Ahiliyah Cooper: Phalanx Runner & Ataegina General

Full name: Ahiliyah Cooper (Liyah)
Species: Human
Affiliation: Lemeth Hold; later unified Ataegina
Role: Runner; later General
Known for: Caminus paste war; surviving a Facehugger; Queen campaign; hunt with Yeh'kull
Family: Christuno Cooper (ancestor); Tolio Minsala (partner); Brandun (son)
Setting: Ataegina, after the Rising
First appearance: Aliens: Phalanx (2020)
Status: Alive after Another Mother
Injuries (novels): Facehugged; vomited a Chestburster; ruined foot after the first Queen fight; branded by Yeh'kull
Kills (novels): Shared first-demon kill with Brandun · chamber adults with Creen · one protector skull (Creen finished it)

Ahiliyah Cooper was a runner from Lemeth Hold on the lost colony world Ataegina in Scott Sigler's Aliens: Phalanx and in Another Mother, his story from Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey. The locals called adult Xenomorphs demons and fought them with spears, shields, and hidey-suits of leaves. Ahiliyah, Brandun Barrow, and Creen Dinashin found a plant that stopped demon blood from burning, then marched on the hive under Black Smoke Mountain. The first Queen was defeated there. Ahiliyah became General Cooper, and about twenty years later she hunted a new Queen with Yeh'kull, an unblooded female Yautja.

Biography

Growing Up In Lemeth

Ahiliyah grew up in Lemeth Hold after the Rising emptied the plains of Ataegina. Holds sent youths from sixteen to thirty out by day as runners, in crews of three, to carry salt, medicine, and letters. She made her first run at dawn on her sixteenth birthday and spent three years on those circuits. At 19 she was on her fifth run with Brandun, then fifteen, and Creen, then sixteen.

The Fifth Circuit

Senior runner Aiko Laster trained them to hide, listen, and wait if a stick snapped, because demons usually hunted after dark. On that fifth circuit Brandun broke a stick and a demon crawled toward them in daylight. Ahiliyah held still until it moved on, then got the packs home through Keflan and Dakatera. At the wall they signaled with a gish throat-box and walked into a flower-throw welcome.

Slash Mark And Sinesh

Completing five runs earned her a slash mark, but she wanted to keep walking rather than stay inside the hold. Former general Sinesh Bishor trained her in stillness and shield-line work. Most of Lemeth called him Spider because acid blood had ruined his face, arm, and eye. His friend Christuno Cooper had cut the burning flesh away and dragged him home after Sinesh killed a demon with a crossbow bolt through the inner jaw. Christuno later married, and that line led to Ahiliyah.

Tolio And The Hold

She kept seeing Tolio Minsala, a baker who had finished his five runs. He wanted her off the surface and wanted a family. She refused to stop running and did not want a child then. Preacher Ramirus taught that the Demon Mother used magic spiders at Black Smoke Mountain to turn people into demons. Margrave Aulus Darby treated the outside world as a problem for other people.

Caminus And The Sixth Run

On her sixth run a demon ambushed the crew. Brandun drove a spear into it, and Ahiliyah finished it with a rock and cut out the inner jaw as proof. Demon blood hit crimson caminus leaves and turned grey instead of eating through the plant. Pressed leaves also stopped the burn on Brandun's hand. That was the first clear Xenomorph weakness the holds could use.

Keflan then fell, a hold of about 1,300 people. Lemeth's council pulled Creen off the runner roster and put him in the factory lab to study the leaves. He boiled caminus mush with starch into a paste that stopped burning blood on contact and poisoned demons when smeared on blades. Margrave Darby blocked warrior tests of the mix. The trio hunted a demon anyway and brought a dead one back.

Lemeth Falls

Aiko came back from Jantal with wounds that killed her after that hold fell. Brandun joined the Hold Guard under Drasko Lamech, while Ahiliyah stayed a runner. Diggers then opened Lemeth from below, and demons came through the factory levels and the living corridors. Sinesh died when a demon punched its inner jaw through his face, and Aulus Darby was carried away alive.

Margravine Herriet Lumos of Dakatera took command of the survivors. Ahiliyah formed a corridor shield wall, smeared the spears with Creen's paste, and held the line until about 2,000 people reached the plateau. About 1,000 fighters from Lemeth, Dakatera, and the Keflan remnant later locked shields on a hilltop and killed more than 150 demons there. The Margravine treated that stand as proof that a paste-smeared phalanx could move.

March To Black Smoke Mountain

Takanta promised 1,500 warriors and Vinden promised 1,000. The combined army of about 3,000 marched through Bigsby's Pass and onto the Boiling Plains. Thousands of demons hit the column, the Takantan line broke, and the survivors pushed on to Black Smoke Mountain. Tolio lost his right arm and an eye in that campaign.

Nan-Shan And Zachariah

Demons took the last fighters into the mountain instead of killing them on the slope. The hive sat inside the wreck of the colony ship Nan-Shan. A synthetic named Zachariah, registration WY2100023, had served Weyland-Yutani and had lived in the wreck for 319 years by his own count. He had taken 119 children aged ten and under off the dying ship. Those children became the Ataeginians, and their family names included Cooper, Barrow, and Dinashin. He used the old words: the demons were Xenomorphs, the magic spiders were Facehuggers, and the worms that came out of chests were Chestbursters.

