Igosta Coates

**Igosta Coates** was a Human soldier and former pilot who served as an Imperial Commando during the Galactic Civil War. Born to a rich family who owned a small mining operation on the planet of Christophsis, until his family was forced to escape to Tatooine as a result of the fighting during the Clone Wars.

## Biography

### Early Life

#### Birth and Early Years

Igosta Coates was born in the city of Chaleydonia on the planet of Christophsis at some point during or before 25 BBY. Born into a well-off family who owned a small mining operation, Coates enjoyed a short few years of a happy and unproblematic childhood until the Separatist blockade and ensuing battles of Christophsis in 22 BBY.

In 22 BBY during the Separatist blockade of Christophsis, Coates Mining Corporation flourished as a result of mass purchasing of raw materials for the Separatist war effort. When the Grand Army of the Republic arrived months later in order to liberate the planet, the battles fought on the planet's surface resulted in extensive damage to mining equipment and infrastructure critical to the operation of the Coates Mining Corporation. Costly attempts to repair the equipment were ultimately futile due to the ongoing and unpredictable nature of the fighting between Separatist and Republic forces.

In order to save the lives of themselves and their only child, Igosta's parents used what little remained of their fortune to board a smuggler's ship to the planet of Bothawui.

#### Betrayal on Tatooine

The luck of the Coates family soured further when the smuggler they hired betrayed them, and left them stranded on the planet of Tatooine. With nothing to their name, the Coates family was forced to attempt to make a living on the planet, and potentially earn enough in order to follow their original plan to flee to Bothawui.

In order to get on their feet, Igosta's parents was forced to take a loan from a local crime lord so as to have a place to live. Shortly after, Igosta's mother took a job as a bartender at the local cantina, the Cheapside Cantina, while Igosta's father worked as security for moisture farmers in the city.

#### Childhood and Adolescent Life

After a few relatively uneventful and hard years living in Bestine, Igosta's father was killed by a Tuscan raider while protecting a shipment of water out of Bestine. With no other option, and payments soon due on their loan, Igosta's mother was faced with no other choice except to force her son to begin work as an assistant to the local doctor in Bestine. While receiving relatively little pay, Igosta enjoyed the work, and gained valuable knowledge in medicine.

When the payments for their loan increased, Igosta was forced to leave his job as a physician's assistant and instead work in the private security field, just as his father had years prior. Having worked as a physician's assistant for multiple years, his medicinal knowledge saved the lives of both himself and his coworkers countless times. Eventually, he was hired as a security officer for the Galactic Empire's Bureau of Ships and Services, where he met and befriended his coworkers Kleklack, Boose Luck, and Crunch-Bar.

While working with the Bureau of Ships and Services, Igosta on multiple occasions successfully repelled Tuscan Raider attacks on Bureau convoys moving across the sands from the branch in Bestine to the planetary headquarters in Mos Eisley. On one such occasion, his squad's commanding officer was killed, forcing him to take impromptu command of his squad. Despite having little experience in a command position, Igosta performed admirably, and successfully managed to eliminate the Tuscan Raiders with no casualties.

### Early Military Career

#### Imperial Stormtrooper Academy

After Imperial forces occupied Tatooine, Igosta joined the region's Stormtrooper Corps Academy in order to eventually become a Stormtrooper. His combined years of medicine and work as security resulted in him becoming the best of his class in the academy. Despite this, his teachers and peers alike resented him due to his impoverished upbringing on Tatooine, and believed that someone like him did not deserve such an accolade.

As a result, his peers would conspire in order to have him removed from the academy, such as plugging the barrel of his training blaster, or even purposefully sabotaging him during team training exercises. Regardless of these attempts, Igosta thrived while training in the academy. He graduated as a Stormtrooper Sergeant.

#### Imperial Special Forces

While training in the Stormtrooper Academy, Imperial Special Forces recruiters took note of Igosta's performance, and contacted him shortly after graduating the academy, inviting him to join their ranks as the fourth and final member of Noble Squad. Despite being the newest addition to the covert operations squad, he was readily accepted by his other squad members.

### Galactic Civil War

#### Virgillian Covert Operations

Igosta's first deployment was to the Outer Rim planet of Virgillia 7, in order to assist the Virgillian Aristocracy in their civil war against the Virgillian Free Alignment. While stationed on Virgillia 7, Igosta and the other members of Noble Squad were responsible for a number of covert operations on the planet, with the goal of disrupting the Free Alignment as much as possible.

