G'kon'dchah: The Reckless Youngblood Of First Hunt
G'kon'dchah was a cocky Youngblood Yautja in Bryan Thomas Schmidt's First Hunt, published in Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey in 2022. He was one of three first hunters led by the trainer Bo'kui, called Bloody Spear, on an adulthood hunt on Hunting Ground 73569. G'kon'dchah took Xenomorph trophies and the head of a colonist named Vanessa, then killed two more humans inside a field hospital. When he turned on the unarmed Joseli Sousa, Bo'kui blocked the blow and sent him back toward the ship to face the elders.
Biography
Youngblood Of A Stained Lineage
G'kon'dchah landed on Hunting Ground 73569 as one of three Youngbloods under Bo'kui, alongside T'ua'sa and the quieter Zo'keah. The Hunt, if successful, would make the students adults and might even give them lifelong nicknames. G'kon'dchah and T'ua'sa were cocky from the start, and they called Zo'keah names like abomination, idiot, and soft when he stood apart. Bo'kui took more interest in the nervous student, having seen cocky warriors fail, go rogue, or be declared Bad Bloods by the elders. G'kon'dchah still went forward eager for meat, chanting "Amedha, Amedha!" from the Yautja language as the party moved through foliage under a crimson sun.
The two cocky students were larger than Zo'keah, tall and thick with muscle, their braids adorned with animal skulls and other clan symbols, and each had painted the clan symbol on his chest plate. Two of the three came from bloodlines with long histories of famous hunters. Only G'kon'dchah came from a lineage with a stain on its record, a history that still mattered as a point of pride among Yautja. When Bo'kui's bio-helmet picked up fresh human footprints, G'kon'dchah flared his lower mandibles and named the Hard Meat first, saying "Kiande Amedha" with palpable excitement. He then grunted in agreement with T'ua'sa that the ooman tracks were recent.
Hunt On Hunting Ground 73569
A Xenomorph-infested human freighter had been shot down there three years earlier as a training prop, and Hunting Ground 73569 offered both Hard Meat and legally approved human prey. The first hunters led, and their trainer followed far enough back to watch. G'kon'dchah followed when T'ua'sa found the first drone west of the wreck, then peeled off after another as the drones ran toward a camp of fifteen neo-Salesian colonists from the New Brasilia advance team. Bo'kui ordered his students to cloak, take the Xenomorphs first, and hunt the humans after. G'kon'dchah and T'ua'sa chanted "Hard Meat! No Mercy!" over their comms as they closed on wounded prey.
Zo'keah made the clean first kill with a combistick and close-range plasmacaster fire, a strike Bo'kui judged as artful execution. G'kon'dchah's own first Xenomorph kill looked to his trainer more like luck and brute force, after which he cut trophies and ran after new targets. At the camp he fired sloppily and too quickly with T'ua'sa, damaging structures and foliage and twice almost hitting his companion. Zo'keah worked with patience and soon had three kills to the others' one. G'kon'dchah later scored another drone with a smart disc, then finished it with his combistick and plasmacaster.
Attack On The Field Hospital
When human plasma fire struck a tree behind G'kon'dchah, he and T'ua'sa assumed they were being attacked and opened fire on the colonists. G'kon'dchah's smart disc took the head of a screaming patrol named Vanessa as a trophy, and T'ua'sa tossed the head back to him. G'kon'dchah and T'ua'sa then joined the drones in bringing down the two men with her under combined plasmacaster fire. G'kon'dchah later cried "No mercy!", fired his plasmacaster at the field-hospital doors, and threw them open. A female Praetorian then came out of the forest with six drones, speared G'kon'dchah in the leg with her tail, and spat acid.
