Keeve Trennis's History
Keeve Trennis was a human female Jedi Knight who lived during the High Republic Era. Originally the Padawan of the Trandoshan Jedi Master Sskeer, Trennis rose to the rank of Knight in 232 BBY after saving a city of diminuitive Ximpi on the planet Shuraden from space-faring ridadi. She found herself stationed aboard the newly-christened Starlight Beacon, a Republic space station that stood as a symbol of hope and prosperity in the Outer Rim Territories. Although she had great skills, Trennis harbored feelings of self-doubt while stationed on the Beacon. Nevertheless, she resolved to be the best Jedi she could be while in service to the Order, and ended up being instrumental in the fight against the Drengir.
Path to knighthood
Keeve Trennis underwent training in the ways of the Jedi Order during the High Republic Era, becoming the Padawan of the Jedi Master Sskeer. The two went on dozens of missions together as master and apprentice as the Trandoshan taught Trennis the ways of the Force. After suffering the loss of both his right arm and his fellow Jedi, Jora Malli, at the Battle of Kur, Sskeer took Trennis to the planet Shuraden aboard a Jedi Vector in 232 BBY. Once on the colorful world in the Galactic Frontier, Trennis encountered an inquisitive local, a Ximpi named Kanrii, who excitedly followed her until the Padawan was ambushed by her master, engaging his student in a sparring match. The duel ended with Trennis sending Sskeer hurtling through a tree. The young Padawan helped her master off the ground and confessed that she was confused why he had brought her to this place when she should have been preparing for her Jedi Trials. The Trandoshan revealed to her that they had come to Shuraden for exactly that reason.
Sskeer led her to a place known as the Needles, a group of ancient rock pillars that rose above the planet's surface. After informing her that many individuals had tried and failed to climb the Needles for millennia, the Jedi Master instructed her to scale the pillars and find a Tythonian pendant that he had hung from one of the peaks. Although she questioned how the one-armed man had climbed the supposedly unclimbable, Trennis began her work. She was followed by the winged Kanrii, who curiously wondered how the Jedi could brave the ascension without her own pair of wings. As she reassured the alien that she would be fine, the fragile pillar broke under the weight of Trennis' hands. She drew her lightsaber and stabbed it's blade into the rock, bringing her descent to a halt. Hanging from her lightsaber hilt, Trennis was less than thrilled when a second inquisitive Ximpi, Lekaki, flew up to greet his friend Kanrii. The two tiny beings discussed the Jedi's predicament when a swarm of enormous insects burst through the Needles, killing Lekaki and sending Trennis plummeting to the ground.
As she caught her bearings, the insects proceeded to swarm a nearby Ximpi city, throwing its inhabitants into chaos. Trennis chose to abandon her Trial and boarded the Vector starfighter, ignoring her master as he called to her. Landing outside the city, she contacted Jedi Master Estala Maru aboard the Starlight Beacon and informed him of the carnage. He told Trennis that the beasts were a species of star-locust known as ridadi that traveled through space once a generation, though their natural instincts should have caused them to avoid an inhabited world like Shuraden. Reaching out through the Force, Trennis connected with the hive mind of the creatures and realized that the signal of the newly constructed Starlight Beacon had disrupted the ridadi's senses and thrown them off-course. Trennis rigged her Vector to give off the same signal as Starlight and sent it flying off into the atmosphere on autopilot while Maru recalibrated the space station to transmit on a different frequency. Their plan worked, and the ridadi followed the starfighter off into space as Trennis and Kanrii returned to the ravaged city.
Knight of Starlight
Trennis helped the displaced Ximpi repair their homes, using the Force to lift the stone of their buildings back into place. She was confronted by Sskeer, who questioned her as to the whereabouts of their Vector. Learning that it was gone, he left his Padawan alone with the Ximpi to contact Starlight for the delivery of a transport, causing Trennis to suspect that she was in trouble. On the return trip to the Beacon aboard the Radiant Blessing, the duo stopped at the moon Wevo in the Haileap system, where they rescued the stranded passengers of the Steady Wing, a Galactic Republic ship that had been bombed in a Nihil attack. The passengers included the young Jedi Vernestra Rwoh and Imri Cantaros as well as Avon Starros, daughter of Senator Ghirra Starros.
