Ric "Blade" Hunter

DC-15x
Production information
Manufacturer:	BlasTech Industries
Model:	Redeemer
Type:	Sniper Rifle
Technical specifications
Capacity:	6 shots per charge
Range:	Long range
[ Source ]

Ric "Blade" Hunter is the Aedile of House Dorimad Sol of Clan Scholae Palatinae.

Character History

Early Life

As a child, Ric would listen to his father talk about the exploits from his days as an officer serving in the Clone Wars. He would tell tales of vast battles of huge ships in space, of flying a small fighter into the fray and coming out on the other side. He would also tell of action on the ground, being a part of several of the more famous battles that the instructors only knew of from books. These tales left an impression on the small boy and he never forgot them. Although he would spin yarns of knights fighting the evil droid armies of the Separatists, he would almost never mention the Jedi who had been made into Generals for the fledgling Grand Army of the Republic. The subject seemed to darken his mood and he would withdraw into himself as if it was like a wound that had never healed. Ric never understood the reasons behind why until years later, long after his father was dead.

The mere thought of being a Hero, flying through space in a small fighter, and winning in the end had stuck with the small boy for years and he vowed that one day he would do such things. For most of the rest of his childhood, Ric focused on the skills that would make him a warrior, whether it was martial arts at the local gym or testing his reflexes at the entertainment district. He had a goal and would stop at nothing to get it.

When Ric turned eighteen standard years of age, he enlisted in the Imperial Navy as a pilot candidate. He had a lot of experience flying small craft in atmo but had never flown into space before. As he returned home to his family after enlisting and broke the news to them, his father closed his eyes and put his head down. Ric left the next day without his father ever speaking to him. The shuttle took him to pilot training at Prefsbelt IV Naval Academy. He arrived and began the two year long introduction to the Imperial Navy.

Soon after Ric graduated from the academy, he was stationed on board the Star Destroyer, Accuser. This Mark I Destroyer was modified to act as a fast reaction force to try and interdict pirate and repel rebels from convoy attacks. Ric was serving on this ship when it was ordered to Endor. During the three years that he had served as squadron executive officer, he had learned to fly every ship in the Imperial arsenal. He had also studied tactics of not only Imperial origin but rebel and pirate as well. His Wing Commander informed him that the next combat command that opened was his for the taking and he pinned captain rank to his chest.

The days of waiting were wearing everyone down. There was no news from command about their mission but it had to be something big. Ric would take at least one patrol a day, even if he had to volunteer for them. Anything to kill the boredom. As his flight would circle the fleet, he was in awe of the massive amount of firepower that floated there. To be honest, they paled in comparison to the station that orbited the moon.

It seemed to be just another day when the alarms began to sound. Every pilot in the fleet scrambled to their ships. It seemed that the rebels had bought their fleet in with the intention of destroying the new battle station. Ric jumped into his ship and lead his squadmates into the void. Once the enemy fleet figured out hat the shield was still up and the main gun was operational, they engaged the fleet at point blank range. It seemed to be an almost turkey shoot for the vast Imperial fleet sitting there. Ship after ship went down in flames and Ric saw on his tactical display that there were thousands of emergency beacons from both Imperial and Rebel pilots.

With a sudden shock, his ship bounced sideways. It took him just a quick second to realize that he had been grazed by a turbolaser from the Mon Cal cruiser to his left. If he'd been more than grazed, he'd never even known it. He limped his small craft back into the hanger of the Accuser and jumped out. The Crew chief was trying to maintain order but the battle had turned somehow to the enemies favor. Ric looked up as the Executor made its dive into the surface of the Death Star. He looked around for another ship, anything to get back out there and hit back. The visions of his youth were floating into his head and he felt as if he could highhandedly turn the tide back to their favor. He spotted a Assault Gunboat on the far side of the hanger and climbed inside. This was the tricked out version with shields and a small hyperdrive.

As he made ready to launch, a sudden shooting pain flared in his head. He doubled over in the seat and tried not to throw up. It was if someone had stabbed him through his brain with a vibroblade and twisted it. Almost as soon as the pain had started, it went away. He later found out that he had felt the Emperor die at that moment. He felt the same thing but many times over a few moments later when he watched as the Death Star itself became one with the universe. His mind was in a daze and he was now acting on instinct, he set a course into the navicomp and made an almost blind jump away from the chaos behind.

