Aliens: Criminal Enterprise: Plot, Characters & Lore

Published: January 16, 2008
Author: S. D. Perry
Publisher: DH Press
Format: Mass market paperback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 978-1-59582-003-7
Series: DH Press Aliens novels
Setting: Fantasia

Aliens: Criminal Enterprise is a 2008 novel by S. D. Perry, published by DH Press on 16 January 2008. It followed citizen pilot Tommy Chase after crime boss Adrian Msomi forced him to fly an unregistered drop ship to Fantasia, an illegal terraform plant on a radioactive rock where adult Xenomorphs were used as perimeter guards. Tommy's brother Pete left Msomi with a failed load of liquid plethium, and Msomi held Tommy for that debt. A rival crew and a Grant Corporation team reached the plant in the same week, and only Tommy, former Colonial Marine John Kaye, and Didi Weber left on the Avarice.

Plot Summary

Tommy woke from eleven weeks of cryo on an unregistered industrial drop ship hidden inside an unlicensed automated freighter. Crime boss Adrian Msomi owned the illegal plant at Fantasia and stayed on Earth. He needed a citizen pilot for one run after the last regular pilot tried to betray him. Pete's unpaid debt made Tommy the insurance. The ship carried Lee and Moby, who worked for Msomi, plus new hands that included chemist Wes Allen, sex worker Ri, and the huge enforcer Yen.

Tommy Is Forced To Fly To Fantasia

Pete Chase had been a small player in Msomi's trade until a liquid plethium shipment failed to reach the boss's people, and his partners left him with the loss. About thirteen weeks before the landing he asked Tommy to fly one run. Msomi took both brothers instead of killing Pete on Earth. Tommy left a legal job and agreed to fly the outbound load and the return in exchange for Pete's life.

The drop ship had no name in the computer and no spare stim gear in the sleepers. Lee woke Tommy by knocking on the cryo lid, already dressed, while Moby ran the sleeper controls. The two of them rode with the brothers to keep the crew in line. Navigation was preloaded, and Moby gave Tommy almost no time to study the world below. They had to leave the freighter in a tight window or Tommy would have to plot a new course by hand. Fantasia did not appear as a legal port, and the nav file listed the landing as unspecified.

Tommy Lands Through A Xenomorph Swarm

Tommy took the ship down through a swarm of adult Xenomorphs toward a cone-shaped dock. Hundreds of the creatures came out of caves and low hills and tried to climb the hull before the hatch sealed. The auto-pilot held the line, and Tommy kept his hands on the board in case the preloaded path failed. Moby sat comms behind him and sent a scrambled notice that they were coming in.

Plant manager Trace Berdella waited inside with his girlfriend Didi Weber, lock worker Trog, and sex worker Jessa Saers. Moby was first off the ship. Trace kept the greeting party armed until he was sure of the new faces, and he kept Didi with him.

The New Crew Learns How The Plant Works

About twenty or twenty-five people lived on the rock at a time. Trog walked the new arrivals through processing labs, a gym, a cafeteria, garden rooms, and a shielded shelter called standoff. Outside cameras watched the creatures for sport. Didi took Ri aside and gave her MX7 patches before the rest of the crew had even unpacked.

Trace held the Chase brothers as insurance. He also named the last regular pilot, Mullin, who had tried to betray Msomi and had been left outside alone. After that the plant had flown the run on computers, until a power surge nearly wrecked a shipment. Trace had scheduled a cattle feed for the same day and turned it into a party in Ops.

Didi Looks For A Way Off Fantasia

After the tour, Tommy found Didi in a studio off the main hall, working on a sculpture of an adult Xenomorph. She was using MX7 and wanted off Fantasia. Tommy left after a short talk.

Didi stayed with the sculpture and her box of patches. Later that night Pete came to the same studio. She wanted off the rock, and Trace would not take her.

Two Workers Die Feeding The Xenomorphs

Twice a year Msomi sent cattle. Every few weeks a crew drove sedated animals from distant pens so the adult Xenomorphs would stay around the plant instead of breaking in. Bodyguard Leslie Raif and maintenance worker Mighty Mitchell took the first run that Tuesday while the compound drank and placed bets on the cameras. The bets covered how many creatures would hit the windshield, how many the pair would shoot, and how many the lock fire would burn on the way back.

An adult Xenomorph tore Raif apart at the pens, and Raif's own rounds killed Mighty as he tried to help. Ops cut the screens when the bodies were on camera. Frank Cole collected on a bet. Trace cut that talk off and asked for a new crew to finish the run.

