Dwayne Hicks was the deuteragonist of the science-fiction horror film Aliens. A Corporal in the United States Colonial Marine Corps, he and his unit were assigned to investigate the loss of contact with the colony of Hadley's Hope in 2179. He was portrayed by Michael Biehn.
History[]
Under the command of the inexperienced Lieutenant Gorman, Hicks and his unit were dispatched to Hadley's Hope along with two civilian advisors: Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke and Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of the USCSS Nostromo, which had set down on LV-426 57 years previously and discovered a deadly alien lifeform there. Hicks shared in the general consensus among the Marines — that the mission was a waste of time, and that they were simply going to discover a communications breakdown at the colony. During the drop, Hicks slept despite the extreme g-forces and turbulence.
Upon landing, Hicks and the rest of Second Squad began clearing the upper floor of the central administrative building, where the Corporal found evidence of the Xenomorph infestation in the form of holes burned in the floor by their acid blood. After the building was declared clear and Gorman and the advisors had joined the Marines inside, Hicks and his squad discovered several Facehuggers being stored inside the colony's med lab, along with medical notes on Marachuk, one of the creatures' victims. Soon afterwards, they found Newt, a young girl hiding in the structure's ventilation ducts and, apparently, the last surviving colonist.
As the squad moved into the atmosphere processing station, they discovered that the whole building had been converted into a Xenomorph hive. The squad were ordered to sling their pulse rifles as their ammunition could potentially damage the reactor and cause a thermonuclear explosion, but Hicks carried an old-fashioned shotgun as an alternative weapon. Within the hive, the Marines found one still-living colonist, only to watch her die as a Xenomorph infant erupted from her chest. Private Vasquez torched the alien larva with a flamethrower, but the creature's death screams awoke the entire hive.
As the Marines were set upon from all sides by Xenomorph drones, half of the squad was quickly killed off. Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez and Drake were forced to retreat back to the APC, although Drake would get killed on the way as Vasquez' Smartgun fire caused a Xenomorph to explode, splashing Drake with acid blood. Hudson would also suffer splash damage when Hicks used his shotgun on a Xenomorph that tried to force its way into the APC.
During the withdrawal, Lt. Gorman was knocked unconscious and with Sgt. Apone dead, Hicks was the ranking officer. When Ripley suggested destroying the alien infestation by nuking the colony from orbit, Burke objected, but Hicks was in agreement. However, the survivors could not carry out this plan as Xenomorphs had destroyed their dropship after killing its flight crew.
With no alternative, Hicks ordered Hudson and Vasquez to salvage what equipment they could from the wreckage before heading back inside the operations center at the main colony complex. After fortifying the area by sealing access points and deploying sentry guns at key locations, Hicks did his best to remain optimistic about their chances of holding out until a rescue team could arrive. However, Bishop soon discovered that the atmosphere processor had been badly damaged during the initial firefight, as Gorman had feared it would be. It was going to explode in several hours, and the dropship crash had destroyed the systems that could allow the survivors to shut it down.
In response to this desperate news, Hicks helped to formulate a plan whereby the second dropship aboard the Sulaco would be remotely piloted to the surface by Bishop using the colony's transmitter, thereby allowing the survivors to escape. As they waited for Bishop to complete the mission, Hicks instructed Ripley how to use the M41A Pulse Rifle for self-defense. The Xenomorphs also probed the Marines' defenses, but while they managed to overrun the first set of sentry guns, they were halted by the second, just yards from the door into the operations center.
Hicks later responded to a fire alarm in the med lab adjacent to operations, and discovered that Ripley and Newt had been locked inside and the two live Facehugger specimens released. Hicks dove through the window into the room and rescued Ripley from the Facehugger that was on the verge of subduing her, before learning from her that Burke had likely been responsible.
After further discovering that Burke had apparently intended to smuggle live Xenomorph specimens back to Earth by getting Ripley and Newt impregnated, Hicks made the decision to summarily execute him for his treachery. However, before he could carry out his threat, Ripley stepped in, explaining that Burke needed to be brought back to Earth to face justice for his crimes. At that moment, the Xenomorphs cut the power to the building and launched a large assault.
In the ensuing battle, Hudson was captured by the Xenomorphs, while Burke slipped away in the chaos and sealed the survivors in the operations room with the creatures — only to be attacked by another Xenomorph and either captured or killed. The remaining survivors made their escape through the colony's ventilation ducts, but Vasquez and Gorman were eventually cornered by the Xenomorphs and chose to commit suicide by detonating a hand grenade in order to escape being captured by the creatures. The blast from Gorman's and Vasquez' grenade traveled through the ventilation ducts and caused Newt to slip and fall down a separate shaft into the colony's sublevels. Hicks and Ripley used the locator bracelet that had been given to Newt to locate her, but before Hicks could cut through the flooring into the sewer where Newt had ended up, a Xenomorph captured the little girl, before another wave of the creatures forced Hicks and Ripley to flee.
As they attempted to escape the complex, a lone Xenomorph cornered Hicks and Ripley in an elevator, and while Hicks quickly dispatched the creature with his pulse rifle, its spilling blood severely burned his face and chest, quickly melting through his chest armour.
Ripley helped the wounded Marine to the dropship, which had just landed, where Bishop sedated and stabilized him. Somewhat delirious with morphine, he revealed his first name to Ripley as she prepared to rescue Newt from the hive, prompting her to respond in kind. His final words to her were to ask her to hurry back. He subsequently passed out from the sedatives given to him by Bishop, and would remain unconscious until he was back aboard the Sulaco.
Death[]
Hicks remained unconscious during Ripley's fight with the Xenomorph Queen in the Sulaco's hangar. After Ripley had ejected the creature into space, she, Newt and Hicks were placed in hypersleep for the voyage back to Earth.
Between the end of Aliens and the beginning of Alien 3, Hicks would die while in hypersleep. Unbeknownst to the survivors, a Xenomorph Facehugger had gotten aboard the Sulaco and caused a fire aboard the ship while the survivors were in hypersleep. Bishop was able to jettison the hypersleep capsules inside an escape pod which would crash-land on the planet Fiorina 161. During the crash, a metal beam came loose and struck Hicks' cryotube, impaling him.