Orielle Kitai

Born to Candra Kitai, Orielle Kitai, a Force-sensitive Human daughter, came into the world circa 3985 BBY on the Wild Space planet Kesh. Her friends knew her as "Ori", a name never used by Keshiri slaves. She was born into the Lost Tribe of Sith. Orielle became a Sith Tyro, and on the second day of her training, she experienced a Force vision of a star falling from the sky, engulfing her and everything around her in flames. As a dying Orielle asked the star why it had destroyed her home, the star responded, "Because you thought me a friend."

Orielle successfully completed her apprenticeship trials and achieved the rank of Sith Saber by 3960 BBY. She obtained her own uvak, a flying beast of burden native to Kesh, naming it Shyn. As a Sith Saber, Orielle was responsible for patrolling the complex aqueduct system of the capital city of Tahv with her apprentices, leading her to memorize the entire network. She and her mother, Candra, who had become a High Lord in 3961 BBY following the election of Grand Lord Lillia Venn, resided at Starfall, a country estate south of Tahv, along with several slaves. As the second most powerful figure in the Tribe, and remaining neutral in the political conflict between the Red and Gold factions, Orielle's mother was considered a frontrunner for Grand Lord upon Venn's death. Consequently, Orielle was expected to lead the Sith Sabers in the future.

Orielle frequently visited Jelph of Marisota, a Human slave. Orielle had discovered him after following a Keshiri florist, whom she suspected of lying when questioned about the origin of his plants, to Jelph's farm near the Marisota River near the Takara Mountains south of Tahv. Jelph earned a 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 gifted her an uvak harness fitted with stretched waterskins, to facilitate the transport of her frequent purchases. Orielle also bought 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 rake-riding competition, fought by uvak wranglers, was held on Donellan's Day.

As Orielle and her mother took their seats in the Korsinata, the uvak wranglers, including Campion Dey, the Kitai family's representative, entered the stadium. While Ori believed Dey would perform well, her mother stated that he was essentially dead, knowing that Grand Lord Venn would not allow her own uvak to be defeated. Before the competition could commence, Dey's uvak—which, like all uvaks bred for rake-riding, had its wings clipped—took flight. Dey, standing in the saddle, activated his lightsaber. Ready to defend herself and her mother, Orielle activated her own lightsaber and jumped atop the railing of her mother's viewing box. However, Dey's uvak flew 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. The Sith Sabers Sawj and Flen Luzo, rivals to Orielle's potential leadership of the Sabers, leapt toward Dey, lightsabers drawn. Knowing that the Kitais, as the sponsors of Campion Dey, would be blamed for the attack, Candra instructed her daughter to return to Starfall and tell their slaves that she would not be returning home that night.

Two hours after Orielle arrived at her estate, she was reminded of her childhood Force vision. 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 Grand Lord Venn had ordered the burning of her possessions 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 have already 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.

Orielle Kitai, now stripped of her surname, as was customary for all slaves on Kesh, returned to Tahv. She learned that her mother was still alive and held captive by Grand Lord Venn. Orielle then fled to Jelph's farm. She remained there for several days, under the care of the farmer. She kept her uvak, a luxury forbidden to slaves, hidden in Jelph's composting barn, which had previously served as a stable. As she learned the ways of a slave, while simultaneously plotting her return to power, she eventually felt comfortable enough to share the details of her family's downfall with Jelph, although she remained disgusted by the concept of slavery. Her relationship with the farmer deepened over the following days, but it was interrupted when Jelph announced that he had to leave for a day to visit his customers, as the autumn growing season was approaching. Despite her pleas, feeling that she could not live without him, Orielle could not convince Jelph to stay. As Jelph departed, Orielle remained, tending to the traps Jelph had set near the forested mountains in the hopes of catching edible rodents. Upon returning to the farm from clearing the traps, she discovered her uvak, Shyn, dead on the floor of the barn, killed by a lightsaber. The Luzo brothers appeared 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 conspired 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.

Enraged by her condemnation to slavery, Orielle lost control. 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 over 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. Before departing to deliver the messages, Badolfa 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—hoping to lure an aerial sentry, incapacitate him, and steal his uvak to return to Jelph's farm. However, Jelph—who was actually Jelph Marrian, a former Shadow from the Jedi Covenant dedicated to preventing the return of the Sith—had followed her from his farm and entered 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 revealed that she had invited the High Lords to his farm to discuss an important matter. The two stole an uvak and flew back to the farm, hoping to use Marrian's starship to escape the planet. However, as the four High Lords were already on their way, Orielle believed she had to offer them something of value 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 while Orielle recovered the blasters and called out to the High Lords. Instead, she was confronted by Grand Lord Lillia Venn and the Lords Luzo. Venn immobilized Kitai with the Force, and 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, having been kept separate from the rest of his starfighter, had survived 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, Quarra Thayn experienced a Force vision of Orielle while guiding Edell Vrai across the continent of Alanciar to infiltrate the military base for the Sith. The vision showed Orielle with her husband, Jelph Marrian, and their three children, hiding in the jungles of Keshtah Minor. Orielle compared her former life as a high-ranking member of the Sith tribe to Quarra's position in the Alanciar military. She also warned Quarra about the dangers of "living within a dream." Convinced of the inevitable Sith takeover and intrigued by Orielle's peaceful life in the jungle, Quarra chose to remain loyal to her family rather than become Edell Vrai's consort after the Sith occupied Alanciar.

Orielle Kitai, a slender woman with auburn hair, was fiercely loyal to the Lost Tribe of Sith and proud of her position and special responsibilities, which stemmed from her mother's power. She was well-versed in the Tribe's customs and, like most Sith, held the native Keshiri in contempt, considering them inferior to Humans. She never allowed them to address her by her first name. Despite her dislike for the smell of uvak manure, she enjoyed spending time with Jelph Marrian, whose farm reeked of it, and deeply cared for her pet, Shyn. Often boastful, she readily flaunted her unparalleled knowledge of Tahv's complex aqueduct system, especially in Marrian's presence, whose gentle and humble demeanor intrigued her. While she maintained a composed, albeit arrogant, demeanor in front of the farmer, she also possessed a short temper. She lost it, along with the contents of her stomach, when discussing her condemnation to slavery with him, and again when her lightsaber was confiscated. Despite her pride in the Tribe and her determination to regain power within it, her feelings for Marrian were stronger. Although she initially stated that she could not be with him if it meant being weak, Marrian convinced her that strength did not require ruling the galaxy. Orielle willingly abandoned her loyalty to the Tribe after their betrayal and resolved to live a quieter life with the farmer, realizing she could not live without him. Inspired by a legend of Keshiri slaves who had escaped their masters, Orielle became determined to forge her own destiny rather than follow the path chosen for her by the Sith.

Orielle Kitai, powerful in the dark side of the Force, which caused her normally brown eyes to glow orange when she channeled it, achieved the rank of Sith Saber by the age of twenty-five. Skilled in telepathy, she could sense when a Keshiri florist was lying. She also clearly received Jelph Marrian's mental warning as he prepared to shoot the guards holding her captive. Slender and stealthy, she could conceal her presence even from Force-users, such as the zoo's Sith guard, whom she quickly disabled, and the Jedi Jelph Marrian, although she could not defeat the latter in one-on-one combat. She was also proficient in telekinesis, as demonstrated 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 first appears 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.