Aliens: Dust to Dust: Plot, Characters & Lore

Published: April 25, 2018
Writer: Gabriel Hardman
Artist: Gabriel Hardman
Colors: Rain Beredo
Lettering: Michael Heisler
Cover: Gabriel Hardman
Editor: Randy Stradley
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Format: Four-issue miniseries
Setting: Trono colony, LV-871
ISBN: 978-1-5067-0792-1

Aliens: Dust to Dust was a four-issue Dark Horse Comics miniseries written and drawn by Gabriel Hardman, with colors by Rain Beredo and letters by Michael Heisler. The first issue went on sale on April 25, 2018. Twelve-year-old Maxon Cregar and his mother, Anne, were on the Trono colony on LV-871 when adult Xenomorphs overran the evacuation. A Chestburster came out of Anne on the shuttle and killed her. Maxon left the planet with a woman named Sinta and the head of a synthetic, and a rescue crew placed him with Mr. and Mrs. Tessera.

Plot Summary

Outbreak On Trono

An adult Xenomorph in the stairwell of Maxon's building during the evacuation of Trono in Aliens: Dust to Dust

Maxon Cregar was twelve and lived with his mother, Anne, in a housing block on the Trono colony on LV-871. An evacuation order had gone out. Adult Xenomorphs were loose among the houses, and one came up the stairwell of their building while the two of them were inside. Anne got Maxon out. They took a car and headed for the spaceport, on the same roads as other colonists trying to leave.

The Road

The car crashed on the road to the port. Maxon and his mother left it and went on through the dust, past other wrecks and other people on the same stretch of road. Colonists were leaving on foot as well as in cars. The port was their way off Trono. They ran for it with the rest of the crowd that had made it out of the housing.

The Spaceport

A swarm of Xenomorphs across the evacuation port at Trono while shuttles try to leave in Aliens: Dust to Dust

Xenomorphs were already across the evacuation port when Maxon and his mother reached it. Shuttles were lifting through the swarm, and the people on the pad were trying to get aboard whatever was still on the ground. Mother and son made one of those shuttles with a crowd of other colonists. The ship that took them was later identified on the radio as Evac Shuttle Seven.

The Chestburster

His mother did not survive the flight. A Chestburster came out of her in the cabin of the shuttle, in front of Maxon and the other passengers, and she died there. This was not the adult from the stairwell. It came out of her body after they were already aboard. The new creature was loose among the seats. The people who had just escaped the port were shut in with it, and the shuttle was still trying to get clear of Trono.

The Chestburster went for the people in the cabin. A curly-haired woman in an orange top was caught in the spray, and an older man with glasses was hit and still alive afterward. The shuttle captain, a woman in a flight suit, told the cabin to stay in their seats. Acid blood from a Xenomorph at the port had eaten through the hull, so Evac Shuttle Seven could not reach orbit. She wanted the U.S.S. Carver, then in orbit, to send another shuttle and take the passengers off. The assistant administrator of Trono refused. A creature was loose on Evac Shuttle Seven, and he would not risk putting it aboard the Carver. A crewman said they could isolate it and kill it. The captain said the ship was hers and that she would decide.

Maxon took a pistol from an open case. The others shouted him down, because a shot would open the cabin to vacuum. A man in a brown shirt got the gun away from him. The Xenomorph bit into that man's head and neck, and he did not get up. His body stayed on the deck when the living passengers later left the ship.

Clear Of Trono

Evac Shuttle Seven climbing away over the dust plain of Trono in Aliens: Dust to Dust

Evac Shuttle Seven was barely climbing. It crossed the dust plain under a bright sun, a small shape trailing vapor past the colony structures, with Maxon held at a window by the assistant administrator. His mother's body was still in the cabin, and the creature's tail was still moving through the seats. The climb failed in an air pocket. The shuttle dropped. A pilot called the U.S.S. Carver, gave the name Evac Shuttle Seven, and lost the transmission as the alarm sounded and the hull went down into rock spires.

