Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Approved NPC Ziva Khalan

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OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent:
Expand on the Order of Fire.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Inquisitor, investigator, interrogator.
Permission: Permission to use Tricks of the Trade submissions here and for Fire for Effect gear here.
Links: Falleen,
GRU, Truthseekers, Investigative Reaction Unit.

PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Age:
39
Force Sensitivity: Knight
Species: Falleen.
Appearance: Attractive Falleen female of average height. She has the symmetrical features, green skin with small scales, facial and spinal ridges common to her species, along with slighty clawed fingers and toes. Like all Falleen she can alter her skin pigmentation. She has dark hair that she keeps at a practical length. She eschews flamboyant, revealing or ostentatious clothing and will usually wear a professional suit at work. Understated elegance is one way to describe her dress sense. Her eyes are sharp and alert. She speaks in a calm, clipped manner.

SOCIAL INFORMATION
Name:
Ziva Khalan
Loyalties: Siobhan, Firemane, House Kerrigan, The Inner Circle, GRU, Truthseekers.
Wealth: The Order of Fire does not adhere to a vow of poverty or encourage nonattachment. Firemane payment is on a sliding scale based on experience, rank and reward. She also receives income from her estate on Falleen. That said, while she's affluent, she doesn't flaunt it because she's learned the hard way that such behaviour attracts jealousy and unwanted attention. She lets a trustee manage the estate on her homeworld. She has enough money scattered around in various investments to feed her projects and ensure she'll be in a good position should she leave her present employer.

Notable Possessions: Carries a basic single bladed lightsabre, endowed with basic lightsabre functions such as dual phase setting and bifurcating cyclical ignition. She also has a collection of
various drugs useful for interrogation, such as Loquasin, Xebonica, Mnemiotic, Bavo Six, OV600 and Platykona-zemlo-mobris. Always carries a holdout bolter or a concealed holdout blaster. Access to a Taozin amulet. Has a Last Whisper Pistol and a Pinprick Needler.

Skills: Highly skilled interrogator and investigator. She is trained in surveillance techniques and very knowledgeable about poisons and drugs. Being a Falleen, she exudes powerful pheromones. These can make her very persuasive, as evidenced by the fact that a male Falleen's pheromones were powerful enough to cause Quinlan Vos to temporarily fall under his influence.

In terms of Force use, her specialisation lies in the mental sphere. This ranges from performing simple mind tricks to using the Force to terrify or sway others and manipulate memories. She is adept in the use of telepathy, psychometry, drain knowledge, Force Affliction and can summon illusions. She is also a natural empath, which is useful for reading others. In keeping with her mental specialisation, her Force Sense abilities are very refined. Good shot with a pistol. Ziva is trained in the classical styles of lightsabre combat, but does not excel at duelling. Soresu is the one she is most adept in, which makes it her preferred style.

Personality: Detached. One word does not sum up an entire person, but it is a good start. Ziva is a very precise, clinical, exact person. She respects discipline and self-control, and looks down on more openly passionate persons who cannot keep their emotions in check. Like with all Falleen, she is able to exude extremely powerful pheromones. However, she does not use them to seduce others into her bed and satisfy sexual urges, but very scientifically to gain an advantage. She is in fact asexual. Pheromones are potent tool while interrogating captives. Her skills are one of the reasons Firemane gave her the job. To a degree, her detached personality is the result of her job. Her task is to get inside the enemy's head. This can involve reading the minds of terrorists, dark cultists, murderers and so on.

To a degree, her persona is a mechanism to protect herself against what she sees - and to keep herself from being influenced by it. In that regard her empathy is both a gift and a curse. It means she feels others' responses as her own, and is in many cases able to read people like books, based on emotional response alone. Or gain a better idea of their motivations at any rate. This can be a problem though, particularly in crowds. In her youth she was often plagued by horrible headaches, as she lacked the control to shield her mind. Ziva has empathy, but this isn't the same thing as compassion. Empathy is the capacity to understand why a person did what they did and being able to put yourself in their shoes. Compassion is feeling sorry for someone when something bad happens to them and feeling a desire to alleviate their suffering. One is feeling as another, the other is feeling for another.

