Kerra Holt

File:KerraHolt Face.jpg
Kerra Holt
Biographical information
Homeworld	Aquilaris
Born	1,050 BBY, Aquilaris
Physical description
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Hair color	Black
Eye color	Hazel
Skin color	Dark Complexioned
Chronological and political information
Era(s)	Old Republic era
Affiliation	Jedi Order Galactic Republic
Known masters	Vannar Treece

[Source]

"Some kind of Knight errant, running around in Sith space alone, is that it? Saving student bodies here and there."
"No, this is new. Usually I save whole planets."

―Jarrow Rusher and Kerra Holt

Kerra Holt was a female Human Jedi Knight during the New Sith Wars. She was the daughter of Aron and Mercia Holt but she was separated from her parents during the Sith invasion of Aquilaris. The former Padawan of Vannar Treece, Holt determined to make herself into a "living weapon" and, having done so, returned to the areas of the galaxy still controlled by the Sith, determined to fight them wherever she found them. The rival Sith Lord brothers Odion and Daiman, sons of the Sith lady Xelian, were two enemies she encountered. Later on, Holt found out that she was facing an almost entire family of Sith and intended to use this knowledge to warn to the Galactic Republic.

Born on Aquilaris in 1,050 BBY, Holt was raised by her family until the Sith invaded the planet. Her family perished in a massive raid led by the Sith Lord Odion, general of the Chagras Hegemony. After the Sith took control over her homeworld, she was rescued by Jedi Master Vannar Treece and taken to the Jedi Temple for training. She eventually reached the rank of Jedi Knight in 1,032 BBY, and participated in a dangerous Jedi operation into the Sith-controlled Grumani sector. When her Master and Jedi comrades were killed by Odion on Chelloa, Holt was stranded but re-established contact with a former Jedi Knight, Gorlan Palladane.

Together, the two Jedi succeeded in outmanuevering both Daiman and Odion's malevolent schemes towards Chelloa. During the Destruction of Chelloa when Daiman unleashed Kinetic corruptors which devastated the planet's surface, Holt and Palladane succeeded in evacuating much of the planet's population and escaped into hyperspac on a hastily assembled cargo fleet which became the Freedom Fleet. During her time on Chelloa, Holt earned the grudging respect of the narcissistic Daiman while gaining the animosity of Odion, following a climatic duel where he sustained serious wounds. Following the safe evacuation of the Chelloan people, Holt would continue her personal crusade against the Sith warlords in the Grumani Sector.

Her quest would lead her into the midst of a fratricidal power struggle involving the Calimondra family, a feuding clan of power-hungry Sith lords headed by the matriarch Vilia Calimondra. Her seven children had undertaken a challenge known as a Charge Matrica to inherit her holdings, and now the grandchildren were doing the same. After her seven children declared war on each other, Chagras had emerged as the victor, but died mysteriously, leaving no single heir to claim Vilia's legacy. So, the grandchildren were now undertaking the same challenge as their parents, attempting to impress the Sith matriarch by warring against each other or eliminating Sith outsiders like Ayanos Bactra or Saaj Calician. This self-centered power struggle would affect the lives of billions of sentients throughout the Grumani Sector.

Following the defeat of the twin Sith Lords Dromika and Quillan who ruled the Dyarchy, Holt returned to her homeworld of Aquilaris after receiving a distress call. There, she would become embroiled in two separate conspiracies with malevolent intentions towards Aquilaris. Unsatisfied with Hutt Space, the ambitious Hutt crimelord Zodoh was intending to extend his operations to Sith Space and wanted to intimidate his Sith rivals with his improvised superweapon: Stormdrivers capable of creating global artificial floods. In the same vein, the pro-Republic Grace Command—an Alderaanian-based mercy organization—had deliberately inundated the Grumani Sector with Deluge spice, as part of Operation Deluge to undermine the Sith war effort without diverting substantial Republic resources. However, it also wrecked the lives of many civilian populations.

During the Aquilaris campaign, Holt succeeded in saving the lives of many Aquilarians with the assistance of Joad Kreel and Padgett. She also managed to win over Jenn Devaad, a Captain within Grace Command, and turn her away from her superiors' conspirational agenda. Together, the two single-handedly bested the Hutt lord Zodoh and turned the tide of the Battle of Darkknell, saving the lives of billions of sentients. In the process, she saved Daiman from the jaws of defeat and managed to establish contact with him. Holt would collaborate with Daiman in a scheme to undermine his estranged brother Odion by infiltrating the Novitiate, Odion's Force-sensitive disciples.

Biography

Early life

"M-my family. They told me to run—far away. But I came b-back. And I found…I found…"
"You found this. I'm so very sorry…"

―Kerra Holt and Vannar Treece

Kerra Holt was born in 1,050 BBY on the world of Aquilaris Minor, in the Grumani sector to Aron and Mercia Holt. Her sector of birth was overrun by the Sith, while her family disappeared during a massive raid on her homeworld carried out by the Sith Lord Odion, who at the time fought under the banner of Chagras, ruler of the Chagras Hegemony. She was saved by Vannar Treece, a charismatic Jedi adventurer, who took her to the Jedi Temple and later became her Master.

The Chelloan Affair

Operation: Influx

"Gorlan. You're—you're a Jedi?"
"No, Kerra Holt—the only Jedi on Chelloa now is you…"

―Kerra Holt and Gorlan Palladane

File:OperationInflux-Ke1.jpg

Holt at the head of Jedi strike team

Having a close relationship with her Master, Kerra participated in a Jedi mission known as Operation: Influx and completed the Jedi Trials. In 1,032 BBY, Kerra embarked on the operation's second phase which aimed to disrupt the Sith Lord Daiman's baradium shipping operations from the planet Chelloa to the frontline. With the collapse of the Chagras Hegemony, Lord Daiman had established an independent principality known as the Daimanate, developing a personality cult surrounded around his view as "creator of the universe". Chelloa was rich in deposits of volatile baradium which was used in the manufacture of munitions. Daiman exploited countless slaves and local inhabitants as he strip-mined the planet for the valuable ores.

The Jedi were assisted by Gorlan Palladane, an undercover field agent who worked as the leader of Daiman's slave workers and a relief worker. With the help of the Rodian mechanic Skodo, Palladane communicated with the Jedi using a transmitter to activate a routing station in space. While the Jedi received his transmission, it was also intercepted by Daiman's rival Sith Lord brother Odion, who ruled an independent domain known as the Odionate. However, while Treece planned to disrupt the shipping operations and liberate the slaves, Odion desired to exploit Chelloa's baradium ores to fuel his own war effort.

Using a captured cargo liner, the Jedi team infiltrated Jenith's spaceport and quickly overwhelmed Daiman's security guards with the support of the slaves. During the assault, Holt saved Palladane and a group of miners from being roughed up by a group of Daiman's thugs at the South Work Yards. She knocked out a T'surr Daimanate Sith trooper with her lightsaber while Gorlan incapacitated a human officer. Despite the warm reception from the liberated slaves, Palladane was disappointed that the mission was only a hit-and-run raid as opposed to a full scale invasion of Chelloa. Holt defended her master by pointing that the depleted nature of Republic finance had limited the resources available to the Jedi. Still, Treece planned to evacuate as many slaves as he could on their cargo liner.

Meeting the Creator

"Kerra, is it? From what I've seen, your guardian could have used protection himself—against you. I can feel the anger, washing off you in waves. It might be diverting to break you—but my brother's visit has changed my plans for Chelloa. Release her. Perhaps she will live to become something…interesting."

