T'Charek Haathi

"Nord, listen. Don't worry about the other ships. Why don't you watch the security patrols and tell me when they swap shifts, and I'll worry about Haathi-stuff.''" "Define 'Haathi-stuff'." "Everything else." "''That's what worries me."

- Haathi and Dren Nord converse on Zelos II

T'Charek Haathi was a female Wroonian who served the Alliance to Restore the Republic as both a starfighter pilot and Special Operations team leader. Born on Wroona, Haathi deplored stability and being bored. She served with the Wroonian defense force, but the rigidity of military life led Haathi and her unit to go rogue and target Imperial shipping. The squadron was decimated in a reprisal attack from the Empire, and Haathi eventually joined the Alliance shortly after the Battle of Yavin alongside two Humans she had met on the planet Rodaj; former Imperial soldier Ivhin Jayme, and technical genius Morgan Q. Raventhorn. A stint in the Alliance's Starfighter Corps led to the same problems Haathi had encountered serving with the Wroonians, although she was regarded as one of the Alliance's top pilots.

Facing discipline and authority problems, her superiors decided to transfer her to Special Operations, where she could use her considerable skill-set in a more unregulated atmosphere. Haathi recruited her friends Jayme and Raventhorn into her new team, and they specialized in stealing starships. The team was highly successful, and Haathi found her place in the Alliance. Accompanied by a medic, Dren Nord, the team stole a YT-1300 light freighter, The Maker, from a spaceport on Zelos II. Taking the ship to an Alliance drop point on Gelgelar, the team was forced to face the Doom Slayer, an experimental assassin droid that the ship's previous owner, the Sluissi Sythluss Leethe, had created and kept aboard the vessel. Although defeated, the Doom Slayer had a self-destruct mechanism built in; the team barely escaped from the drop point in The Maker before the installation was destroyed, although they managed to evacuate most of the base personnel.

Early life
T'Charek Haathi, a Wroonian female, was born on the planet Wroona in the Inner Rim. In her youth, Haathi worked with her grandmother, who ran a successful shipping company on Wroona. Haathi hated being both stable and predictable, and craved excitement and adventure; the work left her constantly bored. She applied to the Imperial Academy in an effort to find some excitement, despite the fact that she knew she would be subject to constant prejudice due to being both female and non-Human. Her application was denied, but she was recruited by the Wroonian defense force when she was eighteen. A year later, Haathi was a qualified starfighter pilot operating within a squadron. However, regimented life in the military was not to Haathi's tastes either as her duties mainly consisted of patrolling Wroona. Eventually, her squadron went rogue, and began raiding Imperial corporate ships. Their assaults were bold, but they drew the attention of the Imperial Navy who struck back against Haathi's unit. The squadron was decimated, but Haathi survived the assault, and managed to make it to the planet Rodaj in the Inner Rim. There, she found work as a miner, and struck up a friendship with former Imperial soldier Ivhin Jayme, and former scout and technician Morgan Q. Raventhorn. Feeling down in her current situation, Haathi and Jayme decided that they would join the Rebellion, and convinced Raventhorn to go with them.

Rebel Alliance service
"Would you like me to say this for the eighty billionth time? Rebellion needs ships. We steal ship. Take home to base."

- T'Charek Haathi to Dren Nord

Haathi and her companions enlisted with the Rebel Alliance shortly after the Battle of Yavin, and she was assigned to the Alliance Starfighter Corps flying a BTL Y-wing starfighter. Although her experience and abilities made Haathi one of the Alliance's best pilots, her carefree attitude towards regulations and her impulsiveness grated on her superior officers. In addition, the Alliance was in retreat following the Battle of Yavin, hiding from Imperial forces and regrouping their strength. Haathi found the situation monotonous, and found ways to liven up her duties by sabotaging her Y-wing's systems at random just to see how well she could fly without them, yelling "Eject!" into open comm channels just to see who would trigger their ejection seat, and constantly referring to her commanding officer as "Admiral Nerf" just to see how long it would take for him to get mad. Haathi endured several suspensions from flight duty which just made her more bored and annoying than she already was, and finally her commanding officer began to ignore her completely rather than punish her.

At some point, Haathi was assigned as a flight instructor, and posted to a training base. There, she came into conflict with the local quartermaster, Arik Stijhl. Stijhl, a veteran logistics officer, was a stickler for regulations and timetables, and Haathi was the complete opposite. Her training sessions often called for the unauthorized requisition of supplies which, in Stijhl's mind, undermined his authority as the base's supply officer. Eventually, her superiors decided to transfer her to Special Operations. They saw it as a double positive situation&mdash;the Rebellion would be able to retain Haathi's considerable skills, but the Starfighter Corps would be shot of her. Haathi agreed to the reassignment.

