Aliens: Earth Hive
This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (December 2016) |
Nightmare Asylum |
Aliens: Earth Hive is a
Setting
It is the first book in a
Plot summary
The book begins with a routine space junk cleanup mission in Earth orbit, with a small derelict spaceship being prepped for de-orbit and burnup. The crew doing the cleanup investigate the ship, and, much to their horror, an alien xenomorph stowaway on the derelict manages to board the cleanup crew's ship, and kill them. The ship is destroyed when one of the crewmembers panics and collides the cleanup ship with the derelict. However, everything was captured by the cleanup ship's black box.
A
Meanwhile, greedy executives from the Weyland-Yutani corporation, learn of the Colonial Marine expedition to the alien homeworld, and make plans to intercept and destroy it. They hire a black-ops mercenary named Massey and his team of illegal combat synthetics, whose programming has been altered to permit the harming of human beings, in violation of the
A third group enters the fray, a religious cult that worships the alien xenomorph, and whose members believe that implantation by a
After arriving at the alien planet, the colonial marine ship is ambushed by Massey and the combat synthetics, assisted by the leader of the colonial marine force, who turns traitor for money. After seizing control of the marine's vessel, Massey kills the traitorous marine, leaving Wilks and the rest of the marines captive. The mercenary reveals his plan is to send the marines down to the planet, as 'bait' for the aliens, and then use the combat synthetics to collect the implanted marines. All of the marines except for Wilkes are sent down to the planet, unarmed, with the mercenary combat synthetics keeping a close watch.
On the planet below, the first team of Colonial Marines, including Mitch, is forced to enter an alien hive. Before the aliens can come out and attack, the mercenary synthetics who are keeping guard are attacked by another hostile alien species (not the xenomorphs). The Colonial Marines take advantage of this situation, and kill the mercenary synthetics and take their weapons.
During the surprise attack on the colonial marine vessel, Billie managed to hide and avoid detection in the initial sweep of the ship, and her name is not listed on the crew roster. She manages to kill one of the mercenary synthetics, get a weapon, and make her way to the bridge where Wilks and Massey are located. Billie and Wilks fight Massey, and manage to kill him. However, another group of marines is not so lucky, and is captured by a nearby alien hive. The surviving marines, led by Mitch, have no choice but to attempt a rescue. The rescue attempt comes at a great cost, only a few marines manage to make it out alive. Wilks and Billie fly down in a dropship to pick up the surviving marines, when Mitch is apparently killed by an alien – only to be revealed to be a synthetic as well. The Colonial Marine force included a team of synthetics so accurate, they could completely pass for human. Billie had no idea Mitch was synthetic, and is devastated.
Mitch and the rest of the marines make it into the dropship, just as a horde of aliens start to swarm over the ship and try to break in. The ship cannot take off, and Wilkes is about to undertake a suicide mission to try to go outside to clear the aliens off, when suddenly all of the aliens are killed. A new alien appears, looking something like a giant elephant. The characters in the book do not realize it, but this is the same species of creature whose crashed ship the crew of the Nostromo encountered on LV-426 in the original Alien movie – the so-called "Space Jockey." The elephant-alien does not appear hostile or particularly interested in the humans, as it returns to its spaceship without making contact with Wilkes. The remaining crew of the Colonial Marine expedition – Wilks, Billie, Mitch, a marine named Blake, and a naval crewman named Parks, return to their ship and head for Earth.
On Earth, the alien cult has successfully broken into the biowarfare lab containing the alien specimen, and has released wild aliens onto the planet. The aliens are slowly taking over, despite the best efforts of Earth defense forces. Over a period of several months, the aliens so completely dominate the planet, that most humans have been killed, and the rest have evacuated to earth orbit or other planets. As Wilks, Billie, Mitch, Blake, and Parks return to Earth, the last organized survivors of Earth are preparing to leave. Upon landing, a group of military survivors approach them, demanding that they hand over their ship. The encounter turns violent: Blake is killed and Parks panics and abandons the group. Wilks, Billie, and Mitch manage to stow away on a container ship headed for an unknown destination. They escape from Earth, with no idea of their final destination. This cliffhanger ending leads into the next book in the trilogy,
Connections
The book is a
However, the novel was released as a tie-in with Alien 3 (1992) which took the story off in another direction. To avoid any confusion that might arise, the characters' names were changed, so Hicks and Newt became Wilks and Billie, respectively. Other minor characters were also renamed.
When Book One was 'remastered' in 1996 and re-released as Outbreak the panels were colored and, to bring it in line with the revised story as presented in Earth Hive, the characters were renamed and references to LV-426 were changed to the colony world of Rim.
Publication
- Aliens: Earth Hive (by ISBN 1-85798-139-1)
References
- Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films (page 210 and 224, by ISBN 1-903889-94-4)