Major Akoko Halley: Snow Dog Of The DevilDogs
Akoko Halley was a Colonial Marine major of the 39th Spaceborne, the DevilDogs, in Tim Lebbon's Rage War novels and the shorts Devil Dogs and Spite. Her troops called her Snow Dog for a cool manner under fire, not for her looks, and she held that name without offense. In 2692 she pulled Isa Palant off LV-1529, sent the Yautja ceasefire, went rogue with Palant after the fight on LV-1657, and lived through the boarding of the Rage flagship Macbeth.
Biography
Childhood Off Earth
Halley was proud of her African heritage, and she left Earth at eight for the Kuiper belt with her parents. Both parents were dead by the Rage War, and the return she had promised them, a visit to their hometown in Africa, never happened. July 2692 was her first trip back to the outer edge of the Sol System in seven years, and she had hoped for rest on that run before Gerard Marshall pulled her off an Addison Prime job and sent her after a Company researcher instead.
DevilDogs On Charon Station
By then she was 32 and a major with early command of the 39th Spaceborne, the DevilDogs, and that regiment was the posting she treated as home. Her troops called her Snow Dog because she stayed cool with her people and ice-cold in a fight, and she held that name without offense. On the Charon Station flight deck her right hand was Sergeant Major Mikey Huyck. Private Nassise had served under her since she was a corporal, and Private Gove once crossed the line with her and took a broken nose for it. After that, the men who joked about a good-looking female major stopped testing her.
Phrail And The Company Hold
A back injury put Halley on phrail, a painkiller that hooked a tiny share of users. Weyland-Yutani man Gerard Marshall, seventh of the Thirteen and later director of ArmoTech, kept a man in his pay who saved her career when the Corps would have thrown an addict out of training. Marshall never named the drug to her face, and that silence gave him a way to call her whenever he wanted a job done. By July 2692 she had not spoken to him in more than three years and wanted that silence to last. He called her on Charon Station anyway, cleared the detour with General Paul Bassett, and sent her after Isa Palant's work on LV-1529, while the bulk of the DevilDogs went on to Addison Prime without her.
ArmoTech Station Trechman Two
Years earlier, while she was still a captain, Marshall sent her from Charon Station on the Sleek-class destroyer Doyle, in Tim Lebbon's Devil Dogs, collected in Predator: If It Bleeds. Comms had failed at the ArmoTech research station Trechman Two, ten billion kilometers beyond Pluto. Section Seven man Del Kalien rode along as Marshall's voice, with final say on the job. The four Marines with her, Sergeant Tew, Corporal Jane Hanning, Rogers, and Shearman, plus Rosartz, came from her own regiment but were strangers to her.
The Escaped Research Hunter
A drone found no hull damage and no visiting ship, because the Yautja on board had been brought in for research and had escaped. None of the station's own vessels were missing, and on the drone feed the hunter sat in the dark inside Trechman Two and watched them. Kalien wanted the computer core more than a rescue, and he treated the hunter as a containment break that had likely started under drugs. Halley left him on the Doyle, boarded in two fireteams, and found labs of bio-mechanical samples and humans hung by the feet with spines torn out.
Fight Inside The Station
The hunter ambushed Tew's team, huge, helmetless, and bandaged, with sensor pads in facial wounds. It ran Rogers through and smashed Hanning into the ceiling before Tew's plasma shot ruptured the hull and sealed that zone. Halley's team pulled an obsidian core cube, then opened fire on a bloodstained Company survivor at a locked door. The hunter dropped through the ceiling, impaled Rosartz, and threw her into Shearman hard enough to kick him open, and Shearman detonated a plasma grenade.
Only Survivor Of The Boarding
Halley reached the airlock lobby with her suit burned and the station's phrail packs keeping her on her feet. The hunter lay dying there, green blood and burns across its back, one eye gone. Kalien refused to let her onto the Doyle without the core and waited in the docking arm with a gun. She sent the hunter through the airlock, primed a plasma charge, and blew the arm apart, so Kalien and the Yautja went into space locked together. She was the only boarding-party survivor and meant to take a lifeboat and call DevilDogs rescue after she decided what she would report.
