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Ñöåíàðèé ôèëüìà ×óæèå/ Aliens íà àíãëèéñêîì ÿçûêå áåñïëàòíî (÷àñòü 2)

Çäåñü âû ìîæåòå íàéòè ïðîäîëæåíèå ñöåíàðèÿ ê ôèëüìó: ×óæèå/ Aliens.

×óæèå/ Aliens

INT. OPERATIONS 74

The ground teams are gathered around a terminal in the computer center. Hudson has the CPU main computer on-line and reading out.

TIGHT ON MONITOR SCREEN as an abstract of the main colony ground plan drifts across the screen. Searching.

Hudson bashes at the keyboard, his fingers dancing expertly.

BURKE (to Gorman) What's he scanning for?

GORMAN PDT'S. Personal-Data Transmitters. Every adult colonist had one surgically implanted.

HUDSON If they're within twenty klicks we'll read it out here, but so far...zip.

INT. OFFICE 75

Ripley is washing Newt's tiny hands with a cloth, pink skin emerging from black grime.

RIPLEY I don't know how you managed to stay alive but you're one brave kid, Rebecca.

Newt's voice is almost inaudible.

NEWT N-newt.

Ripley leans closer. Feels like she's breathing on coals. The sound was incomprehensible.

RIPLEY What did you say?

NEWT Newt. My n-name's Newt. Nobody calls me Rebecca except my dork brother.

Ripley grins inanely, not wanting to move or speak... or break the spell.

RIPLEY Well, Newt it is then. My name's Ripley...and people call me Ripley.

Ripley picks up her tiny limp hand, shaking it formally.

RIPLEY Pleased to meet you. And who is this? Does she have a name?

Newt glances at the disembodied doll, still clutched in one filthy hand.

NEWT Casey. She's my only friend.

RIPLEY What about me?

Newt's reply is flat, neutral.

NEWT I don't want you for a friend.

RIPLEY Why not?

NEWT Because you'll be gone soon, like the others. Like everybody. You'll be dead and you'll leave me alone.

Ripley gazes at her, chilled both by the ominous statement and by the situation which could have produced this outlook in a child.

RIPLEY Oh, Newt. You mom and dad went away like that, didn't they? Newt nods, staring at her knees.

RIPLEY (soothingly) They'd be here if they could, honey. I know they would.

NEWT (with cold certainty) They're dead.

RIPLEY Newt. Look at me...Newt. I won't leave you. I promise.

NEWT You promise?

RIPLEY Cross my heart.

NEWT And hope to die?

Ripley smiles grimly at the inadvertently macabre expression.

RIPLEY (quietly) And hope to die.

And because she's a child, the darkest terrors, even the ones seen and not imagined, can still be banished by a smile and a single promise.

Newt's eyes brim as she gazes at Ripley. Her lower lip starts to tremble, and her face slowly deforms into an abject mask. She sobs as she clamps her arms around Ripley's neck. The sobs come in waves as Ripley rocks her, tears of suppresses terror and grief and hurt rolling down her face. It is a breakthrough.

Ripley closes her eyes, hoping that this promise can be kept.

INT. OPERATIONS 76

Everyone jumps as Hudson cries out triumphantly.

HUDSON Hah! Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen! Found 'em.

GORMAN Alive?

HUDSON Unknown. But, it looks like all of them. Over at the processing station...sublevel 'C' under the south tower.

TIGHT ON SCREEN showing an amoebalike cluster of flashing blue dots clumped tightly in one area.

HICKS Looks like a Goddamn town meeting.

GORMAN Let's saddle up.

APONE Awright, let's go girls, they ain't payin' us by the hour.

EXT. ACHERON - TWILIGHT 77

The APC roars across the stygian landscape, traversing the causeway which connects the colony to the ATMOSPHERE STATION a kilometer away. Behind it the drop-ship settles to the ground at the colony landing field.

PAN WITH THE APC TO REVEAL the massive structure. Like a vast foundry the conical exhaust tower flickers with spectral light.

INT. APC 78

The troopers sit, more subdued now, swaying and bouncing in the heavily sprung vehicle. Wierzbowski is in the saddle. Ripley and Newt sit side by side just aft of the driver's cockpit.

