Jephego Rose

Jephego Rose is an Iridonian Zabrak pirate and bounty hunter with a penchant for credits and gold and a tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Garrulous, gaudy, aggressive, and cocky, she's well-versed in holding her own in a fight with her fists, a blaster, or a vibroblade and can fly (or steal) just about any ship out there. She takes no flak and believes the Force is nothing more than a hokey religion for gullible idiots.

## Biography

Though she was born on Iridonia, Jephego Rose and her mother moved to Jedha two weeks after Jephego's birth in 64 BBY. Jephego's mother, Jirika Rose, was a deeply religious believer in the Force, and thought it was necessary to raise her daughter on Jedha so that Jephego would be as holy and spiritual as possible. Jephego's father was a spacer who thought that idea was a load of bantha crap and disappeared just days after Jephego's birth; he was never seen since.

Jephego's childhood was a sheltered one of poverty—Jephego and her mother lived in the Holy Quarter of NiJedha, where Jirika spent her mornings at the Temple of the Kyber and her afternoons peddling chintzy souvenirs to tourists. They ate little, owned little, and lived in a room barely big enough for the two of them where Jephego would stay while her mother was out. As Jephego grew older, she was homeschooled by her mother, learning to read and write and studying religious texts. She was sheltered and isolated from others her age. By age ten, Jephego had grown to deeply resent her homeschooling. All she wanted was to go to school and play in the streets with the other children. When the day finally came that she was allowed to venture outside while Jirika was off selling her wares, Jephego was confronted with her lack of socialization, and felt anxious and unable to step in and join the games being played in the alleyway. She hovered at the edges of the gathering of children until she was elbowed out of the way and pushed down by a rambunctious boy. Overwhelmed, Jephego retreated to her home.

But Jephego was starving for anything other than isolation and her mother's religious texts—after all, no matter how frequently her mother said it, the Force didn't seem to be providing for them. They were still sequestered in the dirtiest, most cramped corner of NiJedha, where they starved often, and where her mother would abandon her daily to worship at a temple that did nothing for them. Emboldened and determined, Jephego continued to chip away at becoming braver and braver with the other kids that played in the alleyway, until Jephego was the one who did the elbowing and shoving. And she loved it. For once, she felt in control and a part of something.

Once Jephego hit her teen years, she was questioning everything her mother taught her. She had begun to refuse to believe that the Force was even real; if the Force was so omnipresent and omnipotent, why did they have to work so hard just to survive? Didn't the Force see she and her mother were starving? Couldn't the Force do something about it? And if it's truly as fulfilling as they say, why did she feel so incomplete? Growing more and more restless, Jephego began to dream about life offworld. She dreamt about the father she never knew, an intrepid spacer with a ship who went on adventures and brought her mother trinkets. What sort of trinkets did he bring? Were they precious? Where were those trinkets now? Jephego wanted to go on adventures, too. She wanted to see the whole galaxy and know its riches! No, not just know its riches—she *wanted* its riches.

Jephego sought out how to leave Jedha—she worked odd jobs until she could afford a ticket to Corellia, where she believed she could find opportunity as a pilot, despite having no prior experience. So at age seventeen, Jephego bade her mother goodbye, took a small satchel of all her belongings, and moved to Corellia.

On Corellia, Jephego felt lost and small on a planet so big and bustling. She found work in a shipyard moving ship parts and making repairs, and worked there tirelessly, doing her best to not allow herself to succumb to feeling alone and out-of-place. She learned how to swear like the spacers who came through the shipyard did, copied their swagger and casualness, and observed with enthusiasm when fights broke out on the docks. She studied them with zeal; and when she wasn't watching the spacers, she was familiarizing herself with the cockpit of every ship she worked on. After a few months, she bought herself a blaster; carrying it on her hip was a confidence boost like no other. It was like a switch had flipped on, and tall, gangly and awkward Jephego from Jedha was no more—now she was Jephego Rose, rough and tumble shipyard lackey and aspiring pilot.

