Arbeloa

"I am the last of our people. I broadcast this warning in the hope that it will reach somebody. Anybody. The Yuuzhan Vong are coming."

- Arbeloa

Arbeloa, also referred to as Arb, was a male member of the Cilare, a species of warriors whom the Yuuzhan Vong exterminated around 25 ABY at the start of the Yuuzhan Vong War. He was the sole surviving member of his species following a one-sided engagement against the Yuuzhan Vong, an extra-galactic species that invaded the galaxy, and was able to transmit a message warning others of the threat of the invaders before being taken captive. His transmission was intercepted by the crew of the Pythea, an exploratory ship that was traveling along the edge of the galaxy, to whom he relayed his story. However, the crew of the ship was killed during an encounter with Yuuzhan Vong vessels before they could warn Artorias, a peaceful planet located in the Outer Rim Territories that the Yuuzhan Vong later captured. Arbeloa went on to join forces with the Artorian princess, Kaye Galfridian, and other slaves in a revolt on the Tsam P'ah, the slaveship aboard which they were being help captive. He then accompanied the Galfridians aboard the former Yuuzhan Vong ship, now renamed Heart of Artorias, in their quest to rescue the refugees from Artorias. During his travels on the Heart, he participated in battles on Dibrook and Shramar.

Early life
"We were warriors&hellip; we were brutal, we were ruthless. Our children were taught to fight from the moment they could stand."

- Arbeloa

Arbeloa was a male warrior who lived on Vonak, a primitive feudal world in isolation to the rest of the galaxy. His warlike people, the Cilare, valued martial skills from infancy and their scientists disdained medicines in favor of war matériel. His people regularly hunted and subdued various fierce animal species. Consequently, they believed themselves to be strong and impregnable to any threat. They possessed primitive semi-industrial technology including tanks.

Early in the Yuuzhan Vong War, a potent invasion force from the Yuuzhan Vong landed on the Cilare homeworld and waged war on the warrior species. Despite their valor and arsenal, they were easily wiped out by the onslaught of Fire Breathers. These deadly war beasts had flexible proboscises that spewed streams of gelatinous flame and pores that exhaled anti-laser aerosols. The Cilare were quickly exterminated as the Yuuzhan Vong pacified their homeworld.

Though he was the last of his species and near capture, Arbeloa was still able to transmit a signal into space&mdash;a warning to anyone who would listen. He urged recipients of the message to flee the oncoming Yuuzhan Vong invasion force while they still could, as attempting to fight the species was futile. This message was eventually picked up by the two-person crew of the exploratory ship Pythea&mdash;the Chiss Panha and her Wookiee companion Sarkkin. The two spacers watched in horror as the warrior related the nature and culture of his species before warning them of the depredations of the Yuuzhan Vong.

Given that Panha's species, the Chiss, had fought the Yuuzhan Vong before, she understood the nature of their threat to the galaxy. Picking up the presence of a Yuuzhan Vong fleet near them in hyperspace, they powered up the Pythea and fled towards the nearest world, Artorias, in an attempt to warn the Artorians. The crew of the Pythea alerted the planet Artorias but were intercepted by the Yuuzhan Vong fleet and attacked. Before their destruction, Arebeloa's warning was passed on by the crew of the Pythea to an inhabitant of Artorias. Unfortunately for the citizens of Artorias, he turned out to be a Yuuzhan Vong infiltrator and therefore did not warn the populace. Artorias was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong soon after this.

Captivity
"I promised this man your head. It's lucky you like pain. Because this is going to hurt."

- Kaye Galfridian, advertising Arbeloa's brutality to his victim, Commander Sha'kel

Arbeloa was taken captive aboard a Yuuzhan Vong slaveship, the Tsam P'ah. There he met the Artorian princess, Kaye Galfridian, who was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong along with her mother, Queen Nina Galfridian and other Artorians. He observed the princess standing up to several Yuuzhan Vong warriors and volunteering to serve Commander Sha'kel.

Kaye pretended to be subservient to Sha'kel to learn more about her captors but Arbeloa realized her plan and concluded she was a formidable warrior herself. He pledged to the princess that if she freed him from his restraints, he would fight for her. He also vowed to take the head of the commander.