NEWT I was the best at the game. I knew the whole maze.

RIPLEY The 'maze'? You mean the air ducts?

NEWT Yeah, you know. In the walls, under the floor. I was the ace. I could hide better than anybody.

RIPLEY You're really something, ace.

Ripley's gaze shifts out the windshield as the processing station looms ahead.

EXT. APC/STATION 79

The vast structure towers above the parked personnel carrier. Deploying in front of the APC, backlit by its lights, the troopers cast long shadows. They look ominous. Hulking techno-samurai.

The base of the station is a depthless maze of conduits and pressure vessels, like an oil refinery. Or a Dantean version of one. The THRUM of functioning machine systems echoes through the labyrinth.

GORMAN (voice over; static) Forty meters in. Ramp on axial two-two. Access to sublevels.

The troopers start down the open rampway. Light filters down through several levels of steel mesh floor, catwalks and pipes. Below that is darkness.

GORMAN (voice over; static) B-Level. Next one down.

The thrumming of machines grows louder as they descend.

INT. APC 80

Huddles around the screens are Ripley, Burke and Gorman. Newt squeezes in from behind. Gorman is doing his video wizard bit, dancing on the buttons.

GORMAN (to team) We're not making that out too well. What is it?

HUDSON (voice over; static) You tell me. I only work here.

INT. COMPLEX 81

The group stands before a bizarre tableau. Among the refinerylike lattice of pipes and conduits something new and not of human design had been added.

It is a structure of some sort, extending from and crudely imitating the complex of plumbing, but made of some strange encrusted substance. It vaguely resembles the chambered nests of swallows on a much larger scale, and it attenuates so gradually into the original hardware that it is hard to see where one ends and the other begins.

The alien structure seems to extend far back into the complex of machinery. The plant thrums loudly, its functioning seemingly not impaired.

INT. APC 82

Ripley stares at the scene in dread fascination.

GORMAN What is it?

RIPLEY I don't know.

GORMAN (to team) Proceed inside.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 83

They enter the organic labyrinth, playing their lights over the walls. Revealing a BIO-MECHANICAL LATTICE, like the marrow of some vast bone. The air is thick with STEAM. Trickling water. The place seems almost alive.

INT. APC 84

They watch in various helmet-camera P.O.V.'s of the wall detail.

RIPLEY (low) Oh God... CLOSE ON VIDEO as it PAN SLOWLY...REVEALING a bas-relief of detritus from the colony: furniture, wiring, human bones, skulls...Fused together with a translucent, epoxylike substance.

DIETRICH (voice over; static) Looks like some sort of secreted resin.

GORMAN They ripped apart the colony for building materials.

RIPLEY And the colonists...When they were done with them. (turning) Newt, you better go sit up front. Go on.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 85

Steam swirls around them as the troopers move deeper inside.

FROST Hotter'n hell in here.

HUDSON Yeah...but it's a dry heat.

INT. APC 86

Ripley leans forward suddenly, studying the graphic readout of the STATION GROUND PLAN.

RIPLEY They're right under the primary heat exchangers.

BURKE Yeah? Maybe the organisms like the heat, that's why they built...

RIPLEY That's not what I mean. Gorman, if your men have to use their weapons in there, they'll rupture the cooling system.

BURKE (realizing) She's right.

GORMAN So.

RIPLEY So...then the fusion containment shuts down.

GORMAN (impatient) So? So?

BURKE We're talking thermonuclear explosion.

GORMAN Shit. (into mike) Apone, collect magazines from everybody. We can't have any firing in there.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 87

The troopers look at each other in dismay.

WIERZBOWSKI Is he fucking crazy?

HUDSON What're we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?

GORMAN (voice over; static) Flame-units only. I want rifles slung.

APONE Let's go. Pull 'em out.

He walks among the troopers, collecting the magazines from each one's weapon.

Vasquez turns hers over reluctantly.

The three who are carrying them get out small incinerator units. When Apone moves on, Vasquez slips a spare magazine from concealment and inserts it in her weapon. Drake does the same. Hicks hangs back in the shadows. He opens a cylindrical sheath attached to his battle-harness. Slides out an old style PUMP TWELVE-GAUGE with a sawed-off butt stock. Chambers a round.

