Aliens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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