Terek Vesh

Species: Human

Age: 23

Homeworld: Taris

Specialty: Imperial Navy Trooper

Rank: Sublieutenant

Current Position: Junior security officer onboard the *Exarch*

Outfit and Gear: Wears the standard Imperial Navy Trooper uniform, with the distinctive black helmet and a stubby sublieutenant's rank insignia. Carries a SE-14r light repeating blaster pistol as his standard sidearm. In combat situations, wears a variant of the Imperial officer battle armour in Navy Trooper black over his uniform, and carries an E-11 blaster rifle as his primary weapon.

## Early life

Terek was born in 41 BBY in the Lower City of Taris, to a family of common labourers of modest means. Terek's parents both wanted to give him a better life than the ones they had – one free from the gang wars, ramshackle slums, and "protection payments" of the Lower City – so they scraped together just enough money to send their son to a boarding school in the Middle City as soon as he turned 14. Terek worked hard in school, despite his generally laid-back demeanor, to try to earn scholarship money to lighten his parents' financial load.

As his graduation day approached, the holonet blared with videos of the sudden invasion of Geonosis by a suddenly-existent Grand Army of the Republic. Figuring that the time was ripe for a military career, Terek, after a heartfelt goodbye to his parents and a promise to visit them early and often, headed down to the recruiting station and volunteered to serve in the Republic Navy – the one service that had its own non-clone and non-Jedi officer corps. Terek was shipped off to Myomar Academy, where his childhood experience with Lower City scrapes got him placed on a naval security officer track.

As his graduation day approached, Terek was giddy anticipating what his first posting might be. Maybe on an Arquitens-class light cruiser, where he would be one of the few commissioned officers onboard and able to stand out? Or perhaps on a mighty Victory I-class or Venator-class Star Destroyer, working in the presence of flag officers and Jedi Generals with the authority to hand out battlefield promotions?

Terek's high hopes were dashed upon the surrender of the Confederacy mere months before his graduation. While initially worried about being relieved from service before it even started, Terek and the rest of Myomar's graduating class were commissioned as ensigns as planned. Terek, now a commissioned officer in the Imperial Navy Trooper officer corps, was assigned to a Golan I-class space defence platform orbiting some barely-habitable hyperdrive fuel extraction colony.

Without even a single stormtrooper in sight, Terek and his fellow Navy Troopers were the closest thing to an infantry force within a half-dozen parsecs. So when a ragtag pirate fleet rolled up to blow shit up and steal as much hyperdrive fuel as they could, Terek was the one in charge of repelling their boarding parties. And Terek, out of sheer boredom as much as a zeal for duty, led his fellow troopers in blasters blazing. The pirates were caught by surprise by such a seemingly-fierce counterattack from a backwater defence platform garrison. Terek's counterattack rallied the rest of the station's crewmembers and their minimal combat training into action, and the pirates were routed.

After the bodies were all tidied up and accounted for, the station's commander nominated Terek for a promotion for his actions. Terek used the opportunity to additionally request a transfer to an actual starship of some sort. The Navy bureaucracy decided to assign Terek to the Exarch, apparently some sort of bootleg mini-Star Destroyer. Terek, with his shiny new sublieutenant's rank insignia, was excited to finally be heading to serve onboard an actual, honest-to-Palpatine warship – even if that warship was a patrol frigate fighting smugglers, and not a Star Destroyer fighting Separatists.