Lucia (soldier)

Born sometime between 1030 and 1020 BBY, Lucia, a Human female, served the Brotherhood of Darkness during the New Sith Wars, fighting the Galactic Republic in the years leading up to the Seventh Battle of Ruusan. She was a junior officer and sniper in the Gloom Walkers unit, reporting to Lieutenant Ulabore. Lucia fought alongside Dessel, a trooper in the Gloom Walkers, during battles on Kashyyyk (battle) and Hsskhor (battle). In 1002 BBY, Lucia and the Gloom Walkers participated in the Battle of Phaseera, an operation to seize the Republic manufacturing world of Phaseera. The Gloom Walkers were assigned to eliminate a Republic outpost overlooking a valley that led to the Republic base camp in Phaseera's capital city. This outpost prevented the Brotherhood army from moving through the valley during the daytime without being spotted, alerting the Republic soldiers in the camp to their presence. Furthermore, the Republic had three flatbed gunships that could inflict massive damage from the sky.

Before the battle commenced, the Gloom Walkers were stationed at a makeshift camp in the jungle. Ulabore eventually received orders from the Brotherhood's commanders to advance, and Lucia was tasked with informing the other troopers to assemble. However, when Ulabore announced that they were to attack the outpost in one hour, the Gloom Walkers protested, considering it a suicide mission. When Ulabore refused to listen, Dessel, recently promoted to Sergeant, mutinied by knocking Ulabore unconscious and assuming command. The Gloom Walkers then waited until nightfall to strike, moving through the jungle in four squads and encircling the outpost, each squad using interference boxes to jam all transmissions within the perimeter.

Lucia was assigned to Dessel's squad. Upon seeing that the crews of the now-grounded gunships were still present, Dessel inquired if Lucia could snipe them. Lucia responded negatively, stating that it was impossible for anyone to kill so many troopers that quickly. Frustrated and acting impulsively, Dessel attacked the crews himself, killing several before being temporarily blinded by a flash canister. Despite the detonation, Dessel retained his sight and proceeded to eliminate the remaining Republic soldiers with remarkable speed and precision. Lucia was astonished by this display, staring in disbelief before resuming the fight for the outpost.

Three hours later, the Gloom Walkers successfully captured the outpost, suffering nine casualties. With the outpost secured, the main Brotherhood army was well-positioned to surprise-attack the Republic base camp. Lucia and the remaining Gloom Walkers, except for a small squad led by Senior Trooper Adanar tasked with holding the outpost, returned to their jungle camp to find an awake Ulabore surrounded by several Sith enforcers. Dessel was placed in shackles, and Ulabore informed him that he would be court-martialed. Despite Lucia's attempts to defend Dessel, he was taken away by the armed enforcers.

A month later, Lucia and the Gloom Walkers were deployed to Alaris Prime. While on patrol, they were ambushed by Republic troops—an event that Lucia believed would not have occurred had Dessel remained with them. The ensuing skirmish was brief and bloody, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides, but the Republic troops were forced to retreat. Lucia, still resentful of Ulabore for having Dessel arrested and likely killed, shot him in the back during the battle, resulting in his death. The other Gloom Walkers did not report her betrayal, and Ulabore was officially listed as killed in action. However, unbeknownst to Lucia, Dessel's court-martial never took place; word of his exceptional shooting had spread, and he was taken to Korriban to train in the dark side of the Force. Dessel eventually became the Sith Lord Darth Bane. Two years after his arrest, he destroyed the Brotherhood by providing them with the thought bomb for use against the Jedi. The war concluded after the final battle on Ruusan, and Bane secretly established his own Order of the Sith Lords.

Following the end of the New Sith Wars and the collapse of the Brotherhood of Darkness, Lucia became a prisoner of war. After six months of repairing starships on a work planet, the Galactic Senate issued a pardon for all who had served in the Sith army. For the next thirteen years, Lucia worked freelance as a bodyguard, mercenary, and later as a bounty hunter. In 987 BBY, she attempted to locate and capture the Meerian Salto Zendar, who had tried to kidnap a high-ranking Muun from the InterGalactic Banking Clan.