Assigned to command a Special Ops team, Haathi immediately recruited her former colleagues Ivhin Jayme and Morgan Raventhorn into her squad, along with a medic. Haathi's team was based out of an Alliance base on the planet Derricon, in the Spirva sector of the Mid Rim, and engaged in shipjacking operations. Although answerable to the base commander on Derricon, Haathi and her team were allowed free rein once off-base. Her actions in the field earned her a promotion from Captain to Major. Over the course of six months, Haathi either fired or lost eight medics in turn until she was assigned Dren Nord, a former surgeon with the Alliance Fleet, despite her protests. Haathi was assured that Nord had experience of field work, but she had her doubts.

Zelos II
"Fine. Okay, I just want you to know, I think this is a bad idea.''" "Really?" "Don't you?" "No. I know this is a bad idea." "Then why don't we call it off before anybody breaks into anything and, ah&hellip;anybody gets, you know, shot?" "It's too late for that. He called to me." "Who called to you? 'Master Fate? ' " "''Him. The ship. It said, 'T'Charek! T'Charek! Save me from these ugly black market nerf-heads! I need a real pilot inside me. I need a rewiring job.' What am I supposed to say? 'No? Sorry, ship, but my new med-tech thinks we should get that slag heap to your left because nobody's guarding it and there aren't any security alarms wired to it?' Is that what I should say to that ship out there? Look at him!"

- Dren Nord and T'Charek Haathi discussing Haathi's method of target selection.

In search of starships to procure for the Alliance, Haathi took the team to Zelos II, a planet in the Tyus sector of the Mid Rim. Targeting a spaceport, the team acquired stolen technician uniforms and obtained a set of the installation's remodelling plans that provided information on its security systems. Haathi's plan called for infiltrating the spaceport at night; the native Zelosians shared a pathological fear of the dark, and Haathi intended to use that dread to her advantage. She reasoned that the spaceport guards would be more concerned with the darkness around them and thinking of the moment that their shift would end, rather than be focused on actually guarding the spaceport. Using the stolen uniforms and forged work orders to fool Humanoid and droid personnel alike, the team infiltrated the base and Haathi evaluated the potential targets. Out of hundreds of ships in the spaceport, there were dozens of YT-1300 light freighters&mdash;top of the Alliance's list of ships to procure&mdash;berthed in the spaceport. At least two were relatively unguarded, while a third was located beneath a guard tower, in full view of several security cameras, and surrounded by a forcefield cube, a mesh-link power fence, and a blast wall. Haathi, seeing both the inherent challenge and pure excitement in stealing the most heavily guarded ship in the spaceport, selected it as their target.

Haathi led Jayme and Nord to a maintenance tower overlooking the freighter while Raventhorn ascended a lighting tower. Dangling from a catwalk, the young technician began to splice into the spaceport's systems to rewire the security camera covering the vessel to display a computer generated video of the light freighter's docking bay. The video would show the ship undisturbed to mask the team's approach to the ship. Haathi and Nord monitored the spaceport's security patrols from the maintenance tower to make sure that they did not discover Raventhorn and blow her cover. While Raventhorn tampered with the security monitors, Jayme rewired the backup security computers located in the maintenance tower so that the unit would be under the team's complete control. As Raventhorn and Jayme worked on their assigned tasks, Nord questioned Haathi's decision to take the most heavily guarded ship in the spaceport. Haathi informed him that stealing the other ships would have been boring, and besides which, the ship had called to her, begging her to take it away from the spaceport. Nord was not convinced.

Raventhorn signaled that she had completed her task, and began playing the fake video over the security monitors. Haathi praised her work, but was exasperated to learn that Raventhorn had programmed a full twenty-hour cycle on the video when they only needed one that lasted twenty minutes. With the cameras disabled, Haathi ordered Jayme to begin the next phase. While Jayme headed down to the docking bay, Raventhorn attached a Scomp-Spiker to the security systems. When Jayme signalled that he was in position, Raventhorn triggered the device, sending a power surge through the main security computer, temporarily disabling the forcefield cube and power fence encircling the ship. The spaceport's systems rerouted to the backup computer that Jayme had rigged earlier; the modifications made to the unit kept the security systems offline for a short time before the auxiliary power kicked in and re-established both the forcefield and power fence. Jayme pole-vaulted the fence and wall, landing just as the power to the security fields was reactivated. Inside the docking bay, Jayme relayed the ship's identification numbers to Haathi, who identified the vessel as The Maker, owned by a Sluissi called Sythluss Leethe.

