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Let's suppose, knowing what we know about the movie Aliens, that the supply ship Korea, based out of Rodina, arrived on its regularly scheduled drop-off to Acheron LV-426 shortly after the colonists discovered the derelict spacecraft, but before officials on Earth even knew that there was anything wrong. The colonists were obviously facing some alien life form that they couldn't deal with, and some of their members had been infested with the alien "embryos." Their medical facilities, while complete enough for even major surgeries, was poorly equipped to deal with the hostile aliens. But Rodina Station was a xenobiological research post, with every medical and bioscience probe and sampler known to man. When Korea arrived, the colonists knew that it would be their best and only chance to save the lives of the infected men. Two colonists were brought aboard Korea and placed in stasis for an emergency trip back to Rodina station. Korea couldn't make her third and final stop on her route: the farmers of Ketta Ketta would simply have to wait.
At this point we hit a great deal of missing information. It may, or may not, be revealed later, since there seems to be no survivors to recount what happened. What we know is that by the time Korea was anywhere near Rodina, she was blaring a distress message and drifting dangerously off course. A U.S. Colonial Marines patrol cruiser, the USS Gaines, was in the region and picked up the beacon. It wasn't the choice of the Marines who slept in cryosleep aboard her; Gaines responded automatically to the distress and maneuvered to investigate. A small group of Marines boarded Korea, and with the exception of their resident synthetic person Leon, only two of the combat troops escaped the horrors inside. Leon cared for the wounded and over the course of the next couple of days used the Marine cruiser to tractor Korea into dock with Rodina Station.
Clearly the administrators of Rodina wanted to know everything they could, and so did the rest of the three hundred inhabitants of the station. Most of these people were blue-collar types, doing ho-hum jobs in the depths of space because it was their job, and because the long-term payment schedules are dynomite for skilled labor. Weyland-Yutani may not have treated its employees better than pieces on an assembly line, but they sure knew how to turn your profit shares into retirement funds. By and large, the station's crew were unconvinced that a supernatural force of deadly aliens had caused all their problems. They simply wanted to get back to life as usual, despite the military cruiser and the dark ghost ship that straddled alongside the station.
The surviving Marines told their story to an unbelieving audience, but they had enough evidence to urge Rodina administrators to understand that something terrible had happened on Korea and at the colony on LV-426. But even as the Marines and the Rodina crew were talking about what to do next, the station's science team, mostly microbiologists, unexpectedly broke through Korea's security measures and traveled across the thin corridor connecting the station to the infested ship. They did this completely without authorization, and needless to say it constituted a major risk to lives of everyone on the station, especially if what the Marines had been telling them was true. It was decided that the Marines would lead a group of Rodina's police officers back into Korea to attempt to rescue the scientists and anyone else who might still be alive there.
Travel time across the stars is measured in weeks and months. There was no one in the region to call for help. The Marines and the cops had their orders, but they weren't going in with the policemen's light-duty shotguns and revolvers. They trundled back to the military cruiser Gaines and loaded up on pulse rifles and assault carbines. Then as they were leaving Gaines they discovered that Leon, the Marines' android, had gone whacko and set out on a murder spree. Then aliens started pouring out of Gaines' walls, and it became apparent that cruiser itself was crawling with the things. Somehow aliens had been transported from Korea, and that left Rodina in the middle of two infested ships. It also left the Marines without their transport and base of operations. Gaines was sealed off as best it could be, and the Marines and cops went to Korea on what may very well turn out to be a suicide mission.
Shortly after the expeditionary force made their way to Korea, the administrators of Rodina determined that the safest place for the inhabitants was in the lowest part of the station, below the science levels, where the atmospheric launch probes and lifeboats are located. However, Rodina's lifeboats are only designed for about one hundred persons, accounting for only a third of the station's complement. Hoping to avoid abandoning the station, the administrators, not least among them the hard-drinking General Manager Holcomb, made sure that somebody would be monitoring the critical systems while there was still a chance of saving the place.
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