Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon: Novel Plot & Lore

Published: September 27, 2016
Author: Tim Lebbon
Publisher: Titan Books
Format: Mass market paperback
Pages: 336
ISBN: 978-1-78329-619-4
Series: The Rage War, Book 3
Setting: Human Sphere and Sol, 2692

Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon is a 2016 novel by Tim Lebbon, published by Titan Books on 27 September 2016 as the third book of the Rage War trilogy after Predator: Incursion and Alien: Invasion. It followed Weyland-Yutani researcher Isa Palant, Colonial Marines major Akoko Halley, and the Rage android Liliya through the last months of 2692. Rage generals drove adult Xenomorph armies onto Weaver's World, then jumped the flagship Macbeth into Sol. The book ends with that android command burned, Charon Station destroyed, and the Human Sphere's dropholes shut.

Plot Summary

The novel follows four threads in November and December 2692. Liliya and Hashori ran from General Alexander at the independent station Hell. Isa Palant and Major Akoko Halley worked a wrecked Rage android in a hidden Yautja asteroid, then boarded Macbeth. Beatrix Maloney jumped that flagship into Sol, while Major Sergei Budanov fought the attack on Weaver's World.

Hell Station

Liliya sat on the mercenary ship Satan's Saviour with Hashori while Alexander closed on Hell Station. Jiango Tann and Yvette Tann had hired Captain Ware, Robo, Hoot, and Millard to take her to a Company contact. Ware wanted her off the station before a nuclear hit cooked the hull. Liliya refused to run while Alexander was that close, because the stolen work in her blood was how he kept finding her.

Alexander dropped about a million kilometres out and launched nuclear missiles at the ships around Hell. Satan's Saviour undocked, wrecked one Rage assault ship, and used Liliya on the comms as bait so the big hull would chase them instead of the station. Four Yautja ships then decloaked and hit Alexander's flagship. One hunter ship was destroyed, and Alexander's hull was reduced to a black wreck.

A rescue capsule pulled Alexander out of that fire with two limbs gone and a hole in his skull. He grafted adult Xenomorph parts onto himself with leftover nano, killed a Yautja who came for trophies, and stole that hunter's ship. The Watcher, a fragment of the Faze, kept tracking Liliya. Adult Xenomorphs that had already reached Hell kept attacking the station.

Weaver's World

General Mashima took the rebuilt Fiennes sleeper Aaron-Percival through dropholes Rommel had already opened. At Gamma 114 his assault craft cleared Colonial Marines. At Gamma 98 he wrecked a mercenary station and a battleship, then sent more than a hundred adult Xenomorphs across vacuum to finish the survivors. Birth halls on Aaron-Percival forced nearly seven thousand creatures from Fiennes sleepers after they left Macbeth, and Mashima wanted a force of about sixteen thousand before he reached Weaver's World.

Weaver's World held about nine million people. Mashima's first landing put about five thousand adult Xenomorphs onto cities and camps rather than military sites, including New Cardiff, Boston Three, and the polar survey at World's End. The 7th Spaceborne lost destroyers in orbit and later blew the space elevator after Rage troops used it to send creatures down. Major Sergei Budanov reported the strike to General Paul Bassett and asked for help.

Yautja ships then arrived and could wreck landers the Marines could not break. One hunter told Budanov's team they were with them, then walked into Boston Three. On the sixth day Budanov's gunner was killed, thousands of civilians hid in the underground stations, and adult Xenomorphs reached the tunnels. The book does not return to him after he went underground with the hunters.

Palant And Yaquita

Pixie docked at a hidden Yautja asteroid more than forty kilometres across after a twelve-day flight. A hunter left Palant and Halley's DevilDogs in a lab with the wrecked android they had bagged on 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. Kalakta later met Palant in a holocabin that opened into a jungle. He had ordered that interrogation, then gave Palant only enough to fight the Rage. The Drukathi had left this galaxy about a million years earlier, and their leftover tools sat in the finds at Midsummer, including the Faze.

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. Halley burned the body. Yaquita then gave them Macbeth's location.

On Satan's Saviour the Tanns opened Liliya's chest to sample her heart and nano while they ran for Addison Prime. Hashori took a Yautja message: a Wounded Clan hunter and the human who had sealed the ceasefire had mined a captured general and knew the mothership's place. At drophole Gamma 117, Alexander's stolen hunter ship hit them, adult Xenomorphs forced the reserve airlock, and Millard burned to death in his straps. Two Yautja ships trapped Alexander, froze him, and took the survivors off the wrecked mercenary hull.

Palant met Liliya at the rendezvous. They wrote a signal to seize a general's self-destruct, put it into Liliya's heart through the nano in her blood, and tested it on frozen Alexander. A nuclear flash a hundred miles out erased him. Yaquita then boarded Pixie, and a hidden Yautja drophole at the asteroid's heart dropped them into Sol outside Pluto's orbit.

Sol And Charon

On Macbeth, the Faze rebuilt an Outer Rim drophole for almost forty days, then split into twelve pieces for the planned break-up of the ship. Maloney ordered a jump of about five hundred light years, far past the usual drophole hops of eight to ten. Three elders never woke, five people died in failed freezers, and attendant Kareth came through the jump raving.

