This treatment of ALIENS (then called ALIEN II) was the first written by James Cameron in September 1983. It expanded the earlier 6 to 10 page David Giler/Walter Hill script ploticle with the infamous “some bullshit happens” into a much more complete 46-page treatment.

The story is substantially the same as the later ALIENS scripts by Cameron, albeit with some characters (CARTER BURKE) and scenes missing or swapped around.

The last act is thematically the same, but done differently.

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ALIEN II

Treatment
by
David Giler & Walter Hill
and
James Cameron

September 21, 1983

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ALIEN II

FADE IN:

SPACE

Silent and endless.

A tiny chip of technology drifts through the frigid vacuum.

THE NARCISSUS

lifeboat of the Nostromo...

A shadow passes over and an enormous black object cuts into the frame above.

Searchlights play over the tiny craft...

The hull noses down, descends...

INT. NARCISSUS

Dark and dormant as a crypt.

Like the tolling of a bell, a metallic clang echoes through the hull.

The CAMERA wanders through the cluttered interior, coming to rest on a hypersleep capsule, its transparent canopy opaque with dust...

A light on the capsule control panel begins to flash. Several MACRO ANGLES as indicators light up—the monitor reads:

CONTACT ALERT:
AUTO-REVIVAL SEQUENCE

Light seeps into the room as a cutting torch showers sparks from the airlock door.

The torch saws an irregular rectangle, and the door falls inward.

Figures enter.
Backlit.
Ominous.

Men in bio-isolation suits carrying equipment and hand lights approach the capsule.

A gloved hand wipes at the dust.

From inside the capsule, the beam of a light stabs inward, illuminating a woman's face in peaceful repose.

WARRANT OFFICER RIPLEY, sole survivor of the Nostromo.

Her eyes move beneath the lids, indicating a dream state.

She winces, as if in pain, or fear...

TRANSITION.

NOSTROMO CORRIDOR

Ripley running madly down the passageway...
Terrified, clutching a flamethrower.
Light strobes...

She runs blindly.
Panting intensely, verging on hysteria.
Corridor after corridor.
Reality short-circuiting...

Her eyes are wide as she rounds a corner, unable to look, but transfixed...
Almost paralyzed.

A HATCH

lit garishly by the strobe flashes.
A huge hydraulic structure.
An oven, a bank vault, a crypt, an airlock???

RIPLEY

Moving toward it hypnotically.
Drawn by an inexorable fixation.
She touches a button.
The door begins to open.
Every nerve screams "Run!"

THE OPEN HATCHWAY

Blackness within.
Something inside that she has to confront.
Something she knows is more terrifying than she can imagine.

Within the darkness, a silhouetted shape rises with slow inhuman grace.

Ripley’s flamethrower spews white light.
She screams.

TRANSITION.

RIPLEY

Her scream subsides.

She is in a darkened hospital room, alone.

She looks around, blinking, bathed in sweat...

A MONITOR

flickering on above Ripley with the image of a female MED-TECH who asks if she is okay.

Ripley nods.

MED-TECH
That dream again?

Ripley nods yes, then asks to see DR. O'NIEL.

TRANSITION.

DR. O’NIEL

reminds Ripley that she has been back on Earth Satellite Station Beta only a few days and that her weakness and disorientation are a natural side effect of the extended time in hypersleep.

He explains that the capsules were never intended to operate numerous years, and that Ripley is lucky to have survived after drifting for so long. Even though she is physically unchanged, sixty years have passed.

Ripley remains shaken, withdrawn.

RIPLEY
They say you’re not supposed to dream in the freezer, but I did The same fucking nightmare for sixty years.

Changing the subject, the doctor mentions that her daughter has been located living in Oregon.

RIPLEY
Is she coming?

O’NIEL
She’s seventy years old. She can’t travel easily. Perhaps you should go to see her when you're released...

He smiles..

O’NIEL
We’re putting another patient in with you.

The Med-tech enters carrying a large orange tomcat.

RIPLEY
Jones!

Ripley grabs the cat like a life preserver.

O’Niel suggests she try to sleep so she'll be fresh for the hearing in the morning.

TRANSITION.

VID-PHONE ROOM - SATELLITE STATION BETA

The Med-tech helps Ripley place a vid-phone call to her daughter.

The conversation is short and devastating.

Ripley remembers her daughter as a bright ten year old living with her ex-husband before her last trip out. She is unprepared to see an arthritically crippled old woman who icily accuses her of abandoning her when she chose her life in space. Even after 60 years, the pain and loss well forth, and the image of Ripley unchanged by the years only triggers hatred in the old woman.

Ripley clicks off.

CORRIDORS

They pass through the medical complex which, although technologically advanced even beyond Ripley's time, still reeks of hospital oppressiveness.

O’Niel leads her to a manmade landscaped atrium, bounded by the buildings of the complex.

RIPLEY

sits under a tree in the morning sun, watching Jones chase birds.

She survived when the others didn't.
She came back, to feel the grass again, but it seems a hollow triumph.
The terror and emptiness remain.
She cries silently.

A distant thunder booms, and Ripley glances up through the view transom to see the sun-hot exhaust of a commercial shuttle leaping skyward from the launch field a few kilometers away.

She stares at it, transfixed.

TRANSITION.

INT. ICC BOARDROOM

A lower echelon INVESTIGATOR for the Interstellar Commerce Commission, an Extrasolar Colonial Administration SECURITY OFFICER, an INSURANCE INVESTIGATOR and a REPRESENTATIVE of the conglomerate which has since acquired the Weylan Yutani Corporation, owners of the Nostromo, convene to find out what happened to the ship sixty years ago.

On a wall-sized vid-screen, they review the files.

Ripley watches as the smiling faces of the dead crew flash before them in mugshots: Dellas, Kane, Parker, Brett, Lambert and the traitor, Ash.

The ICC Investigator reports that analysis of the Narcissus flight-recorder, which accessed the Nostromo’s computer, clearly showed that Ripley used command override to deliberately blow the engines, despite the fact that there was no structural damage or impairment of function previous to the destruct order.

The Corporate Representative asserts that no record of the Nostromo’s covert mission to investigate the alleged Alien could be found, since storage limitations require a purging of low priority data over 50 years old.

He concludes that such a mission would have been a "highly unlikely" assignment for a commercial towing vessel with a two hundred million ton return-leg payload. In addition, no physical 'evidence of the so-called hostile life form could be found in the shuttle to corroborate Ripley’s report.

Ripley shows a little of her previous hard-boiled nature as she responds to their skepticism. She reiterates the ferocious attack of the Alien and the fact that when she escaped in the shuttle, the rest of the crew were already dead.

They ask her to wait in the corridor while a decision on her case is reached.

CORRIDOR

Ripley talks glumly with O'Niel.

About to release her, he wonders how she will make her way.

Ripley reviews her situation:

A little money...60 years of compound interest on her savings minus the effect of inflation.

