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last online Jul 6, 2009 5:53:47 GMT -5
Youngling
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Jun 8, 2009 7:09:22 GMT -5
Post by savon on Jun 8, 2009 7:09:22 GMT -5
Bio:
Epilogue
Love. The basis of every good relationship.
This tale does not begin with love.
As a Force-sensitive child on a Core World, Alderaan, it wasn’t long after her birth that Odesea Bhavala was found by the Jedi Order, when both she and her parents were in a local park to be exact. As Vahla, however, the child’s parents were not only disinclined to let the Jedi take their daughter, they were angered that they would even suggest such a thing. The Jedi was not so easily dissuaded, and so he argued his point, rather vehemently. There was something about the child, something that told him he couldn’t just let her go so easily. He just knew he couldn’t. Just how deep the Vahla’s hatred of the Jedi ran, however, he did not know. Not until that day, at least. When they threatened violence if he did not leave them be, he believed he could diffuse their “misguided” anger. He was wrong, and where his overconfidence led would change more lives than he could have imagined.
Private Eklos Moro was a good man, if you could call him that. Not even nineteen, Eklos had enlisted in the Republic Army as soon as he’d turned eighteen, and had just graduated basic training. He was only on Alderaan visiting his family for a few days before being transferred to his first assignment. He was only carrying his rifle because he’d just stepped off the shuttle not an hour ago, and hadn’t yet seen his family. He was only passing through the park because it cut ten minutes off the trip. When he saw the scuffle, instinct kicked in; he unslung his rifle and moved closer. When he saw a blaster come out, and a lightsaber to meet it, he didn’t think, he acted. Unfortunately, he missed in the process. Rather than hitting the man with the blaster as intended, he hit his wife instead. Enraged, the man turned his aim on the young soldier, who was now too horrified with himself to respond. To save the soldier’s life, the Jedi moved to stop the man, but he fought, and he fought hard, and in the end, the Jedi drew more blood than he intended.
In the end, Eklos Moro was court marshaled for shooting an unarmed civilian, the Jedi was severely reprimanded for his actions, and two Vahla lost their lives. Odesea, however, was taken in by the Order, and trained in their ways as she grew in years, though there were those among the Jedi that were hesitant about her training, sensing an ominous darkness lurking within the child. But, for nearly a decade and a half, all their fears proved unfounded. For nearly fourteen years, she proved as committed to the Code as the next Padawan, and were it not for one thing, she may have proved a valuable member of the Order as a Knight. But such was not to be. The fates had something else in mind of Jedi Bhavala.
It was just another relatively small mission given to her master by the Council. This time, Corellia. Diplomatic aid, was all, just help with some negotiations. Simple, right? Well, perhaps it would have been, had they ever made it to the negotiations. Someone, it seemed, had taken notice of Odesea; or, more specifically, her Vahla blood. To see a Vahla not subjecting themselves to the will of the Chosen of Vahl was an affront in and of itself, but to see one of their kind among the Jedi Order was simply an outrage in the eyes of the Ember of Vahl, and so, the Ember sent a handful of its members to find this Vahla Jedi and bring her away from the Order, or, failing that, to destroy her. Caught in a trap set by the Vahla, and cornered inside an empty building, the Jedi Knight and his Padawan found themselves outnumbered five to one by armed Force-sensitives who were very much not open to negotiation. In the ensuing battle, the Jedi proved more than a match for the individual Vahla warriors, but the Knight quickly realized that they were simply too many. As his last act, the Jedi threw his Padawan from the second-story window, and brought the building down upon himself and his attackers. But not all were so easily defeated. One saw his impending doom coming soon enough to escape the building before its collapse. Just one.
Zem Aryli.
On the street below Odesea Bhavala, Jedi Padawan, found herself face to face with Zem Aryli, warrior of the Ember of Vahl. Aryli, fifteen years her senior, was better trained, more experienced, and very, very upset, and the only reason the young Vahla survived the encounter was because he did not wish her dead. Not yet, at least. No, first he was going to break her. Over the course of the next two months, Aryli did such things to Odesea that she didn’t think possible, caused her more pain than she thought anyone capable of enduring. Horrors that haunted her to the end of her days. The next month, she spent in a coma.
Upon waking, she found herself in a hospital, where she was soon informed of Aryli’s capture by CorSec not a few weeks prior, and of his upcoming trial, that her injuries would heal in time, and, lastly, that she was two months pregnant. As soon as she could walk on her own, Odesea left the medical facility and returned to Coruscant, not even waiting for the trial. Upon reaching Coruscant, however, she found that she couldn’t bring herself to go back to the Temple. She couldn’t face the Council. All she could feel now was pain, pain and shame. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Aryli, she remembered what he had done. Taking only what she carried, she moved around the city for a few days, never staying in one place long, until she finally settled in the Southern Underground. Loud, dark, a little dirty, and not altogether safe, the Underground was everything she was looking for, because it was the perfect place to disappear.
Act I
Twins.
She could do this. She just had to stay focused, stay calm, keep her mind on what was ahead, not what was behind. She could do this. Right?
Right. At least, that’s how it was in the beginning. For a teenage girl living on her own with two kids, she was honestly amazed at how well she could manage. She found steady work, the nearest neighbors in her apartment complex were surprisingly trustworthy and could watch her daughters while she worked all day to earn enough money to survive, and she found that as long as she didn’t stop long enough to think, the past never caught up with her. At least, until the Jedi found her again. Or, more specifically, her daughters. Two Force-sensitive children on Coruscant? It was only a matter of time, and Odesea should have known it. But, as it was, she’d never really had much contact with other Vahla, nor had she shown much interest in researching her species, and no one had ever told her that all Vahla could touch the Force. What made it worse, however, than just being found by the Jedi, was the fact that the two in question, a Padawan and his master, were Jedi that she had actually been well-acquainted with, and for the first time since Corellia, she realized just how much she had truly been changed, for neither of them even seemed to hold glimmers of recognition.
