Kalakta was a Yautja Elder of the 677th clan in Tim Lebbon's Rage War novels. When Isa Palant stood with him in Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon, she judged him more than three feet taller than herself and perhaps a thousand years older, age coming off him in waves of hunts and killings. He carried older bladed weapons and no blasters, spoke for Yautja civilization during the ceasefire, and later boarded the Rage flagship Macbeth. The war did not end on his word. The Rage android Liliya burned the android network, and Kalakta was not among the survivors who left the wreck.
Role In Predator: Incursion
Kalakta first appeared in Predator: Incursion, after Yautja strikes across the Human Sphere had been read as an invasion. Four helmetless warriors stood behind him while he held a chair back, older than they were, and asked for Palant and the Company linguist Milt McIlveen rather than for generals. His blades were older than theirs, and he wore no blasters. A bandolier of trophies crossed his right shoulder, at least one a human jawbone, and a cleaned human skull sat on his left. The translator caught fragments. He was of the 677th Elder clan, born across a span he called ten thousand suns, risen through the clans until other Yautja would listen. He said they were not taking human space for its own sake. They were regrouping after a greater darkness had already hit their habitats.
He threw up a combat hologram of a wind-scoured Yautja settlement as a dark ship dropped a hundred compact objects that hatched into scampering shapes. Palant named those fire lizards Xenomorphs, and Kalakta nodded. Gerard Marshall of the Thirteen told her through an earpiece to claim Earth knew the Yautja homeworld and would nuke it. She pulled the pod out and spoke respect instead. Kalakta drew her forehead to his, spicy breath and a trophy belt swinging between them, and sealed the ceasefire. Yautja and humans would fight together.
Alliance With Humanity
That meeting became the core of the human and Yautja alliance against the Rage, exiled humans who had come back with stolen biotech and Xenomorphs run as soldiers. Palant had already been working the language. Kalakta's speech even carried a hint of human word order, as if long contact had left a mark. In Alien: Invasion he kept Yautja ships shadowing Palant after the treaty, with orders to keep her alive. Marshall joked that the Elder had taken a shine to Earth's Yautja expert. The protection was real enough that Major Akoko Halley had to accept cloaked escorts she did not like.
The Ancient Drukathi
In December 2692 Palant met him again in a holocabin that opened into a jungle, no bodyguards this time, both of his hands on a long staff. A human spine was wrapped around one thigh, and a mummified human hand hung from his shoulder on a cord, the Colonial Marine Corps tattoo still readable on the skin. Yaquita of the Wounded Clan had pulled the name Drukathi from the damaged Rage android Oscar. Kalakta said he had ordered that work, then told Palant only enough to fight the Rage. The Drukathi had left this galaxy about a million years earlier. Their leftover tech sat in the finds at Midsummer, things even the Yautja had never recovered. He admitted they might fear a people who were no longer here. He thought Rage followers had used those leftovers to keep other civilizations from growing too advanced, and that the Drukathi had helped the war start rather than launched it themselves. The Yautja had known of them longer than he could say and had never been given cause to attack them. When Palant called him an honorable Yautja, his face twisted in what might have been a smile, he said he had always liked that name, and the image vanished.
Final Battle Against The Rage
Three uncloaked Yautja ships flew at Macbeth and docked one on another as a bridge. Hashori said his name, stood taller, and her eyes brightened. A turret killed one of those ships as the Tanns crossed. A Yautja taller than any Jiango Tann had met hauled him and Yvette onto the flagship, then the new arrivals walked into Xenomorphs already filling the corridors. Kalakta was there, taller and more royal in bearing than the others, still quick, killing many of the creatures himself. The hunters did not ring him as a guard, which would have insulted him, but they glanced his way even in the worst of it.
Palant and Liliya reached the android generals. Liliya finished the work, the generals blew, the Faze vanished from its plinth, and most of Macbeth went with them. The stern section survived. Hashori came out of the dark helmetless, spear half eaten by acid, and said other humans had lived. Two Yautja were dead. Hoot was dead. Kalakta was not among the survivors, and he was not with Hashori, Palant, and the Tanns when they left on a remaining Yautja ship. The Yautja kept the wreck. Human dropholes across the Sphere went dead.
Earth Hunt And The Greyback Question
During the Incursion ceasefire the translator also caught a hunt on Earth. Kalakta said his parent group's Ascendance had been in a city of heat, and that a man with dark skin had been a worthy opponent. He had taken many human trophies. He did not name Greyback, Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, Los Angeles, or the flintlock from Predator 2. A heat-struck city and a dark-skinned human who earned respect sit close to that film, so readers have joined those dots. The line stays broken.
Similar Predators
Kalakta sat with other legendary Yautja who spoke across clans rather than for one hunting party. Lord Predator also carried that kind of weight in later Predator history. The Predator King of the non-canon Predator vs. Black Panther crossover earned a throne by hunt rank, then spent it on a vibranium war after the Predator Prince raided Wakanda. In the Rage War his weight came from the ceasefire and the fight aboard Macbeth. He held no crown, and he was not among those who left the wreck.
Conclusion
Kalakta was the Elder who made Palant the human the Yautja would hear, then brought ships to Macbeth when the Rage had to be cut out at the generals. He stood more than three feet over her, perhaps a thousand years older, with a staff, a human spine, and a Marine hand among his trophies, and he named the Drukathi as a people already gone. Liliya ended the android net, Hashori left with Palant, and Kalakta's last clear place in the story was the fight in those corridors.
Appearances
Books
- Predator: Incursion (2015)
- Alien: Invasion (2016)
- Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon (2016)
Tag Categories: Yautja Leaders | Individual Predators | Predators From The Novels | Yautja Mythology | Predator Lore
