| abstract
| - Iocus Vimbright was born to Mars and Reugir Vimbright, both native Coruscantans, as well as noted xeno biologists and anthropologists during the Old Republic era. They were in the prime of their careers during the Clone Wars, when they worked for reconciliation between the senate and the Neimoidians. However, as the racist policies of the new Empire started growing, many people who worked primarily with and around non humans started coming under scrutiny from Imperial Intelligence. Five years after the conclusion of the Clone Wars several Vimbrights, all noted xeno biologists, published a series of articles disproving the flawed science that the Empire used to prop up it's racism. Over the next few weeks the publishers of the scientific journal that put out the Vimbrights rebuttal were arrested and sent to Kessel for “aiding and abetting terrorists.” Iocus's father, mother, aunt, uncle, and a smattering of cousins pooled their resources and managed to get off Coruscant, narrowly escaping an Intelligence operation intended to capture all the members of the Vimbright clan in one stroke. The family had originally picked Tatooine as a nicely inconspicuous place to settle. However, the arm of Imperial Intelligence was long and only the intervention of a band of Clantaani mercenaries prevented Mars and Reugir from being summarily executed in the street by Imperial agents. After a long period of consideration, the Vimbrights decided to spend what remained of their pooled resources to establish themselves on Clantaano III. The Clantaani mercenaries who saved Mars and Reugir assured them that there was virtually no chance of the Empire tracking them to the little known planet. Clantaano III was a rough place, but the Vimbrights tried made the best of it; trading medical care and expertise for being left out of the internecine violence over natural resources. Five years after Mars and Reugir arrived on Clantaano III they had a son, and named him Iocus; after his grandfather who had stayed behind on Coruscant to try and allay suspicions of the Vimbrights escape. Iocus was a radical departure from the standard Vimbright intellectualism that was generally apparent even at a young age. Instead he was a boisterous and combative child from the start. At the age of five he would wander away from the cluster of homesteads that represented the human population of Clantaano and try and explore the perilous desert. This caused his parents no end of worry, so they decided to hire a Clantaani to watch over him. Maaro, the only one willing to nurse maid a human child, was an old warrior whose battle injuries kept him from continuing to participate in the resource wars. As there were no other children in the Vimbright compound Iocus spent all of his time either being home schooled by his aunt and uncle or with Maaro. His parents were almost always busy at this point, either negotiating to try and keep the Vimbrights a neutral party on Clantaano or providing medical expertise to local tribes. Iocus was always interested in fighting and hunting rather than studying, and Maaro had no problem with indulging the young boys interests. He would take a young Iocus out into the desert with him to stalk the elusive prey of the desert and to socialize with the young Clantaani of Maaro's clan: the Ma'ra'oorans. They were wary of the human child at first, but soon Iocus was playing the combat oriented games of the young Clantaani. Iocus took to the hunting and fighting of the Clantaani lifestyle better than the boring facts and concepts that his family seemed intent on drilling into his head. By his twelfth birthday Iocus was spending more time with his adoptive Clantaani clan than he was with his own family. The older Vimbrights, seeing no end to the Emperors reign, decided that it wasn't such a bad thing for the most vulnerable member of the family to be surrounded by fiercely loyal Clantaani. So Iocus spent most of his teenage years training to be a warrior, and by the age of sixteen took an active part in a small defensive skirmish between the Ma'ra'oorans and a rival clan. He distinguished himself with a blaster rifle, scoring several confirmed hits, although killing no one. This was his first taste of combat, and Iocus felt that he had truly found his calling in the panic and controlled chaos of battle. When Iocus was eighteen Maaro died of natural causes, so in honor of his fallen mentor Iocus led an attack on the Ja'i'yuan clan. A rival of the Ma'ra'ooran's and the same clan that had crippled his late mentor. Up to this point Iocus had not actually killed any of the Clantaani, his sharpshooting skills were generally employed to stun or wound important members of the opposing force for capture and ransom. In this fight, however, Iocus gunned down several of the defending Ja'i'yuanians, and led the Ma'ra'oorans to capture one of the Ja'i'yuanian's moisture rich camps. Unknown to Iocus, his exploits during the battle had shattered his family's neutrality. The deaths of Clantaani at the hands of the foreigners provided several tribes with the excuse necessary to move against the Vimbrights. At this point the humans compound became the target of several uncoordinated raids that were easily repulsed by the Ma'ra'ooran's. It became apparent that larger and more organized attacks would follow, as several tribes wanted the advanced moisture farming technology in the Vimbright compound and made no bones about their intentions to annihilate the humans and take their technology. Casting about them