General Nigel Uno... Male...Active* **
Lt. R. T. McKenzie...Female...Active***
Sgt. P. Drilovsky...Male...Squad 1... Active***
Cpl. D. Hicks...Male...Squad 2...Active**
Cpl. A. Lincoln... Female...Squad 1...Active***
PFC. Maurice...Male...Squad 2...Active
Pvt. C. Dickson (aka Numbuh 274)...Male...Squad 1...Active**
Pvt. Ace...Male...Active
Pvt. Gorman...Male ... Active
Pvt. W. Hudson...Male...Squad 1...Active
Pvt. J. Vasquez...Female...Squad 2...Active
Pvt. A. Apone...Male Squad 2...Active
Pvt. T. Crowe...Male...Squad 1...Active
Chapter 4
The Hive
EXT. ACHERON - TWILIGHT
The APC roars across the stygian landscape, traversing the causeway which connects the colony to the ATMOSPHERE STATION a kilometer away. Behind it the drop-ship settles to the ground at the colony landing field.
INT. APC
The troopers sit, more subdued now, swaying and bouncing in the heavily sprung vehicle. Apone is in the saddle. Rachel and Fanny sit side by side just aft of the driver's cockpit.
"This brought memory. the reminds me of the last encounter we last head with thos damn things.""
"Yeah I know. All this shit started when we go kidnapped by Father. And somehow we where are the GT/KND. Me, you, Patton, Abby. We found Nigel."
" We went into a mission fight those damn xenos."
EXT. APC/STATION
The vast structure towers above the parked personnel carrier. Deploying in front of the APC, backlit by its lights, the troopers cast long shadows. They look ominous. Hulking techno-samurai.
The base of the station is a depthless maze of conduits and pressure vessels, like an oil refinery. Or a Dantean version of one. The THRUM of functioning machine systems echoes through the labyrinth.
" Forty meters in. Ramp on axial two-two. Access to sublevels." Nigel said into mike that was very static. "Infinity you stay here with Rachel and fanny"
"Roger the Sir."
The troopers start down the open rampway. Light filters down through several levels of steel mesh floor, catwalks and pipes. Below that is darkness.
Rachel was on on her mike that has static "B-Level. Next one down.
The thrumming of machines grows louder as they descend.
INT. APC
Huddles around the screens are Fanny, Infinity and Rachel. Rachel is doing his video wizard bit, dancing on the buttons.
" We're not making that out too well. What is it?"
"You tell me. I only work her" Dickson voices over and still static
INT. COMPLEX
The group stands before a bizarre tableau. Among the refinerylike lattice of pipes and conduits something new and not of human design had 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, and 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
Fanny stares at the scene in dread fascination.
"What is it?" Asked Rachel
"I don't know."
"Proceed inside." Rachel instructed to the Marines.
INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE
They enter the organic labyrinth, playing their lights over the walls. Revealing a BIO-MECHANICAL LATTICE, like the marrow of some vast bone. The air is thick with STEAM. Trickling water. The place seems almost alive.
INT. APC
They watch in various helmet-camera P.O.V.'s of the wall detail.
"Oh God..." both rRaachel Fanny said in unison low.
CLOSE ON VIDEO as it PAN SLOWLY...REVEALING a bas-relief of detritus from the colony: furniture, wiring, human bones, skulls...Fused together with a translucent, epoxylike substance.
Crowe voice over but still some static:"Looks like some sort of secreted resin."
"They ripped apart the colony for building materials."
"And the colonists...When they were done with them."
INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE
Steam swirls around them as the troopers move deeper inside.
"Hotter'n hell in here." Apone said
"Yeah...but it's a dry heat man." Dickson told Apone.
INT. APC
Fanny leans forward suddenly, studying the graphic readout of the STATION GROUND PLAN.
"They're right under the primary heat exchangers." fanny them
"Yeah? Maybe the organisms like the heat, that's why they built..." Infinity tries to say.
"That's not what I mean. Rachel, if my brothers men have to use their weapons in there, they'll rupture the cooling system."
"She's right." he infinity realizing.
"So''
"So...then the fusion containment shuts down."
"So? So?" SHe said impatenly
''We're talking thermonuclear explosion.'''
''Shit." Into Mike "Drilovsky, collect magazines from everybody. We can't have any firing in there."
INT. ALIEN STRUCTURE
The troopers look at each other in dismay.
"Rachel are you fuck crazy" Drilovsky said clearly pissed.
"Flame-units only. I want rifles slung."
Nigel got on his mike Drilovsky do not collect magineze that an ORDER." Rachel notice
"NIgel what hell are you doing do you want to die because of a thermonuclear explosion.?''
''Rachel Somethhing is in her with us Rachel."
"Hudson"
INT. LARGER CHAMBER
The air is thick. Lights flare. 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 frozen agony. Many are disiccated. -cages burst outward, as if exploded from within. Paralyzed, brought here, entombed in living death as hosts for the embryos growing within then.
