Arissa's missing years

Arissa would be invited to join the Royal Guard, based on her background, training and field performance. She was a natural to the role, determined not only to make her father proud, but also to serve a more personal goal and find what happened to him. Completing the arduous training she would take her place among the elite. In 12 ABY her Guard Unit would be rotated to the front lines, as standard procedure of the time to keep the guardsmen and women in fighting shape. What should have been a routine operation to quell, a minor revolt on a slave world would lead to disaster. The Royal Guard unit was sent in on a nighttime operation. Breaching the Rebel compound, Arissa sensed something was wrong, but before she could raise a warning and explosion ripped through the ranks. The rebels were tipped off, to the man, the Royal guards were slaughtered. The only one to make it out was Arissa, they had been betrayed.

Returning to the landing zone, she found the Imperial outpost abandoned. Alone, injured, and on a hostile moon, she felt the person had betrayed her must be in service of the Empire, or had access to Imperial databases. She couldn’t return until she had proof. It would be this knowledge that would lead her down a twisted path of deceit, betrayal, and ultimately revenge.

Stripping off any remnants of her Imperial uniform, she would escape the planetoid by stowing aboard an outgoing freighter. Her wounds were extensive and she would have died in the cargo hull had the ship not been raided by a pirate cruiser The Claw. Found among the crates, she was nursed back to health and indentured to the ships Captain, a rowdy Corellian named Jonick Polic. Captain Polic had been a Jedi Initiate, he was never selected to be a Padawan because he could not let go of his life outside of the Jedi Order, so he left. His training was very limited however he could sense the force within Arissa but not the strength. Through her service she could gain her freedom, in turn he would teach her the limits of the force as he knew them. It would be more dangerous than he would ever know.

Polic’s background was largely unknown; his crew marked the man as "penitent obsessive", unable to forgive himself for past indiscretions.After a year in the man’s service he refused to release her from his retinue, a mistake that would cost him his life. After a year of being taught the basics of the force, but limited by Polic’s limited knowledge of the force, she would repay him by plunging a vibro-blade into his chest. She could no longer be held back and would dump his body out of the airlock before taking The Claw’s sister ship, the Kolier and strike out on her own, back on the hunt for her betrayer.What Arissa does not know is that her own father was the one who disclosed her unit’s mission. After the death of Palpatine, Jon Kiiko had answered the recall. He had been loyal to the ideals of the New Order, but had grown tried of war. It was during this time, a chance encounter with the rebel hero Luke Skywalker would change the course of his life and unknown to him, the life of his daughter Arissa, as well. The young Jedi engaged the old solider in a debate lasting hours on the nature of the Galaxy, and the state of the war. It was a difficult task, but in the end Jon Kiiko was sure that the peace was the only answer. He would have never supported the rebellion but he wanted the war to end, and he was loyal to the Emperor not the Empire. His Emperor was dead. He agreed to help bring about the end of the war, and he felt the only way to do that was to take the forces most loyal to the Galactic Empire out of the fight.

For the next few years, the former Royal Guardsmen would become a top source of Intel on the status of the Imperial Military. He had no idea what had become of his daughter, feeling she was better off not knowing her father was a traitor. His last mission would fatefully be the very operation that would lead to the destruction of the 41st Royal Guard Cohort. On a far hill, hidden in the distance Jon would personally watch the destruction of his beloved Royal Guard. As he watched what he thought was the last solider die, he was overcome with emotion. Turning his back, he would never see his own daughter crawl out of the grief. Setting the hilt of his force pike into the ground, he would impale himself on it, ending his life only meters from where his daughter fought for her own.

Her quest would take her to the far reaches of known space. It was inn a dive bar on a nothing world that Arissa heard the legend of a cursed world from which people never return or are driven mad. Only the very brave or extremely foolish would even venture to this place, in the hope of finding treasures of unimaginable power. Arissa persuaded a decrepit old smuggler to lead her to this planet. What she finds is a desolate world not found in any of the Imperial star charts. As soon as her ship enters orbit a transmission dating back to the fall of the Republic is picked up by her ships computer, however it is in an unknown language and her system can only decipher a few words of warning.

Landing on the planet, her rudimentary connection to the living force brought her to an ancient temple. The interior walls of the hallways of the temple were decorated with elaborately painted murals. The scenes depict armor clad women fighting robed men wielding lightsabers. The women notably had their faces painted, and their hair was decorated with beads, bones, and feathers. There are many more that show daily life scenes and farming with the temple off in the background. The hallways opened up into a vast open chamber, bereft of the chill of the connecting passageways. In the center of the room, on top of a raise circular dais, an ancient looking alter became the focal point of the entire structure.

Reaching the dais, Arissa stepped up and bushed off the altar to read the words etched into the stone. As she spoke, she had no idea she was invoking a dark ritual. Had a man spoken the words, it would have sprung some ancient trap, however a feminine presence caused something else to happen. The altar split apart revealing an ancient holocron filled with the spirit of the Nightsister Priestess. Her teachings would become the backbone of Arissa’s connection with the force, building on the limited ability as already had. This is something she would keep hidden from everyone.