Rikel (Centerpoint Station)

Rikel was a male individual who was secretly married to a woman because neither his family, nor hers, approved of them being together. Early in the Second Galactic Civil War, which began in 40 ABY between the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances and the Confederation—a regime that formed to aid the planet of Corellia and its Five Worlds government in its rebellion against the Galactic Alliance—Rikel's wife was arrested during a security sweep on Coruscant, the capital of the Galactic Alliance. The Galactic Alliance Guard had begun raiding Corellian neighborhoods on Coruscant after the Corellians bombed The Elite, a hotel in Galactic City. Rikel's wife was later found dead, which instilled in him a hatred for Coruscanti, and for the Galactic Alliance.

Later in the war, Rikel was able to obtain a position on Centerpoint Station as the head technician in the fire-control chamber under the nickname "Vibro," which he liked more than his own name. Centerpoint Station was an ancient space station that was capable of moving entire planets with its tractor beams, as well as creating gravitational fluctuations which could tear apart stars, planets, and fleets. The station fired on the Anakin Solo and the Galactic Alliance Second Fleet in a battle at a point in space between Coruscant and Corellia. The Anakin Solo was the flagship of one of the joint Chiefs of State of the Galactic Alliance, Jacen Solo, who was Centerpoint's intended target. However, the station overloaded, a side effect of trying to override the security locks which had imprinted on the young Jedi Anakin Solo during the First Corellian Insurrection, when he used the Force to take control of the station. However, Centerpoint Station did not obliterate the Anakin Solo, Jacen Solo was not killed, and the Galactic Alliance found out that the station was operational again. After Sadras Koyan, Prime Minister of the Five Worlds, asked what had happened to the station, Rikel gave him a more simplistic explanation of the events: that of a body trying to be controlled by two brains.

With the knowledge that Centerpoint Station was operational once more, Colonel Solo formed a plan for retaliation—the Galactic Alliance would capture the station, and use it to force Confederation worlds to surrender, thus ending the war. Due to the station's destructive capabilities, the Jedi could not allow Solo to gain control of Centerpoint, especially after he held the students of the Jedi Academy on Ossus hostage. They also could not permit anyone else to control the station, and planned to destroy it at the same time that Solo was attempting to capture it. To this end, Jedi Master Kyp Durron escorted the scientist Toval Seyah, who had extensive knowledge of the station and its systems, around Centerpoint.

As the battle drew on, Prime Minister Koyan tried contacting Solo's fellow co–Chief of State, Cha Niathal, in an attempt to force Niathal to surrender. When she didn't answer, Rikel, fueled by his desire to avenge his wife's death, advocated that they blow up Coruscant anyway, and suggested that since the Confederation had reconnaissance ships in the area, they would be able to get recordings of it. Koyan was aghast at such a statement, but received an incoming holocomm transmission from Denjax Teppler, the Five Worlds' Minister of Information, warning him to leave the station before the Galactic Alliance could bring him to a war trial. After their private discussion, Koyan instructed Rikel to take orders from Teppler and Admiral Delpin, the Supreme Commander of the Corellian Defense Force, until hearing from him again, and said that they would probably give him the chance to fire on Coruscant.

Rikel was not privy to the conversation between Koyan and Teppler, but he followed Koyan on the station's security cams until Koyan reached airlock Epsilon 34G and boarded an Alliance shuttle, believing it was his escape vessel. No one had heard what Koyan had told him, so Rikel took the opportunity to fire Centerpoint Station. Once the power source was ready, he got the attention of his fellow technician, and pressed the button. Yet Seyah had been able to reprogram the star data in Centerpoint's systems, and reset all the other coordinates as the center of Hollowtown, an open sphere in the exact center of the station itself. Hence, the station targeted itself when fired, causing it to destroy itself from within and killing everyone onboard.

Rikel was a male with yellow skin, long hair tied into a braid, and a beard. After marrying his wife in secret, she was arrested on Coruscant and later found dead. This drove him to hate all Coruscanti, and the Galactic Alliance to which they belonged. He went as far as attempting to destroy their capital planet with Centerpoint Station in revenge, making all off-world Coruscanti planetless, but doing so caused his own death. Rikel was also fond of caf, and after his eighth cup of caf, he would embody his own nickname, "Vibro."

Rikel was created by Aaron Allston for the novel Legacy of the Force: Fury, which was released on November 27, 2007 as the seventh entry in the Star Wars: Legacy of the Force series.

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