But no, the Jedi were not going to take her daughters. She’d gone to the Order, and what had become of her? What was worse, those children had his blood in their veins. The Jedi wouldn’t help them, they couldn’t be good people. No. She would keep them. She would straighten them out. Not the Jedi. She would fight them if she had to. She nearly did. Convinced that the woman would not let her children go short of physical violence, the Jedi relented, leaving Odesea and her twin daughters, Kirhanos and Lawvi, to themselves.
Sadly, Odesea was no longer the same. No longer could she forget. No longer could she look at her children and genuinely smile, because now, whenever she looked into their eyes, all she saw was him. More and more, she found herself incapable of pressing forward. It wasn’t long before she found new ways to forget. Kirhanos and Lawvi were three the first night their mother came home drunk. Less than a year later, she started yelling. A few weeks after that, screaming. It didn’t take very long for the twins to figure out that it was better to be at their neighbor’s apartment at night, with a little help from their neighbors themselves. They weren’t always out of the apartment when Odesea came back, however, and it was painfully obvious to anyone that was paying attention that she was getting worse. Unfortunately, not many people were paying attention. Kir was seven the first time her mother struck her. After that, every night the twins weren’t home when she came back, Odesea came looking for them, and the results were never pleasant. In time, Kir persuaded her ever-so-slightly younger sister to start staying away from home at night, while she stayed put. Every night, Odesea beat her, but as long as she was there, her mother never went looking for Lawvi. Every night, it got worse, but Vie never got hurt, and that made it okay. That made Kir come back every night. Bruises. Sometimes a little blood. Sometimes a fracture. She could stand it, because every time, she just focused on one thing: it was just her blood. Just her cartilage.
But Kir soon came to another revelation. Though Vie was being taken care of by the aliens down the hall, she was no longer being fed. She was nine the first time she stole food. A month later was the first time she was caught stealing food. Not having many options, however, she continued living as a small-time thief, though now she made every effort to not get caught. She’d always been fast, and light on her feet, so she started using her natural talents for more than just trying to outrun pissed off street vendors. She started using the terrain to her advantage. Timing, agility, speed. It was hard to catch someone when they could make their own ladders out of a trashcan, a few pipes, and a window-sill. Everything didn’t always go according to plan, however, though she was constantly getting better at moving across the sector without ever touching the streets. The first time she stole from another thief is a prime example, as, even though she could outrun him, he had quite a few friends in his little gang, and they did eventually catch her. Instead of being angry, however, those in the gang that had attempted to catch her were impressed. She could be vastly useful, it seemed, and so, Kir became an honorary member of a street-gang in the depths of Coruscant. They taught her better ways to steal, and not get caught, how to fight, how to curse, how to drink, which she never took much of a liking to, got her a tattoo and a few piercings, and…honestly, that’s about it. Probably the only good thing that came about it was that she better learned how to fend for herself. Her attitude certainly didn’t improve, as shown when she started screaming back at Odesea. She was eleven the first time her mother did more than just leave a fracture. She was twelve the first time she had to take herself to a hospital, with a broken jaw, ulna, and several ribs, and every single one of her piercings forcibly removed.
The night of the twin’s fourteenth birthday, however, everything changed. For the first time in several years, the two actually spent a birthday together, Kir taking her “little” sister out of the Southern Underground for the day, spending ill-begotten funds on the first present Vie had, quite honestly, ever received, a proper dinner in a half-decent restaurant, and a tour of the Senate Building. A simple day. A good day. In Kir’s mind, the best day she’d had to that point, and still likely the best day she’s had. Followed by one of the worst nights. When the two arrived home, they found the door to their apartment open, and it sounded as though someone, a woman, was crying inside. Immediately, Kir told her sister to go back, back to their neighbor’s. Cautiously, she edged inside. Once in the main room of the apartment, she found something she honestly couldn’t remember having seen before. There, Odesea simply sat, face buried in her hands, her body wracked with sobs. For a moment, she could see the mother she’d never had. Gently, she reached out, resting her hand on her mother’s shoulder. Slowly, as if unsure of what to do, Odesea touched her daughter’s hand, squeezing gently as she raised her head, and for a few seconds, she just stared into her daughter’s eyes. Those eyes…
His eyes.
The next instant, Kir was on the floor, a sharp pain flooding into her wrist and along the side of her head. Sucking in a sharp breath, she pushed herself up, trying to regain her footing. She felt, more than saw the chair. Again, she forced herself up. Again, she felt something hit her, hard. The third time, she didn’t get up again. The sixth time, she heard the chair break as it connected. As she lay there, unable to move she realized she could feel something through the pain; she could feel something warm running down her back. She knew that feeling, perhaps a little too well. It was about the time she saw the blood beginning to pool on the floor beside her that Odesea stopped yelling. As she walked from the room, Kir realized that the silence unnerved her more. Something was different this time. Something was wrong. As she heard the front door hiss shut, a sense of dread hit her. She could just…feel it. There was something in the air, barely noticeable above the throbbing pain that ran through her body. As Odesea came from the kitchen, a dull knife gripped tightly in her hand, she was overcome with a sense of fear. This was it. It was finally over. She was going to die, right then, right there. What scared her most, however, was that once she was gone…Vie was next. Silently, Odesea knelt in front of her daughter and whispered that everything, this, it was all her and her sister’s fault, staring into her eyes. Unblinking, she raised the knife, placing the point just below the inside of her own jaw, and rammed upwards. Trembling, but never making a sound, and never once breaking eye contact, she drew it across her throat. The last thing Kir remembered before blacking out, either from the blow to the head or from shock she doesn’t know, is the warmth on her face from fresh blood, and trying to scream.
Aryli had done his job. Unable to bring her into the Ember of Vahl, he did as the Chosen had instructed. He destroyed Odesea Bhavala. She just hadn’t known it at the time.