No possibility of work since her experience and technological qualifications are out of date, even if they do let her go out again.

O'Niel mentions that most commercial ships are almost fully automated now and the crews were laid off years before. He offers to help her find a cheap apartment on Beta.

She shrugs.

INT. ICC BOARD ROOM

Skeptical of Ripley's wild story, the Board revokes her commercial license, permanently grounding her.

She is released on her own recognizance, with a six months psychometric probation, including monthly review by a Health Department psychtech.

The Extrasolar Colonial Administration officer points out that there has been a thriving colony on the very planetoid which she claims harbored this deadly form.

No trace of an extraterrestrial ship with a powerful warning beacon was reported and in fact the planetoid was lifeless until humans arrived and set up shop.

RIPLEY

Again tries to warn them.

Follows the ECA OFFICER down the hall.

Trying to detach from this crazy woman, he patiently explains that a standard class C mining and "terraforming" colony was dropped on the planetoid 30 years earlier.

50 families, 10 TRW atmosphere processors, 1 K-hull General Products starship (dismantled to form colony buildings and power stations).

At last check-in, they were doing quite nicely, thank you very much.

The planetoid’s air was getting breathable, and the colony was expanding.

Ripley warns him that those families may be in great danger, but he enters an elevator and the doors close in her face.

TRANSITION.

PLANETOID ACHERON - THE COLONY

A bleak, hideous, storm-blasted landscape.

The ugly little planet had been an anonymous alpha-numeric on the star charts until the first survey team christened it ACHERON, after the frozen swamp at the center of the ninth circle of Dante's Hell.

With stubborn optimism characteristic of hardy frontier types throughout history, the people of the colony ECA/C486 call their little community "Hadley’s Hope", after one of the founding members...

That’s what the sign set in concrete pylons between the landing field and the main complex reads, or would at least, if gale-force winds hurling rain laced with carbonic acid hadn’t corroded the facing off it.

The terraforming stations dotted around the planetoid have succeeded in warming and oxygenating the atmosphere sufficiently so that closed space suits are no longer required. Near the equator, where the colony is located, it is usually above freezing.

Unfortunately, the terraforming plants create almost perpetual nasty weather, the birth pains of a new ecosystem. The colonists have so far achieved a state of continuous freezing rain...

THE TOWN

A cluster of bunker-like metal and concrete buildings is connected by conduits and tunnels.
It looks like a cross between an industrial frontier town and the Krupps munitions works.

Every structure is made uglier by corrosion.

Neon signs throw garish colors across the vaultlike walls, advertising bars and other businesses.
Huge-wheeled tractors, armored and toad-like, crawl through the main "street" and vanish down rampways to underground garages.

Wind howls among the pipes and girders, slashing at anything not tied down.

TERRAFORMING STATION

Beyond the town, across a half-kilometer of barren heath, stands the nearest of the ten terraforming stations.

It resembles a squat, slightly conical smokestack but on a vastly larger scale. It’s a man-made steel volcano, 200 meters high, blasting superheated air straight up into the stratosphere.

The rim glows cherry-red against the dark sky.

Around the base is a complex of pipes and conduits...

INT. CENTRAL CONTROL BLOCK

A Com-tech consults the Operations Manager about a call on the radio from one of the many independent prospectors roaming the unsurveyed territories.

The Colonial Administration had the prospectors concentrate their efforts in a certain quadrant, and this one says he's found something there. A strong "magnetic profile." He's homing and wants to know if his claim will be honored because of the directive.

The Manager's response is laconic.

He doesn't know why that stretch of rock is more interesting to the ECA than any other. They didn’t tell him, and he doesn't care. As far as he's concerned the standard 20% contract still applies.

TRANSITION.

ACHERON - IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

In a tractor, prospector RUSS JORDEN grins and turns to his wife/partner, ANNE. He gloats over the fat, juicy signal as they home in.

The tractor roars across corrugated rock onto a plain of volcanic ash sloping up to a vast cinder-cone in the distance.

IN THE BACK SEAT

Their two kids play among the heavy sampling equipment.
NEWT, the little girl, who is about six, argues heatedly with her older brother, TIM.
Their mother tells them to knock it off as the tractor rolls to a stop.

"Holy shit" Russ says, awed.
They’ve found more than a vein of ore.

DIRECTLY AHEAD

A bizarre rounded shape projects upward, recently exposed by the wind. It is the tip of the bone-like extraterrestrial ship recognizable by its bio-mechanical surface ribs and veins. Jammed against upthrusting rocks by the volcanic ash, the hull is buckled in one spot, with a black rent in its side almost large enough to drive the tractor into.

RUSS AND ANNE

think they’ve really scored big.

They pull on exposure suits and head off to take a look. The kids watch from the cab as they disappear inside.

TRANSITION.

INT. TRACTOR

Night.
The wind howls around it.
Newt sleeps curled up in the driver's seat.
Tim wakes her up.
He's scared. Starting to cry.
Mom and Dad didn't come back.

Suddenly, a dark form slams against the door.
Newt screams.
The door is ripped open.
Anne, panting and terrified, grabs the dash mike and starts calling "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!"

TRANSITION.

EXT. EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL SHIP - LATER

The site is bustling with activity. A score of men with lights and ropes are assembled at the gash in the hull.

Newt watches apprehensively from the cab as her mother leads the searchers onto the ship.

INT. EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL SHIP

Through the Bio-mechanoid corridors.

They pause briefly to shine their lights over the body of a huge alien, extra-terrestrial (not to be confused with The Alien — this E.T. was discovered by the Nostromo's crew sixty years before) fossilized in his command seat.

The figure has been half-submerged by an inpouring of volcanic ash.

ANNE

shows them where her husband slipped and tumbled down a slanting rib into a vast dark chamber. She says they searched independently for a way out, became visually separated, lost radio contact.

An ominous blue energy layer covers the bottom of the egg chamber.

INT. CHAMBER

The Searchers gear up.
Fire ram-sets into the deck with power-guns.
Check their radio headsets.
Rappell down the sloping wells.
Walk among the thousand leathery eggs.

LEADER
Don't touch anything.

They spread out across the floor chamber.

1ST SEARCHER
Hey, this thing’s moving!

He watches the top of an egg opening.

2ND SEARCHER
Found him!

Another Searcher stands over a motionless body, face down.

3RD SEARCHER
All of them are starting to move now.

More eggs open, flower-like.

The man who found Jorden turns the body.
Something, is on his face.
We know what it is.
So will they in a second.

The eggs erupt.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then a volley.
Screams are muffled by the face-hugging creatures.
All the eggs are hatching.

The floor of the chamber comes alive with scuttling spider-hand nightmares.
The men above start hauling up the Searchers' lifelines.
Screams echo, escalate...
The chamber is a writhing, living horror.

TRANSITION

INT. RIPLEY’S APARTMENT - EARTH SATELLITE STATION BETA

The place is like a motel room with few personal touches.
A mess.
Dishes in the sink.
Bed unmade.

