Agatha Jeph

Agatha Jeph has known nothing but smuggling since birth, she having been raised aboard her father's struggling vessel, the Fire-fly Class Transport, Imbroglio. A life amongst hooligans and men has instilled in her a sense of crass behavior at times, a thick skin at the very least. Being reared in such an environment lent itself to good hands-on experience, even if Jeph isn't the most educated or intelligent person in the galaxy. Familiar with many aspects of her profession, Agatha is a master of none, but knows her way around the bridge or engine room enough to be dangerous. Following a tragic and pivotal turning point in her adult life, the Socorran abandoned the trade in search of a more 'normal' life, one that did not weigh so heavy with peril and desperation. That life was not meant to be however, she feeling as a fish out of water and eventually longing for a return to self-determination and the freedom of the stars. Returning to the rustic Imbroglio, which she now owned outright, Agatha set about returning to a life of smuggling in a very different galaxy then she had left, before the rise of the Empire.

In accordance to this personal doctrine of 'business first,' Jeph will be the first to tell anyone aboard her ship that compliance to her will is mandatory or else. She is not afraid to brandish her weapon on anyone, including crew, should she deem them acting in misconduct or deviating from the principles of Black Bha'lir.

Given the nature of her work in the Outer Rim territories, Agatha is no stranger to other species. She’s still working out the varied natures of some of their behaviors, but she appreciates and respects the diversity presented in the universe. Much more, she appreciates the skills some hold better than Humans and attempts to capitalize on that when possible. She knows there is more to a book than the cover and tries to give each and everyone a fair shot until they prove her wrong. And if or when they do, the ‘Brogie’ isn’t one to stereotype. If all other species were to think of Humans reflective of the crew she grew up on, then they would believe the entire race one of scoundrels without morals. That said, Jeph attempts civility in all business affairs, with all races, until it becomes more a liability than asset to continue with good form.

The loss of Agatha’s father struck her deeply, she regretting the many years of bitterness and fighting that transpired between the two. As she has aged, the captain has realized how he had defended her and provided for her well-being he best he could at the time. Looking back on his protective nature now, she realizes that she would be the same way if she had a child of her own on board the frequently dangerous ship. Much remains to be conveyed to Pollok in her mind, admissions of guilt, sorrow and gratitude, but she will never have the chance. This hurts her daily, in spite of her heart’s absence.

The legacy of Agatha’s mother remains a mystery to her. Despite Jeph’s lifelong questions, Pollok somehow managed to convey little to his daughter regarding her mother. Still, during the still of space, when many others were asleep, Agatha would hear tales from the drunk crew members she cooked for in her youth. More than one described her beauty, her noble calling of being a nurse and infrequently, one would become so inebriated as to blurb the details of her death, and the events surrounding it. Accepting the stories after some chronological extrapolation over the years, Agatha formed a base impression of her mother, but still, even to this day, she wishes she knew more.

Socorro, an Outer Rim planet, was renowned for it’s black sand and attraction for smugglers. Many a great smuggler was bred from the scorched planet, none of which was Pollok Jeph. Having grown up beneath the shadow of his father, an infamous malcontent, Jeph’s father knew better than to submit his only son to a life of danger and struggle. That being the case, Pollok spent the majority of his younger years planetside with his mother, occasionally hobnobbing with her father’s crew at the ‘Black Dust Tavern’ when they returned home for a stop. The stories and intrigue captured young Pollok’s imagination from his first memories, but he was not to follow in his father’s footsteps. That much had been decided early on, for his own safety, for his future.

Graduating from his schooling with ample marks, he found work in a scrap yard on the outskirts of Vakeyya. Here he remained for years, supplying parts and services for those in need of a spare adapter or conduit. But he was not a happy man. Having taken a school sweetheart as his bride upon graduating, the couple struggled financially, he becoming disenchanted with the hum-drum nature of his career choice by the day. But Pollok was a good man at heart, he sacrificing his desires to remain on the job and supply what he could for the wife. But that wasn’t enough for her it seemed. Divorcing Jeph just past his twenty-eighth birthday, his former wife packed up and set sail for greener pastures.

