Kraval Taldrya

When the finger points to the yonder moon, The fool will not look at the fingertip.

- From the Epitaph of Twilight

Childhood

He was born into a middle class family in the Silver Sea's hospital on Chandrilla. His father was an Imperial pilot while his mother was a programmer for Hallowan Laboratories. His parents decided to name him Kraval, after a mythical beast from his father's home world. Most of Kraval's early childhood was uneventful. Whenever his mother was at work he would be sent to a child care facility, and seeing as how his father was an Imperial TIE pilot, he was rarely if ever home.

His parents did the best they could with what they had. They would buy him new toys and clothes as a way to make up for their absences, but for Kraval it just wasn't the same. He would break the toys within a week and he kept outgrowing his clothes at an extremely fast pace. While trying to raise young Kraval, his mother learned two things about him. First, he had inherited his father's temper and her sensitivity to insults. These realizations came all on the same day that Kraval was kicked out of school for attacking another boy, although he didn't lay a hand on him.

Imperial Service

Kraval learned everything he needed to know to become a fairly good pilot in the Imperial Navy. He learned how to fly a TIE Interceptor against an escort carrier and effectively shoot its turrets while evading shots from the ship. He found out how to use a TIE Bomber to engage in dogfights against rebel A-wings. He even had the privilege of being one of the first pilots to fly the new TIE Advanced. It was the best the Empire had to offer. It boasted speed of that beyond what the A-wing could fly, and it carried a descent missile payload to make it a threat to capital class starships.

Now Kraval was under the command of Colonel Hirth. The unit under Hirth's command had the task of hunting down the numerous shipyards that built the rebel starfighters. They weren't easy to find, no manufacturer would be dumb enough to have a stationary shipyard to make rebel starfighters. So naturally they made the yards mobile, capable of moving from system to system. That's what made their assignment so difficult, and what was worse was the squad had to rely on Imperial Intelligence to tell them where to go. There would be months when the squad would fly to numerous systems desperately trying to find a shipyard to blow up. Most of the time they would find yards to destroy, but other times they squad would arrive in system only to find that they had just missed catching one.

Then there were the months where the squad did nothing. Intel would have nothing to report and even though most of the squad was Force sensitive, they were only taught enough to benefit their flying skills; they weren't allowed to expand on their powers. So if they weren't out hunting for ship yards, they spent their time training or playing war games. Few of the missions they were sent on excited Kraval, most of them didn't even challenge him. The routine was always the same; you jump into the system, disable the ship yard's hyperdrive, engage the enemy starfighter defenses, and finish off the yard. The only mission that came close to excitement was when Hirth's group was hunting down a mobile yard that supposedly produced X-wings and was guarded by a corvette. The plan called for the squad to make a lighting strike and use the same tactics as always.

When Kraval's TIE Advanced reverted to realspace he realized that Intel had screwed up again. The shipyard was where it was supposed to be, but instead of a corvette protecting it, there was a Mon Calamari StarCruiser picking up a shipment of starfighters. Surprise flashed through Kraval for only a second. Colonel Hirth ordered the squad to split into four groups of three pilots each which was a big tactical mistake. If the groups split like that, then it would be easy for the shipyards defending fighters and the cruisers fighters to split them up and pick them off. Kraval realized this and, being the second in command, he ordered the squad to split into two groups of six instead. He ordered one group to attack the shipyard's hyperdrive while he took the other group to begin an assault on the cruiser. Hirth began yelling objections and threatened to court marshal Kraval and the rest of the group if they followed his lead. Which of course, they did, for they too saw the error Hirth made.

Most of the fighters that came out to defend the cruiser were easy kills, the best only lasting for a minute and fifteen seconds. The enemy pilots had to be fresh out of an academy, they didn't execute rolls or side swipe maneuvers properly, and their firing aim was the worst Kraval had seen in years. He took care of those fighters easily enough, not a single shot landed on his shields. The station never got the chance to send off a distress signal because the second group made a quick split and destroyed the hyperdrive and the communications tower at the same time. They then regrouped and managed to destroy the station and all of its defenses within seven minutes. It was a simple task for the group, swerving in and out of the dock struts, shooting turrets and weakened hull plates. This is what Hirth's squad had trained for.

File:Mon cal cruiser.jpg

The Mon Cal cruiser did manage to get a signal out before their comm dish was blasted by a proton torpedo, but it made no difference on the outcome of the battle. The cruiser's attempts to protect itself were pathetic. The TIE Advanced’s easily made quick work of the turbolaser emplacements and the two missile launchers on each side of the ship. Realizing that most of his guns were gone, the ship's commander tried to deploy transport ships to surround the cruiser with mines. That proved useless for when the transport pilots flew out of the bay, instead of laying a mine field, they jumped for hyperspace.

As the cruiser broke up into a flaming wreck, the squad maneuvered to enter hyperspace. Colonel Hirth commed Kraval and told him that he and the rest of the group would be brought up on charges of disobeying orders and insubordination. Kraval had other ideas about that. He was tired of being under the command of such an arrogant fool. When they arrived back at their base on the moon of Ison, the colonel stormed up to him, his face flushed red with rage. Kraval simply smiled at the old man and pictured a rock smashing into the leader’s head. From the right a sharp stone flew through the air and smacked into Hirth’s skull. After the colonel's body hit the floor like a string-less puppet, Kraval decided that he wanted to leave the Imperial Navy and learn more about his abilities and how to control them. Without looking at his fellow squad mates, Kraval strode over to a Lambda class shuttle and took it for himself.

DB Life

After wondering the Outerrim for some period of time the wondering former Imperial pilot found the Dark Brotherhood and began his studies. His training was not easy, nor was it quick. He was surprised at how much he did not know. Then again, he should have realized the truth. When he was with the Imperial Navy, they didn't allow him to focus on anything else other than becoming a superior pilot. He was taught how to expand his awareness to a short range, so that in star fighter combat he could tell what his opponent was going to do. He didn't know that he could expand that awareness even farther, to the point where he could feel other beings in other sectors.

Each and every day Kraval was stunned by what he was taught. He learned how to levitate items of all shapes and all sizes. Even though he doubted it, he had seen instructors lift boulders five times their size. When Kraval tried, he found that lifting objects wasn't that hard at all. Soon he surpassed his fellow students and was moving on to other areas of training. He watched the Krath priests use the Force to empower medallions with the dark side. He saw Obelisk troops use the Force to enhance their fighting skills.

Although he was an excellent pilot, he was by far not the best. Every other day he would get into a simulator and be shot down by one of the senior fighters. Surprisingly, this didn't anger him much. He felt that he did need improvement, especially fighting against people that had the same skills as he. For too long he had fought against inferior enemies, and with each victory he had become lax. Now it was coming back to haunt him. Fortunately, it was only in the simulators that his sloppiness was occurring. With time and training, he would become better. He was determined to be one of the best pilots in the Dark Brotherhood.

Not only did he want to become the best pilot, but he also wanted to become a hand to hand combatant. It was all well and good to be a fighter pilot, but what if in combat his craft was shot down? What would happen to him then? He would be forced to fend for himself on the ground where numerous enemies would await him. He took it upon himself to go and find a trainer, and he was lucky enough to have been placed into clan Taldryan, where some of the best ground combatants are. He was placed into Dark Fire Brigade, under the leadership of Jedi Hunter Fire-Knight. From there, he learned all he needed to know about ground battles.