Basic Information:

• Name:  Tarika Kenau

• Alias: None

• Species:  Human

• Gender:  Female

• Age: 32

Affiliation & Status:

• Affiliation:  Sith Empire, Imperial Military

• Title:  Commanding Officer, 3rd Battalion, Korriban Regiment

• Rank:  Major

• Force Sensitive:  No

Origin & Residence:

• Homeworld:  Balmorra

• Current Residence:  Korriban

Physical Stats:

• Height:  1.73 meters (5'9")

• Weight:  66 kg (146 lbs)

• Build/Body Type:  Balanced, observant stance, practical strength

• Eye Color: Hazel-gray

• Hair Color:  Dark brown

• Skin Color:  Fair
  
  

Distinctive Features:

• Distinctive Characteristics:  Watchful gaze, centered breath, unshaken stillness

• Scars/Tattoos/Markings:  Thin scar on left leg from training collapse; no imperial markings

• Other Notable Features:  Cleaned but weathered armor; helmet rarely worn, always ready

Personality Profile:

• Openness to Experience:  High (perceptive, quietly probing, context-driven)

• Conscientiousness:  Moderate (methodical, situationally elastic)

• Extroversion:  Low (communicates in presence, not volume)

• Agreeableness:  High (listens before leading, trusts with precision)

• Neuroticism:  Low (centered under stress, led by clarity not impulse)
  
  

Additional Traits:

• Strengths:  Silent authority, calibrated empathy, conflict diffusion without demand

• Flaws:  Misread by rigid structures, under-leverages formal rank, bears weight others discard

• Likes:  Field margins, perceptual silence, structures that adapt under pressure

• Dislikes: Theatrics of command, hierarchy without listening, doctrinal coercion

• Disposition: Serene, resonant, tuned to fractures others miss 

Command Structure:

• Superior:  Colonel Veyra Dren

• Subordinates:  3rd Battalion (direct command)
  
  

Personal Connections:

• Significant Other:  None (chooses presence over attachment; leads through wholeness, not need)

• Notable Friends: Sara Kenau (twin; diverged path, shared language of silence and shift)

• Pets/Companions: Nova (loth-cat; adopted mid-deployment, trusted anchor during Korriban watch)
  
  

Family:

• Mother:  Lena Kenau (Imperial auditor; status formally unverified)

• Father:  Varek Kenau (Imperial logistics; last seen in fleet logistics sphere)

• Siblings:  Sara Kenau (twin; doctrinal tactician, silent resonance in mirror form)

Skills & Abilities:

• Signature Abilities/Force Powers:  Anchoring presence, emotional triangulation, unit-wide morale modulation

• Combat Specialties:  Non-lethal resolution, perception-based containment, tension extraction

• Languages Spoken:  Galactic Basic (fluent), hand signals, unspoken comm-network variants

• Notable Achievements:  Developed silent morale syncs; presence-proven command through Korriban artifacts and multi-zone deployments

• Other Skills:  Nonverbal field alignment, zone de-escalation, resonance-focused squad regulation
  
  

Equipment & Gear:

• Primary Weapon(s):  RK-3 officer pistol (precision draw); SE-14r trooper fallback (close-quarters)

• Notable Equipment/Gear:  Customized field pad for emotional diagnostics and cohesion logging

• Armor/Outfit:  Crimson Korriban Regiment armor—visible wear, respected not for polish but for endurance

• Personal Items:  Worn sketchbook of unseen failures; cloth wrap from containment retrieval used as field talisman

• Mount/Vehicle:  None assigned personally; cycles through pooled deployment crafts

Roleplay Hooks:

• Quirks & Habits:  Folds gloves with symmetrical calm before any operation; delays one measured breath beyond protocol before engaging

• Rumors & Reputation:  Known among inner units as “the presence that steadies”; said to have halted Force resonance events without command or weapon

• Open Connections:  Survivors of artifact containment, non-Force squad medics, former observers who remember the strength in her stillness
  
  

Story Seeds:

• Current Goals:  Redefine authority through quiet resilience—prove that presence stabilizes longer than threat

• Hidden Agendas or Secrets:  Field sketches echo resistance-era logistics routes; embedded in morale brief headers

• Fears/Weaknesses:  That presence, if unrecognized, might fail when volume rises; that her restraint might one day cost what force could have saved

• Story Arcs:  Balance presence with voice; protect without domination; make room for strength that doesn’t announce itself 

Background:  

Born amid enforced order on Balmorra, Tarika Kenau learned to trace tension through silence. Where her twin enforced regulation with flawless precision, Tarika mapped deviation—where the system missed what it claimed to preserve. Never disobedient, she moved within permission’s edge, listening for what structure ignored. From early simulations to artifact incidents on Korriban, she resolved crises not by rank but by anchoring space others couldn’t hold. In vaults, during evacuations, beneath the scrutiny of Sith command, her restraint saved more than weapons ever could. Now a Major, she commands not by voice—but by stillness. In a galaxy saturated with noise, she teaches her battalion not just to follow—but to feel. 

Timeline/Chronology:

• 3653 BBY | Age 0 — Born on Balmorra; conditioned within layered silence and systemic tension.

• 3643 BBY | Age 10 — Entered Imperial Enclave; began mapping structural absences.

