USCSS Narcissus

The Narcissus was a lifeboat shuttle found on board the Weyland-Yutani commercial towing vehicle USCSS Nostromo. In 2122, a dangerous alien Xenomorph was loose aboard the Nostromo and succeeded in killing five of the seven crew members. To escape from the alien, Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley activated the Nostromo's auto-destruct sequence and escaped aboard the Narcissus (along with her cat Jonesy). However, the alien managed to sneak on board and was found sleeping in a niche of cooling ducts. Ripley managed to secure herself to the pilot's chair and opened the air lock. Using a harpooned, she shot the creature, propelling its body into the vacuum of space. The alien was incinerated when its body came too close to the lifeboat's engine thrusters. Ripley then programmed the shuttle's automatic pilot with coordinates for Earth and placed herself and Jonesy in hypersleep. The shuttle was lost in space for fifty-seven years and was recovered in 2179 by a deep salvage team who towed it back to the company outpost at Gateway Station.

Notes & Trivia

 * The name, Narcissus, is taken from the 1897 novella The Nigger of the 'Narcissus': A Tale of the Sea by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad.