You know how you sometimes have great ideas for a story, but the ideas are just missing some critical pieces? For example, you've got ideas A, B, C, E, and you think they are great fun but when you put them together you realize that it's not really a story. You're missing a D, but you can't think of a good D to go with your other good ideas.

So I've got about 4000 words of Lara and Samus having adventures in xenomorph infested ruins and the tunnels beneath an ancient pyramid in the Amazon. They argue, they kill some xenomorphs, they get injured, they show how tough they are. Finally a wounded Samus says she has a plan to kill the xenomorphs but she needs Lara's help. Something happens; I don't know what. Probably Lara dies. Samus get ambushed in her gunship and kills one last xenomorph in a fun final scene.

I don't know if it's any good or not, but it's been a blast to write. I wish I could share it, but there's this big, important missing piece. For the story to be finished, Samus needs a clever plan to kill the xenomorphs, but I don't have a clever plan. So frustrating.

Perhaps the reason Samus needs Lara's help is that with two of them, one of them can act as bait for some kind of trap while the other one springs the trap. But what kind of trap could kill countless xenomorphs?