Hav Antiel

Lieutenant Hav Antiel is a TIE pilot assigned to Epsilon Squadron, Flight III, Position 2 as part of Wing I aboard Imperial-II Class Star Destroyer Hammer.

Career standings

Date	Position	Time Spent
7/20/2014	TRN/CT Hav Antiel/M/PLT Daedalus	1 days
7/20/2014	FM/SL Hav Antiel/Epsilon 3-2/Wing I/ISDII Hammer	4 days
7/24/2014	FM/LT Hav Antiel/Epsilon 3-2/Wing I/ISDII Hammer	current

Biography

I was born on Gus Talon, a moon of Corellia. My father worked as a fabricator for the Corellian Engineering Corporation building YT- and YU-series freighters. My mother worked at the cantina of the nearby Gus Talon Station. Both of my parents were immigrants to the system with little tying them to Corellian culture. The moon was a flat, boring place. I dreamed of becoming a smashball player for the Corellia Dreadnaughts.

When I was just nine years old, rebel terrorists destroyed Gus Talon Station. It was a disaster. The air was filled with black smoke for days, and it was hours before we learned that my mother was safe. Hundreds were dead, including women and children. But the rebels twisted the account of the attack to blame the Empire for the station's destruction. They claimed that the Empire had targeted Gus Talon Station for being a rebel stronghold. Our small, lunar society was in shambles. It felt like our world had been turned upside down. In the ensuing turmoil, my family was steadfast in their support of the Empire. We started to feel the judgment of our newly skeptical community. First our neighbors questioned our loyalties; then our friends; and, finally, members of our own family. We were ostracized for our loyalty to the Empire.

After the attack on Gus Talon Station, my father wanted to ship out to another Core world, but his meager earnings didn't allow us much freedom. We were stuck. With the little savings he could spare, my father began putting credits away for what he called our getaway ship; an ancient YG-4210 freighter named the Nomad.

As I grew older, I watched my former friends take up arms against the Empire in the name of the "rebel cause." Meanwhile, my mother and I lived as pariahs on the fringe of society while my father was stationed for months at a time on CEC manufacturing stations.

It was a cruel existence living amidst the shifting alliances of the Corellian System. Corellia enforced martial law on Gus Talon with a brutal paramilitary, the Corellian Security Force. CorSec monitored our every move. They followed me home from school, calling me “Imp Boy” and kicking at my heels. Years of political patronage and shadow dealings had turned Corellia into a crucible for sedition and anti-Imperial sentiments. Despite the protests of the dwindling loyalist population, the powerful Corellian Merchants' Guild prevented Imperial intervention and made life on Gus Talon unbearable.

When the rebels began building a base on Corellia in 1 ABY, the CEC terminated my father's contract. We decided to run. The Nomad wasn’t fully paid off, but my father stole the ship and ferried us deep into the Outer Rim. I had never been so far from home, and I had never felt so small. I tried to keep my hardships from frosting my perspective, and I hardened my resolve to someday join the effort to quash the rebel uprising.

We lived aboard the Nomad for the next three years. The rebels continued to strike at the Empire, but good information was hard to find in the Outer Rim, and we didn’t know what to believe. To make ends meet, my father started smuggling for loyalist partners within the Outer Rim. He refused most of the work he was offered; trust was a rare commodity outside of the Core Worlds. Life was drastically different onboard the starship, and I spent most of those adolescent years in isolation. Still, I held out hope that we would find a home.

After the death of the Emperor in 4 ABY, smuggling for the Empire became very dangerous, especially in the Outer Rim. We wanted nothing more than to see the Empire flourish as it had before, but we held little faith in the warlords and despots who grasped for control in the power vacuum left in the Emperor’s wake. I had become comfortable piloting the Nomad, although our endeavors rarely required any sort of skillful piloting. Nonetheless, I loved flying the ship. I missed the fresh air of the plains and the opportunity to run, jump, and play, but the cockpit became a fulfilling escape.

When I turned 16, my mother allowed me to visit spaceports with my father. I’m not sure that was a wise decision. My mother probably just wanted me out of the ship for a while, but I found opportunities to slip away from my father and explore. Outer Rim stations were lousy with gambling, spice, and other vices. And there was so much to see at a spaceport; smugglers, pirates, thieves, gangsters, gamblers, slaves, droids, musicians, dancers, dirt, neon, holograms, booze, spice, and every sentient species in the galaxy.

I had never felt as alien as I did at the spaceports. I was used to feeling self-conscious. Growing up on a moon, I was always aware of the “other half,” the terrestrials on the planet below. As Gus Talon circuited Corellia, the center of our orbit, I developed an inferiority complex, a chip on my shoulder. But the Outer Rim spaceports gave me a different sense of awareness. It felt like everyone was alien: like they all had chips on their shoulders. It was a level playing field.

The next few years were thrilling, but the thrills came at a great cost. I gambled and partied, earned credits and then lost them, spent more time with strangers in cantinas than with my family on the Nomad. As I started to smuggle with my father, I began to lose my sense of principles. When my father declined an offer to move some droids for a Sullustan smuggler, I took the job in secret. The mission was trouble-free, and I pocketed a cool thousand credits.