Ripley, looking haggard, sits quietly at the table in the dining room.
The wallscreen is on, blaring some vapid drama but she’s not watching.

She’s studying the view out the window, which consists of the side of another building.
Lots of traffic noise, with jet-like whine mixed in.

There is a knock at the door.
She admits Dr. O'Niel and LT. GORMAN of the Colonial Guard.

The ECA has lost contact with the colony...

Gorman has been ordered to lead a military team in to investigate.
Will she go along as an attache / consultant in case the problem is related to her "Alien"?

Ripley’s vindication is not sweet.

She says what anybody who went through what she did on the Nostromo would do...

RIPLEY
Fuck off.

Gorman pleads his case.
Explains that with the new faster ships they can be there in eight weeks.
They'll pick up a Combat Team from the colonial garrison at Gateway Station...
A seasoned group, used to fighting in harsh environments.

This highly-armed task force will carry state-of-the-art weaponry. Enough firepower to incinerate a planet.
And she needn’t leave the ship. Merely be on hand with any information she can supply from her close experience with the creature.

O'Niel offers to take care of Jones.

She again refuses and asks them to leave. Before he does, Gorman scribbles his contact number on a sheet of paper.

TRANSITION

RIPLEY

awakens from another nightmare.
The Alien still stalks the corridors of her subconscious.
It killed her friends and everything she was or owned.

The demon has to be exorcized.
The nest burned out.

She calls Gorman, wakes him up, agrees to go.
He'll pick her up in the morning.

TRANSITION

DEEP SPACE

A mountain of steel descends into frame...the mothership, Sulaco, a military transport ship.

INT. SULACO

A row of hypersleep capsules open their lids. Figures emerge, groggy men and women...

Though not supermen, they look fit and hardened.
Ten men and four women.

Only one of the fourteen are the ship’s crew:
Executive Officer BISHOP, ECA assignee.

Moving among the somnambulists, bawling orders, is Master Sergeant APONE, the unit leader.

The unit hates the way Apone is so alert right away. They hate the whipcrack comments that flow easily as crap-table dealer’s patter. They love him. They’d follow his into hell. They’re about to.

ACHERON MISSION ROSTER

I.C.C. PERSONNEL

GORMAN ................. Project Officer
RIPLEY ................. Project Advisor

TRANSPORT PERSONNEL

BISHOP .................Executive Officer

THE MILITARY UNIT

MASTER SERGEANT APONE .. Unit Leader
LANCE CORPORAL HICKS ... B-Team Leader
CORPORAL LYDECKER......Med-tech
CORPORAL HUDSON ........ Com-tech
PFC DIETRICH
PFC FROST
PFC WIERZBOWSKI
PFC DRAKE .............. Smart-gun operator
CORPORAL VASQUEZ ....... Smart-gun operator/Weapons specialist
SERGEANT FERRO ......... Drop-ship pilot
PFC HAY ................ Drop-ship crewman

INT. MESS HALL

Showered and dressed, they assemble. The troops are in fatigues, the ship's Captain and Exec in casual versions of officers uniforms.

Ripley wears a jumpsuit and her lucky hi-tops, salvaged from the Narcissus.
She studies the others as the talk flows around her, relaxed chatter among familiars as coffee is poured.

These guys have been slogging around dirtwater colonies and futuristic brushfire wars together for years.
Discipline is noticeably lax.
Fatigues are customized, cut-off, and emblemized.

Apone, taking roll, is catcalled and teased, including imitations of his standard opening "Awright".
This mood will change like lightning in combat.

They're tough, jaded, and they know their shit, with a confidence bordering on arrogance.

THE WOMEN

of the military unit, Vasquez, Dietrich, Lydecker, and Ferro are as tough as the men and hold their own in the banter.

Ripley is treated with diffidence, as an outsider...

VASQUEZ
What's your name again?

RIPLEY
Ripley.

VASQUEZ
Yeah.

Vasquez turns away. The slight is intentional.

VASQUEZ

looks like a tough cookie, even for this lot. What she doesn't know about the portable technologies of death hasn't come out of the lab yet.

Vasquez pursues her needling.

VASQUEZ
What are you supposed to be here for?

Ripley begins to answer, but gets cut off...

Vasquez says the only thing she needs to know about the Alien is where it is, so she can blow it away.

Ripley hopes she's right.

HUDSON

launches into a monologue about the hardware they're packing. He lists features of ordnance like options on a luxury car:

Drop-ship ordnance like tactical nuclear smart-missiles, 100 megawatt x-ray laser cannon, independently targetting particle-beam phalanx, and the portable stuff...

Cybernetic combat armor, gyro-stabilized phased-plasma rifles, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, knives, and sharp sticks...

LT. GORMAN

enters, looking clean-shaven and trim in his crisp uniform.

APONE
Tench-Hut!

Gorman starts out a general briefing on the mission by making a fool of himself...complimenting ing the group's record and thanking them for their participation.

He comes off as a neophyte masking a lack of field experience with strict adherence to procedure.

Drake, the gunner, rolls his eyes, looks over at Vasquez.

VASQUEZ
Frag-bait.

Gorman, oblivious to the impression he's making, continues his ramble — next, outlines the "knowns":

Ripley's warning.

The loss of contact with the colony...

The abrupt absence of the sub-space check-in transmissions (a pulse of data requiring tremendous energy to send, therefore, limited to once a week to save power).

It all sounds a bit thin in the recon department...

APONE

points out that the colony could simply be having transmitter problems. Asks if the ECA might have sent a starship fifty light years because of somebody's bad dreams.

GORMAN

continues to outline the time frame.
Drop-ship loading and pre-flight rundown.
Field-stripping and checking all weapons.
Review of target.
Ten hours. Then sleep. First assembly at 0500.
Drop-ship launch at 0730.
Meeting dismissed...

CORRIDOR

Ripley catches up with Bishop.

RIPLEY
On the roster you're designated as ECA Cyborg Assignee.. You’re a synthetic human. An Android.

BISHOP
That’s correct. Is there a problem?

RIPLEY
Why did they send you?

Bishop explains that all corporate operation ships now utilize cyborg captains as standard procedure because of their unique fail-safe qualities.

She looks at him, then turns away...

TRANSITION.

INT. CARGO LOCK

Gorman is pointlessly supervising loading.

Ripley approaches and demands that Bishop be replaced by a human being. Ash, the company Android on the Nostromo was complicitous in her shipmates’ deaths.

And tried to murder her.

GORMAN
Corporate policy is corporate policy. They’ve been used for years and they haven’t failed yet.

TRANSITION.

INT. READY ROOM

Vasquez and Drake are stripping weapons, with precise movements.
They barely glance at their work.
Vasquez likes the feel of the guns, the weight, the authority...
She notices Ripley watching her from the door.
She points her finger, cocks her thumb, and blows away an imaginary Alien.
Ripley doesn't think it's funny.

TRANSITION.

