Bhindi Drayson

Bhindi Drayson's father, Admiral Hiram Drayson, held a high-ranking position as a director within New Republic Intelligence, where he managed the Alpha Blue agency for a long time. Eventually, Bhindi Drayson followed the path of her father, embarking on a career with New Republic Intelligence as well.

During the Yuuzhan Vong War, Drayson was a member of the NRI unit known as Wraith Squadron, where she specialized in analyzing the tactics and strategies of the Yuuzhan Vong. In 27 ABY, after the galactic capital of Coruscant fell to the Yuuzhan Vong invaders, Drayson and the rest of the Wraiths relocated to Borleias, a newly secured garrison planet under the command of New Republic General Wedge Antilles. While stationed on Borleias for its defense, the Wraiths analyzed a recording for scientist Danni Quee, which helped reveal Tam Elgrin, a civilian, as a Yuuzhan Vong agent.

When Jedi Master Luke Skywalker organized an expedition to infiltrate Coruscant, Drayson was chosen to participate, along with other members of the Wraiths. The initial intelligence-gathering plan involved Drayson staying behind on Coruscant after the departure of the rest of the group, which included Quee and the Jedi Mara Jade Skywalker and Tahiri Veila. Once left behind, Drayson was tasked with organizing resistance movements among the Coruscanti survivors to fight the Yuuzhan Vong and continuously relaying information to the New Republic to aid in the eventual recapture of the capital. Drayson brought surveillance droids disguised as fungi to blend into Coruscant while gathering and transmitting data. She believed that this information would be crucial for future military operations on Coruscant. Preliminary reports indicated that the Yuuzhan Vong had heavily damaged the city and were releasing world-shaping toxins into the atmosphere, so the New Republic sought more information about these changes.

Former general Lando Calrissian transported the Wraiths, the three Jedi, and Quee to Coruscant aboard the freighter Record Time. Upon reaching orbit, they were ejected from the ship in pods disguised as debris and remnants of Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers. The expeditionary force successfully landed on Coruscant undetected by the Yuuzhan Vong.

Shortly after landing, the expedition team encountered a group of Yuuzhan Vong warriors near a walkway connecting two buildings while exploring the ruined city. Mistaking them for Yuuzhan Vong warriors due to their fake vonduun crab armor, the other party demanded they yield the right-of-way, an insult that no true warrior would accept, leading to a firefight. Drayson stayed in the back, supporting the Jedi with her blaster fire, as they bore the brunt of the battle. After Kell Tainer, a fellow Wraith, destroyed the walkway with a bomb, the Jedi killed the remaining warriors, and the team left the area, relieved to have escaped unharmed and with their disguises intact.

Soon after, the Jedi sensed approaching individuals, and a group of armed Coruscanti survivors confronted them. Drayson immediately ran, urging the others to follow, which they did. After evading the survivors, Drayson explained that maintaining the secrecy of their disguises was why she had encouraged flight, and to avoid being mistaken for Yuuzhan Vong and trapped by the survivors. The others understood her reasoning, and she accompanied Luke Skywalker, Mara Skywalker, and Garik Loran, the Wraith Leader, who were now dressed in civilian clothes, back to the area they had fled to contact the survivors.

Upon returning, the four encountered the Walkway Collective and their leader, Tenga Javik. Drayson learned that the Yuuzhan Vong had altered the air on Coruscant and heard rumors of a monstrosity known as "Lord Nyax." Skywalker requested a guide to Nyax's location, but the survivors refused. Drayson, Loran, and the two Skywalkers rejoined the other expedition members to continue the mission.

Over the following days, the group split up, with various parties scouting for a hideout. Eventually, Tahiri Veila discovered a devourer tank, which Luke Skywalker determined led to a hidden compartment. Using the Force to protect himself from the organism in the devourer tank, he opened the compartment, revealing a passageway to a concealed research facility. Inside, they found signs of a struggle, including lightsaber damage and a dead Human body. The space was abandoned and relatively secure, leading Drayson to recommend using the lab as their base of operations, assuming the Jedi would handle Nyax. She then focused on operating the computers in the lab to extract information.

Several hours later, Drayson reassembled a destroyed medical droid and retrieved information from the computers. She revealed that the installation was originally an air purification complex, later modified into a hideout and experimental station for a Human male who had undergone significant cybernetic modifications. According to the medical droid and Drayson's findings, the Human broke free and destroyed everything in his path. With this information and the lightsaber burn marks, Skywalker concluded that this "Lord Nyax" was the cyborg Human who had escaped the facility, a realization that unsettled him.

