Vk'leita: The Leader Who Took Machiko Hunting
Vk'leita was a male Yautja Leader in Steve Perry and Stephani Perry's Aliens vs. Predator: Prey. He had hunted beside Dachande, and two years after that Leader vanished he brought a pack of Unblooded students to Ryushi for their first Hunt and to learn what had happened. There he met Machiko Noguchi, a lone human wearing Dachande's mark, and asked her to hunt with his pack. In Hunter's Planet his pack is the one that found her on Ryushi, and he lives on as the Leader who brought her among the People.
Biography
Comrade Of Dachande
Vk'leita had shared hunts with Dachande, who thought of him as a good Leader and a strong warrior. When Dachande's training hunt never came home, those of higher rank sent Vk'leita to find out what had become of it. The voyage doubled as an initiation: he brought the Blooded warrior Ci'tde and a party of Unblooded youngsters who would face their first Hunt on the same world.
Return To Ryushi
His ship came down on Ryushi two years after Dachande's pack had died there, and a new crop of eggs went out to seed the Hunt. Vk'leita sent Ci'tde ahead with the students to scout and stayed behind with the ship. He was glad of the quiet, because shepherding hot-headed Unblooded was a duty he did not much enjoy.
The Blooded Ooman
While he waited, a small armored human walked up to him and named herself Da'dtou-di, Little Knife. Vk'leita stayed wary, but he was struck by how much she looked and carried herself like a hunter. Then he saw the blooding mark on her forehead and realized it was Dachande's, a Blooded ooman where none should exist. Rather than drive her off, he asked whether she had come to hunt with them, and she accepted at once.
Hunting With The Pack
Vk'leita was eager to learn the ways of the ooman and to see his clan and Machiko trade what each knew. His pack took her in as Blooded, and she hunted with them for two years under the name Little Knife. During those years Top Knot led the live capture of a Queen on one of their trips, the hunt where Machiko burned a drone off Shorty and roped the Queen herself. By the time she left the People for Blior, Vk'leita was remembered as the Leader who had found her on Ryushi.
Personality And Traits
Vk'leita was a seasoned Leader with little patience for the bluster of the young, preferring his own company to that of the students he was charged with. He met the unknown with caution rather than violence, holding back until he understood what stood before him. Once he did, curiosity won out, and he welcomed a human into the Hunt where many of his kind would have taken her skull. In that he followed Dachande, whose mark he chose to honor.
Behind The Scenes
Vk'leita first appears in the epilogue of Aliens vs. Predator: Prey by Steve Perry and Stephani Perry, published by Bantam Spectra in 1994 as a novelization of the first Dark Horse Aliens vs. Predator comic. David Bischoff's Hunter's Planet, also from 1994, only mentions him as the Leader whose pack found Machiko. In the Dark Horse comics, the Predator who studies her mark and accepts her into the clan is Top-Knot, who had no name in print when Prey was written, so Vk'leita is the novels' counterpart for that role. Neither book says the two are the same hunter; Hunter's Planet even gives Top Knot a separate turn as pack Leader, and Perry's later War keeps Machiko with Topknot as Shell Leader.
Conclusion
Vk'leita was the Leader sent to Ryushi to learn what had become of Dachande's lost pack. Left alone by his ship while Ci'tde scouted with the Unblooded, he met a human who carried his old comrade's mark and the bearing of a hunter. He honored that mark, asked Machiko Noguchi to hunt with his pack, and brought her among the People, where she hunted for two years before turning back toward her own kind.
Appearances
- Aliens vs. Predator: Prey (1994)
- Aliens vs. Predator: Hunter's Planet (1994, mentioned)
Tag Categories: Individual Predators | Predators From The Novels | Predators Who Survived | Yautja Leaders | Predator Lore