Hudsan 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.
"Sir"
The KND Girl lips move feebly. "Please...God...kill me." The Kid said.
INT. APC
Rachel and Fanny 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.
'' Flamethrow! Move!" Nigel ordered.
Apone hands it to him. Suddenly, the woman's chest EXPLODES in a gout of blood. A SMALL FANGED HEAD EMERGES, HISSING VICIOUSLY.
''Kill it man" Dickson said frighting.
Nigel 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. 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.
Nigel shoulder the flame thrower. And pull out his Pulse Rifle.
"Movement!" Dickson almost shouted
"Position?"
"Can't lock up..."
"Talk to me Dickson" Nigel said with an edge.
"Uh, seems to be in front and behind."
INT. APC
Rachel is plating with the gain controls on the monitors.
"We can't see anything back here, General. What's going on?"
Rachel and Fanny senses it coming, like a wave at night. Dark, terrifying and inevitable.
"Pull my brothers team out, Numbuh 362." she said in a low tone.
INT. COCOON CHAMBER - TIGHT ON SEVERAL WALLS AND 92 CEILING NICHES
As they come alive. Bonelike, tubelike shapes shift, becoming emerging ALIENS. Dimly glimpsed...glints of slime. Silhouettes.
"Go to infrared. Looks sharp people!" Drilovsky ordered.
The squad members snap down their image-intersifier visors.
"Multiple signals. All round. Closing."
"I can't see shit"
"Nothin back here"
"They probably don't show on infrared at all" Hudson declaired
Hudson turns to retreat, his flamethrower held tightly. A nightmarish silhouette materializes out of the smoke behind him! It strikes like lightning. SEIZES him. he fires reflexively, wild. The jet of flame engulfs Apone nearby.
Nigel spins as the double SCREAM. Can't see anything in the think smoke. " I can't see shit in here"
INT. APC
Ripley watches Apone'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 CHAMBER
Abby nods to Maurice with grim satisfaction.
"Let's rock." Lincoln shouted.
They OPEN UP simultaneously, lighting up the smoke like welders' arcs.
Who's firing? I ordered a hold fire, dammit!" Alot of static.
Drilovsky head cam captures Nigel say:" Drilovsky get on of the goddamn way" He got out the way and NIgel fires his Pulse Rifle. the alines screeches.
Lincoln rips off her headset. She is riveted to the targetting screen, moving ferret-quick in a pivoting dance. Thunder and lightning. Better than sex for dance. Thunder and lightning. Better than sex for her. FLASH-CRACK! An alien SCREECH from the darkness.
"They coming out out the goddamn walls...What ta Fuck!"
INT. APC
The battle of phantoms unfolds on the video screens. Rachel and Fanny flinches as another scream comes over the open frequency. Crowe's monitor breaks up. His life signs plummet. Voices blend and overlap. Pulse rifle are firing rapidly.
" Let's get the fuck out of here!" Dickson shout at Nigel head cam.
"Not that tunnel, the other one" Nigel said into mike with heavy static
"You sure? Watch it...behind you. Fucking move, will you!" Vasquez said voice ove.
Rachel is ashen. Confused. Gulping for air like a grouper. How could the situation have unravelled so fast?
CRASH! Vasquez's telemetry cuts off like the plug was pulled. Flat line.
"Uh,...Nigel, Patton, I want you to lay down a suppressing fire with the incinerators and fall back by squads to the APC, over.
"Say again? All after incinerators?" Drilovsky siad in to mike still the heavy static
''I said...''
INT. COCOON CHAMBER
'Apone adjusts his headset.
voice over;static"lay down" garbled"...by squads to..."garbled.
Rachel's voice breaks up completely. A SCREAM. Drilosky whirls, uncertain. And he saw Nigel by his side'
Hudson? AVasquez? Sound off! Apone?" Nigel Shouted
Nothing. He spins. Almost blows Dickson's head off.
"We're getting juked! We're gonna die in here!" He siad freak out.
"Die Motherfuckers" Heavy firing by Nigel's Pulse rifle. Aliens seeches was heard alot." We Need to fall damn it"
Drilovsky He FIRES. Lincoln, 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 Nigel approached laterally. WHAM! She fires "at" him. Hicks whirls...to see a nightmarish figure right behind him, catapulted backwards by Vasquez' blast. Rachel seen in the monitors see Nigel giving orders.
"FALL BACK GODDAMIT" they werent listening" FALL BACK NOW" he sees Patton being attacked. "PATTON MOVE" he lite the alien up and it seeches. He ran to patton.
"MARINES WE ARE LEAVING" he said while sporting a limping Drilovsky.
INT. APC
"Fanny i-I-I-I told them to fall back." RTachel said tearfull.
"I guess it up to me to save them." she ran to the drive side of the APC and started diving/
fanny 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.
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. Nigel, supporting a limping Patton, appears out of the smoke. The APC pulls up broadside and Burke gets the crew-door open.