The Weller Habitat
After she made major, Halley took a small DevilDogs crew instead of a full regiment, in Spite, collected in Aliens: Bug Hunt. Seven Marines plus pilot Huyck went to Weller, a huge artificial habitat more than two hundred years old, after nineteen days of failed comms. Durand, eleven years in and Halley's wingman, rode with her. Minutes out, she put the crew on the habitat first and kept the Company research order behind that.
Dead Crew And Fire Spites
The east arm and hub of Weller held no fight at first, then rooms of people burned to carbon at failed exits, about forty in one room. Station complement was 98, and the count included child-sized bodies, with the damage done to people rather than to the habitat itself. Head-sized, pear-shaped, four-winged flyers that Sprenkel named fire spites spat floating liquid fire that ate combat suits. Eddols burned, ran, and detonated a grenade that killed many and scattered her.
Misra Turns On The Squad
Xenobiology specialist Private Misra found no record of the species, and Halley ordered a withdraw and sheek-gas. Misra refused, held the squad at gunpoint, and admitted an ArmoTech man had promised a million credits for research in a lab under the north wing. Halley treated the hidden prize as a Xenomorph, and that retrieval had been part of her orders. Halley, Durand, and Bestwick shot Misra.
Leaving Weller Unsterilized
On the run back to the ship, spites hit from rooms, ducts, and ceiling, and fire took Sprenkel's leg. The floor then collapsed, and Durand fell into a flooded basement, her suit's life-support failed, and her vitals read as deceased. Halley's team believed her dead and launched, so the north-wing Xenomorph was never reached and the habitat was not sterilized.
Arrow Pixie To LV-1529
When the Rage War started, Marshall pulled Halley and a six-person DevilDogs crew off the Addison Prime job and put them on Bassett's Bolt-class Arrow Pixie, in Predator: Incursion. The run to LV-1529 was forty-eight days and three dropholes. She had fought a Yautja before and respected how they killed, and she did not treat a Sphere-wide hunter war as a clean match for that memory.
Rain Drop On Love Grove Base
The Arrow dropped through rain at Love Grove Base, the Company post on LV-1529 where Palant had been working. Halley's crew put a nano-burst into the hunter they later knew as Shamana. Palant ran between the Marines and the hunter with a datapad and stopped the next shot, because she understood why the hunter was there. Partial translation gave fire dragons, a retreat he would not accept as weakness, and many who had regrouped. He laughed at surrender, then set off the wrist bomb, and a tusk buried itself in Palant's calf. Fifteen survivors went up with Halley, including Palant and linguist Milt McIlveen.
Unauthorized Truce Signal
Back on the Pixie, General Bassett and Marshall described Sphere-wide sabotage: the 17th Spaceborne orbital in the Jackson system wiped out, about 19,000 dead, more than a hundred Yautja-attack reports, and seven Outer Rim dropholes taken. Palant treated the saboteurs as human and the hunters as refugees from fire lizards. Without Thirteen approval, Halley sent Palant and McIlveen's Yautja-language message, a call for an honorable truce against those fire dragons. The signal was heard more than three billion times.
Ceasefire At Drophole Gamma-116
Bassett first ordered a hunt for Halley's group as deserters. Two hours later, Yautja attackers signaled a ceasefire, and Marshall treated the same group as heroes. The meeting sat on the independent ship Tracey-Jane at drophole Gamma-116 in September 2692. Kalakta, an Elder of the 677th clan, asked for Palant and McIlveen rather than for generals, then sealed a ceasefire against the Xenomorph armies driving the hunters into the Sphere. James Barclay ordered an expanded translation program so Halley could plan a defense.
Medical Hold On LV-1657
After the ceasefire, Palant was on LV-1657 ten days out of the medical bay after a bleed on the brain, in Alien: Invasion. McIlveen and Halley's DevilDogs were with her on Marshall's order to get her to Sol. The Pixie's computer, named Billy by the crew, sat on the pads while Halley and the 5th Terrestrials, the BloodManiacs, waited for a six-month run home. Halley was used to thousands of Marines, not five, and she stayed because Marshall wanted Palant protected.
Rage Attack On The Plateau
Three Rage ships decoyed the base guns and dropped adult Xenomorphs onto the plateau around the post. One hull then dived into the core as a bomb and killed Major Reece and the Marines with him. A Xenomorph inner jaw went through Nassise's visor and killed him. Halley cut one adult Xenomorph in two as it prepared to bite a BloodManiac, then lost her com-rifle on the Pixie ramp when two more hit her. She slammed a boot knife into the first creature's head, dropped the melting blade, and ran for the ship. Acid cut Gove's suit and began to cook him from the inside, and Halley finished him with a laser.
Pixie Escapes LV-1657
Billy lifted the Arrow under fire. Halley had Huyck fire lasers at half charge, then ordered a nuke on the remaining fight once she saw how little ordinary fire did to the Rage screens. A Yautja ship destroyed the third Rage hull over the forest. Android general Rommel stood by his landed ship, refused surrender, and later self-destructed at about two megatons. Halley came out with a broken arm, Sprenkel and Bestwick with cracked ribs, and Huyck with both wrists shattered. Marshall's next order was to take another android alive.
Wreck Of The Cooper-Jordan
Nineteen days later, two Yautja ships shadowed Pixie on Kalakta's order to keep Palant alive and warned of a wreck ahead, the Fiennes sleeper Cooper-Jordan. Palant, McIlveen, and the DevilDogs spacewalked into burned cryo-pods, then into a hold where more than two thousand sleepers had produced Chestbursters. A hunter in full kit led them to a wrecked Rage android, one leg gone, torso bitten open, head almost off. The android tried and failed to fire its nuke. They bagged the body, and Sprenkel put three warheads into the hull from fifty miles.
Break With Marshall
In the rec room McIlveen drew a laser on Halley rather than let Palant keep that android off-grid. Huyck came from the flight-deck door, put a combat knife in McIlveen's back, and cut his throat. They dumped the body to space and stopped answering Marshall. The two hunter ships led Pixie for twelve days to an unnamed asteroid about forty miles across, with no star, about twenty light years in from the Outer Rim. Hangar doors closed on the bagged android, and outgoing transmissions from Pixie were blocked, so Halley had to accept cloaked escorts she did not like.
Hidden Yautja Base
Inside that asteroid hangar, in Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon, a hunter left Palant and Halley's remaining DevilDogs in a lab with the wrecked android from the Cooper-Jordan. Yaquita of the Wounded Clan rolled in on a wheeled platform, both legs gone, and seated a living device in the android's ruined skull. Palant named him Oscar, after a childhood dog. Hours into that work Yaquita tore the device free and gave Palant one word: Drukathi.
Burning Oscar
Oscar began shutting himself down around Yaquita's blocks. Palant pulled out the organ that drove him, which was also the likely Xenomorph-control device and the self-destruct, and Halley burned the body. Yaquita then gave them the location of Macbeth, the Rage flagship, and other hunters later accepted Halley as commander for the run at that hull.
Boarding The Flagship Macbeth
Pixie dropped a million kilometres out and attacked so Beatrix Maloney would haul it into Macbeth rather than destroy it. Rage android Liliya walked out of the lock alone. Yaquita's cloaked ship had slipped into the hangar behind them, and twenty-three adult Xenomorphs held the bay. On Halley's mark Yaquita dropped the cloak and cut down the first wave so Palant and the DevilDogs could leave. Adult Xenomorphs later overran that cloaked hull and killed Yaquita.
Faze Hub And The Self-Destruct
Deeper in the flagship, an adult Xenomorph tail took Sprenkel's head in the corridors. Burned Bestwick held a passage so Halley, Huyck, and Palant could reach a locked control room. On a pedestal a head-sized piece of the Faze spun through blue, dark green, and pink. Palant injected the nano and gave the ready signal. Liliya sent the android-command self-destruct from the Queen's hall, and most of Macbeth went with the generals.
Final Fate
About two hundred metres of Macbeth's stern survived the android-command blast. Bestwick had died holding the passage to the control room, and Sprenkel was already dead in the corridors. Nassise and Gove had been killed on LV-1657, and McIlveen was gone after the rec-room fight, so Halley and Sergeant Major Huyck were the DevilDogs left on that hull.
Hashori of the Widow Clan confirmed that other humans had lived, and Palant left with her toward the Yautja homeworld pilgrimage. Halley and Huyck were fleet soldiers after months off the grid, and they meant to report in. Captain Ware, once a Marine, offered them a way out after losing the mercenary ship Satan's Saviour. Halley was alive with Huyck beside her, a major of the 39th, with Ware's offer and a return to the Corps both waiting.
