Leticia Vasquez: Jenette's Daughter & Marine Raider

Full name: Leticia Vasquez
Species: Human
Affiliation: United States Colonial Marine Corps, later Weyland-Yutani security
Rank / role: Marine Raider, Director of Security on Olinka
Known for: 2190 enlistment, 2201 Olinka outbreak, killing La Reina
Family: Daughter of Jenette Vasquez, twin of Ramón, raised by Roseanna Vasquez
Setting: Texas and Olinka, 2171-2201
First appearance: Aliens: Vasquez (2022)
Status: Alive, in orbit after Olinka in 2201
Kills (novel): Dylan Graves's Chestburster · Julia Yutani and her Chestburster · vent Queen · La Reina

Leticia Vasquez was the daughter of Colonial Marine Jenette Vasquez in V. Castro's 2022 novel Aliens: Vasquez. Roseanna Vasquez raised her on a Texas ranch after Jenette signed away parental rights during the 2171 training year. Leticia enlisted in the Colonial Marines in 2190, trained as a Marine Raider, and later directed security for Jacob Vickers on the secret Weyland-Yutani colony Olinka. In 2201 she killed the evolved Queen La Reina in the sulfur fields and left the planet alive, in orbit with Vickers and Desiree Benson.

Biography

Texas Ranch

Jenette's one night with recruit Lorenzo Sanchez left her pregnant with Leticia and her twin Ramón. The father was Sanchez, not Mark Drake, Jenette's partner from the prison gym and the Corps. If Jenette had stayed with the twins, the Corps contract would have ended, so she signed both children to Roseanna. Word of Jenette's death with Lieutenant Gorman on LV-426 in 2179 reached the ranch before the twins turned ten.

Just before their seventeenth birthdays, Leticia fought a shop assistant at Pleasanton Mall after a racist slur and a false theft claim. That night Roseanna gave her Jenette's letter years early. The letter carried the family line El riesgo siempre vive, the risk always lives, plus a switchblade and an order to look after Ramón. Leticia tattooed her mother's face and that phrase on her left arm, then learned to shoot on Robert Boone's horse ranch. She put two rounds through the left foot of a thief who had taped Boone's daughter Lucinda in a far barn. Avery Boone offered her a place on the farm. She left for the Raider Regiment.

Raider Training

In 2190 Leticia enlisted at a new depot outside Fairfax, South Carolina, after rising seas swallowed the old Parris Island site. Drill sergeant Mercy ran thirteen weeks of basic. Recruits Frida, Mohammed Faez, Nathan Powell, and Desiree Benson stayed with her, and the five later called themselves Las Lobas. The Crucible lasted fifty-four hours. Mercy recommended all five for Raider training. Ramón skipped graduation.

Arctic Duty

In 2195, Leticia and Las Lobas reclaimed three abandoned nuclear submarines from pirates on a United Americas Arctic island and guided the boats toward Alaska. She took a Narwhal, an armed craft like a jet ski, out on the water until a rocket destroyed it under her. A pirate followed her off the wreck into a snow forest, and a white wolf pack killed him before he could reach her. The team finished the handover and sent the submarines on toward Alaska.

A later promotion test in a swamp went to rival Melissa Haas. Leticia's Narwhal went down in the water, and partner Desiree was locked in a blind decoy with no orders. Colonel Smith cited Jenette's record against Leticia and treated the lost Narwhal as unproven sabotage. Haas's father was an ex-major general in private security for Weyland-Yutani. After that, Leticia started night classes and paperwork to leave the Corps.

The Olinka Contract

Ramón then offered her a security contract under CEO Jacob Vickers, Meredith Vickers's British great-grandson, who was building a quiet force for the colony Olinka. Jacob described a borderless geothermal settlement named from Gerardo Murillo's old utopian-city idea, and a later lottery for ordinary families from Earth. He did not know about the Xenomorph program the company was running on that world. Leticia agreed only if her crew was paid. Frida, Mohammed, Nathan, and Desiree accepted, and Ramón went with them. Cryo to Olinka lasted five years. Roseanna was almost sixty when they left.

The Survey Camp

Leticia and a survey crew of fifteen came out of cryo in 2201 near Olinka's sulfur fields and pine forest, on a world Julia Yutani had reached first. Dr. Brenda Moon had spent years there on a bacteria meant to kill Xenomorph tissue, and on tapeworm hybrids the lab called Xenosites. Three Queens had slept in the pyramid with horns grown from cylinders in their skulls. Julia ran an unauthorized human trial. Colonist Dylan Graves swallowed a fake protection vial, approached a pulsing egg, and a Facehugger got through his mask. He was one of five infected hosts.

