Alien³

SPENCE

(filter; suit radio)

When we get back, there'll be a board of inquiry. You can tell them, Colonel, tell them what happened. Help them find the ones who were responsible...

ANNOUNCEMENT

Ten-second warning. Activating outer hatch.

Rosetti's helmet turns slowly toward her. Through his faceplate bubble, the canceled eyes and blood-streaked drool of the Change...

JACKSON

(filter; suit radio)

He gone! Jeeees-us!

As blood wells up into Rosetti's helmet, filling it completely, and something dark begins to strike the inner surface of his faceplate, violently, again and again. The space suit hunches through inhuman postures –

As the outer hatch pivots out on hydraulics, the vacuum sucking small loose objects out into the void.

The new beast in Rosetti's suit snaps the heavy nylon lapbelt and lunges at Spence.

HER POV

As the blood-bubble strikes her faceplate, the fanged tongue working like a piledriver, starting to split the tough plastic of Rosetti's faceplate – tiny bubbles of blood along the first hairline crack.

ANGLE

The Lab Tech unfastens his lapbelt and grapples with the suited beast, pulling it off Spence.

Hicks is wrestling with his pulse-rifle, pinned to the bench by the struggle.

The suit radios are filled with the beast's thick gurgling ROAR. As it turns on the Lab Tech, flings him out through the open hatch, and bounds after him.

EXT. HULL – AIRLOCK

Vacuum. Zero gravity.

The thing in Rosetti's suit catches the Lab Tech in mid-tumble, its gloved hands spread like talons, grips the Lab Tech's helmet and collar-joint in either hand, and rips his helmet off. Air explodes from the neck of his suit, lifting his air in a three-second gale that freezes instantly, becoming a small cloud of ice crystal. The Lab Tech's eyes are frozen marbles. He goes cartwheeling slowly across the hull as the beast grabs a protruding strut and spins to dace the airlock with a terrible balletic grace.

Hicks is in the hatchway. He raises. the pulse-rifle, pulls the trigger. The ammo-counter flashes 00, empty. Jackson reaches past him with a fresh magazine. Hicks slaps it into the gun as the beast launches itself toward him from the strut. He FIRES. The space suit EXPLODES in a cloud of blood and acid.

Hicks bounces awkwardly out over the rim of the hatch, followed by Jackson and Spence.

Beat. Anchorpoint's hull stretches away to its own horizon, al flat gray expanse of broken by various structures. The body of the Lab Tech is tumbling slowly out into space.

SPENCE

(filter; suit radio; looking after the vanishing Lab Tech)

I never even knew his name... Hicks... Hicks, are we gonna make it?

Hick's gloved hands is closed around something small. He open it, looks down. His watch. "2159 HOURS"

Hicks looks into her eyes as if he sees her for the first time.

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

Make it? Yeah... Sure we make it.

He gives her a desperate grin.

His gloved hand, still holding the watch, takes her.

SOUND of the watch's alarm: "2200 HOURS"

Hicks' eyes are shut tight.

Nothing happens.

SPENCE

(filter; suit radio)

Hicks? Hicks, are you okay? What is it?

He opens his eyes. Looks at her. Releases her hand.

EXTREME CLOSEUP ON WATCH

"2201 HOURS"
 

ANGLE

SPENCE

(filter; suit radio)

You okay?

Hicks flings with watch away. It tumbles out slowly, level with the deck, keeps tumbling...

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

Okay, Ops, which way to the boats?

JACKSON

(filter; suit radio)

Got me, man. The map was just for the inside...

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

See that radio mast? Let's try that way.

They set out in single-file across the hull, Hicks leading, Jackson bringing up the rear. The radio mast, visible above the horizon, is the tallest structure in sight, a steel thorn slanted toward the stars.

Behind them, the airlock remain open, spilling light...

EXT. HULL – LONG SHOT

Three tiny figures, their helmets bright dots of color against the monotone hull-plain: red, blue, green.

VOICE OVER: Steady rasp of human breath.

EXT. HULL – ANOTHER ANGLE – LONG

Shadows tangle in the light from the lock. Moving. Black talons slip over the hatch rim, followed by an eyeless Alien mask. Then another. The creatures are entirely unaffected by cold, by vacuum...

EXT. HULL – APPROACH TO LIFEBOAT BAYS

Hicks, Spence, Jackson. Hicks gestures with his rifle: the prows of the boats.

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

There you go, Ops.

JACKSON

(filter; suit radio)

Good navigating...

