In a near-future world shattered by an alien invasion, a lone Special Ops soldier, unaware that he's the key to victory, stumbles on a group of disabled war vets holding their abandoned VA Hospital as the invaders lay siege. (ALIENS meets ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 with one arm tied behind its back)

SYNOPSIS:

WHY FOE? – It’s an I.P., it has franchise potential: ALIENS meets ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13… with one arm tied behind its back – ALIEN/ALIENS: Man meet Superman; FOE: Half-Man meet Superman

A hellish rain of asteroids is showered on Earth by... someone. A “nuclear winter” starts to destroy humanity. Four years pass, the world in chaos. Civilization is all but lost. It’s survival of the fittest again.

Wandering the southwest, a lone soldier, MIKLOVITCH, on a mysterious search, stumbles across a group of variously disabled war veterans surviving somehow in an abandoned VA hospital. They face hordes of savages, remnants of humanity, using their own unique combat abilities and weapons designed around their individual disabilities. They’re led by a wheelchair-bound former unit commander, LYNCH.

The survivors from the city surrounding the huge complex are led by JEREMY, former head of hospital security, now determined to take it for himself and his army of barbarians. The hospital is a prize: filled with drugs, medical supplies, its own power and water, good for several more years, and vast amounts of food (some grown onsite) and supplies, even now, years after “the end of the world”.

Having sheltered overnight in the bowels of the hospital, and unaware of the surviving vets on the upper floors, Miklovitch finds himself in the middle of an attack by the barbarians (called by the vets with sarcastic irony, “Abnormals” or “Abs,”: in their world, disabilities are the norm). So, despite his inability to trust anyone, he ends up aiding the Veterans’ defense. They’ve got all manner of weapons and tactics developed since the hospital staff abandoned them: some who specialize in disability combat techniques (variants on Asian forms suited to missing limbs); others specialize in makeshift weapons design (unique zip guns/crutch-based blades); others handle electronics (walkie-talkies, cameras, booby traps) and logistics. After the Abnormal attack, Mik’s forced to choose: friend or foe. Reluctant, but realizing the need (both theirs and his), for the present, he joins them.

WE learn, now, Mik is not an American soldier. Though originally born in the U.S., he’s Russian, former “Spetsnaz” (Russian Special Forces). On a quest that, so far, he keeps to himself, he’s the sole survivor of his unit, originally dropped into a mostly destroyed U.S., now left to die by his Command. His mission was to secure and control a rumored cutting-edge weapons installation that could be used in the world’s defense. After travelling what has become a post-apocalyptic hell-scape, and having been betrayed time and again, he trusts no one, even these broken, yet undaunted, war vets.

So, Miklovitch assimilates into the military culture maintained by the vets and a pair of nurses who had stayed. There’s Lynch, their leader, and, WILLY, the former Head Nurse, devoted to Lynch, and, herself, formidable with a gun. Others include former ward nurse, ANGIE, plus a number of variously disabled vets. Mik learns they’re running out of ammunition and supplies, and they need a generator for their lone, otherwise still-running truck. Mik describes an abandoned armored truck in a parking garage deep in the city. So, they go on a “Night Run”.

Miklovitch and some of the vets slip out of the hospital that night and head into the city.

Moving through the ruined landscape, Miklovitch and the others locate the parking structure. They encounter some “abs” and fight them off. Returning, Miklovitch gives them a stash of Special Ops weapons he had concealed nearbyfor later use. Then, they witness some kind of “ship” landing and burrowing into the desert.

Lynch and the vets decide that the strange ship must be investigated. So, Mik and three vets go back. Along the way, surveilling an abs’ base, they find they’ve been attacked: the bodies eviscerated, some nearly digested, yet left scattered like an afterthought. Mik goes in to investigate, the others holding position behind some cover. Inside, he senses an odor… worse than a slaughterhouse. Then, getting only a glimpse, he sees creatures so strange and different he can’t make sense of them. Backing out, he finds his companions dead, just like the abnormals. He runs.

He reports what happened and that he’s been followed. A faction of the vets managing with only canes or a single crutch, and led by “caner,” JENKS, another former unit commander, confront Lynch arguing for escape. When Lynch refuses, Jenks and his group abandon them. The remaining vets realize they must prepare for an enemy and a fight they’ve never imagined. Having defeated their adversary, Jeremy and his “abnormals,” time after time, Lynch and these “half-men” must prepare for something beyond the “whole men” they’ve faced up to now.

The invaders lay siege to the hospital.

As the enemy moves in, the vets begin to learn their adversary’s nature, creatures whose bizarre biology is unlike anything they know. In the DIM LIGHT, the ALIENS advance: tall, bipedal, yet insect-like, moving in short bursts, black, chitin-covered bodies with two segmented arms ending in claw-like pincers over powerful legs. Scorpion-like tails curl upward, ending in dripping, scimitar-shaped thorns. Their chests suddenly open: dozens of spider-like THINGS burst out, hopping from wall to wall. They seem to serve their alien hosts in a symbiotic manner. These, then, are the “things” that ended the world.

Later, after an intense fire-fight, with the help of Angie—with whom he has begun a relationship—Mik may have found a weakness. Willy and Miklovitch slip out of the hospital to enlist Jeremy and his fighters. They explain that they’ve found a vulnerability in the aliens, and that the weapon they can use against them is in a storage-room at the loading dock. Jeremy stiffens and tells them that there’s more to the hospital than the vets know. He explains that it’s an entrance to a vast underground complex known as FACILITY NINE, the military’s center for developing black weapons technology,“ten times” the size of the hospital, itself, and filled with stores and labs. The loading dock allowed the military cover and truck-access to Facility Nine. This, WE now realize, is what Mik has been trying to find since the beginning. His unit had been tasked by the Russians with capturing or destroying it, to deny it to the invaders. But Jeremy refuses to help, and, after Jenks reveals himself, now allied with the abs, Willy and Mik return to the hospital.

In a fierce series of running battles in the bowels of the hospital complex, the vets begin to understand their foe. Several vets get to the truck dock. There, they’re pinned down at the storage room. Inside, a vet accidentally bumps a button at an opened wall-mounted electrical box, and in the main dock room, a wall opens exposing a ramp large enough for a semi, leading to an underground tunnel. The vets combine their fire forcing the aliens down the ramp. Then, unaware it’s a mistake, one of the vets hits the button again, effectively trapping the enemy in the tunnel leading to Facility Nine.

Back at their defensive redoubt, as the main body of aliens closes in, the vets prepare for a last stand. There, they engage their enemy with everything they’ve learned, and, with the surprise arrival of Jeremy, and his “abs,” along with Jenks and his “caners,” after a withering battle, Miklovitch, Lynch, and the rest destroy their foe. Finally, Mik has found people he can trust.

But, in a final shot at the deserted loading dock, the door to Facility Nine stands immobile as WE slowly move in, setting the stage for another entry in the saga. #