Hedda Casset

Hedda Casset was a human female who served as the final captain of the starship Legacy Run during the High Republic Era. With over forty years of flying experience by the time of the Great Hyperspace Disaster, she was a veteran of the Malastare-Sullust Joint Task Force, in which she had served with distinction before retiring to pilot the Legacy Run for the Byne Guild. Casset died at the onset of the Great Disaster, when the Legacy Run tore itself apart in hyperspace when Casset attempted to pilot it out of the way of an obstruction which later investigation revealed to be a Nihil Stormship traversing a Path.
==Biography==
===Life and death===
Hedda Casset lived during the High Republic Era. When she was young, she served in the Malastare-Sullust Joint Task Force, a regional military which protected a sector around the border of the Mid Rim. Casset began her military career flying a single-seat Z-24 Buzzbug starfighter, but eventually rose to command a heavy cruiser, one of the largest starships in the task force's fleet. When she left Mallust JTF after over thirty years, she did so with distinction.
For her retirement, Casset took a job captaining merchant vessels with the Byne Guild, and was eventually placed in charge of the Class A modular freight transport Legacy Run. She ran the freighter with military discipline, keeping the ship in tip-top shape and her crew well-ordered, on journeys that included transporting ogrut hides and passengers. Casset was in charge of the Legacy Run on an occasion when it delivered a saberfish from Tibrin to Abregado-rae, a journey which required half of its hold to be converted into an aquarium. The countess who had ordered the fish then had it shipped back after it became sick because her people could not care for it, so Casset presided over the return journey as well.
In 232 BBY, the Legacy Run was transporting thousands of passengers from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim Territories. While the starship was traversing a well-mapped hyperspace route in the vicinity of the Hetzal system, Casset double-checked the readouts before handing over command of the bridge to her second-in-command, Lieutenant Jary Bowman, so she could take her evening constitutional. Taking a walk around the ship, Casset entered a common area and encountered young passenger Serj Ukkarian, who asked her for new holos he and his friends could watch. Casset told him he'd seen everything in the ship's archives, and scolded him for attempting to slice into the archives to see age-restricted titles, telling him she knew everything that happened aboard the Legacy Run. She left after informing the children that they would remember their time aboard fondly once they were doing hard work with their parents off of it.
Continuing on her walk, Casset exchanged pleasantries with more passengers before finishing her rounds. She went through the passenger compartments, checked on a shipment of liquid Tibanna to ensure it was properly secured, inspected the engines, checked up on the progress of ongoing repairs to the freighter's environmental systems, and made sure there were enough fuel reserves for the rest of the journey. It was over an hour before she returned to the bridge and took the watch back from Bowman. Immediately after her return, an alarm went off, and Casset demanded a report. Her navigator, Cadet Kalwar, informed her that there was something directly ahead in the hyperlane: unbeknownst to any of the Legacy Run crew, it was a Stormship from the Nihil pirate group traversing the Paths, secret hyperspace routes known only to the group which could be accessed by their Path engines.
Despite her considerable shock at the situation, with seconds remaining before an impact, Casset ordered her bridge crew to brace themselves before taking direct control of the Legacy Run. She used all of her piloting skill to maneuver her starship past the unknown obstacle, and was successful. However, the Legacy Run, well over a century old, was unable to handle the stress and tore itself apart. In her final moments, Casset activated the bulkhead shielding to seal off the cargo modules, hoping to save at least some of the passengers, such as Serj Ukkarian, hoping that the children in the common area had gone to their families due to the alarms. She met Bowman's gaze, and he tried to tell her it had been an honor as they both perished when the bridge ripped open.
===Legacy===
The destruction of the Legacy Run caused the Great Hyperspace Disaster, which led to massive amounts of the starship's debris hurtling into the Hetzal system, and the star system's near-destruction due to the liquid Tibanna in its cargo. Casset's final action did save some passengers, including Serj Ukkarian, who had been inside compartment eight, which was halted from a collision with Hetzal Prime's Fruited Moon during the Jedi and Galactic Republic rescue effort.
The ripple effects from the disaster continued as a series of Emergences of the debris which caused a temporary interdiction on hyperspace travel throughout large swathes of the Outer Rim. Jedi Master Avar Kriss and Jedi Knight Elzar Mann were placed in charge of the investigation into the cause of the disaster, and eventually deduced that the Legacy Run had been torn apart because Casset had had to maneuver it in hyperspace, something that normally was not necessary. Ukkarian proved to be a valuable witness, eventually revealing to Jedi Knight Nib Assek and Padawan Burryaga Agaburry that he had seen "three lightning bolts" during an attempt to hack into the bridge in retaliation for Casset's earlier scolding. The recovery of the Legacy Run flight recorder eventually confirmed the sighting as a Nihil Stormship.
During the dedication ceremony of the new space station Starlight Beacon, Casset was among the casualties of the Great Disaster and subsequent conflicts with the Nihil who was memorialized by Supreme Chancellor Lina Soh.
==Personality and traits==
Hedda Casset was an older human woman with grey hair and an aging body by the time of her death. Her time in the military had instilled her with a love of discipline and order, which she expected and received from her civilian crew. She further kept discipline by keeping the aging Legacy Run in top condition, ensuring it was regularly maintained. She was compassionate, thinking well of the countess from Abregado-rae for bothering to pay to return the saberfish after it became ill, when most nobility probably would not have bothered. Casset also enjoyed speaking to children, but she would also be stern with them when necessary, as when she reprimanded Serj Ukkarian for attempting to access age-inappropriate media. She was willing to risk her life for others, as when she attempted to save the Legacy Run from a collision.
==Skills and abilities==
Hedda Casset was a skilled pilot and military commander, retiring from the Malastare-Sullust Joint Task Force with distinction after over thirty years of service. She had over forty years of flying experience at the time of her death. Her skill was such that she was able to successfully maneuver the Legacy Run, a bulky freighter that moved more like a moon than a starfighter, out of the way of an obstacle, even though the starship's great age meant it did not survive the incident.
==Equipment==
At the beginning of her service with the Mallust JTF, Hedda Casset flew an Incom Corporation Z-24 Buzzbug starfighter.
==Behind the scenes==
Hedda Casset appeared in the 2021 novel The High Republic: Light of the Jedi, written by Charles Soule for the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project. She was first pictured in the young readers' book The High Republic: The Great Jedi Rescue. In a preliminary version of Light of the Jedi first chapter released on IGN, Casset was said to be just over sixty years old, a detail which was removed in the final version.
==Appearances==
*The High Republic: Light of the Jedi 
*The High Republic: The Great Jedi Rescue 
* 
==Sources==
*
*Star Wars: The High Republic: Chronicles of the Jedi
*Star Wars: Timelines
*
*Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia
*Star Wars Encyclopedia: The Comprehensive Guide to the Star Wars Galaxy
==Notes and references==
Category:Byne Guild members
Category:Captains
Category:Females
Category:Humans
Category:Individuals with she/her pronouns
Category:Pilots