Monica, also called Subject Three and Three, was the striped Drone from Weston Ochse's Aliens: Infiltrator and Aliens: Fireteam Elite. The host was Monica Enright, a prisoner in Containment Room Three at Pala Station on LV-895. Weyland-Yutani treated both her and the egg with irradiated Black Goo. The adult escaped Pala, killed Dr. Erin Kash on the San Lorenzo, then hunted Dr. Timothy Hoenikker through the Katanga refinery until a fireteam from the UAS Endeavor dropped her.
Monica Enright
Monica Enright was a blond woman with short hair, green eyes, and high cheekbones. In the first two years of university she was the girlfriend of Timothy Hoenikker. He left her, then about twenty years later found her again in a Pala Station containment room, older, under a company contract, and already marked as Test Subject #3.
Reception tech Victor Rawlings could not pull a clean first name from the prisoner list, only initials. Dr. Mark Cruz refused to release the names so the lab would stay "objective." Hoenikker knew her from the way she cocked her head and shook it. She had killed men for money, taken a life sentence, and signed on for Pala instead of a terraforming prison work detail. That contract was her way out of the sentence, not a rescue.
Containment Room Three
In January 2202, Pala Station took live eggs from the orbital mine Katanga and put twelve contracted prisoners into the rooms. Commander Vincent Bellows ordered pathogen tests on every stage of the life cycle. Cruz treated Room Three with irradiated pathogen in both the Ovomorph and in Monica. Rooms One and Two got only one of those two treatments and later produced ordinary dark drones.
Hoenikker went to the glass before the test and asked if it was her. She nodded. She was already looking at the egg without fear. When the Facehugger came she stood still, fists at her sides, and only flinched a little as the tail wrapped her neck. She sat on the rear ledge and waited. The Chestburster moved under her skin for three minutes and forty-seven seconds, then broke out. She lived about thirty seconds after that, a hand in the hole, then died on the floor of Room Three.
Subject Three
The adult grew into a Drone like the first two rooms, but the hide was dark and leathery with an odd striping you could see from across the lab. Light stripes ran the arms and torso. The staff called it Three. Cruz kept those rooms near freezing so he could shock the adults with fire if they hit the glass. All twelve hosts and the young carried personal data transmitters so the lab could track them after the missing chameleon, Leon-895, had already vanished without a tag.
Subject Seven was the white Alpha from Room Seven. Five grew an extra pair of arms. Three stayed a Drone. The pathogen had only changed the skin and the hunt, not the caste. Later Katanga notes put her height at over 1.8 meters, and no one in that file ever saw her stand straight.
Pala Station Outbreak
When Bellows ordered the synths to burn every Xenomorph in the lab, Five opened Seven's glass and the remaining adults poured into the corridor. Hoenikker looked for Three in that swarm and found her by the light stripes. She held the head of the last synth and threw it at him. He and Kash locked themselves in his quarters while Seven took the mess hall and turned it into a breeding floor.
Cruz later burned Seven in the shuttle-bay fire. Three was already gone from that fight. She left Pala on her own and reached the shuttle that carried Hoenikker, Kash, and Etienne Lacroix off the station.
San Lorenzo
As the shuttle docked with the empty supply ship San Lorenzo, Three was already on the hull. Light stripes showed along the arms and torso as she pounded the front glass and drooled acid on the weak pane. Hoenikker and Kash ran for the bridge. He sent a distress call as Dr. Timothy Hoenikker of Pala Station, saying everyone was dead and that they had an infiltration, then the mic cut out.
Three was already inside. She caught Kash at the viewport, a claw over her mouth. Kash broke free, fired, and the acid washed her chest. She told Hoenikker to run, then the Drone cocked its head the same way Monica Enright had in the lab. Hoenikker left the empty pulse rifle in the shuttle and went aft into a pedestrian tunnel marked for Katanga, the platform that had supplied Pala's eggs.
Two Weeks On Katanga
The Endeavor later followed that cut-off call to the hive already growing through Katanga. A post-encounter file dated 16 May 2202, prepared by Corporal Ibrahim Savane and the synth Esther, listed the specimen as Monica, also called Three. It recorded two weeks of long stalking after Hoenikker, plus a working knowledge of Katanga's air ducts. Offensive notes were claws, the inner jaw, and extra speed. Defensive notes were extra agility and a hide that took more punishment than a common Drone.
In the Priority One mission Rescue, a three-person fireteam met her on Deck 41 while they cut toward Hoenikker's hide. She hit like an Elite Drone, grabbed a marine, then dropped into a vent once the squad had hurt her. The same wounds were still on her when she came back at his hatch. Hoenikker called her Monica over the radio. The fireteam killed her there, then pulled him out through the hangar. Seven was already dead on the surface by then. Monica was the Pala specimen that outlived the station.
Conclusion
Monica Enright went into Room Three as a prisoner and came out as Subject Three, a striped Drone with irradiated Black Goo in her line. She threw a synth's head at Hoenikker on Pala, killed Kash on the San Lorenzo, and spent two weeks in Katanga's ducts before an Endeavor fireteam dropped her on Deck 41.
Appearances
- Aliens: Infiltrator (novel, Titan Books, 2021)
- Aliens: Infiltrator (audiobook narration by Bronson Pinchot)
- The Complete Aliens Collection: Living Nightmares (omnibus, Titan Books, 2024)
- Aliens: Fireteam Elite (2021) - Priority One: Rescue
External Sources
Tag Categories: Individual Xenomorphs | Xenomorph Appearance | Pathogen Creatures | Xenomorphs From The Games | Alien Lore