##### Aristocracy Rebel Training

Upon first arriving on Virgillia 7, Noble Squad was tasked with training Aristocracy partisans located within territories owned by the Free Alignment. Due to the covert nature of the operation, Noble Squad were provided with only enough munitions for each squad member. As a result, after successfully training the partisans in basic combat and medical procedures, Noble Squad and a group of Aristocracy partisans sought to raid an Alignment armory.

While the group was ultimately able to take the armory, the Aristocracy partisans proved to be less capable than the squad had realized. On multiple occasions during the engagement, partisans did not properly follow effective battle tactics, and instead focused on how many Alignment forces each had eliminated. As a result, the group lost more members than was necessary, and nearly lost Noble-2.

Before Noble Squad could attempt to further train the partisans however, they received orders from Coruscant to infiltrate and disrupt Virgillian Free Alignment command. Every member of the team was promoted prior to the new operation, with Igosta being breveted a lieutenant.

##### Undercover in the Free Alignment

After receiving their orders from Coruscant, Noble Squad disguised themselves as farmers in the Free Alignment, and approached a Free Alignment captain requesting to join. The captain, being skeptical of their abilities and willingness to kill, handed Igosta a vibroblade and asked him to execute a recently captured Aristocracy partisan. The Aristocracy partisan, a member of the group that Noble Squad had trained only a week prior, did not recognize Igosta and pleaded with him to spare him. With some apprehension, Igosta executed the partisan, and ultimately convinced the captain that him and the rest of Noble Squad had a place in the Free Alignment.

After multiple missions while undercover, the squad eventually worked their way up the ranks of the Free Alignment, and made contact with an Imperial Major who defected to the Free Alignment. The major, who was acutely aware of the Empire's tactics, was paranoid and overall untrusting of those around him. The squad could not come to a consensus on how to deal with the major, with Noble Leader and Noble 3 believing simply executing him was the best course of action. Igosta and Noble-2, however, believed attempting to gain his trust and learning more about the Free Alignment would be more beneficial to their efforts. Their discussions were put on hold, however, when the major assigned Noble Leader and Noble-3 on a mission on the front, and informed Igosta and Noble-2 that they would be staying behind.

Ultimately, Igosta and Noble-2 both agreed that it would be best if they both went behind Noble Leader's back and attempted to gain the trust of the major. After months of speaking and befriending the major, Igosta eventually was able to establish a sense of trust between himself and the major. While speaking with the major in the command center one day, Igosta learned from him that the rebels in the galaxy were not entirely alone, and that each cell was being assisted. Before he could learn more, however, the major was killed by a shot from Noble Leader's Berserk rifle.

Angry at Noble Leader's blunt approach to the situation, Igosta and Noble-2 began arguing with Noble Leader and informed him of the information they learned from the major before he died. Noble Leader, however, was unfazed by the information presented, and instead chastised them for not only going behind his back, but also for letting an Imperial defector stay alive for so long.

#### Deployment to Mon Cala

Despite high tensions within Noble Squad, the squad received an encoded transmission from Coruscant that they to be reassigned to Mon Cala. Their mission was to antagonize local resistance cells on the planet in order to provoke them into attacking the local Imperial Garrison on the planet so that Imperial forces could root out the rebels.

#### Mon Cala Uprising

When violence finally erupted on Mon Cala, Noble Squad was thoroughly invested within Dac City. During their attempted escape, Mon Calamari authorities caught wind of their location and ambushed the team, resulting in the deaths of Noble Leader and Noble-2. The two remaining commandos successfully escaped the city, joining the Imperial forces who had landed in Coral City.

Arriving early in the battle, the remainders of Noble Team led elements of the Imperial Army to capture key areas of Coral City, including the Mayoral Tower. Several Mon Calamari relief attempts were foiled and thrown back, and ultimately the rebels abandoned the city to the Empire. Joining the council of the army commanders, Igosta learned that a number of Mon Calamari prisoners had been captured, and had to be dealt with. He cautioned against execution, stating that the planet would not be culled by fear alone. Noble-3 argued against this, stating that they must show strength in the face of rebellion. The bickering enflamed into a full-on feud, resulting in the final split of the team.