The Canyon

The pilot launched the impact bags and told the cabin to brace. The shuttle clipped a spire, the bags struck, and the hull crashed in the canyon. A pilot was still conscious after the impact. The captain, now with a pistol, held the passengers in their seats until Roman, an older man, could only groan, and his wife said he needed help. The captain then ordered everyone to take what they could carry and get off.

A young woman told Maxon that her name was Sinta and asked for his. The assistant administrator held the boy and told him to be quiet. Once the living were clear, they detonated the wreck. The blast went up in the rocks. One of the men said that had taken care of the creature, and that they were miles from Trono. They sheltered by a mountain that blocked the worst of a storm.

Alpha Four

A Xenomorph on the wreck of Evac Shuttle Seven after the canyon crash in Aliens: Dust to Dust

A colonist who had worked near the impound yard at the West Port said the creatures had burst out of designer hogs a man had raised and could not sell. Maxon said he had seen the same thing growing in people. Roman could not go farther. He said they had been hiding or running, and another man answered that it had not yet been thirty-six hours. Officer De Vore, the bald man running the communicator, got a signal out and received a recording rather than a live voice. Captain Prego of the U.S.S. Carver was on it, telling them not to repeat an approach, and the message broke into static. A burning streak then fell across the sky. The men on the ground took it for the Carver.

They had no supplies and no way off that spot. The assistant administrator said Terraforming Plant Three was due west, that it should still have provisions and possibly a shuttle, and that the walk would be on foot through the storm. The captain told De Vore the administrator was right. De Vore sent Maxon back toward the debris for the antenna. Maxon carried a dish as far as the wreck and stopped. A Xenomorph was crouched on what was left of the shuttle. He did not tell De Vore what he had seen.

Terraforming Plant Three

The storm split them. Roman was face-down in the dirt, and his wife begged him to stay with her. A Xenomorph struck him, and he did not appear again. Elsewhere De Vore still had Maxon. A woman with them went looking for the old couple and a construction worker, and she told Maxon to wait by a rock. While he waited he read his Weyland-Yutani badge. It named him Maxon Cregar, number 0159, Class 4. Guardian 1 was his mother, Anne Cregar. Guardian 2 was his father, Lucas Cregar, marked deceased.

The construction worker found him, said the others were dead, and dragged him off the rock. The Xenomorph that had come out of Anne dropped on that man. Maxon later said it had only one arm, and that it had lost the other when they detonated the shuttle. It killed the worker and did not take the boy. De Vore reached him and they ran. The building they came to had been locked as if the staff had left at the end of a shift. The assistant administrator put them less than a thousand meters from Terraforming Plant Three. The bridge was down, and overflow from the cooling tower was too deep and too fast to cross. The emergency shuttle was still on the west tower. Its launch cap had not been ejected. They meant to wait for sunrise and follow the bank of the spillway to the facility.

The Roof

They locked the room and waited for morning. A woman in the shelter tried to make Maxon sleep and told him he was just a kid. He told her the Xenomorph in the storm had come out of his mother, had been following them since the crash, and had only one arm. In the next room the others argued about the DNA reflex, that Xenomorphs take on the traits of their hosts, and that some of the creatures had come out looking a little like the designer hogs. One of them said that staying near the boy might keep the group safer. De Vore said the creature had killed the construction worker to protect Maxon and might do the same to the rest of them. He talked about going on without the boy.

The Walkway

The one-armed Xenomorph below Maxon and the assistant administrator outside the shelter in Aliens: Dust to Dust

Maxon climbed down a ladder outside. The assistant administrator caught him and tried to pull him back. A one-armed Xenomorph was in the dark below them. Scratching then came from under the floor, and a monitor showed Maxon and the administrator on an outside walkway with Xenomorphs behind them. They beat on the door. De Vore, inside, refused to open it and said he was not going to die for them. The door gave way. The Xenomorphs hauled him out, and he was not with the group after that. The administrator ran with Maxon.