After the Sol fight, Marshall entered the failsafe codes on the tug Phoenix and shut every drophole in the Human Sphere, so the warp-gate network that tied the colonies together was cut. Humanity survived the Rage War, but the Sphere was cut into isolated systems, with leaderless adult Xenomorphs left on Weaver's World and other colonies the Rage had reached.
Confirmed Kills
Jobs Before The Rage War
On Trechman Two, Halley's plasma charge wrecked the docking arm and threw the wounded hunter and Kalien into space. On Weller she shared the shots that killed Misra with Durand and Bestwick, and the squad killed an uncounted number of fire spites. On LV-1529 her crew dropped Shamana with a nano-burst before the hunter set off his own wrist bomb.
Kills In The Rage War
On LV-1657 she cut one adult Xenomorph in two, put a knife through another's head, and mercy-killed Gove after acid opened his suit. The Pixie nuke and the hunter ship overhead wrecked the rest of that landing. On the hidden asteroid she burned Oscar after Palant pulled his heart. On Macbeth her remaining DevilDogs killed adult Xenomorphs in the hangar and corridors, and she lived through the final blast.
Weapons And Equipment
Halley fought in a Colonial Marine combat suit with a visor that ran diagnostics, filtered comms, and showed her squad's vital signs. The suit carried phrail in its med-packs, extra laser charges in the belt, and enough control that she could fire another wearer's directional jets from her own unit. Her main gun was a com-rifle that could throw plasma and drop a remote plasma charge, the same charge she pulled on Trechman Two and linked to her suit so she could blow the docking arm from the airlock. She lost that rifle on the Pixie ramp during the LV-1657 landing.
Close in she used a combat knife from her boot, then a belt knife on the Cooper-Jordan wreck, and a laser sidearm when a blade or rifle was gone. She put that laser through Gove's head after acid opened his suit, and she later picked McIlveen's pistol off the rec-room deck. From the Arrow she ordered Huyck to fire the ship's laser cannon at half charge, then a nuke, after ordinary fire failed against Rage screens. On Weller she also ordered sheek-gas for the habitat, a squad tool rather than a personal weapon.
Continuity Notes
Rank
Lebbon wrote Halley as a major in the 2015 and 2016 Rage War novels, then put her earlier career into the 2017 shorts. Devil Dogs has her as a captain on Trechman Two. Spite has her as a major on Weller, used to leading large 39th drops and taking smaller jobs when she wanted them. Incursion then places her at thirty-two on Charon Station.
The Back Injury
The back injury that started the phrail habit appears in two versions. Devil Dogs frames it as a dropship crash that smashed a disc. Incursion frames it as a pulled disc on one of her first simulated combat drops. Both versions keep Marshall's hold on her career.
Behind The Scenes
Tim Lebbon introduced Halley in Predator: Incursion, published by Titan Books on 20 October 2015 as the first Rage War novel. He brought her back through Alien: Invasion (26 April 2016) and Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon (2016), then wrote the earlier jobs Devil Dogs and Spite for Titan's 2017 anthologies. The shorts sit earlier in her Corps career than the trilogy and keep the same unit name, the same sergeant major, and the same Company pressure.
Conclusion
Akoko Halley was the Snow Dog of the 39th Spaceborne DevilDogs, a major who sent the 2692 ceasefire from LV-1529, went rogue with Isa Palant after LV-1657, and lived through the boarding of Macbeth. She finished the Rage War as a fleet soldier who meant to report in with Huyck, with Gove, Nassise, Sprenkel, and Bestwick dead behind her.
Appearances
- Predator: Incursion by Tim Lebbon (Titan Books, 2015)
- Alien: Invasion by Tim Lebbon (Titan Books, 2016)
- Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon by Tim Lebbon (Titan Books, 2016)
- Predator: If It Bleeds, "Devil Dogs" by Tim Lebbon (Titan Books, 2017)
- Aliens: Bug Hunt, "Spite" by Tim Lebbon (Titan Books, 2017)
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Characters | Colonial Marine Characters | Colonial Marine Lore | Alien Lore | Xenomorph Encounter Survivors | Avp Lore
