Zahara Cody

Zahara Cody was the female Human chief medical officer working for the Imperial Corrections Service, aboard the Imperial prison barge Purge. She had a mother and father, whom she trusted very much. Cody spent most of her time in the infirmary with her 2-1B medical droid Waste caring for the sick inmates of the ship. During her time on Purge, she wrote several letters to her family that have since been released to the public for educational purposes.

During her service aboard the Imperial prison barge Purge, a mass outbreak of a virus had threatened to kill off the entire crew of the ship. Cody soon found that she was immune to the virus. She knew that there must be more people that had the same immunity as her on the ship. And so she found Kale and Trig Longo, two teenage prisoners accused of rebellion against the Empire. In Solitary Confinement, deep within the bowls of the prison ship, she found two of the most notorious smugglers of all time, Han Solo and the Wookiee Chewbacca. The group would soon find out that they could not escape from the Purge in an escape pod, mostly due to the fact that the derelict Star Destroyer Vector tractor beam was still activated. After running from the undead, Cody and company made it to the docking tube that connected the Purge to Vector. The four surviving members finally escaped the Purge and made it to the derelict Star Destroyer.

Early Life
"Time is muscle. Time is brain."

- A saying Zahara's surgery teacher taught her during her time on Rhinnal

Little is known about Zahara's life prior to the disease leakage aboard the Purge. However, it was known that she indeed did go to medical school at an institution on the planet of Rhinnal. She was the daughter of fairly wealthy parents, who took a dim view of her interest in medicine. After working on several aid missions, Cody decided to join the Empire and was transferred to the Purge as its chief medical officer. During her early time as the chief medical officer aboard the Purge, Cody became friendly with a Devaronian inmate named Gat, who she regarded as one of the "good" prisoners.

Escaping Purge
Zahara Cody worked as the chief medical officer of the Imperial Prison Barge Purge for some time. During a voyage to a penal moon to deliver prisoners, the main thrusters on the Purge malfunctioned and eventually stopped working all together. After drifting, Purge happened upon a derelict Star Destroyer. A scouting party was soon sent aboard the ship to salvage for parts. They brought back the parts but also a horrible disease. The infirmary on the ship was overwhelming with sick prisoners and already dead prisoners. The boarding party was put in isolation to try to contain the disease. After almost everyone was dead, Cody went up to talk to Tisa, a droid built into Purge that knew everything about the ship. Cody asked Tisa what the life count aboard the Purge was. Tisa replied six; with two in solitary confinement, located in the lowest levels of the ship. Zahara thought that since solitary confinement was so deep into the ship and was rarely visited, that maybe the infection had not reached the personnel and inmates yet. Cody hoped there would be survivors.

Cody then traveled down to the lower levels to solitary confinement. When she exited the turbolift, she almost tripped over a couple of guards who had succumbed to the virus. In the second cell Cody opened, she found Han Solo and his first mate Chewbacca, who had not been infected by the virus yet. Just to be safe, Cody injected the two with an anti-virus she had produced with her medical droid Waste. They made their way back to the turbolift. Cody realized that the bodies were not there. The group entered the turbolift and made their way back to the medbay. When they arrived, all the bodies that had been in the beds and on the floor were all gone; nowhere to be found. Cody found Waste on the floor, ripped to pieces. She had a conversation with Waste, and when she turned around, Han and Chewbacca were nowhere to be found. They had just vanished. They returned shortly with Kale Longo and Trig Longo. When the group was reunited, they traveled back up to talk with Tisa. Tisa showed them a technical readout of the prison barge. There were red dots on the screen that represented life-forms. When Cody had been there before there were only six red dots. Now there seemed to be hundreds, maybe even thousands, all moving in massive groups. Their only chance of survival was to try to make it out to the derelict Star Destroyer. They traveled to the docking tube the Purge had used to attach itself to the Star Destroyer; evading groups of the undead. The things had found them and were secretly following them now. They finally made it to the docking-tube. They made it through the tube just in time and sealed it air-tight so that none of the things could follow them. After much traveling and dismay, the last surviving group of the Purge had finally made it through the winding passages of the prison barge and made it to Vector.

Journey throughout Vector
After a lifetime of running from the undead all throughout the Purge, the last surviving members of the prison ship finally made it to the great labyrinth that was Vector. The group's first directive was to travel to the cockpit and turn off the tractor beam. But since Kale Longo was too weak to travel, Zahara volunteered to stay behind with Kale and wait. That decision would soon come to haunt Zahara as it would result in the loss of a great friend.

