Na'air Petraya

A Sith Pureblood with a distinguished, life-long military career, **General Na'air Petraya** lived a fairly ordinary life for a Sith. She had a keen mind for strategy and acted as an advisor to a number of leaders during

wartime efforts. She served in the Sphere of Expansion & Diplomacy in the Sith Empire immediately after leaving the Academy on Korriban. In this capacity, she was near battle, but rarely in the midst of it. The ways of battle always interested her however, and on war-torn worlds, her master began to instruct her in the lessons of waging war. She was eventually dispatched on a solo assignment to Alderaan where she served faithfully as House Thul's representative to the Sith Empire and later, one of their chief military advisors. She maintained this position through most of the Cold War and the entirety of the Galactic War that followed. Only after the emergence of Zakuul did she feel the force calling her elsewhere and thus decided to depart from the service of House Thul. She traveled to the Outer Rim, allowing the force to guide her path until she reached a desolate world covered in ruins and not much else. On this world, she sensed a familiar presence and eventually, she discovered an old friend from many years back and the remnants of a fallen empire. She joined the remnant as a military advisor, playing to her talents and as the survivors grew into the Midnight Order, she was granted the position of General, a position she served with dedication and passion.

## Biography

Born on Ziost in 3694 BBY, Na'air was groomed to be a Sith acolyte almost from the time she could walk. Her parents, both proud Sith Warriors, expected Na'air to follow the path they had both taken so many years prior. Though she exhibited hints of skill in force use even at such an early age, her parents sensed there was something different about her, a disturbing sense of calmness that they endeavored to force out of her at every turn. This obsession with trying to draw out her rage led Na'air's parents to become cruel and neglectful as having a ruthless warrior for a daughter took priority over raising her well. The effects of her parents' brutal method of raising their child had an adverse effect and Na'air instead became self-reliant, normalizing the lack of care she was given.

As she entered her teen years, news spread fast that the Empire had reclaimed Korriban and had reopened the Academy on its surface. Na'air's parents were elated that their daughter would have the opportunity to train in such a traditional Sith environment and hoped that the Overseers could prove more successful in eradicating the calmness in their daughter that they had failed in doing for nearly 14 years. The goodbyes were brief and without emotion, just as Na'air had come to expect. As she sat in her seat on the shuttle to Korriban, a thought entered her mind that her parents, in their cruelty, had likely prepared her for the grueling life she would endure at the mercy of the Korriban overseers and for one of the first times in her life, she felt a hint of affection for her deeply flawed parents

### The Peak of Ajunta Pall

Korriban was exactly what Na'air expected: demanding and merciless. After meeting with her overseer for the first time, Na'air dutifully held her tongue as she, along with her fellow acolytes, was berated by the arrogant woman who would be managing their daily training. After the verbal assault had concluded, she reported to her chambers, pulled herself up onto her bunk and closed her eyes. She found her sleep largely disturbed as the dark aura of Korriban churned angrily with the countless ego-driven, arrogant thoughts being entertained by acolyte and overseer alike. When she awoke on her first day of instruction, she was exhausted and reported to her overseer's chambers with dark circles under her eyes. As she listened to her overseer's instructions, she found herself become irritated at the woman's voice as she droned on and on about what it meant to be Sith. The room was becoming unfocused as her body began to feel like it was on fire. She looked down and noticed that her fists were tightly clenched and her nails were digging into her skin so deeply that blood droplets were streaming out from between her fingers. Each drop seemed to take an eternity to hit the floor at her feet until she heard her name spoken sharply and the illusion was shattered. She looked up as her overseer glared at her. The overseer assigned her to put the rage she was experiencing to good use and report to the cages of Condemned Acolytes.

Na'air experienced a cool wave of relief as she departed the chambers and marched into the valley to a gated area with a large number of overcrowded cages. She found the man in charge who informed her that she was to execute a cage of failed acolytes who had, in his words, "Acted in such a disgraceful manner, we almost mistook them for Jedi." She looked around the cages and found the one the overseer referred to, a cage brimming with acolytes with neither fear nor anger, but sadness in their eyes. The man explained that these acolytes had each proven incapable of understanding the first principle of the Sith Code: "Peace is a lie, there is only passion." He taunted Na'air, "Don't forget that as you slaughter them."

