Orielle Kitai

The Force-sensitive daughter of Candra Kitai, the Human Orielle Kitai—known as "Ori" to her friends, but never to Keshiri slaves—was born around 3985 BBY on the Wild Space planet Kesh. Born into the Lost Tribe of Sith, Orielle joined their ranks as a Sith Tyro and, on the second day of her training, experienced a Force vision of a star falling from the sky, setting her and everything in sight aflame. When a dying Orielle asked the star why it had destroyed her home, the star replied, "Because you thought me a friend."

Orielle passed the trials of apprenticeship and became a Sith Saber by 3960 BBY. She acquired her own uvak, a flying beast of burden native to the world, which she named Shyn. As a Sith Saber, one of Orielle's duties was to patrol the capital city of Tahv's complex aqueduct system along with her apprentices, leading Orielle to memorize the entire network. She and her mother, Candra, who had become a High Lord in 3961 BBY after the election of Grand Lord Lillia Venn, lived at Starfall, a country estate south of Tahv, with several slaves. As the second most powerful individual in the Tribe, neutral in the political feud between the Red and Gold factions, Orielle's mother was considered a likely candidate for Grand Lord upon the death of Venn; and Orielle, as her daughter, was slated to lead the Sith Sabers in the future.

Orielle frequently visited Jelph of Marisota, a Human slave. Orielle had discovered the man after following a Keshiri florist, whom she sensed was lying to her when she questioned him on the origin of his plants, to Jelph's farm along the Marisota River near the Takara Mountains south of Tahv. Jelph made his living selling flowers and, during the Tribe's holidays, sold many to Orielle, who had grown to admire him. The day before Donellan's Day in 3960 BBY, Jelph gave to her an uvak harness fitted with stretched waterskins, which would make the transport of her frequent purchases easier. Orielle also purchased several dalsa flowers from him, which she used the next day to decorate her mother's private viewing box in the Korsinata stadium, where a gladiatorial competition called rake-riding, fought by uvak wranglers, took place on Donellan's Day.

As Orielle and her mother took their seats in the Korsinata, the uvak wranglers, including the Kitai family's own representative, Campion Dey, entered the stadium. While Ori believed Dey would perform well, her mother told her he was as good as dead, knowing that Grand Lord Venn would not allow her own uvak to be defeated. Before the competition could begin, however, Dey's uvak—which, as all uvaks bred for rake-riding had their wings clipped, should have been flightless—flew into the air as Dey, standing in the saddle, activated his lightsaber. Ready to defend herself and her mother if necessary, Orielle activated her own lightsaber and jumped atop the railing of her mother's viewing box. However, Dey's uvak flew instead toward Grand Lord Venn, in her own luxury compartment in the upper portions of the stadium. Before the uvak could reach her, Venn unleashed a storm of Force lightning, sending the uvak and its rider into the lower seating of the stadium as the Sith Sabers Sawj and Flen Luzo, rivals to Orielle's potential leadership of the Sabers, leapt toward Dey, lightsabers in hand. Knowing that the Kitais, as the sponsors of Campion Dey, would be blamed for the attack, Candra sent her daughter back to Starfall to tell their slaves that she would not be returning home that night.

As Orielle arrived at her estate two hours later, she was reminded of her childhood Force vision when she saw her mother's Keshiri slaves carrying her and her mother's possessions out of the house and burning them in a bonfire. Candra's caretaker, an elderly Keshiri, revealed that the burning of her possessions had been ordered by Grand Lord Venn just two hours earlier. Suspecting a trap set by Venn and the Luzos to reveal the Kitais' guilt, Orielle decided to return to Tahv, where she believed her mother would already have revealed the true mastermind behind the assassination attempt. However, as she was mounting her uvak, her mother's caretaker called her "Ori," a name reserved only for Orielle's friends, and never for Keshiri slaves. At that moment, Orielle realized the truth: she and her mother had been condemned to slavery.