HICKS (low, to Hudson) I always keep this handy. For close encounter.

APONE (o.s.) Let's move. Hicks, back us up.

INT. LARGER CHAMBER 88

The air is thick. Lights flare.

GORMAN (voice over; very faint) Any movement?

Hudson watches his tracker, scanning.

HUDSON Nothing. Zip.

Apone stops, his expression changing. They face a wall of living horror. The colonists have been brought here and entombed alive...

COCOONS protrude from the niches and interstices of the structure. The cocoon material is the same translucent epoxy. The bodies are frozen in carelessly twisted positions. Macabre image of frozen agony. Many are disiccated. Skeletal. Rip-cages burst outward, as if exploded from within. Paralyzed, brought here, entombed in living death as hosts for the embryos growing within then.

Dietrich moves close to examine one of the figures, perhaps the most "recent." A WOMAN, ghost-white and drained. The WOMAN'S EYES SNAP OPEN...They seem to plead.

DIETRICH Sir!

The woman's lips move feebly.

WOMAN Please...God...kill me.

INT. APC 89

Ripley watches the woman, white knuckled. The sound of RETCHING comes over the general frequency.

INT. COCOON CHAMBER 90

The woman begins to convulse. She SCREAMS, a sawing shriek of mindless agony.

APONE Flame thrower! Move!

Frost hands it to him. Suddenly, the woman's chest EXPLODES in a gout of blood. A SMALL FANGED HEAD EMERGES, HISSING VICIOUSLY.

Apone pulls the trigger. Then the other troopers carrying flame throwers open fire. An orgy of purging fire. The cocoons vanish in the shimmering heat.

A SHRILL SCREECHING begins, like a siren made from fingernails on blackboards.

ANGLE ON WALL as something begins to emerge. Dimly glimpsed, a glistening bio-mechanoid creature larger then a man. Lying dormant, it had blended perfectly with the convoluted surface of fused bone. The troopers don't see it. Smoke from the burning cocoons quickly fills the confined space. Visibility drops to zero.

HUDSON Movement!

APONE Position?

HUDSON Can't lock up...

APONE (with an edge) Talk to me, Hudson.

HUDSON Uh, seems to be in front and behind.

INT. APC 91

Gorman is plating with the gain controls on the monitors.

GORMAN We can't see anything back here, Apone. What's going on?

Ripley senses it coming, like a wave at night. Dark, terrifying and inevitable.

RIPLEY (low) Pull you team out, Gorman.

INT. COCOON CHAMBER - TIGHT ON SEVERAL WALLS AND 92 CEILING NICHES

as they come alive. Bonelike, tubelike shapes shift, becoming emerging ALIENS. Dimly glimpsed...glints of slime. Silhouettes.

APONE Go to infrared. Looks sharp people!

The squad members snap down their image-intersifier visors.

HUDSON Multiple signals. All round. Closing.

Dietrich turns to retreat, her flamethrower held tightly. A nightmarish silhouette materializes out of the smoke behind her! It strikes like lightning. SEIZES HER. She fires reflexively, wild. The jet of flame engulfs Frost nearby.

Apone spins as the double SCREAM. Can't see anything in the think smoke.

INT. APC 93

Ripley watches Frost's monitor go black. His bio-readouts flatten. The other screens show glimpses of shimmering infrared silhouettes of the aliens, the images bobbing and panning confusedly.

INT. COCOON CHAMBER 94

Vasquez nods to Drake with grim satisfaction.

VASQUEZ Let's rock.

They OPEN UP simultaneously, lighting up the smoke like welders' arcs.

GORMAN (voice over; static) Who's firing? I ordered a hold fire, dammit!

Vasquez rips off her headset. She is riveted to the targetting screen, moving ferret-quick in a pivoting dance. Thunder and lightning. Better than sex for her. FLASH-CRACK! An alien SCREECH from the darkness.

INT. APC 95

The battle of phantoms unfolds on the video screens. Ripley flinches as another scream comes over the open frequency. Wierzbowski's monitor breaks up. His life signs plummet. Voices blend and overlap.

HUDSON (voice over) Let's get the fuck out of here!

