Malakite

During the Republic Dark Age, specifically in the final century of the lengthy New Sith Wars, the Sith Lord known as Malakite resided in the Grumani sector. He was the grandson of Vilia Calimondra, the head of the Calimondra family and the overseer of considerable Sith holdings located within the Grumani sector. Furthermore, he was a cousin to the Sith Lords Odion and Daiman, who were the offspring of Xelian, one of Vilia's daughters. Vilia Calimondra entered into marriage with numerous rulers and bore seven children, one of whom was a parent to Malakite. Due to all of her children vying to become Calimondra's successor, she instigated a competition known as the Charge Matrica to determine who would inherit her empire, challenging her children to expand her territories. However, Xelian initiated a war against Calimondra's son Chagras, resulting in infighting among all of her children.

Ultimately, only Chagras remained, leading Calimondra to designate him as her heir. Chagras upheld a fragile peace through the tenuous cooperation of various cousins and grandchildren. He also became the nominal leader of an empire referred to as the Chagras Hegemony, but Vilia continued to exert control over her own empire. By 1042 BBY, Chagras was preparing to challenge the Galactic Republic. However, in 1040 BBY, Chagras met his death after exposure to a nerve toxin. Calimondra then initiated a second Charge Matrica, pitting her grandchildren against each other to compete for the right to succeed her. While Odion and Daiman were the first to engage in conflict, their cousins, including Malakite, soon followed suit. By 1032 BBY, Malakite had established his own territory known as the Menagerie. Malakite also gained a "perverted" reputation throughout Sith Space for employing Sith alchemy to transform sentient beings and animals into ferocious Sithspawn, which were then used to bolster the ranks of his military forces.

Malakite's forces consisted of individuals from sentient species who had been mutated into "Mutates", serving as his infantry, as well as winged Menagerie dragons and Night-Soarers. These creatures were the result of centuries of Sith experimentation, reduced to vicious minions solely serving their Sith Lord's commands. Through Sith alchemy and the power of the dark side, Malakite had created slave warriors who would attack without hesitation. Given the Sith Lord's preference for pre-modern weapons and claws over modern technology, Malakite developed a tactic of overwhelming opponents with superior technology through sheer numbers. In addition to battling the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order, Malakite also engaged in constant conflicts with other Sith, such as Odion and Ayanos Bactra. Consequently, Malakite's forces frequently suffered significant losses, prompting the Sith to implement a large-scale breeding program.

A new challenge emerged for the Calimondra dynasty in 1032 BBY: the lone Jedi Knight Kerra Holt. As the sole survivor of the failed Jedi mission Operation Influx, Kerra had evacuated 63,000 civilians during the Chelloan affair. Her guerrilla tactics and swift raids frustrated the Sith Lords of the Grumani sector, who repeatedly failed to capture or eliminate her. While Kerra initially targeted Daiman and Odion, her frequent incursions into Sith Space eventually drew the attention of matriarch Vilia. However, the matriarch allowed Kerra to operate freely, viewing her as a means for her Sith grandchildren to gain experience in dealing with the Jedi. Vilia planned to challenge the Galactic Republic in the future and believed that her descendants needed to understand how to confront the Jedi Order, the Republic's defenders.

In that same year, Vilia instructed her grandchildren to turn against the Quermian Sith Lord Ayanos Bactra, a close family associate and ruler of the Bactranate. Vilia deemed Bactra to have outlived his usefulness to the Calimondra family and ordered his elimination. Malakite, along with Odion, Daiman, and Lord Lioko, were the first to respond, initiating an invasion of the Bactranate. Within days, the Bactranate had fallen, and Bactra had fled into hiding at a Quermian retirement colony. Malakite later attended a family bequest convened by Vilia, where the Sith matriarch divided Bactra's former territories and corporate assets among her grandchildren. Malakite likely inherited some territory and corporate holdings. Kerra was also secretly present at the bequest, having been permitted by the Sith Lord Arkadia Calimondra to witness the proceedings via hologram. During the proceedings, Malakite's hologram was positioned next to Odion's. Kerra regarded Malakite as an "evolutionary throwback" due to his unkempt appearance and messy hair.

Later that year, the Calimondra family encountered another external threat in the form of the Hutt Zodoh, a crime boss involved in slave trafficking and munitions production. He initiated an invasion of the Daimanate, starting with the rearward planet of Aquilaris Minor. Malakite participated in a holo-conference where Zodoh contacted the regional Sith Lords, who expressed anger at the Hutt's intrusion into Sith territory. During the holo-conference, his cousin Odion made xenophobic remarks about the Hutt and threatened to disrupt his business operations. His cousin Arkadia echoed Odion's sentiments and angrily accused Zodoh of treating her like a gangster.

