Darrus Jeht

Darrus Jeht was a Jedi Master and Senior General during the Clone Wars. He was a black-eyed and black-haired Human male who wore dark gray and black robes, light battle armor, and battle gloves. Receiving formal tutelage at both the Coruscant Jedi Temple and the Almas Academy, Jeht also received many of his lessons from Mace Windu. In addition to his violet lightsaber, Jeht was an expert at the use of blasters and swords.

BiographyEdit

Early lifeEdit

Discovered by Jedi Master Mace Windu at a young age, the Force-sensitive Human Darrus Jeht was accepted into the Coruscant Jedi Temple's academy for training in the ways of the Force. As he progressed through the academy, Jeht received additional knowledge from Master Windu himself though he never took the boy as his Padawan. Instead, Jeht was transferred to the experimental academy on the planet Almas where he would train with Lanius Qel-Bertuk. Eventually attaining the rank of Jedi Knight, Jeht returned to Coruscant with his recently constructed purple-bladed lightsaber. Jeht eventually attained the rank of Jedi Master, and was trusted by Master Windu and the Jedi High Council. A skilled weapons specialist, Master Jeht had mastered the use of the songsteel sword.^[2]

Clone WarsEdit

Return to the Almas AcademyEdit

When the Clone Wars erupted between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the High Council dispatched Master Jeht to Almas, hoping that his ties to the academy there would make the High Council's request more palpable. Arriving at the academy aboard his personal ship the Legacy, Master Jeht approached Headmaster Qel-Bertuk with the request that all Masters and Knights with more than three years of experience had been recalled to wartime duty and ordered to report to new sector staging areas for debriefing and tactical assignments. All faculty were required to leave immediately, leaving behind the Padawans and members of the Almas Council meaning that classes sizes would be forced to expand.^[2]

Ignoring the usual rule of only one Padawan per Jedi, the Council began to assign apprentices to Knights with only a year or two of experience. Master Jeht was instructed to oversee the transfer of all personnel, eventually completing the task and then remaining on Almas as part of the faculty. When he had completed that task, he remained at Almas Academy as part of the faculty, teaching his skills as a weapons specialist.^[2] While an instructor, Master Jeht often spent many hours in debate with his old friend Master Qel-Bertuk. Turning to lightsaber practice as they discussed galactic goings-on, Master Jeht hesitated at first when dueling his friend, using traditional moves to fight Qel-Bertuk to a standstill. However, the Academy Headmaster ordered Jeht to let loose his full strength in their practice sessions. Kicking Qel-Bertuk in the chest at the start of the duel, Jeht forced the older man to the ground with the wind knocked out of him, and Jeht's blade at his throat. Jeht reminded the Headmaster that the war would force them to rely on unconventional means if they wanted to win.^[4]

During his time on Almas, Jeht was able to maintain his friendship with fellow Jedi Aayla Secura and a Corellian Padawan Trilinae Untaire. During the first year of the war, Jeht was responsible for rescuing the transport convoy of Sien'Soro from a CIS blockade. In reward for Jeht's actions Sien'Soro gifted him with three backstage tickets to his concert; Jeht brought Secura and Untaire.^[5] Not long after, Master Jeht investigated the destruction of Untaire's ship. Along with her twin sister, Milinae, Untaire was forced to rely on Jeht to save her from the mysterious gangster known only as "R". Stealing one of the gangster's star yachts the trio escaped, during which Trilinae Untaire displayed her rudimentary skills in the Force.^[6]

Surviving the encounter, Master Jeht piloted his Delta-6 starfighter on an assignment when he was ambushed by the Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress. She shot his fighter down, causing it crash-land on a jungle world he was unfamiliar with. She proceeded to hunt him across the surface of the planet relentlessly. Encountering each other, they engaged in a violent clash of lightsabers; Ventress managed to slash Jeht in the chest, then slipped one of her weapons under his guard and impaled him in the chest. Enraged and fueled by pain, Jeht gave into the dark side of the Force and unleashed his full power on the Dathomirian woman in the form of a Force storm. Leaving her unconscious form, Master Jeht was disgraced by what he did, fleeing the world in the LAAT/i gunship that his clone troops used to rescue him. Unbeknownst Jeht, Ventress walked away from the attack and reported the events to her master, Sith Lord Darth Tyranus, the alter-ego of Count Dooku, the leader of the CIS. In turn, Tyranus informed his own master, the mysterious Darth Sidious that his plans with Jeht were on course.^[7]

The MaelstromEdit

After healing from the fight with Ventress, Jeht's downed starfighter was replaced by a Delta-7 interceptor from Coruscant. Due to his guilt over his actions on the jungle planet, Master Jeht refused to return to the Academy as an instructor; instead heeding the High Council's order for all Jedi to report to strategic locations for reassignment and military commissions. Jeht was then forced to return to Almas to deliver these new orders, where he gathered all available Knights and Padawans aboard the Maelstrom. Jeht's mission was not completely successful; all members of the Council and many Knights invoked their Right of Denial and refused the High Council's demands. However, the Council agreed to assist all of its Jedi who would comply with Coruscant. Outraged by the Jedi's noncompliance, the Office of the Supreme Chancellor ordered the Cularin system be blockaded and all Jedi turn over their lightsabers under the Emergency Powers Act.^[8] While all Jedi on the ground complied, Master Felanil Baaks managed to reequip most all Masters within a short period of time.^[9]