HICKS (voice over) Not that tunnel, the other one!

CROWE (voice over) You sure? Watch it...behind you. Fucking move, will you!

Gorman is ashen. Confused. Gulping for air like a grouper. How could the situation have unravelled so fast?

RIPLEY (to Gorman) GET THEM OUT OF THERE! DO IT NOW!

GORMAN Shut up. Just shut up!

CRASH! Crowe's telemetry cuts off like the plug was pulled. Flat line.

GORMAN Uh,...Apone, I want you to lay down a suppressing fire with the incinerators and fall back by squads to the APC, over.

APONE (voice over; heavy static) Say again? All after incinerators?

Ripley watches it fall apart.

GORMAN I said...

INT. COCOON CHAMBER 96

Apone adjusts his headset.

GORMAN (voice over; static) ...lay down (garbled) ...by squads to...(garbled)

Gorman's voice breaks up completely. A SCREAM. Apone whirls, uncertain.

APONE Dietrich? Crowe? Sound off! Wierzbowski?

Nothing. He spins. Almost blows Hudson's head off.

HUDSON (freaked) We're getting juked! We're gonna die in here!

Apone hands him a magazine. Hudson slaps it home, looking truly terrified.

APONE Yeah. Right. Right! Fuck the heat exchanger!

He FIRES. Vasquez, nearby, is laying down a horrendous field of fire. Strobe-bright flashes sear the darkness. She pivots, firing mechanically in controlled bursts. Scoring points in her own private video game.

She SPINS as Hicks approached laterally. WHAM! She fires "at" him. Hicks whirls...to see a nightmarish figure right behind him, catapulted backwards by Vasquez' blast.

INT. APC 97

Apone's monitor SPINS CRAZILY AND GOES DARK.

GORMAN (distantly) I told them to fall back...

RIPLEY (viciously) They're but off! Do something!

But he's gone. Total brain-lock.

TIGHT ON RIPLEY as she struggles with a decision. She's terrified...of what she knows she's about to do. But more than that, she's furious. Shouldering past a paralyzed Gorman she runs up the aisle of the APC.

RIPLEY (in passing) Newt, put your seatbelt on!

Ripley jumps into the driver's seat of the APC. Takes a deep breath. Starts slapping switches.

GORMAN Ripley, what the hell...?

She slams the tractor into gear.

EXT. APC 98

as the drive-wheels spin on the wet ground. The massive machine leaps forward.

INT. APC 99

Ripley sees smoke pouring out of the complex ahead as she slides sideways onto the descending rampway. She slams the left and right drive-wheel actuators viciously, spinning the machine in a roaring pivot. Gorman lunges forward along the aisle, abandoning his command center.

GORMAN (shrill) What are you doing? Turn around! That's an order!

He claws at her, hysterical. Burke pulls him off.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE 100

The APC roars down into the smoky structure, tearing away outcroppings of alien-encrustation. Ripley hits the floodlights. Strobe-beacon. Siren. She homes on the flash of weapons fire ahead.

INT. COCOON CHAMBER 101

The APC crashes inside, showering debris. Hicks, supporting a limping Hudson, appears out of the smoke. The APC pulls up broadside and Burke gets the crew-door open.

Drake and Vasquez back out of the dense mist, firing as they fall back.

Drake goes empty, slams the buckles cutting loose his smart-gun harness, and unslings a flame thrower.

Hicks pushes Hudson inside, leaps in after him and drags Vasquez inside, massive gear and all. She sees a DARK SHAPE lunge toward Drake. She fires one burst, prone. Clean body hit.

The flash lights up the hideous inhuman grin, blowing open the thing's thorax. A spray of BRIGHT YELLOW ACID slashes across Drake's face and chest, eating into him like a hot knife through butter. He drops in boiling smoke, reflexively triggering his flame thrower.

The jet of liquid fire arcs around as he falls, engulfing the back half of the APC.

INT. APC 102

Vasquez rolls aside as a gout of napalm shoots through the crew-door, setting the interior on fire. Hicks is rolling the door closed when Vasquez lunges, clawing out the opening. He stops her, dragging her inside.

VASQUEZ Drake! He's down!

Hicks screams right in her face.

HICKS He's gone! Forget it, he's gone!

