Kraval Taldrya

" Kif, I'm sensing a very sensual disturbance in the force. Prepare for ship-to-ship intimacy! "

―Zap Brannigan

Character History

Early life

Kraval Novir 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.

Kraval was sitting in class minding his own business when Trom, the boy behind him, began to throw wads of paper at him. This sort of thing had been happening to Kraval for years. He wasn't the popular kid in school; in fact he was the type to be easily picked on. Since he had his father's temper he always wanted to fight back, but he also had his mother's kindness which prevented him from doing anything. So Kraval would just take the insults, shoves, and taunts and try not to let them bother him. However, on this particular day Kraval could take no more. For him, this had gone on long enough. Trembling with rage, Kraval turned around and imagined hurting the boy in a horrible way. To his surprise, Trom began to twitch uncontrollably as if he was having a seizure.

A large grin emerged from Kraval's mouth as he kept picturing the boy in pain, but then the teacher grabbed Kraval from behind and was shouting at him about what was he doing. She had a frightened look on her face when she realized that Trom was on the floor but Kraval didn't have his hands near him. The teacher dragged Kraval to the principal’s office where she told him what had happened and upon hearing this the principal looked intrigued. That look vanished quickly as the principle told Kraval he was expelled while he called Kraval's mother to come pick him up. Kraval didn't have to wait long, for his mother was on her way home when she received the call on her mini-hologram cube in the speeder.

As they returned home, Kraval's mother wondered where she had gone wrong in raising her son. She really had tried her best, but apparently it just wasn't enough. What worried her the most though was how Kraval managed to hurt the other boy. It was obvious that her son had Force abilities. That fact in itself was bad enough. That he could focus his hate enough to harm a boy was horrific. The Emperor had exterminated the Jedi order and Kraval's mother had heard stories about what happened to children to display Force powers. She recalled the tales of men clad in black armor storming into homes in the middle of the night kidnapping the Force gifted child while killing the rest of the family. She shuddered at that thought and hoped that no one at the school would report what had happened.

What she didn't know was that the principle of Kraval's school was actually an agent for the Empire, sent to monitor the school and watch for Force sensitive children. As Kraval and his mother left his office, he opened a secure channel to a shadowy figure. He explained the situation to the dark man who then told the agent to arrange for a commando group to take the boy and bring him aboard an Imperial ship. The principle acknowledged his orders, terminated the link, and back tracked the call log and deleted it so no one would know about his conversation. He then went back to work, just as a normal school principal should.

Introduced to the Dark Side

At exactly midnight, while Kraval and his mother were sleeping, a commando squad specially trained to deal with kidnapping Force children moved into the house. Contrary to all the rumors and tales about how the squads smashed in and slaughtered everyone, the group moved with great speed and stealth as they entered Kraval's room. They injected him a sedative and wrapped him up in a blanket so his limbs wouldn't flail around and make noise. As the last commando left the home, he unhooked a datapad from the door lock, allowing it to reactivate and purging the lock's records for that day. The commandos hopped into their speeder and zoomed away from the city. They made a sharp turn and drove over the sea, coming to a small cove where they hid their shuttle. They loaded the slim speeder and Kraval onto the shuttle and lifted off.

The pilot of the shuttle used Chandrilla's gravity well to help propel them on their projected hyperspace course, and when they emerged from light speed a frigate loomed in front of them. The pilot ordered that Kraval be brought up to see his future. Kraval was escorted to the cockpit by one of the commandos and when he saw the ship in the view port he froze. He had never seen such a large ship. The pilot saw the look on Kraval's face and grinned. He brought the shuttle into a secluded bay where there was a man clad in black armor similar to the ones the commandos wore.

As Kraval headed down the shuttle ramp he glanced at the man in black, his bright red hair and green eyes a stark contrast to his uniform. When the commandos and Kraval reached a point in front of the black clad man, the commandos kneeled before him and the leader pulled Kraval down to one knee. As he waited to what would happen next, he felt something probe into his mind. It was cold, precise, and fast. Before he could identify what it was, it vanished. He looked up and the dark man made a single gesture which confused young Kraval. What did it mean? Would they take him away to be trained, or would they kill him? He soon found out the answer.

Imperial Training

As he looked back at that first encounter, Kraval realized how foolish he was to be afraid when he first met one of the Emperor’s Inquisitors. The years following that event went by quickly. Since he was Force gifted, he couldn't be sent to a normal military training academy. He was instead sent to a facility where he could be taught to enhance his skill for flying. Since his father was an excellent pilot, the military testers thought he would be just as great, or since he had the Force he would be even better. Kraval remembered the cliff side hangar and fortress as it stood alone on a mountain surrounded by a dry desert. He recalled being forcibly woken up very early every morning for his training regimen of weight lifting and aerobic exercises. From there he had to proceed to a class room where for eight hours he would learn all he could about star fighter tactics.