Using a VoiceBox, Jayme deactivated the security systems from inside to admit Haathi and the rest of the team. Momentarily lost in admiring the ship, Haathi soon ordered Raventhorn to begin work on disabling the freighter's security systems while Jayme and Nord kept an eye on the security patrols. As Raventhorn worked, Haathi resisted the urge to stand over the young woman and ask how much longer it would take. Soon enough, Raventhorn announced that the security systems would be disabled once she had disconnected the stun steps. Haathi, in her enthusiasm to take the ship, had only heard that the defenses were down and began bounding up the entry ramp. The freighter's stun steps triggered as her foot touched the ramp, generating an electromagnetic neuro-shock field that knocked her unconscious and sent her flying backwards. Haathi came to rest in the open and Jayme attempted to take control of the situation, ordering Raventhorn to get Haathi under cover quickly. Nord, meanwhile, had abandoned cover to see if Haathi required his assistance and was standing in plain sight. Jayme ordered Nord to get back into position but the medic started to protest until they were interrupted by one of the security guards who had spotted them from the catwalks above. The guard alerted his colleagues, and a ladder from the catwalks was lowered into the bay. Descending the ladder, the security guards began to fire on the Special Ops team.

Haathi regained consciousness to find herself under The Maker, protected from the incoming fire by the entry ramp. She had no feeling in her legs and Raventhorn held several fingers up in front of her face to test her responses. Haathi answered in a flippant manner that seemed to satisfy the technician, who then told her to stay put before disappearing. As feeling began to return to her legs, Haathi maneuvered herself to survey the situation. The guards were trading fire with her team, who were in cover behind cargo crates. No member of her team had been injured yet, despite the fact that the guards' blasters were set to kill while her team were firing stun blasts. Haathi started to wonder if the effort to take The Maker had been worth it; catching herself and refusing to think along those lines, she resolved not to let the guards rob her of her prize and issued orders to fall back to the ship. Suddenly, Nord, having set his own weapon to kill, hit one of the security guards. Haathi immediately ordered him to switch back to the stun setting, which he refused to do unless she could get them out of trouble. Haathi ordered Jayme to stun him; when the commando began to comply, Nord ducked into cover and followed orders.

The guards in the docking bay began to thin out, as several had retreated to the upper level where they were better positioned than Haathi's team. Haathi ordered Raventhorn to complete her work on disabling the stun steps so they could board the ship and escape. Raventhorn complied, and as she worked, a security guard fired at her, striking the forward landing strut. The guard, standing on the lowest rung of the ladder leading up to the catwalks, had Raventhorn dead in his sights. The technician was blocking Haathi's line of sight to the guard, preventing her from using her own weapon to neutralize him. Haathi feared the worst until Raventhorn took the two cables attached to the stun steps that she was holding and jerked them in the guards' direction. The cables hit the guard, stunning him with an electromagnetic neuro-shock field. Seeing this, Haathi ordered Raventhorn to use the cables to charge the metal ladder rungs, which in turn sent the stun blast surging through the metal catwalk attached to it. The neuro-shock field stunned the remaining guards.

As the team began to fall back to The Maker, Jayme helped Haathi to her feet and into the ship's lounge area. Haathi brushed off being treated with a medpac, and ordered Jayme to help her to the cockpit while asking if anyone could think of other surprises Leethe may have included in the security systems on his ship. Raventhorn mentioned a sealed cockpit hatch was a possibility, but doubted that he had installed one&mdash;until they were confronted with it. Haathi groaned, Raventhorn began to figure out a way past it, and Jayme simply attached detonite tape to the door, then used a shot from his blaster to detonate it. The resulting explosion disengaged the hatch's locking mechanism, admitting Haathi into the cockpit. Dropping into the pilot's seat, Haathi rerouted all power to the engines and launched the freighter as security reinforcements took pot shots at the departing ship.

Gelgelar
"I just gave clearance at Ready-One to a light freighter.''" "And?" "It's registered as The Maker. The call-sign belongs to a Major T'Charek&mdash;" "Haathi." "That's right. [Pause] Sir?" "Yes, Kovings." "I should have said 'no' to her request, right?" "''No, it's okay. You shouldn't have said 'no.' You should have opened fire."