• 3636 BBY | Age 17 — Injured during training scaffold collapse; noted as emotional stabilizer.

• 3635 BBY | Age 18 — Survived vault breach with minimal intervention; empathy documented under stress.

• 3632 BBY | Age 21 — Defused Sith artifact incident without weapons; marked for anomaly-based de-escalation.

• 3630 BBY | Age 23 —Contained Jedi-civilian conflict zone through presence; suppression avoided.

• 3629 BBY | Age 24 — Preserved life and artifact in unstable vault zone; witnessed by Lords Zera and Zylia.

• 3627 BBY | Age 26 — Oversaw morale cohesion at High Command Summit; recorded but unpraised.

• 3624 BBY | Age 29 — Assigned to Odessen summit under silent observation directive.

• 3621 BBY | Age 32 — Promoted to Major; presence-based protocols confirmed under artifact pressure during Korriban Vault Nine mission.

Roleplayer Info:

• Contact Preference:  In-game (Tarika Kenau - Imp Side)

• Timezone:  EST (UTC-5)

• Activity & Availability:  Weekdays (afternoon) & weekends (during day)

Roleplay Preference & Boundaries:

• Roleplay Style:  Prefer 1:1 or small group roleplay, mostly in-game.

• Triggers & Boundaries:  No god mode.

• Plotting & Collaboration:  Open to long-term plots but prefer things to develop more on the fly/spontaneously. 

• Other Notes:  Preferred session length: 1–3 hours.

🟥 Episode I – The Quiet Between
3643 BBY | Age 10 | Civilian | Balmorra, Southern Hab-Zone

🪐 Galactic Context:

Though the Treaty of Coruscant (3653 BBY) officially froze large-scale conflict, the Empire tightened its hold on Balmorra with surveillance and ration controls, especially near Sobrik and Gorinth Canyon. Resistance whispers—sometimes linked to figures like Fortris Gall—echo through quiet sectors. Tarika’s upbringing centers on noticing those quiet fractures beneath the enforced stillness. 

📘 Narrative:

✧ Tarika Kenau was born into a stillness that throbbed with tension: patrol craft drills thrumming overhead, and ration checkpoints enforcing routine. Her parents, Lena and Varek, upheld silence and efficiency as virtues—emotion was measured in approved phrases. While Sara’s side of their room echoed with regimented clarity, Tarika’s side held grid sketches, maintenance logs synced from her mother’s datapad, and encrypted graphs of power spikes near the Okara Droid Factory. She never broke protocol—but she detected its gaps. At school, she traced maintenance outages against lockdown schedules, wondering if they overlapped with resistance comm bursts. Teachers flagged her as compliant, but irregular—always steady, but quietly probing. Sara excelled in cadence drills, but Tarika recorded which classmates flinched first. Routine was armor—but the gaps, she realized, could be ground for resistance. She never spoke aloud, not yet. But she started to see. 

✧ In the Enclave, simulation drills echoed Navarro station exercises, with repeated references to Republic sabotage and doctrine quoting Darth Marr’s emphasis on “physical presence anchoring control.” Other children mimicked formation commands; Tarika watched where they hesitated. She observed datapad usage: who logged errors, who paused longest before submitting. She didn’t comment—she logged. Her files carried notes on hesitation hotspots: dorm corridors, cafeteria hums, outsourced resistance rumors. She exchanged glances with classmates who’d seen the same. No silent rebellion—just silent indexing. Her sister’s precision fascinated her—a method in control. But precision without error? That worried her. Because errors paved the way for truth. 

✧ Late that evening, Tarika unplugged her mother’s pad to trace outage maps. She charted supply reroutes flagged in Varek’s logs against shifts in patrol schedules. Nothing ever aligned perfectly—but it lingered in patterns that no one advertised. She considered telling Sara, but Sara’s formality wouldn’t see nuance. So Tarika stayed quiet. If she was going to challenge the system, it wouldn’t be by breaking rules, but by reading what they concealed. She sketched imperceptibly: nodes near Okara, timestamps matching patrol radio silence, brief power dips. A journal entry read simply: “The system leaks where it fears correction.” It was not defiance. It was awareness. And awareness could shape the next step. 

✧ The Sector 7 containment malfunction hit like thunder. Alarms screamed, foam hissed against steel. Sara executed flawlessly—checked exits, filed flags, led the cohort outward. Tarika didn’t freeze. She heard it—a droid still logged into a relay node, its beeps counting down a comm tower broadcast override. Procedure said leave it. Tarika followed the beeps, pried the droid free with shaking fingers, coughing through foam. She emerged dusty, wet, display blinking. The patrol officer scowled and muttered, “Misplaced courage.” He didn’t arrest her. He didn’t commend her. He just looked past her. For a heartbeat Tarika felt the weight of being unseeable—neither trouble nor talent. But she slipped home a little quieter, a little more aware. 

✧ In the days after, life’s surface remained rigid: drills resumed, supplies rationed, surveillance towers hummed. But Tarika changed. She sat closer to the thermal horizon when other kids laughed. She watched Sara’s posture tighten during formation, features drawn and distant. She gathered fragments: system failures near supply convoys, comm glitches flagged only to resist recalibration. She turned them into maps, notes, margins in her journal. She didn’t speak, but she saw everything. One night, she wrote, “Silence kills when truth is missing.” Then shut the journal and pressed herself into the dim corridor light. The stillness felt alive there. 

📓 Personal Log: “The Space Between Orders” | Balmorra, 3643 BBY

“I didn’t break protocol. I filled the gaps it couldn’t reach. That droid mattered—to someone—so I didn’t evacuate it. Sara says rules are safety. I say silence is what kills. I trace the fractures from Okara to convoy routes, but no one asks about them. Maybe no one should notice. One day, the Empire will need people who see systems and lives.” 

🟥 Episode II – Shattered Ground
3636 BBY | Age 17 | Imperial Recruit | Dromund Kaas, Civilian Enlistment Training Grounds

🪐 Galactic Context:

Four years after the Treaty of Coruscant’s collapse, the Sith Empire reasserts control through internal consolidation. As Darth Marr guides military doctrine from the front, Dromund Kaas becomes both capital and crucible—a proving ground for recruits molded in his image. Resistance rumors linger in the outer systems, but on Kaas, precision replaces uncertainty. 

📘 Narrative:

✧ Dromund Kaas greeted Tarika Kenau with lightning and expectation. As she stepped off the shuttle, acidic rain hissed across the durasteel canopy, echoing like pressure. Sara moved ahead—posture perfect, dataform ready. Tarika hung back a pace, watching who adjusted their packs mid‑stride, who flinched at the sirens. The sky pulsed like a living circuit. Somewhere behind them, their parents had already vanished into their reassignments: Lena submerged in audit command, Varek rerouted into fleet logistics. The family moved like parts in a machine—efficient, aligned, unexamined. But Tarika wasn’t here to vanish. She was here to watch the system from the inside. That meant noticing what others wanted erased. 

✧ Training struck quickly. Instructors quoted Darth Marr’s philosophies: “Fear is useful; panic is waste.” Recruits marched through static-slick fields, mouths full of doctrine. Most adapted through mimicry. Tarika watched. She adjusted formation steps to conceal the slowest runner. She flagged faulty gear swaps and rerouted tag assignments without logging it. Instructors labeled her “irregularly stabilizing.” That suited her. Cohesion mattered more than credit. She moved through the cracks. 

✧ Sara, on the other hand, executed doctrine like scripture. She breathed with grid pulse sync, reported faults before they were spoken. Tarika admired the discipline, but worried about what it concealed. They shared barracks, shared meals—but never fully shared space. Sara’s silence wasn’t absence. It was armor. One night, Tarika passed her sister’s bunk and saw clenched fists, breath too measured. She sat nearby. “You don’t have to be perfect for them,” she whispered. Sara didn’t answer. But the next day, her reports carried one fewer citation. Tarika marked it, quietly. 

✧ Rumors traveled along bunk edges—whispers of Jornas, the rogue sniper who’d defected, or vanished, or both. Tarika listened. The myths weren’t about accuracy—they were about possibility. Someone beyond the doctrine. She traced fault lines across spare slates—Balmorran outage clusters, grid stutters on Kaas, weapon calibration mismatches. The same inconsistencies she'd watched growing up. None pointed to sabotage. But together, they whispered tension. When she caught Sara looking once, she didn’t hide the data. She let it be seen. 

✧ The explosion hit like a blade of light. No sound, just flash. The scaffold cracked beneath her boots. Her leg pinned—metal biting flesh. Pain bloomed like fire, comms fuzzed into static. Smoke filled her throat. She couldn’t call out. She didn’t expect rescue. Protocol said: wait. But lying there, her cheek against durasteel, Tarika knew the system didn’t plan for moments like this. It expected silence. But someone ran anyway. 

📓 Personal Log: “Stillness and Fire” | Dromund Kaas, 3636 BBY

“I don’t remember the blast. I remember the silence after. The pain. The smell of metal. The moment I knew no order was coming for me. And then—Sara broke protocol. She didn’t pause. She moved. And for the first time, I saw what her discipline really held underneath.” 

🟥 Episode III – Love, Not Protocol
3635 BBY | Age 18 | Imperial Private | Dromund Kaas, Logistics Sector 12 Training Yard

🪐 Galactic Context:

The Eternal Empire’s sudden rise disrupts the galaxy's power structures, striking past traditional defenses to fracture infrastructure. Dromund Kaas, though untouched by battle, is destabilized by fear and reactive escalation. The Sith Empire intensifies internal drills, while agencies like the Imperial Reclamation Service monitor for signs of breakdown—including within personnel. 

📘 Narrative:

✧ Rain slipped across the scaffold, pooling in joints rusted from postponed maintenance cycles. Tarika Kenau paced the catwalk with measured care, her HUD flashing minor anomalies in the relay feed. Sector 12 had been reassigned that morning with no explanation—standard fleet readiness, they claimed. But the override codes came too fast. And the scaffold she’d been routed into had been flagged two months earlier in her sister’s audit logs. No one questioned the change. Not out loud. Dissent looked too much like instability these days. Her sergeant stumbled during calibration review. Tarika caught the rhythm and reinforced the command, adjusting tone, pace, structure. That was her method—quiet stabilization. 

✧ She noticed the timing drift again in their secondary power sync. A ripple. Small, but wrong. Her hand hovered over her comms link. But warnings without confirmation invited scrutiny, and scrutiny drew flags. Fear, in Imperial doctrine, was a contagion. Better to wait, observe. She exhaled. The catwalk shuddered under her boots. She didn’t know then that surveillance drones—Reclamation types, not military—had logged her movement patterns. They wouldn’t interfere. But they would remember. 

✧ The explosion tore through the corridor without warning. Light, heat, pressure—then nothing. A support beam dropped across her leg. The impact fractured bone and breath. Tarika choked on smoke as her comms feed crackled static. She tried to roll, failed. Her HUD blinked with hazard warnings, perimeter seals, fallback directives. Her fingers dug into durasteel. No one came. She closed her eyes and thought: This is how systems forget people. 

✧ But then she heard boots. Not in regulation rhythm—faster, heavier, wrong. Sara. Her sister moved through fire with no formation, no flag, no hesitation. Tarika blinked through haze and saw her—armor scorched, face streaked with soot, hands already on the beam. “You’re not supposed to—” Tarika started, but the words collapsed. Sara didn’t speak. She lifted. Screamed with effort. The girder shifted. And Tarika—Tarika moved free. 

✧ She woke in medbay hours later, pain dulled to a slow ache, her sister seated nearby. Sara was silent, fingers moving across a datapad. The incident report blinked on screen: “Field disruption. No enemy contact. Deviation logged.” Outside, voices whispered of Zakuulan slicers ghosting power grids, weaponizing panic. No confirmation. Just silence shaped like certainty. Tarika didn’t ask what Sara had risked to reach her. She already knew. The deviation would follow them. Maybe even to Korriban. But what mattered wasn’t the flag. It was the choice. 

📓 Personal Log: “When Doctrine Fell Silent” | Dromund Kaas, 3635 BBY

“The beam crushed my leg before I could even scream. The system said to wait. But Sara ran anyway. She lifted steel like doctrine couldn’t. That wasn’t error—it was love. The report called it irregular. The command chain filed it. But I’ll never forget the moment she chose me over the rules we were raised to worship.” 

🟥 Episode IV – The Silence Between Orders
3632 BBY | Age 21 | Imperial Specialist | Korriban, Sith Academy, Corridor Zone D

🪐 Galactic Context:

As Zakuul’s Eternal Empire dominates battlefronts, the Sith Empire turns inward. Korriban, sacred to Sith tradition, becomes more than a fortress—it becomes a crucible. The Korriban Regiment is tasked not only with defending relics but with proving stability in proximity to raw Force resonance, where failure is recorded long before it is punished. 

📘 Narrative:

✧ The stone corridors of the Sith Academy whispered like something half-alive. Specialist Sara Kenau walked Corridor Zone D with regulated posture, red armor gleaming beneath ancient torchlight. Her reassignment had not come with orders of praise—it came with a transfer to the Korriban Regiment’s tomb patrol division, folded quietly into the audit chain that followed her deviation on Dromund Kaas. The phrase had read: resilience suitability—Korriban compatible. The words stayed with her longer than the blast had. On Korriban, red wasn’t a mark of rank. It was a warning: you are being watched. She logged vault integrity scans and force-pressure resistance drills without flinch, her jaw clenched until it ached. The Tomb of Ajunta Pall pulsed through the stone—just a vibration, but one she felt in her ribs. She considered reporting fatigue once. Instead, she logged it as sensor feedback. And still, the silence lingered.

✧ She walked Corridor Zone D with presence, not posture. Vault resonance warped things here—timing, perception, breath. Some recruits snapped. Some shut down. Tarika adjusted without words, shifting formations mid-loop, anchoring jittering teammates with a glance. Sergeant Kellis logged her behavior as “passively stabilizing.” No praise. Just observation. She preferred it that way. No one on Korriban mistook quiet for weakness. Here, silence was pressure held in check. 

✧ Her squad barely spoke during off-hours. Everyone understood they were being measured—by doctrine, by Force bleed, by drones with Reclamation markings that glided through hallways like judgment. Tarika welcomed the quiet. It gave her room to think. Not just about procedures—but about patterns. Force surges didn’t follow duty rosters. Vaults pulsed in rhythms no code accounted for. She’d begun sketching resonance curves on the backs of log reports. Not to rebel. To understand what the manuals refused to describe. 

✧ She saw Sara twice that week—once in passing, once during a relay sync drill. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Sara still moved with regulation perfection, but her steps had softened at the edges. Less defense. More choice. Tarika noticed the shift and said nothing. Their distance wasn’t a wall anymore. It was a deliberate pause—respect made visible. On Korriban, even connection had to pass silently through test. 

✧ The D‑6 breach came with no scream—just an alert, a spike, a pulse like breath held too long. Tarika moved fast. The holocron was active before she arrived, its glow flickering over the terrified face of a boy acolyte. He wasn’t attacking—he was drowning. She knelt beside him. No words at first. Just presence. Then: “You’re safe.” The artifact dimmed. The boy exhaled. Behind her, footsteps—Sara. Weapon drawn, then slowly lowered. Nothing said. Just trust, in stillness. 

📓 Personal Log: “The Space That Holds” | Korriban, 3632 BBY

“She came to D‑6 with weapon ready—standard protocol. But she didn’t use it. She saw the boy, the glow, the breath I had steadied. And she chose not to escalate. That was trust, not hesitation. Three years ago, she pulled me from fire. Today, she let silence hold the line. We’re not what the system shaped. We’re what survived it.” 

🟥 Episode V – Silent Mercy
3630 BBY | Age 23 | Imperial Corporal | Taris, Southern Containment Zone

🪐 Galactic Context:

As the Eternal Empire reignites open war, the Sith Empire scrambles to fortify neglected worlds like Taris. Long shattered by conflict and half-rebuilt through decades of false starts, Taris now serves as a containment zone for displaced civilians and Force-sensitive anomalies. The Korriban Regiment, once ceremonial sentries, are fielded as doctrine enforcers under pressure. But doctrine can’t always see the shape of survival. 

📘 Narrative:

✧ Tarika Kenau scanned the ruins of the med-station, eyes narrowing beneath her helmet’s HUD. Scorch marks streaked the walls, and static interference pinged from melted conduit columns—leftovers from a Zakuulan interference burst that had fried more than sensors. Civilians were rumored to be hiding inside, protected by off-grid Jedi. The containment orders were blunt: detain, isolate, cleanse the space. But Tarika had stopped mistaking orders for clarity. The station flickered with power-loss ghosts, the air thick with breath and memory. She stepped in alone—quiet, unarmed. Her squad followed at a distance, holding perimeter. Inside, the Force didn’t pulse with violence. It pulsed with fear. 

✧ They were huddled beneath a half-collapsed support girder—eight civilians, dehydrated and limp. Two Jedi Knights stood in front of them, their stances wide, but weapons sheathed. The younger one trembled. Tarika slowed her breath. She didn’t speak. She didn’t draw. She just stood, hands open, presence steady. The silence between them thickened—not hostile, just full. Then a voice cut through comms—Sara’s squad approaching, protocol imminent. Tarika whispered across the channel: “Civilians present. Jedi confirmed. No aggression. Hold position.” And then she waited. 

✧ The moment stretched. Her eyes landed on a child—no older than six—clutching a datapad like a shield. Behind her, boots approached. Sara’s. Tarika didn’t move. She didn’t know if her sister would follow regulation or override. Then: “Maintain perimeter.” Tarika exhaled. Slowly, the Jedi stepped aside. Civilians filed out, cautious but alive. No shots fired. No lightsabers drawn. Just breath and dirt and silence. And it held. 

✧ Afterward, she filed the report with clinical precision: Contact confirmed. Force-sensitives present. No escalation. Resolution achieved. Her cursor blinked over the empty comment field. She added: De-escalation achieved through presence. No elaboration. No justification. The war didn’t ask for why. But Tarika knew what it cost to stand still when doctrine demanded movement. And she knew who had stood beside her—just outside the frame—making that stillness possible. 

✧ That night, armor sealed and helmet off, she walked the edges of the forward encampment under static-choked sky. Across the courtyard, Sara exited the mess corridor, pausing in the mist. Their eyes met. No salute. No signal. Just gravity. Tarika had always understood the silence between them. But now she knew it wasn’t emptiness. It was recognition. And it had saved lives. 

📓 Personal Log: “The Mercy I Chose” | Taris, 3630 BBY 

“I didn’t fire. I didn’t detain. I didn’t escalate. I stood still—because presence can hold more power than threat. The Jedi didn’t attack. The child didn’t run. And Sara didn’t override. Her silence wasn’t caution. It was belief. And that’s what kept the moment from breaking.”

🟥 Episode VI – The Weight of Stillness
3629 BBY | Age 24 | Imperial Sergeant | Korriban, Vault Annex B, Eastern Containment Sector

🪐 Galactic Context:

The war escalates with renewed fronts on Iokath and fresh betrayals on Umbara and Copero. The Sith Empire doubles down on internal audits and cohesion protocols, fearing infiltration and ideological drift. Korriban becomes both crucible and mirror—where the red-armored Korriban Regiment, including Sergeant Tarika Kenau, now balances between presence and perception. 

📘 Narrative:

✧ The breach alarm shimmered red across Vault Annex B, strobes carving harsh shadows along the sandstone corridor walls. Tarika Kenau stepped into the vault chamber before her squad caught up—unarmed, breath steady, voice unused. At the center, a boy no older than fourteen cradled a Sith mask artifact pulsing with erratic resonance. His hands shook, but his eyes locked to hers, as if bracing for violence. She didn’t answer it. She knelt slowly, palms open, tone level. “You’re not in trouble,” she said. The artifact thrummed between them like breath trapped in crystal. She sensed his fear before he spoke. And behind it—something deeper. Recognition. Then, the vault door hissed, and the temperature dropped. Not from the artifact. From what entered next.

✧ Sith Lord Zera Vashara swept into the chamber with precision so sharp it might as well have been a weapon. Tarika didn’t move. Zera had been elevated under Darth Vaela and now served directly within Darth Xarion’s Sphere of Galactic Influence—her name carried weight and scrutiny alike. “You’ve exceeded your perimeter,” Zera said flatly. Tarika’s jaw tensed, but her gaze didn’t break. She didn’t rise. The boy was still breathing through panic—too fast, too loud. “He’s stabilizing,” Tarika said quietly. Zera didn’t respond—just stepped closer, as if even observation was control. The silence thickened, suffocating and taut. Then the pressure shifted again—not colder this time, but stranger. And then, softer than breath—Zylia arrived.

