Voidhound

"I want to be called "Crackerjack." Eh, that sounded better in my head. How about "Ace?""

- The individual, upon being recruited into the Coruscant Aegis

The Voidhound, a member of the Coruscant Aegis who also went by the callsign "Ace", was a smuggler who served as a privateer for the Galactic Republic during the Cold War.

Arrival on Ord Mantell
During the Cold War, the smuggler who would become known as the Voidhound traveled to Ord Mantell, smuggling a shipment of weapons to a client. When the smuggler arrived, a man named Skavak met them, and gave them their payment. He suggested the smuggler leave, but before the smuggler could, Corso Riggs entered the hangar and informed Skavak and the smuggler that the separatists had blown up a military walker carrying Republic troopers to Fort Garnik, and that they had activated three anti-air towers. The smuggler, realizing they would be blown out of the sky before they left, fought through the separatists to disable the towers.

Betrayal
As the smuggler disabled the towers, Corso called and said that the hangar was under attack by separatists. The smuggler rushed back to the hangar, only to find Corso injured and surrounded by separatist soldiers. After killing the separatists, the smuggler assisted Corso. While the smuggler was doing this, their ship was stolen by Skavak, who had been helping the separatists. Corso complained that his blaster Torchy had been stolen by Skavak. He told the smuggler to meet with a local crime boss, Viidu, in Fort Garnik.

Meeting Reki
Arriving at Garnik, the smuggler met with Viidu, who stated that the weapons were for a crime lord named Rogun the Butcher, and the man would be furious at not getting his weapons. The smuggler, realizing Rogun would be gunning for them, agreed to help Viidu catch Skavak if they could have their ship back. He told the smuggler to meet a man named Reki in Talloran village, who was an expert on the separatists. Viidu said that Reki was behind enemy lines in a village, blockaded by Republic troops. However, he also said that he was friendly with the blockade commander and could get the smuggler in and out of the village, as long as they proved their loyalty by taking out a few separatists on the way.

The smuggler set out on foot for the village, where they fought into Reki's safehouse and delivered supplies to the refugees inside. In exchange, Reki told the smuggler a way to decrypt one of his codebooks. However, after infiltrating the Separatist base in Mount Avilatan, it was revealed that Syreena had betrayed them while secretly working with Skavak and killed Viidu after he found out, and that Skavak had arrived hours earlier and already left, causing the smuggler to have to pursue him and the stolen ship to Coruscant.

Search for Skavak
On Coruscant, the smuggler, now teamed up with Corso Riggs, visited Darmas Pollaran in order to gain assistance in locating Skavak and the stolen ship, following his trail across the planet. With Pollaran's assistance, the smuggler found out about Kixi, a Mirialan slicer forced to work for the Migrant Merchants' Guild. After fighting through the Guild's territory and freeing her, she informed the smuggler that Skavak had already left, and that she was forced to clean his record. She gladly restored his record, however, even adding false information such as being a carrier of the Bothan Nether Rot disease.

Pollaran soon came through for the smuggler again, revealing that Skavak was spotted in Black Sun territory. After piecing together the different parts of the holorecord of his meeting there, it was discovered that a lawman was pursuing him, and he needed someone to kill him. The Black Sun bounty hunter Urbax went to the hanger at the spaceport to wait for him there, but was followed by the smuggler. In the ensuring firefight, Urbax was killed, and the Sullustian constable Miel Muwn was safe. Miel and the smuggler teamed up to find Skavak, following the leads to the Justicar sector. Miel was later ambushed by the Justicars and imprisoned.

Two of Darmas' contacts, Jiik and Juul, tailed Skavak through the Justicars' Sector. Jiik was captured by the Justicars, but not before finding out that Skavak went down into the Works. Ace managed to infiltrate the Justicars Detention Center and free both Miel and Jiik, before following Skavak down into the Works.

There, the smuggler interrupted a meeting between Skavak and Imperial Commander Kasstroff, who were in the middle of the transaction involving the Murustavan Ruby. Skavak escaped, leaving Kasstroff to deal with the smuggler. Then, Miel made a sudden appearance, having snuck in the area, and ordered the arrest of the Imperials. Kasstroff ordered his men to kill Miel and the smuggler, but they were killed.

Miel was killed in the firefight, but in his last breath, gave the smuggler the location of their ship, where they were met by the Bith Fabizan. They fought him and the guards guarding Skavak's hanger, retrieving their ship shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, Skavak had already sold all the blasters aboard, but they found something else that would interest them, in the form of Risha Drayen.

Hunt for Nok Drayen's Treasure
Aboard the ship, Risha offered the smuggler a chance to find the lost treasure of Nok Drayen. All Ace had to do was make a few deliveries to certain planets in exchange for ship parts required to find the treasure.

