Old Rhino: The Horned Predator Of XK-93

Name: Old Rhino (nickname given by Kai Kentarus)
Species: Yautja
Sex: Male
Role: Hunter, captor of Blood Venom
Known for: Horned helmet, torture camp by the waterfall
Setting: XK-93, Andromeda System
First appearance: Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey, "Blood and Honor" (2022)
Status: Dead, killed by the ancient Queen
Weapons: Shoulder cannon
Confirmed kills: 1 Praetorian · flayed huntress (attributed by Kai)

Old Rhino was a male Yautja in Susanne L. Lambdin's Blood and Honor, published in Aliens vs. Predators: Ultimate Prey in 2022. Colonial Marine Lieutenant Kai Kentarus gave him the name because of the horn on his helmet. On the red iron world XK-93 he left a young huntress tied and burned at a waterfall camp, and Kai blamed him for a second female who hung flayed by the pool. He chased a young Xenomorph Queen into the river and died in the jaws of an ancient Queen beside the hunter ship.

Biography

The Camp On XK-93

XK-93 was a red world at the edge of the Andromeda System, under quarantine after Xenomorphs were found on its hot southern continent and a science team failed to report back. Weyland-Yutani wanted the planet for its iron. Old Rhino kept a camp beside a waterfall there. A young female Yautja hung from a branch by her arms, legs roped together and feet in the coals of a campfire, with brand marks and deep cuts across her body. Her silver armor lay in a pile beside the tree, and her helmet had been left on her head.

Lieutenant Kai Kentarus reached the camp poisoned and alone, after Captain Lucien Duran had sent her down in a one-person pod. Plasma struck the ground beside the camp and set the trees on fire, and Kai cut the huntress free. She called her Blood Venom and blamed Old Rhino for the ropes and the fire. Over the pool, a second female Yautja hung upside down by her feet, flayed from head to toe. Kai blamed Old Rhino for that body as well, though the story did not show either act being done.

Hunt At The River

Earlier at a forest pool, plasma had flushed a young Xenomorph Queen and her guards. Kai saw the horn-helmeted male there, then a second hunter who shot at Old Rhino instead of at the Queen. The story did not say whether that second hunter was the flayed huntress. When Blood Venom led Kai across the river toward the hunter ship, a plasma bolt from Old Rhino hit one of the Praetorians in the head, and its body fell into the water. The young Queen came into the river after the two females, and Old Rhino swam in behind her.

Death By The Ancient Queen

Beside the ship stood a pale figure about forty feet tall that Kai took for a stone statue of a Queen. It was an ancient pale-silver Queen, left with petrified eggs and no guard, and it moved when the younger Queen roared. Blood Venom pushed Kai into the ship and raised a blue energy field. The ancient Queen then slammed the hull and killed the field with Old Rhino's broken body in her jaws. She threw the body aside. The story did not show how she caught him, only that he was already dead when she reached the ship.

The two Queens then fought each other on the boulder by the river. The young Queen bit the older one with both sets of jaws without breaking the pale hide, and the ancient Queen crushed her under one foot. The ship slid into the current and went over the falls. Blood Venom brought it back up under the waterfall, Kai climbed aboard, and the ancient Queen climbed onto the hull and slid off. The two females left XK-93 together, leaving the bodies of Old Rhino and the flayed huntress behind on the planet.

Appearance And Weapons

Old Rhino was named for the horn on his helmet, the only physical detail Kai gave for him. The story did not give his Yautja name, clan, rank, or age, and he never spoke to Kai. His one weapon on the page was a shoulder cannon, which Kai called a shoulder gun, and it fired the plasma bolt that killed the Praetorian. Blood Venom later fixed a shoulder laser from her own ship to Kai's armor, but nothing linked that weapon to him. His body was last seen thrown from the ancient Queen's jaws beside the ship on XK-93.

Confirmed Kills

Only one kill by Old Rhino was shown in the story. The flayed huntress over the pool was his kill in Kai's judgment, but she saw only the body. Kai also never learned why he had tortured Blood Venom, and the young huntress never told her. The young Queen he chased into the river was not his kill, because the ancient Queen crushed her after he was already dead. The list below separates what the text shows from what Kai assumed.

Praetorian: 1. Shot in the head with a plasma bolt on the far bank of the river.
Female Yautja: 1, attributed. The flayed huntress hung over the pool, blamed on him by Kai.
Tortured, not killed: Blood Venom, burned and branded at the waterfall camp, blamed on him by Kai.

Behind The Scenes

Blood and Honor was written by Susanne L. Lambdin for the 2022 Titan Books anthology edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Jonathan Maberry. The story followed Kai, and both Yautja names in it were nicknames she invented herself. She also named Blood Venom after the huntress repeated the word "blood." The text never called Old Rhino a bad blood or explained his feud with the two females. The idea that he was a rogue hunter came from his actions, not from any label in the story.

Conclusion

Old Rhino was the horn-helmeted hunter on XK-93 in Blood and Honor. Kai Kentarus blamed him for burning and branding Blood Venom and for flaying a second huntress, and he shot a Praetorian while chasing a young Queen into the river. An ancient Queen killed him off the page and carried his broken body to the ship. She then crushed the young Queen, and Blood Venom and Kai left the planet without him.