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

Good guessing. Still have to get into one of the damn things...

Spence loses her footing as she climbs down a ledge, goes into a slow-motion, zero-g roll; Jackson grabs her.

EXT. HULL – SHOT FROM UNLIT LIFEBOAT INTERIOR THROUGH A PORTHOLE

Hicks is approaching. Closer. His gloves on the porthole. His helmet-bubble CLICKS against it. The beam of his light stabs in, swings from side to side, blinks out.

EXT. HULL – LIFEBOAT BAYS

Hicks straightens up from the porthole.

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

Looks good. Good as it gets. How the hell we get in?

JACKSON

(filter; suit radio)

I can run a bypass on the hatch latches, but I need a hotwire...

SPENCE

(filter; suit radio; starting to climb up the side of the boat)

I can strip some cable off the solar cells...

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

Open it that way and we lose the air.

JACKSON

(filter; suit radio)

We'll have to draw the backup off the tanks. Won't matter once we're in hypersleep. No other way...

EXT. TOP OF LIFEBOAT

Spence's POV for helmet as the crouches over a flat, rectangular solar cells and tugs with her gloves tips at a small access port. She keeps losing her grip; the space suit's gloves aren't designed for fine work.

SPENCE

(filter; suit radio; talking to keep her head together)

Like the science fair. I had to scrounge everything... Spent a month desoldering a TV I got out of my uncle's basement...

She manages to get the cover off – it tumbles backward – upward – with the momentum on its removal. Spence peers at a densely packed mass of color-coded wiring.

SPENCE

(continuing; filter; suit radio)

Hey, Jackson, you want anything in particular?

JACKSON

(filter; suit radio)

How about twenty centimeters of the red and green stuff?

Spence begins to fumble with the wiring.

SPENCE

(filter; suit radio)

Right. Want anything else while I'm here?

JACKSON

(filter; suit radio)

Coffee and a danish. Black, one sugar.

EXT. HULL – LIFEBOAT

Hicks and Jackson are trying to open the larger accessport, this one beside a porthole set into a rectangular hatch in the bow of the lifeboat. It isn't easy. Hicks manages to hook the pulse-rifle's buttplate under the edge of the cover. He uses the barrel as a lever. The buttplate slips.

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

Shit.

He tries again. The cover pops open: move wiring, hydraulics. Jackson begins to paw at the wiring.

EXT. TOP OF LIFEBOAT

Spence's POV as she looks down at her prize, a length of red and green wire.

SPENCE

(filter; suit radio)

They're out of coffee, but I got you hotwire...

Spence's POV as she glances up, across the hull – and sees a dozen advancing Aliens.

SPENCE

(continuing; filter; suit radio)

Hicks! They're coming! They don't need suits!

EXT. HULL – LIFEBOAT

Hicks whirls around with the rifle, too quick a move for zero-g; momentum spins him around and he rolls, out past the prow, but manages to come up SHOOTING. Take out the two foremost Aliens at about twenty yards. The rest scuttle for cover.

EXTREME CLOSEUP

On ammo readout: 09.

ANGLE

Hicks gets to his feet, take a step back, and nearly tumbles again; he's bumped into another emergency airlock, this one still sealed. He climbs back across it and crouches against the raised housing, using it to steady his aim. The Aliens charge again. Five SHOTS, five Aliens blown apart. The rest get out of sight.

EXTREME CLOSEUP

On ammo readout: 04.

ANGLE

Six inches from Hick's faceplate, on the airlock hatch, a red light blinks on. The lock starts to open. Hicks scrambles back, the rifle ready at his hip, as the hatch opens – and a space-suited figure straightens up, a yellow helmet...

CLOSEUP – HICKS – REACTION SHOT

HICKS

(filter; suit radio; an instant of profound confusion)

Rosett...?

ANGLE

The Aliens charge. The figure turns, bringing up a pulse-rifle.

CLOSEUP ON BISHOP – THROUGH FACEPLATE

As he hoses a full clip in to the Aliens, killing them all.

BISHOP

(filter; suit radio)

Hicks, help me out of the lock...

ANGLE

Hicks takes Bishop's arm and hauls him over the rim; the android's left leg is braced with the length of metal from the elevator, strapped to the space suit with heavy silver tape.

HICKS

(filter; suit radio)

What happened? You didn't blow the fusion back at twenty-two hundred,

Bishop passes him a fresh clip of ammunition.

BISHOP

(filter; suit radio)

Two overload is scheduled for twenty-two-thirty.