Macbeth emerged at Alpha 7, a billion miles inside Pluto's orbit, spinning, and wrecked the portal's defences. Seventeen minutes later it split into a dozen destroyer-sized hulls. Two of those ships went at Charon Station, Colonial Marine central command in Sol. Four turned inward toward Earth.

Gerard Marshall, seventh of the Thirteen and director of ArmoTech, left Charon on the frigate Hagen with pilot Andrea Rodriguez and Marine Lucianne. He had the codes to shut every drophole in the Sphere from a four-hundred-year failsafe tug named Phoenix, hidden at unused drophole Beta 12. General Paul Bassett stayed. The first Rage hull dumped adult Xenomorphs into Charon's nano-thread net, and the second dumped more than four thousand more, then ran.

Bassett cut away a cargo module with seventy-eight people still inside, then isolated his command sphere. The docked ship Demidov cooked off its reactor and wrecked a main arm. He sent the Purge Protocol and a last note to Marshall, then an adult Xenomorph came through his Weaver's World simulation and took him. Maloney later ordered the wreck filmed and sent across the Sphere.

Macbeth

James Barclay called Maloney from Mars and offered a ceasefire after treating the war as lost. One Rage ship was gone, and the Yautja were allied because the Rage had hit them first. Maloney ended the call without ordering Mashima to stop the massacre on Weaver's World.

Pixie dropped a million kilometres out and attacked so Maloney would haul it in rather than destroy it. 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. Hashori marked the death and kept flying. Three uncloaked Yautja ships then docked one on another as a bridge, and Hashori spoke Kalakta's name as they crossed. A turret destroyed one of those ships while the Tanns, Ware, Robo, and Hoot came aboard.

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, whispered a name into her armour, and gave the ready signal.

Maloney had taken Liliya to the Queen's hall to be killed after she understood she had lost. Liliya sent one thought through the android command: self-destruct. Pixie's computer dumped the hyperdrive and slammed that signal through other planes. Maloney's rebuilt heart heated, and Liliya kept sending the burn as the ship caught fire around her.

Survivors

Most of Macbeth went with the generals. About two hundred metres of stern survived, and Palant treated that as the Faze ejecting the engine bay to save itself. The Faze piece vanished from the pedestal. Hashori came out helmetless, spear almost eaten by acid, and confirmed that other humans had lived.

Hoot was dead in the blast, and two Yautja were dead. Kalakta was not among the survivors they counted. Hashori confirmed with the circling pilots that Rage ships elsewhere had also blown, then claimed the wreck for the Yautja. Palant went with her, and the Tanns sat beside Palant on that ship.

On Phoenix, Marshall watched at least fifteen nuclear detonations across Sol, none of them human. Sol then stopped sending signals, and he entered the failsafe codes and shut the drophole network. Dropholes across the Sphere sat dead. Weaver's World was left on its own for months or years, and Titan crews five hundred light years out were trapped.

Halley and Huyck were still fleet soldiers and meant to report in. Ware, once a Marine, offered them a way out after losing Satan's Saviour, Millard, and Hoot. From the pilot seat Hashori treated Yautja dropholes as their own secret. Adult Yautja make a pilgrimage to the homeworld at least once, and she treated that road as far and long.

The Yautja

A futuristic armored Yautja used for the far-future Rage War setting

Hashori of the Widow Clan stayed with Liliya from Hell Station to the Macbeth wreck. She fought the boarders on Satan's Saviour after acid burned her legs, then took the survivors onto Alexander's stolen ship. On Macbeth she went through the breach first with her spear. She left with Palant and the Tanns and spoke of a homeworld pilgrimage.

Yaquita pulled the Drukathi name from Oscar, shielded Palant when the android's heart heated, and flew the cloaked hangar ship. Adult Xenomorphs killed her there. Kalakta boarded the flagship in person, taller and older than the hunters around him, and killed many of the creatures himself. The books never name him among the people who left.

Unnamed Yautja fought beside Marines on Weaver's World and wrecked landers over Boston Three. Others trapped Alexander at Gamma 117 and later accepted Halley as commander for the run at Macbeth. Palant's Yautja-language work from the first book remained the human side of that peace. The hunters kept the Macbeth stern and did not hand the Faze-built drive to the Company.

The Rage

The Rage ran Xenomorphs as soldiers under android generals, each battalion stamped to one commander. Alexander hunted Liliya until the test burn destroyed him. Mashima hit Weaver's World from Aaron-Percival. Maloney stayed on Macbeth in a gel suit, murdered Wordsworth years earlier when he would not bring the Faze aboard, and died when Liliya burned the android command.

Founder Challar was ordered to smash Charon with thousands of adult Xenomorphs after the split. Attendants Dana and Kareth served Maloney on the flagship. Elder Dariel died in a failed freezer on the Sol jump. The Queen stayed a prisoner on Maloney's central section, fed human meat, until that hall went with the ship.

