Manning: Mercenary Leader In Alien: Sea Of Sorrows

Name: Manning (no first name given)
Species: Human
Affiliation: Freelance mercenaries hired by Weyland-Yutani
Role: Leader of the freelancers on the New Galveston expedition
Known for: Guarding Alan Decker · killing the Queen · caging a live Xenomorph
Setting: The Kiangya and the mine under the Sea of Sorrows, ~2497
First appearance: Alien: Sea of Sorrows (2014)
Status: Alive, at the Kiangya's hypersleep chambers as it prepared to leave orbit

Manning was the leader of the freelance mercenaries hired by Weyland-Yutani in James A. Moore's 2014 novel Alien: Sea of Sorrows. He guarded Alan Decker for company handler Andrea Rollins and led the hunt for a living Xenomorph in the mine under the Sea of Sorrows on New Galveston. He came out with a handful of his people, a caged adult, and two infected hosts, then urged the strike that burned the Sea.

Biography

Escorting Decker Aboard The Kiangya

Manning was a heavily built man with a craggy, deeply tanned face and a thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair, and Rollins credited him and his team with catching Decker before the Kiangya left for New Galveston. When Decker came out of hypersleep, Manning told Rollins her man was awake, then took him to eat and on to the medical station on her orders. On the way he admitted his people were mercenaries, said most of them were former Colonial Marines, and left the explanations to Rollins. When Decker knocked his hand away in the medical station, Manning shoved him, struck him with an elbow, and doubled him over with a punch to the stomach while Rollins watched.

At Rollins's prompting, Manning recited his duty as escorting Decker back to New Galveston and recovering the biological samples that would repay the debts of Decker's family, and said Rollins had hired him for Weyland-Yutani. He also claimed Decker had come along of his own free will. Afterward he called Rollins a heartless woman with what sounded to Decker like admiration, and he told Decker that guarding her was part of his job.

Introducing Decker To The Freelancers

Manning brought Decker to the recreation room, where thirty-five men and women of his crew were checking their weapons, and told them to treat the newcomer with respect. He silenced the young redhead Garth with a glare, and he put Adams in charge of training Decker, who could not carry live rounds until Manning cleared it. At Rollins's briefing he asked whether anything in the mine might still be alive, and when she tied most of the pay to live capture, he told his team a large bonus waited if they did the job right the first time.

Down To The Alien Ship

On the surface, Manning met company man Tom Willis, called roll, and took his people and Decker down the lift and across the cavern by truck to the buried alien vessel the miners had found. None of them had seen an alien ship before, not even Manning, and he asked where the scientist Tanaka was, what the black columns rising from the hull were, and why no mechanical probes had gone ahead. He sent DiTillio, Rodriguez, and Joyce up a tunnel beside one of those columns, then set his techs, led by Dae Cho, to monitor the team's biometric feeds, which the cavern's interference cut down to a few yards.

Searching For The Missing Three

When the three scouts went silent, Manning split the freelancers into teams to find them, and Willis objected that the search would leave the site unguarded. Manning reassigned Piotrowicz and four others to hold the lift with Willis, which Adams told Decker changed nothing except to send more people with the main group. Up in the tubes, when Decker said he could not sense where the creatures were, Manning threatened to treat him as a liability unless he found a way, and Decker soon felt them coming. After Bridges stunned a creature with his shock stick, Manning praised him, bound its limbs and tail himself, and declared the mission done if they could get the specimen to the lift, though the attack had killed Garth and Holbrook.

Ambushed In The Black Tubes

The way down had changed, so Manning led the group upward through cramped tubes toward where he hoped the ship or the mines lay, with Decker beside him and the captive dragged behind. Xenomorphs struck the column from below and from side openings, and a later ambush scattered the team until Manning counted only eight survivors. In the dark he tapped the tunnel walls with his knife hilt, cut through one with a plasma rifle, and brought the group out into a lit mine shaft. When Decker suggested hunting the creatures before they found the team, Manning grinned and approved, sounding to Decker for the first time like a man who no longer took him for a coward.

Fighting Back To The Lift

The main lift had been wrecked by a scientist who wanted to trap the creatures, and Cho killed the man, so Manning led the survivors through the fifth level toward a backup elevator. When the creatures charged, he clubbed one with his rifle butt, fought hand to hand alongside Adams, and threw grenades to cover a retreat. Decker then flooded a stone corridor with fire by switching his plasma rifle to automatic, and Manning dragged him back, took the weapon, and berated him for risking a collapse once the lift began to climb. He stopped himself from blaming Adams any further, took a slow breath, and calmed down.