She tracked him to a hospital on Bandomeer, where she tried to take him into custody. However, Serra, a nurse at the hospital, blocked her path and refused to move, even when Lucia drew a blaster. Suddenly, a Twi'lek, also hunting Zendar, arrived and shot Lucia in the stomach before taking Zendar into a hall. Despite her injury, Lucia crawled after them but lost consciousness. As the skirmish continued, Serra retrieved Lucia and performed life-saving surgery.

Lucia then pledged to protect Serra, becoming her loyal bodyguard. They traveled frequently, never staying on one world for more than a few weeks. Initially, Serra was reluctant to have Lucia constantly watching over her, but she eventually grew to appreciate her bodyguard, and the two became close friends. When Gerran, the Prince of Doan, contracted Idolian fever, his father contacted Serra to heal him. Within three months, Gerran was cured, and he and Serra had fallen in love. He proposed, and she accepted, on the condition that Lucia remain her bodyguard. The King initially opposed their union but eventually relented, allowing Lucia to join the Doan Royal Guard.

In 980 BBY, the Doan Royal House clashed with the planet's mining caste, escalating when the miners accidentally killed Gerran by destroying his airspeeder while attempting to capture him. Serra became deeply depressed, and Lucia, concerned for her friend, decided to avenge Gerran's death by targeting the miners' leader, Gelba. She traveled to the space station Paradise and hired the Huntress, an Iktotchi assassin, to assassinate Gelba. Meanwhile, the king had allowed the Jedi Order to send an ambassador, Jedi Knight Medd Tandar, to negotiate with the miners, and the Huntress also killed Tandar during her attack. The next day, Serra and Lucia met with the King and agreed to travel to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to assure the Jedi that the Royal House was not behind the attack on Tandar, averting a diplomatic incident. After their meeting with the King, Lucia confessed to Serra that she had hired the assassin and suggested that the Princess turn her in. Serra refused, insisting that she would convince the Jedi of their innocence and that the incident would soon be forgotten.

During their trip to the Jedi Temple, they met with Tandar's former Master, Obba. The Jedi Master showed them a monument of five Jedi who had been killed by a Sith Lord in 990 BBY. However, the monument also bore a sixth name—Caleb of Ambria. Lucia recognized the name as a healer who had remained neutral during the New Sith Wars. Obba revealed that an injured Sith Lord had traveled to Ambria after killing the five Jedi, but Caleb had refused to heal him. Obba stated that the healer had sent a message to the Jedi, informing them of the Sith Lord. Obba and a team of Jedi had been dispatched to arrest him, only to find the healer dead before killing the deranged Dark Lord. Unbeknownst to Lucia, Caleb was Serra's father: in 1,000 BBY, Darth Bane had threatened Serra's life to force Caleb to heal him. Caleb, fearing Bane's return, had forced his daughter to change her name and leave the planet to prevent the Sith from forcing him to cure him again. Serra thus assumed that Bane had returned and killed her father. Lucia inquired about the Sith they had killed, and Obba revealed that the man had been thin and pathetic—unlike Serra's memory of Bane. Convinced that Bane still lived, Serra ordered Lucia to rehire the Huntress to capture the Sith Lord.

Lucia returned to Paradise and found the Huntress, offering her triple her usual rate to meet with Serra on Ambria. The Huntress agreed and succeeded in her task. Bane was taken to Doan, where Serra imprisoned him in the Stone Prison, a secret prison located deep beneath the planet's Royal Manse. Meanwhile, Lucia had grown concerned about Serra, disturbed by her vengeful nature.

