JOHNER
We can't shoot them? Fuck that, I'm shooting them.
WREN
This is a big vessel, and for the most part we should be okay. But if we get anywhere near
the outer hull and start strafing them...
He indicates the hologram, the sections of the ship missing. Everyone gets it.
CHISTIE
If we're clear then let's get on it. We'll go by twos --
RIPLEY
We're moving.
CHRISTIE
What?
RIPLEY
The ship is moving. 1 can feel it.
RANE
I don't feel shit -- what, do you mean they're piloting this fucking thing?
VRIESS
This ship has stealthrun, even if we were moving there's no way she could feel it .
CALL
She's right.
Call is working the computer now.
CALL
The ship's been going since the attack.
WREN
It's uh, it's standard, I think.
DISTEPHANO
That's right. If the ship takes on any serious damage it autopilots back to homebase.
CALL (to Wren, pissed)
You were planning to let us know this?
WREN
I forgot.
HILLARD
WhatIs homebase?
WREN
Earth.
CALL
Oh, God. Oh, you bastard...
JOHNER
Earth? I'm not going to that fucking slum.
CALL
If those things get to Earth, It'll be...
RIPLEY (not very concerned).
The end.
ST JUST
That's not our problem.
CALL
We've got to blow the ship.
CHRISTIE
We don't have to do anything till we get off it. How long till we get there?
CALL
Three hours. Almost.
CHRISTIE
Then that's what we got. Let's move.
CALL
Don't you understand what this means?
CHRISTIE
I understand my hide. And I like it on me. Let's go.
(to Ripley)
What are you called, Ripley? You mind taking point?
She moves to the head of the line, and they start.
CUT TO: INT. LABS - LATER
As they progress. Everyone with a gun has it at the ready. Ripley is a few yards in front.
She stops, sniffs. Listens.
RIPLEY
Clear.
Johner moves up next to her.
JOHNER
You've come up against these things before?
RIPLEY
Yes.
JOHNER
So what did you do ?
RIPLEY
I died.
He lags behind a bit, thrown.
JOHNER
That wasn't really what I wanted to hear...
DiStephano points to a door.
DISTEPFANO
This way.
And Ripley leads them in.
CUT TO: INT. LAB - CONTINUOUS
As Ripley enters, we can see that this lab has been trashed. Ripley surveys the wreckage
calmly, keeps moving. As the others file in, their horrified expressions lend contrast to
her lack of one.
Among the debris are three bodies, chests exploded outward.
JOHNER
Fuck me ...
CHRISTIE
Let's keep moving.
The door to the next chamber is ajar. Christie and Vriess in, then St Just, then Ripley.
INT..NEXT CHAMBER
Something LEAPS at Ripley from out of the shadows -- a metal bar SLAMS into her side,
throwing her off balance.
St Just and Christie spin, weapons up, and almost shoot the figure cowering in the corner.
Everyone else rushes in as he swings the bar before him, eyes wild with terror.
PURVIS
Get away from me!
CHRISTIE
Drop the rod, man. Do it!
PURVIS.
Get away...
But the energy is out of him. The rod falls with a hollow clatter. He looks weakly from
face to face.
PURVIS
What's going on?
St Just looks at his name, stitched in his coveralls.
ST JUST
Purvis. What's going on is that we're getting the fuck off this ghost ship.
PURVIS
What ship? Where am I? 1 was in cryo on the way to Xarem, work crew for the nickel refinery...
I wake up, I don't understand... I saw something... horrible ...
CALL
Look, you come with us. It's dangerous here.
Ripley SNIFFS. Cocks her head.
RIPLEY
Leave him.
CALL
Fuck you. We're not leaving anyone on this boat.
RIPLEY
He's carrying..
JOHNER
He's what?
RIPLEY
He's got one.... inside him. I can smell it.
PURVIS
Inside me ? What?
JOHNER
Shit, I don't want one of those things birthing anywhere near my ass.
VRIESS
It's a bad risk.
CALL
We can't just leave him.
VRIESS
I thought you came here to stop them from spreading.
CALL (to Wren, torn)
Isn't there a process, can't you stop it?
ST JUST
We've got no time for that.
WREN
I couldn't do it here. The lab's torn apart.
ST JUST (quietly)
I could do him. Painless, back of the head. Might be the best way.
CALL
There's gotta be another way. If we freeze him --
PURVIS
WHAT'S IN-FUCKING-SIDE ME?!?!?
They all look at him, a bit sheepishly.
WREN
A parasite. A foreign element that ....
Ripley steps in front of the doctor.
RIPLEY
There's a monster in your stomach. They (indicating the smugglers) hijacked your cryotube
and sold you to him
(indicating,Wren)
and he put an alien in you. In a few hours it will punch its way through your chest and
you'll die. Any questions?
Purvis is wide-eyed, stunned. After a moment he stammers
PURVIS
Who are you?