Crushed emotionally, Pollok maintained his position in the scrap yard for another year before the property was annexed, re-zoned and the owner sold it to the town for a landfill. Now at a crossroads in his life at the age of thirty, the man decided that now was the time to live his dream. If not now, when? He wasn’t getting any younger after all. Accumulating all the funds he had, plus borrowing a healthy sum from local financiers, Pollok bought a transport ship, sight unseen from a man he considered a friend. The advertisement stating that it was a ‘fixer-upper’ was a modest description, he finding in no working order at all.

So, yet another year passed as he found work as a mechanic for the local fire brigade, he using any and all spare cash and time repairing and refitting the Firefly class transport. Not having the resources for both housing and the vessel, he opted to rent space at a local yard and simply lived out of the convoluted heap that was growing about him. Naming it the Imbroglio as an homage to its confusing and piecemeal construction, Jeph finally got his pride spaceworthy.

Several months passed as he worked out the numerous ‘kinks’ with help from friends. A few more months passed as he became a fixture in the same ‘Black Dust Tavern,’ he speaking much with others regarding his now deceased father and recruiting whom he could to help man the Imbroglio for their first job. He didn’t have a job lined up in actuality and worse, word of mouth about his ‘green’ experience left many of the stronger incumbents passing on the offer. But he did finally gather a crew of five together in the end, a band of aged fellows, all jaded by life and with little more to lose.

And thus, the new life of Pollok Jeph began, flubbing early jobs only to grow more and more adept from learned lessons. His ship was a revolving door of personnel during the early, struggling years, one of such was a woman hired as a medic, by the name of Sumir Tallat. Over months, the pair succumbed to their attraction for one another and the seed of Agatha Jeph was planted. About to give birth any day, the crew of the Imbroglio found themselves in route to port but still in deep space. As it happened, Agatha did not wish to wait and the crew all aided in the birth with the screaming help of Sumir guiding them as best possible.

Agatha cried for days following her mother’s death, the baby seeming to realize the passing and absence. Seemed Tallat had a stash of the meds on her person when locked inside the unit, Pollok then finding her dead from an overdose upon arriving in port. And there it was on Mon Gazza that Sumir was laid to rest, Pollok re-evaluating his life for some weeks before, and with some spurs from the crew, re-engaging the smuggler’s life.

From then Agatha was her father’s girl, she growing to learn of his life and being mentored by the party of gruff men that surrounded him. More than once she endangered a mission via unfortunate timing and more than once a trip was suspended whilst the crew searched for the child in one of the many hidden nooks of the Imbroglio. Upon arriving at an age of better capability and understanding, she helped where possible, cooking, cleaning and the like, never taking part in the jobs which Pollok adamantly deemed were too dangerous. And so she lived, learning from stories about the table but never from direct experience… at least until her latter teens when her rebellious tendencies emerged.

Tired of being sheltered by her father, she broke into a crewman’s quarters and acquired a gun before sneaking off to where she had heard the deal was to go down. And wasn’t it fortunate, she arriving in the shadows to see the entirety of the Imbroglio’s party laying their weapons on the ground with several weapons trained on them. Unsure how best to proceed, the novice girl watched as her father was slapped repeatedly across the face. That was enough to make up her mind. Pinching off a shot, the slug blasted toward the target before missing altogether. But it was enough of a distraction in the end, the captors being able to reach their guns on floor whilst Agatha found fire directed at her. Following a brief firefight, the day was finally won, but at the expense of young Jeph’s ears. Verbally lambasted by her father for getting involved, she then had had enough. Returning the shouts, she in no unclear terms detailed how it was she that had provided the opportunity for their escape, probably saving their lives.

Months of arguments followed, a bitter dispute gaining more stink by the day. More and more, the crew who had helped father Agatha came to her defense, they advising timidly and then more adamantly to Pollok that she was capable to help, and very much willing. Weeks later, and with hundreds of second thoughts, Pollok Jeph relented and allowed Agatha to start engaging in some of the jobs…..some, being the operative word. Years passed, Agatha growing into the role with the help of her aged mentors and father. She lost her virginity to a thirty-year old fellow hired to replace Pollok’s mechanic, that fact alone instigating a swift exit from the ship once her father found out. More fighting, understandably, ensued.