After returning from being with the commander, Kaye revealed to Arbeloas that Sha'kel would be sending more of the ship's guards to the planet and the time was almost right to revolt. Arbeloa responded that he has almost worked his way free from his restraints and observed how the Yuuzhan Vong opened the prisoner's cages with a device on their arms. Soon after, Arbeloa grabbed Kaye in a headlock and yelled for the guards. When they arrived, he threatened to kill the princess if he was not let free. However, it was just a ruse to force the two Yuuzhan Vong warriors guarding the prisoners to enter the cage so they could be overwhelmed by the sheer number of captives.

After Galfridian led a revolt and freed Arbeloa, he pledged his service to her. He broke off a piece of his cage and used it as a melee weapon to attack the guards while Galfridian released more prisoners to join the revolt. Arbeloa accompanied Galfridian as she confronted the commander of the slaveship, Sha'kel. He later took the decapitated head of the Yuuzhan Vong commander to use as a hat.

Dibrook
"This one is not like anything we've faced before."

- Arbeloa upon seeing Commander Tsalok's brutality

Arbeloa was onboard the Tsam P'ah, which had been re-christened as the Heart of Artorias, as it traveled through the galaxy in its quest to assist refugees from the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. During these travels, the Heart encountered a Yuuzhan Vong attack on a space station in orbit around the inhospitable planet Dibrook, located in the Outer Rim Territories. After the Heart of Artorias assisted the defenders of the station in destroying the attacking Yuuzhan Vong ships, Arbeloa accompanied Kaye Galridian and boarded the Dibrook station, which was loaded with survivors of recent Rim-world battles. They were confronted by Captain Odgen, a member of the New Republic military, and four soldiers. Ogden tried to commandeer their ship but Arbeloa stated wouldn't allow that and pinned the officer up against a wall. Later, Arbeloa attended a strategy meeting with Kaye, Captain Ogden and Bylsma, the commander of the Dibrook station.

After receiving an Enviro-suit from Dibrook station, Arbeloa accompanied Galfridian to the surface of Dibrook with an invasion force comprised of New Republic soldiers and refugees in the attempt to rescue prisoners taken by the Yuuzhan Vong. When Ogden tried to usurp command from Galfridian, Arbeloa was directed to take the captain somewhere and bind him tightly to keep him out of the way. Ogden was taken inside the Heart and bound to an outcrop in a corridor of the ship. As the invasion force approached the shaper research facility that held the captured sentients, Galfridian ordered Arbeloa to give the order to halt. He deferred, thinking that she was afraid to give orders and lead her troops, but she pointed out that she ordered him to give the command due to fact he was larger than her and more likely to be seen.

The invasion force's rear guard was attacked by a group of thralls, who were sentients enslaved via surge-coral implantation and forced to fight for the Yuuzhan Vong. Arbeloa helped subdue a Twi'lek thrall who was surrounded by the invasion force. Soon after, a recon force was engaged by a group of Yuuzhan Vong led by Tsalok, the commander of the Yuuzhan Vong forces on Dibrook. Arbeloa along with the rest of the invasion force witnessed the cruelty of the Yuuzhan Vong when Tsalok tore the leader of the recon mission in half with his bare hands. A large group of thralls gathered in the valley below the invasion force and Arbeloa stood by Kaye as she communicated with her mother, the queen of Artorias Nina Galfridian, who was controlling the Heart of Artorias via a Cognition throne on-board the ship. Kaye was convinced by her mother that there was nothing that could be done to save converted sentients. Arbeloa explained to Kaye that they had to destroy the thralls in order to rescue prisoners that could be saved. When the attack began, Kaye ordered Arbeloa to clear a path through the army so they could reach the Yuuzhan Vong compound as quickly as possible. He grabbed a large, shoulder-mounted multi-barreled gun and used the heavy firepower to clear a path.

Upon reaching the Yuuzhan Vong compound, Arbeloa and Kaye were confronted by a group of shapers that Tsalok had ordered to fight a holding action due to his suspicions that they were spying on him. Arbeloa and Kaye quickly destroyed them and entered the compound where they found a group of prisoners held in a large bubble. Before they could free them, gas started to pour into the container and caused the prisoners to mutate into thralls. Arbeloa was able to rip open one of the membranes and rescue a single child. They managed to escape before Nina Galfridian obliterated the Yuuzhan Vong compound with the weapons of the former Yuuzhan Vong slavehip. Shortly after, Kaye faltered due to feeling the death of her father&mdash;Arbeloa went to her aid and helped her recover.