Over the next few days, Drayson continued searching the laboratory and nearby facilities for information, while the Jedi searched for Lord Nyax. On one occasion, Nyax and Luke Skywalker spotted each other from a distance, prompting Skywalker, Drayson, and Loran to quickly evacuate the building they were exploring. Shortly after their departure, a group of frenzied survivors ransacked the building. Later, Drayson and Baljos Arnjak, another Wraith member, gathered more information on Nyax, revealing that his real name was Irek Ismaren, whose mother, Roganda Ismaren, an Emperor's Hand, had him cybernetically altered to become a killing machine. They also learned that a lightsaber wound to the head had burned away most of Ismaren's humanity and higher-order thinking, making negotiation impossible.

The Jedi soon located Nyax's trail and began tracking him, while Kell Tainer successfully found a spaceworthy transport, Ugly Truth. Skywalker declared the mission complete and ordered Drayson, Quee, and the other Wraiths to board the transport and retrieve the Jedi after Nyax was defeated. Although Drayson was initially scheduled to remain on Coruscant, Loran decided that her presence was no longer necessary due to the altered worldscape, which included a changed orbit and the destruction of one of Coruscant's moons, making the planet's recapture unlikely in the near future. However, Arnjak chose to stay behind to continue studying the altered ecosystem and relay information to the New Republic.

The Jedi ultimately defeated Nyax and met up with the Wraiths before Loran and Skywalker piloted Ugly Truth back to Borleias. There, they rejoined the defense of the besieged garrison, which the New Republic eventually abandoned after inflicting significant damage on the Yuuzhan Vong attackers.

Drayson remained active in intelligence work throughout the later stages of the war and was part of the unit following a mission to Chashima, which led to the retirement of veteran Wraith Voort saBinring. Drayson continued with the Wraiths after the New Republic reorganized into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. After the rescue of Thorsh, a Jenet prisoner, from a Yuuzhan Vong camp, Drayson attended a debriefing on Contruum, where Thorsh provided information. The data passed to the Galactic Alliance on Contruum enabled them to intercept a Yuuzhan Vong convoy carrying prisoners and rescue them. Ultimately, the Galactic Alliance defeated the Yuuzhan Vong and reclaimed Coruscant.

Following the installation of the Daala administration in the Galactic Alliance after the Second Galactic Civil War, the Wraiths were decommissioned, which Drayson took hard, informing her former comrade saBinring of the disbandment. However, in 44 ABY, Garik Loran, her former leader, approached Drayson to unofficially reassemble the Wraiths. Their mission, assigned by Borath Maddeus, the chief of Galactic Alliance Security, was to investigate General Stavin Thaal, the head of the army, suspected of being involved in the Lecersen Conspiracy. This conspiracy had attempted to undermine the Galactic Alliance during the recent war, and Maddeus asked Loran to investigate Thaal. Drayson readily accepted and assembled a team including Trey Courser, a hand-to-hand combatant and mechanic; Jesmin Tainer, an Antarian Ranger and daughter of two original Wraiths; Myri Antilles, a pilot and con artist related to Wraith Squadron's founder; Viull Gorsat, a Yuuzhan Vong biofabricator; and Turman Durra, a skilled Clawdite actor. Loran also recruited a reluctant saBinring back into the team. While Drayson wanted to add a sniper, a medic, and a communications specialist, she was unable to do so before saBinring arrived and their mission began on Coruscant.

Drayson, Durra, Gorsat, and Tainer met Antilles, saBinring, and Courser at a warehouse chamber on Coruscant. Drayson took charge, arranging for the Wraiths to leave forensic evidence suggesting that blaster rifles had been stolen from an army store. Meanwhile, Durra replaced the batteries in their rifles with surveillance droids. The Wraiths changed attire, and as expected, special forces soldiers attacked the warehouse in search of the rifles. The Wraiths retreated, using flash and smoke grenades to cover their escape and an airspeeder with a false exterior to evade pursuit. They withdrew to their safe house, an abandoned tapcaf. Tensions arose between saBinring, who had lost his best friend to the Yuuzhan Vong, and Gorsat, but Drayson temporarily quelled the conflict.

The Wraiths brainstormed possible angles to explore if Thaal was corrupt, including greed, Imperial sympathies, and vengeance against the Jedi or the Yuuzhan Vong. Drayson assigned saBinring, Antilles, and Courser to oversee the droid operation while the rest of the Wraiths worked on uncovering Thaal's motivation. The droid operators traveled to Vandor-3 and gathered data from the droids implanted in the blaster rifles, which activated after being removed from storage. To further the ruse that terrorists were behind the blaster heist, Drayson and the other Wraiths on Coruscant sabotaged a turbolaser assembly line in the name of the Quad-Linked Militant Pacifists. She then summoned saBinring and Courser to Gagrew Station in Hutt Space for the next part of their plan.