Zodoh remained unfazed, dismissing the assembled Sith warlords as "petty crooks" preoccupied with trivial matters. He compared the Sith warlords in the Grumani sector to those in Hutt Space, who had devolved into petty squabbles after the Galactic Republic severed all hyperspace communication relays, effectively halting interstellar travel and commerce throughout much of the galaxy. Zodoh emphasized the superiority of the Hutts, asserting that the Hutt clans had survived the collapse of governments due to their protocols for communication and the movement of goods and weapons. The more astute Sith Lords in Hutt Space had recognized this and forged alliances with the Hutts, while others had been driven out of the market.

Zodoh declared his intention to expand his business franchise into the Grumani sector, offering to become their primary supplier of slaves and ammunition in exchange for a constructive relationship. However, he threatened to be more ruthless than the Sith if they resisted. He concluded by instructing the warlords to observe developments on Aquilaris in the near future before ending the transmission. During the subsequent Aquilaris campaign, Zodoh employed his Stormdrivers—large capital ships equipped with weaponized vaporizers—to artificially flood Aquilaris Minor, submerging large areas of the planet's surface. Zodoh broadcast these developments during a second holo-conference with the Sith Lords. Malakite was present at that conference and agreed to a deal with Zodoh, where the Sith warlords would undermine the Daimanate by engaging Daiman's forces in border skirmishes.

This weakened Daiman's military defenses during the Battle of Darkknell, when Zodoh's Stormdrivers flooded his capital world of Darkknell. However, Daiman was saved at the last moment by the intervention of the Jedi Kerra and the Republic starfighter captain Jenn Devaad, who destroyed Zodoh's flagship Voracious, ending the artificially induced flood. Following the battle, Zodoh was captured by Daiman's cruisers and taken as a captive to his palace Sanctum Celestial in his capital city of Xakrea. Malakite, along with Daiman's brother Odion and cousin Arkadia, witnessed Daiman execute the Hutt interloper. This effectively ended any Hutt ambitions of challenging Sith dominance in the Grumani sector, but it did little to alleviate the ongoing Sith tensions.

Later in 1032 BBY, Odion's forces invaded Skarpos, one of Malakite's worlds. Unbeknownst to both Sith Lords, Skarpos was also the secret location of the Helm of Ieldis, an ancient Sith artifact created by Lord Ieldis that could drive sentients into a homicidal frenzy. Odionate and Menagerie warships engaged in a space battle in orbit, while Odionate ground forces, including Force-sensitive Novitiates and the Thunder Guard, were deployed for ground assault. In response, Malakite rallied his Mutate forces and led the battle while riding a purple horned beast. Malakite's Mutates swarmed the invaders but were outmatched by their superior technology. Odion's forces were equally suicidal and fanatically devoted to their master's cause. Unbeknownst to either side, the Jedi Knight Kerra had secretly infiltrated the Novitiates—Odion's elite dark side acolytes—posing as a young Sith wannabe named "Mercy" who had escaped from the Daimanate factory world of Tergamenion.

As the Novitiates clashed with Malakite's primitive Mutates, the Odionate commander, General Beld Yulan, ordered his Thunder Guards to charge into the trenches. However, Malakite had set a trap for Odion's forces, ordering his archers to fire flaming arrows into the trench, which had been filled with starfighter fuel. Despite "Mercy's" warnings, the Odionites charged the trench, and many were immolated. They were all willing to die to fulfill Odion's nihilistic ambition of ending the pain of existence by killing all life. In the process, several of Malakite's soldiers were burnt to death or wounded. After marveling at the Odionites' willingness to endure anything, he ordered his Mutates to retreat to an escape craft, where they would heal their wounds. Malakite also planned to return and reclaim Skarpos.

Within a few days, Malakite had gathered reinforcements and launched an invasion to retake Skarpos. This time, Malakite's fleet included a large contingent of Night-Soarers, winged humanoids used to transport Malakite's Mutate warriors. Malakite's battle tactics involved recapturing the high ground before attacking elsewhere. While Yulan's forces had amassed artillery cannons around the Morbollon Mesa, Malakite remained unconcerned, instructing his men to ignore the "shiny weapons" and claiming that the Menagerie could breed warriors faster than they could build blasters. During the Second Battle of Skarpos, the two rival armies were joined by a third force dispatched by Daiman, Odion's estranged younger brother, who sought to claim the Helm for himself. He had assisted Kerra in infiltrating the Odionate to capture the Helm and ordered his troops to destroy both Odion and Malakite's forces, denigrating the latter as an abomination.

