Corporal Colette Ferro was a United States Colonial Marine dropship pilot on the USS Sulaco in Aliens, service number A71/TQ9.0.09428E1. She flew the UD-4L Cheyenne callsigned Bug Stomper on the LV-426 drop, stayed with the ship while Apone's squad swept Hadley's Hope, and died when a stowaway Warrior reached the cockpit after killing Spunkmeyer. The crash wrecked the APC and left the survivors on the surface.
Unknown Earlier Drops
No book or comic named Ferro's earlier units or drops. Apone's squad already had those stories in Aliens: Bug Hunt, and Ferro was not in them. Christopher Golden's Blowback put the same later Sulaco marines on the toxic moon Clytemnestra, then gave the Cheyenne to Corporal Khan instead of her.
She was already a working dropship pilot when the Sulaco woke them. After they dressed she was in the olive flight suit, dog tags on, and moved through the locker line with Vasquez and Wierzbowski, people who already knew her. Spunkmeyer was the close one, the crew chief who shared Bug Stomper with her, and that working rhythm was already in place before the briefing. By then she was the air crew, not one of the riflemen, and she flew the drop like someone who had done it before.
Briefing And Drop To LV-426
Ferro stood through Gorman's briefing in the hangar with the rest of the unit, flight patches on the suit and a pair of black gloves. She treated Ellen Ripley as a civilian who had seen an Alien once, not as a consultant the squad needed. After the maps came down they loaded the APC into Bug Stomper. Ferro took the right seat, Spunkmeyer took the left, and Gorman rode pale in the carrier on the way down. She told them the descent was on course and warned them the ride would be rough, then held the drop while the ground team sat strapped in the dark.
Bug Stomper
Gorman had her take them in low over the main colony complex. Ferro flew a circle over the empty roofs, found a pad, and set the Cheyenne down in the rain so Apone could walk the Marines out. The hull carried orange Bug Stomper nose art, a white 01, and the crew names CPL FERRO and SPUNKMEYER stenciled above the number. Once the lock was open she lifted again and stayed on station while the rifle team cleared rooms that were already dead. After that first sweep she put the ship back on the pad, and Spunkmeyer hauled gear to Bishop in the medlab while Bishop worked on the live Facehuggers. Ferro stayed with the aircraft. The ground team then drove the APC to the atmosphere processor, and the air crew waited at the colony.
Emergency Extract
After the hive ambush wrecked the sweep, Hicks called Ferro in to pick up whoever was left, with the plan to pull off the moon and nuke the site from orbit. Ferro told Spunkmeyer to get back aboard. He hit the ramp, slipped on thick slime, and never reached the cockpit. Ferro was already in the air, helmet on, waypoint list up, flying toward the wrecked APC. The Sulaco still had a second Cheyenne, Smart Ass, but that ship was still in orbit. Bug Stomper was the only ride on the ground.
Death
The cockpit door opened, and Ferro turned for Spunkmeyer. A Warrior was already inside. She reached for the holstered VP70 and never cleared it. The creature tore her apart at the controls, and Bug Stomper pitched into a dive. Alan Dean Foster's Aliens novelization moves Spunkmeyer's supply run until after the hive fight, so he already knew the squad was wrecked when he walked back to the ramp, and Bishop was at the crash in that version.
Aftermath
The Cheyenne came down on the rocks, rolled over the APC, and finally stopped in the atmosphere processor in a huge explosion that wrecked the carrier and tore into the cooling gear, so nuking the site from orbit was off the table. The carrier was finished as a ride, but Hicks and Hudson later cut a pair of UA 571-C sentry guns out of that wreck, along with other weapons they could still use, and hauled the guns back to Operations. The damaged plant ran a little more than four hours, then the reactor went critical and the processor detonated.
Ferro In The Comics
Dark Horse published Aliens: Newt's Tale as a two-issue miniseries in 1992, written by Mike Richardson and painted by John Bolton. That book never drew Ferro. Hicks called her in for extract, then the crash was shown from the ground, and she stayed a voice on the radio.
