INT. CORRIDOR: A door opens, Ripley walks out and heads toward operations. All of sudden, a strident alarm begins to sound. She breaks into a run.

INT. OPERATIONS - TACTICAL: Ripley double-times it to Hicks' Tactical Console. Hudson and Vasquez come running in as well. Hicks slaps a switch, killing the alarm.

HUDSON: What is it? What's going on?

HICKS: They're coming.

HUDSON: Where?

HICKS: In the tunnel.

In the background, the sound of the sentry guns begin firing. Their loud bursts of fire echoing around the complex.

HICKS: Here we go.

They all gather around the monitors and the sentry units' displays. The echoing crash of the gun fire and alien screams can be heard everywhere. The sound vibrates through the flooring.

HICKS: A and B guns, tracking and firing. Multiple targets.

The RSS guns pound away, echoing through the area. Their separate bursts overlap in an irregular rhythm. A counter on the sentry displays' counts down the number of rounds fired.

INT. SERVICE TUNNEL - TIGHT ON THE RSS GUNS: Blasting stroboscopically in the tunnels. Their barrels smoke as they slowly heat up.

INT. OPERATIONS - TACTICAL

HUDSON: Look at those ammo counters go.

CLOSE-UP ON THE SENTRY DISPLAY: As the rounds left quickly decrease.

They all gather around the monitors and the sentry units' displays. The echoing crash of the gun fire and alien screams can be heard everywhere. The sound vibrates through the flooring.

INT. SERVICE TUNNEL - TIGHT ON THE RSS GUNS: The units keep blasting everything in sight. Not one creature gets by them, until...

INT. OPERATIONS - TACTICAL

HICKS: B-gun's down fifty percent.

HUDSON: Man, it's a shooting gallery down there.

Warning beeps start to emit from the control terminal as the ammo begins to run out.

HICKS: Sixty rounds left on B. Forty...twenty...ten...B-gun's dry. Twenty on A. Ten...five...that's it.

HUDSON: Jesus. They're wall to wall in there.

SILENCE. Then a GONG-LIKE BOOMING echoes eerily up from the sub-level.

RIPLEY: They're at the pressure door.

HUDSON: Man, listen to that.

BISHOP (voice over): Bishop here. I'm afraid I have some bad news.

HUDSON: Well, that's a switch.

INT. OPERATIONS - MINUTES LATER: Everyone, including Bishop, is crowded at the window, intently watching the AP station, which is a dim silhouette in the mist.

RIPLEY: It's very pretty, Bishop. But, what are we looking for?

Suddenly, a column of blue flame, like an acetylene torch, jets upward from the station at the base of the cone.

BISHOP: That's it. The emergency venting.

HUDSON: Ah, that's beautiful, man. Ah man, that...that just beats it all.

HICKS: How long until it blows?

BISHOP: Four hours...with a blast radius of thirty kilometers. Equal to about forty megatons.

HICKS: We got problems.

HUDSON: I don't believe this. I don't fucking believe this.

HICKS: Vasquez. Close the shutters.

RIPLEY: Why can't we shut it down from here?

BISHOP: I'm sorry. The crash did too much damage. An overload was inevitable, at this point.

HUDSON: Oh, man. And I was gettin' short. Four more weeks and out. Now, I'm going to buy it on this rock. It ain't half fair, man!

VASQUEZ: Hudson, give us a break.

HUDSON: Four more weeks. Oh, man.

RIPLEY: Well, we've got to get the other Drop-Ship from the Sulaco. I mean, there must be some way of bringing it down on remote?

HUDSON: How? The transmitter was on the APC. It's wasted.

RIPLEY: I don't care how! But, we'd better think of something. We'd better think of a way.

HUDSON: Think of what? We're fucked!

HICKS: Shutup.

HUDSON: We're doomed!

HICKS: Shut up! What about the colony transmitters? The up-link tower down at the other end. Why can't we use that?

BISHOP: No, I checked. The hardwiring between here and there is damaged. We can't align the dish.

Ripley is wound up like a dynamo, her mind spinning out options, grim solutions.

RIPLEY: Well, somebody's going to have to go out there. Take a portable terminal and go out there and patch in manually.

HUDSON: Oh, yeah! Sure! With those things running around. You can count me out!

HICKS: Yeah, I guess we can just count you out of everything, huh?

BISHOP (quietly): I'll go.

HUDSON: That's right, man. Why don't you go, man?

BISHOP (quietly): I'll go.

RIPLEY: What?

BISHOP: I'll go. I mean, I'm the only one qualified to remote-pilot the ship anyway.

HUDSON: Yeah, right, man. Bishop should go. Good idea.

BISHOP: Believe me, I'd prefer not to. I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid.