Aliens vs. Predator: Prey: Novel Plot & Lore

Published: May 1994 (US) / August 1994 (UK)
Author: Steve Perry and Stephani Perry
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Format: Paperback
Pages: 259
ISBN: 978-0-553-56555-3
Series: Aliens vs. Predator, Book 1
Setting: Ryushi / Prosperity Wells

Aliens vs. Predator: Prey is a 1994 novel by Steve Perry and Stephani Perry, published by Bantam Spectra in May 1994 in the US and by Millennium in August 1994 in the UK. It adapted the first Dark Horse Aliens vs. Predator comic and followed a Yautja blooding hunt on Ryushi, a ranch world run by the Chigusa Corporation. A hover-bike crash wrecked the hunt ship Ne'dtesei, the Young Bloods turned on the humans, and colony administrator Machiko Noguchi fought beside the injured Leader Dachande. They killed the Xenomorph Queen on the tug Lector, crashed the meat barge onto Prosperity Wells, and Dachande marked Machiko before he died.

Plot Summary

The novel follows three groups on Ryushi. Dachande brought fourteen students and two Blooded aides to blood them on local four-legged hosts. Colony administrator Machiko Noguchi was taking over Prosperity Wells from Hiroki Shimura as the ranchers finished a three-year rhynth roundup. The tug Lector, flown by Scott Conover and Tom Strandberg, arrived to load the meat barge and parked in front of the town.

The Lector And The Hunt Ship

Conover and Strandberg were weeks out of hyperspace, towing a half-full barge of rendered animal product toward the Chigusa ranch world. Their sensors caught a ship that accelerated too hard for a human crew, then lost it. They wrote it off as rock or leftover blast debris and did not turn to chase it. That hull was the hunt ship Ne'dtesei.

Its Leader's given name was Yeyinde, "brave one." The young called him Dachande, "different knife," for the left tusk he had broken in a bare-handed fight against the Hard Meat. He kept a bound Queen in the hold as an egg layer. A robot crawler, the lou-dte kalei, placed those eggs on the desert for local hosts.

Dachande had led about twenty training hunts and had taken hundreds of young males out, losing about a dozen, most of them after they ignored orders. He wanted to hunt humans later, on a Blooded-only ship, and treated this run as routine. In the kehrite he made Tichinde spar Mahnde, then took the loud student himself after Tichinde shoved him. He threw Tichinde into the wall, spared him, and put the class back into drill.

Prosperity Wells

Noguchi had been on Ryushi for nearly six months and the staff still reported to Hiroki. The settlement held one hundred and thirteen civilians plus about thirty company people. Company housing, the med center, a helipad, rhynth pens, and a small rec block sat in walking distance of most of the ranches. She was twenty-nine and treated the posting as a step toward a better Chigusa job, not a home.

Ranchers Ackland, Harrison, Marianetti, and Luccini were among the largest herd owners. The Ranchers Association wanted a bigger cut after Earth meat prices jumped, and Ackland pushed that fight onto Hiroki in the yard. Noguchi walked into it, promised to ask the company for more, and sent them back to the roundup. She later won them a price increase from the corporate sub-headquarters on Kijita's World.

Hiroki told her to leave the office, and she spent a day on hover bikes through Iwa Gorge and Beriki canyon, seeing rhynth, jack-lizards, and the twin-sun sunset. A childhood flashback showed why she kept people at a distance. In Japan she had come downstairs to find her father, Akira Noguchi, dead after his disgrace at work. On Ryushi she used that same reserve as a manager, then tried to change it before Hiroki left on the Lector, and she announced the loading order at the landing-pad party.

Seeding Ryushi

The Yautja had hunted the world in earlier seasons and expected large four-legged hosts, not a radio-loud human town. Dachande found the Soft Meat on the bands after the last visit and forbade contact. He treated the landing as a training drop, not a human hunt, and put the ship down cloaked in a ravine far from the egg drop. The Blooded aides were navigator Skemte and flyer Warkha.