―Daiman

However, victory was quickly spoiled by the arrival of a strike force under Lord Odion at Squatter's Hill. During the assault, Treece took on Odion during a duel. When Holt attempted to intervened, Treece sent her away, ordering her to look after the refugees. When Odion activated his massive kinetic corruptor, the machine ignited the baradium veins beneath the surface, free the baradium gas but creating a massive explosion that wiped out many slaves and troops as well as most of the Jedi team with the exception of Holt. At the climax of the duel, Odion slew Treece by impaling from behind, leaving Holt the only remaining Jedi on Chelloa.

While the survivors began attending to the wounded, Lord Daiman arrived on a repulsorcraft. Despite the enormous loss of lives and wounded particularly burn victims, Daiman was apathetic and demanded to see Paladane. Palladane pleaded for help in treating the wounded but Daiman was more concerned with discerning how his rival Odion and the Jedi discovered his secret baradium mining operations. When Palladane expressed his ignorance of the matter, Daiman used Force choke to strangle the former. However, Kerra intervened and tried to force Daiman to stop tormenting Palladane at gunpoint.

Amused by her courage and dismissing her as an orphan, Daiman relinquished his grip on Palladane and fondled with her, making obscene gestures. He mockingly told her to embrace her anger as a diversion and released her since he was preoccupied with the threat of Odion to his goals. Showing little concern for the well-being of his subjects, Daiman ordered them to erect one of his statues in the village square before dismissing the crowd. Later at his alpine compound above Jenith, he tortured the Rodian worker Skodo with Force lightning in an attempt to force him to confess to contacting Odion. Earlier, Skodo had been found with a transmitter which he and Palladane had used to contact Odion with information about Daiman's baradium operations.

However, Daiman's torture session was interrupted by the arrival of Holt who dueled him. She trapped Daiman in a suspension field before engaging in an argument with the temporarily incapacitated Sith Lord. When she attacked his maltreatment of slaves, Daiman countered by reiterating his personal Sith philosophy with himself being the only true living being. To distract Holt, he then revealed that his brother Odion was preparing a second attack and that Odion had a mobile space station known as The Spike which was capable of producing various arsenal particularly kinetic corruptors. One kinetic corruptor was capable of igniting the entire planet of Chelloa due to the vast baradium deposits. Daiman managed to break away but Holt had escaped, hijacking one of Daiman's starfighters deployed to attack The Spike.

Confronting the destroyer

"I just want you to leave Chelloa alone."
"Not a chance. That's too much baradium in one place. It upsets everything."

―Kerra Holt and Odion

File:OdionvsKerra.jpg

Odion duelling with Kerra Holt

Viewing Odion as a threat to his control of baradium extraction on Chelloa, Daiman had dispatched a small strike force of Daimanate starfighters in an attempt to knock out The Spike. However, his light starfighters were wiped out by Odion's gunships. In the midst of the attack, Holt bailed out of her starfighter into space and infiltrated The Spike by entering through an open hatch. Discarding her spacesuit, she disabled a service droid and then made her way to Pod Seventeen, in the vast assembly area. There, Holt overpowered a labor droid known as GAD-3 and reset his motivation center. In exchange for Kerra fixing his robotic arms, Gad-3 revealed that The Spike was dedicated solely to the production of kinetic corrupters and that all floors were decentralized from the main structure for security reasons. Gad-3 then added that Holt should not have come alone.

At that moment, they were interrupted by the arrival of Odion and his Givin second-in-command Jelcho. However, Odion did not sense Kerra or Gad-3 initially, since they were hidden under the catwalk. Odion was preoccupied with using his corrupters to extract Chelloa’s baradium deposits. From Odion's conversation with Jelcho, Holt learned that an unidentified informant had supplied the Odionates with intelligence on Daiman's baradium operations. From a recorded transmission, the informant claimed that all of Daiman’s mining operations were permanently off-line in an attempt to draw Sith attention away from Chelloa. However, Odion dismissed the informant’s latest reports as an attempt by Daiman or other parties to undermine his planned baradium operations. Meanwhile, Holt released GAD-3 and sent him back to his station with instructions to open another door when she gave the signal.

Odion then concluded the meeting by ordering all his kinetic corrupters to be prepared for landing on Chelloa in order to harvest all the baradium. Due to the volatile nature of baradium, much of Chelloa would be destroyed and rendered uninhabitable. While gloating of his recent victory over the Jedi, particularly Master Treece, Odion suddenly sensed the presence of an intruder through the Force. In a fit of rage, he ripped apart the catwalk and discovered Holt. He engaged her in a duel. Kerra drew him into a pursuit. Kerra was also pursued by a mob of armed Gamorrean guards, followers of Odion who craved dying in combat. The fighting led the combatants through a series of catwalks to the upper levels of the Spike, the main structure supporting the various assembly lines.

In a verbal confrontation, Kerra told Odion that she had attacked him aboard his space station to drive him away from Chelloa thus saving the lives of thousands of sentients. She also revealed that Daiman’s mobile munitions factories were bringing in thousands more slaves by the day. Odion shrugged away Holt’s concerns for innocent lives, arguing that all sentients existed only to be killed by him. Due to his nihilistic philosophy, Odion saw himself as the destroyer of all life in the Galaxy and embraced death. As he prepared to strike Holt down with his lightsaber, she played her final card by ordering the reprogrammed Gad-3 to open all containment fields, thus opening much of the space station to zero-gravity space. This triggered an explosion that wrecked large areas of The Spike, destroying many labor droids and killing many workers. Further destruction was averted after Jelcho reactivated the emergency shielding. As with all Givin, Jelcho had a tough exoskeleton that could seal all external orifices for protection against depressurization, allowing him to survive in hard vacuum.

In the midst of the chaos, Holt hijacked a construction shuttle, incapacitated the pilot and then fled into space. Meanwhile, Odion ordered his entourage back to his flagship Sword of Ieldis. Understanding his Jedi opponent, Odion knew that Holt would return to confront him. In an ensuing cat-and-mouse race in space, Holt’s shuttle engaged Odion’s gunship. Anticipating that Holt was going to ram her shuttle into his ship, he ordered his crew to open fire. However, the duel was interrupted by an incoming transmission from Lord Daiman.

Two Jedi comrades

"Disabling the baradium mines—that was Vannar's mission. Remember your mission—the one Vannar gave you before he died!"
"[…] Save the people! It was always part of Vannar's plan—sabotage, but also getting whatever locals he found out of harm's way!"

―Gorlan Palladane and Kerra Holt

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Palladane and Holt conversing

In a live broadcast from his Chelloan headquarters, a furious Daiman revealed to Odion that he had seized and tortured his informant: Palladane. In response to the intelligence leakage, Daiman had ordered a military crackdown on all mining settlements on Chelloa with his troops razing and pillaging the homes of the Chelloan people. Witnessing the plight of her friend, Holt aborted her run by executing a quick jump into hyperspace. Holt succeeded in dissuading Odion from using his kinetic corruptors to destroy Chelloa by leaking intelligence on Daiman's mobile factories. Odion's Lightning Guard was assembled for a ground invasion beginning with the capture of Daiman's forges near the baradium mines. He also planned to conquer Chelloa and annex it for his interstellar principality—the Odionate.

Meanwhile, Holt returned to the mining settlement of Jenith to protect Palladane’s family from Daiman’s retribution. She arrived just in time to save the family of Gorlan Palladane from being harmed by a pair of Sith troopers. Learning of Palladane's incarceration, Holt hitchiked a ride on one of Daiman's shuttles and infiltrated Daiman's complex, immobilized the Sith guards and freeing the prisoners. Kerra rescued the wounded Palladane from Daiman's dungeons. Gorlan revealed that his attempts to contact the Jedi with a transmitter had attracted the attention of Odion who had intercepted the interstellar transmission. Initially he had thought that Odion's attack was a coincidence until the death of Skodo at the hands of Daiman.