Hungary's 1987 film comic A Bolygó Neve: Halál, drawn by Attila Fazekas for the Filmsikerek Képregény Változata line, put her in the cockpit. The captions never used her name. They called her the female pilot, sent her to the power plant where the survivors were waiting, and had her take off at once. She called her crewmate into the cockpit, got no answer, and turned around reaching for a knife instead of the VP70. The scare stopped her heartbeat, and she lost the stick a moment later. The crash came next, with Ripley and Newt watching from the ground, then the survivors counted what was left: a few guns, about two dozen grenades, and a single flamethrower.
Weapons And Equipment
Ferro never put on M3 armor for the colony search. She stayed in the olive flight suit, flight helmet, and headset, with aviator sunglasses on for the drop. The helmet visor housing carried the white line Fly the Friendly Skies, the old United Airlines slogan painted on like Vietnam-era gear graffiti. The sidearm was the standard VP70. The holster seemed to have a rabbit's foot for luck, but that did not help her. The Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual wants a Warrant Officer in a rifle-section Cheyenne. The film still puts a Corporal in the right seat and a Private in the left.
Behind The Scenes
Colette Hiller is an American actress who trained at the Performing Arts Academy in New York, then appeared in the original stage Annie, Birth of the Beatles, and Ragtime before James Cameron cast her as Ferro at Pinewood. The character's first name is hers. Cynthia Dale Scott first read for the part, then moved to Dietrich because that role had more shooting weeks. Cameron's September 1983 Aliens II treatment ranked Ferro as a Sergeant, which would have put her over everyone in the unit except Gorman and Apone. The finished film kept her a Corporal.
Hiller trained with the rest of the marine cast on that lot. Cameron let the actors mark their own kit, which is how the United slogan landed on the helmet above the visor. A screen-matched Bug Stomper helmet later went through Propstore as dark green plastic, resin, canvas, and fiberglass, with a drop-down visor, boom microphone, and the same white lettering. Hiller later wrote children's verse, including The B on Your Thumb, and talked about the shoot again for the Aliens Expanded documentary.
Merchandise
NECA never shipped a movie-likeness Ferro the way it did Hudson, Hicks, Frost, and Vasquez. Kenner's 1990s Aliens Series and Space Marines line also skipped her. The figure that did reach shelves is a Gale Force Nine 30 mm hard-plastic miniature in the Heroes of Hadley's Hope set for Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps, item GF9ALIENS16. The 15-figure box puts her in a flight suit with a pistol, unpainted, with Ripley, Gorman, Apone, Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, Drake, Frost, Dietrich, Crowe, Wierzbowski, Spunkmeyer, Burke, and Newt. The later 2023 expansion We're in the Pipe, Five by Five, item GF9ALIENS14, made her a playable character with a pilot experience track and packed another pistol sculpt beside Spunkmeyer.
Famous Quotes
- "We're in the pipe, five by five."
- "Hold on. We're in for some chop."
- "Looking for a landing zone. Where's the damn LZ?"
- "She's supposed to be some kind of consultant. Apparently she saw an alien once."
- "Move it, Spunkmeyer. We're rolling."
- "Where the fuck-"
Conclusion
Colette Ferro was the Sulaco dropship pilot who flew Bug Stomper onto LV-426 and died at the controls when a Warrior reached the cockpit. She already flew as a pair with Spunkmeyer when the ship woke them. The crash wrecked the APC and left the survivors on the ground.
Appearances
- Aliens (1986)
- Aliens novelization by Alan Dean Foster (1986)
- Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood (1995)
- Aliens: Newt's Tale (1992) - radio call and crash only
- Aliens: Halál - Hungarian adaptation
- Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps - Heroes of Hadley's Hope and We're in the Pipe, Five by Five
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Characters | Colonial Marine Characters | Colonial Marine Lore | Alien Lore