After a few months, Ric made his way back home to Corellia. His family still lived in the same small town on the outside of Coronet City and he needed to be there. When he got there, he found the house empty of any living inhabitants. His family had just seemed to vanish. After some investigation, he found out that his father had died and his mother had taken his little sister and brother back to her families home on Naboo. It was such a distance that he knew that he would never make it there in the small ship he had now. He decided to head towards Wildspace to hide for a while. He was now considered a deserter and knew that he could never got back to the Empire.

Ric took on work as a bounty hunter, a mercenary as well as a pilot during his time in Wildspace. He gained a reputation of always following through on the job, no matter what it might have been. Doing this had gained him a fair share of enemies as well. One such enemy was a Hutt named Jogan. This Hutt blamed him for a cargo his competitor had stolen and hired Ric to fly to a small base. The cargo was on board a small yt-1300 and the first time Ric saw it, he had bargained with the man that it would serve as his payment. The man agreed and Ric and his Copilot had boarded the ship and got away with it. The Hutt sent a small fleet of fighters up after them and they dogged their tail all the way to the Minos Cluster.

Things were looking bad for Ric and his crew. The fighters were gaining on them and pounding their shields down. The navicomp could not set a course because of the gravity wells in the area and was next to useless. Ric spun the ship around and planned to engage the fighters with the concussion missiles located in the mandibles when the first craft exploded into a fireball. It was soon followed by many others.

A small patrol of Firesprays from the Star Destroyer Intrepid had stumbled across the fight and decided to intervene. Ric was overwhelmed with relief yet filled with dread. He hoped that they didn't have any warrants out for him being a deserter.

The Emperor's Hammer

The force turned out to be a part of the Emperors Hammer, a small force of Imperial Holdouts on this side of the Galaxy. After a while, Ric signed up in their TIE Corps and became a member of the squadron that had saved him. Ric stayed in Cobra squadron and rose to the job of Squadron Commander. It was also here that he had received a message from his mother and requested him to return home. He went and it was there that he learned that his father had not only been a soldier in the Clone Wars, but had been a Jedi as well. This information had finally unlocked the mystery of his fast reflexes, his ability to see things as well as why he had almost had his brain fried at Endor. The overwhelming force release of first the Emperor and then the crew of the station had been too much for his untrained mind to handle.

With this information he was sent to the moon of Eos to train as a Dark Jedi. He went through the academy there and went to Ektrosis of Taldryan to further continue his studies. It was under the instruction of his master, Krath Priestess Bubbles that he learned the ways of cloning. This was knowledge that he would have a great use for over the years.

After completing his training and attaining the rank of Dark Jedi Knight, Ric returned the the Intrepid to continue his duties as Commander. Ric led many missions against the enemy and on returning from a large operation, was surprised to find as ships were landing, the pilots who were Dark Jedi were all ushered to the briefing room. On the main viewer, a message played from the Fleet Commander followed by an excerpt from the Dark Council. A massive exodus of Dark Jedi were leaving territory controlled by the Emperors Hammer. They had become dissatisfied with the power play in the Command Staff and had decided to depart. The Dark Jedi who left were declared traitors and had bounties placed on their heads. There were many who made tough choices whether to stay or leave with the clans. Ric chose to stay.

Not long after settling in the Taruma system, it was decided by the summit to create clones to replace some of the losses during the exodus. Most of the members of Ektrosis had DNA samples on file in the databases and it was a simple task to grow them. As a bonus, members of the summit also had memory downloads that would be reinserted into the clones minds as they matured bringing them the level just prior to the Exodus. One of these members was Ric as he had been a Tetrarch and had access to the equipment.

As his clone grew and matured, Ric had begun serving in Praetorian Squadron, the Intelligence Divisions Elite squadron. He went on many missions there and did a two year stint as the Commander and gaining the rank of General. The years went by and they started to take their toll on Ric. He moved up in the new Brotherhood that the Emperors Hammer had set up to try and gain more Force Users and reached the apex of the cult as Grandmaster.

