Aliens

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

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

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

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

INT. COCOON CHAMBER

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

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 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

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 CHAMBER94

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 targeting 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

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 (V.O.)

Let's get the fuck out of here!

HICKS (V.O.)

Not that tunnel, the other one!

CROWE (V.O.)

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 unraveled 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 (V.O.)

Say again? All after incinerators?

Ripley watches it fall apart.

GORMAN

I said...

INT. COCOON CHAMBER

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

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

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

INT. APC

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

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

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

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!