Cpl. Russell Becker: Midnighter On Charybdis Profile
Russell Becker was a United States Colonial Marine Corps corporal in Alex White's Alien: Into Charybdis. In 2184 he transferred onto Captain Kylie Duncan's Midnighters aboard the assault carrier USS Benning, then left the unit after she shot Cheyenne Hunt during the raid on Hasanova on LV-991. He sent stolen security cores onto the public EntaCOMM network from the Data Cannon before Duncan's dropship minigun killed him.
Biography
Transfer To The Midnighters
Becker had two years in the Corps and a tour through the Goliath system when he asked for Duncan's platoon. He was a fourth-generation marine, and a Brigadier General Becker served somewhere in the galaxy, but he was not an officer. Annapolis had discharged him for being drunk on watch and for an affair with a superior officer. In Goliath he had seen smuggled footage of black skeletal creatures and chased the rumors to the Midnighters, the unit that called a Xenomorph job a black drop.
Duncan took him as a lance corporal on the Benning after he requested the transfer. She sent him to wake the company advisor she had pulled from cryosleep two weeks before the Hasanova traffic arrived. That advisor was Dr. Sora Matsushita, from Weyland-Yutani and the staff around Michael Bishop. Gunnery Sergeant Hubert Lee told him he was not one of them. Private Leger called him Seventy-Six.
First Black Drop
American officers had approved the secret raid Cannery Grim in December 2183, after McAllen Integrations filed travel papers. Months later Duncan briefed the Midnighters around a distress call from the McAllen tow ship USCSS Gardenia. Becker's fireteam was to take Gardenia and hold the American contractors. He moved that crew off the pad in an armored personnel carrier while Duncan packed more than three hundred colonists into the data storehouses.
On the island wreck of the resin-coated Seegson hull UAEV Blackstar, an adult Xenomorph slammed Lee against a bulkhead. Becker pinned its tail to the ceiling with a pulse rifle shot, then he and Lee glued the creature to the wall with polymer grenades. The body had a speaker box and finger rings. Matsushita identified it as the speaking Xenomorph that used the name Marsalis. The team then took frozen eggs from the cryo lab.
Storehouse Massacre
Hunt overheard Duncan's plan to open every door from the bottom up so adult Xenomorphs grown from those eggs would kill the locked people and hide the raid. She ran at the console, hit Duncan, and Duncan shot her through the chest, then through the eye. Becker saw both rounds. Duncan treated him as a witness who would keep quiet, ordered the security cores destroyed, and sent him after the remaining contractors.
He left the unit instead. At the McAllen apartments he told the crew Hunt was on the first dropship out. The worn McAllen synth Marcus pinned him and forced the truth: Duncan had killed her. Becker then tried to get Jerry Fowler, Mary Fowler, Noah Brewer, Joanna Hardy, and climate tech Arthur Atwater out of the colony.
Javaher Concourse
Mary pointed him at the deep Javaher Concourse, a sealed data hall with one way in. Becker pulled a rack of ten memory cores that held the colony camera feeds, then hid the contractors there. Private First Class Garcia stayed on a side channel for him. When Duncan's people cut a hole in the Javaher door, Becker fired a grenade into the breach and killed a Midnighter on the far side.
Lilypad A
Garcia and Corporal Bull treated Duncan as a captain who had to be taken off the job. Becker watched Lilypad A on the cameras and recorded the arrest attempt. Duncan refused the arrest and called Hasanova a bioweapons site with no civilians. The dropship turret cut through Bull's team. Leger, Keuhlen, and Suedbeck died in that fire or soon after. Lee shot Garcia as she lay wounded behind cover.
The Data Cannon
Kamran Afghanzadeh wanted the cores on the public EntaCOMM network so other Iranians would see the raid. Becker and Arthur climbed the Data Cannon, the long-range array hung over the Charybdis shaft, with that bag of drives. A wave off Lake Peacock nearly drowned Becker on the catwalk. He answered with grenades onto a Lilypad, then shot a Midnighter on a Human Centre balcony.
Arthur booted the array. Becker loaded cores and hit the transmit key Arthur called lotus. A ricochet opened Arthur under the arm, and he bled to death on the upper deck while Becker kept dumping drives. About five of the ten cores went onto EntaCOMM before a dead adult Xenomorph melted through a window. Acid burned Becker's left hand, ear, and chest. Childhood grafts on his thumb and forefinger came apart in that burn.
Death
Duncan came over the radio and called the upload treason. A Cheyenne hovered over the wrecked array, and she took the gunner's seat. The minigun cut Becker through the leg, stomach, and head, then sawed the Data Cannon off its moorings. The wreck fell down the shaft.
Confirmed Kills
Becker killed one Midnighter at the Javaher door with a grenade into the breach, and one Midnighter on the Human Centre balcony with his pulse rifle. On the Blackstar landing zone he added polymer grenades to a shared volley that glued about two dozen adult Xenomorphs in place. Those were captures for kennels, not kills. Inside the ship he and Lee glued Marsalis to a wall the same way. Other Marines later shot a Xenomorph off the Data Cannon window. That one was not his. He did not shoot Hunt, Garcia, or Arthur.
Weapons And Equipment
He fought on Hasanova with a pulse rifle that also launched grenades, plus polymer grenades on the Blackstar boarding. On the Data Cannon climb he used those grenades against the Lilypad and the rifle against the balcony shooter. Duncan killed him with the Cheyenne's minigun, not a sidearm.
Behind The Scenes
White wrote Becker for Alien: Into Charybdis, the 560-page hardcover sequel to Alien: The Cold Forge, published by Titan Books on 23 February 2021. Military readers Scot Clayton, Matthew Drake, and Russ Milano checked the Marine material. Cover art was by Marco Turini. Becker appears only in that novel. Alien: Colony War later treated the public record as a Hague clearance of the Hasanova raid and never names him.
Conclusion
Russell Becker was a Midnighter corporal who broke with Duncan after she shot Hunt on Hasanova. He got five security cores onto EntaCOMM from the Data Cannon, and he died there under her minigun.
Appearances
- Alien: Into Charybdis (novel, Titan Books, 2021)
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Characters | Colonial Marine Characters | Colonial Marine Lore | Alien Lore