Jacob named Leticia director of security over the fifteen-person survey camp beside the sulfur fields and the pine, and Ramón set himself against a relationship with the CEO. That night Jacob brought rum to her tent and described a secret lottery for families from Earth that would open once the planet was safe, and she slept with him.

Dylan Graves escaped the pen, freed the other prisoners, and stole a dropship. He reached the survey camp in a medical robe, and a Chestburster came out of his chest. Leticia shot the newborn in the head. Two adult Xenomorphs followed him in. One tail-speared a scientist. The team shot that adult Xenomorph apart, and its blood burned Frida's left arm. The second cut Nathan in half through his flamethrower before massed fire brought it down.

The Pyramid

Leticia learned the rest of the colony that night. Julia was inside the pyramid, Colonial Marines were two days out, and the Xenomorph program had started before Jacob and had paid for the peace colony. Jacob meant to force Ramón out after the crisis. The company files recorded Jenette's death as the neutralizing of a threat on LV-426, and they showed that Ramón had moved the creature program because of that death.

Las Lobas, Ramón, and Jacob flew to the resin-covered facility. They found Facehuggers in cylinders, Xenosites in water, and handheld vials of the black bacteria. One Queen lay dead with her hood blown from the inside by an electrical crown. Julia was in the wall beside Brenda Moon, and only one Queen was dead. A Chestburster then came out of her. Leticia shot Julia four times and killed the newborn. Ramón handed Jacob activated bacteria and a chip with the formulas, and he copied Julia's files onto Leticia's backups.

Frida died on a grenade with an adult Xenomorph after she threw timed charges into the cocoons. In the vents a remaining Queen spat acid, grabbed Mohammed, and died when Leticia shot her until the body came apart. Mohammed sank in that acid before anyone could pull him out. Another adult Xenomorph rose from a flooded chamber and drove its tail through Ramón's chest. Desiree shot through his forehead and hit the creature. Leticia cut him off the tail, dragged the body out, and later cremated him. She poured some of the ash into the sea from a rum bottle, for the boat he had called Sail La Vie, and saved the rest for letters to his children, Lara Jenette and Lorenzo.

La Reina

Major Haas, the officer who had taken Leticia's promotion in 2195, was in orbit on hidden orders. At first light, after two more adult Xenomorphs tripped sensor mines, she bombed the pyramid. A third came out as evolved La Reina, with a hood, a horn crown, no lower jaw, spike legs, and a barbed inner jaw. Leticia hit her with a Narwhal grenade, put a harpoon through the chest, and dragged her toward the sulfur fields. A gas and mud eruption charred the Queen and pulled her under.

The survivors went up to Haas's Marine ship. Leticia built a small altar, began carving a wooden club lined with Xenomorph teeth, and cut the family phrase and the names of the dead into a skull she carried. Jacob chose to leave Weyland-Yutani, close Olinka, hold the planet, and use the bacteria against other Xenomorph sites rather than burn a homeworld. Leticia, Jacob, and Desiree were alive in orbit in 2201.

Personality And Traits

Leticia Vasquez tattooed Jenette's face and the family line El riesgo siempre vive, the risk always lives, on her left arm, and she left the Texas farm for the Raider Regiment. A racist slur at a mall led to a fight and a holding cell. When a thief tied a ranch girl in a barn, Leticia shot him twice in the foot.

She stayed with the Marines she had trained with. After Melissa Haas took a promotion and Colonel Smith used Jenette's record against her, Leticia began paperwork to leave the Corps. She accepted the Olinka contract only if Las Lobas were paid with her. Ramón opposed her relationship with Jacob Vickers. She began the relationship anyway, and she looked after Ramón without taking directions from him.

In the outbreak she fired at close range and killed a Queen before the ships in orbit finished the bombing. Afterward she cut names into a skull, built a small altar, and set Ramón's ash aside for letters to his children. She left Marine service and stayed with Jacob and Desiree Benson.

Behind The Scenes

V. Castro introduced Leticia in Aliens: Vasquez. Titan Books published the novel on 25 October 2022 in the UK and on 8 November 2022 in the US. Leticia does not appear in the 1986 film Aliens. Castro used her as the Marine half of the book after Jenette's death, from the Texas ranch through the 2201 outbreak on Olinka.

Conclusion

Leticia Vasquez was the daughter Jenette signed over to Roseanna, and the twin who followed her into the Colonial Marines. She ran security on Olinka in 2201. Ramón and most of Las Lobas died in the pyramid. She killed La Reina in the sulfur fields, then went into orbit with Desiree Benson as Jacob Vickers closed the colony.