Two nights before they set down, he issued scarred armor, shiftsuits, and the rest of the student kit so the young could get used to the weight. First-hunt gear was thinner than a Blooded set. Among the fourteen unblooded, Tichinde talked loudest, Mahnde was short, and Ghardeh followed. Dachande marked those three as the ones most likely to break ranks.

Rancher hand Jame Roth found spider-like first-stage creatures in a canyon the night before the roundup. A few of Ackland's rhynth were already sick, and he told her to send company doctor Kesar Revna toward Iwa Gorge, far from his own herds, so a quarantine would not stop the sale. Revna wrote that the specimens were living delivery vehicles, not independent animals, then rode out during the party to look for more. Roth later told Hiroki and Noguchi that Ackland had ordered the lie.

The Crash At Iwa Gorge

Revna glassed the cloaked landing from the rocks and saw two-and-a-half-meter hunters with spears. He tried to run when they spotted him. His hover bike hit student Chulonte at chest height, smashed the student's skull into a cliff, then flew into Ne'dtesei and detonated. Warkha and Skemte died with the ship.

Wreckage put Dachande into the near-death sleep. Ten students were left on the sand with no hull and no elder. Tichinde claimed the crash as an ooman attack and used it as a reason to hunt humans. That broke the hunt rules and made him a Bad Blood.

'Aseigan called a human hunt forbidden for the unblooded, and Tichinde burned him down in front of the others. The remaining nine followed him. He crushed Revna's burned skull in his hand, not as a proper trophy, and sent the party to scavenge masks, armor, and burners. Without a Leader to stop them, they treated the ranch houses as open prey.

The Hive On The Lector

At the landing-pad party, drunk Conover went after Noguchi in operations and tried to force her hand onto him. She threw him, and Strandberg carried him back to the tug. The Lector had already started taking rhynth that had been pastured near the egg drop. Those animals were the hosts that filled the dock.

Inside a dark rhynth pen the pilots found hatched hosts and adult Xenomorphs. The drones took both of them into resin. A larger sleeper that Strandberg called "she" stayed in the dock. The tug never lifted its first load after that.

Hiroki woke Noguchi at noon because Revna had not come back. Copter crew David Spanner and Ashley Ikeda found the burned hunt ship and captured the injured Dachande, then flew him to Miriam Revna's lab. Noguchi read the doctor's notes, confronted Roth, and caught Ackland in the lie about where the Facehuggers had been found. Collins went to the tug to ask why it had not moved, and he did not return.

Tichinde's Hunt

Eleven-year-old Bobby Sheldon was the only child that age on the planet when cloaked hunters hit his family's house. They killed the dog Dax on a spear, then Bob and Sylvan Sheldon. Bobby went through a bedroom window onto a hover bike and reached town with a sprained ankle. Tichinde treated the escaped child as a warning that would bring the rest of the Soft Meat into the open.

Ikeda's flyby found the Sheldon house on fire and the breeding stock slaughtered. Bobby later saw Dachande on Miriam's table and knew the hunters were the same kind that had killed his parents. That was how Noguchi understood there were more of them still on Ryushi, not one wrecked ship and a single captive. She left Miriam with the injured Leader and went to organize a defense.

Noguchi called a meeting, put Hiroki on security, and had the ranchers stack cargo crates around the compound. The armory was thin: scatter guns, a few pistols, flare guns, and hunting rifles. She asked operations to cut a deal for Colonial Marine support once Little Cygni dropped below the horizon. Miriam Revna refused to leave the lab, because that was where her husband would return.

The Town Defense

Noguchi took Hiroki's 12.5 mm Smith revolver and walked to the Lector with Mason to find out why the tug had gone quiet. Drones lifted Mason into the dark dock. She shot two of them empty, then student Gkyaun burned the rest off her and jumped into the pack for trophies. The hive pulled him down and killed him.

A cloaked hunter later knocked her over by the well, then drones tore that hunter apart as she ran. Tichinde's party hit the west lock at the same time the hive came out of the tug. Human fire killed Mahnde and Da-ec'te before he pulled back, leaving six students plus himself. The colonists fell back into operations and welded the doors.