ACHERON

From space it looks quite serene...
A pearl in the night sky.
Solid cloud cover ...

THE SULACO

stabilizes its orbit...

INT. CARGO LOCK

Hicks is using a power-loader to move heavy equipment into the Drop-Ship.

This is an exo-skeleton machine with hydraulic arms and legs. The operator straps in behind the safety cage, and when he moves the massive servo-limbs follow, amplifying the power of the movement enormously.

The fork-lift claws can lift tons.
Hicks is having problems.
Ripley offers to take over.

He looks skeptical.
She feels like a fifth wheel.
Wants to help.

A lot has changed but the loaders haven't, and she had lots of hours in them before her officer days.

The massive machine moves smoothly under her control.

TRANSITION.

THE TEAM

Strapped in, ready to drop.
Apone prowls the aisle, checking off gear.
In the cockpit, Ferro starts the release sequence.

BISHOP

monitors all movements from the Sulaco's bridge.
Reports that there is no radio response from the colony.

The night side of the planet yawns below them, turning slowly toward dawn...
The clamps slam back...

EXT. DROP-SHIP

screams down through the stratosphere and plunges into the dark turbulence.

INT. COCKPIT

Ferro flies tensely as the ship is buffetted.
Hay calls out altitude and course information.
Hudson is calmly talking about his favorite foods to see if he can get Gorman to throw up.
The ship lurches, almost waking up Hicks, who's not an early riser.
For the combat veterans, this could just as well be a bus ride...

EXT. DROP-SHIP

The ship emerges from a low cloud ceiling.
The landing beacons of the colony are visible.
They pass the roaring tower of the terraforming plant.

INT. COCKPIT

HAY
Stay wide of the atmosphere plant. Convection turbulence.

APONE
Hold at 60.

Apone calls to Ferro from the cockpit doorway.

APONE
Slow circle of the complex.

THE TEAM

Apone turns to the troops.

APONE
Awright. A-Team. Gear up. Let's move. Two minutes. Somebody wake up Hicks.

A clatter of activity as they don their backpacks over their body armor, respirators, helmets with video cameras and flip-down image-intensifiers, equipment belts...

Vasquez and Drake buckle on gun harnesses which support the massive Smart-Guns (computer-aimed automatic energy weapons that are the futuristic equivalent of a 50-caliber machine gun).

At Ripley’s suggestion they carry a few flame-throwers as well.

Hicks asks Ripley if she’s going out with them.
No fucking way.
She’s staying with Gorman who's supervising by remote-video from the troop-ship.
That figures, Drake mutters to Vasquez.

INT. COCKPIT

POV through canopy.
Buildings loom through the low visibility.
They seem okay from above, but there is zero activity.
Very ominous.

GORMAN (to Ferro)
Set down by the control block. Immediate dust-off on Sgt. Apone's clear-signal.

APONE (to the group)
Awright. Look sharp. I want a clean dispersal this time...ten seconds.

EXT. ACHERON

As the Drop-Ship slams down.
Doors slide back.
The troops hit the ground running.

THE DROP-SHIP

leaps up in a cloud of spray and peels off...

APONE

his orders crackle on the general frequency.
A and B Teams separate and disperse, finding separate cover.

TRANSITION.

THE COLONY

The two teams wait, scanning the bleak buildings.
A neon sign creaks in the wind.
No other movement.

APONE
B-Team, hold positions. A-Team, assemble on me at the main lock.

They sprint to flank the control-block’s main entrance.
Apone tries the entry switches and emergency overrides but the steel doors remain closed.
Hudson pries off the panel and hot-wires it.

The doors rumble open.
They enter cautiously, Vasquez and her cannon on point.

INT. COLONY COMPLEX

The corridor and rooms are deserted.
Emergency lights only.
Pools of water cover the floor.
An empty corridor recedes into the dim distance.

They move forward systematically.
Apone brings the second team forward to pace them as a rearguard.

As they move through the complex they find disturbing signs of struggle.

Holes in the wall from what appears to be acid splashes and automatic weapons.
Burned-out rooms.
Shattered furniture and doors. Equipment strewn about.
Windows are blown-out, letting in the elements.
Rain soaks spartan offices and quarters. There are no bodies, although here and there a spray of dried blood is found.

They find a corridor blocked by a barricade of hastily-welded steel plate.
Signs of struggle are intense.

Gaping holes melted through walls and floors.

INT. DROP-SHIP

Ripley watches via helmet cameras in the monitor bay.
Her fears are confirmed.

The Alien had an incredibly strong acid for blood.

At least there were casualties on both sides.

INT. COLONY COMPLEX

The two teams move forward, searching the maze. One wing is completely without power.

They switch to helmet lights.

RIPLEY - ON DROP-SHIP

sees the melted evidence of many Alien casualties increasing.
Her fear builds.
She tells Gorman to get his teams out of there.
Gorman says there may still be survivors.
Ripley is sure there aren't.
She recommends they clear off and nuke the whole place.

INT. COLONY COMPLEX

The troopers are on edge now.
They want something to shoot at.

"Movement!” someone from Hicks' team calls.

A flash of something in a dark side chamber.
A darting infra-red trace.
They flank it...
Hicks' men lose the trace.

Then something breaks from the shadows behind them.
Drake spins, aiming.
Hicks knocks his barrel aside, shouting "Hold fire".
Then more softly, "It's okay, you can come out."
He takes off his helmet so as to less resemble an insect.

A very dirty and terrified Newt Jorden steps out of hiding.

RIPLEY - ON DROP-SHIP

watches the monitors as they question the little girl with limited success.
She will not speak.
She's totally traumatized.
They ask her if there ere any other people alive.
She shakes her head.

GORMAN - ON DROP-SHIP

orders the ground teams to work their way to the far side of the complex and stand-by.
He's going to drop the Armored Personnel Carrier, then join them for an extended' search.
"Oh boy," Drake says.

Ripley joins Gorman at the door of the APC.
She wants to go.

EXT. DROP-SHIP

It settles next to the assembled men in the debris of an exploded factory building.
The APC is lowered by a massive hydraulic arm, operated from the cargo lock by Hay.
It is a larger version of the colony tractors with servo-gun turrets and, on the front, crab-like manipulator arms.

INT. APC

The unit boards...
Inside a monitor bey for directing operations.

Apone takes the driver’s seat and the vehicle rolls forward. Behind them the Drop-Ship again dusts off, hovering as the boom arm retracts.

Gorman directs them to make for the terraforming plant. Survivors may have taken refuge there.

INT. DROP-SHIP

Hay stands at the boom controls in the still-open cargo lock. Behind him the massive arm rises slowly. From among the rams and hoses a shape emerges.

Something not of the ship but blending bio-mechanically with its structure.

Hey senses it, turns.

An impression of drooling jaws in a terrifying eyeless head. There is no time to scream...

COCKPIT

Ferro, the pilot, unaware of Hay’s situation.

