Fantasia: The Planet Of The Criminal Enterprise

Name: Fantasia
Type: Illegally terraformed radioactive rock, about half Earth's size
Climate: Average minus 8 C, thin air with oxygen just over a third of Earth's, murky twilight
Terrain: Low hills, lichen, underground tunnels, sharp crevasses, no remarkable bodies of water
Native life: Terraform algae and lichen
Claimed by: Adrian Msomi, unauthorized illegal plant
Infestation: Adult Xenomorphs used as untrained perimeter guards
First appearance: Aliens: Criminal Enterprise (2008)
Status: Plant wrecked, locks opened from inside, three survivors left

Fantasia was an illegally terraformed radioactive rock in S. D. Perry's 2008 novel Aliens: Criminal Enterprise, about half Earth's size, with a thin atmosphere and an MX7 plant built in protected caves. Crime boss Adrian Msomi owned the plant from Earth and used adult Xenomorphs as untrained perimeter guards. Citizen pilot Tommy Chase was forced to fly an unregistered drop ship there after his brother Pete left Msomi holding a failed liquid plethium load. A rival crew and a Grant Corporation team reached the rock in the same week. The locks were opened from inside, and only Tommy, former Colonial Marine John Kaye, and Didi Weber left on the Avarice.

The Planet

Size, Climate And Atmosphere

Fantasia was about half Earth's size, with artificially supported gravity from core rods that crime boss Adrian Msomi had planted to provide a partial field. The atmosphere was thin, with oxygen just over a third of Earth's around sea level, and a scant capture of ozone. Average temperature was minus 8 degrees Celsius. Anyone left outside without a suit would be cold and short of breath within minutes, though the air itself would not kill at once. Ships punching through that scant atmosphere had only a short flight to the installation once they committed to a landing.

About eight years before Tommy Chase landed, a Grant Corporation file still listed the world as an ordinary radioactive rock, charted with a number by a deep-space probe. Decaying uranium in the bedrock produced high radon levels, and workers were warned against going outside even without the adult Xenomorphs. Msomi later gave the rock a thin atmosphere and the name Fantasia, but it never appeared as a legal port. The nav file on the unregistered drop ship that carried Tommy listed the landing only as unspecified.

Surface And Light

Fantasia had no remarkable bodies of water and no agriculture beyond terraform algae and some lichen. A map of the rock showed endless low hills riddled with underground tunnel systems, and a sharp crevasse here and there. The surface was dull stone, and a fine slick of algae helped hold the negligible atmosphere. The world received about 4 hours of light a day, boosted by a satellite panel, but even at its brightest the light was a murky twilight. Incoming ships came down over that dim ground toward caves and low hills that hid the adult Xenomorphs until a hull passed overhead.

The Illegal Plant

Msomi's Operation

Adrian Msomi turned the numbered rock into an unauthorized terraform plant and never appeared there in person. He put up the thin atmosphere, planted the core rods, and built a drug-manufacturing operation in protected caves. The plant cooked MX7 patches and other illegal drugs, including synthetic heroin. Ships came and went four times a year and rotated the workforce, and about twenty or twenty-five people lived on the rock at a time. Workers, chemists, and people hiding from charges on Earth were sent out for a tour, then cycled home when a product run came due.

The Compound

The dock on Fantasia was a hollow cone with a retractable cover, and incoming ships made a straight drop with little room to maneuver. The compound used burn-plated, acid-resistant steel, collapsed outer tunnels, and multiple sets of blast doors that could be run from a shielded shelter called standoff, in the far northeast of the plant. In a perimeter breach, people were told to follow green paint toward that shelter. The plant had processing labs, a gym, a cafeteria, and garden rooms, and outside cameras watched the adult Xenomorphs around the perimeter. The unregistered drop ship that brought Tommy Chase arrived hidden inside an unlicensed automated freighter.

Xenomorphs As Guards

Msomi counted on adult Xenomorphs instead of a dedicated pulse weapon, and used them as untrained perimeter guards around the plant. They attacked anything that was not one of their own, including the people who fed them. Workers moved through the swarm in electrified transports, used lock fire jets on the way in, and relied on a hull zapper at the return lock. Conservative counts put the local population in the upper hundreds, and rival raider Ray Turner guessed there might be a thousand. When Tommy Chase brought the drop ship in, hundreds of the creatures came out of unseen caves and low hills and tried to climb the hull.