Four hours later, Kir woke up, greeted only by her mother’s lifeless eyes staring back at her. Then she screamed.
Mustering all the strength she could, she rolled over. Next, she pushed herself off the ground. Then up to her hands and knees. Bit by bit, taking one thing at a time, Kir forced herself to stand. Starting for the door, she stopped almost immediately. She realized she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let Lawvi know what had happened. She couldn’t destroy what little of their mother her sister had left. Wresting the knife from her mother’s stiff hands, Kir headed for the door. Once outside, she closed and locked the door, made sure she was alone in the hall, then pried open the terminal beside the door and hotwired it open again. Finally, she turned away from the door and dragged herself down the hall along the wall, leaving a trail of red, and dropping the knife in a garbage bin along the way.
Act II
A break-in, it was called. Murder, and nearly two, Kir being lucky at having only been savagely beaten. There really was never much of an investigation, though it’s not like would have gone anywhere if there had been; no murder weapon, no suspects, and only one witness that only remembered getting hit in the head with a chair. It was just another break-in that went bad in a place where such things…well, happened. The Southern Underground had never been known as a particularly safe place to live.
After that night, the family down the hall moved, fearing their own safety. After that night, it was just the two sisters. After that night, neither of them were the same, especially Kir, though she never once let Vie see just how much. She couldn’t. She was the only one left to take of her now, the only one left for her to look up to. Truth be told, she’d always been the one Vie had looked up to, she just never knew it. So, she put on a mask, a mask that she still wears today, a mask to cover the misery and fear beneath it; humor. After all, who sees tears of sadness when they are mixed in with tears of joy? It didn’t take Kir very long to become quite good at burying her true emotions beneath piles of wise-cracks and bad puns, either. Before long, it started becoming too easy, and she never really noticed the transition. Wear a mask for too long, and you forget who you were underneath it.
But that was the price she paid, willingly, to keep the only family she had from harm. That was all that had ever really mattered to her, and that wasn’t about to change now. No matter what it took, she would keep them alive. She taught herself how to run, how to fight, and how to get away clean from anything, anywhere. If she needed to steal to feed the two of them, she stole. If she needed to hurt someone to keep them both safe, she hurt them. For two years, she lied, cheated, stole, fought, hid, and ran like hell to keep food in their stomachs, and a roof over their heads for as long as possible. Second-most important to Kir was knowledge. She knew that, in time, if the two wanted to get anywhere, they’d need it; so, she made a serious effort in acquiring numerous learning tools, and…well, learning. As time went on, the risks became bigger and the escapes became more dangerous.
Two years.
Then she missed.
The bounty hunter she’d just robbed blind, on the other hand, didn’t. It was a route she’d taken a dozen times over, across a few roof-tops, through the upper levels of an abandoned construction site, back to the roofs, and disappear through the mazes of alleyways. A half-second before vaulting the rather large gap that would put her in the partially-completed building, however, the plan changed. As her foot hit the edge, her toes just passing the ledge, she coiled like a spring. As her legs began to push outwards, however, she felt a searing pain through her upper leg and lower back, and she faltered. Now, in the time Kir had spent running across rooftops, she’d become pretty good at gauging distances and velocity. She’d become quite skilled at calculating how much speed and height she needed to make a specific distance very quickly. She knew, as soon as she’d left the durasteel roof, she didn’t have enough of either. She knew she wouldn’t clear the gap. She also knew that it was a long way down, and that four stories was pushing the odds for a being composed primarily of cartilage. Now, fortunately enough for Kir, her fall was slowed before impact, to the point that she only cracked a few ribs, one of which punctured a lung, some of the cartilage in her feet, upper and lower legs, hands, forearms, and pelvis, dislocated her shoulder, and tore a few ligaments. Unfortunately, it was by a two-inch thick metal bar used to reinforce walls that stood ten feet from the ground. By the time the hunter had caught up with her, she had already blacked out from loss of blood, so he simply took back his credits, kicked her unconscious form for good measure, and walked off, leaving her to die.
Somewhere in the vicinity of three days later, Kir woke up inside a tank of kolto, staring at the lifeless, sterile walls of a medical bay and a silent droid moving back and forth between patients. She didn’t leave that tank for an entire day, and even then only so the kolto could be changed out. After the first day, Vie found her, and stayed with her for a very long time, waiting silently, unable to do anything else. After that day, that droid and her sister were the only company she had, for the only times she was removed from the tank and treated by a living person was during reconstructive surgery, at which times she was always heavily sedated. Even so, her long periods of consciousness are still among both the most mind-numbingly boring, and exceptionally painful experiences she has ever endured. Six days. Six days before she was actually allowed out of the tank for more than cartilage reconstruction. Six days before she learned that her life had been saved by a Republic soldier that had been in the area on leave to see friends of his, and had come to investigate after hearing blaster shots. From what Vie had gathered from the medical staff, the soldier had had to return to his posting a few days before Kir had awoken, before Vie had even started looking for her sister.
Back into the kolto tank. Then physical therapy. Kolto. Surgery to remove a few pieces of metal placed to help her skeleton heal straight. Kolto. Physical therapy. Kolto. Physical therapy. Kolto. Metal removal. Kolto. Physical therapy.
Kolto.
You get the idea.
For two months, Kir never set foot outside the same medical facility. She was told that she was lucky to be alive. But she was. She was told she was even luckier to be able to walk. But she could. She was told to take things slow for awhile, build herself back up physically. She did, slowly. She was told to stop jumping off buildings, by both doctors and Vie.
She didn’t.