Within Firemane, her duties encompass questioning high-value captives, assessing important employees and investigating Firemane members suspected of treason, embezzlement and other sins. Her empathic abilities make her good at reading people and assessing their motivations. She is calm and methodical; when she wants to, she can be charming and gracious. But this pleasant facade can be dropped any moment. When angry, she makes an effort to remain polite and seldom raises her voice, but she is quite unforgiving of mistakes and faults. Tranquil fury is a good way to describe things. She has no moral qualms about utilising what is called 'coercive techniques' if she deems it the most effective way to get results. Somewhat paradoxically, she appears to be fervently loyal to Firemane. Perhaps in part because the corporation has given her a purpose to direct her energies towards. It also helps that her position allows her to wield a degree of power and gives her room to get things done her way. She has a propensity for hard work and timely fulfillment of assignments. One of her flaws are her control freak tendencies.


Holochess is one of her favourite hobbies. She often plays against droids. Sometimes she invites her colleagues to evening gatherings where they play chess, drink alcoholic beverages and listen to music or watch holofilms. She also fancies her talents as a writer and has published under a pseudonym. She regards herself as a creative mind and enjoys the company of intellectuals and writers. She is a fair violinist. Ziva is a talented linguist and speaks Basic, Huttese, Twi'leki, Xio and Eldarai.

Her view of sentient beings is a grim one: "Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him." There is nothing more seductive than freedom, but nothing more burdensome either. In fact, people are all too eager to find someone they can hand over the freedom they were born with so that they can escape the responsibility that comes with it. That is why sentients prostrate themselves before altars and are anxious to find ideas, religions or leaders to worship. People crave an authority to submit themselves to, though they will shirk any responsibility the moment their idols lead them ill. Ziva is unquestionably a follower of the Dark Side, though she has charted an independent course outside of the holy wars between competing Force cults that have time and again engulfed the Galaxy. She is an independent-minded woman and does not care for religious crusades. Instead she treats the Force as a source of strength. In that regard her outlook is rather secular.

As a Truthseeker, Ziva is attached to GRU, Firemane's counterintelligence agency. She has often worked with with Cross, a former Republic commando and rebel who now does wet work for Firemane. Both are rather different in character, but just as cynical. Ziva is the scalpel, Cross the hammer. Ziva finds her methods a bit crude, but recognises their utility. She answers to Colonel Kuwahara, the ambitious GRU director. Both women dislike each other.

COMBAT INFORMATION
Weapon of Choice: Lightsabre | the Force | Small Arms | Poison
Combat Function: Ziva is not a frontline fighter. She is a specialist rather than a generalist. Her skills lie in manipulation, intelligence gathering and analysis, not leading a daring charge across no man's land or engaging in thrilling lightsabre duels with Jedi or archvillains. Nonetheless, she is able to defend herself if need be, though she will avoid combat if possible. She is trained in the use of firearms, bladed weapons and hand to hand. Her preferred lightsabre style is Form III. Soresu gives her a solid defence against opponents, but also limits her offensive power. If an opponent does not tire out or make a mistake that gives her an opening, she is at risk of exhausting herself in a prolonged fight. She is in good shape, but not a powerhouse who can overwhelm someone through sheer physical presence.


Ziva is a proficient illusionist, enabling her to use the power of her mind to disorientate, confuse, manipulate or frighten opponents. She is skilled at instilling feelings of fear and paranoia. However, she is not able to summon illusions on an enormous scale. In other words, she cannot manipulate the minds of huge groups of enemy soldiers or summon a horde of illusionary constructs. Attempting to do so would drain her and leave her exhausted. She is better at manipulating the minds of individuals or small groups. Being a Falleen, she is naturally resistant to mind tricks. Her skills with poisons extends to an affinity for Force Affliction.

Her telekinetic abilities are below subpar. Powers such as Force Repulse, Choke or even a simple Push elude her. With great effort and concentration, she is able to lift and move small objects such as pebbles. On a practical level, her telekinesis is mostly limited to utility and little use for offensive or defensive purposes. Her telepathic abilities are rather strong, giving her the ability to relay information to allies while bypassing electronic communications jamming. She is also very skilled in Sense abilities and reading others' emotions. This can help her anticipate dangers and respond accordingly.

Her defensive Force abilities are very basic, which means she is not able to tank a hail of blaster bolts or other projectiles in the manner a combat-focused Force Warrior might be able to. Unless she can dodge, find cover or deflect with her lightsabre, she is just as much at risk of getting hurt or worse as a 'normal mortal' - and naturally there are many ranged weapons lightsabres are ineffective against, such as sonic weapons, high-velocity slugthrowers, bolters, Ssi-Ruuvi ion paddle beamers and so on. Finally, her focus on mental powers can put her at a disadvantage against droids and the Force Dead, as mental trickery does not work on them. Likewise, exposure to ysalamiri and Voidstone would be disadvantageous for her, as they would deprive her of her biggest asset. She is not skilled in the use of heavy weapons.

Strengths:

  • Talented covert operative and poisoner. Natural resistance to mind tricks.
  • Very skilled in mentalism and concealment Force abilities.
Weaknesses:
  • Defensive Firce abilities are basic and her telekinetic powers are subpar.
  • Mental abilities and illusions are strong, but she cannot use them to manipulate large groups of people. She is better at playing with the minds of individuals and small groups.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION

Ziva rarely speaks of her past. Admitting vulnerability is not part of her character. Those who dig into it would be surprised that she was a very different person back then. Spirited, carefree and naive. Events have shaped her into the hard, detached woman she is now. Along with a bad mistake that brought her family down. Like many of her kind she was born on Falleen, homeworld of the race with the same name.

Like most worlds it had been hit hard by the outbreak of the Gulag Virus and the Four Hundred Year Dark Age it produced. However, the old feudal power structure was eventually able to reassert itself. Traditionally Falleen society had been characterised by its feudal nature, with noble houses ruling over the lower classes. The upper echelons of Falleen society were ripe with deception, politics and vicious intrigue.

Ziva was not born into the ranks of the underclasses. Rather she was the offspring of a minor noble house. Unsympathetic tongues claimed that the House of Khalan had been founded by upstarts who exploite the chaos of the Dark Age and faked their lineage. Said rumours may contain some truth, but were probably also fuelled by jealousy. Though a minor house, the Khalans had been able to accummulate significant wealth and influence through clever investment and marriage alliances. Indeed, their nominal liege lord, Xzitot Zil owed them a tremendous sum of credits. They were very influential in the financial sector and even owned their own bank, which was an important pillar in their attempts to acquire more power. Inevitably such success created jealousy.

Lord Xzann, Ziva's lord father, was not content with their position in Falleen society. A deeply ambitious man, he reached for the sky. House Khalan forged profitable trade links with outside parties, seeking to equip his mercenaries with more advanced weapons. As a young noblewoman, Ziva enjoyed a privileged, somewhat spoilt life. However, she also chafed under the restrictions her station placed upon her. Her brother Zibur would inherit the family estate and title, but as the eldest daughter of the ruling lord she was obviously a good catch on the marriage market and expected to do her duty. That was the mindset her father Xzann and her mother Savan sought to instill into her. Thus she received an education that would prepare her for her duties as a noblelady. Her teachers stressed the importance of courtly etiquette and courtesy. Ziva would later liken her life to that of a gilded cage. All her needs were taken care of, but she was confined like a pretty bird. Music and riding were among her favourite pasttimes.

Ziva's Force Powers manifested at an early age. The first she displayed was Force empathy. Being a little child with no training or control over her ability, it caused her a good deal of pain. As she felt others' emotions as keenly as her own, walking amongst crowds was torturous for her. During one of her first public appearances at a festival, she embarrased her family by fainting because the overload was too strong. She was reprimanded harshly for this shameful display. Ironically, those same abilities later booned out to be a boon for her house, for she was able to discern the treasonous intent of a guard by sensing the hatred deep inside his heart. This was convenient because he had intended to dispose of her father during a hunting trip. Deciding that she needed to learn how to control her abilities, her family began to look for a teacher. This was not easy, as they wanted someone who could be controlled and would not be beholden to outside parties, such as the Jedi and Sith Orders. Though ostensibly more civilised than in other feudalist societies, the Falleen game of thrones was still deadly.

