Blood Venom: Young Huntress Of XK-93

Name: Blood Venom
Species: Yautja
Sex: Female
Role: Hunter
Known for: Honor mark on Kai Kentarus, escape from XK-93
Setting: XK-93, an unsettled iron world in the Andromeda System
First appearance: Blood and Honor (2022)
Status: Alive, left XK-93 with Kai Kentarus
Weapons: Wrist gauntlets, obsidian knife, shoulder laser, pistol, ship

Blood Venom was a young female Yautja in Susanne L. Lambdin's Blood and Honor, from Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey. Lieutenant Kai Kentarus found her tied beside a campfire on XK-93, a red world at the edge of the Andromeda System, with breathable air and more land than ocean. Weyland-Yutani planned to colonize it for the iron on the hot southern continent, but no colony was there. Xenomorphs had been found on that continent, a science team had failed to report back, and the planet was under quarantine. A horned male Kai called Old Rhino had left her in that camp, with her feet in the coals and brand marks cut into her skin, and Kai cut her loose. Inside the hunter's ship, Blood Venom cut the moon-and-blade sign from her face shield into Kai's chest and gave her a yellow serum that stopped a poison. An ancient Queen crushed a younger Queen and threw Old Rhino's body aside. Blood Venom brought the ship back under a waterfall, took Kai aboard, and left the planet.

Biography

The Camp By The Waterfall

Blood Venom was tied at a camp beside a waterfall on XK-93, with her arms hauled to an overhead branch, her legs roped together, and her feet in the coals of a campfire. Brand marks covered her body, and deep cuts on her thighs and arms bled neon-green blood onto the ground. Her skin was pale, with black stripes along the sides of her abdomen, arms, and legs, and her fingers and toes ended in black talons. Black dreadlocks hung with silver beads. The helmet had been left on her head, and her silver armor lay in a pile beside the tree.

The face shield carried a round moon over a horizontal curved blade. Kai Kentarus had seen that sign on an earlier female hunter who wore chest plates and the same silver beads in her dreadlocks. That hunter cut Kai across the chest with wrist blades, and Sergeant Frank Mueller, called Mule, killed her with plasma rifles before she could finish the attack. Blood Venom was a different Yautja with the same mark. Kai thought the sign was a unit badge or a family crest.

Kai Reaches The Camp

The woman who cut Blood Venom loose was Lieutenant Kai Kentarus, a Colonial Marine weapons specialist with the Night Marchers, 4th Battalion, 3rd Army Group, aboard the USS Tephra. Captain Lucien Duran had poisoned her and sent her down alone in a one-person pod. Palmer Lennox of Weyland-Yutani had pressed for a Marine landing to kill the Xenomorphs and take the iron, and Duran had refused to send a platoon. After the quarantine, the Tephra left the system, so no ship was coming back for Kai. She walked out of the desert dunes, cut a Facehugger in half with a black polymer spear she pulled from the sand, and reached the waterfall sick from the poison.

Plasma from the trees struck the ground beside the camp and set the trees on fire. Kai cut the ropes, pulled Blood Venom up, and they ran for the waterfall. The huntress was about six inches taller than Kai and roughly a hundred pounds heavier. She limped on the burned feet, and her talons cut Kai's shoulders when she caught her and pointed the way. Kai blamed Old Rhino, the male with a horn on his helmet and a shoulder gun, for the ropes and the fire.

The River And The Ship

Over the pool, a second female hung upside down by her feet, flayed from head to toe, and green blood dripped on the ground under her. Kai blamed Old Rhino for that body and would not stop to cut it down, because a young Queen and her Praetorians were in the forest. Blood Venom never gave Kai a Yautja name. When Kai pointed at her, Blood Venom repeated the word Blood, and Kai called her Blood Venom. Kai asked for a ship off the planet. Blood Venom repeated the word Ship and pointed at a stone stair beside the falls.

The ship rested on a boulder across the river, with its nose toward the water. Blood Venom led Kai along a broken stone path until two Praetorians blocked the way. Kai handed her the spear and pulled her into the current, and the huntress pushed Kai away and swam the rest herself. On the far bank, a plasma bolt from Old Rhino hit a Praetorian in the head, and that body fell into the water. The young Queen came into the river after them, and Old Rhino swam in behind her. Blood Venom pulled Kai up the boulder to the ship. Beside it stood a pale figure about forty feet tall that looked like a stone Queen, until the younger Queen roared and the figure moved.