Twice a year Msomi sent cattle, and every few weeks a crew drove sedated animals from distant pens so the adult Xenomorphs would stay around the plant. The animals were hosts as well as bait. Workers on Fantasia described the lifecycle: spider-sized Facehuggers attached to the cattle and put a Chestburster down the throat. A camera in a breeding area showed adult Xenomorphs carrying large eggs in from somewhere else, but nobody on the rock had seen the egg-layer, and no human was implanted there. Word on the plant was that Msomi first received about six creatures from an MX7 addict who had worked for Weyland-Yutani or Biotech.

The Last Week

Tommy Is Forced To The Rock

Tommy Chase was forced onto the Fantasia run after his brother Pete left Msomi holding a failed load of liquid plethium. Msomi took both brothers instead of killing Pete on Earth, and Tommy agreed to fly the outbound load and the return in exchange for Pete's life. He woke from eleven weeks of cryo on the unregistered drop ship, with navigation preloaded and little time to study the world below. Plant manager Trace Berdella waited inside the cone dock with his girlfriend Didi Weber and held the brothers as insurance. Trace also named the last regular pilot, Mullin, who had tried to betray Msomi and had been left outside alone.

The Rival Raid And The Grant Strike

Didi Weber wanted off the rock and tipped Ray Turner that the outgoing product ship was about to leave. Turner had hidden a camouflaged ship, the Avarice, in a cliff shadow for six days and meant to hit that hull with an electromagnetic pulse, steal the MX7 patches, and leave clues that would make Msomi blame Trace. A Grant Corporation Neo-Pharm resolution team under Captain Shaw Puente was fourteen hours behind the same freighter, sent to burn the plant because Msomi's MX7 cut into Neo-Pharm's drug business. John Kaye, a former Colonial Marine, handled the walk to the compound after Daniel Aaronson hacked Fantasia's satellite and hid the Grant approach.

On Wednesday Turner pulsed the outgoing product ship and, by accident, the Grant ship, and both hulls went down on the rock. Lock worker Trog ordered the locks blown so the adult Xenomorphs would kill the invaders, and Freeman opened those locks from inside before everyone reached standoff. The creatures poured through the green main corridor and wrecked the plant. Trace Berdella flew out to the wrecks with Didi, shot Turner at the Avarice hatch, then shot Pete after she admitted the tip. Lee, one of Msomi's men, killed Trace to keep Tommy alive to fly the stolen ship, and Tommy later shot Lee during the transfer under fire.

Fate Of Fantasia

Three people left Fantasia: Tommy Chase, John Kaye, and Didi Weber, lifting off on the Avarice while adult Xenomorphs hammered the hull. Kaye put Pete, Trace Berdella, and Lee into cryo units on that ship. Didi went into cryo the next day after using a last MX7 patch, and Tommy and Kaye stayed awake longer to wind the ship down. The plant was wrecked, its locks had been opened from inside, and Msomi never came to the rock in person. The adult Xenomorphs remained on the surface after the Avarice lifted off.

Behind The Scenes

Stephani Perry, credited as S. D. Perry, created Fantasia for Aliens: Criminal Enterprise, published by DH Press on 16 January 2008 as a standalone crime novel rather than a comic adaptation. The story gave no calendar year, and a Grant Corporation file that still described an ordinary radioactive rock eight years earlier fixed the plant's age without placing it against the films. Stephen Youll painted the cover, a man with a flamethrower under an adult Xenomorph, and that image did not show the cone dock, the Avarice, or the cattle pens. Perry had already novelized Aliens: Berserker and written Aliens vs. Predator books with and after her father, Steve Perry.

Conclusion

Fantasia was the illegally terraformed radioactive rock of Aliens: Criminal Enterprise, about half Earth's size, with a thin atmosphere, murky light, and an MX7 plant built in protected caves. Adrian Msomi ran that plant from Earth and used adult Xenomorphs as untrained perimeter guards, holding Tommy Chase there for his brother's debt. A rival raid and a Grant Corporation strike hit the same rock in the same week, the locks were opened from inside, and only Tommy, John Kaye, and Didi Weber left on the Avarice.