The group then returned to Starlight Beacon, which was scheduled to have its formal dedication very soon. Sskeer brought his Padawan before Jedi Master Avar Kriss, who had just been named marshal of the station. Still believing she was about to be reprimanded, Trennis was surprised when Kriss ignited her lightsaber. The Jedi Master proclaimed Trennis as a Jedi Knight, protector of light in the galaxy. All three attended the dedication ceremony afterwards, where Trennis reflected on her journey thus far. She guessed that Sskeer had somehow known that the ridadi would attack and planned for her to be there to save the Ximpi. As she and every other Jedi present raised their lightsabers to the sky, Trennis shed tears and personally vowed to always uphold light and life.
Darkness of the Drengir
Sometime later, the Starlight Beacon picked up a faint, scrambled distress signal from the Kazlin system. Trennis was one of a team of Jedi dispatched in a T-1 shuttle to assist, along with her former Master Sskeer as well as Terec and Ceret, Kotabi bond-twins whom Trennis had difficulty distinguishing. Piloting the shuttle, Trennis brought the ship into the star system to discover that the group had been too late: all of the Jedi beheld a ravaged starship with bodies and wreckage floating around it. Trennis and her companions, however, sensed life aboard the vessel, prompting the newly-minted Jedi Knight to bring the shuttle in to dock.
Boarding through the T-1's docking tube, Sskeer ordered the team to don their rebreathers upon realizing that the ship was filled with noxious gas and slaughtered corpses, which likely meant that the vessel had fallen victim to the Nihil, the group of maruaders that Sskeer had battled at Kur. The Trandoshan ordered Trennis and Ceret to head for the flight deck while he and Terec searched the rest of the ship. As they ventured further into the ship, Trennis began to worry about Sskeer, sensing his unrest and noting his atypical communication with her. She and Ceret soon stumbled upon the corpse of a large Hutt riddled with stab wounds and blaster burns. In another part of the ship, Sskeer and Terec were attacked by a Nihil sniper. As Trennis ran to find them, she found that her former master had not only killed the assassin but also violently mutilated the enemy's remains.
Sskeer left for the planet Sedri Minor with Terec on orders from Marshal Kriss to investigate the origins of a barley crop found aboard the Hutt ship. Worried about her master, Trennis volunteered to go along with Sskeer, but he ordered the young Knight to remain aboard the vessel and tend to Terec's injuries until Kriss and Vernestra Rwoh arrived aboard the Ataraxia. Once the cruiser arrived, Trennis showed Kriss the Nihil's shattered corpse and confessed her worries to the marshal, who realized she should not have sent Sskeer on missions after his trauma at Kur. As they spoke, Terec collapsed into the arms of Jedi Knight Rwoh. The Kotabi had sensed their twin falling victim to an unknown danger on Sedri Minor.
Rotten Roots
After arriving at Sedri aboard the Ataraxia, Trennis was forced to watch as Terec grew increasingly wild and hostile, frothing at the mouth as they lashed out against Sskeer. The Trandoshan, in turn, struck back, condemning the Kotabi as a mindless fool while Kriss tried to steady the two squabbling Jedi. Feeling helpless, Trennis left the ship and encountered a group of concerned locals who offered her and her companions bread, thinking they may be hungry. In conversation, Trennis was told that several settlers had recently disappeared, including a young Rodian boy named Julus. The boy's mother confessed that some considered Sedri Minor to be cursed, a belief bolstered by the fact that their crop of Vratixian barley was mysteriously rotting in the fields. Before Trennis could discover more, she was accosted by Kalo Sulman, the town's isolationist Speaker who viewed the Jedi as trespassers.