Three Xenomorphs Get Into The Return Lock

Trace sent Frank Cole, Tommy, and Pete to finish the job and bring the transport back. Lee flew them to the pens, then left the brothers with Frank for the drive home. The cattle were too drugged to run. The brothers understood that the animals were hosts as well as bait. Frank ran the electrified transport through the swarm and used the hull zapper at the lock.

Three adult Xenomorphs got inside with them. Tommy, Pete, and Frank killed those three, and acid blood etched the rock around the corpses. Pete shot one in the head, and Frank finished another at the throat. Frank was on his last scheduled day on the rock.

A Rival Crew Comes To Steal The MX7

Ray Turner had hidden a camouflaged ship in a cliff shadow for six days. Didi had tipped him that the outgoing product ship was about to leave, because she wanted off the rock and away from Trace. Turner planned to hit that ship with an electromagnetic pulse, steal the MX7 patches, and leave clues that would make Msomi blame Trace. He had dropped those clues on Earth before he left, so Msomi's people would look at Trace first.

Turner's crew included Vin, EMP tech Ian Carson, and shooters Wilson and Duffy. Turner thought of the ship as the Avarice. His people had sat under reflective camo for a week, listening to adult Xenomorphs climb the hull. They meant to take only the MX7 blankets and leave the heavier bags of other drugs behind.

Grant Corporation Sends A Strike Team

A Grant Corporation Neo-Pharm resolution team was fourteen hours behind the same freighter. Captain Shaw Puente commanded the raid. John Kaye handled approach and the walk to the compound. Neo-Pharm wanted the plant burned because Msomi's MX7 cut into its drug business, and because a spike in street prices would push addicts toward Neo-Pharm's own withdrawal drugs. Kaye had taken the job after his son Jack died of an overdose.

Daniel Aaronson hacked Fantasia's satellite on the way in, looped its sensors, and hid the Grant approach. The team's file put the adult Xenomorphs at about two meters, with acid blood and implantation in an animal host. Kaye had paid two convicts for those accounts, then watched the creatures chase Tommy's drop ship across the hills.

An EMP Crashes Both Incoming Ships

On Wednesday Turner pulsed the outgoing product ship and, by accident, the Grant ship as well. Both hulls went down on the rock. Chemist Albert Beck was killed in the drop-ship crash. Tommy, Pete, Lee, Moby, Frank, and Didi survived inside the wrecked product ship. Turner's people then left the Avarice to strip the MX7 cargo and leave the heavier drugs behind.

Turner had meant to hit only the product ship. When a second hull lifted in the same window, his tech said one pulse would take both if they were close enough, and Turner fired anyway. On the plant, Trace saw the outside cameras die, then a one-second blackout from the pulse. More than a hundred tripwire alerts on the satellite had never fired.

The Plant Manager Flies Out To The Wrecks

After the pulse, Trace sent non-essentials to standoff and tried to raise the product ship. The cameras stayed down. He left Mac Simpson in charge and told Ops to keep working the camera relays. He also wanted both ATVs ready to pull the load once he knew the ground was clear.

Didi talked him into a fly-see over the wrecks, and they left in the flyer from the main lock. Elvis and Taryn had been set to make that flight first. Trog checked the seals behind them and started a perimeter walk. Over the crash site Trace saw two hulls, one of them under camouflage, and took that as a paid tap for the load.

A Grant Strike Team Reaches The Plant

Kaye's team left their wreck in deflect suits and walked for the compound under a mass attack. Incinerators and flares held a path for a while. A tail blow knocked Kodaira down, and the creatures took him once the fire moved on. Kaye later counted Kodaira, Puente, Marek, and Simmons gone before they reached the hangar. Simmons had been the team's only certified pilot.

Graham wanted to cut a deal or steal a flyer and go back to the wreck. The team's file said the plant would blow the locks once it knew they were inside, and Graham wanted to stop the raid. The wrecked Grant ship could not lift them off without repairs they did not have time to make, so Kaye kept the team moving toward the hangar.

The Xenomorphs Break Into The Plant

Trog was walking the perimeter when he heard fighting at the hangar. He ordered the locks blown so the adult Xenomorphs would kill the invaders. Freeman opened those locks from inside before everyone had reached standoff. The creatures poured through the green main corridor and wrecked the plant. A calm loop on the speakers reported falling oxygen while people ran for the shelter.