After a year and some weeks on Corellia, though, Jephego saw an opportunity: pirates had come to the shipyard and were about to hijack the ship she had been ferrying upgrade parts to all day. This could be her ticket to a life of adventure and riches! She had watched them stealth into the ship's cockpit: three burly ones and a smaller pinkish one she assumed to be the leader. Mustering her courage and all the spacer swagger she could—she followed. Confronted in the cockpit with four blasters aimed at her head, Jephego swore up and down that the ship wasn’t operational, but if they could give her two hours to get it into flying condition, she would let them have it and wouldn’t say a peep. To her amazement, they agreed.

Shoved off the ship, Jephego hit the ground running, hijacking a coworker’s speeder to race home, throw her clothes in a bag, and race back in time to pretend to fix the (already fully operational) YT-2400 light freighter. She faked fixing it for the better part of an hour, stashing her bag of clothes in an out-of-the-way compartment and scoping out a place to hide herself on the ship.

So, when she gave the pirates the all clear signal and they began to take off, Jephego grabbed hold of a landing strut. Terrified of falling to her death, Jephego clamored to the airlock, and let herself inside—only to come face to face with Zeltron pirate captain Yana Medine pointing her blaster at Jephego and laughing hysterically. Expecting to be swiftly dealt with, Jephego flinched when Yana lowered her blaster and held out her hand for a handshake. Jephego had impressed Yana with her spunk.

With that handshake, Jephego Rose joined the crew of the *Silver Thunder*, as the stolen freighter would later be known as.

Under Yana's tutelage, Jephego learned how to properly use and care for her blaster, how to fist fight, how to pilot, how to use a vibroblade, and how to navigate the galaxy. Jephego absolutely doted on Yana and the seasoned galactic swindler and traveler that she was. With Yana Medine and crew, Jephego began to craft herself an image: she would be Jephego Rose, purveyor of aurodium trinkets and lover of credits, a flashy and charming scoundrel.

The time she spent with the crew of the *Silver Thunder* was the time of Jephego's life—she wouldn't have traded it for anything.

That is, until four years later when Jephego dumps the crew, re-names the ship the *Damask Rose*, and makes off with quite a considerable amount of loot, leaving Yana Medine and company high and dry.

From there, Jephego zig-zagged across the galaxy, following whatever lead would bring her the most credits, collecting a crew of her own, and leaving a trail of mild destruction and awe in her wake. She built herself a reputation for her splashy and brazen personality and her ability to swindle just about anyone; she taught herself to be one hell of a pilot, and folks from the galaxy's underbelly began to recognize her for it. Jephego and her crew became known for their showy piracy and dubious bounty hunting methods, and Jephego savored every drop of attention it brought her. Finally, she felt at home. And for about a year, everything was coming up roses for Jephego Rose.

But she had gotten a little too confident a little too quickly and made one half-assed deal too many, and soon found herself being pursued by the Hutt Clan and Black Sun for not following up on a deal. Forced into hiding, Jephego stashes the *Damask Rose* on some remote desert planet and spends almost a year narrowly evading capture until she finds herself at long last in the wrong place at the wrong time—and is handily apprehended by one Yana Medine, now a leader in the Black Sun syndicate and Jephego's new nemesis.

Jephego spends several months in a Black Sun prison cell, until she's broken out by what's left of her crew and taken to where the *Damask Rose* has been hidden. And so begins Jephego's habitual cycle of capture and escape, punctuated by her crew's mutiny, the capture of the *Damask Rose*, the occasional bounty to keep credits flowing, and Yana Medine's tireless pursuit, until finally, after years of brassily negotiating herself into deals and promises she can't make good on, she's put into a prison she can't break out of: a block of carbonite.

At 28 years old, Jephego sees her last glimpse of the galaxy as she knows it, and meets her static fate.

Jephego's carbonite-encased body is loaded onto a cargo ship for delivery to a member of the Tenloss Syndicate in the Mandalore sector; en route to its destination, the cargo ship suffers a freak accident along a hyperspace lane, and with Jephego and a slew of other priceless artifacts sealed inside, the ship is left to float in Wild Space, deemed unsalvageable.

And then she's forgotten.

190 years later, the cargo ship is found and unsealed by an intrepid junker, and Jephego is rescued. After a day of hibernation sickness that put Jephego near death, she's dumped and left to fend for herself in a galaxy she no longer recognizes—only to find herself once again in the wrong place at the wrong time…