Hiroki's team ran out of ammunition behind that weld. Friedman was among the west-lock watch that did not get out. Tichinde took Hiroki's head for a spear after the lock broke. Cameras later showed the hunters dancing with human and drone skulls around a fire built from the wreckage.

Broken Tusk And Machiko

Noguchi left Weaver in charge, punched Ackland when he blocked her, and rode Roth's hover bike toward a plan to empty the rhynth pens through the town. Tichinde found Miriam's lab by copying recorded speech at the door. He went after Miriam with a staff while Dachande was still strapped to the table. Noguchi drove the bike through the lab wall to stop that kill.

Dachande woke, caught Tichinde's staff, and later beat him after he saw a sack of human trophies. He drove that staff through Tichinde's spine and spat on the body. Miriam had unhooked Dachande rather than let Noguchi shoot him, and the two of them exchanged a shoulder greeting.

Noguchi and Miriam ran for the copter. Acid from a drone burned Noguchi's arm, and Miriam could not fly. Spanner talked them off the pad by radio. Dachande climbed a tower ahead of the stampede, and they tried to lift him off the strut. A drone landed on the copter, the tower came down, and the crash killed Miriam. Dachande carried her body out of the fire and set it down for the humans.

The Rhynth Stampede

Noguchi had opened the pens so the rhynth would crush whatever stood in the streets. The colonists left in AVs and loaders for a desert camp, with Roth, Cathie, Weaver, and Ackland among them. The stampede wrecked much of the southwest compound and left five of Dachande's students dead in the dirt. Weaver held the camp after that and shut Ackland down when he called a return trip suicide.

Conover and Strandberg, who had broken out of the resin after the hive rushed outside, pulled Noguchi from the copter wreck. Dachande spared the pilots because she had tried to lift him off the tower. The four of them, with Dachande, swept the stampede path and killed a file of drones. The street was a mix of rhynth, hunter, and drone bodies, with acid eaten into the dirt.

In the east lock a hyperstat from Takashi Chigusa in New Osaka ordered Noguchi to preserve the specimens and said the nearest Marine ship was five weeks out. Strandberg then birthed a Chestburster. Dachande pinned it and broke its back. Conover understood he was implanted too, gave Noguchi a disk and a map of the tug, and asked her to shoot him. She did, and Dachande finished the embryo in the corpse.

The Queen And The Barge

Dachande treated Noguchi's chest wound in an empty pen and named her Da'dtou-di, the feminine form of "small knife," after she could not say his name and touched his broken tusk instead. She called him Broken Tusk. Student Oc'djy came through the jammed door, and Noguchi emptied the revolver into him. Dachande cracked the skull so it could not become a trophy, then they fought five more drones on the way to the Lector.

The hive had nested in the dock among webbed crew and empty Facehugger husks. Noguchi sent Dachande to hold an escape pod while she climbed to the computer room and loaded Conover's disk. That program set the still-aloft meat barge onto a crash course into the town. She meant the impact to take the brood with the compound.

A Queen twice a drone's size tricked Dachande with a decoy, lashed him, and forced an arm into the pod as the hatch closed. The pressure door cut that Queen through the neck. The pod landed in the east desert, Dachande mixed his blood with the Queen's to etch his mark on Noguchi's forehead, and the barge erased Prosperity Wells. He stopped breathing after the blast.

Two Years Later

After Dachande died, Noguchi waited with the other survivors for almost two months before help reached Ryushi. Chigusa bought out her contract, called the world a write-off, and pulled its interests out of the Cygni system. The ranchers went to the Rigel system to start over. Only Roth, Cathie, and Weaver understood why she stayed.

The company left her as caretaker, with a flyer, stores, and three tame rhynth named Spot, Milo, and Mim. She lived with the dog Creep, a gift from Roth and Cathie, and kept the Queen's bleached skull on the roof as her trophy and Dachande's. She saved the flyer for emergencies and used the rhynth for range work when fuel ran low. For two years she had no company and no hunt.

A new hunt ship dropped a crawler trail of eggs to the west. Leader Vk'leita, who had hunted with Dachande, sent Ci'tde to scout, then found a small armored human who called herself Da'dtou-di and wore Dachande's mark. He stayed with the ship until that mark was confirmed. He let her hunt with the party as a human Predator.