What she did take from the experience, however, was born from a single thought, a single thought given an incredibly long period of time to fester, to be thought on. A way out of the Southern Underground. A way to stop having to steal to survive. A soldier had saved her life. A soldier. Sure, she was too young, but not for long. So, for once in her life, Kir found a real job. Honest work, for an honest (and pathetic) paycheck, and once Vie followed suit, they actually had enough money to survive. Not well, but enough to just survive for long enough. At first, Vie didn’t much like the idea. Kir was going to get herself killed, she said. Then Captain Jinket Oshite, commanding officer of the Republic cruiser Thanos stepped into the café the twins were currently employed at, and Lawvi Bhavala was, put simply, enamored. After that shift, she told her sister that if Kir enlisted, she would too. She was going to join the Navy. She was going to see the stars. She was going to run her very own starship.
She was going to blow really big stuff up.
And, it seemed, she wasn’t going to shut up about it.
By the end of the night, Kir was left wondering how the man hadn’t throttled her. She was also quite certain that she herself was not going into the Navy. The idea of being boxed into a ship for long periods was not particularly appealing. Ironic, as that’s exactly where she was headed.
Act III
Seventeen. It took a fair amount of digging to collect enough documents to prove that’s how old they really were, but they pulled it off. Both lacking a legal guardian of any kind, however, their respective recruitment centers weren’t particularly keen on taking them in at first. So, they both went to the courts. Inside three days after their birthday, they had themselves declared legal adults, and once again, went back to their respective recruitment centers. Next came the fact that neither had received any type of “proper” education. So, they both took a government-issued basic aptitude and knowledge test, passed well enough, and, again, returned to their recruitment centers. Next came physical. Vie didn’t pass the first time around.
Kir did. Her recruiter wasn’t particularly amused when she outran him, came back, and asked if he needed a breather.
Kir shipped to training a month later, to Carida, and Vie a month after that. Vie went through Navy basic training as a fairly average recruit. Nothing spectacular, nothing below average, nothing particularly notable except for her unique racial traits. Kir, on the other hand…Kir was something of a special case, and she was definitely her Drill Instructor’s favorite. On the one hand, she proved maybe even a little less than mediocre with firearms and she was more likely to be hurt in front-line roles due to her skeletal makeup. On the other hand, she could run until the sun went down, then run back, she could handle all of the obstacle and physical courses with relative ease (and thus typically had to run each course more than once), she never quit at anything she was told to do, and she was the first in her company to lock their hand-to-hand instructor in a full armbar. She was also the first to flip the company’s Senior DI onto her ass while on a training mat. That was the first day Kir found out exactly how far she could run. Despite her skill and fortitude of both body and mind, however, graduation found her in a slightly awkward position. Her lack of physical durability severely limited the roles available to her in the Army, and her lack of skill with firearms further limited them, forcing her to change her original contract.
Open contract. Sometimes, Kir wonders if the base commander simply pulled a job number from a hat, or if he asked her Senior DI’s opinion, and if they listed several options. First placement? Cook. Then she proved it actually was possible to burn military rations. Second placement? Logistical Specialist. Six months later, someone who had actually been trained for her position came to her station on Balosar, and again, she was left with an open contract. Before someone could find another hole to plug her into, Kir took a shot and, with a bit of work, got herself in Officer Candidacy School. A few months later, she was starting to wonder if she’d pissed off somebody with a large paycheck. As a (figuratively) fresh-faced Second Lieutenant straight out of training, Kir thought she’d picked up a half-decent contract. Field Communications. After training for her job, she discovered it wasn’t too bad. She could do it well enough, it wasn’t boring as all hell, and Comm’ officers were responsible for some pretty spectacular explosions. A week later, she found herself on Ordo, acting as, in essence, the garrison commander’s personal secretary due to lack of personnel. Which meant, basically, that she ended up sitting behind a desk with her remarkably old radio gear on the floor behind her all day doing absolutely nothing, except gripe, read, and every so often actually do her job (which usually meant running from building to building trying to find whoever a certain message was intended for thanks to incredibly faulty equipment). And gripe some more. Seven months. That’s a lot of griping. Still, she did her job very well considering the state of her equipment, frequently going far beyond the requirements of her station in order to keep everyone informed, and she only protested when nobody that had made it past an enlisted rank was listening, and it’s exactly that behavior that got her off Ordo. Seven months, and just having been denied yet another transfer request, and a one Lieutenant General Kathis passed through the garrison on a routine inspection. He wasn’t greatly impressed. Honestly, about the only thing he was impressed with was the garrison’s young Communications officer. She was reliable, prompt, intelligent, and didn’t simply sit back and relax whenever her equipment stopped functioning properly. He was so impressed, actually, that after he caught wind of her recent request for a station transfer, he arranged for her to be added to his personal staff, replacing his former Comm’ officer. More than glad to be off Ordo, she was, however, not as glad about where her new station put her. Kir was not a fan of ships. Too small, too cramped, too many people in not enough room. Nowhere to run, and most crews tended to harass you when you used the cargo hold as an obstacle course. And yet, even though he was an Army officer, Kathis’ frequent inspections of the Republic’s countless military garrisons and bases required a great deal of time onboard starships of various size. Still, Kir stuck to it, never once complaining within earshot of anyone, and always doing whatever she could to help, even when it wasn’t in her job description. She even managed to earn a few meritorious awards in the four years she served on Kathis’ staff, as well as First Lieutenant after her second year.