- Lieutenant Kovings and Colonel Stijhl discuss Haathi

Haathi flew The Maker to an Alliance drop point on the planet Gelgelar, in the Elrood sector of the Outer Rim Territories. The drop point was commanded by Arik Stijhl, and Haathi's main reason for stopping at the base was solely to show off her new ship and promotion to Major. The Maker was given clearance to land by Lieutenant Bendlar Kovings, the Flight Deck Officer, and Stijhl begrudgingly welcomed Haathi, Jayme and Nord to Gelgelar. Haathi was disappointed to learn that Stijhl was no longer a Major himself, and had since been promoted to Colonel. Covering her true reason for arriving at his base, Haathi claimed they needed supplies. Stijhl summoned his administrative aide, Maglenna Pendower, to take their requisition needs while Nord requested and received permission from the Colonel to disembark the ship and enter the drop point. As Pendower took their request, Raventhorn&mdash;who had been working on the freighter's faulty power grid, commed Haathi to inform her of something. Just as she was about to, static erupted from the comm and the entire ship lost power. As the emergency lighting kicked in, Haathi called out for Raventhorn but received no response. Haathi was momentarily paralyzed by the situation, until Pendower brushed past her and headed straight for the maintenance bay where Raventhorn was working. Haathi ordered Jayme to follow Pendower, then headed off the ship in search of Nord.

After finding Nord, Haathi returned to The Maker to find that Pendower had revived Raventhorn, who had been seemingly electrified by a surge from the power grid. Pendower believed it was clearly an accident, but Jayme disagreed and retrieved his blasters from a locker. While Pendower helped Nord to take Raventhorn to the drop point's medical bay, Jayme followed his hunch that Raventhorn's mishap had not been accidental. Haathi, meanwhile, attempted to repair The Maker power grid to no avail. Unable to understand Raventhorn's notes on the original malfunction, Haathi was relieved when Stijhl offered assistance in the form of Sergeant Nofre Ecls, a Sullustan engineer. While Stijhl left to investigate a commotion outside, Haathi and Ecls began to work on the power grid. Ecls was of the opinion that she would need to rewire the entire grid to get the ship functional again, a job that would take several days. Haathi refused to believe that was the only course of action available to them since she needed to get Raventhorn to the better medical facilities aboard a frigate for treatment. When Haathi suggested just hotwiring the ship, Ecls advised against it since it went against protocol and would leave the ship without any safeguards&mdash;a single power surge would destroy the entire freighter. Stijhl had ordered Ecls not to reveal that fact to Haathi, and the Major was forced to order the Sullustan engineer to rewire the power grid.

Outside, an experimental assassin droid, the Doom Slayer, had been activated. Hidden aboard The Maker by its creator, Sythluss Leethe, it began its primary mission of wiping out all organic lifeforms in the immediate area. Jayme had been correct in his assumption that Raventhorn's mishap was not an accident, and had begun tracking the droid and combating it alongside the drop point's security personnel. The droid had locked the base's hangar doors and scrambled the comm channels. Stijhl ordered an evacuation of the base, directing the base personnel to board The Maker to make their escape. Haathi and Ecls succeeded in restoring power to the ship, and the freighter began to fill up with wounded personnel. Haathi found a pilot amongst the staff, and told him to go to the cockpit and take off the minute the engines came back on-line. Acutely aware of the fact that her team wasn't on the ship, Haathi went to the boarding ramp, exposing herself to acrid smoke while she waited for any sign of her friends. Nord appeared shortly after, supporting an injured Stijhl. Haathi helped him bring the Colonel aboard, inquiring if Nord had seen Raventhorn or Jayme, which he hadn't. The ship's repulsorlifts began to fire, just as Haathi saw three people emerging from the smoke; Jayme, Raventhorn and Pendower, each supporting the other as they tried to run for the ship. Haathi helped the three aboard just as The Maker lifted off. Jayme had succeeded in defeating the Doom Slayer, but the assassin droid had been equipped with a self-destruct mechanism. The Maker smashed through the closed hangar doors, speeding away from the drop point as the bomb exploded, destroying the base.

On board a medical frigate, Haathi and her team learned the origins of the assassin droid and Stijhl reprimanded them for the loss of the supplies located at the drop point, which included six industrial grade power generators, six hundred medical field packs, 82 perimeter sensors, eight B1-series worker droids and two hundred blaster packs. He then informed them that they were going on an acquisition run to recover the losses. Haathi agreed on the condition that Pendower&mdash;who had impressed Haathi by helping to treat Raventhorn and assisting Jayme&mdash;was assigned to her team in place of Nord, who had not lived up to her standards. Stijhl agreed to the transfer and allowed the team to leave.

Personality and traits
"T'Charek! How many fingers am I holding up?''" "Muh&mdash;Morgan?" "How many fingers?" "Autumn." "''Close enough."

- Morgan Raventhorn tests Haathi's reactions after the latter was stunned.

