Errant Venture



The Errant Venture was an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer captured by the smuggler Booster Terrik. She is the only known Imperial class Star Destroyer to be in private hands. At one time the Errant Venture was part of the Imperial Navy, and was named Virulence.

Imperial Service
Not much is known about the early history of the ship while she was part of the Imperial Navy. What is known is that she was at the Battle of Endor, and was under the command of Joak Drysso at the time. When Drysso saw the Executor crashing into the Death Star II, he realized the battle had been lost, and decided to flee the area.

A few years later, he joined Imperial Intelligence director Ysanne Isard at Thyferra, and was named the Captain of the Lusankya. His first officer, Lakwii Varrscha then became the new Captain of the Virulence. The ship participated in a number of engagements against Rogue Squadron during the Bacta War.

Finally when Wedge Antilles and Booster Terrik allowed the Imperials to discover their hidden base, Isard sent the Lusankya and the Virulence to destroy the base. Upon arrivial, they found the Rogues had already evacuated and left the area. Terrik was left behind to command the station, Drysso tried to force his surrender. Terrik had other plans, however; powering up a gravity well and locking Lusankya in place with the dozens of tractor beams he'd acquired. The Lusankya suddenly found itself the target of three hundred proton torpedoes. This was more than enough to destroy the ship. Before that could happen Captain Varrscha selflessly moved Virulence in front of Lusankya, freeing it from the tractor beams' grip. Drysso thanked Varrscha for her sacrifice and made a beeline out of the system and back to Thyferra. Terrik, aided by the fortuitous arrival of a New Republic flight group under the command of Pash Cracken, was able to convince Captain Varrscha to surrender Virulence without a fight, and Terrik immediately proceeded to load it up with his people and Cracken's fighters.

By the time Terrik and Cracken arrived at Thyferra, the battle was well under way. Captain Drysso could not believe his good luck when he saw Virulence emerge from hyperspace. But he was in for a very unpleasant surprise when the Virulence launched A-Wing fighters into the battle, and opened up on his ship with her weaponry. Terrik's arrival, coupled with the recently-defected Sair Yonka's Freedom, and the Rogues' numerous freighters—loaded to the brim with the missiles and torpedoes that were not on Yag'Dhul station, made short work of Lusankya, and the battle was soon finished, with Isard apparently killed in the act of escaping. Thus the Virulence was instrumental in the defeat of Ysanne Isard and the Lusankya.

Private Service
Following the engagement, Booster decided that the role of Captain of a Star Destroyer agreed with him, and he wanted to keep the Virulence. Not wishing to leave such a powerful ship in the hands of a smuggler, General Airen Cracken tried to convince Terrik to give up the ship. Terrik however was insistent, but his future son-in-law Corran Horn was able to broker a compromise. Terrik was allowed to keep the ship, but most of the armament was seized by the New Republic. General Cracken told Booster that the ship was his, but asked him to please change the name. Booster decided to call his new ship the Errant Venture.

Booster then turned the ship into a mobile bazaar of sorts, clearing out entire sections of the interior to create space for entrepreneurs to set up shop. Corran Horn visited the Venture during his search for his wife and Booster's daughter, Mirax Terrik.

During the Caamas Document Crisis, General Garm Bel Iblis commandeered the Venture for the battle of Yaga Minor. The Venture's armament was restored to that of a regulation Star Destroyer. She survived the battle and subsequently returned to Terrik's possesion.

Terrik had the ship repainted in bright red as repayment for its services. Most of the time, she was run on a skeleton crew; Booster did not have the resources to properly operate the entire starship.

Terrik was rumored to have laid his hands on several superweapons which made the ship extremely formidable in fights; by the time of the Yuuzhan Vong War it was rumored by engineers working on the ship that he had even managed to acquire the Darksaber from the Hutts and had affixed it to his ship; it was said to take up a large section of the ship's central axis and ran almost the entire length of the vessel. Though it was said that it took several minutes to fire the weapon, it would have been able to destroy anything in its path for a lightyear. Booster, however, denied the claims that his ship was equipped with any superweapon at all.

In 26 ABY, the vessel was used to house the students of the Jedi Praxeum after the Yuuzhan Vong attacked Yavin IV, essentially becoming a modern day Chu'unthor. That same year, Ben Skywalker was born on the Errant Venture. During the Liberation of Coruscant, the Errant Venture helped the Jedi and the Hapan Navy defend Zonama Sekot from the fleet Supreme Overlord Shimrra and Warmaster Nas Choka dispatched to attack the living world.

Behind the scenes
In an online chat (and thus not canon), Mike Stackpole indicated not ALL of the Errant Venture was painted red&mdash;some parts of the hull were reserved by Booster to rent out for advertising billboards.

Appearances

 * X-wing: The Bacta War
 * I, Jedi
 * The Hand of Thrawn Duology
 * Union
 * Survivor's Quest
 * Edge of Victory Duology