Unsatisfied, Trennis set out on her own to learn more about the disappearances. Although she intended to go alone, she was followed by a human child named Bartol, a friend of Julus desperate to find the missing Rodian. As the two made their way through the Vratixia fields, Trennis began to sense an encroaching darkness before coming across a massive sinkhole. Bartol eagerly jumped down the pit, forcing Trennis to catch the boy with the Force before impacting the ground below. Deeper in the cavern, Trennis felt an ominous, expectant shadow waiting for them. At the end of the tunnel, the duo discovered the bodies of Ceret and Julus hanging above them, with rotting vines protruding from their mouths, ears, and noses.
Cutting them down, Trennis determined that Ceret held onto life, but the boy Julus had died. Devastated, Bartol sought solace with the young Jedi Knight. Trennis consoled the child as best she could, embracing him in the dark pit. Still needing to tend to Ceret, she trusted Bartol to hold her saber as a light so that she could inspect the vines growing from the Kotabi's body. Ceret regained consciousness, but they were not themselves; their mind had been infected by the Drengir, an ancient race of sentient plant-based beings that desired to consume all flesh. Ceret turned on Trennis as Drengir began to converge on them from deeper within the tunnel. Avar Kriss arrived, bursting in from the surface and slicing a Drengir in two. Although Kriss was able to talk some sense into Ceret, the group was halted in their tracks by an infected Sskeer, who held his lightsaber in a newly-grown arm of vines and roots. Now controlled by the Drengir, Sskeer captured Trennis, Kriss, and Ceret, wrapping and suspending their bodies with vines, while Bartol was also held captive by the Drengir.
Trennis attempted to reach her former master, insisting that he was not Drengir, that she still believed in him, and that they would work through whatever was hurting him together. With Keeve's encouragement, and his own strength of will, Sskeer broke free from the Drengir's control, revealing that he joined with the Drengir in order to understand them, and their weaknesses. Sskeer then used the force and his connection to the Drengir to free Trennis, Kriss, and Ceret, as well as push away and weaken the Drengir. Sskeer apologized to Kriss, and told Trennis that he had a lot to tell her about what he was going through in the weeks since the Battle of Kur. Trennis, Kriss, Ceret and Sskeer, began to battle against the Drengir, and in doing so freed Bartol from the Drengir's capture.
Encounter with the Hutt Cartel
Trennis, Kriss, and Ssker went to confront Kal Sulman. Sskeer insisted that Sulman had known the Drengir had taken root on his planet and started to threaten him, but Trennis attempted to keep Sskeer in control. But Keeve interrupted the interrigation when she noticed a large vessel landed nearby. The owners of the vessel revealed themselves to be part of the Hutt Cartel, and declared that they were seizing the planet in its name. Sulman revealed he had made a bargain with the Hutts, promising to give them regular payments of grain in exchange for protection.
Kriss attempted to negotiate with the leader of the present sect of the Hutt Cartel, Myarga the Benevolent. Sskeer was unsupportive of this tactic, saying she wasn't doing enough, but Trennis expressed her support, saying it was doing something. However, Trennis' attempt to quell Sskeer's discontent failed, and with his connection to the Drengir further agitating this feeling, Sskeer lashed out against Myarga, taking hold of her with his vine arm. In response to this, Myarga called on her people to retaliate against the Jedi, sending the two groups into battle, and seeing Trennis defend against the Cartel's attacks alongside, Kriss, Terec, and Ceret.
During the battle with the Cartel, Trennis and Kriss approached Sskeer, who was still in hold of Myarga. Trennis attempted to reach Sskeer once again, begging him to push back against the Drengir's influence by reconciling with the pain and hurt he was feeling, begging him to come back to them. Trennis sliced off Sskeer's vine arm in an attempt to further disconnect him from the Drengir, but it did not work, and the Drengir took full control of Skeer once again. Despite not getting the outcome she wanted, Trennis continued to try and reach Sskeer, insisting that he was still there inside of him despite the Drengir's control.
