Andar Ciejek: Flesh and Blood Hunt Survivor

Full name: Andar Ciejek
Species: Human
Affiliation: Ciejek family, later estranged
Role: Gregor's son and Karl's grandson
Known for: Surviving the Felicity hunt; spared by Bet-Karh
Family: Gregor (father); Karl (grandfather); Bela (uncle); Derek (cousin); Katarina Santodonato
Setting: Earth and Felicity
First appearance: Predator: Flesh and Blood (2007)
Status: Alive; last Ciejek descendant after Derek died
Kills (novel): 1 Hish (Kaj-Nal) · 1 human (Peter Jurgens)

Andar Ciejek was Gregor Ciejek's son in Michael Jan Friedman and Robert Greenberger's Predator: Flesh and Blood. He left the family compound on his twenty-first birthday, took ozone-restoration work on a dying Earth, and came back to the mining world Felicity after patriarch Karl Ciejek died. Cousin Derek faked a scout signal so a Hish hunt would remove him from the unread will. Hunt leader Bet-Karh killed Derek and left Andar alive.

Leaving The Ciejeks

The Ciejeks had grown rich off a wrecked Earth, smuggling, mining, and crushing anyone who got in the way. Andar promised himself he would leave the compound at the first chance, and he did so on his twenty-first birthday. He went to Earth instead of a colony and took a job with a poorly run ozone-restoration company in a domed city, the kind of work that tried to put packets back into a damaged sky.

That job is where he met packet pilot Katarina Santodonato. He stayed for her and for the people at the company, even when better outfits offered him work. His mother had died in a ground-vehicle crash when he was a baby, and he kept her light-colored hair. The cleft in his chin was the one mark he shared with Gregor and Karl.

Gregor died three years before Karl. Karl then took on Gregor's employees so they would not lose cover, and so rivals could not buy what they knew. When Karl died as well, lawyer Owen Broadhurst booked Andar through Polyphemus for a will reading Karl had fixed on Felicity. Andar's first thought was to throw away whatever Karl had left him. He went anyway, so Gregor's people would not be left without protection, and he refused to let Katarina make the trip.

Return To Felicity

Felicity was a hot jungle world the family had cut for precious metals, with geodesic colony domes, a small black landing pad, and one forest Karl had ordered left standing. Derek was on the field, leaner than Andar remembered and smiling, with operations manager Marlene Noyes and his men. Gregor's former operations chief Celina Laban arrived on the passenger ship Skidbladnir with Mara, Sildar, bodyguard Andre LeFleur, and Emphalelo, who could read a person without meeting him.

Karl had ordered a feast, a jungle tour, and a will reading at 4:00 p.m. The document was never opened. Andar came to keep Gregor's old employees from being left without cover, then leave again. Derek had other plans. Technician Malcolm Denholm had hacked hunter frequencies and aimed a fake scout broadcast at the forest walk, then Peter Jurgens garroted him.

The Forest

Guide Pablo Ortega took a party of twenty-one into Karl's forest, with Andar among them. Plasma tore Pavel Trynda in two. A cloaked hunter pinned Ortega with a telescoping staff and finished him with wristblades. Petras Zedolik died the same way. Seven people died in that first sweep.

Ten reached a mine tunnel across a field: Andar, Laban, Mara, Emphalelo, Sildar, Broadhurst, Feng Kuan Minh, Mariano, Abelkis, and LeFleur. Broadhurst named the hunters Predators and told the others that EarthGov had kept them secret so colonies would keep taking migrants. He treated the species as sport hunters, not hired killers, though Mariano blamed Derek.

The Mines

A hunter took Mariano's head in the tunnels. Another crushed Minh, strangled him, and skinned him with Minh's own knife. Abelkis drove a pickaxe into a hunter's thigh before plasma burned him. A hunter speared LeFleur through the back. Ordinary energy pistols and bullets stopped on the armor. Andar found a mine vehicle, pulled the rest aboard, and dropped the ceiling behind them.

The Digging Machine

The mine car failed on a far-side plateau. The six left alive found a bucket-wheel digging machine and charged it from a thick cable. Mara identified a downed drone as the same Australian Earth make seen at the compound the morning Gregor died, which is how Andar put Derek on both the murder and the lure. Two Hish decloaked. Plasma turned Sildar into a fireball and set Laban's left arm alight. Andar started the machine, and the long drill went through Kaj-Nal's chest.

Andar drove the wreck through the mountain with debris blocking later plasma. A recorded message then said a small human ship had left its mother vessel and would land about ten miles away. The four survivors of that party left for the pad. Derek, seeing Andar alive, brought ten men and Marlene down in a shuttle. The cruiser in orbit could not fight a Hish ship.

The Landing Pad

Bet-Karh would not shoot the shuttle out of the air. He blew Sanderson's feet apart, then took a fleeing man's skull and spine. Rene Turgeon hit a hunter from behind with a portable flamethrower that went through armor, and a second blast nearly cut that hunter in two. Andar's party reached the unlocked shuttle and put burned Laban inside. Bet-Karh, from a roof, destroyed that shuttle with her still in it and melted the landing field. Mara, Emphalelo, Andar, and Broadhurst lived through the blast.

More hunters came down after that. From cloak, one of them put blades through Ibrahim. Arthur Holden fired at empty air and took a plasma bolt in the gut. Derek, Marlene, Jurgens, and Anton Kaganas fled in a started vehicle. The hunters then turned on each other in a fight among themselves. Andar did not see that feud end. He only knew the hunt had not stopped.

The Cavern

Andar, Mara, Broadhurst, and wounded Emphalelo hid in a natural cavern. Kaganas and Jurgens ambushed them. Andar beat Jurgens to death with a rock. Mara stabbed Kaganas in the back and missed the heart. Kaganas opened Mara under the ribs, and both men died. When Andar came back with water and candy from the corpses, Derek had shot Broadhurst in the forehead.

Derek admitted he had killed Gregor after Gregor started to agree with Andar about changing the business. He treated the hunter lure as a clean way to remove Andar and keep syndicate deals he could not break. He did not admit to killing Karl. Marlene walked in, and Derek whirled and shot her in the chest. Andar won the fistfight that followed, held the gun, and could not fire. Cloaked Bet-Karh had watched that hesitation, then decloaked and took Derek's head with plasma. He studied Andar and walked out.

Aftermath

Emphalelo lived. Andar meant to find cousin Derek's ground vehicle, get him to a colony doctor, collect every Ciejek employee's body for the families, and turn the old syndicate machine toward repairing Earth. He was patriarch Karl Ciejek's last descendant, and the will had never been read. Packet pilot Katarina was on Earth, and he was glad he had left her there. He never learned, in the novel, what hunt leader Bet-Karh decided after that look.

Confirmed Kills

Andar killed one Hish. He ran the bucket-wheel drill through hunter Kaj-Nal's chest after Abelkis had opened the hunter's thigh. He later fired at hunt leader Bet-Karh on the shuttle-pad roof and missed. His only human kill was Derek's man Peter Jurgens, beaten to death with a rock outside the cavern. He held cousin Derek's gun and could not use it. Hunt leader Bet-Karh killed Derek instead.

Conclusion

Andar Ciejek left the family at twenty-one, came back to Felicity so his father Gregor's people would not lose cover, and lived through the hunt cousin Derek Ciejek had called down. He killed Peter Jurgens, could not shoot Derek, and walked out of the cavern after hunt leader Bet-Karh spared him, the last Ciejek descendant, with patriarch Karl Ciejek's will still unread.