Guys some of you need to read the question again it says
"survive the initial encounter" that would be the SNAFU in the Atmosphere Processor!
So votes for Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez and come to that Spunkmeyer and Ferro are all invalid since none of them died in that encounter!
Unless you count everything prior to the Last Stand in Operations as the first encounter and even then no-one saw Spunkmeyer or Ferro actually die!

True he got a spoogey hand and a xeno did enter the cockpit behind Ferro but who's to say the blood on the inside of the canopy wasn't actually a superficial wound and she actually managed to eject before the xeno finished her off or the Dropship crashed?
Just Sayin'