More frequently, however, she found herself earning commendations for her hand-to-hand capabilities, as she found that, one, she was naturally pretty good at it, two, it was a great way to relieve stress, and three, it kept her busy while in transit between planets. Kathis himself had no problem with it, even going so far as to encourage it, and so, most of the time that Kir had free, she either spent running circles around the current ship/base or sparring with the crew/garrison. She was getting better at it, too, and though she has never been particularly powerful physically, she was always extremely fast on a bad day, could bend in ways most people found distinctly unnatural, and has a fairly impressive reach. Add in an ever-increasing layer of skill, and Kirhanos Bhavala was becoming something impressive on a training mat. Kathis himself never really realized just what kind of talent he had at his side, not until he lost it. Even then, he probably still doesn’t realize. Four years after Lieutenant General Kathis found one of the best Comm’ officers he’d ever had on his staff, someone who did see Kir’s talent for what it was, and what it could become, found the Vahla. It was another routine inspection, this time on Metellos. The inspection itself went fairly well, nothing of note coming up, though on this rare occasion, Kathis took his staff to a cantina near the base afterwards. Exactly what the occasion was, nobody could really figure out, but nobody complained. Free drinks, and a chance to get your commanding officer drunk? Hell yes. Of course, he never really drank much, and neither did Kir, but it seemed an off-duty Captain bearing the marks of Field Intelligence did. In fact, it seemed he drank enough for all three of them. It also seemed he wasn’t a very nice drunk, and when Kathis began berating him for his unprofessional behavior, he only became less…nice. Fortunately for Kathis, a member of his staff was standing beside him at the time the first punch was thrown. Unfortunately for the Captain, it was Kir. As Kathis put it, one moment he saw a few rather meaty knuckles headed for his face, the next, he was staring at his Communications officer sitting on the man’s back, his leg crooked over her shoulder, wondering how she’d gotten his spine to bend that far without breaking anything.
The next day, Kathis received a personal apology from the captain’s commanding officer, a one Major Jurrik Larsson, operating within the Army’s small and nearly autonomous Field Intelligence Division. Larsson further proceeded to apologize for forcing him to replace one of his staff on such short notice, before presenting him with transfer and MOS reassignment papers for a one First Lieutenant Kirhanos Bhavala. Larsson, you see, had watched Kir incapacitate a man he’d worked with for six years, a man he personally knew to be both very dangerous, and fully capable of fighting after ingesting large quantities of alcohol. Larsson also had a commanding officer that both trusted his judgment, and knew a few very high-ranking persons that trusted his judgment. A week later, Kir was back on Carida, still completely confused as to exactly what the hell was going on, and being unceremoniously dropped, along with a pile of other candidates, inside the FID’s training facility, right beside their primary headquarters, just a few miles outside the main Academy. Specifically, at the beginning of the first physical course.
Eighteen weeks later, only seven out of sixty-three candidates remained. Over the course of four and a half months, each man and woman, ranging from a young Lance Corporal with barely a year’s worth of experience, to a few Lieutenants, to a few distinctly grizzled and irritable career NCO’s, endured physical, psychological, and intellectual training far beyond anything any of them had experienced before, even the handful that had come from Special Forces. Countless broke under mental duress and washed out. The rest, which was more than a few, washed out from injuries. Nobody was failed. If you couldn’t complete a training course, you went back and tried again, either until you succeeded, or the training officer got tired of watching you fail and had you run a few dozen miles instead, and even when such was the case, you still were expected to complete that particular exercise the next day. Then catch up to the rest of the group. They were forced, unlike throughout basic training and officer school, to work as individuals, or at most small groups of no more than half a squad. If you couldn’t hack it out on your own…well then, you just had to try a little harder. Eighteen weeks of hell. Blood, sweat, tears, and more than a few “minor” injuries. But they made it, all seven of them. They’d toughed it out, endured everything thrown at them, and come out swinging. They were then congratulated by their senior training officer for surviving the FID’s screening process. Those incapable of handling life in field intel had been weeded out, and the survivor’s physical, mental, and technical capabilities had been properly categorized. He then informed them of where, when, and to whom they were to report after ten days leave and wished them good luck with their training.
A week and a half later, and the remaining seven, comprised of Kir, another First Lieutenant, a Second Lieutenant, a First Sergeant, two Staff Sergeants, and a Lance Corporal, exchanged quiet greetings and well-wishes in a waiting room inside the FID training complex. Well, except for the First Sergeant. He just glowered at everyone else like he always did. Kir was fairly certain his face was stuck that way. After a few minutes of pensive waiting, three men and two women, all officers of higher rank than any of the seven, and one of whom was none other than Jurrik Larsson, walked them outside the building and into a nearby courtyard. First, the Colonel leading the group introduced himself as Klement Wallash, the man leading the FID. The Lieutenant Colonel beside him was both his second in command and the commanding officer of one of the four small units comprising the FID’s field personnel. First Unit. Larsson commanded Third Unit. Both of them were known as “Eeries”; Information Retrieval and Infiltration Specialists. The primary physical information gatherers of their units. One of the two Captains present was a “Snatcher”; an Extraction Specialist, otherwise known as the guy who can fly or drive anything and whose job it is to pull his team’s asses out of the fire and bring them home. She belonged to First. The second Captain was a “Geek”; a Technological Specialist. Rather self-explanatory, really. He also belonged to First. Wallash then informed the group that, due to their prior performances, their fields had already been assigned, and that they would be trained in said fields by whichever of the four operatives beside him specialized in that field. During training, except for those training under the same operative, likely the only times any of them would see each-other would be in the barracks, if then. If anyone didn’t meet the standards of their trainers, or at least show room enough to improve to that point, they could be sent packing at any time. If they passed, all but two, one of the two Snatchers and one of the four Eeries, would be placed in Third Unit under Major Larsson; the remaining two were slated for First under Lieutenant Colonel Harmon. Each of them, as with every member of FID who completed training, would receive a callsign; at that point, they would be Field Intel every bit as much as he was. Until then, they were just grunts. Without another word, the Colonel walked off, and the four operatives rounded up their trainees, the tech with the Geek, the two vehicle specialists with the Snatcher, two of the soldiers with Harmon, and the other two, Kir and the ever-annoyed First Sergeant, Carson Oak, with Larsson.