RIPLEY
I'm the monster's mother.
She starts heading out of the chamber. Call turns to the others.
CALL
He comes with us. We can freeze him on the Betty and get the doctor to remove it later.
WREN
All right.
JOHNER
Since when are you in fucking charge?
CALL
Since you were born without balls.
VRIESS
Ease off, people.
CHRISTIE (to Purvis, herding him along)
Come with us. You might even live. Get twitchy on me and you will be shot.
They move out.
CUT-TO: INT. HALL - LATER
still in the same general area, still looking around every corner. It's been too quiet
too long, and the group senses that
& They move into
INT. OBSERVATION ROOM TWO - CONTINUOUS
It's in bad shape, so we might not recognize it as the chamber the queen was in.
WREN
She's gone.
ST JUST
Who?
WREN
The Queen.
JOHNER
Good.
He is loooking into the room.the queen was kept in. A residue of slime is all that's
left
here.
Beyond the queen's chamber is another observation room. Wren indicates that they have
to go through.
Suddenly a burner blast FIRES at them, just missing them as they duck.
They hear more blasts, not aimed at them, and screams.
SOLDIER (O.S.)
Pull back! Pull back!
OTHER SOLDIER (O.S.)
It's on me!
Ripley looks up and can just see two aliens making short work of a group of soldiers.
Call instantly moves to attack, and Ripley grabs her, holds tight.
CALL
We've got to help them!
RIPLEY
Can't.
CALL
You bitch, let go of me!
She does, and Call rises.
The noise is gone. What she can see of the soldiers-is parts.
She is shaking at the vision when an alien RISES in front on the soldiers. Call ducks
back down, terrified.
Christie hisses at her.
CHRISTIE
You want to get yourself killed, then you run solo.
ST JUST
How many?
RIPLEY
At least two.
ST JUST
Think they heard us?
RIPLEY
Yep.
HILLARD
Fine by me ...
JOHNER
Yeah, let em come.
CHRISTIE
Wren. Any other way around?
Wren shakes his head.
CHRISTIE
We can't just walk in there.
WREN (thinking)
No. No, but they can.
CHRISTIE
Say again?
WREN
The cages all have failsafes. Liquid nitrogen. Get 'em to come to us and I can freeze em.
CHRISTIE
Excellent. Get-ready.
Wren goes over to the failsafe button. The others look out at the aliens.
CHRISTIE
Okay... (calls out) Hey!
VRIESS
Hey, guys!
JOHNER
Here, kitty...
The aliens react, start for the cage. Four 'of them. They reach the edge of it and stop.
Look around, at each other..
But go nowhere.
DISTEPHMO
They're not coming.
JOHNER
Hey! Fresh meat here!
RIPLEY.
They know it's a trap.
RANE
Oh, bullshit!
CHRISTIE
What do we do?
JOHNER
Shoot the fucking things!
VRIESS
There's too many, and we don't have the angle.
RIPLEY
Bait.
CALL
What?
RIPLEY
Give em a reason to go in there. Throw somebody in.
HILLARD
Fuck you!
RIPLEY
DO we want to live? Give em her.
She indicates Call, who looks around, nervous at the lack of protest about this idea.
Ripley points at Rane.
RIPLEY
Or the skinny one, it doesn't matter. We can't resist the smell of meat.
CALL
We ?
JOHNER
Fuck, I'm with her! Give 'em Annalee!
CHRISTIE
Now hold on
DISTEPHMO
You people are insane.
JOHNER
Now you're not exactly in the club either, soldier.
People start pointing guns at each other.
RANE
Fuck you all, I'm not dying for you.
CALL
Stop this.
Ripley grabs her. Looks at the others.
RIPLEY
Come on! Do you want to live or not?
(to Call) It won't hurt long.
CALL (terrified)
Noo...
RIPLEY (to Wren)
NOW!
Wren hits the button just as three aliens are bounding across the cage -- they're almost
to the posse, people screaming, scrambling, when the freezing gas hits, turning the beasts
to statues.
The forth one sees this and flees, but St Just stands and put four bullets in it from
forty yards. It slumps over.
Everyone is silent, stunned. Breathing hard.
VRIESS (realizes)
Fear.
Ripley nods.
VRIESS
That's how they knew it was a trap. They couldn't smell the fear.
RIPLEY (looking at Call)
So I gave them some.
JOHNER (gleefully)
Son of a bitch!
He pops up and FIRES at the frozen aliens - - they EXPLODE into fragments.
CUT TO: EXT. AURIGA
Gildihg through space, passing Jupiter's moons with dazzling speed.
CUT TO: INT. HALL LATER
Ripley and Call are on point. Ripley looks down the hall. Call is staring at her, and
Ripley can feel the girls eyes on her back.
RIPLEY(without looking around)
Did you think I was going to... feed you to them?