The Rage ran those armies with three things put together: the nano Liliya stole from Weyland-Yutani, leftover science from the dead dog-like species on Midsummer, and the Faze. A Watcher sat with Maloney and another with Alexander. After the burn, Marshall's map showed Rage ships exploding across Sol, including four detonations near Earth. Leaderless adult Xenomorphs remained on Weaver's World and elsewhere in the Sphere.

Confirmed Kills

Yautja ships wrecked Alexander's flagship off Hell Station, and Alexander later killed the trophy hunter who boarded that wreck. The test signal then destroyed Alexander himself. Palant and Halley destroyed Oscar after his heart came out. Adult Xenomorphs killed Millard at Gamma 117, Sprenkel and Yaquita on Macbeth, Bestwick on the run to the control room, and Hoot in the final blast.

Mashima's attack killed civilians and Marines across Weaver's World, including surveyor Jemima Jones and Budanov's pilot and gunner. Bassett died on Charon after the Demidov blast and the second dump of adult Xenomorphs. Liliya's signal killed Maloney and the other generals, and it wrecked most of Macbeth and the split Rage hulls in Sol. Marshall then shut the dropholes rather than fire a weapon.

Key Characters

Isa Palant - ArmoTech Yautja researcher. Injected the Faze hub. Left with Hashori.
Akoko Halley - Major, 39th Spaceborne DevilDogs. Lived. Meant to report in with Huyck.
Huyck - DevilDog. Lived.
Sprenkel and Bestwick - DevilDogs. Dead on Macbeth.
Liliya - Rage android. Dead. Broadcast the self-destruct from the Queen's hall.
Hashori - Widow Clan hunter. Lived. Took Palant and the Tanns toward a homeworld pilgrimage.
Yaquita - Wounded Clan hunter. Killed in Macbeth's hangar.
Kalakta - 677th Elder. Boarded Macbeth. Not among the counted survivors.
Jiango Tann and Yvette Tann - Hell scientists. Lived. Left with Palant.
Ware and Robo - Satan's Saviour crew. Lived. Lost their ship.
Hoot - Mercenary. Dead in the Macbeth blast.
Millard - Navigator. Burned at Gamma 117.
Beatrix Maloney - Rage leader. Dead when the android command burned.
Alexander - Rage general, later a Xenomorph hybrid. Destroyed in the test burn.
Oscar - Wrecked Rage general. Heart removed, body burned.
Mashima - Rage general on Aaron-Percival. Implied dead in the Sphere-wide burn.
Challar - Original Founder. Last ordered against Charon.
Sergei Budanov - Major on Weaver's World. Last seen entering Boston Three tunnels.
Paul Bassett - Colonial Marine commander. Killed on Charon.
Gerard Marshall - Seventh of the Thirteen. Alive on Phoenix after shutting the dropholes.
James Barclay - Thirteen leader. Last seen on a Mars holocall.
Andrea Rodriguez and Lucianne - Hagen crew. Alive on Phoenix.

Place In The Rage War

Titan's first official Alien novel wave was the 2014 trio, Lebbon's Out of the Shadows, James A. Moore's Sea of Sorrows, and Christopher Golden's River of Pain. Lebbon's Incursion started the far-future line in October 2015. Invasion followed on Alien Day, 26 April 2016. Armageddon closed the trilogy on 27 September 2016 as the first original novel Titan labeled Alien vs. Predator in that run.

All three Rage War novels could sit as Alien vs. Predator books, since humans, Yautja, and Xenomorphs share the plot from the first volume. Titan still split the spines as Predator, Alien, and Alien vs. Predator. Lebbon later put Halley in the 2017 shorts Spite, in Aliens: Bug Hunt, and Devil Dogs, in Predator: If It Bleeds. Those jobs sit earlier in her Corps career than the 2692 war. Johnny Mains and Gemma Lieder do not return after Invasion. This volume finishes the Rage as a command structure, not the leftover adult Xenomorphs.

Editions

Titan Books released the first edition on 27 September 2016 as a mass-market paperback in the United States. Titan's US catalog gives 336 pages. The UK paperback runs 368 pages. The cover uses a promotional image from Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem of Wolf Predator fighting a Xenomorph, rather than a painted scene from 2692.

In 2017, Szukits published a Hungarian edition translated by Szente Mihály. In 2018, Luzifer published a German edition under the same title Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon. The story begins in Predator: Incursion and Alien: Invasion.

Behind The Scenes

Titan asked Lebbon for the trilogy after Out of the Shadows. The hard Fox brief on the first book was a military story set later, with an outside force using weaponized Xenomorphs, and he made that force human. Armageddon is the volume that brings Macbeth into Sol and then cuts the android command that had run those armies. The acknowledgments on the earlier books thank Titan staff and Fox's Josh Izzo and Nicole Spiegel.

Conclusion

Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon is Tim Lebbon's 2016 Titan novel, the third book of the Rage War. It covers the 2692 attack on Weaver's World, the jump into Sol, the fall of Charon Station, and the boarding of Macbeth. The book ends with Liliya burning the android generals, Marshall shutting the dropholes, and Hashori leaving the wreck with Palant and the Tanns. It sits on many Alien vs. Predator book lists as the close of that trilogy, after Incursion and Invasion.