✧ Sith Lord Zylia Vashara moved like water through fire—silent, observing, unarmed. Her presence didn’t command. It absorbed. Now serving under Darth Xalara within Darth Krovo’s Sphere of Military Command, her appearance wasn’t recorded in Tarika’s audit schedule. But it didn’t feel accidental. Zylia’s gaze passed over Tarika, the boy, the mask—and then settled on the pulse between them all. “This isn’t a disruption,” she said. “It’s a reflection.” Tarika’s chest tightened. She didn’t disagree—but didn’t understand yet either. Zera exhaled like the word disgusted her. “The artifact is unstable.” Zylia’s head tilted. “So are we.” Tarika didn’t speak. But her fingers edged toward the null-wrap at her belt. Just in case. And still, the silence lingered.

✧ The boy trembled—but he hadn’t run. He hadn’t struck. He was holding something ancient, and yet somehow familiar. Tarika had seen this before—in drills, in warzones, in doctrine that failed to make space for presence. “You don’t have to give it to them,” the boy whispered. Her throat caught. She didn’t lie. She didn’t reassure. “You don’t have to hold it alone, either,” she replied. Slowly, her hand extended. Her breath was calm—but her pulse was not. She thought of Sara. Of Ziost. Of silence wielded like a shield. The boy blinked. Then placed the mask into her hands. Just as Zera’s boots shifted forward. And still, the silence lingered.

✧ No one spoke in the seconds that followed. Not Zera. Not Zylia. Not Tarika. The room held. Zera’s jaw clenched, unreadable. Zylia’s expression softened, almost imperceptibly. Tarika nodded once toward the boy. “Let’s walk,” she said—to him, not them. He followed. Zera didn’t block them. Zylia didn’t intervene. Later, the report would be filed: containment secured, artifact logged, no escalation. But the boy would remember something else: stillness instead of orders. Presence instead of fear. And Tarika—she’d remember the weight of the artifact, yes. But more than that, she’d remember how the silence held. And still, the silence lingered.

📓 Personal Log: “The Reflection We Stepped Into” | Korriban, 3629 BBY

"I didn’t act with power. I acted with presence. Zera entered like a verdict; Zylia, like a question. Both saw something in the mask I still don’t fully understand. But the boy handed it to me—not because I demanded it. Because I stayed. Because I listened. Maybe that’s what this place fears most. Not disobedience. But clarity that comes without command. And still, I wonder what the mask would have shown them." 

🟥 Episode VII – The Quiet Front
3627 BBY | Age 26 | Imperial Lieutenant | Korriban, Regiment Headquarters, Summit Coordination Wing

🪐 Galactic Context:

The Onslaught campaign drives the Sith Empire to consolidate authority and reinforce control over its most sacred worlds. Korriban, seat of Sith tradition and internal military strategy, hosts the High Command Summit—a closed gathering of Imperial officers to coordinate doctrine, suppress ideological drift, and monitor morale cohesion under strain. Attendance is restricted to high-clearance Imperial personnel. Amid doctrine audits and command reshuffling, Lieutenant Sara Kenau is tasked with perimeter operations. Lieutenant Tarika Kenau is assigned to morale oversight—her leadership grounded in presence, not enforcement. 

📘 Narrative:

✧ Tarika Kenau moved through the Summit Coordination Wing like a whisper barely heard, her helmet clipped to her belt, armor scarred by use rather than paraded perfection. Her path was deliberate but unhurried, designed to mirror stability rather than enforce it. The officers here spoke in clipped phrases, measured pauses, and long silences—all weighted with tension that pressed behind their eyes. Tarika read that pressure in hunched shoulders and shallow breaths. Once, near the west corridor junction, she caught a junior lieutenant blinking too fast, posture rigid. She adjusted her pace, said nothing, let her presence anchor the moment. Later, he recovered mid-drill—no incident logged. Her fingers flexed against her thigh after—relief never listed as an outcome. Her promotion to lieutenant had come by field commission, a recognition earned not through rank metrics but through presence that held when systems cracked. And still, the silence lingered.

✧ Her assigned duties at the summit were unconventional: monitor morale variables, track escalation indicators, file soft-risk signals. Her authority was less visible, more atmospheric. Not every officer trusted it. Her breath caught during a meeting when a senior logistics captain scoffed at her anomaly tagging. She considered explaining—but didn’t. Instead, she held her gaze long enough for the captain to look away. The next day, that same captain flagged a quiet commendation in her log. She never acknowledged it. Let the system believe what it needed. But her hands trembled later while folding her gloves. And still, the silence lingered.

✧ The breach drill in Vault Sector C-3 was meant to simulate coordination breakdown. What triggered instead was a real artifact surge—a pulse of Force resonance sharp enough to fracture protocols. Tarika reached the chamber first, breath steady, eyes scanning fast. A boy—no older than fourteen—trembled beside the glowing relic, aura flaring with panic. Her throat tightened. Doctrine said contain. Instinct said stillness. She holstered her weapon and knelt, slow and quiet. “You’re safe,” she said, not commanding but grounding. Behind her, she sensed boots: Sara’s squad. No escalation came. And still, the silence lingered.