Maurice and Lincoln back out of the dense mist, firing as they fall back.
Maurice goes empty, slams the buckles cutting loose his smart-gun harness, and unslings a flame thrower.
Hicks and Dickson Got to the APC and got in.
Nigel pushes Patton inside, leaps in after him and drags Lincoln inside, massive gear and all. She sees a DARK SHAPE lunge toward Maurice. 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 Maurice'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
Lincoln rolls aside as a gout of napalm shoots through the crew-door, setting the interior on fire Nigel is rolling the door closed when Lincoln lunges, clawing out the opening. He stops her, dragging her inside.
"Muarice! He's down! "
Nigel screams right in her face.
"He's gone! Forget it, he's gone!"
"No.. No, he's not. He's -" She irrational strated to say.
Infinity and Patton help him drag her from the door.
"Let's go!" Nigel told his sister.
Fanny jams reverse. Nails the throttle. The APC bellows backward up the ramp. Patton disappears under a pile of equipment as a storage rack breaks free. Nigel gets the door almost closed. Suddenly CLAWS appear at the edge. Rachel screams. Against the combined efforts of Nigel, Infinity and Abby the door is being SLOWLY WRENCHED OPEN FROM OUTSIDE. Nigel yells at a paralyzed Hicks.
"Get on the Goddamn door!"
Rachel backs away, eyes wide. Nigel jams his shoulder against the latching lever and frees one hand to raise his 12-gauge. An alien head wedges through the opening, its hideous mouth opening. And Nigel jams his SHOTGUN MUZZLE saying "EAT THIS" between its jaws and pulls the trigger! BLAM! The creature is flung backward, its shattered head fountaining acid blood. The spray eats into the door,the deck, hits Patton on the arm. He shrieks. They slide the door home and dog it tight.
"Fanny, GO! GO! GO!"
EXT. APC
The armored vehicle roars backward up the ramp. Slams into a mass of conduit. Tears free. Fanny works the shifters, pivoting the massive machine. Everybody's shouting, trying to put out the fire. Pandemonium.
INT./EXT. APC
Something lands on the roof with a metallic clang.
Hicks has plastered himself against a wall, as far from the door as possible. A latch lever behind his head turns. The small hatch against which he was leaning is ripped away and SOMETHING snatches him out the opening He disappears to the waist with a shriek, legs kicking. The alien clings to the roof, pulling him out. Its tail whips over, scorpionlike, and buries a four inch stinger in Hick's shoulder. Nigel grabs a joy stick at the FIRE-CONTROL CONSOLE and turns it rapidly. On the roof the alien looks up as servo-motors whir. A remote control turret cannon,a 20mm chain-gun, swivels toward it in a curt arc. VOOM. The creature is blasted off the vehicle's armored back and tumbles away. Hicks, slumped unconscious, is dragged back inside.
The APC rips away a section of catwalk and heads for clear air, its flank trailing fire like a comet. Fanny fights the controls as the big machine slews, broadsiding a control-room out-building. Office furniture and splintered wall sections are strewn in the APC's wake. Suddenly, an alien arm arcs down, right in front of Fanny's face. It smashes the windshield. Glistening, hideous jaws lunge inside...
Fanny recoils. Face to face once again with the same mind-numbing horror. She reacts instinctively. Slams both sets of brakes with all her strength. The huge wheels lock. The creature flips off, landing in the headlights. Fanny hits full throttle. The APC roars forward, smashing over the abomination. Its skeletal body is crushed under the massive wheels. It rolls, tumbling...lost in the darkness behind as the machine thunders onto the causeway and away from the station.
A sound like bolts dropped in a meat grinder is coming from the APC's rear end. Nigel eases Fanny's hand back on the throttle lever. Her grip is white knuckled.
"It's okay...we're clear. We're clear. Ease up." He smoothly to his sister.
The grinding clatter becomes deafening even as she slows the machine.
"Sounds like a blown transaxle. You're just grinding metal."
EXT. APC
The tractor limps to a halt. A HALF-KILOMETER from the atmosphere processing station. The APC is a smoking, acid-scarred mess.
A/N Marines that are still Alive and KIA/MIA.
General Nigel Uno... Male...Active* **
Lt. R. T. McKenzie...Female...Active***
Sgt. P. Drilovsky...Male...Squad 1... Active***
Cpl. D. Hicks...Male...Squad 2...Incapacitated**
Cpl. A. Lincoln... Female...Squad 1...Active***
Pvt. C. Dickson (aka Numbuh 274)...Male...Squad 1...Active**
Pvt. Ace...Male...Active
Pvt. Gorman...Male ... Active
PFC. Maurice...Male...Squad 2...(KIA)
Pvt. W. Hudson...Male...Squad 1...(MIA)
Pvt. J. Vasquez...Female...Squad 2...(KIA)
Pvt. A. Apone...Male Squad 2...(KIA)
Pvt. T. Crowe...Male...Squad 1...(MIA)