The Nest And The Queen

When the lift jammed, Manning had Adams sedate the panicking Decker, climbed the cable to force the doors, and let down a line for the others. Following Decker's sense toward the creatures, he put Bridges at the front as bait and reached a chamber where missing miners hung fixed to the walls, some still alive. On Decker's guess that the creatures were guarding their young, Manning shot one of the captives, drew the Xenomorphs toward that spot, and used the same trick to open a path forward, though a creature dropped onto Bridges and killed him.

In the egg chamber beyond, a Facehugger seized Adams, and Manning shot another out of the air, then had to cut away his trousers as its blood burned his lower legs. With four other mercenaries he poured fire into the Queen until she fell, and he kept shooting the dead body until his weapon was empty, then reloaded. Only four of the group were left standing, with Adams and the mercenary Elway each carrying a parasite.

Climbing Out Of The Mine

On the way out Manning studied the face of every person stuck to the walls, and when Muller asked whether to leave them alive, he shook his head, and Muller set off explosives behind them. Manning wedged an access door shut with his knife, had Dave seal it, and climbed the long stairway carrying Elway while Decker carried Adams. At the landing pad he fought off a rush of creatures with Muller, Dave, and the pilot Eddie Pritchett, then stopped Pritchett from shooting Decker, who had nearly fired on him in the dark.

Caging A Live Specimen

A Xenomorph slipped into the drop ship as the door closed, killed Pritchett, and went for Decker, so Manning ran for a foamer and coated the creature until the canister ran dry. He shocked its head three times with a shock stick and had Muller and Dave lock it in a steel cage in the hold. When Decker begged him to kill it, he refused, saying, "The contract says alive pays better," and when Decker aimed his unloaded reaper at the infected Elway, Manning knocked him out with his fist.

Burning The Sea Of Sorrows

Back aboard the Kiangya, Manning shoved the bound Decker out to Rollins, carried Adams to a gurney, and told Rollins it was up to her to fix what had happened to Adams. On the bridge he warned that the creatures would own the planet within a year and empty its three cities if they lived, said Decker had tried to kill his people and might not be wrong, and told her to wipe the mine off the map. Rollins had Captain Cherbourg launch four plasma warheads at once, and Manning stayed on the bridge to watch the Sea burn, asking her only to keep his remaining people alive and keep her side of the bargain.

A Last Warning To Decker

When escorts brought Decker to the hypersleep chambers, Manning was sitting on the edge of his own pod in his underwear and told him the creatures had burned. He said he understood what Decker had been thinking, then warned that he would bury Decker on seven different worlds if he ever went after any of his people again. Muller and Dave stared at Decker with hatred, Adams and Elway were in stasis, and the novel leaves Manning alive at the chambers as the Kiangya prepared to leave orbit.

Personality And Traits

Manning was blunt, profane, and physically intimidating, and he used his size openly against anyone who resisted him. His humor ran to sarcasm and mockery, with nicknames such as bloodhound and sport for Decker, yet he rarely raised his voice in danger and usually spoke with a flat calm even when Decker could feel rage behind it. Between orders his face gave little away, and his temper broke through only when Decker failed him or put the team at risk, after which he reined it back in.

He was a practical professional who treated the expedition as paid work for Weyland-Yutani. He kept close count of his people, called roll after every fight, read a firefight quickly, and adopted Decker's guesses the moment they proved useful. The contract governed his choices, from the bonus for live capture to sparing the caged creature, and he was willing to spend lives for the job, using Bridges as bait and shooting helpless captives to steer the Xenomorphs away.

Manning was protective of his own people and quietly affected by their deaths, memorizing the faces of the dead and asking Rollins to keep his survivors alive. Decker saw him as dangerous to provoke, resented how easily he carried Elway, and felt both his contempt and his grudging respect, while Adams thought a company man like Willis could only irritate him. Manning spoke of Rollins with admiration and showed a trace of fear of her, but in the end he agreed that the creatures had to be destroyed and threatened Decker for turning on his people.

Behind The Scenes

James A. Moore created Manning for Alien: Sea of Sorrows, which Titan Books published in the UK on 25 July 2014 and in the US on 29 July 2014. The novel never gives his first name or a rank, and the narration calls him the merc leader and the commander of the mercenaries. Audible released a full-cast audio drama of the novel on 26 April 2018, directed by Dirk Maggs, but its published cast list does not say who played Manning.

Conclusion

Manning was the mercenary leader who kept Alan Decker in hand for Weyland-Yutani and took his freelancers into the mine under the Sea of Sorrows. He lost most of his crew in the tunnels and the nest, killed the Queen with the last few fighters, and caged a live Xenomorph because the contract paid more for it. He left New Galveston alive aboard the Kiangya after urging the strike that burned the Sea.