✧ In the debrief, her name was only mentioned once—"presence-based mitigation effective." The rest of the meeting centered on tactical procedure and perimeter review. No praise. No reprimand. Just absence of comment where comment belonged. Tarika crossed her arms tighter as they spoke, breath shallow, spine stiff. She considered interrupting—just once—to describe what the boy had felt, what she had seen. But she didn’t. Let them log results. Let them weigh data. She wasn’t their model officer. But she had held something together the system didn’t see. And still, the silence lingered.

✧ She passed Sara on the outer corridor hours later. Her sister’s gait was taut, armor pristine, posture carved from expectation. Tarika slowed, watching the tension etched beneath the polish. For a heartbeat, she wanted to speak—not as an officer, but as a twin. Ask if Sara saw what she had chosen. Ask if it had mattered. But her mouth stayed closed. Instead, she nodded once, slow and simple. Sara said nothing, only looked. For one breath, presence was enough. And still, the silence lingered.

📓 Personal Log: “Stillness Without Orders” | Korriban, 3627 BBY

"The artifact pulsed like a heartbeat gone wrong. Doctrine said act. But acting would have fractured him. So I stayed. I didn’t de-escalate—I steadied. No one praised that. No one needed to. He calmed. That’s the only report I care about. Maybe command isn’t about who outranks whom. Maybe it’s about who chooses to stay."

🟥 Episode VIII – The Stillness Between
3624 BBY | Age 29 | Imperial Captain | Odessen, Alliance Summit Grounds

🪐 Galactic Context:

A precarious summit draws Imperial, Republic, and Alliance leaders to Odessen—each vying for peace without surrender. Tarika Kenau, Captain of the Korriban Regiment, arrives as part of a high-level security escort for a Sith Lord whose influence still warps a room without raising a saber. This is not a battlefield, but she can feel the strain of one underneath the polished stone. And in this place built on pretense, stillness becomes its own form of resistance.

📘 Narrative:

✧ Odessen was too green. Too damp. Tarika preferred red stone underfoot—Korriban’s terrain didn’t pretend to be anything but old and dangerous. Still, she adjusted. Her boots struck clean against the summit floor as she tracked the perimeter with unhurried precision. Sara walked a different route, one corridor north, silent as ever, red armor mirroring hers but always physically sharper. Their Sith charge had been offloaded, flanked, and contained inside diplomatic quarters within the first hour. No words were exchanged unless necessary. That was the Korriban Regiment’s way. But Tarika had learned a different rhythm under the silence—a way to listen through what wasn’t said. And what Odessen wasn’t saying… was everything.

✧ The main hall echoed in false calm. Every faction banner fluttered as if it belonged. Tarika’s eyes flicked between foreign guards and local aides, but no threat emerged. It felt almost sterile—until it didn’t. She paused near the southeast accessway as movement brushed her peripheral awareness: two figures exiting the diplomatic wing. Civilian-cut uniforms. Alliance seals. But it was the colors that struck her—deep forest green and subdued brown. Subtle. Intentional. Neither emissary met her gaze. They didn’t need to. They walked like people who had earned the right not to explain themselves. Tarika didn’t feel watched. She felt… considered. It wasn’t the same thing. It unsettled her more than it should have. She didn’t mention them to Sara. Not yet.

✧ The breach call came fast—Zakuulan-coded storage flagged in the manifest. Tarika moved first. She reached the aide before protocol could spiral into theater. He was sweating before he spoke. Tarika didn’t threaten him—didn’t need to. Her calm felt heavier than warning. When Sara arrived, the scene was already still. The crate was nothing—archival junk from the Spire, inert and half-forgotten. But the tension had curled around the edges of the room anyway. And in the hallway’s reflection, Tarika saw them again—those two emissaries. One speaking softly to a Republic handler. The other still, but alert. She didn’t react. Didn’t engage. Just stayed visible. And something about that unnerved her more than confrontation.

✧ Rain swept the stones by evening. Tarika lingered on the upper walkway, her helmet clipped to her hip, droplets hissing against her pauldrons. Sara was posted nearby but hadn’t spoken in hours. Tarika didn’t mind. She tracked movement below: maintenance, admin, quiet patrols. Then—there. Two shapes moving through the inner garden path. Green and brown. Again. Deliberate as before. They didn’t glance up. But Tarika’s gaze stayed on them, even after they disappeared inside. Were they watching everything, or just knowing when to be seen? She felt herself want to ask Sara—but didn’t. Her sister would’ve filed them already. Or ignored them completely. And neither answer felt right.

✧ Her report logged the manifest breach and the aide’s nervous stumble. No threat. No fallout. She didn’t mention the emissaries. She didn’t need to. But in her personal field notes, she typed something short and off-pattern: “Presence acknowledged. No challenge made.” Then she deleted it. Not because it wasn’t true. But because it didn’t belong in systems that only recognized noise. Some things were only felt. And some things… were meant to stay quiet.

📓 Personal Log: “Still Eyes” | Odessen, 3624 BBY

"Not everyone who watches you means to stop you. I saw two Alliance envoys today—green and brown, calm in a way I don’t see often in military spaces. They didn’t act like they had something to prove, they acted like they’d already done the proving and were just keeping the structure steady now. I wonder what that feels like. To be visible but unthreatened. To move through tension and not break it. I don’t think they came to provoke. But I noticed them anyway. Still eyes. Like mirrors. And not everything I saw… was theirs."