It was during this time that Ric grew discontent with the leadership of the EH and decided to set up an exit strategy. He had already made contacts in Wildspace and had a few in the New Republic thanks to his time with the Intel Division. He planned to make use of these contacts and retire to some out of the way planet. He knew that he would need more funds as his accounts had been frozen by the petty dictator Grand Admiral Astatine. Ric made his way to the abandoned Ektrosis base and gathered up a few items he felt he would need. He loaded them onto the YT-1300, the Holdout, and launched for orbit.

Something pulled him to the mothball fleet at anchor. The Intrepid had been placed here after a downsizing of the fleet and felt the need to end his career where it had began. He did a manual landing in the hanger and entered the ship. It was a deserted ghost compared to his memories of her. After pausing at his former quarters, he made his way to the bridge.

It was there, staring out of the forward view point that he saw him. Clothed in a black flight suit with no insignia stood his much younger and stronger clone. After a brief exchange, the two men battled, a battle that only one of them would walk away from.

The Dark Jedi Brotherhood

It was never clear exactly who had won, the only thing that was certain that a man that matched his description down to the genetic coding, left the hanger bay of the Intrepid and launched for Taruma space. Although the original man had never been to Taruma, his contacts in the Dark Brotherhood had kept him up to date on his former clan. He made his way back to find that they had left a skeleton crew to guard the system and had left to engage the Vong.

He took a fast transport from Taruma and made his way to the Shroud where the battle was going on. From the reports he had read said, they had engaged the Vong and the Vong had driven the brotherhood from the Capitol worlds in the Antei system. They had also driven clan Arcona from their homes, which in the overall scheme of things was no big loss. After that, Ric returned to his house on Taruma and took to calling himself Blade again. He continued his training but soon grew unhappy. He decided to seek different training and was soon in the Cocytus system, the home of Scholae Palatinae. He entered house Caliburnus in time for the Reclamation action, reclaiming the CSP worlds from the Vong Invaders. After a short stay in Caliburnus, he ended up in Dorimad Sol as the Aedile. Soon, Ric stepped down to focus more on his studies of Cloning as well as other ventures. One of these ventures was commissioned by his clan summit and it involved surveying the system to see what had changed since the Vong had arrived.

One of his other endeavors has been to develop new weapons for the legions, weapons such as the MAAT/i. The Multi Altitude Assault Transport for Infantry was based on the design for the LAAT/i of Clone Wars fame. The MAAT/i was designed for insertion from orbit and ship to ship actions. This would allow the transport ships to stay above the planetary dangers while still delivering troopers to target zones. This advancement as well as new tactics earned Ric a spot on the Military High Command as the Marshal in Command of the Marine forces. Ric took the job very seriously and helped to train the Marines into the elite force that they are currently in.

A New Era

Once more, Ric was asked to take a position in the house summit when he was offered the Aediles office. He accepted as he felt that it would benefit the house in the upcoming war to retake Antei. He did what he could to prepare the house as well as others in the clan.

On a side note, those that know Ric swear that he is older than he looks. What they have yet to realize is that he has a small cloning facility set up in the frozen wastes of Caina. Once his clone ages or is damaged, he activates a new body complete with his most recent memories.

Trivia

• Ric leads the Clan Marine Corps, serving as a High General. He is anxious to let his marines loose on some unsuspecting Vong, if they are ever foolish enough to try and challenge CSP in their home again.
• Blade was a former Tetrarch in Ektrosis, running Hex, Phoenix and Horsemen of the Apocalypse at different times. He wears the Phoenix tattoo that marks his position and wears the medallion he earned.
• These days, Blade spends his time as a weapons designer, creating new ships and lightsabers.
• Blade was also a former Grandmaster from the other club, the EHDB, as well as the last EHDB Sith High Warrior.
• Blade is responsible for most of the images of Caina and Judecca. He has been working on that project from the time he entered the clan until now.
• Blade won the CSP Oscar for Graphic Arts in 2008 with 10 votes. He also got the most votes of anyone in any category.