Vail Tormin

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Vail Tormin was a human bounty hunter who was active during the Galactic Civil War. She was hired by the Zerek Besh criminal syndicate leader Sliro Barsha to kill the criminal Kay Vess. She was one of the best bounty hunters in the Outer Rim Territories.

Biography[]

Early History[]

Vail was born in the Outer Rim in the final years of the Old Republic. She began her Bounty Hunting career as a teenager. During one mission, an encounter with a rival assassin resulted in injures which required her right hand, and a few fingers on her left hand, to be replaced with cybernetics. Despite this setback, by the time Vail was 21 standard years of age, she had carved a respectable niche for herself as a reliable alternative for those who could not afford the services of Boba Fett or Cad Bane. A highly skilled businessperson, she managed to amass a small fortune which she kept on Niamos. Vail was also known for her refusal to accept bounties offered by the Galactic Empire, due to a mixture of an unpleasant past experience with them and her unique code of honor.^[2]

Hunting Kay Vess[]

Three years after the Battle of Yavin, Vail was hired by Sliro Barsha of the Zerek Besh to track down Kay Vess, who had broken into Sliro's personal vault and stolen a EML-850 light freighter called the Trailblazer. Figuring that Kay was a loner with little to no resources, who didn't even know how to properly fly the ship she stole, Vail anticipated this would be an easy assignment to complete.^[2]

Vail subsequently tracked Kay to Toshara, where the Trailblazer had crashed due to Kay's lack of experience in piloting starships. Kay had found a mechanic, Waka, who had agreed to repair the ship. However, in order to pay for Waka's services, and to acquire some particularly rare parts that needed to be replaced, Kay had was forced to resort to conducting numerous missions for various individuals belonging to the local criminal population. As Kay made her presence known in the planet's underworld, Vail therefore picked up the trail and eventually made contact with Waka, who ultimately sold Kay out to Vail in an attempt to acquire the Trailblazer for himself. After killing Waka when his attempt to murder the young thief risked compromising her bounty, which specified that Key was to be brought in alive, Vail pursued her intended target, eventually cornering her. Kay was only saved by the timely intervention of Jaylen Vrax and his droid enforcer ND-5. ND-5 easily overpowered Vail, and the three of them escaped on the Trailblazer.^[2]

Anticipating that Kay's search for allies against the Zerek Besh would eventually lead her to Jabba Desilijic Tiure, who harboured a particular hatred for Sliro, Vail subsequently made the journey to the Hutt's Palace on the planet Tatooine, and the two of them laid a trap for Kay. Kay arrived not long after and was captured, but it was then that Jabba revealed he had had no intention of allowing Vail to leave his palace with Kay as her prisoner, as doing so would be tantamount to handing over a free victory to the Zerek Besh. Instead, he dropped both women, along with Hoss, into the feeding pit of his rancor. Spotting a pair of hungry massifs eying them, Hoss attempt to pull at his chain to throw Vail towards the beasts in an effort to save himself but Vail quickly released him, resulting in Hoss being killed instead. Vail and Kay agreed to work together in order to ensure their mutual survival, and fought their way out of the pit and to the hanger, killing multiple Hutt enforcers along the way. By the end, the hanger doors sealed and the rancor soon appeared from the other end. Vail quickly got herself upon an upper platform and activate the overhead conveyor system of fuel pods for Kay to shoot over the rancor, burning it, before repeated tricking it into ramming the hanger door, eventually knocking it out and create a large enough breach for them both to escape.^[2]

However, their victory was quickly short lived as they found Hutt enforcers waiting for them outside. Brought back before Jabba, despite Kay insisting she do the talking, Vail cut her off, and formally apologized to the crime lord. Fortunately, Jabba was thoroughly entertained by their escape and offered them both a chance to leave Tatooine alive. He ordered them both to infiltrate Fort Sunfire and recover the identity of a Zerek Besh agent embedded in Jabba's palace, much to Vail's confusion, due to the fact that the fort was Imperial controlled; Jabba merely mocked her ignorance. Despite Kay's insistence that she perform this task by herself, Jabba made it clear that the two women were to work together.^[2]

After Kay departed Jabba's palace, Vail commed her, explained that she scanned her comms the second they escaped the pit and provided her a rendezvous point outside Fort Sunfire. Later on, when Kay showed up, Vail ordered her to infiltrate the fort to obtain the identity of the mole while she secured their escape route. Naturally the thief objected to being subjected to performing most of the work, so Vail suggested she might tell Jabba she died on the job to force her compliance.^[2]

After separating from Kay, Vail commed her that she was going to go dark before confronting a Zerek Besh agent in the base, demanding to know why Zerek Besh was working with the Empire but was rebuffed. When asked the reason for her presence, Vail claimed to be on a personal mission from Sliro, which the agent found suspicious, as he was doing the same thing. Vail was then forced to shoot him as he went for the alarm. Shortly afterwards, Kay commed her, demanding to know what happened. Vail quickly claimed ignorance, unaware that Kay had witnessed her via security camera, suggested she triggered the alarm.^[2]

The women then fled the base with Kay on her S57 Cardinal and Vail on a 74-Z speeder bike with the Imperials in hot pursuit. Vail then became suspicious when the Imperials suddenly fell back and her concerns were well founded upon their arrival in Mos Algo with Jabba's men nowhere in sight. Upon calling Bib Fortuna via holo, they learn that Fortuna recalled his men upon realizing the two of them were followed, shortly before their comms became jammed, followed by the Imperials arriving in force. Vail and Kay were forced into a standoff against the increasing number of stormtroopers before ND-5 showed up in the Trailblazer and took out an AT-ST. The two women then scrambled up the boarding ramp before fleeing the area.^[2]

Traveling back to Docking Bay 94 in Mos Eisley, the trio got Jabba on the holocomm, who thanked them for their work and cleared their debt. After Kay thanked ND-5 for the rescue, Vail told her that she was lucky to have a friend like that droid. Kay then assumed that their truce was over and readied herself for a fist fight, but Vail claimed not to be in the mood and departed to give her bounty a head start.^[2]

Having second thoughts about her assignment, Vail contacted Sliro via a holographic channel, declaring that she was abandoning the pursuit of Kay Vess. Sliro blackmailed her into continuing the hunt, however, threatening to seize her assets on Niamos if she walked away. Collecting knowledge that allowed her to discern that Kay and her allies, which now had ties with a cell of the Rebel Alliance working off Akiva, would be undertaking another attempt to rob her employer's vault in Westhill Palace, Vail helped Sliro and his bodyguards set a trap for them.^[2]

Kay and the Rebels eventually proceeded to rob the vault as expected, which contained no money, but instead held a Codex containing of highly classified ISB files that Sliro had accumulated to blackmail his rivals and advance his career. Sliro, Vail, and Sliro's guards surprised Kay and the other infiltrators, resulting in a tense armed standoff, during which Kay informed Vail that Sliro was in reality a deep cover operative for the Imperial Security Bureau. Angered at being lied to, and by an Imperial no less, Vail betrayed her employer, shooting Sliro's guards and knocking the crime lord himself out, then escaped with Kay and the rest of her allies.^[2]

After giving the Rebels a chance to copy the files on the Codex, Kay provided the original hardcopy to Vail for safekeeping, declining the bounty hunter's suggestion for a partnership, but departing with her on good terms. With the knowledge at her fingertips, Vail decided to use the information on the Codex to secure a leadership position for herself inside the Bounty Hunters' Guild.^[2]