Sensing Palladane's noble intents, she comforted him by telling him that he was serving the interests of his people. Palladane also revealed that Odion was bringing a fleet of kinetic corruptors and that Daiman was preparing for a showdown with the rival Sith Lord. By this stage, Holt realized that her true mission was to evacuate the Chelloan people rather than seeking to eliminate the two Sith Lords Daiman and Odion. However, before departing with Palladane and the village leaders on their shuttle, she personally beheaded all of Daiman's statues as a gesture of defiance.

Later, Palladane, Holt and the other village leaders fled to a safehouse in the town of Arboth where he was reunited with his family. Meanwhile, Holt spied on the vast transports transporting workers to Daiman's mobile munitions plants and discovered they were empty. Coming to the conclusion that Daiman was not planning to invest more into his mining and industrial projects on Chelloa, she suggested to Palladane that they use the empty transports to evacuate the entire population of Chelloa: 60,000 sentients scattered across ten mining towns. Aware that Odion was planning to conquer Chelloa, Daiman had allowed Holt to escape to Odion and thus leak intelligence on the mobile munitions plants. Odion planned to utilize the factories for his own goal of defeating Daiman's faction. Seeking to aid a fellow Jedi in what he regarded as a noble endeavour, Palladane offered his services to Holt and reactivated his lightsaber, signifying his re-commitment to the Jedi cause.

Escaping the apocalypse

"Sorry, Odion—but this flight's fully booked. You'll have to wait for the next one!"

―Kerra Holt

Meanwhile, Lord Odion invaded Chelloa with a planetary assault force consisting of elite Lightning Guards. Following his earlier duel with Holt, Odion had been dissuaded from his plan to destory Chelloa with his kinetic corruptors with intelligence that Daiman was expanding baradium mining operations with Mobile Munitions Complexes. Desiring an industrial base for his war effort, Odion changed his plans to capturing these factories. However, this played into Daiman's plan to eliminate both the Jedi and his estranged brother. In reality, the mobile factories were actually disguised Kinetic Corruptors which would incinerate Odion's forces while destroying Chelloa's surface, rendering it uninhabitable. As planned, Odion's forces descended on the surface and overwhelmed a poorly-trained detachment of Daimanate troops. They arrived at the pyramidical factories only to discover too late that they were actually Kinetic corruptors. The corruptors initiated an explosion which ignited the volatile gases beneath Chelloa's surface, killing many Odionate and Daimanate combatants alike. Meanwhile, Daiman and his forces made preparations to escape using a fleet of transport ships.

With Daiman preoccupied, Holt and Palladane organized a mass evacuation of Chelloa's people by organizing the villagers into teams. These teams infiltrated the spaceport at Arboth and seized control of the transport fleet, overpowering the crew and guards. By the end of the battle, they had managed to evacuate most of Chelloa's population on a hastily-assembled fleet known as the Freedom Fleet. Facing death from lava flows triggered by the kinetic corruptors, Odion and his surviving troops fled for Daiman's transports at Arboth but were prevented from boarding by Kerra and Gorlan. Having achieved their objective and with all teams safely aboard, the Freedom Fleet departed into space.

Meanwhile, Holt confronted Odion, taunting him that he had missed the "flight" and daring him to finish their duel. This escalated into a heated lightsaber pursuit in the upper atmosphere above Chelloa. The Jedi Knight commandeered an airspeeder while her Sith opponent donned a jetpack. Kerra managed to reach one of the ascending cargo liners but Odion caught up with her. He taunted her by telling her he savoured the killings on Aquilaris to provoke her into attacking him. However, this duel was interrupted by Gorlan who opened one of the entry hatches while fastened to a cable. Armed with a lightsaber, Palladane took on the Sith Lord and drove him to the engine thrusters, expressing his desire for retribution. During the confrontation, both men were severely burnt but Odion managed to escape because of his jetpack.

Mortally wounded, Palladane crawled back up to the entry hatch with the assistance of Holt. In his last moments, Palladane commented that Kerra was dying for the wrong thing while he himself was living for the wrong thing. Kerra promised to bring the Chelloan people back into Republic space but Palladane reminded her they were now her people and that she had a responsibility to save billions of other sentients living under Sith domination. She took this to heart and formulated a new mission: stay in Sith space and save as many people as she could.

Alone in Sith Space

The Sith Spy

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Kerra during the Battle of Byllura

After seeing the Freedom Fleet off in the direction of Republic space, Kerra made her way to Daiman's throne world, Darkknell, disguised as an itinerant worker. On her weeks-long journey, she made stops at several planets with munitions and weapons factories, which she sabotaged. On one such world, Nilash III, she liberated the slave workers and sent Daiman a symbolically powerful message by cutting the heads off of statues of himself he had had erected there.

Once on Darkknell, Kerra tried to stay under the radar while gathering intel, staying as a live-in teacher in the home of an old Sullustan and his granddaughter, Tan. She eventually decided to target the Black Fang, Daiman's premiere research facility. While scouting the location, she noticed a suspiciously-behaving Bothan, who would later turn out to be Narsk Ka'hane, at that point a spy in Odion's employ. She continued to observe him, and after he successfully smuggled explosives into the facility, she followed and intercepted him a safe distance away. Kerra destroyed the data he had absconded with, detonated the Black Fang herself, and confiscated the stealth suit he had used to infiltrate the high-security building.

Using it, she gained entry to Daiman's palace, where she intended to assassinate the Sith Lord. The opportunity did not present itself, forcing her to follow Daiman, first to his personal ship, then to the planet Gazzari.

Fighting a Sith family

Daiman was supposedly on Gazzari to oversee the delivery of an Arxeum Daiman had purchased from another Sith Lord named Ayanos Bactra. To the surprise of most, Odion arrived, brought there by Narsk, who had contacted the Sith Lord upon escaping Daiman's grasp. Daiman had engineered events to draw his brother into a trap, using the arxeum and the children to be educated there as bait. After a conflict of desires, Kerra decided to save the children (among whom was her friend Tan), who would have been forged into servants of Daiman or torn apart by Odion, and used the explosives she'd brought to assassinate Daiman to instead cripple Odion's offensive weapons. Upon escaping with the grudging help of Brigadier Jarrow Rusher, a mercenary who specialized in artillery, she watched as Daiman and Odion unexpectedly united, the brothers turning on Bactra, who did business with both of them.

Jumping into hyperspace, Kerra and her entourage arrived on Hestobyll, the capital city of the planet Byllura in the Dyarchy, an area of Sith space belonging to the adolescent Sith twins Dromika and her brother Quillan. Their unique gifts, with the guidance of their regent, had turned the planet into a single minded machine with every inhabitant becoming, after a fashion, an extension of their will. During the Battle of Byllura, Kerra quickly moved to rescue her young student-charges from this fate, eventually facing the twins and taking Quillan prisoner. Unexpected help came in the form of another Sith Lord: Arkadia, who had been alerted to Kerra's presence with the help of Narsk, who had escaped Gazzari and Odion. She took custody of Quillan, revealing that she was his older sister, a surprise to Kerra.

As events moved around her, she began to sense an order to the seeming chaos, a pattern to the feuding Sith that seemed paradoxical. Eventually, with a revelation from Arakdia, she discovered the reason: there was a power struggle within a family of Sith, headed by Vilia Calimondra. Her seven children had undertaken a challenge known as a Charge Matrica to inherit her holdings, and now the grandchildren were doing the same. Daiman and Odion were the sons of Vilia's daughter Xelian, while Dromika, Quillan, and Arkadia were all children of Vilia's son Chagras. After her seven children declared war on each other, Chagras had emerged as the victor, but died mysteriously, leaving no single heir to claim Vilia's legacy. So, the grandchildren were now undertaking the same challenge as their parents, attempting to impress the Sith matriarch by warring against each other or eliminating outsiders like Lord Bactra or Saaj Calician, the Dyarchy's regent.

