her back, drained of all strength.
Gasping for breath. Weakly she turns her head,
seeing Bishop still holding Newt by the arm.
Encrusted with his own vanilla milkshake blood.
Bishop gives her a small, grim smile.
BISHOP
Not bad for a human.
CROW: Bite me.
He winks.
Ripley crosses to Newt.
NEWT
(weakly)
Mommy...Mommy?
TOM: Auntie Em? Auntie Em?
RIPLEY
Right here, baby. Right here.
Ripley hugs her desperately.
INT. CORRIDOR 200
Ripley limps along the corridor, carrying Newt on
her hip. The ship's systems hum comfortingly.
Newt's head rests on her shoulder.
NEWT
Are we going to sleep now?
CROW: (Yoda) Yes, forever sleep.
RIPLEY
That's right.
NEWT
Can we dream?
RIPLEY
Yes, honey. I think we both can.
MIKE: Just don't think of Vampires.
HOLD ON THEM AS they recede down the long straight
corridor.
FADE OUT
THE END
ALL: Yaay!
CROW: Let's get out of here guys.
(All leave)
(Door sequence)
MIKE: Well, we made it through another one guys. What'd you
think? Let's all try and think off a good thing and a bad
thing.
CROW: Oo! Oo! Me first! Okay, good thing, uh, all the
characters that we hated died!
TOM: Not true Crow, bad thing, Newt. Good thing, Sigourny
Weaver in a sweaty T-shirt. Hubba hubba.
CROW: All right, bad thing, Ripley escapes from the Alien
Queen by slipping out of her Reebok Hightop!
MIKE: All right, good thing, the action. Bad thing, knowing
what terrible things are in store for those guys.
CROW: Yeah I know what you mean Mike. Like Newt's
counseling bills are gonna be hell.
TOM: Yeah, and Hicks and Ripley will have a short tawdry
affair that will end in heartbreak and despair.
CROW: And forget Bishop's future career, there's no work
for paraplegic robots on starships nowadays.
TOM: HE'S AND ANDROID!! (TOM attacks CROW)
(light start's blinking)
MIKE: Hey, we're getting a message on the Hex screen.
(Hex screen opens up, revealing a very fake looking Alien
Queen)
QUEEN: Hi boys, could you direct me to Earth?
MIKE: Uh, no, no we don't know where it is.
QUEEN: Oh, what, you think I'm gonna kill everybody? Let me
tell you something Young man, not all Aliens are alike you
know. Just because one Queen orders the destruction of a
planet doesn't mean that we're all like that!
MIKE: Woah, hey sorry. I didn't know you were like that.
We just saw that movie-
QUEEN: Oh, that movie! That's why I'm going to Earth, I'm
gonna give that James a piece of my mind!
(Hex begins to close)
MIKE: Well hey! Good luck!
(screen closes)
MIKE: Well I guess we learned an important lesson here
today.
CROW: We sure did Mike.
TOM: Yup!
(MIKE waits a moment.)
MIKE: Can anyone tell me what that lesson is?
CROW: Nope!
TOM: Uh uh.
(MIKE sighs)
MIKE: What do you think sirs?
Deep Thirteen
(The room is dominated by a giant TIMMY. FRANK and
FORRESTER are webbed to the wall, lounging as if they were
sunbathing. Nothing happens for a while, then a smaller
TIMMY pushes the button.)
Mystery Science Theater is a trademark of Best Brains
Inc. Aliens is owned by Twentieth Century Fox. I mean no
disrespect to anyone in the film. Once again, I liked the
movie.
"And fifteen cc's of...Jesus!"
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