Alien 3: Gibson's Second Draft

Full summary:

The Sulaco, on its way back from LV-426, suffers a navigational error which causes it to enter the Union of Progressive People’s territory, whereupon it is boarded by UPP commandoes boasting groovy combat suits with smart guns built into the arms. The leader, Kurtz (ho ho!) checks Bishop’s hyper sleep capsule: inside an Alien Egg is rooted in the tangle of Bishop’s synthetic entrails, from which a face hugger jumps out and strikes Kurtz. In a moment of panic he smashes into Ripley’s capsule, firing his gun into the bulkhead…

The Sulaco arrives at the Anchorpoint Cluster, a space station still under construction amidst the failure of funding and dreams. Like the gathering of flies to faeces, a WY ship also turns up, carrying with it Fox and Welles, MilSci Weapons Division officers. Rosetti, Anchorpoint's senior scientist and thus boss, meets the execs, who are much like you'd imagine them to be. A shrewd operator, Rosetti notes that their ship departed Gateway roughly three days before the Sulaco accidentally suffered the navigational error that propelled it into UPP space, the event that has caused the Company to come to Anchorpoint. "We'll consider that a glitch in your documentation," Fox responds. Conspiracy!

Fox and Welles know that the UPP boarded the Sulaco, they also know and completely disregard that their presence on Anchorpoint violates the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the UPP. They appreciate Rosetti's concerns, and then let him know that the Sulaco was returning to Gateway with specimens of weapons-related material that had become ... active ... in the hypersleep vault, requiring it to be rerouted to Anchorpoint and - oops! - passing through UPP space en route. The Company knows everything, suckers!

Time to search the Sulaco. Fox isn't taking any chances, and packs a free-electron laser, Tully and Spence, Anchorpoint tissue technicians, are clearly worried by the weaponry - it's not your standard method of killing germs. The search is tense. They find Bishop's legs, then enter the hypersleep compartment, damaged by weapons fire. Ripley comes screaming out of her ravaged capsule and is tranqued. In Ripley's compartment (the Sulaco boasts cabins for the crew) they find Kurtz's body. He's only got a bloody hole through his chest!

Meanwhile, on the UPP spacestation Rodina, the commies are pulling data out of Bishop, whom they've nicked. Dr Suslov shows Chang, one of the original UPP boarding party, a hologram of a facehugger. Chang responds that this is what attacked Kurtz, but she doesn't recognise a full grown Alien (although she does offer a Chinese expletive).

Back at Anchorpoint, Hicks is now conscious and he doesn't give a damn about smoking regulations. Newt's up and feeding the lemurs in an eco-module, but Ripley's in a coma. Hicks enquires about Bishop, and Spence tells him there were only three of them recovered from the Sulaco. And Bishop's legs, which Tully and Tatsumi (another Anchorpoint technician) are scraping biological material off of. Spence doesn't like Hicks - an ecologist, she wonders how many species he's helped exterminate. I like Spence! Rosetti tries to dig some dirt on LV-426, finds the files deleted, and is interrupted by a transmission from his superior to obey Fox and Welles' directives to the letter or risk having funding pulled.

Meanwhile at Rodina, the UPP brass are discussing the implications of Bishop's data. They know that WY has sought the Alien as a bioweapon, violating the treaty. UPP know feck all about bioweapons (they've been honouring the treaty, suckers!) but decide that they have no choice but to start developing their own based on what they've found out before WY claims success in that area. As an act of goodwill, however, they'll return Bishop to Anchorpoint and demand the return of Captain Kurtz, and appear to be ignorant of Aliens or bioweapons or LV-426 and all that.

Anchorpoint: Walker (technician) is pulling out the Sulaco's cooling grid, damaged by Kurtz's gunfire, so he can replace it and get the ship spaceworthy again 'cos Fox & Welles want it back at Gateway. Rodina calls Anchorpoint, bitch about bioweapons, offer to send back Bishop. Tully & Spence show Fox a simulation of what the Alien material off Bishop's legs does when it meets human DNA - it creates a hybrid organism real quick like, which is why they've terminated the experiments. Fox isn't too pleased, and tells them to start them back up. "We'll need a fully secure containment lab," the technicians plead. "Anchorpoint's our containment," Fox replies. Not good.

Rodina: they've got a foetal Alien in a jar and it's growing quick. Some discussion about it being part of an ancient arms race between alien civilisations.

A UPP Interceptor piloted by Chang docks at Anchorpoint, exchanges a repaired Bishop, and flies off. Tully & Spence are growing an Alien spore in the lab - it looks like a tiny Egg. Welles come in to check up on them, and suddenly the stasis tube cracks and the spore secretes a fine layer of mist. Tully and Welles are doused by it, and go straight to decontamination. Yeah, like that's gonna do any good...

Welles sacks Tully & Spence from the project due to the accident, and institutes Bishop to do the lab work. Bishop complies on the agreement all specimens will be terminated once they've got the data they need. Newt is sent away to her grandparents in Oregon aboard the Sulaco.

