Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/Week 2, 2008/1

Zayne Carrick was a Human Padawan learner during the Mandalorian Wars. Hailing from the family of a banker and a gardener, Zayne was barely accepted into the Jedi Order with his level of Force sensitivity, described as "marginal", and spent his youngling days in the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. He was then taken as a Padawan by Jedi Master Lucien Draay, who, unknown to both Zayne and the Dantooine Jedi Council, was a member of a secret Jedi organization bent on preventing the return of the Sith by any means necessary.

Training on the city-world of Taris under the supervision of Lucien and four other Jedi Masters, Zayne never expected to go far; he lacked confidence in his abilities, performed poorly for a future Jedi, and was treated as little more than a source of comic relief. Not even expecting to be knighted, he nevertheless attended the knighting ceremony&mdash;but, running late, was shocked to see his four fellow Padawans dead&mdash;killed by their own Masters in cold blood.

As Zayne later discovered, the Masters saw a vision that identified one of the Padawans as a threat to the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic. As the only surviving Padawan, still seen as an enemy by the Jedi Covenant, he united with Marn Hierogryph, a Tarisian black-marketeer he used to chase in the past as a law enforcer, and two mysterious Arkanian offshoots, Camper and Jarael in his quest to avenge his murdered friends and force the Masters to confess in their crime and clear his name. Little did he know that, on his run, he would be thrown right in the middle of the emerging Mandalorian Wars, chased by the Republic and the Mandalorians alike.