The Yautja

The first comic had already shown the Ryushi hunt and the acid mark. Prey is the book that put much of the later Yautja culture into print. It named the species Yautja. The Yautja language was invented for this book, including Hard Meat, Soft Meat, and the rest of the hunt vocabulary later stories kept. It also set out an honor-based hunt with ranks later stories still use. Dachande was Leader, Skemte and Warkha were Blooded aides, and the fourteen students wore the plain dlex headband of the unblooded. He trained them in the kehrite on wrist knives and treated cloaks and burners as tools the young had to earn.

No female hunter landed on Ryushi. The novel still referred to female Yautja several times through Dachande. He treated them as larger and more dominant than the males, and he remembered being knocked sprawling by one who barely noticed him. He also used milk glands as the tell that Machiko was female, the reverse of how he read ooman bodies.

Dachande forbade a human hunt for unblooded students, executed Tichinde for taking human trophies, and used his last strength on a blooding rather than a speech. He called Machiko the best student he ever had. After the ship burned, Tichinde turned the crash into a revenge hunt, killed a classmate who quoted the rules, and led cloaked attacks on houses and the west lock, including a run at a child when his party hit the Sheldon farm. Gkyaun died showing off over drones, Oc'djy died because he fired before he knew the target, and five more died in the stampede. Only the later party under Vk'leita treated Machiko's mark as binding.

The Hard Meat

The Yautja seeded eggs from a captive Queen, then timed the landing so the hosts would be drones, not a settled hive. Rhynth and humans both took Facehuggers. The Lector dock became the nest after the roundup loaded infected animals. Drones used resin, inner jaws, and acid blood, and they could raise a Queen from their own ranks if no egg-layer was near. Dachande had gone into three nests before this one, always with a full party and loaded burners.

Ordinary drones did most of the killing in the streets and on the tug. The Queen on the Lector slept in the dock while the hive swarmed, then used a drone as a decoy against Dachande's last burner shots. Noguchi's chest shot put that Queen down long enough to reach the pod. The hatch finished the kill, and the barge burn was meant to take the rest of the brood with the town. A later seeding showed the world was not left clean.

Confirmed Kills

Revna's hover bike killed Chulonte and wrecked Ne'dtesei, taking Skemte and Warkha with it. Tichinde burned 'Aseigan, then later took Hiroki Shimura's head. Cloaked hunters killed the Sheldons and their dog. Drones killed Mason, Gkyaun, and the west-lock watch, including Friedman. The hive on the tug took the Lector crew into resin.

Noguchi shot drones at the ramp and later killed Oc'djy in a doorway. Dachande executed Tichinde, crushed Strandberg's Chestburster, and fought the Queen to the pod. The copter crash killed Miriam Revna. Noguchi shot Scott Conover at his request after the implant, and the barge destroyed the town and the remaining brood that had stayed in it.

Key Characters

Machiko Noguchi was Chigusa's colony administrator on Ryushi. She organized the defense, fought beside Dachande, loaded the barge crash, and stayed two years as caretaker until Vk'leita's party took her on a hunt.
Dachande (Yeyinde, Broken Tusk) was Leader of the Ne'dtesei and a trainer of unblooded. He forbade a human hunt, killed Tichinde for breaking the rules, and blooded Machiko with Queen blood before he died in the east desert.
Tichinde was the loudest student. After the crash he killed 'Aseigan, hunted humans, took Hiroki's head, and died on Dachande's staff in the lab.
Hiroki Shimura was the outgoing administrator who pushed Noguchi out of the office and later ran security. He died at the west lock with an empty rifle, and Tichinde took his head.
Scott Conover and Tom Strandberg flew the Lector. Both were implanted on the tug. A Chestburster killed Strandberg in the east lock, and Noguchi shot Conover after he gave her the barge disk and a map.
Jame Roth found the first Facehuggers, lied for Ackland about Iwa Gorge, then quit and later helped run the desert evacuation with her spouse Cathie Dowes and the dog Creep.
Ackland was the largest rancher. He hid the Facehugger finds to protect the sale, argued against going back for Noguchi, and left with the other survivors.
Kesar Revna was the company doctor who classified the Facehuggers and then died when his hover bike hit the hunt ship. His spouse Miriam Revna treated Dachande, freed him, and died in the copter crash.
Bobby Sheldon was eleven, the only child that age on Ryushi. He escaped the cloaked attack that killed his parents and identified Dachande's kind as the same species. He later returned as the villain of the Dark Horse short Aliens vs. Predator: The Web.
Vk'leita was a later hunt Leader who had known Dachande. He stayed with the ship while Ci'tde scouted, then accepted Machiko as Blooded and let her hunt.
Oc'djy was one of the weaker students. He came through a jammed door on Dachande and Machiko, and she shot him before he could use the spear.
Gkyaun was the student who burned drones off Noguchi at the Lector ramp, then died when the hive pulled him down.
Weaver ran operations during the siege and held the desert camp after Noguchi left. She shut down Ackland when he called a return trip suicide.