Things aren't looking good on the Rodina. Chang's fighting Aliens and the place is starting to look like a Hive. Anchorpoint can't communicate with them - Rosetti looks thoughtful, and notes that a UPP battlecruiser is in the area. Containment measures!

Sterling, Anchorpoint technician, is in decontamination, taking a shower having cleaned up the mess in the tissue culture lab accident. He hears a slithering sound behind him, calls out... only to find that 18 inches of Alien tail is erupting from the small of his back. He's gonna make the ladies very happy indeed.

The Anchorpoint crew - Spence, Halliday and Tatsumi, but no Tully or Sterling who they couldn't contact - arrange to meet Hicks in an unfinished section of the station known as Lovers' Lane. No romance ensues, rather they want Hicks to help them go down to the tissue culture lab and destroy the specimens. Hicks, exterminator extraordinaire, agrees.

Down in the cafeteria, Fox talks to Walker about the Sulaco repairs. Walker mentions that he replaced the cooling grid, stuck the old one out in the dock. Fox has an "oh shit!" moment and he's rushing right down to the dock, his laser, and that pesky cooling grid...

Hicks and the Anchorpoint crew meet Bishop in the tissue culture lab. "We're here to destroy the specimens!" they announce. "Me too!" Bishop agrees, and they sterilise the lab together. Alarms go off, and Welles and Rosetti rush in. Spence does a nice punch in the gut to Welles, and Rosetti expresses dismay that he wasn't the one to deliver it. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea though, as Welles starts spasming, rips her face off and only turns into a Hybrid Alien! The Hybrid snatches Rosetti and rushes out of the lab. Halliday pukes. Spence realises the same thing has probably happening to Tully, and they better find him fast.

Fox is watching all this on a monitor, and goes into a containment policy overdrive rampage with his laser.

Spence finds that Tully has left her a message - Tully knows he's infected with something horrible, and has gone to storage area AG-28. This turns out to be a freezer - Spence finds his corpse, half-Tully and half-Hybrid, frozen dead.

Hicks sticks the comatose Ripley in an escape shuttle and sends her off into space. They gather everyone in Operations to devise a plan. Meanwhile Fox torches all the other escape shuttles. He then runs down to the docking bay, wary of the Sulaco's cooling grid, and enters his ship. Bad move, because it's been turned into a nest by an Alien.

In Ops, they find that Fox has wiped out all communications gear in Anchorpoint. There's no way to call for help, and no escape shuttles. A Colonial Admin transport ship, the Kansas City, is due to dock in three days. They receive a delayed transmission from the Rodina - the UPP attempted to clone an Alien, in the fifteenth hour all hell broke loose - and then the transmission is cut off. The UPP battlecruiser nukes the Rodina, but not before Chang makes her way out in an interceptor ship. Hicks wants guns, but Anchorpoint doesn't carry any... except for the smartgun wired to Kurtz's combat suit. It's low on ammo, five rounds, but Hicks is happy with it. So they come up with a plan - get Bishop to blow Anchorpoint's reactor, load a spacetruck contraption with oxygen, and wait for the Kansas to rescue them.

Halliday goes to the eco-module to rescue some lemurs only to find they've been cocooned. A Hybrid rears up behind her, Hicks shoots at it - and the Hybrid is gone. But not dead. Our protagonists try to make it down to the dock, but the easy routes have been blocked by some kind of secreted resin. So, in true Alien-film fashion, they have to go through the creepy maintenance ducts. Halfway through them, Tatsumi gets his leg bitten by a Hybrid - Hicks batters away at it with his gun and it runs away. They patch Tatsumi's leg up and proceed onwards, only to find that Halliday's gone (but we hear her screams).

They make it to the dock, start gathering up oxygen tanks and suit up. Hicks can't resist looking in the WY shuttle, only to find Fox cocooned alive in its interior. He chucks a couple of grenades in there and closes the door. Bye bye Fox.

That bite Tatsumi got must have been infectious, as he starts spasming and then transforms into another Hybrid. Hicks shoots at it with the last of his ammo, but it's till moving. They rush to the door that houses the space truck, and as it opens they see the truck's got a a proper Alien on it - the one that burst from Kurtz and stowed aboard Anchorpoint on the Sulaco's cooling grid. Shit! The Hybrid jumps on Jackson, causing oxygen tanks to roll around the dock, and then guts her with its tail. For no reason whatsoever, the Alien uncoils itself from the space truck, goes over to the Hybrid, and tears it apart.

Spence and Hicks climb into the space truck, and Bishop - appearing from the dock - joins them. They hit the button, the airlock doors open, and they can see Chang's UPP Interceptor heading straight for them. The Alien heads maliciously for the space truck, and the interceptor nails it with a gatling-style pulse cannon. Result!

Cut to the Interceptor's interior. Our heroes are now onboard. Anchorpoint explodes as per Bishop's part of the mission. Bishop checks Hicks, Spence and Chang for infection - they're all clean. Chang, however, is horribly irradiated and will die. Bishop notes that it is now a war of extermination between the Alien and humanity, and that communist and capitalist alike will unite against this common enemy, but I'm not too sure about this, given all that's happened above.

The Kansas City appears and draws the Interceptor into its hold. And end.