Kora Burton: Zagreus Governor's Daughter

Full name: Kora Burton
Species: Human
Affiliation: Zagreus colony
Role: Governor's daughter
Known for: Leaving Zagreus with Olivia Shipp after the 2172 hive
Family: Mother Delia Burton (killed, 2172); father left the colony
First appearance: Alien: Echo (2019)
Injuries: Thrown into a launch-port wall; acid burn on the shoulder
Status: Alive, injured aboard While There's Hope in orbit, 2172

Kora Burton was the daughter of Governor Delia Burton on the independent colony Zagreus in Mira Grant's Alien: Echo. In 2172 she was seventeen, a classmate of xenobiologist's daughter Olivia Shipp, and the two became girlfriends before a stolen survey ship brought a hive down on the settlement. A paler adult Xenomorph struck her at the launch port. She reached orbit on the Shipp shuttle While There's Hope with an acid burn on her shoulder and no sign of a Facehugger implant.

Biography

Governor's Daughter

Kora was taller than Olivia, with brown skin from Zagreus's twin suns, and she lived in one of the larger private residences inside the dome. Her father had left for a colony with looser rules on resource use, and her mother, Delia Burton, was the closest thing the settlement had to a planetary governor, with little time to watch her only daughter. Classmates had doubted that Olivia's indoor sister was real. Kora used that rumor as a reason to visit the Shipp house, then stayed. Viola expected her to remain on Zagreus and, in time, to hold something like her mother's office.

The Flower Grove

Olivia took her into a grove of giant flowering stalks after classmate Michel Petrov claimed the flowers were not real. Michel had known she was going, and their parents had served together on the colony design committee. In the grove she mentioned a "big score" her mother had discussed at breakfast, which was the stolen survey ship then in orbit. A lion-worm knocked her out of the ATV. Olivia used the pollen and her knowledge of the animal to get them clear, then burned a hand on orange predatory grass while retrieving the keys. On the trail back to the house, Kora kissed her for the first time.

The Party And The Crash

Over the next week she kissed Olivia again at school, where she stood higher in the social order than Michel, and she took over the guest list for a party at the Shipp house so classmates could meet Viola. The guests were Kora, Michel, Lin, Juan, Alisa, and Paul Gladney. John Shipp's recorded warning cut the party short: something on the wreck had killed Michel's mother and was on the shuttle returning to Zagreus. The creatures killed John on the transmission. Viola ran for their mother, Katherine, and Kora followed Olivia, Michel, and Paul in the family ATV toward the flower patch, where two of the animals attacked.

The Colony Gate

The teenagers reached the colony wall. Guards Rockwell and Johnson opened the gate, and Lin, Juan, Alisa, and Michel went through first. Michel tried to keep Viola out because she was a synthetic, not a living person. Viola drew one animal off the wall and was taken, and a second seized Michel and carried him into the wilds. Kora pulled Olivia inside before the gate sealed. Inside the dome they went to Delia's residence, where a seastead about a hundred miles away had reported about twenty dead and four creatures on the site.

Delia admitted the survey ship had been stolen from smugglers who took it on the way to a corporate scrapyard, killed the scientists aboard, and sold the hull cheap so the colony could expand. She had lost contact with the shuttle before the crash in the mountains. Kora left the dome with Olivia to recover Viola. Maps put the young hive in caves near the burned wreck, and the two of them used lion-worm pheromone vials and pollen as scent cover. The animals in those caves were taking lion-worm traits through the DNA reflex, including beaks, cilia, and a burrowing habit, while they retained the long head, claws, and acid blood of an adult Xenomorph.

Delia's Residence

They found Viola in the caves with a leg severed and her wiring exposed, and they brought her head back toward the colony. Kora at first wanted the head discarded, because lion-worm scent on the circuitry could draw more hybrids, then changed her mind and would not abandon it. At Delia's residence she found a heated kitchen knife and cut her mother free of the cocoon material. Delia was carrying a young creature and knew it. She shoved Kora aside when a lion-worm hybrid entered, emptied Rockwell's gun into the skull without breaking the chitin, and was torn in half. Kora was covered in her mother's blood, and Olivia pulled her out of the room.

The Launch Port

Kora knew the family shuttle was in the pre-launch ring because it was not listed for repairs, and she led Olivia there. A half-eaten man was packed into the ceiling lattice. She screamed, drew Katherine Shipp's volt gun, and fired at a paler hybrid that had taken its color from a lion-worm. The electrical shots hurt the animal and did not stop it. It threw her into a metal strut hard enough to dent the wall, and acid from Olivia's later shot burned Kora's shoulder while she was on the floor. Olivia baited the hybrid away with Viola's head, dropped a catwalk onto construction scrap, and shot it through the skull.

Kora was breathing when Olivia returned, with no splits around her mouth, so she had not been implanted. She walked the last stretch to While There's Hope and took the co-pilot's seat. The shuttle was built for trips between a larger ship and a surface, not for a flight to an inhabited world, and her injuries needed a medical team the shuttle could not provide. Once they were clear of Zagreus's gravity, Olivia lit the emergency beacon, asked for medical help for her passenger, and warned other ships not to land. Later stories that follow Olivia from that shuttle do not bring Kora back.

Personality And Traits

Kora was friendly, socially confident, and quick to laugh. In a small colony school she stood higher than Michel, and she used that place to defend Olivia rather than join the teasing. She was curious enough that a rumor about an unseen sister brought her to the Shipp house, and once she wanted the relationship she was affectionate in public as well as in private. She embarrassed easily when she realized she had been unkind.

She was loyal to the people she had chosen. Fear made her sharp, as when she wanted Viola's head left behind, and the same loyalty made her take that decision back. She stayed with Olivia after the attachment began, and she would not leave her mother or her girlfriend when leaving would have been safer. Olivia took her as soft and sweet, and as someone worth protecting.

Conclusion

Kora Burton was Governor Delia Burton's daughter on Zagreus and Olivia Shipp's girlfriend in Alien: Echo. She survived the flower grove, the colony gate, and the cave hive, cut her mother out of a cocoon, and watched a hybrid kill Delia. At the launch port a paler adult Xenomorph threw her into a wall and acid burned her shoulder. She left the planet alive on While There's Hope, with Olivia and Viola's head, and the novel ends with that call for medical help.