Arkadia, having revealed that Chagras had sent Odion to Aquilaris, Kerra's homeworld, attempted to persuade the Jedi to help her assassinate Vilia, the source of all the misery consuming the star systems. Kerra refused, and was imprisoned and interrogated for information about the Republic. During this time, Kerra reflected on the irony of how little these Sith Lords seemed to know about Jedi.

Unexpected help came yet again; Arkadia had recruited Narsk as an alternative to kill Vilia, using Quillan as a martyr for the cause. Desiring to protect Vilia, who had his true allegiance, Narsk initiated the first stage by releasing Kerra, and with Rusher's help, Arkadia's realm was thrown into confusion, and Kerra was successfully rescued. Before leaving with Quillan for safety, Narsk gave Rusher and Kerra each half of the coordinates necessary to reach the Republic through hyperspace. With hope finally in sight, Kerra rested while planning her next move against the Sith.

Return to Aquilaris

Stormy homecoming

"That was what the distress call was about? You wanted me to bring you another fix?"

―Kerra Holt's shock at discovering the true intentions of Joad Krell's distress transmission

File:Kerra and Jenn.jpg

Kerra Holt and Jenn Devaad following the Battle of Capital Cay

Her next target was the planet Aquilaris which had fallen under Sith occupation. Ten years ago, Kerra had been forced to flee as a refugee but always harboured the desire to liberate the planet from Lord Daimain. Kerra got her opporunity when she received a distress call from a member of the Seacroppers' Guild. However, Aquilaris also drew the attention of the Hutt crime lord Zodoh, who sought to expand his slave-trading and munitions businesses into the Grumani sector, which had become a Sith stronghold since the Republic Dark Age forced the Galactic Republic to retreat to the safety of the Core Worlds. He had developed a fleet of Stormdrivers, capital ships equipped with weaponized vaporators capable of extracting moisture from planetary atmospheres and releasing it as torrential storms and floods. By using Aquilaris as a testing ground for his new superweapons, Zodoh intended to browbeat his Sith rivals into submission.

Zodoh's fleet quickly overwhelmed Daiman's forces in Capital Cay, a port city on Aquilaris. Within minutes, Zodoh's forces had wiped out the artillery defenses, forcing the Daimanate garrison into a retreat. In the midst of the chaos, Holt infiltrated Capital Cay in a food transport and slew the garrison commander. Arriving at the Seacropper Guild's dormitories, she encountered her old friend "Old" Padgett. Holt then attempted to evacuate the slaves onto her passenger transport. However, many of the slaves expressed disinterest and apathy at their liberation since they had been reduced to subsisting on Deluge, an addictive spice used as a substitute for food. Since the fishing submersibles and eel traps were damaged, the seacroppers had been unable to go fishing and many of them had consequently been reduced to a state of drug inducement. Kerra managed to meet up with a former acquitance, a Human male named Joad Kreel. Informing Holt that she was wasting her time, he quickly revealed that the true intentions of the distress signal was in the vain hopes of a spacer delivering more of the addictive substance. Having wasted her efforts only to find out that the prisoners were apathetic to freedom, Holt was further angered by their perceived lack of fighting spirit.

While arguing with Kreel, they were interrupted by a lightning bolt unleashed by one Zodoh's Stormdrivers.Having achieved local atmospheric control over Capital Cay, the Stormdriver began releasing a deluge of flood water which swept the remnants of Daiman's garrison into the surrounding sea. Moving over the bay,the Stormdriver was attacked by Holt who fired upon the machine with her blaster pistol in a last-ditched attempt to stop it. However, Holt was saved by the arrival of Captain Jenn Devaad's squadron of Fire Lotus-class starfighters from Grace Command, an Alderaan-based pro-Republic mercy organization. Despite the withdrawal of the Republic from much of the outlying regions, Devaad's Death Squadron had continued the fight against the Sith and other threats. Unwilling to waste more firepower and having achieved the goals of his Aquilaris mission, Zodoh ordered a tactical withdrawal back to his fighter carrier Voracious which was waiting in the Aquilaris system.

Conflicting interests

"Captain! Captain Devaad! Wait—we don't have a plan! He's got a plan—or he wouldn't be out here!"
"Show some spine, Jedi! You're the one that likes it when people do something!"

―Kerra Holt quarrelling with Jenn Devaad

File:Daimanatepilot.jpg

Kerra Holt flying a Fire Lotus starfighter during a dogfight on Aquilaris.

Following the battle, Grace Command wiped out the remaining Daimanate forces on Aquilaris and liberated the population. Devaad promised that the Republic would send further food and medical supplies to the population. In reality, Grace Command was a black-operation established by Baron Lemayne for the sole purpose of undermining the Sith war effort. Grace Command sought to destabilize Sith-held worlds by spreading the Deluge drug amongst their populations. Their tactic was to "liberate" Sith-held worlds and then retreat, allowing Sith forces to resume control. In the process, the Sith's military forces would also get addicted to Deluge, rendering them ineffective. Despite its controversial nature, Lemayne's tactic achieved some success in weakening Sith resistance to the Republic.

Unaware of this conspiracy, Kerra welcomed Captain Devaad as a newly-found ally in her crusade against the Sith. Convinced by the purpotedly good work and intentions that Devaad were doing to alleviate the plight of Sith-occupied space, Kerra successfully persuaded Devaad to allow her to pilot one of the starfighters which answered to the call-sign Devil Seven. This was possible because the fighter's pilot Yades was due to rotate back to Alderaan with the transport crew. Devaad outlined the squadron's plans of departing from Aquilaris the following day on a mission to escort the transport ship Mother Grace to its hyperspace jump point. The squadron would then disembark to Heptooine to assault Sith Lord Malakite's garrison there.

Prior to disembarking on the mission the next day, she encountered her old friend Joad squatting outside the spaceport. He revealed that the starfighter pilots had forcibly evicted the Seacroppers from their barracks which aroused Holt's suspicions. Joad also tried unsuccessfully to tell Kerra of Grace Command's ill intentions towards the Aquilarians. Joad tried to dissuade Kerra from leaving with Kerra trying to allay his anxieties by telling him that the most serious addicts were being ferried away on Mother Grace for detoxification in Alderaan. Kerra viewed Joad's reluctance to seek medical treatment as symptons of brain damage sustained through over-consumption of Deluge. She promised that the Alderaanian doctors would send help back to Aqualaris. As Kerra departed for her starfighter, Joad could only lament that he failed to reveal the truth about Devaad's mission.

Following the departure of Mother Grace into hyperspace, the starfighters flew to the far reaches of the Aquilaris system where they encountered Zodoh's Intruder-class starfighter. During the ensuing pursuit, Devaad revealed her background to Kerra that she and her comrades in Death Squadron held a grudge against the Hutt lord since he had enslaved them years earlier. Death Squadron were the last survivors of an ill-fated Republic Navy taskforce sent into Sith territory. After five years of captivity, Captain Devaad and her comrades had managed to escape and had vowed to hunt down Zodoh. However, Kerra advised caution since this skirmish had not been part of their original plan and that Zodoh might have been trying to bait them. Devaad responded by chiding Kerra for her lack of enthusiasm. Kerra's suspicions were confirmed when they stumbled upon Zodoh's flagship Voracious. In reality, Zodoh had wanted to lure Death Squadron into a trap and the Republic fighters were immediately attacked by the Voracious and its escort Intruder starfighters.