The thirteen week training went about as it had been described. Other than Major Larsson, the Top Hat, a handful of base personnel, and both of the base nurses, Kir really never saw anyone else in FID. She did see Carida, however. Truth be told, about the only time Larsson kept his two inside the base was to have them scale the various training towers in every way it wasn’t designed for. Beyond that, they spent most of their time either training in hand-to-hand, agility training, escaping combat spiders through the mountainous region near the Academy, learning the purpose of the FID and their roles within it, learning the details of being an Eerie, or, as per instruction from Larsson, staging thefts from the Academy itself, which became increasingly difficult as the staff caught on as to why random items of varying importance kept disappearing from their personal quarters, restricted areas, and even the Dean’s visiting teenage daughter. Namely when, usually the day after something vanished, giving the staff enough time to realize whatever it was had disappeared, as well as to see if his Eeries-in-training were in the clear or not, Larsson stopped by the Academy and returned the missing item. The Dean was not amused when he arrived at his office, the man’s daughter resting over his shoulder, bound and gagged. She actually thought the whole ordeal was rather amusing, actually, once she had figured out that Kir and Oak had no intention of really doing anything to her. She even managed to get her two captors to start comparing scars, something Kir has forever since regretted, as when she finally came to a scar she wasn’t about to actually show them, but still informed them of anyways, the girl thought it would be rather funny to call her the “Cheeky Soldier”, as opposed to Oak, who was the “Cranky Soldier”. Kir wasn’t particularly amused. Oak was. So much so, in fact, that he passed it on to Larsson. Fortunately, Larsson himself stuck to her name, even if Oak didn’t. Really, the only other notable incident that occurred during her training, involving an agility tower, was considerably more painful, and came a few inches from either costing her both her entire hand and her job, or quite feasibly her life. Instead all she lost was a piece of her finger, which is still likely somewhere on the course, as no one ever actually found it again. She still made it to the top afterwards, though, with a considerable amount of expletives.
Three months. Truth be told, it really hadn’t seemed that long without a training instructor jumping down her throat at all times, or “leisurely jogs” that required everyone to keep pace with a sadistic DI and that lasted until at least three people threw up and two passed out. Minus the whole “losing part of a finger” thing, it wasn’t nearly as painful as previous training had been, either. But, it had been three months. After flinging various insults at a passing transport, undoubtedly manned by one of the two Snatchers-in-training, as had become custom quite some time before, Kir caught sight of Larsson waving her and Oak down from their perch on top of the primary comm’ dish. Once they hit the ground, he told them to head over to the command building and wait there. Not ten minutes later, there they stood, just outside the building, alongside the others they had first come to the base with, minus one of Harmon’s trainees and one of the vehicle experts. They found out from the others that the former had broken his neck, and the latter had washed out. A few minutes later, Harmon stepped out of the building and ordered them all to get inside and sit down, where the rest of the training officers and Wallash waited. After a relatively brief talk about the FID they’d all heard before, the Colonel set five datacards on the table before him. Congratulating each of the five personally, he passed the datacards out, informing them that this, what the cards held, was who they were now. Oak was the first to pick his up. It was his personnel file, listing him as an FID Information Retrieval and Infiltration Specialist. It also listed his rank as Second Lieutenant. Directly below his name, a new field had also been entered. Callsign.
Leaf.
One by one, the others read their cards. A few chuckles passed through the room, and a little conversation. Everyone went quiet, however, when the dull chatter was interrupted by a rather loud thunk cause by Kir’s forehead making contact with the table. Cocking an eyebrow, Oak reached over and pried her datacard from her grip. Honestly, Kir had never heard him laugh that hard. It was somewhat disconcerting, really. As every one of the trainees, both Captains, and Harmon stared blankly at the man, Wallash and Larsson traded smug glances. Holding up the card, making a show of it, Oak read part aloud. First Lieutenant Kirhanos Bhavala, Field Intelligence Division, Third Unit, Information Retrieval and Infiltration Specialist.
Callsign Cheeky.
Act IV
Could it be? No more training? A break at last?
Yeah, right.
The next day, Larsson gathered his newly formed Third Unit and told them to grab their gear and head to the landing pads. They had their first assignment. They were briefed in-flight. The area of operation was Commenor, a private company’s primary headquarters. None of them were told what the target was, specifically, or why they had to steal it, just how to identify it. The unit’s Geek, Signal, was tasked with acquiring as much technical data on the facility as possible, and dealing with as much electronic security as possible once they attempted infiltration. Once they picked the best point of entry and exfiltration point, the unit’s Snatcher, Chalk, would be responsible for getting two Eeries, Kir and Oak, or Cheeky and Leaf, in and out and making a clean getaway. Larsson, or Left, would remain at the temporary base of operations with Signal and coordinate the op. Kir was the primary field operative, tasked with actually retrieving the objective, while Oak’s job was to make a little more noise in the lower levels of the facility, clearing out security stations and erasing all security recordings, and making off with a few less-important items, data files and schematics mainly, to make it look less like a government operations, and more like a heist staged by a rival company. Rule one; nobody gets killed, including security personnel. Rule two; nothing ever gets linked back to the Republic on their end. Everything else was up to their own discretion. Once planetside, the five set up shop inside a small, cheap hotel room, and spent the remainder of the day planning and preparing. Four hours after nightfall, they moved. Ten minutes, Kir was on the roof of the complex and Oak was on an outer wall twenty stories up, just outside a maintenance shaft. Three minutes after, they were both inside the main facility. Another three minutes, Oak had disabled the main security station in the building, and had infiltrated the R&D lab two minutes after that. Six more minutes, Kir had bypassed the physical and electronic security surrounding her primary objective and Oak was on his way out of the labs. Sixty seconds more, Kir was on her way out as well. Four minutes, both had exfiltrated the way they’d come and were back inside the airspeeder Chalk had gotten his hands on. Thirteen minutes after that, the speeder had been cleaned and ditched and Kir, Oak, and Chalk were back at the hotel. Seven hours to plan, forty-two minutes to execute, half of which had been spent in transit. They’d planned for every eventuality, and then some, and had pulled the op off without a hitch. Not that anyone was complaining, mind you; they all knew what would happen if they’d been caught. The Republic would have disowned them, and the CSA would have, at minimum, hit them with enough criminal charges to make sure they didn’t see the light of day for a few decades, or, quite possibly, charge them with being corporate spies and have the lot of them shot. A few hours from their lives was a welcome trade to insure that didn’t happen.