Ng was shot through the throat in that corridor. Graham was killed in the same outbreak. Kaye shot a burning Fantasian who was in an adult Xenomorph's grip. The remaining Grant pair, Kaye and Susan Borkez, reached standoff with Jessa and Allen, who had been in their bunks when the alarms started. Yen had reached a bunk as well.

Survivors Learn A Third Ship Is Hidden

Inside standoff, Wes Allen laid out why both wrecks had gone down together. The plant had no pulse weapon of its own. Grant and the product ship had lifted in the same window, so a third party must have aimed at the load and caught Grant by accident. That third ship was on the rock, and it would not stay long. Jessa added that Yen had seen Trace and Didi suit up for the flyer.

Kaye and Borkez forced the locked armory and took industrial flamethrowers, revolvers, and grenade launchers. Allen wanted a ride in an armored transport out to the wrecked carrier. Kaye had taken the Neo-Pharm job after his son Jack died of an overdose, and he took Jessa and Allen with him instead of leaving them in standoff.

Didi Opens The Wrecked Ship To The Swarm

On the crashed product ship, Didi opened the inner lock and then the outer hatch. Lee wanted the product moved that day onto the only ship that could fly, while Trace wanted to wait on the compound. She hit Moby with an incendiary grenade when he tried to stop her, and an adult Xenomorph snatched him out of the doorway.

The rest ran for Turner's hidden ship. Another adult Xenomorph took Frank Cole in the open ground between the wrecks. The Avarice's camouflage split, and Trace shot Turner as Turner tried to get Didi aboard. A creature carried Turner away. Acid from one of the kills burned a patch on Pete's thigh. Tommy packed it with a scrap of deflect suit and stopped it going deeper.

The Plant Manager Shoots Tommy's Brother

Inside the Avarice, the lock closed on Tommy, Pete, Trace, Lee, and Didi. Frank and Moby were gone. Pete got to his feet with the acid burn on his thigh and held onto Tommy. Trace and Lee both aimed at Didi after she admitted she had tipped Turner. Lee was ready to kill her if Trace did not.

Pete told Trace to stop pointing the gun at her. Trace turned the weapon on Pete instead and shot him in the chest and gut. Tommy went for Trace, and Lee shot Trace through the side of the skull before Trace could fire. Lee needed Tommy alive to fly the Avarice and move Msomi's load. When an open hail came in from an armored transport, Tommy took Trace's gun and told the people outside they had a ride.

Survivors Cross To The Hidden Ship Under Fire

Kaye and Borkez left standoff with Jessa and Allen after Borkez locked the working blast doors except the path to the ATV garage. Kaye drove the adult Xenomorphs down the halls with a flamethrower. When they opened the garage outer lock, the swarm ran out onto the rock. Borkez then drove the armored transport north and east while adult Xenomorphs hit the hull. Tommy had cut the Avarice camouflage and said he would open the hatch. Kaye parked the nose against that lock.

Tommy timed the hatch to a count of ten. Jessa hit the hull zapper, Allen opened the transport door, and Borkez went out first with a flamethrower set for the thin air. Kaye killed two adult Xenomorphs trapped between the hulls. Lee then pulled a second gun from his boot and fired from the Avarice hatch. His rounds tore into Jessa's suit as Borkez pushed her ahead. An adult Xenomorph dropped from the transport roof and carried Borkez into the swarm. Another got into the ATV, ripped Allen's mask away, and dragged him out. Kaye shot Allen through the skull rather than leave him to the creatures. Didi tackled Lee, and Tommy shot Lee through the left eye. Kaye came in last and packed Tommy's upper arm once the lock was shut.

Tommy, Kaye, And Didi Leave Fantasia

Three people left the rock: Tommy, Kaye, and Didi. Kaye put Pete, Trace, and Lee into cryo units on the Avarice. The ship had sleepers for ten, a stocked kitchen, and a mess Turner had left full of loose cups and empty magazines. Kaye dumped that clutter into a bunk room so the lift would not throw it through the cabin. Tommy lifted off while adult Xenomorphs hammered the hull.

On Thursday, Didi went into cryo after using a patch that left her with twenty-six. She would start withdrawal in the sleeper and have one hard week when she woke. Tommy and Kaye stayed awake longer to wind the ship down. The plant was wrecked, and its locks had been opened from inside.