Kraval learned everything he needed to know to become one of the best pilots 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 and how to get the carrier's turrets to hit its own fighters. He found out how to use a TIE Bomber to engage in dogfights against rebel X-Wings. He even had the privilege of being one of the first pilots to fly the new TIE Advanced. It was one of the best fighters 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 placed 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 star fighters. They weren't easy to find, no manufacturer would be dumb enough to have a stationary shipyard to make rebel star fighters. 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. Some 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.

Defiance and Strategy

When Kraval's 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 Nebulon-B Frigate 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 frigate’s 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 capital ship. 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 frigate were easy kills, the best only lasting for a few minutes. 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 ten 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.

The Nebulon-B Frigate 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 Advanced squad easily made quick work of the turbolaser emplacements and the missile launcher on the bottom of the ship. Realizing that most of his guns were gone, the ship's commander tried to deploy transport ships to surround the capital ship 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. Dozens of missiles and laser blasts sailed through the cold vacuum of space, lancing and destroying section after section of the Rebel ship until it couldn’t hold its frame.

As the frigate 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 formed an image in his mind, an image of a pained Hirth's on the ground. Hirth immediately froze, his body convulsing violently. Those who trained Kraval may not have wanted to further his training with the Force, but he was easily able to remember how he did it as a child. 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.

Wandering and Discovery

For a few years Kraval wandered the Corporate Sector and the Outerrim territories, hoping to find someone who could teach him in the ways of the Force. He traveled from Almania to Alzoc III, and still he had found no one. Kraval had almost given up when he felt a glimmer of power. It was faint, but he was sure he felt something. He plotted a jump in the direction he sensed the power. He had no set destination as he entered hyperspace, but it only took half a minute before Kraval felt the urge to pull back on the hyperdrive levers and snap into real space. He checked his computer's database to identify where he was. The only this he could pull up on his screen was information about the planet in front of him. A large green and brown world, the computer could not identify it. It was a planet covered almost entirely by large valleys and dangerous mountains. This intrigued Kraval, for this planet would be the perfect place for a garrison and a good place for a Force user to hide. Little did he know how right he was.

As Kraval entered the atmosphere, he turned to head towards a city. He didn't get far, for as he passed through a valley turrets appeared from the walls and began to open fire. Only his training saved him, as he got a half second warning and made a quick barrel roll to the left. The turrets began tracking him again and he took more evasive maneuvers, each move faster and more risky than the last. Somehow, the turrets managed to keep up with him, and some even shot at him before he got to a certain location. The turrets knew where he was going to go before he went there. Using his powers the best he could, Kraval stretched out his senses and discovered something very surprising about the turrets. They weren't automated as he thought, instead they were manned by people with the same abilities he had.

Kraval wondered if they could be the ones he sensed before, but didn't have much time to think about it. For that split second when he divided his attention between flying and sensing had cost him dearly. One of the turrets managed to land a shot that pierced the shuttle's shimmering blue shields and made a solid hit on the engines. Kraval was forced to switch over to repulsorlifts and make an emergency landing. Putting all the power he could afford to, Kraval struggled to keep the shuttle from smashing completely into the ground. Just as he was about to hit solid earth, his ship suddenly slowed down and made a soft landing. Kraval, not wanting to know why his ship had for no apparent reason slowed down, dashed back to the cargo area and gathered what he needed in a hurry.

Attempted Escape

As he opened the exit ramp, Kraval planted the single explosive on the shuttle. He knew that whoever shot him had tracked his ship all the way down to the ground. He wanted to leave a nasty surprise for those sent to investigate the ship. He set the motion sensors on the bombs and closed the ramp. He consulted his datapad and made a quick sprint in the direction of the city, for the computer said it was only five kilometers south of his current position. It wasn't even ten minutes after he left his rigged shuttle before he heard a loud explosion. Kraval turned around and saw a huge flaming plume rise into the air. He smiled and continued running, for he knew that they would soon start searching the area for him. Oddly enough, there were no search parties that he came across. He thought that it was suspicious, but he moved on, determined to reach the city.

Within a few hours, Kraval managed to reach the outskirts of the metropolis. Now the question was how was he going to get out of there? Obviously these people were hostile to outsiders and most likely weren't going to teach him in the ways of the Force. Kraval peered at his datapad again and found a section that was shaped roughly like an air field. Perfect, he thought. All he would have to do is reach that field, steal a fighter, and blast off. He knew, however, that it wouldn't be that easy. If those turrets were any indication of these people's defenses, they wouldn't be lax about the airfield.

