1 {scene: the ship's bridge. The alien xenomorph continues to lurk menacingly behind Serron. The crew ignore it}
1 Spanners: We should save Paris' body.
1 Serron: What'd she ever do for us?
2 Spanners: Got us out of that mess with the Fangoids, took that laser shot for you, risked herself to get us off that ice cliff on Neptar 7...
3 Spanners: Flew us safely through that asteroid field, stayed behind to make sure we escaped the drug-runners of Gamma Prime...
4 Serron: Yeah but there's a vital difference. We came out of those alive!

For anyone still wondering what I used to represent the xenomorph, that's a metal miniature of an umber hulk from Dungeons & Dragons. It was very kindly donated to me by a fan, who even painted it first - thank you!

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2014-06-30 Rerun commentary: This strip is a subtle cross-over with Andy Weir's Casey and Andy. I got the planet Neptar 7 from his comic, where it is mentioned as the homeworld of the Zarb aliens.

The Fangoids I completely just made up myself, but apparently they are also a creature within the Bakugan Battle Brawlers anime series. (Which from 10 seconds of research appears to be an obvious rip-off of the Pokémon concept.)

Gamma Prime is also just another silly name I made up. In the real world, however, it is the name of a secondary phase precipitate which partially provides some of the exceptional strength properties of the comic-book-named-but-apparently-real superalloys.