Loss of Kale
Han, Chewbacca, and Trig went along to try to find the cockpit of the master destroyer to turn off the tractor beam, while Zahara and Kale stayed in put. Before they sealed up the hatch, Kale had gotten bitten on the leg. Zahara tried to save Kale by cutting off his leg, but it was too late, the disease had already ravaged the lower half of his body and was starting to crawl up to above his waist. The hatch suddenly burst open and the things started to chase after them. Zahara started to drag Kale, but his face was obliterated by a blaster bolt shot by one of the things chasing after them. Zahara decided there was nothing she could do for him now, and left him. She forced herself not to look back at Kale, knowing she had lost a great friend.

Bio-lab 242
"What happened here? What did you do?"

- Zahara trying to communicate with the infected researcher

Zahara just kept running. After what seemed like forever, she lost track of where she was. She surmised that she was somewhere still in the main hangar area, but further back. Zahara leaned herself against the wall, temples throbbing. Zahara was listening. Listening for any sound or movement that warned her of the zombies arrival. But the corridor she was in was absolutely silent. She started to walk forward and looked to her left to see a hatchway with a sign posted over it that read BIO-LAB 242. She entered it to find dozens of empty, glass-enclosed cells. The whole entire chamber smelled like antiseptic and chemicals, most likely because the ventilation fans had been motionless for quite a time. Walking forward, Zahara noticed the dead computer terminals, all the keys scattered across floor. Zahara continued to walk forward, finding a somewhat operational computer terminal, lines of text and a cursor on the screen awaiting a reply. She tapped a key and more data came zooming past the screen, too fast for her to read. It stopped again, the cursor still clicking. The wall in front of her clicked and opened to reveal a thick pane of glass. Across the pane of glass was another hive-cell. This was contained two yellow corpses dangling from the ceiling by various tubes and wires. Zahara heard another click and the ventilation fans switched on. Without warning, one of the corpses raised its head. The fans were starting to pump fresh air into the cell. Then the other corpse next to it followed by doing the same thing. They started swaying back and forth, all of the wires and tubes starting to peel off of their decaying skin; except for one single wire attached to their chests, collecting a strange black liquid.

Behind her, she surprisingly heard a footstep scraping across the lab floor. She spun around to see nothing but darkness. a shape suddenly emerge from between two workstations, something crunching beneath it's foot. She saw a syringe on the floor, her only weapon. But the mysterious figure had vanished. A loud sound filled the lab. one of the corpses had started to slam it's body against the glass, leaving a giant red smear. It hit the glass again, harder. Zahara then bolted across the room, grabbed two syringes, and felt something move in behind her. Zahara spun around and it grabbed her. Zahara looked and saw that it was a decaying researcher, obviously one that had been infected by the disease. She rammed the syringe into the decaying researcher's eye socket. The thing screamed and collapsed under its own weight. Zahara started for the exit, but the thing was trying to communicate, saying gibberish. The researcher then took the syringe from it's eye socket and started to scrape it along the floor, trying to write something. Zahara couldn't understand it. It was a bunch of scribbles. The researcher then jumped on top of Zahara, pinning her to the ground.

The researcher put both of its cold hands around her neck, choking her. Zahara tried to resist but there was no way. There was a metallic cling, like saw on bone. A strange liquid splashed onto her hair, along with the cold hands sliding off her neck. Zahara looked up and saw a surgical bone saw halfway through its head. Zahara was surprised to see a familiar face, Waste. However, it turned out to not be Waste, but a totally different 2-1B. Zahara asked if the 2-1B could tell her anything about what the Imperials were doing here. The 2-1B knew barely nothing, but did direct her to a functioning workstation. The 2-1B told her that there was a couple of undisturbed stations in the hangar control center. The 2-1B then plotted a route there, specifically avoiding the hangar itself. Zahara then thanked her rescuer and followed the route the droid had given her.

Final escape
"That gray liquid in those tanks was a highly refined version of the virus. The whole operation was set up to create an unlimited supply of it, probably so that the Empire could manipulate its behavior wherever they wanted."

- Zahara explaining Blackwing

The 2-1B had been very exact in its directions: first, the droid had sent Cody through a Byzantine of walkways that led her to a service lift, then she continued on the lift all the way up to the pilot's room, and finally through a set of doors that opened to the hangar control itself. Thankfully, Cody had encountered no obstacles or resistance on her travel.