Taris
On Taris, the smuggler's contact was Beryl Thorne, a smuggler who wasn't on particulary good terms with Risha. She and the smuggler came to an agreement: Ace would help her with her contract and she'd help them find the astrogation charts. During Ace's business, the Republic Customs agent Soganti was investigating Thorne, suspecting her of smuggling Tarisian relics. Thorne tasked the smuggler with sending supplies to a Doctor Vernan in the eastern part of the resettlement zone. Thorne sent them deeper in the ruins, this time to recover some planetary core samples from a core-drilling engineer named Ovold. However, the samples were stolen by scavengers along with important equipment, and so he had to direct Ace in the direction of the pirate base instead.

When Ace arrived in the pirate base, it was revealed that the thief was Tyrodall, Thorne's previous assistant who faked his death. He offered the smuggler some Tarisian relics, which were smuggled off planet by Thorne disguised as core samples. However, Tyrodall and Thorne had different views on who to sell them to. Thorne would rather sell them to Tarisian descendants at a lower price, while Tyrodall would've rather sell them on the Black Market at a higher price. The Devaronian was killed, and the cores brought back to Thorne.

Nar Shaddaa
The next stop on the smuggler's itinerary was Nar Shaddaa, the Smuggler's Moon. The delivery made was the male Shanjaru that was held in the cargo hold in exchange for a prototype starship engine. Unfortunately, their client, Drooga the Hutt, was victim of a theft. A group of eco-terrorists had stolen his female Shanjaru, and he was no longer interested in the male the smuggler had.

Fortunately, Drooga's servant Ga'ram was able to assist the smuggler, giving the coordinates of the eco-terrorist base, where they met with Tyrka, one of Momi Andrell's friends. After convincing her that it was a misunderstanding and that they were there to help, she gave them a datapad with which they could find a Docter Lazhae. Lazhae, however, was a sadistic doctor held in Shadow Town, where he was conducting experiments on Momi.

During one of the times the smuggler was on Drooga's pleasure barge, they wre ambushed by Rogun the Butcher's personal bounty hunter, Zank Helrott. With the help of the wookiee Bowdaar, whom the smuggler helped in a fight earlier, they killed him.

Lazhae left the premises and sent the Shanjaru to Drooga, after which the smuggler freed Momi. While she asked for Ace to kill her, the smuggler convinced her to keep hope. She gave Ace the Shanjaru genetic samples, asking them to bring them to Coruscant, to a Twi'lek scientist named Daru'da.

With the Shanjaru delivered, Drooga gave the starship engine, and Risha immediately started to install it. Before leaving, Drooga ordered for Bowdaar to approach. Poisoned, he was to fight a ferocious, starved gundark. Fortunately, Ace entered the fight and helped kill it. Drooga decided that the Wookiee was no longer worth the costs, and let him free. Bowdaar made a new addition to the crew shortly after.

Ambush on the Celestial Crow
After finishing business on Nar Shaddaa, Ace was contacted by Captain Feylara Raed of the Celestial Crow, who said that her ship was damaged and was drifting towards a sun. However, it was revealed to be a ruse: Feylara was an old flame of Skavak's, and was hoping to regain his affections by killing the smuggler. While protecting herself with a ray shield, she ordered assassin droids to kill Ace, although the smuggler easily overcame them.

When her ray shield dispersed, Skavak cut the transmission, leaving her with the smuggler. Ace let her live, telling her to find someone better.

Tatooine
One of the parts required for the ship was a sensor computer stolen from one of Nok Drayen's warehouses following his death. It was stolen by none other than Drayen's rival, Diago Hixan, who was seldom seen nowadays. Fortunately, one of Hixan's men, Tookreek, was willing to help get a meeting. Unfortunately, the means to meet Hixan, a small Krayt Dragon tooth, was lost when Geonosians attacked one of their warehouses and killed the lieutenant holding it, and the men tasked with finding it were slain in a fight which involved Jedi Knight Nariel Pridence.

Fighting their way through the Geonosians, the smuggler found the Krayt Dragon tooth on a desk in the upper office of the warehouse. At that moment, a Sith, Vaverone Zare, walked in, admitting to be the one who sent the Geonosians to the warehouse in the hope of attracting Hixan's attention. Believing the smuggler to be one of Hixan's men, she tried to convince Ace to get her a meeting with him.

When the Krayt Dragon tooth was brought back to Tookreek at Hixan's summer palace, he revealed where Hixan was located: The Lightspring, located deep in the desert. At that moment, Imperials under Vaverone Zare began to attack the palace. After fighting their way out, Ace travelled to the Lightspring to confront Diago Hixan and retrieve the sensor computer.