The cargo-lock door clangs shut as the Drop-Ship banks, continues circling...

TRANSITION.

INT. APC

as it tears across the tortured landscape. Ripley has taken charge of Newt, getting her some warm clothes and hot-chocolate from the dispenser. She stops Gorman's clumsy attempt to question her. Newt wordlessly puts her arms around Ripley's heck and starts to cry. Ripley hesitates. She awkwardly returns the embrace.

Only Hicks seems to note the tender moment as the others are heatedly discussing what they have seen.

Ripley is ignored, unacknowledged.

Hicks hands her a cup of coffee. He's beginning to realize a hint of her ordeal on the Nostromo.

As they approach the base of the vast structure they are confronted by a bizarre sight.

POV ALIEN STRUCTURE

Among the refinery-like lattice of pipes and conduits something new and not of human design has 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.
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

Gorman, Ripley and Newt remain at the monitor as Apone leads his team off the ship and into the structure.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE

Pitch dark and hot.
The team casts their flashlights along the walls.
Their lights reveal a bio-mechanical lattice, convoluted like the marrow of some vast bone.
The air is thick with steam.
Water drips and trickles.
They examine the wall material. The place seems almost alive.

RIPLEY

watches in horror as the monitors show the structure:
Detritus from the colony, furniture, rocks, wiring, and human bones, skulls...
All fused with some epoxy-like substance.
Some sort of excreted resin.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE

Apone deploys Hicks’ team as a rearguard once more, entering a large chamber.
Lights flare.
The chatter is low and tense.

Suddenly, Hicks' team faces 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 dessicated.
Skeletal...
Rib-cages burst outward, as if exploded from within.

Then a faint moaning.
Weeping, shrill cries, sudden sobs.
A chorus of the damned.

They’re not all dead.

Paralyzed, brought here, entombed in living death as hosts for the embryos growing within them.

APONE

draws closer, overcoming his revulsion.

"Kill me", a choked whisper beckons him.
Eyelids flutter.
The woman’s mouth moves but no more sound issues.

INT. APC

Ripley watches the screen, white-knuckled.
Gorman turns away.
The sound of wretching comes over the general frequency.

INT. COCOON ROOM

Apone turns to his team.

APONE
Flame-thrower.

Someone hands him the weapon.
Suddenly... the woman’s chest explodes with a gout of blood.
A small, fanged, head emerges.
Hisses.

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

A shrill screeching begins, like the sound of madness, or a siren made from fingernails on blackboards.

The twisted contours of the structure come alive.

From the niches in the walls, floor, ceiling, Aliens emerge.
Lots of them.
Becoming visible only as they move...

We see it.
The troopers don’t.
Smoke fills the room, cutting visibility to less than two meters.

"Movement!" someone shouts.
Then acapella:
"Movement".
"Movement".
A scream, cut short.

APONE

shouts, snapping down his image converter.

APONE
Infra-red! Fall back!

Tall, skeletal figures loom suddenly out of the smoke, striking like lightning.

INT. APC

Gorman shouts into his mike.

GORMAN
Get out of there, Apone!

A bright flash/bang as somebody fires.
A gout of yellow acid slashes across Frost’s face.
He screams, dying.

RIPLEY

watches the monitor labeled "Frost" go black.
His bio-readouts flatten.
It is a battle of phantoms.
The Aliens are shimmering infra-red silhouettes on the screen.

INT. COCOON ROOM

More firing.
Flash/crack of the smart-gun.
Vasquez scoring points in her private videogame.
Automatics open up, glaring, in the smoke.
More screaming.
Human screaming.

A VOICE
Lydecker! Drake's hit!

APONE
Watch your fire, dammit!

INT. APC

Ripley sees smoke welling out of the structure and flashes of fire rise and fall like a welder's arc.

The screens and biomonitors keep score:

Drake.
Wierzbowski.
Lydecker.
Then Apone.

All of them go flat-line...

GORMAN
Get out of there, fall back!

RIPLEY
Too late. They're cut off.

She takes a very deep breath.
Then jumps into the driver's seat of the APC.
Gorman panics.
She ignores him.

The APC lurches forward.
She may not be able to operate the weapons, but she can damn sure drive a tractor.

Gorman is frozen.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE

The APC roars into the smoky structure, tearing away outcroppings of Alien encrustation.

RIPLEY

hits the lights.
Strobe.
Siren.

Explosions ahead.

INT. APC

Suddenly something lands on the roof with a metallic thump.

An Alien arm arcs down.
Smashing the windshield in front of her.
Newt screams.
Glistening, hideous jaws lunge inside...

Ripley recoils.
Face-to-face once again with the same mind-numbing horror.
She loses control of the vehicle.
The Alien's mouth opens...

Wham!
The creature is slammed sideways by a plasma burst from smart-gun fire beyond the APC.
Acid sprays...
Hits the seat beside Ripley...

EXT. APC

Hicks, smart-gun still aimed, runs up to the APC.
Dietrich and Hudson drag an inert Apone out of the smoke.
Vasquez lays down a ferocious cover fire.
Gorman gets the door open.
They leap in, hauling Apone and Vasquez with her bulky rig.

INT. APC

Ripley hits reverse.
Newt hasn't stopped screaming.
Another Alien lunges in as the door is closing.
Hicks blasts it.
The door closes.

The APC roars backward out of the complex.
It is gouged and smoking from the acid spray.

HICKS

examines Apone.
Under a hole punched through the body armor, he finds a single purple puncture wound.
Bloodless.
He seems to be alive, but paralyzed.

TRANSITION.

INT. APC

When they reach a safe distance, Gorman orders the APC's cannon aimed at the Alien nest.

Hicks stops him.

At the center of the plant is a controlled-fusion reactor... A possible thermonuclear bomb if it is damaged.

Gorman calls in the Drop-Ship.

They’ll evacuate and nuke the place from the air.

TRANSITION.

INT. DROP-SHIP

Ferro turns on her final approach, descending.
She calls for Hay on the intercom.
No answer.

She taps her mike, flips the switch again.
When the hatch bangs open behind her, she turns.
It is not her co-pilot...

TRANSITION.

INT. APC

The ground team—now only Ripley, Gorman, Vasquez, Hicks, Hudson and Dietrich—watches as the hovering Drop-Ship veers wildly, sideslipping at high speed into the terraforming complex.

A tremendous explosion.

Their hopes of getting off the planet quickly vanish in a fireball.

TRANSITION.

THE TEAM

decides to return to the main colony and set up a base of operations at the control block.

They park the APC across the main doors, guns aimed outward.

They drag equipment to the second-floor deck with its control-tower-like windows.

Guns are set up with a clear field of fire across the open plain.

Access to the control block from within the complex is put under surveillance by portable sentry-cameras.

The corridors are mined.

TRANSITION.

INT. SULACO

Bishop tells them that re-orbiting, powering-up and landing will take six hours.

Gorman, down below, loses his temper.

Bishop remains unruffled...