Master Jeht's flagship, the Maelstrom, left Almas and was assigned to lead the attack on Kromus, a Separatist world where a secret weapon called Starkiller was being constructed. Jeht was forced to bomb the planet before the superweapon escaped into hyperspace, effectively killing 1.3 billion sentients as the weapon's destruction devastated the planet's tectonic plates. After the massacre, Jeht was recalled back to Coruscant. Expecting to face a Board of Inquiry, he was surprised to find himself reporting to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine himself. Palpatine praised the resolve of the Jedi Master and dismissed the pending charges against him. During the meeting, Jeht found himself not only tempted with vague promises of power but also alerted to the existence of secrets that the Council of Almas could have been keeping from him. Jeht decided to confront Headmaster Qel-Bertuk and uncover the truth by any means necessary.^[10]

Order 66Edit

Before he could confront Qel-Bertuk about this apparent exclusion from Council meetings and talks on the Force, Jeht received a mission from the Chancellor himself: report to Corlax 4 and bombard the planet and destroy the orbital processing facilities there. Unnerved by the unorthodox nature of the assignment, Jeht was conflicted as he ordered the Maelstrom set course for Corlax 4. The ship was on its way to carryout the Chancellor's bidding Master Jeht received more troubling news: Trilinae Untaire had disappeared and even worse, the Almas Academy had been attacked by the CIS while the Maelstrom was away. The academy, and all its occupants were destroyed.^[11]

Racing back to Almas, Jeht was prepping a ship to investigate the attack on the academy when the ship received a signal from Coruscant. Ordering it to be transferred to his quarters, Jeht went to receive the call when the ship's comm systems went dead. This did not prevent ARC trooper Mar'ek from receiving a coded transmission aboard a separate craft, one whose source was the Chancellor's office. While the rest of the fleet around Almas was deaf to the message, Mar'ek was able to hear the initiation of Contingency Order 66. Rushing to ambush Master Jeht, the Jedi sensed the death of his friend, Aayla Secura on Felucia and through his eyes, witnessed who attacked her. Realizing his danger, Jeht was able to kill Mar'ek's men before they told anyone else of their new target. Mar'ek, defeated lied when he told Jeht he had killed Untaire and thought to himself that Jeht would surrender and let him go. Mar'ek never realized how wrong he was, due to Jeht stabbing the clone in the face.^[12]

Deceiving the other clones aboard his ship, Jeht resumed control of the Maelstrom and ordered the ship to open fire on the two ships blockading Almas. While Jeht planned to activate the self defense sequence to destroy all three ships the CIS superweapon, the Shadowblade, appeared from the opposite side of the planet and opened fire on the three Republic craft. In an act of desperation, Jeht ordered the Maelstorm to trap the Shadowblade in the ship's tractor beam and drag it within them as they drove the ship into one of the many time vortexes that threaded the Cularin system. Both the ships and their crews were never recovered after making the jump through the vortex.^[13]

Methods of travelEdit

While Jeht was an active student in need of transport, he was assigned a Z-95 Headhunter purchased by the Academy. Later, once he had graduated to the rank of Jedi Knight, Jeht was assigned a Delta-6 starfighter by the Jedi High Council, an experimental design that preceded the Delta-7 Aethersprite.^[8]

While at Almas, Jeht began receiving crates from a mysterious source near the Taris system. The crates contained many of the parts of a two thousand-year old custom vessel of partially Corellian design. He named the completed ship the Legacy, and over the next six months piloted it almost exclusively, clocking fewer than ten flight hours in the Night Gyre and only using his Delta-6 during a combat mission in the Torrad system.^[2]

Behind the scenesEdit

Darrus Jeht was created by August Hahn and Cynthia Hahn, and is one of the most prominent characters in the sequence of short stories that accompanied the Living Force campaign on the Wizards of the Coast website. Once the Living Force campaign concluded, August Hahn, Jeht's creator, decided to continue writing his adventures in his personal blog The Bloodshard Holocron.

AppearancesEdit

•  "Conflict and Mastery" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link) (First appearance)
•  "The Duel" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Conversation in Shadow" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link) (Mentioned only)
•  "Priorities" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Disapproval" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Reprieves" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Dark Heart" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Marching Orders" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Dark Hands" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Dark Soul" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Dark Hope" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
• Destruction (Mentioned only)
•  "Living Force: Dark Shadows" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Living Force: One Minute to Midnight" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
•  "Living Force: Last Stand" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)

SourcesEdit

•  "Standoffs" on Wizards.com (original article link, backup link)
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia

Notes and referencesEdit