For Kir, things were going pretty good. For the next three years, Third Unit successfully accomplished twenty-three missions and failed two, she had seemed to have settled emotionally, or so the FID’s resident therapist told her, and had started keeping I touch with her sister again. Vie had made Lieutenant in the Navy, and was serving aboard a frigate stationed in the Coruscant System as the XO. She was also more than a little miffed that Kir had taken so long in returning her calls; after all, wasn’t she a Comm’ officer? Well, according to her documented personnel file, yes, and that was all she could say. Vie caught on quick enough, and so wasn’t worried when Kir would up and vanish for varying periods of time without warning, or apparent explanation, or would show up with a new scar that people neither got from normal activities, or even from combat. When Vie received a message from someone claiming to know her family and have some kind of dirt on them, she had a fairly good idea on who to turn to. When she showed up for the meet in a dingy cantina on Coruscant, she wasn’t the only Bhavala in the establishment. When the would-be blackmailer arrived, he immediately dismissed having anything incriminating, but instead informed her that he had only come at the wishes of the Chosen of Vahl. The council did not appreciate Vahla who did not heed their will. Now was a good time to start listening. In short, she told him to screw his sister. Remarkably fast, the man was half-way over the table, only to be met with the heel of a military-grade boot to the solar plexus. Vie simply lowered her sidearm and blinked as Kir stepped off the table. Damn, but that woman was fast. Judging by the cursing Vahla on the floor, she had a pretty good kick, too. Her next thought was cut short, however, by a hundred and fifty pounds of cartilage and muscle tackling her to the floor a split-second before a blaster bold singed the air where her head had recently been. Unfortunately for whichever of the Ember had been stupid enough to fire the shot, the entire cantina almost instantly turned into one giant brawl. Unfortunately for the Bhavalas, well…the entire cantina had become a giant brawl. As they made it to the door, Kir had about enough time to shove her sister through and yell “run” before something large and scaly ran her over. By the time Vie got back to the cantina, a handful of the Coruscant Guard in tow, most of the still-breathing and conscious patrons had either left, or had returned to drinking, with neither Kir nor any of the Ember in sight, save two who wouldn’t be talking to anyone ever again. Such was the case, however, when one had been shot in the face or used as a giant, pissed off Trandoshan’s plaything.
When Kir regained consciousness, it didn’t take her very long to realize she was in trouble. When she tried moving, only to notice she was strapped to a table, she realized she was really in trouble. Then she saw the only face she’d see for the next two months, and quickly remember him as the Vahla she’d laid out in the cantina. He didn’t look exceptionally happy. And he had a cutting torch. After the first day, he started talking, instead of just causing as much physical pain as possible. He spoke of the Vahla, of the Ember and the Chosen, of Vahl herself…and of all their race’s obligation to Vahl, whether they served the Ember directly or not. That included her and her sister. Too long had they been separated from their people, but they had rejected his offer when he had tried to bring them back, so they were going to do things the hard way, until she gave in to the will of the Chosen of Vahl. Her response was simple.
Name. Rank. Identification number.
Two months later, that was all she’d ever said to the man, unless you count agonized screams. Two months later, and that was the last thing he ever heard. Theoretically. Technically speaking, he may have heard the durasteel grinding against his spine in that last millisecond. Larsson didn’t care much either way; the Vahla was quite dead, and he had his best operative alive and relatively intact. A few weeks of recuperation plus a few days of physical and mental reevaluation, and he had her back in Third Unit, comedic as ever, though she tended to be a bit more ornery than usual. Nobody blamed her, though. Wallash simply decided it might do her some good to get away from Carida for awhile, and not on assignment, and figuring she’d seen enough of Coruscant, he put her on a flight to Corellia for a week’s leave. Coronet City. Honestly, it was about as horrible a choice as he could have made in the end, but nobody could have seen it coming. It was a few days after landing, after exploring some of the city, being chased off the roof of the capitol building by CorSec, eating foods she’d never even heard of before, and sleeping, a lot, that she stopped in a cantina. Nothing special about the place, per se, but rather, who was in it. One patron, specifically. The man’s name was Oris, a retired CorSec officer, and though they had never met, never even heard of the other, Oris knew her face like his own. He had seen it every night for the past twenty-seven years. It was a face that he thought would haunt him until the day he died. It didn’t take the trained investigator in him very long to put all the pieces together and figure out who she was, either. Buying himself another drink, Oris started to relate a story to Kir. It had been his second year with CorSec, just another day on the job, when he and his partner received call; there was a possible lead on a recent kidnapping, apparently one of some importance. When they entered the building they’d been led to, Oris and his partner were attacked by a lone, armed, man, whom Oris himself incapacitated, though he admitted to having been incredibly lucky when he did. After searching the building, it was Oris who found the girl, cramped tightly into a small cage in the damp, dark, and cold basement, suffering from malnutrition and numerous wounds. She’d just been a kid.
Her name had been Odesea Bhavala, a Jedi from the Temple on Coruscant.
