Azgoghk

The Azgoghk was an Imperial dungeon ship created for the extermination of alien species in the farthest reaches of the galaxy, in accordance with Human High Culture. Part of a trio of extermination ships commissioned especially to serve rabidly Humanocentric Imperial Grand Admiral Danetta Pitta, it was commanded by Admiral Mir Tork, with chief scientist Leonis Murthé serving as second-in-command. Along with the Angrix and Apocahk, the Azgoghk and its considerable escort forces were deployed to the Outer Rim Territories, officially on an Imperial exploration mission, in truth to locate, enslave and eradicate non-Human civilizations.
For several years the Azgoghk roamed the Rim, harvesting planets of their resources and populace; however, the dungeon ship's escort force was called to fight at Endor in 4 ABY, and the vulnerable Azgoghk was disabled by Rebellion forces. Murthé and Tork escaped, and later returned to the site of the intact Azgoghk and resumed their mandate, even though Pitta was dead and the Empire was in disarray.
One of the last species targeted by the ship, the Gulmarids, hired bounty hunter Boba Fett to execute Murthé and Tork; Fett engaged with the Azgoghk on Malicar 3, disabling it and killing its two insane overseers. The ship remained dormant on Malicar 3, its final batch of prisoners freed by Fett; the bounty hunter returned the heads of Murthé and Tork to Gulmarid survivor Slique Brighteyes.
==Description==
The death ship was commanded by Admiral Mir Tork and his sadistic science officer Leonis Murthé, and was one of three such ships, along with the Apocahk and Angrix, under the banner of Grand Admiral Danetta Pitta.
==History==
==="Exploration"===
The Azgoghk, alongside its sister ships Angrix and Apocahk, came to prominence during the Galactic Civil War, at some point after 2 BBY. Danetta Pitta was appointed an Imperial Grand Admiral in that year; a rabid, anti-alien bigot—who, ironically, was himself of near-Human descent—he was a staunch believer in Human High Culture. Pitta advocated the extermination of non-Human species, and to this end he was given control of the three dungeon ships. Officially they were used for exploration and expanding the Empire's borders in the Outer Rim Territories, but Pitta used them solely for genocide. Each ship worked separately, with a large escort force consisting of several Star Destroyers and other, smaller support craft. Once a planet's species was wiped out and its resources stripped bare, each ship would move on to another world ripe for exploitation.
The Azgoghk was commanded by Mir Tork, a ruthlessly efficient, fanatically Humanocentric Imperial admiral. Second-in-command was chief scientist Leonis Murthé, another whose hatred for aliens was matched only by Tork and Pitta. The ship wiped out hundreds of species on its travels, while Murthé performed experiments on choice captives, prolonging their misery before eventually killing them.
===Hiatus===
Several months prior to the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, the Empire took the remote, primitive world of Gulma, and the Azgoghk was sent to the surface to vacuum up its inhabitants, the peaceful Gulmarid. A force of stormtroopers rounded up the population, informing them that they were to be taken offworld for their own safety. Inquisitive Gulmarid were brutally punished, and the naïve species acquiesced to the Imperial demands and boarded the ship. The ship was later abandoned by the imperials and was liberated by rebel fighters. Mir Tork and Leonis Murthe later returned to the ship with a force of slavers.
===Post-Endor===
One survivor of the Azgoghk's cleansing was a Gulmarid named Slique Brighteyes, who hired Boba Fett in 11 ABY to kill Tork and Murthé in exchange for the Gulmarids' combined wealth: 100 credits. Ostensibly to improve his damaged reputation (following his defeat at the Great Pit of Carkoon), Fett accepted the job. On Malicar 3, Fett single-handedly brought down the ship with an ion cannon. Fett then infiltrated the ship and killed Tork and Murthé. He also freed dozens of alien prisoners, who stripped weapons from Fett's trail of corpses and revolted against the remaining slavers.
Fett returned to Brighteyes on Basteel with the severed heads of Tork and Murthé, having completed his assignment. The Azgoghk's reign of terror had finally ended.
===Fett===
The Gulmarids, one the last species captured by the Azgoghk pre-Endor, were slowly dying out; those who had escaped the Azgoghk were in terrible physical condition and many simply lost the will to live. The survivors, represented by Slique Brighteyes, were determined that Tork and Murthé would die before the last of the Gulmarids did. Pooling together their resources, which totaled a miserly one hundred credits, they decided to put out a bounty on Tork and Murthé. Prices had previously been put on the pair's heads, but bounty hunters had either died trying or refused to touch the contract, believing that the Azgoghk was impenetrable. Brighteyes, however, sought to hire Boba Fett; once the most notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy, Fett's career was stuttering after a number of high profile failures, and Brighteyes hoped he would accept the mission to prove his abilities.
Brighteyes outlined his proposition to Fett, but when the Gulmarid informed Fett of the reward, the bounty hunter almost killed him on the spot for wasting his time. However, after further consideration Fett accepted the offer, in a last ditch attempt to reignite his failing career. The Azgoghk mission was said to be one of the most bizarre bounties ever accepted by Fett, and in a galaxy rife with Fett impostors, some questioned whether it was even Fett who undertook it.
==Appearances==
*Boba Fett: Agent of Doom 
==Sources==
*The New Essential Guide to Characters
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*The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
==Notes and references==
Category:Imperial extermination ships
Category:Starships of the Galactic Empire