At Gagrew Station, Drayson posed as a vapid heiress exploring the sleaze of Hutt Space, with the other Wraiths as her entourage. She arranged for them to board the liner Bastion Princess, which made a port-of-call at Gagrew Station on its way back to Imperial space. Once aboard, Drayson planned to sabotage the ship's engines and flee in an escape pod to be rescued by a small Imperial vessel, which they would then seize. Their plan was to have Durra pose as an Imperial special forces officer with an "offer" to lure out Thaal. If they weren't rescued, Drayson planned for Antilles, who remained on Vandor-3, to recover them. Less than a day after boarding, Courser completed the sabotage, impressing Drayson. As a reward, she offered him her last butter pastry and facetiously offered to marry him, quickly retracting the offer after learning of Courser's early-morning workouts. The first phase of the plan went as planned, and the Wraiths departed the liner in an escape pod when Courser's sabotage brought the ship out of hyperspace.

As expected, a small Imperial patrol vessel, Concussor, rescued them. The crew believed Drayson's impression of an empty-headed Imperial heiress and her tale of being attacked by pirates, providing her and her entourage with their own quarters. Drayson used this opportunity to tour the ship, learning its crew complement, security measures, and layout. She also had to settle the tension between saBinring and Gorsat again, pointing out that only saBinring had the experience to lead the Wraiths if she were to die. The Wraiths quickly seized the vessel, largely thanks to Tainer and Courser, using their close-quarters combat skills and black infiltration attire to covertly move through the ship and subdue its crew.

Now in charge of Concussor, the Wraiths hired a pirate crew to help man the ship and moved to rendezvous at an assigned meeting place where they would attempt to lure out Thaal to see if he would collaborate with the ostensible Imperial special forces officer, as a message to that effect had already been discreetly slipped to Thaal. A Galactic Alliance corvette, Starhook, approached and began negotiations, but the situation quickly revealed itself to be a trap, as other Galactic Alliance vessels closed in, intending to take them prisoner. Drayson ordered the Wraiths to abandon ship, and they escaped in the ship's hyperdrive-equipped shuttle while the rest of their hired crew evacuated in the escape pods. Drayson activated the Concussor's self-destruct to destroy any evidence, and they fled to safety.

Drayson and the Wraiths returned to Vandor-3 via Tatooine to their safe house where Antilles was waiting. Antilles informed them that Loran was believed dead after an assassination attempt, but saBinring insisted they continue their mission. Based on the response to their ploy, the Gamorrean concluded that Thaal was duplicitous because Thaal's reaction was not characteristic of a senior officer, as he neither tried to lure out the Imperial offer nor made a stronger capture attempt. Antilles then informed them that their concealed droids had been activated at a hidden subterranean facility at the nearby Javat Caridan Environment, which turned out to be a sizeable equipment barn. Drayson arranged for the Wraiths to infiltrate the facility, approaching it in a speeder disguised as a fruit-carrying produce vehicle.

Despite saBinring's objections, who believed that only one or two Wraiths were needed to investigate the facility and gather evidence, Drayson brought the entire team. Leaving saBinring with their vehicle as their getaway driver and Gorsat as lookout, she led an infiltration team of five Wraiths into the facility. The infiltration team approached the facility slowly, bypassing the sensor wall by digging underneath the sensor fences, avoiding a cargo speeder, and reaching a large square building. Entering it, they found a sizeable cargo lift shaft, which they descended using winches. The Wraiths waited for several Pop-Dogs loading cargo to leave. They found casks of bacta headed for the black market, prompting Drayson to order her team to split up, explore, and record everything. She also assigned Durra to sabotage a large collection of vehicles, including stolen mobile artillery units, they found in a speeder pool using explosives.

Pairing up with Tainer, the two found large quantities of stolen electronics, glitterstim, and bacta. Tainer had to incapacitate one Pop-Dog who nearly found them, but otherwise they were able to make it back to the others after recording their evidence. Antilles and Courser found stolen weapons and liberated two Duros prisoners, Usan and Dashan Joyl. With their evidence gathered, the Wraiths prepared to leave but found signs of alteration as they regrouped. They soon stumbled upon a second Wraith Squadron team led by Sharr Latt, a former colleague of Drayson's from the Yuuzhan Vong War. Before the two leaders could resolve their differences and coordinate, the base became alerted to their presence, as the two teams' combined infiltrations had set off security alarms.