Na'air slowly approached the cage and unlocked the door. She stared in at her victims and drew the vibrosword she had been given for training purposes. She screamed as rage flowed freely through her as never before and swung the blade, each movement claiming the life of another student until she stood in the middle of a pool of blood and gore. Blood dripped from her face and hands as she panted heavily. The man in charge of the cages laughed behind her and told her to report back to her overseer immediately.

She trudged back to the Academy and entered Overseer Salyne's chambers to find the woman smiling wickedly, leaning on her desk at the opposite end of the room. "Well done, Acolyte." "I felt the shudder as you executed the calm, it was more glorious than all of those deaths combined." Na'air glared at the woman as she continued to speak, "Remember their faces as we continue your training, young one. Do not forget what it means to place importance on calm reason over attaining dominion over your anger. You have done all I require of you today, you may leave." Na'air bowed deeply, never breaking eye contact with the woman, until she turned and exited the chamber.

She ran out of the Academy until she was at the mouth of the Tomb of Ajunta Pall. She stared up at the massive entrance, before stabbing her blade into the tomb's wall and using it to climb slowly to its top. From the roof of the partially submerged tomb, she stared across the vast valley and observed the acolytes moving from one place to another. The entire valley smelled of death and anger and Na'air refused to be a part of it out of pleasure or pride. As she watched which acolytes interacted with which, observed their mannerisms, sensed the emotions radiating off of them, she swore that she would survive the wretched world on her own terms.

### Calm and Rage

Na'air pitied her fellow acolytes and looked down on them as they allowed their overseers to exploit their ignorance and their arrogance, as they were pitted against one another in trial after trial and killed off one by one. Na'air herself completed her tasks swiftly and without question, learning quickly the lessons each one presented. She acted out of necessity, doing what it took to survive even pretending to act as her fellows did, with a competitive fire, vowing to the one standing at the end of the game. While there was meaning in her promise, she remained true to herself as well finding no pleasure in unnecessarily taking the lives of others nor in the idle threats she was forced to make to keep face in the Academy.

The best part of each day for Na'air was in the late afternoon when she would retreat to a secret chamber she had uncovered in the Tomb of Tulak Hord and practice her saber forms. She found pleasure in each motion, perfecting her hold, her posture and her placement, not satisfied until each was mastered. She knew that the day was fast approaching when her opponents would be far more challenging than a few stray tukata or acolytes without completed training, and she intended to be prepared for that day's arrival.

The day came weeks after her seventeenth birthday, as Na'air stood in Overseer Salyne's chamber opposite the only other remaining acolyte, a tall crimson twi'lek who embodied the classic student of Korriban: always looking for a chance at blood, believing himself superior to all other acolytes on the world and disillusioning himself with a dream that he had some great destiny. Na'air rolled her eyes as Salyne gave them their final task, an assignment that almost seemed childish at this point in their training. They were to enter the Tomb of Naga Sadow, a tradition for the final stage of training, and fight to the death. The twi'lek was allowed to depart first and he ran off gleefully to take his position in the Tomb. Na'air was released shortly after, at the disadvantage of walking into a trap. She entered the tomb and sat down in the antechamber with a smug smile. She waited calmly for several hours before the twi'lek emerged from deeper within the tomb, seething with rage. He shouted profanities at her for not giving him the opportunity to spring his trap as intended and charged her with a mad look in his eyes. Na'air jumped to her feet, blade in hand and met his, using his powerful strikes against him as she manipulated his momentum. The duel lasted mere minutes before she was able to disarm him. Taken by surprise by the loss of his weapon, the twi'lek looked up in panic as Na'air extended a hand, throwing him hard into a statue that broke into pieces as he collided with it.