Meanwhile, Kerra entered the Grumani temple chamber within the Morbollon Mesa, only to be captured by Odion, who had already arrived on a shuttle and taken the Helm for himself. After Kerra grieved upon learning of her parents' deaths on Skarpos, her negative emotions activated the Helm of Ieldis. Odion then used the Helm to drive the three amassed armies into a homicidal frenzy. Daiman barely survived an assassination attempt by his crazed Kubaz double-agent Glenk but managed to escape the battle while still in control of his thoughts. Malakite also fled Skarpos under similar circumstances. Both retreated and alerted their grandmother Vilia to the threat posed by Odion to the galaxy.

In response, Vilia rallied her family to put aside their differences and stop Odion's threat. Odion's nihilistic ambitions jeopardized the status quo within the Calimondra family, and Vilia emphasized the need to stop him at any cost while there was still time. Malakite, along with his cousins Daiman, Arkadia, Lioko, and Trevayne, contributed warships to an allied armada. At the moon Vanahame, Odion activated the Helm by channeling the emotions of the child captives at the Odionate cloister on that moon. Odion succeeded in launching his apocalypse, with mass killing sprees occurring throughout the Grumani Sector. Even the allied fleet was not immune, as ships began firing on each other, and several Sith Lords, including Daiman, were forced to fend off their maddened crew. However, Odion's plot was ultimately thwarted by Kerra and Yulan, who had turned against his master for exploiting children to fuel his dark side powers. Yulan freed the children, and Odion was killed in a fire unleashed by the Helm.

With the destruction of the Helm, Odion's Force-induced homicidal madness ceased. With Odion's death, the Odionate collapsed and was divided among the various Sith Lords, with Daiman receiving the largest share of territory. It is likely that Malakite also participated in this scramble for territory.

Lord Malakite, as a Sith, possessed extensive knowledge of the dark side of the Force and wielded a red-bladed Sith lightsaber. While his cousins Daiman and Odion viewed themselves as embodiments of creation and destruction, respectively, Malakite considered himself the embodiment of perversion. His fascination with Sith alchemy drove him to breed an army of Sith mutants known as Mutates, mindless red-skinned beings created from various species who were twisted in form and mind. As a military commander, Lord Malakite was willing to employ "dirty tricks" in combat, such as luring enemies into pits filled with starfighter fuel. Despite his savagery and bloodlust, Malakite was humble enough to concede defeat and knew when to withdraw his forces. However, he was unwilling to cede any of his domains to rival Sith Lords like Odion.

Malakite's disdain for technology led him to favor overwhelming opponents with superior technology through sheer numbers. However, Malakite's powers were no match for the Helm of Ieldis, a Sith artifact capable of driving sentient beings into a maddened homicidal frenzy. He narrowly escaped the Second Battle of Skarpos with his life. Despite his self-centered Sith ideology, Malakite was prudent enough to join forces with other Sith Lords when his insane cousin Odion attempted to destroy the galaxy with the Helm of Ieldis, recognizing that Odion's actions posed a threat to all life in the galaxy.

Due to the contentious dynamics within the Calimondra family, Malakite had an adversarial relationship with most of his family members. He did not tolerate Odion's annexation of his world, Skarpos, and led an invasion to retake it. Daiman regarded him as an abomination due to his obsession with Sith alchemy and mutating individuals. However, Malakite maintained a better relationship with his grandmother Vilia Calimondra, the family matriarch. He complied with Vilia's orders to invade and seize the domains of the Bactranate, the realm of their ally Ayanos Bactra, who had outlived his usefulness. Later, he heeded Vilia's call to join forces with other Sith Lords to stop Odion's plan to destroy all life in the galaxy.

Lord Malakite was a skilled lightsaber combatant, wielding a single-bladed Sith lightsaber. Malakite was also a powerful user of sith alchemy, capable of creating numerous monstrous creatures for his army.

The Sith Lord Malakite first appeared in John Jackson Miller's novel Knight Errant, which centers on the adventures of the Jedi Knight Kerra Holt during the New Sith Wars. Malakite later appeared as a minor antagonist in John Jackson Miller's fifteen–part Dark Horse comic series Star Wars: Knight Errant, which ran from October 13, 2010 to October 10, 2012.