The ground commander ultimately decided to execute any Mon Calamari officers, wounded men, or commandos, whilst keeping the able-bodied grunts imprisoned. Igosta publicly decried this as immoral, and Noble-3 claimed that Coates was a traitor to the Empire. Shortly after the executions took place, Igosta and Noble-3 fought a duel in the lower hangars. Despite the tense fight, Igosta got the upper hand, shooting Noble-3 several times and throwing their body into the ocean.

Not long after the duel, news came that the Imperial task force in orbit had been defeated, and the Mon Calamari were launching a counter-attack. Chain-promoted by the ground commander to the rank of major, Igosta was given a hand in preparing for the city's defense. He commanded a group of stormtroopers and navy troopers in the southern lights district, repelling multiple attempts to breach the city. When Mon Calamari forces assembled on waveskimmers, Igosta volunteered to lead a speeder detachment into the surf. Ambushing the unprepared rebel craft, they scattered the enemy with ease.

When news came of the evacuation, Igosta and many others questioned whether it was necessary. His questionable attitude was changed quickly when rebel artillery and bombers began bombarding the city, and the first major food rations went into effect. Morale of the force began to flounder, and the strong defenses they had prepared were whittled down quickly.

#### Evacuation and Investigation

On the first day of the evacuation, Igosta commanded the forward observers calling out targets for their approaching aerial cover. When rebel artillery fire brought down the Mayoral Tower, he led a search party into the rubble, confirming the death of the ground commander. The resulting leadership schism fragmented the garrison even more, but a desperate Igosta began to rein in the other officers and retain what little stability was left.

The fourth day of evacuation was the lowest day for morale. The first transport that day had been shot down by the rebels, and subsequent landings were done with extreme protection that ultimately slowed the operation significantly. Igosta began to bar the doors of his quarters at night, fearing a Mon Calamari saboteur or a treacherous Imperial officer would kill him in his sleep.

By the fifth day, the Mon Calamari assembled outside the city were poised to launch a new assault. At this point, Igosta had only a few thousand men under his command, with under eight hundred truly fit for combat. Convinced that the evacuation could be successful if he could delay the enemy attack, Igosta chose to personally lead a speeder assault once more. Unlike the last, he instead assembled a faux convoy; a handful of crewed speeders each towing a series of two to three decoy, empty speeders. With this, his unit rode out onto the waves with what appeared to be a retreating column of Imperial troops. As the rebels quickly moved to intercept, Imperial starfighters tore into the rebel waveskimmers, and Igosta's real speeders detached and attacked as well. The Mon Calamari were scattered once more, and Igosta returned to Coral City to a surprisingly good-spirited force.

As the final day began, Igosta organized the sabotaging of any potential military target in Coral City. Hangars, fuel depots, and barracks were rigged with explosives, while important entranceways and bazaars were flooded. With all other troops evacuated, Igosta boarded the last transport, finally abandoning Coral City back to the Mon Calamari. With the rest of the retreating force, Igosta remained on Pammant for over a month until Admiral Nils Tenant's force arrived to retake Mon Cala. The ISB sent a small detachment alongside the fleet, and they informed Igosta that he was to be debriefed. The circumstances of Noble Team's destruction were deemed suspicious, and he was brought to Coruscant for investigation.

Igosta's commission was suspended while the ISB investigated, and he languished in a small apartment under house arrest.

### Disappearance

Main article: Raid on Lola Sayu
While under house arrest, Igosta was permitted a visit from his friend, Commander Kleklack. The commander informed Igosta that they had unknowingly been fighting alongside one another at Mon Cala. While the two reconnected after years apart, Kleklack revealed that Crunch-Bar had been captured by an unknown assailant. Igosta, previously apprehensive about evading his arrest, could not bear the thought of what might happen to Crunch-Bar, a man who Kleklack revealed had funded their careers.

With Kleklack's aid, Igosta broke out of his apartment and evaded an Imperial search. The two met with Tipai on Tatooine, at the old Bestine Cantina where they often loitered in their youth. Together, the team searched the galaxy for Crunch-Bar, ultimately learning of his imprisonment on Lola Sayu. They battled his captor at the top of the Citadel's tower, in which the fate of Igosta Coates is unknown.