Alien³

Beat.

FADE TO BLACK

FADE IN:

A SINGLE STAR

Then another star. Then the interceptor, adrift, showing no lights.

EXT. INTERCEPTOR – ANOTHER ANGLE

Additional damage visible from the Anchorpoint blast.

INT. INTERCEPTOR

Dim light. The commando is slumped against a wall of dead switches, watching Bishop. Hick, Spence, and Bishop wear their space suits, minus helmets and air tanks. Bishop is bending over a panel of exposed circuitry, working with a delicate probe. His suit is open to the waist; he wears a miniature worklight on a band across his forehead. Spence is asleep, her head on Hicks' lap.

HICKS

Bishop...

Bishop looks up, the beam of the worklight glaring in Hicks' eyes.

BISHOP

Yes?

HICKS

Bishop, are Spence and I... I mean... Are we infected, man?

A small steady tone SOUNDS, muffled inside Bishop's suit. He puts the probe down and reaches into his suit, bringing out his wristwatch.

He looks at the time. The tone stops. He puts the watch down an looks at Hicks. Beat.

BISHOP

No, you aren't. I obtained solid parameters on the incubation period... Neither of you is a carrier. Neither is she.

(glancing toward the commando)

Although I couldn't be certain until...

HICKS

Your watch? Until you watch went off?

BISHOP

Yes.

Bishop reaches into his suit again and brings out a service automatic.

The commando says something angrily, wearily, in her own language.

Bishop hands her the gun. She tosses it aside with evident disgust, curls up, eyes closed.

HICKS

That was for us? If we were...

BISHOP

Yes.

(he looks at the commando again)

She's dying, Hicks. Radiation poisoning...

HICKS

Can we do anything?

BISHOP

No.

Spence groans in her sleep. Hicks absently smoothes her hair back from her eyes.

BISHOP

You're a species again, Hicks. United against a common enemy...

Hicks moves Spence's head, pillows her on a folded jacket, swings his way over to the commando, offers her water from a plastic bottle. She refuses it.

HICKS

Yeah?

BISHOP

The source, Hicks. You'll have to trace them back, find the point of origin. The first source. And destroy it.

HICKS

I dunno, Bishop. Maybe we just oughta stay out of their way...

BISHOP

You can't, Hicks. This goes far beyond mere interspecies competition. These creatures are to biological life what antimatter is to matter.

HICKS

How do you mean?

BISHOP

There isn't room for the both of you, Hicks, not in this universe.

HICKS

That's crazy, Bishop...

BISHOP

No. You're already at war, Hicks. War to extermination. The alien knows no other mode.

HICKS

Hell, man, we been at war all my life. Near enough, anyway. With her.

(he looks down at the commando)

With all her brothers and sisters. That's what got us into this shit in the first place!

BISHOP

But now you've seen the enemy, Hicks. So has she. She's not it. Neither are you. This is a Darwinian universe, Hicks. Will the alien be the ultimate survivor?

Hicks doesn't answer. He just looks at Bishop. Bishop goes back to his circuitry.

CLOSE on Spence's sleeping face, and the face of the dying commando.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. SPACE

Approach of a large ship.

The PING of homing radar.