Their choice was a Falleen male called Xzel Zul. He was the bastard son of a trivial upstart family that barely counted as nobles. Their holdings were in pitiful condition and he had neither rank nor title. In short, he would be completely dependent on their favour. At least that was the assumption. In truth, Xzel was a conniving, ruthless opportunist who nurtured a deep resentment against his social betters. He was also ambitious. However, he was very skilled at dissimulation and hid his true nature well. Lacking opportunities for advancement on his homeworld, he had spent many years abroad, honing his Force powers and learning from a variety of teachers. Realising that Ziva could be a useful pawn for him, he yet his eyes on her.

Charming and a good conversationalist, he was able to worm his way into her confidence. To her, the dashing outsider seemed like a person who understood her. The tales of his exploits provided a window to a world outside of her gilded cage. In a twisted sort of way, Xzel might have come to care for her. However, it was more in the manner a person might care about a prized possession. Thus he soon conceived a desire to own her. Using his manipulative talents, he got her to confide in him during training. At the same time his mental talents allowed him to sway some of the guards and servants.

Meanwhile, the political manoeuvring continued. Seeking to strengthen the house, her lord father arranged a betrothal between Ziva and the son of an old Falleen noble house, the Harkonen. Ziva was obviously not asked for her opinion. She was expected to carry on the family line and do her part to ensure its continued perpetuation. Unsurprisingly, her prospective husband was not the stuff of fairy tales and songs. Later, her parents broke off the engagement, after her father succeeded in arranging an even more lucrative engagement with Xzonax Tunsoj, a man who was her senior by several decades. Zul might have had a hand in arranging it, for he was skilled at presenting himself as a loyal servant. He successfully played on Lord Xzann's vanity and ego. However, the scorned groom's family regarded this as a slight and nurtured a grudge.

Around this time Xzel began feeding information to the family of Xzitot Zil. While nominally their overlords, the Zils were in fact heavily in debt to the Khalans, which was naturally the cause of resentment on their part. So they conspired with the slighted Harkonens. Feeling resentful about being treated as a pawn, Ziva chose to confide in Xzel, even revealing some family secrets that he passed on to his friends, fuelling the Zils' belief that their vassals were plotting to turn on them. At a festival to celebrate the wedding, Zil and Harkonen mercenaries fell upon the Khalans. Forged documents and manipulated audio recordings were produced to justify this act.

Ziva's family was slaughtered at the festival, but she survived this massacre, having been spirited away by Xzel, who faked her death by replacing her with a servant whose appearance resembled hers and who had sometimes been used as a body double to ward off assassins. Her older brother Zibur was among the dead. Ironically, he had never particularly liked or trusted Xzel. However, Ziva had dismissed his claims and always spoken out in favour of her teacher in front of her father, whom Zibur had urged to banish the man, whose 'sorcerous ways' he distrusted. Xzel had contributed to the rift by insinuating to Ziva that her talents made her special and her brother was jealous.

Xzel presented himself to her as a protector, who wanted to shield her from harm and had warned her father not to trust the duplicitous nobles. With him as her teacher, she could learn the ways of the Force and get revenge. Naturally he made no mention of the handsome reward he had received for his duplicity. However, Ziva had grown suspicious of him, especially since he began to be blatant about his obsessive attraction to her. But she had no allies and there was always the danger that he could hand her over to her family's murderers. Having been a passive object for so long, she resolved to take her life into her own hands. As he had instructed her, she honed her Force powers, manifesting an aptitude for mental manipulation. She realised that she could use these gifts to manipulate his underlings and gain information.