After journeying back to Tahv, where she learned that her mother was still alive and in the clutches of Grand Lord Venn, Orielle Kitai—now stripped of her surname, as all slaves on the planet were—fled to Jelph's farm. She stayed for several days in the care of the farmer and kept her uvak, a luxury forbidden to slaves, hidden in Jelph's composting barn, which had once served as a stable. As she learned the ways of a slave, simultaneously plotting her return to power, she eventually became comfortable enough to tell Jelph the details of her family's fall from grace, although she was still disgusted by the thought of slavery. Her relationship with the farmer became more intimate over the next few days; however, it came to a halt when Jelph announced that he had to leave for a day to visit his customers, as the autumn growing season was approaching. Though she pleaded, feeling that she could not live without him, Orielle was unable to convince Jelph to stay. As Jelph left, Orielle remained behind, tending to the traps that Jelph kept near the forested mountains in the hopes of catching edible rodents. After returning to the farm from clearing the traps, she found her uvak, Shyn, dead on the floor of the barn, its life ended by the blade of a lightsaber. The Luzo brothers emerged and, before Orielle could attack them with her own lightsaber, produced two scrolls, tossing them at her feet. Orielle read the scrolls, which stated that her mother had plotted with the High Lords of the Red and Gold factions to assassinate Grand Lord Venn. Her mother had signed both scrolls, which also stated that Candra, now Venn's slave, pledged her eternal loyalty to the Grand Lord. The Luzo brothers confiscated Orielle's lightsaber, gave her a shovel symbolic of her new life as a slave, and returned to Tahv.

Infuriated at her condemnation to the life of a slave, Orielle lost her temper. Using the shovel given to her by the Luzo brothers and her telekinetic power in the Force, she destroyed what little there was to destroy on Jelph's farm. She ravaged everything in sight until, after swinging the shovel into a massive composting pile, she struck something metal. Digging through the muck, she uncovered an Aurek-class tactical strikefighter buried beneath it, and realized that Jelph was actually a Jedi from the Galactic Republic. Knowing how valuable a working starship would be to the Tribe, which had been isolated on Kesh for more than a thousand years, she realized the vessel was her way out of slavery and back into the Tribe.

Orielle fled the farm, running through the night and into the next day to an uvak exhibit in Tahv that she called "the zoo," where her mother had been forced to shovel uvak manure for the two weeks since the assassination attempt. Disabling a guard and stealing his lightsaber, Orielle found her mother, still wearing her ceremonial gown from Donellan's Day. She told her mother about the vessel she had found, and asked how she could use it to their advantage. Candra told her to contact the architect Gadin Badolfa, a friend of the Kitai family. Through Badolfa, she could contact four High Lords from the former Red and Gold factions, which had been dissolved after the assassination attempt, and invite them to the farm to see the ship for themselves. Orielle contacted Badolfa, who agreed to deliver the messages—which were to reveal nothing about the ship, but to disclose that the matter was important—to the High Lords. Badolfa assured Orielle that the High Lords could help her free her mother from Venn's clutches, which Orielle realized was more important than restoring their former positions in the Tribe. Badolfa, before departing to deliver the messages, warned Orielle that Venn had rewarded the Luzo brothers for their loyalty by elevating them to the position of Sith Lord.

Orielle visited Tahv's aqueduct system—which she had memorized during her time as a Sith Saber—where she hoped she could lure an aerial sentry to her, incapacitate him, and steal his uvak to return to Jelph's farm. However, Jelph—who was in actuality Jelph Marrian, a former Shadow from the Jedi Covenant dedicated to preventing the return of the Sith—had followed her from his farm, and had also gone into the aqueduct system. Orielle attacked Marrian and dueled him before losing her stolen lightsaber in the water. Marrian convinced her to trust him and kissed her before she told him that she had already invited the High Lords to his farm to discuss a matter of importance. The two stole an uvak and flew back to the farm, where they hoped they could use Marrian's starship to escape the planet. However, as the four High Lords were already on their way, Orielle believed that she would have to give them something of importance in order to satisfy them. Marrian suggested giving them the four blasters he had hidden, as there were no other working blasters on the planet.