However, already present there was Nariel Pridence, and shortly afterwards Vaverone Zare arrived as well. Risha also contacted the smuggler, not having heard from Ace in a while, unaware that Hixan was present. She cut the transmission shortly, angering Hixan. A fight broke out shortly afterwards, resulting in the deaths of Diago Hixan, Tookreek and Vaverone Zare.

Alderaan
With the sensor computer installed, Ace and his crew set course for Alderaan. There, the smuggler was to deliver an ancient GNK droid to members of House Teraan. The nobles tasked the smuggler with retrieving an ancient datapad from their house, which had been taken over by the displaced House Baliss.

After returning the datapad along with some of the treasures of House Teraan, Risha gave Ace the next job: The preserved head of the Sith Lord Darth Bandon, which was to be delivered to the curator of the House Alde museum in exchange for an Arkanian hyperdrive. By the time they got there however, Skavak had already traded a fake head for the hyperdrive. Ace quickly gave chase after “borrowing” one of House Alde’s speeder bikes, but Skavak shut down the hanger blast doors as they arrived, forcing the smuggler to override the door. That gave Skavak enough time to flee to the Rhu Caenus Spaceport in Imperial territory, where he could safely install the hyperdrive.

Fortunately, Risha was able to blackmail a noble, Baron Venar, into giving Ace a spaceport pass in order to access Skavak’s hanger. Inside was a group of mercenaries payed by him to guard his ship and a Neimoidian mechanic named Vonddado Briimyo who was held there by Skavak to install the hyperdrive. He was let free and took a shuttle out of there while Ace took the hyperdrive back to Risha.

As Ace was about to leave, Cedonia Teraan contacted them by holo: Following their theft at the Baliss estate, Duke Baliss sent his son Xin Baliss to challange Lenn Teraan to a blaster duel to the death. But as Lenn didn’t learn to master the blaster, they asked Ace to fight as their champion. In a swift duel in the Teraan suite, the famed duelist was slain. Lenn and Cedonia fled Alderaan shortly afterwards before House Baliss attempted more attacks.

Ambush on Tatooine
As they departed Alderaan, Risha got a holo from an old friend, Juran, who said that his wife Audila, another old friend of Risha’s, was kidnapped by assassins and held in an abandoned Czerka mining complex on Tatooine. They immediately left for Tatooine once more, making their way deep in the facility.

When Risha and Ace arrived, the assassins revealed they never intended to let Audila live, as their “liege” had ordered for there to be no witnesses. They were killed, although Audila blamed Risha for the event happening in the first place. Thanks to Ace, they parted on decent terms, and Risha promised to tell her one day why it happened, and to trust her in the meantime.

The Final Stretch
After gathering all the supplies that Ace's ship needed, the crew went to a special facility on Nar Shaddaa to deliver the man in the cargo hold, still frozen in carbonite. The facility was a medical center, which had only ever taken care of one individual- none other than Crime lord Nok Drayen, who, after being betrayed by one of his most trusted lieutenants and being infected with an incurable virus, had himself frozen. He revealed Risha to be his daughter and only child. He gave Ace the coordinates the smuggler needed to head to a ship with his entire fortune aboard- a ship that had for years been slowly sucked in by a black hole in a deadly region of space known as The Long Shadow.

After fighting through an army of ancient droids, the smuggler found the fortune - sealed in a vault, and guarded by even more, much more powerful droids. After defeating them, Ace unlocked the vault, and it was revealed the fortune was one, single object: the lost, and priceless crown of the planet Dubrillion, of which Nok Drayen was the rightful heir to its throne. Ace headed back to the ship to find none other than Skavak, who had stored himself aboard. In a swift but brutal gunfight, Skavak was killed, and Ace retrieved Torchy.

Heading back to Nar Shaddaa, Ace came into the facility as Nok Drayen was dying. He told Risha to kill Ace, take the crown, and take back the throne of Dubrillion. She refused, and with his dying words, he told Risha, his only heir to his legacy, his only daughter, how disappointed he was in her. Risha swore to take back the throne, and Ace couldn't help but ponder what it would be like to be ruler of a whole world-specifically, all the wealth that would come with it.

Republic Privateer
Shortly after retrieving Nok Drayen’s fortune, Ace’s crew was contacted by none other than Darmas Polleran, the man who helped them find Skavak on Coruscant. He asked to meet the smuggler at Port Nowhere to offer a business proposition.