Meanwhile, Zodoh's fleet of Stormdrivers exited from hyperspace. When Jenn expressed her surprise at Zodoh's decision to deploy tactical weapons on the intercom, Zodoh replied that the Stormdrivers were merely a means of removing the Sith from their conquered domains without having to commit substantial resources. Holt quickly realized that Zodoh was intending to unleash artificial rain on Aquilaris to which Zodoh replied that his scientists had discovered that a network of Stormdrivers were capable of submerging an entire world in water. Death Squadron immediately attacked the Stormdrivers but to no avail since they possessed defensive systems for flight configuration. The Republic starfighters were unable to make significant damage and several starfighters were destroyed by enemy fire. While Jenn was determined to hurt Zodoh's forces, Kerra realized that Death Squadron was both outnumbered and outgunned. She also concurred that Zodoh had advance warning of Death Squadron's coming.

On the intercomm, Devaad tried to argue Kerra out of her plan by claiming that any evacuation efforts would be futile since Daiman had recalled his cargo transports to Oranessan. By tolerating the status quo of preserving a deadlock between the Republic and the Sith, Devaad was willing to sacrifice Aquilaris as part of the greater goal of defeating Zodoh and the Sith. Unable to reconcile their differences, Kerra disengaged herself from the dogfight on the grounds of wanting to stay alive so that she could save the people of Aquilaris from Zodoh's impending deluge. Ultimately, Kerra was proven right since the Voracious deployed a tractor beam projector which netted the remnants of Death Squadron with the exception of Kerra. Captain Jenn and her crew were taken captive by the Hutt Lord who had her pilots tortured in order to coerce Devaad back into his services. In return for seizing the remaining deluge spice which was marked as orange food containers, he offered to release her and her squadron-mates.

Stormy trials

"You save your people, Kerra Holt—I'll save mine…"

―Jenn Devaad, following an argument with Holt

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Joad and Kerra embracing following the Aquilaris campaign

Meanwhile, Kerra returned to Aquilaris where she tried to convince the planet's population to evacuate to higher ground. She was met by much discouragement and apathy from the workers which was compounded by a logistics problem. The airspeeders were pregnable to stormy conditions while most of the boats had been destroyed by the Sith occupiers. Her friend "Old" Padgett added that the Seacroppers' Guild had ceased to operate due to the drug-afflicted state of its members and that their submersibles were in a worse state. When Holt enquired about the underwater harvester stations, Padgett added that they were in a decrepit state. In exasperation, Kerra lamented that everyone would sink together. Still, she managed to convince Padgett and the others to evacuate the barracks prior to the storm. Meanwhile, a frustrated Kerra went to visit the docks where she encountered a dejected Joad, who was cowering in the command deck. The two had a brief discussion about their childhood and their separation during the Sith invasion.

Kerra tried to persuade Joad to help fix the submersible but he remained despondent and uncooperative, commenting that he died when his family died. Finally, he told Kerra to take back the time-locked food crate passed by Grace Command since he did not wish to live anymore. In a final vent of exasperation, Kerra kicked the food crate only to discover that it contained the narcotic Deluge spice, which Grace Command was supposedly suppose to treat. Kerra quickly realized the true intentions of Grace Command. Heading back to the barracks, she encountered Captain Jenn coercing the other Aquilarians into gathering all the orange food crates containing Deluge. She was attempting to save her fellow starfighter pilots by bringing Grace Command's remaining storage of Deluge to Zodoh the Hutt. Kerra overpowered Jenn with her Force powers and attempted to reason with her, but to no avail. Jenn also revealed about the existence of Lemayne's Operation Deluge. Fixated with saving her comrades, Jenn refused to assist Kerra in evacuating the Aquilarian people whom she derided for not fighting for themselves. Following Jenn's departure in a shuttle, Zodoh's Stormdrivers unleashed an artificial flood which caused widespread damage and deaths throughout the planet.

While contemplating in his submersible, Joad reconsidered his attitude towards Joad. Realizing that Kerra was intending to help him and their people, Joad regretted his hostility. He also recalled that he knew how to operate the submersible. As a symbolic gesture, he threw his Deluge capsules into the sea in the presence of Kerra and pledged to assist her in the evacuation efforts. However instead of accompanying her, Joad dived into the stormy sea to reactivate the submersible's engines. Kerra was taken by surprise and was forced to continue alone in her efforts to evacuate a party of refugees to Tarrah Hill, the highest physical point on Aquilaris. With her starfighter overloaded with survivors, Kerra and the refugees were forced to seek shelter on a derilict building on Tarrah Hill. By then, the Stormdriver fleet had been disrupted during an escape attempt from the Voracious by Captain Devaad.

At that point, Joad surfaced his submersible and helped evacuate the refugees into its spacious hulls. When Padgett pointed out that the submersible did not have enough room for all the evacuees, Joad offered to evacuate the refugees to an underwater harvesting station. The submersible would then make several trips to ensure that as many civilians were able to survive the deluge. Joan reiterated that he needed manpower to help open the sea tunnels. Padgett replied that there were several Seacrooppers among the refugees who would be able to assist with this operation. By the next morning, Joad and Kerra had helped evacuate thousands of refugees to safety underwater. Since Aquilaris Minor was not a populous world, the death toll had not been catastrophic. Kerra also reunited with Captain Devaad, who had escaped from Zodoh in a stolen starfighter. She had abandoned Grace Command's agenda of inundating entire worlds with Deluge and realized the need to help civilian populations in Sith Space. After Jenn revealed that Zodoh was planning to unleash the Stormdrivers on Darkknell (a heavily populated world and capital of the Daimanate), Kerra and Joad departed on a mission to stop the Hutt crimelord. Meanwhile, Joad and Padgett continued their evacuation operations.

Saving Darkknell

"There are billions of people on Darkknell, Jenn. Daiman just enslaves them—Zodoh is going to kill them! If you want people to fight for themselves, you've got to keep them alive!"

―Kerra Holt

Zodoh's fleet blockaded Darkknell, overwhelming Daiman's understaffed defence force. Within hours, much of the planet was submerged in flood waters, creating much widespread damage and many deaths. Daiman was caught unprepared and off-guard since he had purged more than half of his defence force due to the Deluge drug epidemic. Meanwhile, Daiman's remaining forces were tied up in protracted engagements against his Sith rivals. Despite worldwide broadcasts by the Sith Lord trying to allay his subjects, Daiman was effectively powerless against the onslaught. The Southern Reservoir was unable to cope with the denudation and burst its banks, flooding Daiman's palace. An exasperated Daiman could only vent his rage against his estranged older brother Odion for allowing Zodoh to attack his realm. Still, the 'Creator of the Universe' boasted that he had inconceivable resources everywhere.

While Zodoh's victory was almost complete, he had underestimated Kerra and his old nemesis Jenn Devaad. They infiltrated Zodoh's fleet by flying a stolen twin-seater Hutt starfighter. Based on her time aboard the Voracious, Jenn had correctly deduced that the Hutt lord's flagship contained a command centre with a massive data processor for coordinating the Stormdriver fleet. They flew the starfighter into the hangar bay of Zodoh's flagship and Kerra was able to disembark and infiltrate the vessel. The Jedi Knight quickly wiped out Zodoh's guards and made her way to the data processing chamber, a massive dome in the heart of the Voracious. Meanwhile, Jenn harassed Zodoh's starfighter defenses. Kerra located her quarry only to be surprised by Zodoh who had donned his armour and jetpack. Having surprised her with electrical lightning, he then duelled with the Jedi Knight using a Mandalorian vibroblade. To place his foe at a deliberate disadvantage, Zodoh also deactivated the artificial gravity field and activated his jetpack.