TRANSITION.

MAIN COLONY

They assess their situation.
The loss of the ship cuts their firepower virtually to hand weapons.
Ammunition must be conserved.
Manpower has been halved.

RIPLEY

vents her disgust.
She's watched the operation disintegrate steadily into the same sort of nightmare she experienced before.
Deja-vu with teeth.
She points out that there may well be one of the creatures for every captured colonist.
Dozens, certainly.
Probably many more.

GORMAN

is apologetic, since he got her involved.
He subsides into a self-absorbed stupor.
The team realizes that in action, his ability to command will be negligible.

TRANSITION.

ACHERON

Night has settled.
Blackness and rain.
The crew in a state of seige.

VASQUEZ AND DIETRICH

prowl the observation deck, searching the ground with their image-intensifiers.

VASQUEZ

watches the sentry-monitors, though his eyes seem glazed.

HUDSON

is with Apone who is conscious, but barely able to talk or move.

Hudson is using the opportunity to tell him everything he always wanted to say but didn't for fear of broken teeth.

RIPLEY AND HICKS

use the base's existing video-cameras to search for a possible shuttle-type ship.

Most colonies use one or two for sub-orbital hops to service the network of atmosphere processors.

They find the hangar but it seems to have been the site of intense fighting.

There is a shuttle there, but it’s burned-out.

Another similar berth nearby is empty.

The doors beyond are open.

Hicks exits to scout the area.

TRANSITION.

INT. CONTROL BLOCK

Ripley, wearing a sidearm now, sits beside Newt, watching her sleep...

As the crew rests, they are suddenly interrupted by a glare of orange light.
Ripley rushes over to the others...

A ten-story jet of fire is visible leaping up from the base machinery, of the terraforming plant.

The team looks out at the blaze.

HICKS
Emergency venting.

He sets up the central computer to read out the plant's status.

HICKS
We got problems.

The crash of the Drop-Ship has damaged the heat-exchanger system.

Loss of coolant.

Gradual, irreversible overheating.

System failure in about six hours.

Followed within about one-tenth second by a thermonuclear explosion on the order of 20 megatons.

Vasquez stomps in.

VASQUEZ
That's it. We're taking the APC and getting out of here.

GORMAN
I'm in command here—

VASQUEZ
You're barely in command of your bladder.

Newt surprises them by appearing at Ripley’s elbow and asking quietly if they’re leaving.

The first words she’s spoken.

RIPLEY
I think so...

NEWT
Good. Because they'll come back.

Ripley assures her that nothing can get close without them seeing it.

Newt points at the distant power plant.

NEWT
They use the tunnels. The ones between here and there. I know the maze best. That's why they didn’t catch me.

Suddenly...a splintering crash nearby.
Hudson shouts something. It becomes a scream.
Hicks looks in, hesitates, then seals the door.
A moment later, something slams against the far side, buckling it.
They abandon their useless battlements.
Retreat.
Dietrich kills the lights.
The door splinters open.

THE TEAM

opens fire.
In the strobe-like glare of the energy weapons, they see flashes of the Aliens.
Acid flies...
Dissolving the deck in clouds of vapor.
The nightmarish figures come forward.
They fall.
Others crawl over.
A floor grate flies open.
Glistening figures emerge.

Ripley grabs Newt, picks up a flame-thrower and runs.

The team crowds into a lift.
The doors start to close.
Too slow...
They watch helplessly as the creatures advance.

AN ALIEN

gets its hand between the doors as they come together.
The doors pops back open.

Hicks and Vasquez blast it at point-blank range.
It screeches, falling back.

THE LIFT

Acid sluices between the closing doors, across Hicks' armored chest plate.

Hicks' fingers race with the clasps as the stuff eats its way toward his skin. He shucks out of the armor like a madman, dropping the smoking shell to the floor.

The acrid fumes fill the air, searing eyes and lungs.
The lift stops.
They face the doors, guns levelled.

The doors, part.
And the corridor is empty.

THE TEAM

moves out.
Vasquez tosses a grenade into the lift and sends it back up.
They approach the main entry doors, beyond which the APC waits.

Hicks and Vasquez flank the doors, clutching grenades.
As Gorman and Dietrich stand with rifles aimed, Hicks slaps the control button.

The inner doors rumble back.
Wind blasts in, through the outer doors.
The tractor is untouched, just beyond...
The way seems clear.

Hicks, then Vasquez, edge forward.
The entry lock beyond the inner doors is deserted.
Hicks checks the ledges above with his light, then waves the others forward.

EXT. THE APC

They sprint toward it.
Dietrich arrives first, whips open the side door.
A figure lunges from within and Dietrich is gone.

From the darkness, dark shapes emerge.
Lightning glares.

Ripley staggers back.
Hicks and Vasquez open fire.
The APC explodes from the concentrated fire.
Gorman, in a panic, is closing the doors behind them.
Ripley scoops up Newt as they sprint for it.
Hicks tosses his backpack between the massive doors.
It crunches but stops them.

Ripley, Newt, Vasquez squeeze through.
Hicks leaps through. Kicks the pack out.
The doors clang together just as a burning figure impacts on the far side.

INT. COLONY COMPLEX

Ripley has to stop Vasquez from pulping Gorman.
Vasquez unbuckles and drops her smart-gun to the deck. Empty.

Ripley asks Newt if she knows a hiding place they can stay in for awhile.

The little girl leads them into the air-shafts.
She guides them to a small steel chamber with a flooded floor.
They bunker down in the darkness and wait.

They are out of contact with Bishop, having left their communications gear in the control block. He is to rendezvous at the Colony landing field at 0130 hours.
A Little over an hour.

Eerily, they hear a faint voice coming over the headsets.
A whisper.
It's Hudson.
Hicks asks for his position.
Hudson explains haltingly that he's not sure.
He woke up in this dark chamber.
Can't move.

He's in one of those cocoons they saw.
Ripley asks whet he can see.

Hudson describes a chamber constructed by the Aliens, near the one they burned.
A chamber whose floor is covered by egg-like things.

There are lots of creatures around.
Different sizes.

And one huge one.

He says they have a ship down there, the one from the Colony.

Hudson tells Hicks that he did the right thing when he sealed the door.
He and Apone couldn't have made it.
He starts to weaken.

Then screams hoarsely.

RIPLEY

clicks off her headset. She tells Hicks what she remembers from the xenobiologist's notes.

The poison in the Aliens' sting is similar to some nerve gases used in combat. Don't their field first-aid kits contain ampules of atropine, a nerve gas counter-agent?

Hicks asks Vasquez for her first-aid kit.
Inside are emergency ampules of morphine, benzedrine, atropine and others.
They are the type you jab into a major muscle and squeeze.

She tosses the ampules and a roll of surgical tape into one jumpsuit pocket.
Hicks raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment.
He lights a cigarette, offers her one.
She declines.
Bad for your health...
Smiles.