"Your arrogance didn't prepare you to face me," Na'air stated as she watched him climb out of the rubble with a curious expression on her face. "I have to say though, I am finding pleasure in the fact that your emotions were so easy to use against you. Your impatience, your anger, your pride. They all amounted to nothing." As she finished speaking, she approached him as he continued struggling to free himself from the rubble and smashed his head into the statue's remains with a crack as the impact proved fatal. She collected his weapon and marched out of the tomb to report her success and days later, departed Korriban to meet her new master on his vessel in the Outer Rim.

### To The Depths

Na'air's starship erupted out of hyperspace over Subterrel where it was met by a harrower, half shadowed by the massive world and, upon being granted access, landed in a hangar and made her way to her new master's chambers. In a dark chamber illuminated solely by lanterns emitting pale blue light, she set eyes on her teacher: a tall umbaran male adorned in silky black robes only visible via his near-translucent skin. He spoke with a steady, deep voice as silky as his robes as he greeted his new apprentice. Remaining in the shadows, he informed his pupil of their purpose on Subterrel, why they had been sent so far into the outer rim. "My young apprentice, I lament that I will not be able to witness many of your coming exploits as I will be primarily based here, establishing a mining operation to fuel our war effort. This planet is rich with such resources and we will harvest them all." The Umbaran smiled wickedly as his eyes sized up the young pureblood. "You, young one, will be engaging the Republic. Your first task is on Denon. Make them bleed."

Na'air blinked as she returned to the normally lit hallway and made her way to her ship. She rendezvoused with a harrower flanked by 5 terminus cruisers belonging to her master, Darth Uzeris. She met with the field commanders before the fleet made the jump to Denon and began their attack.

Denon was vulnerable and the attack hit them by surprise. The fleet jammed the planet's communication almost immediately upon arrival and began landing their soldiers shortly after. On the surface, Na'air deployed her soldiers to take the largest military installations on the planet with the focus being the Republic's s planetary installation. She also secretly deployed a special operations squad to disable the planetary power grid. Without power, a city world like Denon loses its eyes and ears.

Na'air led the primary assault on the Republic's fortress with her walkers pounding the walls with heavy cannon fire. The assault initially had little effect as the walls were reinforced with a powerful energy shield while any aerial assault would be prevented by the heavy AA cannons. While the cannons continued to barrage the guarded walls, Na'air had her soldiers sweep into the surrounding city to round up any hiding/lingering citizens and gather them before her walkers. The assault continued for several hours until nearly a thousand citizens had been grouped together between the fortress and the Imperial forces.

Suddenly, the shields on the walls flickered and with a deafening hum, the entire city went dark. The AA autoturrets drooped as they lost power, all of the lights failed and the fortress suddenly became vulnerable. The minute the shields dropped, Republic soldiers on the walls began opening fire on the walkers and approaching Imperial soldiers. Na'air instructed her soldiers to grab hold of a citizen and use them as a shield as they breached and navigated the fortress. Two hours later, bodies littered the halls, but the Republic force had been defeated. As the days passed, similar instances were reported from the other military installations on the planet until the Empire controlled all major bases on the planet. Cells from the scattered barracks resisted, but proved ineffective as the governor issued an official surrender to the Sith apprentice.

Na'air opened a communication with her master to report her success, news he responded to with muted pride. He instructed her to return to him for further direction.

## Personality

Na'air has always had a serious, no nonsense personality. She doesn't believe in wasting effort, time or emotion on things that usually don't matter in the big picture. She is goal-oriented and always thinks several steps ahead, anticipating the obstacles her opposition will present her with and calculating how best to engage them. Her calm exterior is a weapon that is very much central to who she is. She is patient, cunning and rigidly controlling of her emotions. She is a survivor who will claim victory by any means as long as they are hers to decide.

## Powers & Skills

In terms of force ability, Na'air is fairly average as a Sith with no remarkable qualities setting her apart from the crowd. Her control over her abilities is what makes her a formidable force user. Her awareness of her strengths and weaknesses allow her to manipulate the force in an effective way against her opponent(s).

Her skill with a lightsaber is where Na'air truly shines. From her early days on Korriban, she has unwaveringly dedicated herself to the study of all known lightsaber forms in an attempt to perfect each form in both recognition and application. She has a deep understanding of lightsaber combat that makes her a deadly enemy to engage. Her favored form was Djem So.