Following a one-sided battle, Zodoh had the young Jedi woman locked in a neck grasp. However before he could deliver a killing blow, he was interrupted by Jenn's starfighter which shot a hole through the command dome and exposed the ship to zero-gravity. The ensuing explosion set of a series of blasts which destroyed the Voracious in a firestorm. Zodoh was blasted into space but survived since his Hutt physique was tough enough to withstand zero gravity. Meanwhile, his two Jedi foes escaped into hyperspace. With the destruction of the Voracious, the Stormdrivers were unable to coordinate their global storm and were presumably disable or wiped out by Daiman's defence forces who were able to regroup and reform their formations. Zodoh was subsequently captured and executed by Daiman, who appropriated one of his own Stormdriver devices to dehydrate the Hutt.

With the retreat of the Stormdrivers, the storms and flooding subsided and the landscape began the process of drying up. Following Zodoh's demise, Kerra and Jenn returned to help Joad in the evacuation efforts. Having misled the Sith into believing that the planet was still completely submerged, Kerra, Joad, and Jenn planned to use Aquilaris as a major base for shuttling refugees out of Sith Space. Having stopped consuming Deluge, Joad was gradually recovering and reverting back to his normal self, much to Kerra's delight. Jenn also planned to sabotage Operation Deluge by misleading her superiors into shipping their supplies to Aquilaris. Enroute, the drugs would be dumped into space and she would fly back with a shipload of refugees. While Joad had been unable to persuade Kerra from leaving Aquilaris to continue her anti-Sith crusade, he borne no will and accepted that everyone had different roles in serving the greater good.

The Helm of Ieldis

Vested Interests

"You see, Jedi? I know everything that has ever happened—and will ever happen. And you're beginning to believe it. It's why you're working for me now!"
"I'm not working for you, you lunatic! I just need to get into the Odionate—far inside."

―Kerra Holt and Daiman

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Wayman, Kerra's key to entering the Odionate

Kerra Holt departed Aquilaris in her Fire Lotus starfighter which had been gifted by Captain Devaad. Having "saved" Daiman from defeat at Darkknell, she had gained his grudging respect and admiration. Thus, she was able to establish contact with him and solicited his assistance in eliminating Odion, whom both shared a mutual dislike for different reasons. Kerra wanted to avenge the ravaging of her homeworld and to find the whereabouts of her parents. Meanwhile, Daiman sought to punish Odion for indirectly aiding Zodoh during the Aquilaris campaign. With Daiman's aquiescence, she was able to infiltrate Tergamenion disguised as a factory worker. Tergamenion was a bleak factory world and police state that was controlled by a highly-efficient security apparatus of holograms which allowed Daiman to monitor his subjects' every movement and conversation. Unlike other Daimanate worlds, there was no underground resistance movement on Tergamenion and its inhabitants lived a life of unending, rigorous labor.

Daiman obtained intelligence of the presence of an Odionate agent named Wayman, a Claimer who had infiltrated Daiman's security forces. With Daiman as her control agent, Kerra posed as a Force-sensitive factory worker named "Mercy" who would pretend to escape and then be apprehended by Wayman. Since the plan involved diving from a high-rise building, Kerra was equipped with a jetpack for a safety precaution. As planned, Kerra attempted to escape from a factory and established contact with Wayman, who detected her Force-sensitivity and altered her records in the worker database to show she was deceased. Wayman succeeded in recruiting "Mercy" by appealing to her alleged desire to avenge the deaths of her family at the hands of Daiman. He offered to train her as a dark side-using Novitiate. As a test of her abilities and enthusiasm, he told her to make her own way to Odion but also gave her a signalling device that she could use when she arrived at her destination. "Mercy" complied and he departed on a speeder bike.

She then conversed with a hologram of Daiman, who had been monitoring the conversation while posing in his hologram mode. Daiman commented about his omnipresence with Kerra responding that he was deranged and questioning her decision to cooperate with Daiman. In response, Daiman boasted of his omnipotent power of being able to know the past, present and future, and claimed that was why Kerra was working for him. Kerra disagreed and emphasized that this partnership was only a temporary "alliance of convenience." Daiman also claimed that he prophecized a great tribulation in the future originated in Odion's realm.

Behind Enemy Lines

"Don't know why. Calls herself Mercy -- and I think it's gone to her head."

―Yulan expressing his reservations about "Mercy"

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Kerra on a quest for her parents

With their briefing concluded, Kerra under the alias "Mercy" departed in her starfighter for the Odionate. There she was inducted into the Novitiate and sent on a mission to Skarpos, part of Sith Lord Malakite's realm known as the Menagerie. During the Battle of Skarpos, the Odionate forces sustained heavy casualties when several Novitiates and Thunder Guard members were killed in a tar pit ambush by Malakite's Mutates, individuals subjected to Sith alchemical experiments which twisted their minds and bodies. "Mercy" was horrified when several Novitiates and Thunder Guardsmen charged to their deaths in the blazing tar pits. She tried to turn back Odion's forces and even tended to a wounded acolyte. Her concerns angered her commanding officer Beld Yulan who berated her for her unwillingness to die. However, Wayman intervened on her behalf and criticized Ylan's suicide wave tactics as a contributing factor to prevailing inexperience among Odion's forces. He defended "Mercy" by expressing that he had high hopes for the young woman but counseled her to follow Yulan's orders on future occasions due to his senior position in Odion's hierarchy.

He then informed "Mercy" and the other surviving Novitiates that Lord Odion had reassigned "Mercy's" team for a big assignment to recover the Helm of Ieldis. Wayman ordered Yulan's fleet to meet Odion at his new capital of Jubalene, formerly part of the defeated Bactranate. Yulan commented that he would arrive there but first needed to stop at Vanahame to replenish his arms supplies. "Mercy" then asked Wayman about whether Jubalene had any data centers, feigning enthusiasm for pursuing Odion's teachings. Wayman confirmed an affirmative to her question while praising her devotion. At Jubalene, he and "Mercy" were present with Odion during a combat duel pitting three Duros bankers against a rancor. The Duros had been duped into adopting Odion's nihilistic teachings and believed that they could embrace death by tackling a fully-grown rancor. With Odion encouraging them "to end the pain," the three bankers entered a berserker rage and attacked the rancor with spears. Ultimately, their efforts proved futile and they were eaten by the beast in the presence of a satisfied Odion who commented that even Lord Bactra's bankers could be used for his own purposes when properly motivated.

Odion also added that he savored the deaths of individuals who had embraced death willingly, since it strengthened the dark side. He also expressed his annoyance towards life energies which glowed through the light side of the Force. While other Sith could tolerate it, he tried to block it and saw death as a relief. Kerra was also present when Odion discussed about his plans to reopen Project Pandemonium, which aimed to recover the ancient Sith war relic the Helm of Ieldis. Lord Ieldis was a Sith Lord who lived before the Great Hyperspace War and had created the helm to turn sentient beings into mindless killers. The trail last ended at Sarrassia and the project was suspending since the planet was part of the Bactranate, a rival Sith domain. With the annexation of the Bactranate, Odion revealed his intentions to invade Sarrassia and reclaim the relic.

Wayman's team including Kerra were assigned the task of continuing the research where the trail ended, beginning with the material available in his data center at Jubalene. At that point, Odion sensed a familiar presence in the room but could not discern who it was. However, Kerra escaped further notice with the arrival of Yulan who had arrived back from Vanahame rearmed and refreshed for the invasion of Sarrassia. While Odion and Yulan departed to watch several of Bactra's former attorneys fighting a gundark at the arena, Wayman confided to Mercy about his discomfort that Odion favoured Yulan and thus kept him alive. He also expressed that he sensed a great emptiness in the force emanating through Odion's spirit. After Wayman left to join the others at the arena, Kerra took advantage of that time to browse through the computer. Kerra had carried a locket of her parents throughout her childhood and wanted to discover their wherabouts and fate. She placed the locket onto the computer's scanner and quickly discovered that her parents had been captured by Odion's forces on Capital Cay and dragooned into Project Pandemonium. This discovery made her more convinced to travel to Sarrassia with the Sith to ascertain the fate of her parents.