Gaining clout now in Pollok’s waning years, he and his daughter forged into success formerly unknown. Acquiring a few contracts with Black Sun among other top names, they also joined the Socorran smuggling fraternity ‘Black Bha'lir’ wherein both Jeph’s acquired the rank of ‘Pilot.’ The jobs seemed to grow in danger with the climb toward more high profile organizations, though the pay did as well. Most of the father and daughter’s payouts went back into the Imbroglio, helping pay off the ship and making numerous and needed upgrades.

It was a stormy day on Nar Shaddaa some months ago when the aspiring smugglers would find their worlds shattered. With the rise of the Empire squashing mush of their business, not to mention the reorganization of Black Sun, especially in the Outer Rim, the Imbroglio’s crew was forced to again begin taking smaller jobs from less reputable warlords and criminals. At such a meeting to discuss terms of a transport, the crew arrived armed to the teeth thinking that the meeting may go south before it would bear fruit. And they were right. Pollok was in ill health, a nasty lung ailment claiming much of his energy, but he was the only one known to the contact and came solely as a reference. He and most inside the smoky room would never again leave of their own accord. It seemed Black Sun, still being reformed from the bottom up, had at least the resources and records to place a mark on the ‘Brogies,’ as the Imbroglio’s crew had come to be known. The sin was dumping cargo in Hutt space, but truthfully, the Jeph’s had delivered the technological cargo to a Defel agent, for a higher price.

But that was bygones wasn’t it? Nearly three years had passed since that less than stellar moment but there was no statute of limitations in Black Sun’s bible. A group of merc’s having caught the mark on the Holonet ambushed the Imbroglio’s crew from the shadows, both parties in the original transaction finding themselves bleeding and dying on the floor. Agatha never got the chance to reconcile with her belligerent father, for he had a hole through his head, she lying on the brink of death in a pool of blood. Several minute’s passed as the hired hands took images of the carnage to prove it to Black Sun, but the ruckus had alerted the dead deal maker’s back-up outside of the facility. They arrived to find the scene in shambles, the murders gone. Gathering their own dead, the ‘Brogies’ bodies were abandoned in the dusty chamber for time to wither.

A guardian angel would see that that did not happen however. Having been a fair distance off, squatting in an adjacent, abandoned building a nomad Ryn watched the entire affair through curious eyes. Once the scene had cleared to his liking, he set off and over to the impromptu cemetery to collect what he could from the dead. Upon arriving however, he found one alive, a woman amongst the bodies. His conscience directing the journeyman, he applied an herbal stimulant into Agatha before carefully delivering her outside. Hailing a ride, the musty Ryn deposited her into the local excuse for a hospital before vanishing in true Samaritan fashion.

Jeph underwent immediate surgery to repair her chest wounds but complications arose when her heart stopped on the operating table. It having been punctured anyway, the physician’s implanted an artificial heart into the Socorran before submitting her to the intensive care ward. Nearly two weeks passed before she was allowed leave, and leave she did. Traveling back to the scene of the ambush, Agatha found her father and friend’s bodies gone. Despair and agony claimed the day, she demolishing what was nearby and breakable. Just past the brink of death, she vowed never to submit herself to such a lifestyle again. From there, the Imbroglio was placed in storage on Nar Shaddaa, she traveling back to Socorro and holding a ceremony over her father’s bodiless grave. Black Bha'lir was heavy in attendance.

Completely failing her second quarter with dismal grades, she was placed on academic probation but Agatha cared not for that any longer. She had a real life to live. Quitting school, she worked overtime for nine weeks with but one goal in mind, the Imbroglio would fly again, if not for her, for Dad. Returning to Nar Shaddaa, the Imbroglio was retrieved from storage and her life began anew.

The Alliance to Restore the Republic (also known as the Rebel Alliance and informally as the Rebellion), is a loose alliance of planetary-level, system-level and sector-level resistance forces formed in direct military opposition to the Galactic Empire. It was originally formed by a group of Loyalists determined to preserve the ideals of the Galactic Republic, which has now transformed into the Empire. This grew to include former Separatists, neutral systems, and defecting Imperials. While less numerous and less powerful than the Imperial Military, the Alliance possesses a strong will to fight, dedicated soldiers, and brilliant commanders. Main Rebel Alliance Article