for a solution, the aging Vimbrights decided to take a chance on the Corporate Sector as the Empire seemed to have bigger things to worry about than a few xeno biologists living in self imposed exile at this point. The Vimbrights sent copies of their research on various alien biologies to several biotechnology companies. A medium sized firm interested in using alien immune systems to treat human diseases offered Mars, Reugir, and several other Vimbrights a research grant and transport to the corporate sector. Iocus was originally going to stay with the Ma'ra'ooran tribe and continue his life on Clantaano, but the Ma'ra'ooran's, along with the Ja'i'yuanians were quickly absorbed by a larger tribe after they lost the stabilizing presence of the Vimbrights. Iocus was almost summarily executed by the decidedly less tolerant conquering tribe, but he was eventually released on Tatooine as part of a peace accord with warrior holdouts of the Ma'ra'ooran's. Once on Tattoine he was able to secure employment with a local Hutt lord as a hired gun. The first few months working for the Hutt lord Iocus was enjoying his work. He was tracking down people who had failed to keep up loan payments, gambling debts, or had just plain rubbed the Hutt the wrong way. He even developed a taste for alcohol and nic sticks at the Hutt's palace. As time passed and the memories of the unforgiving desert of Clantaani started to fade the wanton cruelty of the Hutt Lord started bothering Iocus more. He had been raised on stories of brave people like his own family members defying the Empire and working to change the galaxy. Although he had fought and killed before, it was always for the greater good of the tribe, whereas his new Hutt master seemed to relish causing pain to others as an end in and of itself. Because of this Iocus always tried to maintain his distance from the Hutt's organization, taking his assigned jobs without complaint or comment and fulfilling them to the letter. After two years serving the Hutt lord Iocus decided that he had spent enough time as a leg breaker and wanted to do something else. He was able to make as clean a break as you can from a Hutt lord by recommending one of his fellow warriors from the Ma'ra'ooran clan who had been exiled to Tatooine. Iocus's next job was with a private security force running protection for legitimate traders in the Y'toub system. A few uneventful months after joining the company Iocus's team was ambushed protecting a shipment of nerf hides, eight men out of the twenty man strong security force was killed in the ensuing firefight. The combination of loss of contracts and manpower caused the company to disband, leaving Iocus out of a job again. One of his private security colleagues had wanted to join the new Republic military forces since they had taken Coruscant; he couldn't because he was still under contract with the company. Almost on a whim Iocus decided to follow him and apply to the Republic marines; Iocus hoped that participating in the wider galactic conflict would restore some of the purpose that he hadn't felt since fighting over cubic meters of moisture rich air in the deserts of Clantaano. Iocus cranes his head up, letting the pitter patter of filthy acid water drip off the level above him and splash off of his visor helmet. He was pretty far down, the lowest level he'd ever been to on Nar Shaddaa. There were twelve of them for this run, more than half of his current employers operational force. They rode on a slow moving open topped cargo speeder divided into the cockpit and the cargo area. Two of the mercs, a rodian and a shistavenan, were up front driving. The rest of them were sitting or standing around the strapped in crate of nerf hides they were delivering to a lower sector retailer who had had some threats on his business from a local street gang. The speeder was cruising a few meters above a narrow thoroughfare, surrounded by buildings on all sides. Iocus was sitting against the wall of the vehicle, sharing a nic stick with a Devaronian bearing a pair of DL-44's. “So when are you going to get a real gun Aaard.” Iocus says, while checking the sights on his ancient, chipped, cracked, and weatherbeaten EE-3. Aaard snorts, “I'm shocked every time that relic of yours actually fires, these pistols may not have as much range, but I've got more firepower under the blaster pack with these two pistols than you do with that thing.” “Yeah well, at least I can hit something with this relic.” Iocus responds, starting to smile. “I'll believe it when I see it.” Aaard says, before standing up and shouting up to the cockpit. “Hey Shaa, what's the ETA.” No response is forthcoming from the cockpit so he sits back down next to Iocus. “Freaking merc work. Let me give you some advice, always read the fine print on your contract. I should be a force damned general in the Republic by now.” Iocus nods along with the Devaronian while he finishes lining up the sights on his rifle. He offers the still burning nick stick to Aaard, who takes a final drag on it before throwing it off the side of their vehicle. As Iocus traces the red arc of the nic stick he notices a small object out of the corner of his eye. “Everybody get down now!” He shouts at the top of his lungs while grabbing Aaard and slamming the both of them face down onto the floor of the speeder. Two other men in the cargo section follow suit and two seconds later a deafening explosion rocks the speeder. The grenade goes off on the opposite side of the cargo crate from Aaard and Iocus, blowing off