Project Pandemonium

"A fire may grow, Kerra, but it always burns with the same light. You wear the Sithling's rags, but you can't hide who you are. Zoojoo sees the seven-year old girl who climbed onto the roof of the Great Hall. You gave our poor old Abbot a stroke!"

―Aunt Zoojoo

During the invasion of Sarrassia, Mercy's team arrived in a fleet of gunships which were then used to transport Grumani prisoners. The captives were sorted out by their species' skill details while children were forcibly separated from their parents. Later, Kerra would learn that all the children in the Odionate were confined in a series of cloisters where they were indoctrinated. Under the leadership of the Twi'lek Doyan, the Novitiates were then dispatched to Mount Diligence along with a unit of Sith troopers where several Grumani Hierophants were defending a cave. They had set up a trench and some of them wielded lightsabers. During a melee, Kerra attempted to restrain fellow Sith acolyte Doyan from killing a Hierophant. However, this was witnessed by Yulan who ordered his cannons to open fire on all the combatants, killing and wounding several of his own troops in friendly fire. Again, Yulan reprimanded Mercy's alleged soft-heartedness and unwillingness to die in combat. Mercy countered that Yulan's cannons nearly vaporized his own troops and countered that Odion would be greatly displeased if his mission to find the Helm of Ieldis was hampered by the death of its members. Yulan grumbled that Odion would merely find more Novitiates and then went to inspect the situation on the ground. He quickly discovered that several Sith troopers had been killed or wounded by his firendly fire.

One of Yulan's officers then reported that his Sith troopers had cleared the cave entrance and killed the defending priests who were making a last stand. Yulan speculated there was something inside and ordered Mercy and her comrades to explore the caves, commenting that he wanted to be back in Vanahame while he was still young enough to remember its location. While in the cave, Kerra was separated from her fellow Novitiates and discoverd a secret entrance that was accessed by the symbol on her mother's pendant. She discovered a temple separated by an underwater river and was subsequently ambushed by the alien Hierophant Aunt Zoojoo who initially mistook her for a Sith acolyte. However, Aunt Zoojoo quickly recognized Kerra as a light-sider despite her Sith rags. Later at the underground temple, Zoojoo revealed the last known whereabouts of her parents and confirmed that the Helm of Ieldis were actually located on Skarpos.

She also revealed that her parents had also sired a younger sibling during their captivity. Their meeting was interrupted by the arrival of Yulan and several Sith who had enterd the chamber by using explosives to create a hole. A panicked Zoojoo detonated an explosion which buried the temple under rubble, crushing herself to death but denying the Sith vital information in the process. Yulan and his companions managed to escape the debris caused by the cave caving in from the explosion. Mercy subsequently surfaced and Yulan enquired about her reasons for talking with that woman. Mercy claimed that she was merely seeking intelligence and revealed that the Helm was located on Skarpos and ordered Yulan to take them there since he was responsible for their transportation. Yulan complied and began making travel arrangments for the hyperspace travel to Skarpos, which was currently being besieged by Odion's forces. Kerra could only lament the loss of a family friend in the form of Zoojoo but vowed to continue her quest to find her parents.

In the Heart of Darkness

Enroute to Skarpos, Yulan's fleet did a stop-over at Vanahame. Desperate to find the whereabouts of her parents, Kerra feigned zeal and devotion to Odion's cult and attempted to commandeer a shuttle for herself. She was stopped by her commander Doyan who reprimanded for spurning comradership, reminding "Mercy" that they were working as a team to locate the Helm. The Kubaz Glenk had also disappeared on Sarrassia, leading the other Novitiates to concluded that he was trying to beat the others to the Helm. By then, Yulan's warship Gravedigger had been refueled and Mercy was sent to the underground basement beneath the base to inform Yulan. There, she discovered a large Odionate cloister, a massive planet-sized orphanage where captive children were indoctrinated and broken down into soldiers and labourers for Odion's cause.

She encountered Yulan himself, who informed her about the origins of the Cloisters and divulged his own background. Kerra learnt that Yulan had once been a Mandalorian mercenary who had embraced Odion's dark side teachings following the deaths of his children from an outbreak of the Candorian plague. From his experiences, Yulan concluded that life was meaningless and that the only escape was to embrace nothingness. Hoping to find her unknown younger sibling, Kerra also enquired about information on the identity of the captives only to learnt that the Cloister maintained no records at all. Following their stopover, Yulan's fleet returned to Skarpos where they established an armed camp beneath the Morbollon Mesa.

The Novitiates performed a gravimetric scan of the mesa, which showed that there were extensive interior tunnels, thirty meters from its plateau. They made preparations to explore the mesa but their work was interrupted by the arrival of Lord Malakite and an invasion army, seeking to reclaim control of Skarpos from Odion. Malakite's forces included swarms of winged Night-Soarers who attempted to overwhelm Yulan's troops, but were driven back by artillery. The fighting was further complicated by the arrival of Odion's estranged brother and rival Daiman, who was accompanied by the duplicitous Glenk. Glenk was in reality a Daimanate agent who had infiltrated the Novitiates and relayed intelligence about the Helm back to his Master. Daiman's starfighters bombarded the Odionate camp and Malakite's troops, causing extensive damage. In the ensuing chaos, Mercy saved General Yulan from a fiery death.

Yulan ordered Mercy and her comrades to head to the top of the Mesa in a skiff while his artillery and infantry held back the invading armies. They soon reached the opening in the mesa and Mercy leapt into the cave where she found Grumani stonework on its walls. All the Novitiates were able to sense the Dark side energy emanating from the Helm's presence. Before her comrades could join her, "Mercy" used her red Sith lightsaber to damage one of the skiff's engines, causing it to descend. Doyan and the other Novitiates managed to cling on and expressed anger at "Mercy's" betrayal, promising to find her no matter how long it took. Meanwhile, Kerra activated her green Jedi lightsaber and entered the cave. She entered a hallway where she found her mother Mercia's satchel. Hoping they were still alive, Kerra entered a chamber only to find a mound of rocks and earth. She was quickly struck from behind with Force lightning by Odion, who himself had arrived on a personal shuttle. He quickly exposed "Mercy" as Kerra before revealing to her that he had already taken the Helm for himself.

Depths of Despair

Odion disarmed Kerra and took her captive, binding her in restraints. He was subsequently joined by his Novitiates and General Yulan and they ascended to the top of the Mesa, taking a captive Kerra with them. At the top of the mesa, Yulan's soldiers explored the underground network of caves and tunnels while Odion's sages confirmed that the relic was indeed the fabled Helm of Ieldis. Odion also revealed that he had sensed Kerra's presence ever since she entered the Odion. However, he intentionally let her in because he wanted her to lead him to the Helm of Ieldis. He also revealed further details about the events on Aquilaris Minor ten years ago: that he had captured he parents Aron and Mercia Holt precisely because of their research on the Helm of Ieldis.

Odion also revealed that the Claimer Wayman had been monitoring Kerra's whereabouts, reporting the information back to him. Despite his gains, Odion expressed frustration that he did not know how to operate the Helm. Meanwhile, Yulan and his troops emerged from the cave. They reported that they found some camping supplies and two human skeletons, which had been crushed during an explosion. Yulan also discovered a heirloom which was revealed to belong to Aron and Mercia; confirming the deaths of Kerra's parents. With that discovery, Kerra descended into grief and anguish, activating the Helm of Ieldis. Odion then used her anguish and misery to activate the Helm of Ieldis which greatly amplified his own dark side powers.