The Cable

Survivors and Xenomorphs crossing a cable over the drop at Terraforming Plant Three in Aliens: Dust to Dust

The way out was a cable over the drop beside the plant. The assistant administrator told Maxon to climb across, and the Xenomorphs followed. A man fired a pistol. One of the creatures caught a survivor across the face. The administrator tried to pass the gun on, because he could not use it. A shot burst a Xenomorph's head, and the acid sprayed. People and Xenomorphs went off the span. Maxon and the assistant administrator were on that crossing when it failed. The drop under them was the flood running out from the cooling tower.

The River

Maxon went into the river with Xenomorphs falling around him. The assistant administrator and the other people still on the span were in the same water, and so were the creatures that had come off the crossing with them. Sinta came out on the same bank. One Xenomorph took a person under the surface. The current carried the survivors toward the culvert side of the plant, closer to the facility than to the bridge they had already found destroyed.

The Tanks

Maxon carrying a synthetic's head through the algae-bloom tanks, with Sinta ahead of him, in Aliens: Dust to Dust

Maxon and a bearded synthetic came out of the water in the wreckage on that side. The synthetic's body was smashed, and he could not walk. He told Maxon that few Xenomorphs were on that bank and that an evacuation shuttle might still be waiting at the top of the tower. He refused to be dragged. He told the boy to find a piece of metal he could swing, cut the head off, and then sever the spinal strut. Maxon did. The head kept talking, and he carried it toward the east gate.

Sinta found him holding it. The head told her it was a synthetic, and she accepted that. The lifts in the tower were dead. The head had them pull an access panel and throw a yellow lever, and they climbed into a dark entrance. The air stank. The synthetic identified rotting algae-bloom tanks, part of the terraforming process. Maxon recognized them. The same tanks had stood outside his house. This was the station by his home.

Bio-Storage

The rooms farther in were not a simple nest. Glass canisters stood in rows, many of them smashed, with a heavy mechanical arm over the floor and Xenomorph limbs in the foreground. Sinta said it was not an infestation and asked whether the canisters had been installed on purpose. The synthetic said they had. Terraforming had failed, and storage was what had been done to keep the colony running. Weyland-Yutani had been willing to fund that for years in exchange for the bio-storage. He said his own wife was dead, and that Anne was dead.

A Xenomorph came through the canisters. Maxon shouted for the others to get to the shuttle and spoke to the creature as if it knew him. Someone told him it was not his mother and to get back. It struck him anyway. Acid or spit burned across the floor. They ran for an access stair, and a mass of Xenomorphs filled the shaft beside it.

The Evacuation Shuttle

A Xenomorph Queen inside the cocooned evacuation shuttle as Maxon recoils in Aliens: Dust to Dust

The climb brought them out on the wrong tower. A domed building stood nearby, and the shuttle was across a gap. Sinta told Maxon to jump first, because the Xenomorphs were close behind. He made the jump. Her leg would not carry her across. He wanted to wait. The synthetic told him she was right and that they had to go. He took the head and ran.

The shuttle he entered was a hive. People were cocooned along the walls, and one of them, the captain, was still murmuring about flying. The controls were automated. It was an emergency evacuation shuttle, built so that anyone could fly it, and Maxon only had to work the throttle and the stick. A Xenomorph Queen was in that cabin, much larger than the adult Xenomorph beside it, with a crested head and a long tail arched across the ceiling, among the cocooned heads.

The Tesseras

Sinta reaching after the evacuation shuttle as it climbs off the tower in Aliens: Dust to Dust

Maxon launched. The blast threw Xenomorphs through the fire as the shuttle climbed, and Sinta was still on the structure below, reaching after it, with a Xenomorph behind her. In the cabin the synthetic told him to throttle back twenty-seven percent and stay on the marked orbital trajectory. He stared instead of flying until the head called his name again.

The shuttle met a rescue ship. An officer with a clipboard said the count already included the escape pods taken off the U.S.S. Carver, and that two more people were not on that list: a woman and a boy, picked up with the head of a synthetic just before the search ended. Sinta was aboard in a wheelchair. The head was locked in a clear case. A uniformed man told Maxon he would get past it, and introduced him to Mr. and Mrs. Tessera. He would stay with them on the station. In a bunk they told him to ask if he needed anything, then left him. He lay awake, shouted, got up, and ran to the window. His face was in the glass, and the stars were outside.