that side's wall and showering the rest of the speeder with the blood and limbs of the mercs that got caught in the middle of the explosion.. The shistavanen pilot takes a piece of the cargo crate through the back of his skull and falls on the controls. A split second later the repulsor engines fail and the speeder takes a nose dive into the thoroughfare below, crushing both the dead shistavanen and the man in the copilot's seat. After the speeder crashes to a stop, Iocus rolls over to assess the damage. “Sithspawn, sithspawn sithspawn sithspawn...” He continually mutters under his breath. Aaard grabs his shoulder and starts mouthing things at him, that is when Iocus notices the ringing in his ears. “There... More... There...” Is what Iocus hears as the ringing starts to go down. Before he can respond however one of the uninjured human mercs pulls himself to a standing position, leaning against the crate. He looks like he's about to say something profound until five blaster bolts sear the air above Iocus, two of them find their mark, burning into the man and causing him to stumble off the blown off side of the vehicle. Finally the ringing in Iocus's ears go's down enough so that he can hear tolerably well, and is greated by the screams of wounded soldiers. “I said what if there's more explosives!” Aaard shouts to Iocus, while rolling over to check on the only wounded man on their side of the cargo crate. He had a few minor shrapnel wounds, but a large burn on his shoulder catches Iocus's attention. He drops a bacta patch on it before crawling to the cargo crate. Iocus crouches with his back to the crate and lifts his head up so that his line of sight goes above the speeder's side wall for a split second. Five Niktos with blaster rifles are arrayed on an overhang ten feet above ground level. Iocus points to where the group of blaster men are and yells to Aaard, “There's five of em with rifles, I'm taking a shot.” He gathers himself into a decent crouched firing pose and gives himself line of sight with the shooters again. Three quick squeezes of the trigger and he's back down under cover, this time followed by a hail of technicolor fire. “We've got a problem Aaard.” “Force damnit what now!” The devaronian shouts while scrambling around the ground trying to stay out of sight of the shooters while also trying to find his weapons, knocked from their holsters in the crash. “There were only three up there when I took my shots, I think their sending some down here to take us out, if they've got any more explosives we're up nerf creek without a paddle. “Did you get any of em?” Comes the reply, “And have you seen my sithspawning guns?” “Maybe one down, but you'd better find those pistols because I'm going to need you to cover my back while I take out the rest of the snipers.” “Frag frag frag frag...” Aaard continually mutters. “God will you people shut up!” He yells at the still screaming wounded mercs. He crawls over to the crate, coming to a rest beside Iocus. “I think they might have bounced outside the vehicle.” Iocus look around, and grabs Aaard by one of his horns, “So grab one of the other fifty blasters lying around jackass!” Iocus pops back up for a split second and squeezes of a couple more shots. This time he has the satisfaction of watching his bolts burn through one of the two remaining Niktos on the ledge. This time, instead of an answering hail of blasterfire the two missing Nikto burst out from around the cargo crate on opposite sides. Time seems to slow down around Iocus as he raises his rifle as fast as he can, only it's not fast enough, the Nikto's aim their rifles at Iocus and fire all in one smooth motion. Only the bright red blaster bolts don't burn through his unprotected body. Aaard finally finds his pistols, and as the Nikto's fall with still smoking holes in their backs Aaard says, “What about the other one?" Iocus pops his head back up in time to watch the last remaining Nikto jump on a speeder bike and fly at top speed down an open air lane. “Gone.” As Iocus takes in the carnage around him he mutters, “Local gang, yeah right.” Aaard chuckles at this, “Hey you never know, it is Nar Shaddaa.” Iocus's values and morals come from a blending of the idealistic drive that forced his family into exile and the harsh utilitarian existence of a desert hunter. He values strength in combat, but also the skillful diplomacy that allowed his family to survive among the tribes of Clantaani. His family tried to instill a moral code that also included a deep seated hatred for the Empire. He grew up on the horror stories of Gestapo style Imperial Intelligence, and has a deep reverence for the people that fought the Empire in it's infancy, as well as in it's ascendancy. His family tried to teach him to resist tyranny wherever it occurs. On the other hand Iocus also spent many years fighting in what his family perceived as petty disputes over territory and resources. He couldn't reconcile his own natural tendency towards combat and his family's almost total pacifism. On the battlefield Iocus found his own personal truth, he believes in the power of war to effect change; either for good or bad. Although the war of his own devising ultimately ended in disaster for everyone involved Iocus still believes that he can make positive change in the galaxy by serving a greater cause. However, he is not above doing what is necessary in order for himself and the people around him to survive and win whatever conflict he finds himself in.
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