The Helm of Ieldis had an immediate effect on the three massed armies, driving all the combatants into a homicidal frenzy. Within minutes, the combatants descended into a murderous rampage, killing their own comrades indiscriminately. Daiman himself narrowly survived an assassination attempt from Glenk. In the ensuing scuffle, he fought off Glenk and struck him with Force lightning, causing him to topple to his death beneath the Morbollon Mesa. With their armies in total disarray, Daiman and Malakite were forced to flee the battle while they could still resist the power of the Helm. Under the influence of the Helm, the three armies annihilated each other. Odion's rivals Daiman and Malakite narrowly escaped with their lives as their own forces turned even on them. Following the successful test demonstration of the Helm, Odion and his entourage departed Skarpos on the Gravedigger, taking a captive Kerra with them.

Despite his earlier hostility towards Kerra, one of her enemies Yulan came to grudgingly respect Kerra for risking her life infiltrating the Odionate to find her parents. Towards the end of the journey, Yulan would spend some time meeting with Kerra in her holding cell. He expressed his surprise that Odion had given so much attention to a young woman, admitting that he had expected a great and powerful general. An exhausted Kerra replied that she was not feeling at her best right now and was very tired since she had been running so hard for so long. When Yulan asked if she came all the way from the Republic to find her parents, she replied that it was not part of her original plan but admitted she had hoped there was the slightest chance they were still alive.

Kerra lamented her failure for not expecting that Odion's spies were moniroting her. Yulan sympathetically commended her for infiltrating the Odionate, stating that she took such a chance to find her parents. During the meeting Kerra also expressed her desire to find her lost younger brother or sister, whom she believed was incarcerated in one of the Odionate cloisters. She explained to Yulan that was going to be her next search but conceded that she did not expect to have to do it alone. Odion then explained the purpose for his visit; a holorecorder had been recovered from the wrecked mesa chamber. Odion had viewed it privately and had ordered Yulan to bring it to Kerra in person.

It turned that the holorecording was a message from Kerra's late parents to Vannar or any other Jedi involved in the University of Sanbra on the Ieldis study. Four years after the Massacre of Aquilaris, her parents had finally recovered the Helm of Ieldis on Skarpos. Following their capture by Lord Odion, the couple had been forcibly impressed into Project Pandemonium, a secret Odionate project to recover the Helm. The Holts had intended to bring the Helm to the Jedi and the Galactic Republic for safekeeping but were unable to since the planet was besieged by warring Sith factions. By that stage, the Holts had run out of food and there was a permanent Sith presence outside the Morbollon Mesa. To prevent the Sith from finding them and the Helm, the couple made the fateful decision to blow themselves and the chamber up, in a last ditched attempt to deny the Sith access to the Helm.

Prior to their deaths, Mercia lamented she would never meet her younger child. She also left a farewell message for Kerra, wishing her good luck. They also explained to her that as her parents were sacrificing their lives for the good of all the children in the galaxy. They reitereated that they still loved her and had never given up on the possibility that she had survived. Following the end of the transmission, Yulan commented that the Holts had only feigned devotion to Odion's death cult. He added that they thought Kerra had died, lost everything, and sacrificed themselves on the chance that other people's children would be hurt. He surmised that they had no one to live for but they died for everyone else. For a Sith devotee like Odion and Yulan, this did not make sense.

Kerra disagreed but without showing any malice, argued that her parents' sacrifice had made perfect sense. For her, their sacrifice signified that if death could have a meaning, then life must have a meaning as well. Shortly after their meeting, the Gravedigger landed on Vanahame. Kerra asked if Odion had wanted more anguish to feed on, adding that Yulan could tell Odion it did not work. Yulan replied that Odion may have just wanted her to understand the Helm's potential. Upon realizing they had landed on Vanahame, Kerra reached the conclusion that Odion had come to the Cloister to harness the misery and sadness of the inmates within the planet-sized orphanage. By using the Helm to tap into these negative emotions, Odion's powers would thus be unlimited.

Personality and traits

Kerra Holt was a headstrong and assertive young woman who was committed to the Jedi less because of a love for Jedi ideals, and more for personal reasons: her animus against the Sith was fuelled by her childhood experience of witnessing the destruction of her family and home on Aquilaris at the hands of Sith Lord Odion. Her experiences during the Massacre of Aquilaris left her with an abiding hatred towards this Sith Lord and she sought to frustrate his schemes. This motivated her to join the Jedi Order as a means of exacting retribution against the Sith. At the beginning of her odyssey, Kerra's worldview was starkly black-and-white, but softened and grew more nuanced once she experienced life in Sith space first-hand, with all its subtleties and contradictions.

She was able to think on her feet, as evidenced by her quick actions at Oranessan, which saved Operation: Influx from ending before it had even properly started. In fact, the entire operation was her idea: she had so impressed her mentor, Vannar Treece, by coordinating logistics for previous missions of his from the Temple, that he trusted her enough to prepare a plan for striking against Daiman. Operation: Influx was the first mission she participated in in the field, which explained her rash behaviour.

Kerra was also a natural-born leader and used her leadership skills to assist the evacuation of civilians on both Chelloa and Aquilaris. She had a selfless concern for coming to the aid of other sentient beings particularly non-Force sensitive civilians trapped in Sith Space. Due to her childhood experiences, Kerra always retained a heart for helping those less fortunate than her even though they did not often reciprocate her assistance. During the Aquilaris campaign, her selflessness ran into conflict with the self-centred outlook of Republic Captain Jenn Devaad who believed that only those who helped themselves were worthy of assistance.

Despite her hatred for the Sith in general, she was occasionally willing to work with one Sith Lord against the other. Kerra thus subscribed to the ethos that "the enemy of her enemy was her friend." Following the Battle of Darkknell, she conspired with Lord Daiman against his brother Lord Odion since both shared grievances against the latter. On this occasion, she viewed the narcisstic Daiman as the lesser evil in contrast to the nihilistic Odion whose destructive tendencies were regarded as a threat to the wellbeing of the galxy.

Powers and abilities

As with most other Jedi Knights, Kerra Holt was proficient in lightsaber combat and wielded a green lightsaber. She was capable of taking on a wide variety of opponents in melee combat including Sith Lords, Hutts and even non-Force-sensitive individuals. Kerra was also capable of using the Force to levitate both objects and people, as displayed when she lifted three refugees on Aquilaris from the floodwaters onto a submersible.She was also experienced with concealing herself with the Force, able to stand in Odion's presence without him recognizing her.In non-combat areas, Kerra also knew how to pilot a variety of vehicles including starfighters, cargo transports and even airspeeders.

Behind the scenes

The name Kerra is a contraction of Knight Errant, and started as a placeholder used by John Jackson Miller. Kerra's last name was inspired by the Andy Holt Apartments, in which Miller lived for a summer. Kerra Holt was first introduced as the primary protagonist in the new Knight Errant comic series which debuted in August 2010 with the release of Star Wars: Knight Errant 0 during Celebration V. Miller developed her story background while she was drawn by Ivan Rodriguez and colored by Michael Atiyeh.

Appearances

• Star Wars: Knight Errant: Influx
• Star Wars: Knight Errant: Aflame Template:1st
• Knight Errant novel
• Star Wars: Knight Errant: Deluge
• Star Wars: Knight Errant 11: Escape, Part 1
• Star Wars: Knight Errant 12: Escape, Part 2

Sources

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• Template:InsiderCite
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• Template:SWArchive
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• The Essential Reader's Companion

External links

• Dark Horse Announces New Star Wars Comic

In other languages

• polski