🟥 Episode IX – The Strength We Remember
3621 BBY | Age 32 | Imperial Major | Korriban, Tomb of Tulak Hord Perimeter Wall

🪐 Galactic Context:

Korriban remains a crucible—where secrets gather in stone and legacy is carved into command. As Major of the 3rd Battalion, Korriban Regiment, Tarika Kenau serves directly under Colonel Veyra Dren alongside her twin, Major Sara Kenau. Their task: monitor two Czerka Recovery Operatives authorized to retrieve a classified artifact from a restricted vault. No names. No engagement. Just vigilance. But even as red sand scours their armor, something softer stirs—two loth-cats, strays in a place that devours weakness, arrive like memory given shape. Tarika must reconcile the demands of silent authority with a truth her sister begins to feel too: that not everything sacred wears a mask of war.  

📘 Narrative:

✧ Korriban’s air was always sharp—like breath pulled across obsidian. I walked the upper ridge of Vault Sector Nine with each step mapped, each glance logged. Our orders were simple in theory: observe two Force-sensitive Czerka operatives—former Zakuul Knights, repurposed for quiet tasks no Sith wanted to touch—as they extracted something ‘of value,’ on a mission hidden even from the Dark Council. No contact. No interference. Just eyes in the dark. My squad rotated cleanly, sensors calibrated, comms silent but for encrypted bursts. Still, the Force trembled faintly in the dust—something ancient threading beneath the stone like breath waiting to be remembered. I kept one hand on my datapad, the other near my sidearm, and my thoughts somewhere between duty and something I couldn’t name. They never told us what the operatives were after. They didn’t need to. Korriban didn’t keep secrets—it simply refused to explain them. And still, the silence lingered. 

✧ It was during the second sweep—midway between Vault Wing C and the outer perimeter—that I noticed her: a loth-cat, pale and watchful, curled between two crumbled stones as if they were the arms of a forgotten god. Her ears twitched, but she didn’t run. Her gaze met mine with something more than animal caution—something aware. I crouched, armor creaking, hand extended. She didn’t flinch. Not at me. Not at Korriban. She came to me without command. I gathered her gently, felt her body press into the crook of my arm with a trust I hadn’t earned. Nova. The name surfaced unbidden, like it had always belonged to her. Later, I’d hear that Sara found one too—bold, curious, a streak of fire to my shadow. We never discussed it, but I knew. The world gives us mirrors when we stop asking for weapons. And still, the silence lingered. 

✧ From the observation post, I watched them—the operatives. Two women in Czerka coats, moving with military precision but civilian pace. They never looked toward the high ridge, but I think they knew we were there. One scanned, the other moved—a rhythm I recognized. I noted their entry, the delay between pulse shielding, the nonstandard equipment. Sara stood beside me, expression carved in regulation. Neither of us spoke their names. That wasn’t the point. We weren’t here to know them. We were here because no one else could clear the area without raising questions—not even Sith—so we were told just enough to keep the perimeter silent. The vault accepted them. That mattered. But more than that—Korriban didn’t reject them. That silence, too, was an answer. One I wasn’t sure how to file. And still, the silence lingered. 

✧ Nova followed at my heel as we returned to the third sweep, her paws silent on ancient stone. A relic’s pulse flickered faintly behind containment doors, and my squad waited at full alert—motionless, flawless. Still, my eyes drifted to the ridge again, watching the operatives’ retreat. They carried a sealed case—small, but dense with something unseen. I logged their departure time, cross-verified with orbital manifest. But my thoughts didn’t follow the report. They followed the loth-cat brushing against my ankle, and the way Sara looked down at hers when she thought no one noticed. We had been shaped by systems that punished deviation. Yet here, amidst relics of conquest and ruin, we followed orders given only to us—not even written down—because no Sith lord wanted their name attached if something went wrong. Something soft. A kind of resistance I never trained for. And still, the silence lingered. 

✧ Colonel Dren accepted our final logs without comment. Mission complete. Observations archived. No deviations. Yet the weight I carried back to my quarters was not from my armor, nor the report. It was from Nova, curled against my chestplate as I sat on the edge of my bunk, gloves still on. Her purring—soft, steady—echoed louder than the alarms that had trained me. Korriban didn’t change. It was still full of hunger, still a monument to cruelty disguised as order. But somewhere inside its hollow lungs, I had chosen to carry life. Not because I was told to—but because I wasn’t. In that moment, I realized something: surveillance isn’t the same as presence. And what watches back may not be our enemy. And still, the silence lingered. 

📓 Personal Log: “What the Stone Allowed” | Korriban, 3621 BBY

"Korriban didn’t stop us. It watched. It always watches. But today, it let two offworld operatives walk into one of its scars and leave with something whole. And it gave us something, too—me and Sara. Not power. Not clarity. Just two creatures small enough to fit in our arms and large enough to shift something buried deeper. Nova stays close. She doesn’t question my silence. She just purrs like she knows what I’m not ready to say. I didn’t expect softness here. But maybe the Force isn’t always a blade. Maybe sometimes it’s a choice to hold something fragile and not break it. Maybe presence doesn’t need command. Maybe it just needs permission."