Name Jaeriel

Title But They're So Cryptic Who Would Know

Biography Jaeriel was born during the height of the Empire, but she knew little of the Imperial overlords who ruled the galaxy. Telos was a waste planet, hardly more than rubble and not worth the Empire's time. Instead, Jaeriel's overlords were criminals, pimps, and thugs. The dregs of society had infested her homeworld, and the Empire was content to let them rot there. Jaeriel's father, if that word could apply to the person who had impregnated her mother then abandoned her, was scum. A compulsive gambler and womanizer, he frequented the brothels and cantinas of the town in which they lived. She later discovered he was killed when she was only a few months old over a woman. She never knew him, and she certainly didn't miss him. Her mother, whose previous life was less than upstanding, still did her best to do right by her daughter. Instead of selling herself for decent money, the woman actually tried to make an honest living. For Jaeriel's first eight years of life, she succeeded. Then trouble arrived. A man broke into the Skynia home and went after Jaeriel's mother. She tried to fight back, but she was no match for someone of his size. As he threw her to the ground and began to beat her, then began to tear at her clothes, Jaeriel, cowering in the corner, had enough. Jumping forward, she grabbed the blaster he had dropped with his belt and fired four times at point-blank range into the man's skull. The event was not quickly forgotten, and soon Jaeriel and her mother left town. From then on, Jaeriel determined that she would never be as helpless as her mother had been. She learned to steal, to hack computers, to survive on the streets. When honest work was not to be found, she robbed from those who could most afford it and those who had gained wealth by preying on those like her mother. Occasionally, she sold spice to make ends meet. For the next six years, though the event was ever in the backs of their minds, they had no trouble. Then tragedy struck. Jaeriel's mother was caught alone, outside, by a gang of thugs. When they were finished, they had gotten their pleasure and the young fourteen-year-old girl had lost her mother. Jaeriel found her the next day, still lying where they had left her. For several days, she was inconsolable. Then she happened to overhear someone bragging about the rape and killing. In a rage, Jaeriel attacked. Despite her survival skills, she was overcome and dragged outside, where the same men who had raped her mother took her as well. When they were finished, they let her lie, broken and discarded. Something died in her that day. Compassion. Faith in humanity. Depression set in. For several days she wouldn't even eat, so devastated was she. For weeks after that, she went about her daily routine mechanically, reliving over and over what those men had done. Then, one night, she made a decision. She was a victim of something terrible, but she could do nothing about the past. She could continue to be a victim, living out what few days she had left broken, or she could serve justice on those responsible for her pain. She chose the latter. It took a year, but she stalked the men who had used her. She caught each one alone and helpless. And she took her time with each one. Each one, by the time he died, knew the pain she had felt. She left each one weaponless, claiming their tools of power as her own. And each one she mutilated in such a way so that those who found them knew why they had died. No one caused trouble for the girl after that, but revenge on her abusers was not enough to chase the images from her mind. She managed to obtain transport off planet and headed for Coruscant, the hub of civilization. By then, the New Republic was in control, the Empire retreating. She applied, and was accepted to, the New Republic Military Academy, where she trained as an infantry combat specialist. She then entered sniper training and excelled. By the end of the Black Fleet Crisis, she had made the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in the New Republic Infantry. Over the next several years, she served with distinction as a sniper, then as a New Republic Commando. By the New Republic's collapse, she had been promoted to Captain in the New Republic Army. With the collapse of the Republic, though, Jaeriel found herself lost and adrift. She found work as a computer technician on the backwater planet of Generis, but the dreams began to return. Her time in the military had driven from her mind those images, at least temporarily. Now, though, she entered another phase of severe depression, which lifted only when Generis joined the Onyxian Commonwealth. Jaeriel volunteered for service in the Commonwealth's branch of the Galactic Coalition's military. Due to her previous experience, she was commissioned as a Captain and given command of a squad of Commandos. Soon after her enlistment, the Black Dragon Empire War broke out, and she once again served with distinction. Near the end of the war, she was assigned to the task force that was to assault Bilbringi Shipyards. Fortunately for her, her transport's engines failed prior to the final jump, so she was not killed or captured with the rest of the fleet. However, the purpose of the assault sickened her. The attack was unprovoked and unjustified. She and her squad resigned, effective immediately, and chose to carry on their own war in their own way. They resurfaced next on Generis, during the Mandalorian assault on the planet. In that action, and others after it, Jaeriel and her squad fought for what they considered the right cause. It was not until the events of the Cataclysm and the removal of Prime Minister Regrad as head of the Coalition that she began to think that her war could best be prosecuted under the auspices of the Galactic Coalition military. Nevertheless, she refused to return to the Coalition until justice had been meted out to those responsible for the disaster at Bilbringi. Joren Logan's whereabouts were unknown, and probably undiscoverable, but General Abano Sallaros and Admiral Luke Hargrave could be found. Her first target was the General, who she and her team assassinated on Generis. He'd defected to the Empire, so they infiltrated the Imperial compound and filled his office with a gaseous cyanide. Their next target was the Admiral, who had been located on Phaeda...