Her suspicions were solidified when she ran into a former servant of her family. At first, the servant had colluded with Xzel, but then been framed. Ziva was forced to realise that she had contributed to her family's downfall by trusting Xzel and exposing family secrets to him. Guilt clawed at her, but she could not allow herself to wallow in self-pity. As Xzel himself had told her, there was no justice in the world - not unless she enforced it herself with her own two hands. So she played along. Becoming skilled at wearing her mask, she pretended to reciprocate his attraction to her. She also fed the belief that her powers were still unrefined while she was learning voraciously. When they were together one night, she drugged him by slipping something into his drunk. She had taken an antidote before taking a drink, lulling him into thinking that his was safe. When he was paralysed, she cut his throat. It was not a clean kill and so his death took some time, as he drowned in a pool of his own blood. However, she would later realise that she had made an error by killing him so early. She had gotten her revenge, but her family's killers were still at large. Moreover, he could have been useful to her if she'd strung him along until he was no longer needed. Due to her haste, many of his resources remained closed to her, though she was able to access one of his bank accounts, which provided her with some funds.

Deprived of his 'protection', it was not safe for her to remain on Falleen. Realising this she departed her homeworld after requisitioning her dead teacher's starship. A loyal servant accompanied here. Ziva travelled for a while, seeking out teachers who could educate her in the ways of the Force. Her path led her to the Lords of the Fringe. This decentralised confederation had carved out an empire for itself in the Unknown Regions. While it was dominated by Force-users of a darker persuasion and had Sith in its ranks, its approach to ideological issues was very laissez-faire. This suited Ziva's purposes, as she was disinterested in the religious disputes between Sith and Jedi. Teeming with challenges and filled with dangerous monsters, the Unknown Regions were the perfect place for a young neophyte to improve her skills.

Entering the services of the Fringe Confederation, she proved her worth when she unmasked an Omega Protectorate spy who had infiltrated the court of local planetary ruler, whose territory bordered the so-called Omega Neutral Zone. This jumpstarted Ziva's in the intelligence service. Her empathic skills, strong work ethic and attention to detail served her well. She was involved in counterinsurgency operations against Rebel cells in the Neutral Zone, which was the site of a cold war of sorts between the Fringe and the Protectorate. Ziva was not primarily a frontline fighter, but an analyst, interrogator and profiler. When the Rebel Alliance - the Merill/Castillon one - conducted a raid on a Fringe bioweapons laboratory on Endor, Ziva happened to be present due to her role in the security services. There she encountered Moira Skaldi, an amoral assassin droid who was the Alliance's token evil teammate. Her fight with the Terminatrix went very poorly, for Ziva was still rather inexperienced in combat. Her empathic skills enabled her to sense that the blonde woman was not human but a machine. However, the HRD overpowered and beat her. Ziva ended up in a medbay with several broken bones and a gunshot wound that needed treatment.

Her injuries kept her from playing an active role in the Fringe invasion of Atrisia, though she worked behind the scenes by serving as an intelligence analyst. She was back in the field for the Battle of O'reen, where a Republic invasion force clashed with the Fringe. There she was forced into battle when the command post she was working in came under attack. During the course of the battle Ziva fought and slew a Jedi Knight. While her duelling skills were inferior, she was able to weaken the Jedi by getting into her head and mentally assaulting her, before shooting her with a concealed slugthrower. Ziva served in an intelligence role during the Fringe invasion of Omega Protectorate controlled Eriadu. She worked with Tarkinite exiles who sought to restore House Tarkin to power. Ultimately these machinations came to naught as the Fringe withdrew, but she displayed her organisational skills.

While all these events took place, she strove to increase her strength in the Force, learning from a variety of sources. Eschewing flaschier abilities, she focused on the powers of the mind. Over time, she distanced herself more and more from her old life. Her family was gone, she was responsible only to herself. She held on to her desire for revenge, letting it fuel her. But she was also free of the shackles tradition and family had placed on her. She evolved into a detached, ruthless person, willing to use trickery, deceit and cold-blooded violence to succeed. Here in the Fringe her name and lost titles did not matter, only the practical contributions she could bring to the table. She appreciated being judged on her own merits, instead of being treated in a certain way because of her lineage.