T'Charek Haathi was an easygoing, quick-witted woman who enjoyed having fun and taking chances. Easily bored, she loathed stability and predictability and was always on the look out for opportunities that would challenge and excite her. Enthusiastic and impulsive, she had a flippant manner which often annoyed other beings. Haathi had a problem with authority figures, but was herself a natural leader. Despite this, she was not power hungry and hated pulling rank on others unless the situation necessitated it, mainly because she feared becoming the authority figure she had always opposed. A capable tactician and planner, Haathi was not opposed to listening to the suggestions of her team when it came to mission planning. She trusted two of her team&mdash;Jayme and Raventhorn&mdash;implicitly and made a conscious effort to give Dren Nord the benefit of the doubt when he first joined her unit but when he didn't measure up to her standards, she quickly sought a replacement for him. Despite her trust in her friends' skills, she worried about them nonetheless and placed their well-being above the needs of the Alliance, such as when Raventhorn needed better medical attention that a drop point could provide.

A skilled pilot, Haathi specialized in flying Y-wing starfighters and was fully capable of repairing them when the need arose. She was also trained to fly space transports, and could use the weapon, shield, and sensor systems on them effectively. She was able to repair ships and their weapons, and could also repair capital ships. Haathi was able to navigate through hyperspace, and she was particularly knowledgeable about locations in the Inner Rim. She knew about business, and had an interest in alien languages and planetary systems. Haathi's work as a Special Operations operative naturally lent itself to undercover work, and she was able to use her skills to either intimidate or persuade individuals into revealing information, or con them out of something. She could also use her talents to research and investigate potential targets, figuring out the best way to obtain what she needed.

Working as a ship jacker, Haathi was particularly adept at determining the value of starships, and had a working knowledge of law enforcement procedures and security systems. Haathi carried two weapons, a blaster pistol and a heavy blaster pistol, and knew how to wield them effectively. She could repair her weapons, and was also skilled in the use of vehicle mounted blasters. She was also trained in unarmed combat. Usually, Haathi carried a comlink in addition to her weapons, as well as several fake ident chits.

Behind the scenes
T'Charek Haathi first appeared in Special Ops: Ship Jackers, in issue 13 of West End Games' Star Wars Adventure Journal, the first in a series of articles detailing the Alliance Special Operations. Haathi made a second appearance in Special Ops: Drop Points in the following issue. Haathi's adventure's were due to continue in Special Ops: The Art of Infiltration to be published in issue 17, but the Adventure Journal was cancelled before the issue was released. All three installments were written by John Beyer and Kathy Burdette. Haathi later had an individual entry in 2008's The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.

Cut content
For a week after the incident on Gelgelar, Haathi and her team remained under medical supervision on the frigate where Haathi spent most of the time worrying about the injuries Jayme and Pendower had suffered, or checking to make sure Raventhorn hadn't gone back into cardiac arrest. Haathi herself required six hours on a ventilator to combat the effects of breathing in too much toxic smoke.

Two week later, Haathi and her team headed to the planet Laertos. An Imperial supply depot was under construction on the world, and Haathi had devised a plan to infiltrate the base and steal a super freighter loaded with supplies. Intelligence from General Crix Madine indicated that the base's security consisted of a two-meter mesh fence, two guards, and around a hundred construction workers. On arrival, it was discovered that the base was under going a major upgrade into a full garrison, and was protected by a fully-charged mesh-link fence, minefield, and heavy laser turrets with a clear field of vision. Undeterred, Haathi, Raventhorn and Pendower posed as picnicking locals in a the woods surrounding the base, distracting a five-man patrol and allowing Jayme to incapacitate all five using a Tranq 25 HV Pistol modified for use as a carbine. Relieving the troopers of their uniforms and equipments, the team stole the patrol speeder and infiltrated the base, which forced Haathi to use green camouflage field paint to disguise her blue skin.

With Pendower posing as a major, the team headed to the administration building. During the infiltration, Haathi switched the plan. Instead of hijacking a super freighter, Haathi had Pendower change the routing orders for future shipments of high-value material and equipment to be delivered to small, out of the way Imperial bases close to Alliance outposts that could then be raided with minimal effort. To cover their tracks, Haathi had Jayme and Raventhorn blow up the obvious parts of the base that an inexperienced terrorist would target. However, both teams were caught in the act by Imperial security forces under the command of Captain Edmond Mylesgood, who had been alerted to a possible unauthorized presence on the base when the patrol that Haathi's team had impersonated failed to follow proper procedure and check in. A lightfight ensued, but the team was able to extradite themselves from danger and exfiltrate from the base.