Eventually, Sskeer was able to break through the Drengir's control and talk to Trennis, though he told her he didn't have much time to speak to her before they took over his mind again. He revealed that he didn't just become part of the Drengir to gain intelligence on them, but because he was losing his connection to the force. He explained that he didn't tell Trennis because he felt like he was letting her down. Sskeer continued, telling Trennis that she was essential to his plan to stop the Drengir. She would have to perform a mind touch on Sskeer and reach into the the Drengir's telepathic root system. Then she could convince the Drengir that the people�??or 'meat' as the Drengir call them�??they were attempting to eat were 'spoiled' and would be poison if eaten. Sskeer needed Trennis specifically to do it because the mind touch would only work on Sskeer if he lowered his defenses to someone he trusted.
Keeve executed Sskeer's plan successfully and convinced the Drengir to stop attacking them. In doing this she stopped the Drengir's attack on Sedri Minor, as well as their assault on Starlight Beacon, which was occurring concurrently. However after Keeve completed the mind touch, Sskeer fell into an unconscious and comatose state, leaving Trennis overwhelmed and distraught.
Master Avar Kriss led a continued assault against the Drengir in the Outer Rim with the help of Myarga and the Hutt Clan due to a newly formed alliance with the Jedi. While this occurred, Keeve Trennis stayed on Starlight Beacon in order to watch over a comatose Sskeer, who was being held in a stasis field to keep his Drengir infestation in check. She worked closely with the Anacondan doctor Gino'le, who was serving as the Chief of Medical Operations on Starlight Beacon. Trennis wanted to run many tissue scans in order to find something physically ill about Sskeer, but Gino'le suggested that Sskeer's issue, was not physical, but due to a crisis of faith.
After being overwhelmed by the Drengir on Daivak in the Outer Rim, Kriss called for reinforcements from every Jedi on Starlight Beacon. Master Estala Maru insisted to Trennis that she must go with him to help Kriss as well, but she refused to leave Sskeer. Instead, Trennis deactivated the stasis field and allowed the vines of Sskeer's vine arm to enwrap and enter her body, determined that Sskeer was the key to fighting the Drengir and that he just needed help. Doing this connected Trennis to the Drengir's root mind, and allowed her to speak to Sskeer. Trennis was overwhelmed and started to cry when she was finally reunited with him again. After she regained composure, Sskeer explained that the root mind allows the Drengir to telepathically communicate by connecting them all, and that understanding it would be the key to defeating the Drengir.
While Trennis was within the Drengir's root mind, Kriss could feel her song within the Drengir and told Maru to find her. Maru and Jedi archivist OrbaLin found Trennis infested with the vines. Trennis was able to communicate to Maru that she and Sskeer were looking for the heart of the Drengir. Kriss, who heard this on comms, put together from something that Sskeer talked about on Sedri Minor that Trennis was referring to The Great Progenitor, the oldest and greatest of all the Drengir that had been released on the Amaxine Station earlier that year. However, locating the Great Progenitor proved harder than Trennis hoped, as the roots of the root mind started to take hold of Sskeer and Trennis. Trennis feared that they would not be strong enough to resist, but Maru and OrbaLin reached out to them through the force and were able to make the roots in the root mind retreat. But before the roots could fully retreat, Trennis and Sskeer grabbed onto them. They pulled the two of them through the root mind and took them to the Great Progenitor at the center of the root mind. Trennis was able to see into the Progenitor's mind with the intent of finding its location. However, the Progenitor attempted to stop her by stabbing her with a root. In response to this, Sskeer, determined not to lose Keeve, managed to rip his vine arm out of his body in the real world, and in doing so disconnect himself and Trennis from the Drengir root mind. Sskeer believed that doing this had caused them to not be able to find the location of the Progenitor, but Trennis revealed that she had been able to scratch it onto her arm guard while connected to the Progenitor's mind. The name she scratched was 'Mulita' which Maru determined to be a system deep within wild space, allowing the Jedi to be one step closer to defeating the Progenitor and the Drengir.