Throughout all this, she kept abreast of events on Falleen, where the noble houses continued to pursue their intrigues. She learned that the entente between Houses Zil and Harkonnen had not lasted. The Tunsojs, humiliated by the slaughter that had taken place at the celebrations, were disconctent and Xzonaz was still alive. Ziva returned to Falleen in the aftermath of the Netherworld Event. She would have come sooner, but the war and strife had kept her occupied elsewhere. Akala's mad rampage had not left Falleen untouched and the disruption it caused had deepened the fractures. She returned to her homeworld in disguise and under an assumed name. Slowly she wormed her way into the confidence of the Zils. They had once been her family's overlords before turning on them, so it was only fitting. She was a different person now: More patient, able to wear a mask and play a long game instead of acting on impulse. She helped sow suspicion against the Harkonens, while using her Force talents to slowly sway notable minions of House Zil. She set up an attempt on the Zil patriarch's son so that she save him from danger.

Secretly, she established contact with Xzonas Tunsoj, revealing herself to him. She swallowed the distate she felt for the man who would have been her husband had things gone differently, stringing him along. Ironically, she was not the only one wearing her mask, for he actually preferred the company of men. Regardless, his house wanted revenge as well, so they recognised her utility. Her skills were on display when she set up a sting operation to incite the Harkonens and Zils in deadly hatred against one another. Ultimately, both houses bled each other white, with the Tunsojs rising up. Ziva, who had disguised herself as a Zil soldier for the final slaughter, blinded Xzitot Zil and tormented him with horrible illusions, making him believe the ghosts of those he had murdered had come to claim him. His death was neither slow nor painless. With her revenge accomplished, she was at a crossroads. She could have reclaimed her heritage, but she felt no desire to be a noble. So she reclaimed her family estate and funds, but appointed a trusted servant to administrate them. Her immediate family was gone, but some distant relatives were still around, so she stipulated that they would inherit.

Having put her affairs in order, she left Falleen behind her. For a while, she associated with the Techno Union, a corporatist technocracy that held sway over the Southern Systems. The Obsidian Order's pragmatic approach to the Force and its affinity for high-tech appealed to her. However, she did not remain for long. Eventually, her path led her to Firemane Industries. Her entrance into the corporation was rather undramatic. She studied their holonet site, found the layout to be gaudy and too dominated by fire symbols. The same applied to their tendency to slap the word fire onto every suborganisation. However, the pay was very good. Moreover, the Order of Fire and their Force-using branch had a very practical attitude. Ziva had always been disinterested in religious dogma, so what she craved was structure and room to do what she was good at.

So she sent a job application and shortly thereafter was invited for an interview. This was around the time after the Eldorai Exodus from Kaeshana. Ziva had done her homework and prepared herself thoroughly for the interview. She spent a lot of time researching Firemane's leaders, especially Siobhan Kerrigan, the Force-using part of the wife-and-wife duo that governed the corporation. Her past with the Fringe and the Techno Union could be problematic, given the CEO's stance on Sith. Ziva had no intention of rising through the ranks by fawning on Siobhan though. More in-depth research via her sources revealed to her that the couple had had problems with infiltrators and assassins in the past.

Thus when she was invited, she presented herself as a pragmatic, atheistic Force-user who specialised in intelligence matters and craved order, emphasising her dissatisfaction with Jedi and Sith. Having taken note of the directors' low class origins, she also dropped in some derogatory comments about entitled blue bloods who had not earned their position. It was not wholly faked since her experiences on Falleen had disillusioned her more than a little. Her expertise in analysing and collating intelligence seemed to appeal ot her prospective bosses. The same applied to her interrogation skills.