VASQUEZ (irrational) No.. No, he's not. He's --

Burke and Hudson help him drag her from the door.

HICKS (to Ripley) Let's go!

Ripley jams reverse. Nails the throttle. The APC bellows backward up the ramp. Hudson disappears under a pile of equipment as a storage rack breaks free. Hicks gets the door almost closed. Suddenly CLAWS appear at the edge. Newt screams. Against the combined efforts of Hicks, Burke and Vasquez the door is being SLOWLY WRENCHED OPEN FROM OUTSIDE. Hicks yells at a paralyzed Gorman.

HICKS Get on the Goddamn door!

Gorman backs away, eyes wide. Hicks jams his shoulder against the latching lever and frees one hand to raise his 12-gauge. An alien head wedges through the opening, its hideous mouth opening. And Hicks jams his SHOTGUN MUZZLE between its jaws and pulls the trigger! BLAM! The creature is flung backward, its shattered head fountaining acid blood. The spray eats into the door, the deck, hits Hudson on the arm. He shrieks. They slide the door home and dog it tight.

EXT. APC 103

The armored vehicle roars backward up the ramp. Slams into a mass of conduit. Tears free. Ripley works the shifters, pivoting the massive machine. Everybody's shouting, trying to put out the fire. Pandemonium.

INT./EXT. APC 104- 105

Something lands on the roof with a metallic clang.

Gorman has plastered himself against a wall, as far from the door as possible. A latch lever behind his head turns. The small hatch against which he was leaning is ripped away and SOMETHING snatches him out the opening He disappears to the waist with a shriek, legs kicking. The alien clings to the roof, pulling him out. Its tail whips over, scorpionlike, and buries a four inch stinger in Gorman's shoulder. Hicks grabs a joy stick at the FIRE-CONTROL CONSOLE and turns it rapidly. On the roof the alien looks up as servo-motors whir. A remote control turret cannon, a 20mm chain-gun, swivels toward it in a curt arc. VOOM. The creature is blasted off the vehicle's armored back and tumbles away. Gorman, slumped unconscious, is dragged back inside.

The APC rips away a section of catwalk and heads for clear air, its flank trailing fire like a comet. Ripley fights the controls as the big machine slews, broadsiding a control-room out-building. Office furniture and splintered wall sections are strewn in the APC's wake.

Suddenly, an alien arm arcs down, right in front of Ripley's face. It smashes the windshield. Glistening, hideous jaws lunge inside...

Ripley recoils. Face to face once again with the same mind-numbing horror. She reacts instinctively. Slams both sets of brakes with all her strength. The huge wheels lock. The creature flips off, landing in the headlights. Ripley hits full throttle. The APC roars forward, smashing over the abomination. Its skeletal body is crushed under the massive wheels. It rolls, tumbling...lost in the darkness behind as the machine thunders onto the causeway and away from the station.

A sound like bolts dropped in a meat grinder is coming from the APC's rear end. Hicks eases Ripley's hand back on the throttle lever. Her grip is white knuckled.

HICKS It's okay...we're clear. We're clear. Ease up.

The grinding clatter becomes deafening even as she slows the machine.

HICKS Sounds like a blown transaxle. You're just grinding metal.

EXT. APC 106

The tractor limps to a halt. A HALF-KILOMETER from the atmosphere processing station. The APC is a smoking, acid-scarred mess.

INT. APC 107

Ripley, still running on the adrenalin dynamo, spins out of her seat into the aisle.

RIPLEY Newt? Where's Newt?

Feeling a tug at her pants leg she looks down. Newt is wedged into a tiny space between the driver's seat and a bulkhead. She is trembling, and looks terrified, but it's not the basket case catatonia of before.

RIPLEY You okay?

Newt gives her a THUMBS-UP, wan but stoic. Ripley goes back to the others. Hudson is holding his arm and staring in stunned dismay at nothing, playing it all back in his mind.

HUDSON Jesus...Jesus...I don't believe it.

Burke tries to have a look at Hudson's arm.

HUDSON (jerking away) I'm all right, leave it!

Ripley joins Hicks who is bent over Gorman, checking for a pulse.

HICKS He's alive. I think he's paralyzed.