Fantasia

Fantasia had been a numbered radioactive rock about eight years before Tommy landed, charted by a deep-space probe. Msomi planted core rods for partial gravity, put up a thin atmosphere, and built the plant in protected caves. The world was about half Earth's size, averaged minus eight degrees Celsius, and got about four hours of reflected light a day from a satellite panel. Oxygen sat at just over a third of Earth's, and the surface was low hills, lichen, and tunnel systems.

Ships came and went four times a year and rotated the workforce. The compound used acid-resistant steel, collapsed outer tunnels, and blast doors that could be run from standoff. Msomi counted on the adult Xenomorphs instead of a dedicated pulse weapon. The plant cooked MX7 patches plus other illegal drugs, including synthetic heroin.

Xenomorphs As Guards

Conservative counts put the local population in the upper hundreds. Turner guessed there might be a thousand. The adult Xenomorphs acted as untrained perimeter guards. They attacked anything that was not one of their own, and the workers used electrified transports, lock fire jets, and a hull zapper to move through them.

Workers on Fantasia used cattle as hosts and described the lifecycle from that work. Spider-sized Facehuggers attached to the animals and put a Chestburster down the throat. That second stage later tore its way out. A camera in a breeding area showed adult Xenomorphs carrying large eggs in from somewhere else. Nobody on Fantasia had seen the egg-layer, and no human was implanted in the story.

Word on the plant was that Msomi first received about six creatures from an MX7 addict who had worked for Weyland-Yutani or for a firm called Biotech. He had been trying to buy more before he learned they spread as a pathogen. The workers believed they could hold the numbers down because each feed run killed some of the adult Xenomorphs, and because the creatures could not breed without hosts. Grant's briefing put the adult Xenomorphs at about two meters, with inner and outer jaws and acid blood.

Key Characters

Tommy Chase was a citizen pilot forced onto the Fantasia run to keep his brother alive. He killed three adult Xenomorphs in the return lock, shot Lee through the left eye, and flew the Avarice off the rock with Kaye and Didi.
Pete Chase was Tommy's younger brother and the reason Msomi held them both. He helped kill the lock creatures, told Trace to stop aiming at Didi, and was shot in the chest and gut by Trace aboard the Avarice.
Didi Weber was Trace's girlfriend, an MX7 addict, and Turner's contact inside the plant. She opened the product-ship lock, tackled Lee at the Avarice hatch, and left in cryo with twenty-six patches.
John Kaye was a former Colonial Marine and police sergeant hired by Neo-Pharm after his son Jack died of an overdose. He led the walk from the crashed Grant ship, shot a burning Fantasian who was in an adult Xenomorph's grip, killed Allen rather than leave him to the creatures, and was the only member of that team to leave.
Trace Berdella managed Fantasia for Msomi after running Pacific Rim distribution on Earth. He ran the second feed as a party in Ops, shot Turner, shot Pete, and was killed by Lee aboard the Avarice.
Lee was Msomi's enforcer on the drop ship. Workers told a story that he had tortured a prisoner named Aldrete and fed him to the creatures. He killed Trace, shot Jessa, and died when Tommy shot him through the eye.
Richard Wale, called Moby, ran the sleeper controls with Lee on the Fantasia runs. An adult Xenomorph pulled him out of the product-ship lock after Didi opened it.
Ray Turner was a former Msomi man who hid the camouflaged Avarice for six days to steal the MX7 load and frame Trace. His pulse wrecked both outgoing ships. Trace shot him, and an adult Xenomorph carried him away.
Frank Cole was a Fantasia enforcer on his last scheduled day. He drove the second feed run, killed at least one adult Xenomorph in the return lock, and was taken on the run between the wrecked ships.
Jessa Saers was a Fantasia sex worker who reached standoff with Allen when the alarms started. She rode the armored transport to the Avarice, and Lee shot her during the crossing.
Wes Allen was a new chemist with a wandering eye who worked out that a third ship had pulsed the two wrecks. He reached the Avarice lock in the transport, and Kaye shot him through the skull when an adult Xenomorph dragged him out.
Susan Borkez was Kaye's last teammate inside the compound. She forced the armory, drove the transport, went out first with a flamethrower, and was taken from the transport roof during the crossing.
Shaw Puente captained the Grant resolution team under Neo-Pharm. Kaye counted him among the dead before they reached the hangar.
Anne Simmons was the Grant team's only certified pilot. Kaye counted her gone before the hangar.
Daniel Aaronson hacked Fantasia's satellite and hid the Grant approach. He survived the crash and the first surface fight. An adult Xenomorph dragged him away in the tunnels.
Simon Ng carried an incinerator on the walk from the wreck. He was shot through the throat in the green main corridor after the locks opened.
Graham wanted to cut a deal or steal a flyer after the walk. Yen killed him at the standoff door.
Kodaira and Marek were on Kaye's walk from the wreck. A tail blow knocked Kodaira down, and the creatures took him. Kaye counted Marek gone before the hangar.
Leslie Raif was a bodyguard sent to Fantasia to avoid a legal problem on Earth. An adult Xenomorph tore him apart on the first cattle run.
Mighty Mitchell was a maintenance worker on that same run. Raif's own fire killed him as he tried to help.
Albert Beck was a Fantasia chemist packed for the outgoing product ship. He was killed when Turner's pulse wrecked that hull.
Mac Simpson was left in charge when Trace flew out to the wrecks. He fired on the Grant team in the main corridor and was shot there.
Trog was a lock worker who walked new arrivals through the plant and later ordered the locks blown. The book last showed him on the perimeter and did not give him a separate ending.
Freeman opened those locks from inside before everyone had reached standoff. The book did not show what happened to him after that.
Yen came to Fantasia to hide from a rape charge. He reached a bunk when the alarms started, killed Graham at the standoff door, and was not seen again after that.
Vin, EMP tech Ian Carson, and shooters Wilson and Duffy sat under camouflage with Turner, then left the Avarice to strip the MX7 cargo. Lee counted them dead outside before Turner opened the lock.
Adrian Msomi was the Earth crime boss who owned Fantasia, the MX7 plant, and the adult Xenomorphs that guarded it. He never appeared on the rock in person.

