While still a teenager, Church and the rest of the crew of the terraforming vessel Incunabulum — including his parents — were captured by the Xenomorphs on an uncolonised moon. Church subsequently spent 43 days imprisoned inside a Xenomorph Hive, where he was subjected to unspeakable horrors and was even impregnated with a Chestburster, although the creatures were killed by an unidentified fungal disease and Church escaped alive, removing the Chestburster from his own body himself. The incident deeply scarred him and largely influenced his later career as a research scientist specialising in the Xenomorph.