Hicks wants to know why Ripley came on this one...
She knew what the score was.
She has a hard time answering.

RIPLEY
Fear, I guess. The fear that no matter where I go, somehow these things would get there, some ship would bring one back or something. I had to see them wiped out or spend my life looking over my shoulder...Maybe there's more to it now. It's like an obsession...

Hicks nods.

HICKS
Sometimes the guys who have seen the worst action in combat are the first ones to re-up.

He smiles.

HICKS
Can’t do it next time though. You’ve got responsibilities now.

Ripley doesn’t get it.
He nods at Newt, curled up under her arm.
She holds the child tighter.

TRANSITION.

THE TEAM

Moving through the tunnels again, guided by the six year old-maze-ace.
Hicks keeps an eye on his chronometer.
They move toward each junction cautiously.
Ripley uses the flame-thrower around corners.

Tension builds.
A flattened duct they have to crawl through.
They round a corner.

Ripley’s light shows movement ahead.

Glinting, obscene, forms moving toward them...
They try to crawl back, jammed together in the narrow shaft.

A grating tear opens behind them. A deadly silhouette batters through.
Cutting them off...

Vasquez uses her flame-thrower.
It sputters.

VASQUEZ
Losing fuel.

HICKS
Get behind me, Newt.

The child scurries around him.
He blasts into the duct wall point-blank with his plasma-gun using it like a cutting torch.
Molten metal spatters him.

Between eye-searing bursts of flame, Ripley sees the horrible faces closing in.

Hicks' gun clicks empty.
He kicks at the cherry-hot metal.
It folds aside.

Vasquez' flame-thrower goes dry.

VASQUEZ
That’s it.

Hicks guides Newt through the searing hole, follows her.
Pulls Ripley out by the feet as her flame-thrower sputters out.

VASQUEZ

Trapped.
She can’t get by Gorman who’s frozen.
She punches him.

VASQUEZ
Move, sucker!

Too late.

She feels the stinger slam under her chest plate.
Pulls the pin on two grenades.
With her last strength, hands one to Gorman.

She whispers to the Alien as it crawls over her.

VASQUEZ
Happy birthday...

The grenade goes.

RIPLEY, HICKS AND NEWT

run out as the wall explodes into dust behind them.
A delirious dash now.
Hysterical.
Without semblance of caution.

The corridors unreel dizzily.
They leap through a blast hole in the outer wall.
Sprint for the landing pad.
See the plant in the distance is roaring, its pipes red hot.

Lightning crashes around it as the tremendous forces unleash a man-made storm.

The three tiny figures are buffetted by gale winds as they approach the landing strobes.
Ripley carries the exhausted child.

Hicks checks his watch.

HICKS
We’re late.

VOICE
Bishop to landing party.

Ripley yells into her headset.

RIPLEY
Where are you?

BISHOP (VO)
Just above you.

INT. SULACO

Inside the quiet, comfortable cockpit, Bishop looks out. He can see the huddled figures near a landing light, looking upward.

BISHOP
Listen, Ripley, I just got some bad news.

RIPLEY (VO)
Save it. Get us out of here.

BISHOP
Well, that’s it, you see. There's a problem. The ship’s computer has been accessing the Colony's central processor and collating your own progress. It seems to have concluded the risk of contaminating other inhabited worlds is too great...It won't allow me to land. Some sort of Quarantine Command Override. I hadn't heard of it, but, there you have it.

RIPLEY (VO)
Bishop, land the ship!

BISHOP
Look, I'm really very sorry. A human being could act with self-determination , do what one thinks best on one's own judgement and so on. I can't. I guess you were right about me all along, weren’t you, Ripley?

RIPLEY (VO)
That’s a very comforting thought, Bishop. Now, land the mother-fucking ship!

BISHOP
Sorry, I can’t. Look, I have to get going —

RIPLEY (VO)
Bishop!

The big transport ship banks, engines firing, and is quickly lost in the storm.

RIPLEY, HICKS AND NEWT

Ripley screams, enraged.
She fires her pistol after the departing craft.

HICKS
Save it.

They turn to look at the plant which has become a roaring infernal engine.
Lightning zaps around its superstructure, illuminating up the weird landscape.

Ripley looks at her watch.
Starts walking toward the roaring complex.

HICKS
Where are you going?

RIPLEY
What choice do we have? Let's try to find the shuttle craft.

INT. COLONY COMPLEX

The complex looms above the three.
Deep in the bowels, some of the metal is red-hot.
Steam hisses back as the rain hits.
The ground is trembling.
Lightning snaps like a strobe.
Couplings groan.
The machinery creaks and heaves.

Ripley walks toward the Alien structure into the main opening, carrying Newt.

INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE

She whispers to the child.

RIPLEY
Keep your eyes closed, baby.

From the dark, nightmarish living shapes emerge and move toward them.

Ripley hands Hicks a small object.
Three ampules taped together, their needle-ends looking like a three-pronged plug.
Atropine. Morphine. Benzedrine.

HICKS
Oh, man, there’s got to be a better way...

A shadowy wall of Aliens beyond...

RIPLEY
Now!

Ripley stabs at her thigh, hard, squeezing.

Inhuman objects seize them.

Ripley stares trembling into the face of the ultimate horror. Newt’s screaming echoes as the image fades.

TRANSITION.

INT. EGG CHAMBER

Ripley awakens, struggles to move.

A drone is excreting cocoon material over her, anchoring her body to the wall of death.

The drone is a small albino version of the Alien creature. Where the warrior has a set of striking teeth within its head, the drone has an excreting probe, like an organic stucco-gun.

The air is thick with steam.
Figures move back and forth, carrying eggs one way, returning empty.
Evacuation.

The taller silhouettes of warriors can be seen, moving with nightmarish grace.

Ripley sees Hicks nearby and Newt...
Looking like figures in an obscene fresco.
Drones hover over them as well.
She whispers to Hicks who responds weakly.

RIPLEY
Can you move?

HICKS
Not much. See the ship?

RIPLEY

turns her head.
Rotating landing lights lead her eyes to its outline in the mist.

Sweat pours off her.
She strains to move her arm, ripping at the cocoon fabric.

Her fingers slip under her tunic.
Face contorted with effort.
Panting.
She cries out in suppressed panic.

A WARRIOR ALIEN

hulks over her.
The bony armor over its belly parts wetly.
A shape emerges.
Glistening, prehensile...
Like a segmented tongue.
It ends in a tapered black spine.
An egg injector.

RIPLEY

Her fingers close on the butt of her pistol tucked inside her jumpsuit.
The injector moves toward her, gleaming.

Ripley fires through the cocoon wall, straight into the Alien's belly.
It screeches and leaps back.

Ripley tears open the cocoon, cutting frantically with a belt-knife.
She staggers toward Hicks.
He is screaming.

HICKS
Get Newt!

An ear-splitting roar comes from the self-destructing machinery above as Ripley staggers to the unconscious girl.