Kraval moved through the city while avoiding attracting unnecessary attention. Fortunately, he was wearing a type of clothing that was common throughout the galaxy, a simple black vest and black pants with leather boots. He weaved in between buildings, trying to stay away from any main roads. It didn't take him long to find the airfield and it took him only a second longer to find the defenses. For an airfield holding starfighters there certainly wasn't much. Four light class AV-21 speeders were moving back and forth and up in the towers were a few guards, but other than that there seemed to be nothing else. Then again, Kraval reminded himself, he didn't see the cannons in the mountains. They may have a similar setup here, he thought, but there was one thing he was sure about. They didn't have landmines setup in the field, because the four speeders were moving across it all the time. But for all he knew there were mines there and they were programmed to recognize certain vehicles and not blow them up. Oh well, Kraval thought, there was only one way to find out.

Kraval managed to get a top of the line Seinar X-T speeder from a dealership under the pretext of taking it out for a test drive. Kraval pulled the speed to a clearing about one hundred feet from the field and checked his pack. He had a modified DL-54 blaster with three spare power packs and three sonic grenades with a special magnetic grip that activated two seconds after the grenade was turned on. He closed his bag and throttled the engine to full and shot off towards the airfield. As he approached the defense lines, he hopped that he wouldn't get blasted into a million pieces.

The defenses were slow to respond to his intrusion, because Kraval made it past the gate and was halfway to one of the pads before any forces responded. As he angled to the landing area, the other speeders attempted to get to teach side of him and put Kraval in a classic "down the middle" trap where they could just fire between themselves to hit him from both sides. Kraval, being the experienced pilot that he was, recognized the maneuver and used the speeder's boosters to zip ahead of the group. When the defenders began to move close together behind him, Kraval grabbed a sonic grenade, activated it, and tossed it high up over his shoulder. One moment he was speeding along, the next there was a medium size shock wave coursing through the air. He looked back and saw only one of the four speeders was left, it was badly damaged and turning away from him. As for the rest, he only saw melted chunks of metal.

When he was within seventy feet of the doors to the pads, two turrets suddenly popped up from the ground, their barrels swiveling to target him. Kraval began another series of evasive turns, but it did him little good. The turrets were too fast in tracking him, and he knew that if he stayed on the speeder for much longer, he was a dead man. Thinking quickly, Kraval attached his bag to the speeder and activated the last two sonic grenades, putting a ten second timer on them. He slowed the speeder down while grabbing his blaster and spare clips. As the turrets continued to fire, he jumped out the side and rolled onto the ground, putting the speeder between him and the turrets. The turrets kept shooting at the speeder, they actually managed to damage it enough to come crashing down in front of them. But the turrets didn't manage to get it to crash far enough away from them. With no warning, the two grenades went off at the same time, the resulting shockwave forced Kraval flat on the ground.

As he stood back up, he noticed that the tower guards were also stunned by the blast, and he was able to shoot them with his pistol before they got to sound an alarm. He dashed for the pads, past the charred wrecks of the turrets and into the pit where an interceptor was waiting. Breathing a sigh of relief, Kraval moved to the ship. As he got within a few feet of the fighter, he thought he saw movement at the edge of his vision. He quickly turned around and brought his pistol up. His head swayed back and forth as he searched for a target, but he saw nothing. He returned his gun to its holster and turned back to the ship. Just as he did that a figure seemed to emerge from the ship's shadow. Right off the ground this man appeared. Before Kraval could even react, the man made a simple hand gesture and Kraval felt the same shadows that the man came from engulf him.

Dinaari

When he awoke, Kraval was lying down in a bunk. His clothes had been changed into some sort of white robe. Still wondering where he was at, the door to the room he was in opened. A figure in a black robe stood there staring at him. After a minute or so of scrutinizing him, he motioned for Kraval to follow him. As they moved down a hall made of black obsidian stone, Kraval noticed two distinct symbols on the walls. One was a blue scythe-like shape, and the other looked like a red star gone nova. The two men reached an elevator and when they stepped inside Kraval could see no buttons to press. Instead, when the doors closed, the lift began to move upwards automatically.

The doors of the lift re-opened and the black robed man led the way to an extremely large door. As they approached the doors opened to reveal a large office with a desk in the center of it. A man was doing computer work when the two entered. He looked up, stopped his typing, and rose from his chair. He was a man of medium height and medium build. He didn't have bulging muscles threatening to tear apart his clothes, but he wasn't skinny by any means. His face looked like it had been carved from granite, his eyes a silver gray color. His jet black hair was flattened to his head and his ears were the pointiest Kraval had ever seen. He circled Kraval and looked him over. He asked Kraval what he was doing on their planet. He replied that he wanted to learn more about the Force. The man looked suspiciously at Kraval then continued on. He mentioned the shoot down of the shuttle and the little trap that failed to kill much less hurt anyone. The men sent to check out the downed craft had sensed the trap and had used the Force to set off the bombs. The man then talked about the stolen speeder and Kraval's assault on the airfield.