The Honor Mark

Blood Venom pushed Kai through the door and shut it. The inside of the ship was black, with engraved symbols on the walls and red track lights to the bridge. She started the engines, and a pale blue field came up outside the window over the river, and then she fell forward over the controls. Kai opened a black box under the seat, and Blood Venom drove a needle into her own shoulder and pumped in a blue fluid. Kai tore a green cape from the floor and bound the cuts on the huntress's chest.

Blood Venom took off the helmet, showing four long tusks at a wide mouth and yellow eyes, and set an obsidian knife to Kai's chest. Kai opened her shirt over three older scars, and Blood Venom cut the moon-and-blade sign into the skin above them. Kai took the cuts as a mark of honor between females, and Blood Venom did not tell her what the cuts meant. She opened a panel of glass vials, chose a yellow serum, and held the applicator out. Kai injected it, and the cramps, the blurred sight, and the nausea from Duran's poison stopped.

Blood Venom then pulled out two jackets with ribbed middles, shoulder plates, and a skirt of scaled plates. She dressed, put the helmet back on, and buckled wrist gauntlets on her own arms. She fixed a shoulder laser to the plate on Kai's shoulder. Both took belts with pistols. Kai took the spear back. Outside, the ancient Queen hit the hull, and the blue field sparked and went out. The Queen had Old Rhino's broken body in her jaws and threw it aside. Blood Venom repeated Kai's word, Honor, and ran for the door.

The Two Queens

Kai went out of the ship first. The young Queen went after the ancient Queen instead of Kai, and the two Queens fought. The older Queen's tail struck the ship and spun it, throwing flame from the thrusters across the rock, and Blood Venom was inside when that happened. The young Queen jumped onto the older Queen's back and bit with both sets of jaws. Those jaws did not break the older Queen's pale hide. The ancient Queen rammed the smaller Queen down onto the boulder, and the rock split under them. The ship slid into the river, the engines stopped, and the current carried it toward the falls. The ancient Queen put a foot on the young Queen's back and crushed her.

Kai fired the plasma pistol and the shoulder laser at the ancient Queen's pale silver body. Neither the pistol nor the laser broke that hide, and the spear did not pierce it. She shed the heavy armor, lost the pistol between the rocks, and went into the river as the ship fired its thrusters and went over the falls. The ancient Queen's tail caught under the water, then she waded after Kai, while adult Xenomorphs gathered on the bank and stayed out of the current. Kai went over the falls onto the rising hull, found an open hatch, and pulled herself inside as the ancient Queen climbed onto the ship and slid off the side. Blood Venom had brought the ship back up under the waterfall.

Leaving XK-93

The ship leveled out once the Queen's weight was gone. Blood Venom was at the controls, flying away from XK-93. Kai came to the bridge with bleeding hands and wiped three marks onto the huntress's helmet. Kai called the Queen dead after the body went off the hull and over the falls. Kai asked Blood Venom to leave her at Ganymede Space Station, on Earth, or on any world with a human colony, and she called the two of them blood sisters. Blood Venom laughed, and the ship left XK-93 with both of them aboard.

Similar Predators

Blood Venom belongs with huntresses who left a world with a living human. Yeh'kull branded Ahiliyah Cooper and Creen on Ataegina after a Queen kill and left for the mothership. La'vindi killed Zalande and took Alana Gonsalves off Fourth-Salturna Exodus. Hashori of the Widow Clan survived the Rage War and left Macbeth with human companions.

Conclusion

Blood Venom was a young female Yautja on XK-93, an unsettled iron world in the Andromeda System, in Susanne L. Lambdin's Blood and Honor. Old Rhino tortured her at a waterfall camp, and Kai Kentarus cut her free. She cut an honor mark into Kai, stopped the poison, and left the planet with her after the ancient Queen crushed the younger Queen. Kai asked for Ganymede, Earth, or any human colony. Blood Venom laughed and flew on.