Key Characters

Maxon Cregar was twelve, living with his mother on the Trono colony. His Weyland-Yutani badge numbered him 0159, Class 4. He got Anne as far as Evac Shuttle Seven, carried a synthetic's head from the river to the last shuttle, flew that shuttle off the tower, and was left with Mr. and Mrs. Tessera. The rescue crew also called him Max.
Anne Cregar reached the evacuation shuttle with Maxon, and a Chestburster killed her in the cabin. Maxon said the one-armed Xenomorph that stalked the survivors had come out of her, and that it had lost the arm when they detonated the wreck. He later spoke to a Xenomorph as if it were her, and it attacked him. His father, Lucas Cregar, is marked deceased on that same badge and does not appear.
Sinta gave Maxon her name after the canyon crash and found him carrying the synthetic's head. Her leg would not make the jump to the last shuttle. She was on the tower when he launched, and she was in a wheelchair on the rescue ship.
The shuttle captain has no personal name. She commanded Evac Shuttle Seven, refused to let the assistant administrator decide what to do with the Chestburster, ordered the survivors off the wreck, and told De Vore that the walk to Terraforming Plant Three was the right call.
Officer De Vore is the bald man who ran the shuttle communicator, sent Maxon back for the antenna, and brought him through the storm to the shelter. When Maxon and the administrator were caught outside, De Vore refused to open the door. The Xenomorphs hauled him out, and he is not seen again.
The assistant administrator of Trono has no personal name in the story. He blocked a transfer to the Carver so the Chestburster would not leave the planet, named Terraforming Plant Three as the walk west, and was on the cable with Maxon when the span failed.
The synthetic has no name. His body was smashed in the river, and he had Maxon cut off his head so the boy could carry it. The head guided them through the tanks, admitted the Weyland-Yutani bio-storage, and ended in a case on the rescue ship. He said his wife was dead. She is not named.
Captain Prego of the U.S.S. Carver is heard only as a recording, warning the shuttle not to repeat an approach. The ship then fell as a fireball. Escape pods from the Carver were already aboard the rescue ship that picked Maxon up.
Roman was hurt in the canyon crash and was killed by a Xenomorph in the dust storm. His wife was last seen alive beside him. She is not named.
Mr. and Mrs. Tessera took Maxon in on the rescue station. Mrs. Tessera called him Max. They left him in a bunk after telling him to ask if he needed anything.

Editions

Dark Horse Comics published Aliens: Dust to Dust as a four-issue miniseries. Issue 1 went on sale April 25, 2018. Issues 2, 3, and 4 went on sale on July 11, 2018, October 24, 2018, and January 9, 2019. Gabriel Hardman wrote and drew all four issues. Rain Beredo colored them, and Michael Heisler lettered them. Hardman and Beredo also painted the standard covers. Carlos D'Anda painted a variant cover for each issue.

Mike Richardson was the publisher and Randy Stradley was the editor. Lin Huang designed the issues. Matt Dryer was the digital art technician on issues 1 and 3, and Josie Christensen was credited in that role on issues 2 and 4. The issues were printed in Canada. The book thanked Nicole Spiegel, Steve Tzirlin, and Carol Roeder at Twentieth Century Fox. Dark Horse collected the four issues as a 96-page trade paperback on May 1, 2019, with a Hardman cover.

Conclusion

Aliens: Dust to Dust is Gabriel Hardman and Rain Beredo's 2018 Dark Horse miniseries about Maxon Cregar during the loss of the Trono colony on LV-871. It follows him from the stairwell of his building to Evac Shuttle Seven, the canyon, and Terraforming Plant Three, where the station's tanks had been turned into Weyland-Yutani bio-storage. A Chestburster killed his mother, Anne, on the first shuttle. He flew another one off the tower, and the miniseries ends with him awake in a bunk on a rescue ship, in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Tessera, looking out at the stars.