Place In The Books

Prey is the first of the seven core Alien vs. Predator novels, ahead of Hunter's Planet, War, the 2004 film novelization, Ultimate Prey, Armageddon, and Rift War. It is a novelization of the first Dark Horse comic rather than an original plot. Two later novels split the follow-up: David Bischoff's Hunter's Planet in December 1994 and S. D. Perry's War in December 1999, which ignore each other. The later comic line stayed with War, then Randy Stradley's Aliens vs. Predator: Three World War in 2010, another sequel beside Hunter's Planet.

The book is also the source of hunt words that later Predator novels kept, including the species name itself. Not every later novel stayed with that language. Forever Midnight used Hish-qu-Ten instead. Dachande's training hunt is one clan's blooding on a ranch world, not a later Sphere-wide war. Machiko's stay on Ryushi and her meeting with Vk'leita are the novel's own close, past the comic's last fight.

Nobody in the book mentions the Alien/Earth War. Earth is still sending company mail and buying rhynth, a crowded home world rather than a burned hive. Chigusa still runs a ranch colony as ordinary business.

Editions

Bantam Spectra released the first edition as a paperback in May 1994 in the US, in the Dark Horse Science Fiction Novels line. The catalog length is 259 pages. Nelson DeCastro painted the cover, a desert fight between a Predator and a Xenomorph with a human on the ground. Millennium published the UK paperback in August 1994, then reprinted it in 1996 and again in 1998 with different cover art by Dimitri Patelis.

Titan Books put Prey, Hunter's Planet, and War into The Complete Aliens vs. Predator Omnibus on 29 November 2016, an 832-page mass-market paperback. That is the text used for later reprints. The first US printing copyright page dates the Bantam book to May 1994, and the Catalog of Copyright entry lists 4 April 1994.

Behind The Scenes

Steve Perry and his daughter Stephani Perry, later credited as S. D. Perry, wrote the novel from the Dark Horse miniseries by Randy Stradley and Chris Warner. Steve Perry had already written Aliens and Predator tie-ins, plus television work that included an Emmy-nominated Batman: The Animated Series script. Stephani Perry went on to more Aliens and Alien vs. Predator books, along with Star Trek and movie novelizations. Both lived in the Portland area when the acknowledgments were written.

The dedication thanks campaign workers on Steve's side and six named women on Stephani's. A separate note thanks Ky Johnson for assigning the job. The epigraph is a George Barker poem that opens on "Fiend behind the fiend." The novel adds Machiko's family history, the Lector pilots, the rhynth sale, and the two-year caretaker ending that the comic did not have to carry.

Conclusion

Aliens vs. Predator: Prey is Steve Perry and Stephani Perry's 1994 Bantam novel of the first Aliens vs. Predator comic. It covers the seeding of Ryushi, the wreck of the Ne'dtesei, the fall of Prosperity Wells, and the fight on the Lector. The book ends with Dachande dead after blooding Machiko, the town gone under the barge, and Machiko accepted onto a later hunt two years after the fire.