Then the man did something totally unexpected. He congratulated Kraval on making it so far. Many others were put through the same trials as he was, but most never got past the cannons in the mountains. The way Kraval used the speeder bike as a bomb carrier was a good choice given the situation he was in. The man looked at Kraval one more time and then gestured to the man in the black robes. He told him to take Kraval to the Initiation Temple on Karufr. As he left the room, Kraval smiled and noticed the similarity to this situation and one he had as a child. Once again, Kraval was being led on to start his training.

Dark Side Training

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.

His first training session had been a joke. There was a huge open area where he was told to report for training, and he walked out into the clearing not suspecting a thing. He barely got a warning through the Force before a shot rang out at him and a spot of burnt grass appeared beside his foot. He looked up and saw a man with a Tenloss sniper rifle cradled in his hands. He jumped down from his spot and walked over to Kraval wearing a smug look on his face. The man introduced himself as the commander, and told Kraval that he had made the first biggest mistake anyone could make. Never walk into a clearing without looking around first, snipers love when someone does that.

His combat training only got tougher from there. Since he was in clan Taldryan, they had a long standing tradition of using the Bryars pistol in combat. It has two modes of fire, one rapid low powered shot, while the other was a slower but more powerful charge shot. Taldryan prided itself on being the only clan to have mastered that pistol, and they demanded that even the newest members become proficient in its use. Kraval was once again ordered to report to the training grounds, but this time he decided to trap his battle team leader, instead of getting trapped.

As he approached the clearing, he crouched down into the dense foliage. He knew his leader was expecting him, so instead of going into the clearing himself, he projected an image of himself walking out into the open. His leader, assuming that Kraval hadn't learned his lesson from the first incident, stood up and began charging his pistol. Kraval, however, saw him aim at the projection and snapped off a few low powered shots at his commanders mid section. As the bolts flashed towards his leader, Kraval's projection vanished into thin air. His leader spun around just in time to take the shots in front of himself. Just when the bolts looked like they were going to strike flesh, they disappeared into a wavy green field. His leader had been smart and had activated his personal shielding unit long before the fight.

No day had ever been more tiring in Kraval's life. He truly learned his physical limits on that morning. Using the Bryars pistol wasn't an easy task. Using the charged shot caused the gun to shake a bit, forcing the user to compensate for the jumpiness of the gun. Then he learned the art of using the gun in actual combat. Kraval had to jump left and right, back and forth, side to side, and whatever way he could think of to avoid getting hit. He tried to shoot back, but every time he fired he would miss his target wide. He would aim for where his target was, and then when he shot, the target would be on the other side of the field by that time.

Kraval finally got the concept that he had to attempt to predict where his target was going and shoot at that spot, instead of where the target was at that moment. Once he got that down there was very little difference from what he was doing there compared to what he did in a fighter. He learned how to adjust shots for mid-air attacks, how to move at the last minute, and how to use the momentum of a hit that would land on his shields and force him back a small distance. As soon as he became good with that weapon, he decided to train in the other commonly used weapons.

He learned how to use a heavy repeater, how to effectively use the speed shots to lay down suppressive fire. He found out that the secondary fire on that gun shot out a concussive blast that could knock enemy troops to their feet. He learned how to shot a Golan Arms FC-1 rifle. The main blast shoots out shards of medal, while the secondary shots fire two concussion balls that can bounce off walls and was handy for hitting enemies around corners. His favorite weapon, however, was the same one used by his battle team leader during their first training session. It was the Tenloss Disruptor Rifle. A perfect little weapon, it could fire semi-powerful, semi-fast shots that could do some good damage to an enemy's shields. The best feature of the rifle though was the sniper function. It was that part of the gun that had earned Kraval a spot on the Grand Masters Royal Guard. That weapon, and Kraval's excelled use of it, got the attention of his order leader, Sith High Warrior and Dark Jedi Master Gui Long, commonly known as Bloodfyre.

Leadership

After a while Kraval took on command of Dark Fire Brigade, Dinaari’s only battle team. Succeeding to Aedile then Quaestor of Dinaari Kraval lead the house for a brief period of time before becoming Arbiter Magistrate then Praetor to the Master at Arms. Due to the ascension of Halcyon Rokir to Deputy Grand Master Kraval was elevated to the position of Master at Arms which he currently holds.

Absence during the Yuuzhan Vong War

Not many know what the Master at Arms was doing during the conflict. Rumors of trips through the Outer Rim and a few Inner Core Worlds are spoken by members of the Brotherhood but knowledge of his actual whereabouts at the time are still unknown.

DJB Facts

Pwnz0r of the last ORoS
Creator of the fictional descriptions of the planets listed in the Kr'Tal System

Positions Held

BTL of Dark Fire Brigade
AED and QUA of House Dinaari
The only person to hold the position of Arbiter Magistrate to the MAA
Praetor to the MAA
MAA
ACC Operator