Serra kept Bane incapacitated with drug injections for three days before deciding to interrogate him. Lucia and the Huntress accompanied Serra during the interrogation, and Lucia was shocked to recognize Darth Bane as Dessel—her former Sergeant from the Gloom Walkers, whom she had believed dead for twenty years. Serra tortured the Sith Lord with the drug injections, and Lucia was disturbed by her friend's ruthlessness. When Bane revealed that he had not killed Caleb, Serra became furious and assaulted him, prompting Lucia to restrain her, believing Bane innocent. She pleaded with Serra, arguing that torturing Bane would not bring her father back, even as Bane insisted that Caleb had been weak and deserved to die. Lucia countered that Bane's strength had not mattered—he had become a prisoner anyway. Bane declared that he deserved his suffering as well—had he been stronger, he would not have been captured. Serra injected him again and continued arguing with him as he lost consciousness. Lucia again tried to restrain her friend, telling her that she needed to calm down. Serra realized Lucia was right and left the room. The Huntress left soon after, leaving Lucia alone with Bane.

Lucia was conflicted about what to do with Bane: she believed that Sith Lords were cruel but felt pity for him, convinced that he had not murdered Caleb and thus did not deserve the torture. Lucia also believed that Bane probably deserved to die for other atrocities he may have committed in becoming a Sith Lord, but she felt that she still owed Bane her life for the many times he had saved her—along with the rest of the Gloom Walkers—during the New Sith Wars. Lucia found the injection that contained a drug that countered the effects of the incapacitating drug, senflax, and injected it in Bane's thigh so that it would take a while to wake him. Lucia then left the cell, ordering the guards outside to lock the door and hit the alarm if anything went wrong. She then went to find Serra and get her to safety before Bane could find and kill her.

Meanwhile, Bane's apprentice—and the true killer of Caleb—Darth Zannah, arrived on Doan, hoping to find her Master and challenge him for the title of Dark Lord of the Sith. Soon after Lucia left to find Serra, Bane escaped from his cell and began to hunt down the Princess. However, the alarm sounded as Bane broke free, and Lucia heard Serra yelling out. As Lucia ran through the halls, she almost ran into the Huntress, who informed her that she had told Serra of her bodyguard's betrayal. The assassin then pointed her in the direction which Serra had gone running.

As Lucia neared Serra, she saw Bane and called him by his old name: Des. She asked if he remembered her, but Bane asked why she had helped him before, revealing that he knew who she was. She replied that he had saved her life at Phaseera, and when Bane asked what she wanted, she requested that he let Serra live. As she pleaded with him, he warned her that she would not be able to stop him. Lucia refused to back down, replying that she believed she owed him her life, and that if he wanted to take it, it was his right to do so. As Bane began to gather the power of the dark side, Zannah found them, unleashing a powerful blast of dark side energy. Bane managed to protect himself, but Zannah's blast sent Lucia flying thirty meters down the hallway, knocking her body against the walls and ceiling and smashing her skull on the stone several times, killing her.

Lucia, despite being one of the youngest members of the Gloom Walkers, was recognized as one of the unit's best shots, carrying a TC-17 sniper rifle into battle. She greatly respected Dessel and even tried to dissuade Lieutenant Ulabore from having the Sith enforcers arrest him for mutiny. Witnessing Dessel's remarkable shooting during the Battle of Phaseera, she was shocked by his precision and had to be prompted by Dessel to regain her composure. Lucia was also exceedingly loyal; after Serra saved her life, Lucia vowed to protect the healer at all costs. When Serra became depressed after Gerran's death, Lucia hired the Huntress to assassinate the miner responsible for Serra's distress, an action she likened to her decision to kill Ulabore. Ulabore had been responsible for Bane's supposed death, so she killed Ulabore; just as Gelba was responsible for Gerran's death, she had Gelba assassinated.

When Bane was later imprisoned by Serra, Lucia still felt indebted to him and believed that, regardless of how cruel he had become, it was right to free him. Although Serra's vengefulness disturbed her, Lucia remained loyal to the Princess and tried to find her and keep her safe from Bane, whom she knew would seek revenge for his torture. Even when confronted by the Sith Lord, Lucia begged him to spare Serra, attempting to dissuade him from the dark side and refusing to back down, claiming that since she owed him her life, he had the right to take it if he wished.

Lucia first appeared briefly in Drew Karpyshyn's 2006 novel, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, the first installment in the Darth Bane Trilogy. She reappeared as a major character in Karpyshyn's 2009 novel, Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil, the trilogy's conclusion.