CALL
I think you still might.
Ripley smiles. She may be right.
RIPLEY
I want to live.
CALL
And you don't care about anything else.
No.
CALL (bitterly)
I guess you're more human than I thought.
RIPLEY
Why did you come here?
CALL
To kill you, remember? (after a beat) Because somebody has to.
RIPLEY
well it's not me. I did my time. Now I just want to...
She stops dead, staring at a door.
CLONING STORAGE FACILITY is written on it. Stencilled beneath that is `numbers 1-7`.
Ripley stares. Tries the door, which opens.
DISTEPHMO
That's not the way.
CHRISTIE
Ripley, we got no time for sightseeing.
Ripley is looking down at her arm, at the 8 tattooed on it.
She looks at Call. Looks back at wren.
WREN
Ripley... don't.
She enters.
CUT TO: INT. CLONING STORAGE FACILITY - CONTINUOUS
She stands a moment, staring, before proceeding through it. Call stands in the doorway,
others crowding behind her. Every face registers the horror of what they are seeing, but
none more so than Ripley's
Numbers one through seven. The first failed efforts to clone Ripley.
They are lined up like museum exhibits -- or side show freaks.
Here is the fetal Ripley, the fetal alien visible through its translucent chest.
In a jar.
Here is a prematurely old, diseased Ripley, withered blue skin cling to Collapsed bones.
Here is an attempt to separate the alien and grow it without the host -- boneless, bubbling
tissue, weak and useless mouth rigored in midmew.
Each one more horrifying than the last, and the last the worst of all.
Ripley approaches, and stares at number seven.
A complete mixture of alien and human DNA.
A tortured, disgusting hybrid, half Ripley, half nightmare.
Hooked up wires and machines, it lies on the tilted-table, its head nearly level with
Ripley's as she finally approaches it.
When it opens its eyes, they are hers.
it tuns its head ever so slightly to look at her. Recognises her.
Ripley cannot even speak. She begins to shake slightly looking at number seven.
NUMBER SEVEN
Kill ... us ...
Ripley's eyes go saucered as it speaks speaks out of nothing resembling a mout
h.
Ripley staggers back a step, shaking now. This is too much to bear...
CALL
Ripley!
Ripley turns, slowly, still in a fever dream.
Call cocks the grenade launcher with a loud CRACK. Her eyes meet Ripley's.
Call tosses it to Ripley as the crew steps back and even a catches it Ripley FIRES,
a grenade chugging to the end of room and BURSTING in fire and noise, she FIRES another,
tissue and steel exploding into flame, she turns to number seven, hand shakes
momentarily...And she FIRES, the poor creature dissolving in a cloud of flame.
Freezing gas jets fill the room, extinguishing potential spread,
but the heart of the firestorm continues to rage in the chamber.
She backs out, the crew waiting for her outside.
The launcher falls loudly to the ground. Ripley turns to Wren, her face rigid with pain.
Wren backs up a step, looking around him for protection that the others have no thought
of providing.
CALL
Ripley... Don't do it.
Ripley stops. weariness suffusing her expression.
RIPLEY
Don't do what?
The tension pases. Wren breathes a little sigh of relief.
Call PUNCHES him across the jaw, his head whipping around as collapses to the ground.
Call starts down the hall, not even looking at him.
CALL
Don't do that.
Feeling his jaw, Wren actually smiles at the absurdity of all this. It's kind of winning.
Christie helps him up.
CHRISTIE
Had it coming, Doc.
Johner looks in at the burning lab.
JOHNER
What's the big deal? Fucking waste of ammo.
ST JUST
Let's move before anything comes to check out the noise.
JOHNER
Chicks, man....
DISTEPHANO
We go down from here.
CHRISTIE (to Vriess)
We got to lose the chair. Vriess.
VRIESS
I know.
CHRISTIE
Kawlang maneuver, all right?
Vriess is pulling a coil of cords from the chair.
VRIESS
Just like old times...
CUT TO: INT. ROOM - LATER
A hatch opens. Ripley drops down, surveys the scene. Quiet dark, empty.
Ripley comes up, Call behind her. Ripley sniffs, listens. Closes her eyes. After a beat
she starts further in and Call motions for others to follow.
Slowly, they make their way down the corridor. Ripley, Cal ,Hillard , guns drawn.
Bringing up the rear is Christie, toting a shotgun.. He turn slowly, alert, and we see
that Vriess is strapped to his back facing the other way, also with a shotgun.
CALL (to Ripley)
That lab... 1 can't imagine how that must feel.
RIPLEY
No. You can't.
Ripley looks down. The floor here is covered with a foot or so of dark water.
Ripley steps into it, moves up a few paces. The others gingerly follow.
Vriess is facing the back. He looks up.
VRIESS
The cooling tanks. They must have blown during the trouble.