He could put two and two together. Odesea had been pregnant when he found her. Kir was the right age, and she was practically a mirror-image of the girl with another ten years and fifty pounds on her. The only difference was her eyes. She had her father’s eyes. After telling her who her father had been, Oris pulled himself out of his chair and told her that Zem Aryli had been released seven years prior, and that he had the audacity to stay in Coronet still. As he left, Kir couldn’t help but feel a little mad; not at any one particular thing, not yet, she just felt…angry. After getting a drink herself, she went to One CorSec Plaza and looked into the matter herself. All she found there was that Oris had been telling the truth, as well as a few more details on what had happened and why. The good news was that she no longer felt angry. The bad news was that she, instead, was pissed. Aryli was still alive and well, and indeed still on Corellia. The file even listed his current residence. At that moment, everything stopped. She could still see, hear, feel, and think, but she doesn’t really remember leaving the building. She doesn’t remember finding a dark alley a few miles away and waiting for an hour. She doesn’t remember the man that tried to mug her. She doesn’t remember taking his blaster. She doesn’t remember finding Aryli’s apartment, or bypassing his security system. She doesn’t remember waiting in the dark for him to come back to his residence. The only thing she remembers is the look in his eyes, those gray eyes he’d given her, when he finally recognized her and realized what was happening, scarcely a second before the first bolt hit him in the kneecap. Then the other knee. Then his elbows. Shoulders. Groin. Finally, she leveled the low-power blaster at his chest and fired, again and again, until the power cell was depleted. Dropping the weapon on his lifeless, smoking corpse, she went back to her hotel, slept the rest of the night through, and returned early to Carida the next morning. She has never spoken of what occurred on Corellia, and has never told Lawvi of their father, but everyone who knew her before soon noticed the change. She was still the joker, but now…well, as Oak put it, he’d never before seen her strike someone solely out of anger until after Corellia, and though it didn’t take her long to better contain the volatile temper that she’d taken to, everyone who spent enough time around her knew that, though it was buried deeply, it was still there. Wallash even began to wonder if it would affect her ability to function in the FID, but she soon proved that, even when she did snap, she could still be professional first, angry later. Pity the fool who first got in the way after all was said and done, though. A few, primarily Oak and Larsson, also picked up a growing dislike of Jedi, that only seemed to get worse every time she encountered one. Still, she could perform her job exceptionally well, as before, and no one in Third Unit for once believed she could become a liability to them or the FID as a whole.
Act V
Three and a half odd years, and Demon Unit saw one Snatcher retire on medical and a Geek leave for a considerably less dangerous and better paying civilian job, and promotions for each of the original members. Run by now Lieutenant Colonel Larsson, with Captain Bhavala as his XO and primary Eerie, First Lieutenant Oak as his secondary Eerie, and two freshly trained Second Lieutenants as his Snatcher and Geek. As was only natural, Kir and Oak spent quite a bit of time giving the “new guys” as much hell as possible for the first year or so. Kir remained much the same, herself, sporting a thick skin comprised primarily of humor, with an explosive temper lying beneath it. Really, the only changes were a few more scars and a few medals to go along with them. Another four years passed by before any noteworthy missions occurred.
Kir knew it was serious when she first stepped into the transport and saw that not only was Third Unit inside, so was First and Second both, as well as Wallash himself. When everyone was strapped in and the ship started for orbit, Wallash began. This time it was Nar Shaddaa. Information had been uncovered by an undercover operative that the Hutts had come into possession of biological weapons and were going to sell them to someone who seemed intent on using them. The operative had been uncovered and caught, so they didn’t know the buyer, nor where the weapons were exactly, only that they were in one of three places, or possibly more than one of the three. They didn’t have time to wait, and as the operative had technically been operating without clearance to do so, they couldn’t simply call in the cavalry to go in heavy-handed. They had to hit each complex themselves, and simultaneously to prevent anything from being moved. That was all they had to go on, everything else was up to them. The ship would be their base of operations, and they would head out immediately after landing, Wallash and all the Geeks staying onboard to coordinate. Everyone else went in. When they hit the complexes, both First and Third reported minimal resistance, though Second had taken some fire on the way in. Nothing too serious. As First and Third cleared their respective facilities, Second reported having found the biological weapons, shortly before reporting receiving heavy fire. As First Unit cleared their objective, finding nothing, they moved to reinforce Second, only to lose contact with them on the way. Not long after, Third cleared their own objective, also finding nothing, and moved on Second’s position themselves. When they arrived, they found a great many people with blasters. Most of them were shooting. Though they managed to get inside and find three members of First, they then also found themselves quite trapped inside. Harmon filled them in on what she could; when they’d arrived, they’d found most of Second dead or dying, had come under attack from the numerous mercenaries, bounty hunters, and thugs that now had them cornered in the complex, and had lost half their own numbers since, with two of the surviving three, Harmon included, being injured. On the plus side, the biological weapons were all stored in the hold of the small freighter sitting in the next hanger over. The problem was that, until Third had arrived, they hadn’t had the strength to punch a hole to it. Now they could, and they had to get those weapons away from the Hutts before they were overwhelmed, because they sure as hell weren’t going to be able to hold forever. So, they pushed. Though the successfully made it to the freighter, Harmon lost her only uninjured man and was shot again herself, and both Kir and Oak were wounded along the way. Knowing the hostiles had fighters near the facility, and any attempt to escape likely wouldn’t end well for whoever was flying the ship, the survivors agreed that only one would go while the rest kept the hostiles off them. Both Harmon and her last man were too heavily injured to be of much use behind a joystick, so, though Larsson was about to elect to do it, Kir cut him off and called it, saying the survivors needed at least one person besides Oak that could still shoot straight. Not waiting for approval, she started up the entry ramp. As Larsson yelled something after her about it not being her call, she turned back and yelled the hell it wasn’t. As she turned towards the freighter again, she had barely enough time to even see Third Unit’s Snatcher’s elbow, let alone react to, before it connected with the bridge of her nose. As she opened her eyes again not five seconds later, she was staring up at Oak’s slightly confused mug, and her head really hurt. Turning slightly, she watched helplessly as the freighter lifted off. Immediately, the Snatcher, Tap, burned for orbit, a motley assortment of fighters soon following. It was only a matter of minutes before the unarmed freighter had been disabled, so, to stop the Hutts from getting a hold of the weapons again, Tap did the only thing he could think of that would prevent such a thing. As he drifted along in the moon’s orbit, he detonated all the munitions aboard. The survivors of First and Third Units watched from below as the freighter turned into a brilliant flash of light.
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thats a big bio.