The book did not show separate endings for sex worker Ri, drop-ship hands K1, M-Cat, and Simon, or plant workers such as Lyle, Taryn, Elvis, and chemist Derin Chopra. Many other Fantasians were last seen in the halls after the locks opened.

Place In The DH Press Line

DH Press published Criminal Enterprise after Aliens: Original Sin, Aliens: DNA War, Aliens: Cauldron, and Aliens: Steel Egg. It was S. D. Perry's first original Aliens novel for the imprint, after her Bantam work on Aliens vs. Predator: Prey and War. The book used a new cast and had no link to Ripley, the Hornblower, or the cargo ships from Cauldron. Brian Evenson's Aliens: No Exit followed in October 2008 and closed the DH Press Aliens run.

Titan Books reprinted Criminal Enterprise with No Exit in The Complete Aliens Omnibus: Volume Seven on 24 December 2018. Titan lists that paperback at 576 pages. The two novels shared no characters or locations. Criminal Enterprise stayed on one illegal plant for four story days, Tuesday through Thursday, plus the cryo flight in.

Continuity

The novel gave no calendar year. Grant's file listed Fantasia as an ordinary radioactive rock eight years earlier, which fixed the plant's age but not its place against the films. Weyland-Yutani appeared only as hearsay about where the first six creatures might have come from.

Grant and Neo-Pharm ran the raid as a business action against Msomi's MX7 trade. Kaye's briefing matched the usual adult body plan, acid blood, and implantation in an animal host. The story did not show those early stages, and it never put a Queen on camera.

Editions

DH Press released the American paperback on 16 January 2008. Dark Horse lists the format at 224 pages, while library and science-fiction catalogs count 222. Stephen Youll painted the cover. Titan's 2018 omnibus reprinted the novel with No Exit at 576 pages.

Behind The Scenes

Stephani Perry, credited as S. D. Perry, wrote Criminal Enterprise as a standalone crime story rather than a comic adaptation. She had novelized Aliens: Berserker in 1998 and written the Bantam Aliens vs. Predator books with and after her father, Steve Perry. She had also written the Resident Evil novels by then.

Stephen Youll painted a man with a flamethrower under an adult Xenomorph seen from above, set on a black field with the DH Press title stack. The cover did not show the cone dock, the Avarice, or the cattle pens. Youll had painted the earlier DH Press Aliens covers as well, including Original Sin, DNA War, Cauldron, and Steel Egg.

Conclusion

Aliens: Criminal Enterprise is S. D. Perry's 2008 DH Press novel about Tommy Chase on Msomi's illegal plant at Fantasia. It covers one product run, a stolen load, and a Grant raid that all hit the same rock in the same week. The book ends with the plant wrecked, Pete and Trace dead, and Tommy, Kaye, and Didi leaving on the Avarice.