The Egg Room

Ahiliyah, Brandun, and Creen were glued to a wall in a room of eggs. A Facehugger locked onto her face and put an implant in her chest. Creen had eaten caminus leaves after one took him, hoping the paste in his blood would poison the implant. Ahiliyah vomited a thin, melted Chestburster and lived. She cut herself free, pulled a Chestburster out of Creen's mouth, and cut Brandun loose after he vomited the same ruined stage. Preacher Ramirus died in that room when a healthy worm tore out of him.

The Demon Mother

Zachariah hid them, then led them toward the Demon Mother, a Queen hanging over an egg sac and a geyser, with two large protectors. The first geyser plan failed because mineral crust on her body kept the heat from killing her, and a protector killed Zachariah. Brandun climbed the egg sac, killed a protector, and drove a poison tail spike into the Queen's chest. She crushed him, and the poison killed her after that. Ahiliyah and Creen left the mountain. Her foot was ruined, and she used a spear as a crutch after that.

General Cooper

Drasko reached the chamber with about a thousand Vindenian warriors and began clearing the remaining demons and eggs. Two years later Ahiliyah was General Cooper. She drilled mixed units on the open plains, with hard-iron shields painted for a unified Ataegina. She held a spear in one hand and her baby, also named Brandun, in the other. Tolio brought food to the troops. Creen designed faster mortar, harder iron, a new street grid for Hellan, and a far-seeing tool he called a farglass. He kept learning from the Nan-Shan wreck.

Scout Susannah then reported three Northerner ships off the coast. Ahiliyah sent word up the lamp line to Keflan, Dakatera, Jantal, Hibernia, and Pendaran. She kept drilling smaller groups she called modules. She would not use demons as a weapon against other humans.

Twenty Years Later

Another Mother is Sigler's story from Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey, set about twenty years after the first Demon Mother was defeated. Ataegina's population had more than doubled. Ahiliyah had fought four wars since taking command: one against the demons and three against the Northerners. When demons returned she ran a shrinking-perimeter search so a new Queen could not grow. She rode Creen's steam cart behind the search line, wore three soldier inner jaws, and carried arrows smeared with the same poison that had ended the first war.

Meeting Yeh'kull Predator

Runner Rowan Winden was found with his hidey-suit split and his head and spine gone. Green blood sat on a spearhead, with no acid scoring. Unblooded female hunter Yeh'kull had been sent only to survey the primitive continent. Clan elders had kept her as an ecologist and child-maker because she was the last of her line. She had broken orders by killing Rowan and Aaron, capturing runner Miriam, and letting Miriam bleed out.

Pendaran Tunnels

Yeh'kull wrecked the steam cart, saw the Queen inner jaw Creen wore and the three soldier jaws on Ahiliyah, and forced them to map the uncleared Pendaran volcanic tunnels. She would not take a trophy as a gift. She wanted the kill herself before the mothership arrived. She gave Creen a double-pointed spear and Ahiliyah a light metal bow, took them aboard her scout craft, and killed more than twenty Warriors with her plasmacaster on the way into the hive. Two protectors ambushed them. Ahiliyah wrecked one skull with that bow, Creen finished it, and Yeh'kull gut-bladed the other after a shoulder gore.

The Second Queen

In the Queen chamber Yeh'kull removed caster and helmet for an honor melee with disc and wrist blades. Ahiliyah held a poison arrow in case the huntress failed, and she sent Creen to smash eggs. The disc cut off a Queen finger, then hit the neck, and Yeh'kull dragged both blades the length of the skull. She branded Ahiliyah, Creen, and her own helmet with the severed finger, wore the Queen inner jaw on a wire, and threw a charge that shook the mountain. Leaking green blood, she left atmosphere toward the mothership beacon, blooded. Ahiliyah and Creen walked out after that. The young Queen, her protectors, and the runners Yeh'kull had taken were dead.

Confirmed Kills

Phalanx and Another Mother never give Ahiliyah a hive-wide body count. Her confirmed line is:

Shared first demon of the present war: sixth-run adult Xenomorph. Brandun speared it. Ahiliyah finished it with a rock.
Hilltop stand: part of the thousand-fighter ring that left more than 150 demon bodies. No solo count.
Queen chamber, first war: more adult Xenomorphs with Creen. Brandun killed a protector and the Queen.
Pendaran hive: one protector skull wrecked with Yeh'kull's bow. Creen finished that body. Yeh'kull killed the other protector and the young Queen.

Conclusion

Ahiliyah Cooper was a Lemeth runner who became General of unified Ataegina after the first Demon Mother was defeated. She survived a Facehugger in the Nan-Shan hive, drilled modules on the open plains, and twenty years later walked a second Queen chamber with Creen and Yeh'kull. She and Creen left that mountain after Yeh'kull killed the young Queen and took her blooding.