Upon arriving at the farm, Marrian hid out of sight while Orielle recovered the blasters and called out to the High Lords. However, she was instead confronted by Grand Lord Lillia Venn and the Lords Luzo. While Venn immobilized Kitai with the Force, several guards took hold of her. Venn explained that, although she had allowed Gadin Badolfa to deliver Kitai's messages, Candra had alerted Venn to the meeting, betraying her daughter in exchange for what Venn called "improved working conditions." While Venn entered Marrian's starfighter, her guards held Kitai in place. However, Marrian telekinetically brought the blasters to his hands and telepathically warned Orielle to duck before he shot her two captors from behind. Grabbing Orielle's arm, Marrian led her toward the river as Venn powered up the starfighter, unaware that Marrian had used the ship's proton torpedoes and thousands of kilograms of ammonium-nitrate-based explosives—converted from common fertilizer—to create an anti-theft system for the vessel. As Venn ascended, the torpedoes detonated, killing Venn, the Luzos, and the guards. Orielle and Marrian fled the farm, which, along with the entire bank, sank into the river as a result of the explosion. Orielle and Marrian retreated into the mountains, where they constructed a new hut and lived off the jungle's native flora and fauna.

Eight weeks after the confrontation, Marrian received a signal from his transmitter, which, as Marrian had kept it separate from the rest of his starfighter, had been spared from the explosion. The signal reported that the Jedi had descended into civil war. Resolving to let go of the Jedi and the Sith and to live only for themselves, Orielle and Marrian threw the transmitter into the river and returned to their new home, where they lived the remainder of their lives in secrecy.

In 2975 BBY, a Force vision of Orielle appeared to Quarra Thayn, who at the time was guiding Edell Vrai across the continent of Alanciar, so he could infiltrate the military base on behalf of the Sith. In the vision, Orielle was seen with her now-husband, Jelph Marrian, and their three children. The family was in hiding in the jungles of Keshtah Minor. Orielle compared her former life as a high-ranking member of the Sith tribe to Quarra's station in the Alanciar military. She also warned Quarra of the dangers of "living within a dream." Convinced of the inevitable Sith take-over and intrigued by Orielle's peaceful life in the jungle, Quarra decided to remain loyal to her family rather than becoming the consort of Edell Vrai after the Sith have occupied in Alanciar.

A slender, auburn-haired woman, Orielle Kitai was fiercely loyal to the Lost Tribe of Sith and proud of her position and special responsibilities, which were the result of her mother's power. She was well acquainted with the Tribe's customs and, like most Sith, looked down upon Kesh's native Keshiri, whom she felt were inferior to Humans; she never even allowed them to call her by her first name. Despite her hatred for the smell of uvak manure, she enjoyed spending time with Jelph Marrian, whose entire farm stank of it, and cared deeply for her pet, Shyn. Often a braggart, she was not afraid to flout her unparalleled knowledge of Tahv's complex aqueduct system, especially in the presence of Marrian, whose soft and humble attitude intrigued her. Though holding a collected, if arrogant, manner in front of the farmer, she also had a short temper, which she lost—along with the contents of her stomach—when discussing her condemnation to slavery with him, and lost again when her lightsaber was confiscated. Despite the pride she felt for the Tribe and her vow to regain power within it, her feelings for Marrian were stronger. While she told him that she could not be with him if it meant she had to be weak, Marrian convinced her that being strong did not mean she had to rule the galaxy. Orielle was willing to shed her loyalty for the Tribe after they betrayed her, and resolved to live a calmer life with the farmer, whom she realized she could not live without. Inspired by a legend of Keshiri slaves who had escaped their masters, Orielle became determined to make her own destiny rather than follow the one chosen for her by the Sith.

Powerful in the dark side of the Force, which caused her ordinarily brown eyes to glow orange when she utilized it, Orielle Kitai reached the rank of Sith Saber by the age of twenty-five. Adept in telepathy, she was able to sense when she was being lied to by a Keshiri florist, and she clearly received Jelph Marrian's mental warning when he prepared to shoot the guards holding her captive. Slender and stealthy, she was able to conceal her presence even to Force-users, such as the zoo's Sith guard, whom she quickly disabled, and the Jedi Jelph Marrian, although she was unable to best the latter in one-on-one combat. She was also proficient in telekinesis, as displayed when she used the Force to remove Marrian's entire tool collection from the wall of his barn, using her fury to keep them in a whirlwind as she rampaged through the barn with her shovel.

Created by author John Jackson Miller, Orielle Kitai makes her first appearance in Lost Tribe of the Sith: Purgatory, the fifth installment of the Lost Tribe of the Sith series of eBooks. She later appears in subsequent installments of the series, Lost Tribe of the Sith: Sentinel and Lost Tribe of the Sith: Pandemonium.

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