As I took on more side jobs, it became harder to hide them from my family. It didn’t help that I was becoming careless. When I turned 18, my father confronted me. He reminded me of my duty to the Empire and of the cause of protecting the galaxy. Had I been older, I would have understood. But I was young, and I had money for the first time in my life. I was invincible.

My father wanted to stay and support me. He knew it was a matter of time before I realized he was right. But my mother had too much pride to suffer a disrespectful son. My father gave me all of the credits he had on hand and made me promise to stay in touch. My mother wouldn’t look at me. I watched from the cantina as the Nomad lifted off the platform and launched into deep space. I wasn’t sure where I was; even now, I can’t quite remember the location of that particular port. It wasn’t quite the moment of triumph that I had been expecting.

What followed was more of the same; continued debauchery and more careless smuggling. I teamed up with a crew of smugglers aboard the modified YT-2000 freighter Sithspit. They were neutral freelancers from all parts of the galaxy; Koota Jood, a female Duros; Lula Seca, a female Twi’lek; and the captain, a male Zabrak named Krun Rosk. A cadre of droids, including a gray amalgamation of protocol parts named “Threep,” also joined us.

I first met Lula on a smuggling mission with my father before he left. An Imperial officer was looking to send some hyperdrive systems through a rebel-occupied stretch of the Mid Rim. We agreed to terms and were preparing to pick up the cargo when Lula approached us on the loading dock. She told us the mission was a trap; we were being sent to our deaths to deliver hyperdrive systems directly to the rebels. The Imperial officer was a traitor. She had seen him operating the same deception from this sector twice before, and she wasn’t going to let it happen again. That was all my father needed to hear. Even if Lula was lying, we had too much at risk to take a chance. He thanked Lula and paid her for the tip. Later, he told the Imperial officer that the Nomad couldn’t accommodate the cargo, and, knowing my father, he probably gave him a tip as well.

I believed Lula’s story, but my 18-year-old ego assumed that I could complete the job, suicide mission or not. After my father met with the officer, I met with him in private and offered to do the job. He naturally obliged, and I arranged to continue the mission as planned. I was itching for a chance to engage the rebel scum. The Nomad was lightly armed, but I thought I could outfly any of the rebel pilots with ease.

There were a few hours to wait before loading, so I headed to the station’s cantina. I didn’t want to dull my flight abilities, so I resisted the temptation to enjoy a Corellian whiskey. But there, next to me, was Lula. We hadn’t formally met yet, and I was on edge as soon as I recognized her. Not only was I disobeying her advice, not only was I essentially calling her a liar, but also… she was stunningly beautiful. I’m sure I had met Twi’leks before, beautiful ones, even, but the cocktail of nerves and bravado coercing me to “act natural” forced my brain to lock down.

She talked to me first. She offered me a drink. She flirted. She laughed. She was more jovial than anyone in a spaceport cantina had any right to be. And I was delightful. My jokes were winning her over, and she hung on my every word. I couldn’t believe my luck! After a few drinks, she invited me to her bunk on the Sithspit. I, being putty in her hands, obliged like a death row inmate being offered an open door to freedom.

I remember waking up on the Sithspit sometime the next day. Nothing had happened. I wasn’t even in Lula’s bunk; I was tied up in a cargo hold. My head aching, I couldn’t piece together the words to communicate my indignation. Was I being kidnapped? Where were we? Had we left the station?

Several crewmembers (my future shipmates) passed to chuckle at my situation. After what felt like an eternity, Lula appeared and untied my bindings.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

I can laugh now, but I was steaming back then. Welcome for what? For nothing. A wasted opportunity to make thousands of credits; to take the fight to the rebels; to prove myself. What gave her the right?

I never said a word about the incident. To my parents, it had been just another night when Hav didn’t return to the ship. Of course, Lula was right. The Imperial officer was a traitor. I saw him setup a Bothan crew on the same mission a few days later, and they never returned. I also saw Krun Rosk blast him point-blank over a Sabacc table.

It was several months before I encountered the crew of the Sithspit again. I had spent nearly all of my credits on Corellian whiskey after a smuggling crew unceremoniously dumped me at the spaceport on the Imperial-controlled planet of Katraasii. I was slumped over at the bar when I recognized Koota Jood’s distinct laugh over my shoulder. Rosk put an arm around me in mock consolation; even Threep chided me. Only Lula provided me any comfort. She again offered me a space on her bunk, but I wasn’t having it. No way, no how. Drunk as a gundark, I still knew better. So Rosk pistol-whipped me.

Once again, I awoke on the Sithspit, but this time I could hear the tell-tale whine of a hyperdrive system. We were in motion. Koota was speaking at my side, but I couldn’t yet understand Durese. I started screaming. Rosk sarcastically offered to knock me out again, but Lola eventually calmed my nerves. She had assumed that my parents had disowned me after I tried to make that smuggling deal behind my father’s back. Clearly drunk, homeless, and needing attention, she and the crew had kidnapped me and were now offering me a place on the Sithspit.

Had I been sober, I might have proffered a team hug. As it was, I was happy to avoid another knockout blow from the captain. And like that, I was a member of the Sithspit crew.