After the battle, Arbeloa put the rescued child in an enviro-suit and watched the recovery operation with Kaye. They disagreed on whether the prisoners could have been saved from destruction by the Heart. She revealed to him that she somehow felt her father die. Arbeloa sympathized with her, telling her how he felt when his father died. Kaye went to inform the queen of the results of the mission and Arbeloa stayed behind to assist with the burial of the dead. He was present at the memorial service that was held later at the mass grave and traveled on the Heart when it departed Dibrook to head to Shramar to meet up with some refugees from Artoria.

Shramar
Upon landing on Shramar, an Outer Rim planet controlled by the Imperial Remnant, Arbeloa disembarked with Kaye from the Heart and faced the large Imperial force that was sent to ensure that there would be no problems. When a young girl broke through the line of stormtroopers and rushed toward Arbeloa and Kaye, she was shot. Arbeloa retrieved her body and discovered she was still alive. He whispered to the girl to play dead so he could safely bring her aboard the Heart. He was present when the girl revealed the truth about what was happening on the planet: the refugees were being forced into slavery to produce food that was shipped off-world.

When the New Republic forces arrived, Arbeloa escorted Bylsma to the control room of the Heart but was asked to stay outside by Kaye. Soon after, the Yuuzhan Vong arrived and attacked the planet. Yuuzhan Vong forces managed to break through the blockade around the planet and landed troops on the surface. Arbeloa was sent with Kaye to marshal the defenses so that the 500,000 refugees on Shramar could be safely evacuated. During the fierce battle, a strafing run by Yuuzhan Vong ships destroyed an Imperial AT-ST walker and Arbeloa saved the journalist Cianba who was covering the battle by knocking her into a ditch, which prevented her from being smashed by the wreckage of the walker. When all the refugees were on-board the Heart, Arbeloa signaled for a full retreat. After the fleet fled the Yuuzhan Vong attack at Shramar, Arbeloa stood behind Queen Galfridian as she addressed the people who had survived the battle. The queen vowed to fight the Yuuzhan Vong, and promised to show them how. She then revealed herself as being a member of the Yuuzhan Vong by removing her masquer. The warrior gaped in surprised but stood quietly behind her as the queen announced the formation of the Outer Rim Alliance.

Personality and traits
Arbeloa was a fierce and deadly warrior, able to to defeat multiple Yuuzhan Vong armed only with a club and was also very proficient with modern weapons such as blasters. He was extremely loyal, pledging to serve Kaye Galfridian after she freed him from his captivity by the Yuuzhan Vong and standing by Queen Nina Galfridian even after she revealed herself to be a Yuuzhan Vong. He was ruthless in battle and willing to decapitate an enemy and take their head as a trophy. He could be merciful when needed, saving innocent life at great risk to his own but was pragmatic when realizing that there could be nothing more done to prevent casualties.

He had a thin strip of hair running down the center of his otherwise bald head and often wore rustic clothes made of fur.

Behind the scenes
On February 7 2009, the official Star Wars website announced that Dark Horse Comics would be releasing a new comic series titled Star Wars: Invasion, revolving around the events of the Yuuzhan Vong War, which itself had been the focus of Del Rey's nineteen-book New Jedi Order series. The comic was released in July of the same year, with two eight page previews released online in the months of May and June, respectively, as a prelude.

Arbeloa was introduced in the first of these installments, Star Wars: Invasion 0, Part 1, which was was released on May 8. His role in the series was brief since he did not appear in the second half of the sixteen page comic and was only mentioned. In the comic, the warrior was drawn by artist Colin Wilson and colored by Wes Dzioba.

On July 14 2009, the official Star Wars website released details on a new issue titled Star Wars: Invasion 4: Refugees, Part 4. The comic cover showed the unidentified warrior standing behind another protagonist, Kaye Galfridian, leading to the assumption that Arbeloa would play a role in future issues within the series. He was also named in this issue.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Invasion 0, Part 1
 * Star Wars: Invasion 2: Refugees, Part 2
 * Star Wars: Invasion 3: Refugees, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Invasion 4: Refugees, Part 4
 * Star Wars: Invasion 5: Refugees, Part 5
 * Star Wars: Invasion 6: Rescues, Part 1
 * Star Wars: Invasion 7: Rescues, Part 2
 * Star Wars: Invasion 8: Rescues, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Invasion 9: Rescues, Part 4
 * Star Wars: Invasion 11: Rescues, Part 6
 * Star Wars: Invasion: Revelations