VASQUEZ He's fucking dead!

She grabs Gorman by the collar, hauling him up roughly, ready to pulp him with her other fist.

VASQUEZ (to Gorman) Wake up pendejo! I'm gonna kill you, you useless fuck!

Hicks pushes her back. Right in her face.

HICKS Hold it. Hold it. Back off, right now.

Vasquez releases Gorman. His head smacks the deck. Ripley opens Gorman's tunic, revealing a bloodless purple puncture wound.

RIPLEY Looks like it stung him.

HUDSON Hey...hey! Look, Crowe and Dietrich aren't dead, man.

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.

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. 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?

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.

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. We had an agreement.

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.

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!?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

RIPLEY Run!

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!

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.

NEWT We should get back, 'cause it'll be dark soon. They come mostly at night. Mostly.

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?

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...

RIPLEY She survived longer than that with no weapons and no training.

Ripley indicates Newt, who salutes Hudson smartly.

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.

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.

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.

Hicks contemplates her game plan and raises his hand, satisfied.

HICKS Outstanding. Then all we need's a deck of cards. All right, let's move like we got a purpose.

HUDSON Aye-firmative.

NEWT (imitating Hudson) Aye-firmative!

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!

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.

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. 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.

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.

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. Everything looks underwater. 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. 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.

This obviously strikes a chord with Ripley, 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

NEWT Did you ever have a baby?

RIPLEY Yes. A little girl.

NEWT Where is she?

RIPLEY (quietly) Gone.

NEWT You mean dead.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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. She slaps the intercom switch.

RIPLEY Burke!

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.

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 --

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.

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?

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.

BURKE It was a bad call, that's all.

Ripley snaps. 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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

Mixed with the echoing crash-clang is a nerve-wrecking SCREECH of claws on steel. The intercom buzzes, startling them.

BISHOP (voice over) Bishop here. I'm afraid I have some bad news.

HUDSON Well, that's a switch.

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.

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.

HICKS We got problems.

HUDSON I don't fucking believe this. Do you 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! Four more weeks and out. Now I'm gonna buy it on this fuckin' rock. It ain't half fair, man!

VASQUEZ Hudson, 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.

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?

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.

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.

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 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.

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. 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?

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.

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 Newt time then can walk right up and knock.

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.

HICKS (to Vasquez and Hudson) I want you two walking the perimeter. I know we're all in strung out shape but stay frosty 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.

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. 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.

HICKS M-41A 10mm pulse-rifle, over and under with a 30mm pump-action grenade launcher.

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?

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.

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.

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.

HICKS Just let it drop right out. Get the other one in quick. Just slap it in hard, it likes abuse. Now, pull the bolt.

CLACK.

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.

RIPLEY Look, you started this. Now show me everything. I can handle myself.

HICKS Yeah. I've noticed.

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?

GORMAN All right, I guess. One hell of a hangover. Look, Ripley... I...

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?

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."

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.

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...

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.

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.

Across the room, just inside the door to the med lab, are two innocuous but nonetheless chilling objects. TWO STASIS CYLINDERS. 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.

RIPLEY (whispers) Newt. Newt, wake up.

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.

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.

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. 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.

Ripley heaves Newt across the polished floor 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. 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.

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.

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.

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!

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. 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 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, 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.

HICKS The corner! Ready?

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.

Ripley collapses, gagging. The alarm and sprinklers shut off automatically. Hicks sees the stasis cylinders.

RIPLEY (coughing) Burke...it was Burke.

INT. OPERATIONS - ANGLE ON HUDSON 146

looking decidedly stressed-out. He grips his rifle tightly, AIMED RIGHT AT CAMERA.

HUDSON (intense) I say we grease this rat-fuck son of a bitch right now!

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.

HICKS (pacing) I don't get it. It doesn't make any Goddamn sense.

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.

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.

HUDSON Fuuuck! He's dead. (to Burke) You're dogmeat, pal.

BURKE This is total paranoid delusion. It's pitiful.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

INT. OPERATIONS 148

Ripley and Hicks share a look..."here we go."

HICKS (low) It's game time.

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.

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. Hudson's tracker beeps. Then again. The tone continues through the SCENE, its rhythm increasing.