G'kon'dchah was still in the fight when acid struck T'ua'sa's bio-helmet, and the Praetorian later severed the downed hunter's arm before focused plasma from Zo'keah and Bo'kui drove her back. G'kon'dchah lost his bravado and joined that barrage, then charged into the hospital with his combistick raised. Inside, G'kon'dchah stood over a slain woman, Lieutenant Adriana Bonfim, and stabbed Dr. Matheu Pilar, while the unarmed Joseli Sousa stood beside the table where João lay. G'kon'dchah then turned on the unarmed Joseli until Bo'kui blocked his stick, uncloaked, and spat "Kha'bj-te!" The student relented, decloaked, spat at Joseli with a glare, and marched out.
The Elders' Punishment
G'kon'dchah took a verbal thrashing from Bo'kui on the walk back to the ship, for careless bravado and for the wounds that had nearly killed T'ua'sa. Bo'kui judged that G'kon'dchah had not violated the honor code, but that he had not acted with honor either, and that the elders would meet to discuss his punishment. G'kon'dchah did not answer that verbal thrashing. His shoulders drooped, and he looked at his feet as they walked, clearly sobered by what had happened. Bo'kui expected the elders to require more training on discipline and perhaps some service for the clan, rather than exile.
Bo'kui had seen this breed of hunter before, all bravado and little brains, the sort who often became outliers other hunters trusted little. Whether the punishment would make G'kon'dchah wiser still remained to be seen. G'kon'dchah reached the ship to find Zo'keah tending T'ua'sa's wounds, with the lost arm left for a prosthesis back home. None of the three first hunters would be the same after the day, and Bo'kui thought G'kon'dchah and T'ua'sa would have the hardest lessons to learn. The hunting party still meant to find the moved nest and kill any humans being used as hosts there, though the story did not show whether they reached them.
Appearance And Weapons
G'kon'dchah was a large Youngblood, tall and thick with muscle, with braids adorned with animal skulls and a clan mark painted on his chest plate. He hunted in a bio-helmet and a shift suit, and he used a combistick, a smart disc, and a plasmacaster in the field. His lower mandibles flared when he first named the Hard Meat, and he often chanted for meat and no mercy over the comms. The same showmanship showed in the way he raised his combistick high before striking, as if the appearance of skill mattered as much as the blow. Bo'kui even wondered whether earlier trainers had valued that appearance over actual ability.
That style left him sloppy under pressure. He fired too quickly, almost hit T'ua'sa, and failed to protect his flank when the Praetorian came out of the trees, a lapse Bo'kui tied to T'ua'sa's maiming. After the hospital fight G'kon'dchah relented and obeyed a direct order from his teacher and judge, leaving Joseli Sousa alive. He left the camp with three confirmed human kills, a leg wound, Xenomorph trophies, and a judgment still waiting from the elders. The story referred to G'kon'dchah as male.
Behind The Scenes
First Hunt was written by Bryan Thomas Schmidt, who also co-edited the 2022 Titan Books anthology Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey with Jonathan Maberry. G'kon'dchah appears only in that story, as one of Bo'kui's three Youngbloods alongside T'ua'sa and Zo'keah. The story gives him no hunt name, no clan name, and no later fate after the return to the ship. Schmidt's earlier story Drug War, co-written with Holly Roberds for Predator: If It Bleeds, concerns a Bad Blood ancestor of Bo'kui, not the stain on G'kon'dchah's own lineage, which the text never identifies.
Conclusion
G'kon'dchah was the most reckless of the three Youngbloods Bo'kui led to Hunting Ground 73569. He chanted for meat, took Xenomorph trophies by force, and claimed Vanessa's head with a smart disc before killing Lieutenant Adriana Bonfim and Dr. Matheu Pilar in the field hospital. When he turned on the unarmed Joseli Sousa, Bo'kui stopped him and held him to the rule against killing those who were no threat. G'kon'dchah left the camp alive, sobered, with the elders' punishment still ahead of him. Nothing later is shown of whether that punishment changed him.
Appearances
- Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey, "First Hunt" by Bryan Thomas Schmidt (2022)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Novels | Predators Who Survived | Predator Lore