The combined Wraiths made a hasty escape back up the cargo shaft under fire. Drayson called for saBinring to evacuate them, and he soon arrived, charging into the complex with their getaway speeder. The Wraiths piled on board, pursued by Pop-Dogs. Since Latt's Wraiths had stumbled upon Durra and sedated him, the vehicles in the speeder pool were not sabotaged, and the traitorous soldiers pursued them in their own vehicles. With no contingency plan for an evacuation, the Wraiths headed for the nearest mountainous terrain. Drayson was panicked and irritated, unable to quickly formulate a plan. Jamming prevented them from transmitting their evidence, and they soon came under fire from their pursuers.

At this point, Drayson recalled a defensible abandoned installation, the Mount Lyss Meteorological Station, and ordered saBinring to head there. Antilles volunteered to sneak off and get clear of the jamming to transmit their data and call for help from one of her personal assets, her father, Wedge Antilles. Drayson agreed and sent her with Tainer. To delay their pursuit, Drayson decided to disembark the speeder and provide diversionary fire on their pursuers, asking for and receiving the help of Huhunna, Latt's best outdoorsman and a Wookiee. Drayson's participation in the diversionary effort displeased saBinring, who pointed out that infantry work was not her training and that he could do it. She refused and departed with Huhunna. Together, they stalled the pursuit and inflicted several casualties on the Pop-Dogs. However, Drayson was flanked by a soldier. They both fired simultaneously, and while Drayson slew her foe, she was mortally wounded.

Huhunna recovered Drayson and carried her back to the station. Latt's medic, Drikall Bessarah, attempted to treat her blaster wound, but it was too severe. Bessarah said that they needed to surrender and get her to a full medical station immediately to save her life, but Drayson refused, saying their effort against Thaal was more important than her survival. Her last orders were to Latt and saBinring to get the rest of the Wraiths away safely.

After her death, saBinring took command of the combined Wraiths. They held out at Mount Lyss until the elder Antilles arrived with other old allies and cleared a path for the Wraiths to escape. They left Drayson's body behind, rigged with explosives that obliterated the station and all evidence of the Wraiths, along with numerous traitorous Pop-Dogs that had entered the facility. Ultimately, the Wraiths devised an elaborate lure on Kuratooine that exposed Thaal. Loran, who had survived, also implicated Maddeus. The Wraiths' efforts were sufficient to elevate Loran to head of Galactic Alliance Security, and he decided to keep the reformed Wraiths as an unofficial unit.

Bhindi Drayson had a reputation for being a woman with a stern appearance. Although her personality often matched the severity others saw in her face, she possessed a hidden sense of humor. She found amusement in deceiving Jedi Master Luke Skywalker by convincing him that the Wraith's orbital insertion pods were dangerous and unreliable. Furthermore, she didn't mind Baljos Arnjak calling her "Circuity Girl," as nicknames reflecting one's role were common within the Wraiths. Her position in Wraith Squadron meant Drayson had extensive knowledge in diverse areas, such as Yuuzhan Vong strategies, computer science, and robotics. Prior to going to Coruscant, she had also gained proficiency in the skills needed for survival and organizing resistance movements on planets under Yuuzhan Vong occupation. Drayson was known for her cautious nature, frequently opting for the most careful course of action when in hostile environments. This was evident during the Coruscant mission, where she advised against hastily contacting survivors, aiming to preserve their disguises and avoid potential traps set by survivors who might mistake the New Republic agents for Yuuzhan Vong.

To advance her objectives, Drayson could convincingly portray various characters, including a dim-witted Imperial heiress. She excelled at planning, capable of developing strategies several steps in advance and training others to take on necessary roles. She was also a skilled recruiter and leader, willing to collaborate with individuals from diverse backgrounds, even a Yuuzhan Vong. At times, Drayson could be demanding towards her subordinates, showing little tolerance for disagreements with her plans. If she believed a team member was behaving inappropriately, she would correct them publicly. However, when faced with pressure and unexpected factors, Drayson's composure would sometimes falter. Ultimately, her death resulted from an impulsive decision to safeguard her younger subordinates by volunteering for a task beyond her capabilities, rather than exposing them to danger.

Bhindi Drayson made her debut in The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream, penned by Aaron Allston, and continued her role as a commando in Wraith Squadron in its follow-up, The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand. She later made a brief appearance in the concluding novel of the New Jedi Order series, The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force, written by James Luceno, and received a mention in the 2008 reference book The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. In her latest appearance in X-Wing: Mercy Kill, she took on the role of leader for one of the two Wraith Squadron units and met her end during the Wraiths' time on Vandor-3. She was featured in The Essential Reader's Companion.