As she cuts her free, Ripley sees for the first time, the source of the eggs.

THE QUEEN ALIEN

What’s bigger, meaner, more terrifying than an Alien?
Its mother.

The shiny, black body swells at the base into a bloated, translucent egg-sac.
Enormous.
Disproportionate.
Like that of a termite queen.

A pulsating sausage ten meters long, filled with gestating eggs in intestine-like tubules.

The powerful, multi-limbed body straddles a throne of its own swollen abdomen.

The head, is just human enough to be horrifying...

INT. EGG CHAMBER

Ripley pulls a grenade from her belt.
Pulls the activator and throws.
It rolls under the egg-sac.
Explodes.

The egg-sac rips open, spraying matter.
A SCREAM like a steam-whistle.

The Aliens go berserk.
Screeching and acid explosions in the swirling mist.

Ripley carries the inert child over to Hicks.

HICKS
Too late for me. Get going.

He pauses, then slips his pistol into view.

HICKS
I’ll be all right.

She hesitates.

HICKS
Go!

Ripley backs away.

Stumbles toward the ship.

INT. COLONY SHUTTLE SHIP

Ripley enters by an emergency airlock.
Goes to the cockpit.
Drops Newt in a seat.
Seals the door.
Examines the controls.
Hits switches.

Airtight doors slam throughout the ship.
Another switch.
The engines roar white light.
Searing the egg chamber, the throne room.
The ship lifts.
Another switch.

Huge bolts slam back.
The cargo module containing the eggs is jettisoned from the spine of the ship.
It crashes back into the inferno below.

The ship tears through encrusted structure as it lifts out of the complex.
Fire-jets roar from vents among glowing machinery.

COLONY STRUCTURE

Now red-hot iron tombs...
The air vibrates with shock waves.
Paint blisters on the ship as it moves forward, landing gear retracting.
Explosions.

Ripley hits the main engines.
Slams back in her seat.
Ship vaults forward.
Everything shakes into a blur.

When it clears she is climbing out of the cloud layer into the stratosphere.
Below her, the clouds light up from horizon-to-horizon. Sun-white light bursts through.

Ripley’s ship climbs into the night sky.

TRANSITION.

EXT. COLONY SHUTTLE SHIP - IN ORBIT

The scorched craft settles on its hydraulic legs in the cavernous cargo bay of the Sulaco.
Behind it, the lock doors slide shut, cutting off the stars, leaving a deep gloom.

INT. COLONY SHUTTLE SHIP

Ripley collapses in the seat.
As her fingers slide off the controls, she seems to deflate. She forces herself up.
Picks up Newt, still comatose.
Checks her pistol .
Hits the door button.

She moves warily down the short corridor to the airlock. Opens the doors...

She staggers down the landing ramp to the deck of the mothership and crumbles to her knees.

INT. SULACO

Ripley looks up to see Bishop standing before her, holding a power-rifle in his hands.

BISHOP
Are you all right?

RIPLEY
What do you care?

BISHOP
Now that you’re here, the quarantine order has been superceded. I’m happy to have you aboard. Now, I have to seal this shuttle and jettison it. Excuse me.

He passes her, climbing the ramp between two huge landing legs.

BISHOP
I'm glad you made it. Really, I am. I hope you can understand. I just do what I'm told. It's all in the program, you see...

RIPLEY
Suck air, Bishop.

Behind Bishop, the huge scorched black "hydraulics” begin to move.

A large, shining shape drops silently to the walkway.

Bishop looks down as a drop of acid splashes on the deck by his shoe.
He turns.

THE QUEEN ALIEN

hisses, dripping acid and rage.
It's body ends in torn gristle where the egg-sac was torn away.
Its huge thighs flex, glistening as it rises.

One blurred swipe flings Bishop away in a spray of milky android blood.
The rifle clatters away.

Ripley looks up as the thing advances...
Checks around desperately.
The gun...
Too far.

RIPLEY

Her eyes riveted on the creature, she pushes Newt away. Holding her jacket she slips the little girl over the edge of a short drop-off, letting her slip gently down among some hydraulic mechanisms.

The Queen looks down at the child’s form.
Ripley shouts hoarsely.

RIPLEY
Here!

She moves in front of it.
The creature’s attention returns to Ripley.
Without warning, it moves for her like lightning.
Its claws rake her jacket as she turns and runs.

STORAGE BAY

Ripley clears the door to a storage bay at a full run, slapping the "close" command button.

The Queen hits the door.
A half-inch of steel plate buckles under the impact.

In the darkness, Ripley crosses the room.

The door buckles further.
Squeal of rending steel.
The Alien hits again.

Ripley fumbles with a safety harness.
Crash!
Something massive rises into frame...
Ripley in the power-loader.

Hydraulics whine.
The magnetic foot-plates clang as she steps forward.
Crash!

The Alien steps back to charge the door again.
Then, it opens.

Ripley steps out wearing two tons of hardened steel.
The battle is joined.

RIPLEY AND THE QUEEN ALIEN

face each other.
The Alien attacks .
Ripley parries with swipes from the massive forklift claws.

They lock in a death embrace.

Ripley closes the forks, crushing two of the Alien's limbs.
It lashes and writhes with incredible fury, coming within inches of Ripley's exposed body.

The hind legs rip at her.
The striking teeth extend almost a meter.
Ripley ducks and they slam into the seat cushion behind her head.
She spins, slamming the creature against a wall of machinery.
Yellow acid foams down the hydraulic arms toward Ripley as she raises the Queen off the ground.

It tears at the hydraulic hoses.
Purple hydraulic fluid sprays wildly about..

The arms lock.
Ripley stands at the lip of a vertical loading lock —a rectangular pit...
She steps off the edge.

They crash together six meters below, twisted together in the wreckage.

LOADING LOCK

The Alien shrieks.
Its "blood" flows around the lower door, eats through.
Air begins escaping.

Ripley unbuckles, claws her way up a service ladder to the controls.
Hits the outer door switch, Emergency Override.

Below Ripley, an open pit of stars appears as the door slides open.
She is buffetted by a hurricane of air howling past her into space.

The Alien claws up toward her.
Seizes one ankle.

The power-loader tumbles down, the Queen in its grasp.
The Alien, clutching one of Ripley’s sneakers, plummets into the depths of space.

RIPLEY

fights the airstream, crawls over the lip.
She releases the Override.
Ripley collapses, gasping, as the upper door slides closed and the air eddies and settles.

She moves over to the huge hold, leans in and picks up the grease-smeared Newt...

She carries the child past the remains of Bishop, lying in a puddle of curdled milk, tubing strewn out.
He speaks with a hissing gurgle.

BISHOP
For a human being, you’re really quite remarkable.

Ripley looks down.

Bishop winks.

RIPLEY
Thanks.

Ripley walks down the corridor.

Newt stirs in her arms.

NEWT
Mommy...Mommy?

RIPLEY
Right here, honey. Right here.

FADE OUT.