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.

HICKS Let's get these things lit.

He hands one flamethrower to RIpley 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.

HUDSON Fifteen meters.

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.

RIPLEY They're right on us. Vasquez, how you doing?

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!

Ripley fiddles with her tracker, adjusting the tuning.

HICKS Well you're not reading it right!

HUDSON Six meters. Five. What the fu --

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.

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 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.

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... leaping quick as insects at times or gliding with powerful, balletic grace.

RIPLEY Medical! Get to medical!

She dashes for the corridor.

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!

NEWT Look!

Behind her an alien is moving down the corridor like a locomotive, 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.

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.

INT. CORRIDOR

Stunned, Ripley sees through dissipating smoke the creature rising to advance again. Flinching against blast and glare she drills it POINT-BLANK 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!

The troopers seem to materialize out of the smoke.

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. 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.

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.

Ripley sprints across the room, trying the far door. Burke has locked it as well. 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:

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, Gorman and Vasquez on rearguard. Glancing back fearfully Newt pushes on Ripley's butt as they crawl rapidly through the shaft.

NEWT Come on. Crawl faster.

RIPLEY DO you know how to get to the landing field from here?

NEWT Sure. Go left.

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) Yes, I read you. Not very well...

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.

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.

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. 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, 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.

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. Gorman returns the grip. He hands her two grenades and arms two himself as the creatures are upon them.

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. She starts to climb with Next behind/below her, and Hicks, just emerging from the side duct.

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. 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.

NEWT (o.s.) Mommy...where are you?

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.

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.

RIPLEY (o.s.) Newt! Star wherever you are!

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...

Following the signal they come to a grating set in the floor.

NEWT Here! I'm here. I'm here.

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.

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.

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. 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?

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.

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.

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. He's out of the game...contorted with pain.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. She drops an unprimed grenade, trembling, forcing herself to be strong. We SEE she doesn't know doodley about grenades.

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.

HER P.O.V. THROUGH the parting doors...an empty corridor. 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.

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.

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...

She looks at him. No one deserves this.

RIPLEY Here.

She hands him a grenade, wrapping his fingers around the 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. 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 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.

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.

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 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.

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. She runs on, the stairwell becoming a crazy whirl around her.

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.

RIPLEY BISHOP!

Her shouts become inarticulate screams of hatred, outrage at the final betrayal. She scans the sky. Nothing.

RIPLEY (hysterical) BISHOP!

Newt is sobbing.

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. Nearby a cooling tower collapses with a THUNDEROUS ROAR and the SHRIEK OF RENDING STEEL. More EXPLOSIONS, one after another, rocketing up from below. Ripley stares transfixed as the lift stops. The safety cage parts.

RIPLEY (to Newt; low) Close your eyes, baby.

The lift doors begin to open. A glimpse of the apparition within.

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...

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. The landing legs retract, ripping free. Ripley slams her seat harness latches home.

RIPLEY Punch it, Bishop!

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

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 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, realizing they are finally and truly safe. Newt starts to cry quietly, and Ripley strokes her hair.

RIPLEY It's okay, baby. We made it. It's over.

INT. SULACO CARGO LOCK - IN ORBIT - LATER 190

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.

INT. DROP-SHIP 191

Bishop stands behind Ripley as she kneels beside a comatose Hicks.

BISHOP I gave him a shot, 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 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. Driven right through him from behind. 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 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!

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. She clears a door. Hits the switch. It WHIRRS closed. BOOM. The Alien hits a moment later.

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.

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.

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! 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!

The Queen emerges as a blur of rage, lashing with unbelievable fury. The battle is joined.

Claws swipe, tail lashes. Ripley parries with radical swipes of the steel forks. They circle in a whirling blur, demolishing everything in their path. The cavernous chamber echoes with nightmarish sounds...WHINE, CRASH, CLANG, SCREECH.

They lock in a death embrace. 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.

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, 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.

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.

He winks.

Ripley crosses to Newt.

NEWT (weakly) Mommy...Mommy?

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?

RIPLEY That's right.

NEWT Can we dream?

RIPLEY Yes, honey. I think we both can.

HOLD ON THEM AS they recede down the long straight corridor.

FADE OUT

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