Cody had tried three keyboards before she found one that worked. She typed in the word blackwing. The words "password accepted" crawled across the screen. Cody told the computer to access the Star Destroyer's tractor beam. Cody then told the computer to disable the tractor beam. The computer could not comply because it had already been turned off. Han, Chewbacca, and Trig had succeeded. Zahara then typed in the question "What is blackwing?". The computer responded with the words "Galactic virus dissemination and distribution algorithm." The last thing the computer said was "Project status: In progress." Since the room Cody was in overlooked the hangar, she looked down and saw that all of the infected were climbing into different kinds of spacecraft. Zahara understood now: they were trying to leave the Star Destroyer. Zahara noticed that the things were carrying black tanks on their backs. This disease was a method in which the Imperials could direct the virus anywhere it wanted in the galaxy. As a group, the infected started to move an X-wing, aiming it up to where exactly Cody was standing. There was a blinding column of flame hurtling towards her.

Cody was able to warn Trig, Han, and Chewbacca via comlink; telling them to stay away. Cody was able to get in muddled words such as "under attack", "too many of them" and "laser cannon." Trig, Chewbacca, and Han finally made it to their destination, Freebird. The group had thought that Cody was gone, but they had no choice: they had to board the shuttle or face being eaten by the infected. With much opposition from Trig, the trio boarded the shuttle. Onboard the shuttle, they found Pauling and Tanner, two of the surviving crew members of initial leakage of the virus aboard Vector. The group powered up the shuttle, with Han as the pilot. Multiple ships followed, with the undead piloting. Han blasted out of the hangar and the shuttle made it outside to space; but not before one of the infected slithered onto the ship. The infected crewmember tore Pauling and Tanner apart and devoured their flesh, while Chewbacca and Trig hid in the corner. Han headed for the cabin and saw the sight. He groped for his blaster, but the comforting feel was not there. The next thing everyone heard was a blaster being shot, by Zahara Cody herself. Chewbacca then ran over, picked up the undead Imperial, and began to slam it down on the shuttle floor. Cody told Chewbacca to put it down, that she should shoot it again. The thing started to convulse, grayish liquid spewing from its mouth. The group looked out the viewport and saw that all the ships had stopped moving, their undead pilots dead once again. Cody told them that Blackwing's flaw; that the infected people could not stray far away from the source of the virus. She then explained to the trio that the grayish substance inside the tanks they had seen earlier was a highly refined version of the virus, and that those same tanks had leaked. The leakage of those tanks was the reason for the virus spreading on Vector.

After the incident
The only four survivors from the entire population of Vector and the Purge eventually landed on Galantos. Han and Chewie went one way, explaining they planned to get their ship out of impound, while Trig went with Cody to the planet Chandrila. Trig and Cody went to deliver a letter to Kai Zook, one her husband had wrote to her and her children before falling victim to the plague. She then invited them in for something to drink. Trig told Cody that he could imagine himself settling down there someday, though it is unknown if he ever did. Cody's activities after these events are unknown.

Personality and traits
"You're sweet on cons. I'll bet if I were some low-life Rebel scum you'd treat me like your only patient. Every sob story that comes along, you're ready with a sympathetic ear."

- Jareth Sartoris

Zahara had a habit of forming friendships with prisoners who visited sick bay. Zahara cared very much for the inmates and felt bad for them. When many inmates became sick and flooded the medbay, she made curing them her top priority. She would do anything for them. This caused her to be shunned slightly by other imperial personnel. After the Purge's voyage, she planned to leave imperial corrections. Zahara concluded that even though she was going to leave Imperial Corrections, she had gained invaluable life experiences and learned more about herself than she could ever imagine. Even when sick inmates and guards had flooded the medbay, Zahara had not regretted what she had done for the Empire.

Letters to her father
"I certainly don’t regret the choices that brought me this far. Working for Imperial Corrections, I’ve gained invaluable life experiences and learned more about myself than I’d ever imagined. But events have unfolded here aboard the Purge in the past few weeks that have forced me to reevaluate my priorities."

- An excerpt from one of the letters.

In a letter to her father, Zahara stated that she was planning to resign her post soon and take a position in another organization. She also wrote a second, shorter letter telling him of a medical situation aboard Purge that had killed many people. She stated that isolation and quarantine had no effect to the virus and that she felt it only a matter of time before she became infected as well. She was one of the few people immune to the disease. Zahara Cody made an anti-virus which she gave to Han Solo, and Chewbacca. She did, however, manage to survive the events, along with Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Trig Longo.

The letters were later recovered aboard Purge after its occupants were all but wiped out by the plague.

Skills and abilities
As a doctor and chief medical officer aboard Purge, she had a great and ever expanding knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. Zahara was a headstrong individual who persevered through every sort of complication she encountered. Zahara was also a relatively strong individual. On one such occasion was when Zahara encountered an infected researcher aboard Purge, she thought on her feet and reached for one of the needles and stabbed it into the researcher's eye socket. She soon overpowered the researcher with brute force and threw him off of her.

Appearances

 * Death Troopers