Bio - Barreth Cole

Barreth Cole was born and raised on the planet Naboo, on the Blue Narr island.

The Blue Narr island was for years known only for the local food – meat of the narr crabs. The island is located far into the ocean, away from the main land and near two underwater volcanoes. The volcanoes along with bio-substances produced by some unique underwater plants created a sort of a local micro-climate that mutated the crabs – making them grow bigger and develop a poisonous factor in their shells. Those are the narr crabs – valued for their tasty meat which is also a kind of a dangerous treat – it has to be very carefully and thoroughly separated from the crab’s shell or otherwise the food becomes a deadly poison. If one was persistent on keeping it local, one could complete the meal with wine from a tiny local vineyard, a rather weak and sour product.

The island was always ruled by local aristocrats. Finally the ruler of the island became the ambitious count Oggnan Kerneel. He was a friend and a strong supporter of the Nabooian politician Palpatine, even before the latter was chosen the senator to represent the planet in the Republic Senate.

Oggnan dreamt of making his island a significant sector of the planet or maybe even of the Galaxy, producing something more than crab meat and a weak wine. When the Clone Wars began he started a seemingly doomed for failure research to use any of the few Blue Narr’s resources for producing any kind of warfare. Surprisingly he succeeded. Shortly before the end of the Clone Wars Oggnan contacted his old friend, now the Supreme Chancelor Palpatine and presented him a so called ‘narr powder’ made from the narr crabs shells which added to armors rendered them much less penetrable for blaster fire. The powder was introduced into a limited line of Katarn armors for clone troopers and some selected armored transports. Unfortunately what seemed a major success soon turned out not so successful when after a couple of months the troopers having contact with narr powder enhanced armors began falling sick and eventually dying in convulsions. It turned out that the narr crabs shells processed into the narr powder remained being toxic, even if not digested – being exposed to the proximity of the narr powder for a longer time was fatal for most living beings. It surely didn’t look well in HoloNews, so Palpatine decided to cancel the project for now and ordered cease of using the powder in the Republic Army. He but realized the possibility of using it on droids, so in fear of Separatists trying to take control of the only place from where the narr crabs shells could be obtained he set up a permanent clone trooper outpost on the Blue Narr island and promised count Oggnan Kerneel not to forget about his work and support.

It soon turned out Palpatine truly didn’t forget about his old friend. After becoming the Emperor and reforming the Republic into the Galactic Empire, Palpatine revived the narr powder project and gave the title of the Imperial Baron to Oggnar Kerneel making him the official imperial overseer of the Blue Narr facility. The narr powder was from now on being used to enhance the armors of imperial droids that were operating far from any living imperial personnel, for example the newly developed probe droids who were used to scan distant sectors of the Galaxy in search of the Jedi and other enemies of the Empire. There were rumors that the narr powder was also being used in armors of some fast reaction transports, like fast attack shuttles, in which case the soldiers were exposed to the powder’s proximity for only a short time and the armor’s strength was essential. But surely such rumors were untrue – after all would the good Emperor in any case unnecessarily risk the life of imperial troopers only to ensure better performance of the army?

After Oggnan’s death (rumors have it that he ate one narr crab too many but the truth is he died due to natural health issues) his oldest daughter Narrisha became the ruler of the Blue Narr island and inherited the title of the Imperial Baroness. Her younger sister Aldena married Taurell Cole, a clerk working in the Theed Palace. They had a son Barreth.

Barreth lived with his mother and his aunt on the island and rarely saw his father, who only visited Blue Narr for holidays and vacations, but normally stayed at Theed. No wonder that Barreth was drawn first to clone troopers and then stormtroopers stationing on the island. Adding to that the distance of the peaceful island from the war zone and the Republic HoloNet series about the Clone Wars that the kid enjoyed – ‘Adventures of Clone Captain Vire’ – it all created an idealized and legendary view of soldiers in young Barreth’s mind.

Barreth’s mother often went out to visit her husband in Theed and the Baroness never married and didn’t have kids, so her nephew became her favourite. He always told her his imaginary stories about soldiers and commandos and how he’d like to become one in the future and Narrisha decided to enable her nephew to follow his dreams.

When Barreth reached the required age (or maybe even a bit sooner) a professional pilot trainer was hired who taught young Cole how to fly space crafts. He soon acquired a pilot’s license. He enjoyed flying agile small fighter class crafts, so for a short period of time he even considered attending the Imperial Naval Academy. That was until he managed to bribe his way into piloting a TIE Fighter. He hated the feeling of flying a ship without atmosphere, having to wear the heavy and awkward helmet and the idea of being closed in such a fragile construction as the TIE Fighter’s hull without a shield deflector system. He preferred the much more elegant and safe Nabooian fighters. Besides remembering still the brave Clone Captain Vire from kid’s years show, Barreth was more into ground troopers operations and routines than space military activity.

A retired soldier and a martial arts specialist were hired to teach Barreth how to become a commando, at least in his own eyes. He learned some theory about tactics and practiced some close combat routines. But all that was just playing for fun and Barreth did realize that after a time. He wanted the real stuff.

He sent his application and, being backed up by the Imperial Baroness’ recommendation, was accepted to the Carida Academy. He learned the basics of professional ground military operations and managed to spend six months in the Academy before he reached the point of being too aggravated to listen to his superiors’ orders. He saw himself already in the action, preferably leading a squad, rather than ‘learning how to march and salute’. He left the Academy and returned to Naboo.

Soon the invisible but powerful hand of Imperial Baroness succeeded in placing him in a local squad of stormtroopers. He quickly moved up the chain of command, serving first as Corporal and after a year reaching the rank of Sergeant and becoming the squad leader. That pleased his ambition for yet another year, during which he lead the stormtroopers and reached the rank of Sergeant Major.

But after that time his hunger for exciting and unique operations grew. Aunt Narrisha didn’t want him in any real danger, so didn’t want to let him off the safe planet of Naboo in again dangerous times of Rebels terrorist activity. Barreth was transferred to an elite squad of scout troopers and was promoted to Second Lieutenant. He spent another year and a half in that unit, achieving some successes in locating and eliminating more and less dangerous cells of Rebel followers and sympathizers, which was always shown as an important issue on the Emperor’s home planet.

Barreth did have a feeling he achieved some success in the military field and that he did get there pretty fast, yet he still didn’t feel fully satisfied. While visiting the Blue Narr island during off-duty free time he always told his aunt, the Baroness, that he keeps on dreaming about ultra high priority spec ops missions and serving the Emperor in more special ways than he does now.

Narrisha Kerneel didn’t have even closely such a good relationship with Palpatine as her father used to, but she was a resourceful woman on her own. Already for some time the Nabooian tabloids had been full of rumors about the still attractive and lonely Baroness being a frequent guest of the Imperial Executor Jeraan Taruk residing on Naboo. Was this fact in any way connected with the mysterious transfer order that Barreth received? Young Cole couldn’t be sure but he was keen on joining the new unit he was being transferred to – could it be even more elite and special than the scout troopers squad? He was soon about to find out…