However, words meant less than deeds. As expected Siobhan was action-orientated. So she gave Ziva a test, which consisted of two parts. In the first part, she was subjected to 'enhanced interrogation', where a bunch of mentalists probed and assaulted her mind to test her and her endurance. The goal was not to keep them out indefinitely, but to show her stamina, ability to cope while attackers were trying to tear through her mind and keep the most vital secrets inside her mind protected. In the second stage, she was given the names of ten mid-level Firemane employees suspected of selling Firemane secrets and ordered to investigate and question them. Only one of them was guilty though. The others were just lazy, ambitious or good liars. She recommended sacking two and assigning another to an outpost on a third world planet. The actual spy was executed. Ziva was hired and given an officer commission.

After spending some time familiarising herself with the inner workings of the Order of Fire, Ziva was inducted into the Truthseekers, a secretive divison of the Order that focused on counterintelligence. At the time, Firemane's intelligence branch was dominated by a group of Atrisian expatriates who had previously been part of the now defunct Atrisian Empire's intelligence community, much like how Dahomians were overrepresented in their military and command staff. The Atrisians were a rather closed circle, and though Ziva was outwardly cordial, she came to dislike a number of them. Perhaps one of the reasons Siobhan hired her was to impose a check on some of her underlings. After all, trust is good. Control is better, especially when dealing with minions who are darksiders like you. For a while, she was also responsible for vetting Siobhan and Tegaea's 'personal attendants'. At times she accompanied Siobhan or Tegaea to important diplomatic or business negotiations, assuming the cover of an aide. There she interpreted emotions, body language and facial expressions to determine if the other party was lying.

After the conquest of the Underealm and the surrender of the Xioquo, she was involved in counterinsurgency operations against guerillas and dark cultists. She displayed fortitude and perseverence after being captured and cruelly tortured by Xioquo insurgents. While being moved from place to place along with some other captives, she was able to leave subtle clue for a rescue team. She established contact with some other captives using, among other things, tap codes. Many of them were Xioquo who were considered 'race traitors' for 'collaborating' with the new regime of Queen Liavonda. She was able to snap her cuffs, at the cost of hurting her wrists badly, attempting an escape with some captives while they were being brought to the deepest depths of the Underealm. A team of Firemane commandos and Xioquo Sepoys intervened, saving the captives from being killed by eliminating the rebels. She gave her Xioquo torturer a taste of her own medicine by subjecting her to invasive mentalism. Her captive swallowed a suicide pill, but Ziva ripped the knowledge she needed from her mind in her last moments, albeit at the price at putting herself in peril. The information she had been able to gather during and after her captivity helped foil a terrorist plot.

She became acquainted with Cross, former Republic soldier and gun for hire, during an anti-Reki operation on Atrisia in the aftermath of the Galactic Alliance occupation. Both worked together to bring down the Reki syndicate Cross had until recently been employed by. Ziva did not participate in the Kaeshana Rebellion, but played a role in the aftermath. During the battle a group of Firemane soldiers had turned traitor and defected to the First Order. This motivated Siobhan Kerrigan to order a comprehensive screening of the corporation's ranks. Moreover, back on Tygara, an Eldorai noblewoman called Tarissa Cadalthor, who had once been ally of Siobhan, tried to launch a coup and seize the Eldorai throne, attempting to scapegoat Firemane and foreigners in general for the loss of Kaeshana. Tarissa, who had tried to stir up unrest in the capital and rally support for an anti-foreign pogrom, was executed by Siobhan in front of the Eldorai council of nobles after evidence of her treason had been uncovered.

A number of Firemane employees and officers were arrested under suspicion of having hostile associations or being engaged in acts prejudicial to Firemane Industries and the Tygaran Alliance. Ziva was heavily involved in this process. She also acted as Cross' handler when the Firemane wet works specialist assassinated the Duchess of Caladan, one of Tarissa's allies among the peerage. There had been insufficient evidence to put the crone on trial, as she'd sung the same tune as Tarissa in the council, but not exposed herself that much. Cross solved the problem by blowing up the Duchess' yacht. Dissatisfied with the present management team's performance, Siobhan ordered a reorganisation of Firemane's intelligence apparatus, which resulted in a promotion for Ziva, who assumed a position of leadership among the Truthseekers and in GRU, with the title of Deputy Director.
 
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