Ambush at Port Nowhere
Ace and Darmas were attacked by Rogun's men while in Port Nowhere, and met Senator Bevera Dodonna, who told the two of Harridax Kirill, also known as "The Voidwolf," and how Rogun was his right-hand man - indeed his lapdog - and that to stop the Voidwolf, Ace would have to take out Rogun and his criminal empire. Ace became a privateer for the Galactic Republic, Dodonna acting as benefactor. Ace went on to support the Republic and take down and take over Rogun's criminal empire. This included securing Project Nebula on Balmorra, terminating Rogun's supporters in the White Maw pirate organization stationed on Hoth and forming a partnership with Rogun's old mentor, Ivory, whom Rogun had attempted to assassinate in his prison cell on Belsavis. The Voidhound also shut down Rogun the Butcher's illegal smuggling ring on Voss.

Eventually it was revealed that Dodonna and Darmas had lied: Rogun was, in fact, working against the Voidwolf, and Dodonna had sold out the Republic in exchange for a promise by the Empire that she would get her own planet to rule, and all the work she had Ace do was helping the Empire, not the Republic. Darmas was later revealed to be an undercover Imperial Agent. This caused Rogun to accost Ace as a traitor when he was cornered on Tatooine.

Rogun fought with Ace to take down the Sith Purebloods sent to eliminate them both by the Voidwolf himself, realizing that the smuggler had been tricked. From then on, Rogun agreed to work together with Ace, leaving for Port Nowhere to gather support for their mutual cause while his wayward employee continued the fight against the Voidwolf.

Darmas and Dodonna were taken into custody by Ace for their betrayal, and Ace later killed the Voidwolf after a firefight aboard his flagship, the Regnant. In an attempt to escape, Kirill threw a grenade, but Ace calmly picked it up and threw it back just in time for it to detonate. In killing the Voidwolf, Ace gained control of his pirate fleet, but was at a crossroads on how to use it. Ace could then pledge the fleet to the Republic or abandon any interest in politics and become a pirate, attacking both the Empire and the Republic. Ultimately, Ace chose to aid the Republic

Upon returning to Corellia, Ace was met by Supreme Commander Rans and Supreme Chancellor Saresh, who awarded the smuggler the Medal of Service (at the time, the highest decoration that could be bestowed upon a civilian), and extended a renewed offer of privateer sponsorship. Accepting, Ace departed Corellia with an eclectic group of companions, in search of new adventures.

Continued travels
The Voidhound's journeys throughout the galaxy eventually land the smuggler on Rishi, where the Voidhound reunited with Beryl Thorne, who had a business proposition. Since the Republic-Hutt Cartel alliance, Garblaque the Hutt had planned to leave known space in his luxury dreadnaught called Haven on a ten-year pleasure cruise, believing the war would be over when he returns, but the Hutt had to auction off the seats to pay for the voyage. Thorne had learned that the pirates in Raider's Cove had stolen dozens of tickets and she plans to steal them to sell them for ten times the price and split the profit between the two smugglers. However, the pirates had stashed their tickets all over town and there was no time to search every hiding place. The Voidhound followed Thorne's instructions to conduct raids on the pirates' property, spooking the pirates to send out courier droids to retrieve their tickets. The Voidhound found one such crate carrying the tickets, but was attacked by a Houk pirate who laid claim to them. After dispatching the pirate, the Voidhound returned to Thorne with two dozen tickets in tow, only to learn that the loot was less than valuable, which was reserved for ammonia-breathers and non-humanoids on deck seven. The Voidhound then offers their opinion on how to utilize those tickets and how Thorne should continue her life.

Following Revan's defeat and the resurrection of the Sith Emperor on Yavin 4, Theron Shan personally handed the Voidhound a card programmed with authorization codes from the director of the SIS that would grant the smuggler immunity from Republic prosecution of any kind. The Voidhound was tasked with taking any jobs available to get a lead on the former Emperor's whereabouts.

Behind the scenes
This article represents the character story of the smuggler player class in Star Wars: The Old Republic, a video game from LucasArts and BioWare. As a result of being player determined, no canonical description of this individual is currently available; therefore, the article presents the subject's gender as neutral. The male smuggler is voiced by Maury Sterling and the female smuggler is voiced by Kath Soucie. The smuggler can be a member of several species: human, Mirialan, Twi'lek, Zabrak and cyborg. With game update 1.2, smugglers could access Imperial species: Rattataki, Chiss, and Sith Pureblood. However, an in-game dialogue with an Imperial commander, in which the smuggler pretends to be a Chiss Aristocra, suggests the smuggler was not, in fact, a Chiss. With Game Update 2.1, the Cathar will also be a potential species.

According to Hall Hood, the writer in charge of maintaining consistency throughout the Republic storylines, the decision to make the Smuggler a Republic class was inspired by Han Solo's loyalty to the Rebel Alliance in the original trilogy. Solo's personality and comments during the trilogy was also a large inspiration for much of the comedic content for the class.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: The Old Republic