Audren Swiftblade

Lady Audren Swiftblade, Countess of Varona (b. May 8, 2178) was born at Uchelcastel Manor in the Hylon Territories of Talaria to the Twenty-third Viscount of Varona, Huwcyn, and Kastel Swiftblade. Audren is the oldest of eight children as such she was the heir to the family lands which were destroyed during the Narlin Civil War.

EARLY YEARS

Audren grew up like most noble children with private tutors teaching her the basics in math, history, science and, literature, but also military tactics and training with bladed weapons.  While melee weapons were centuries out of date the Narlin Empire was tied to tradition, and officers and nobles were expected to know martial combat.

At the age of thirty Audren was considered an adult and left Verona from the Military Academy located at the outskirts of Ev’tel, the capital of the Narlin Empire. The Hylon Territories were secluded and Hylons had never had Gorvan slaves like their Narlin cousins, and this melting pot of races and culture along with the massive metropolis of Ev’tel was a massive culture shock and took considerable time for her to find her place in the big city.

While slavery had ended long ago in the Empire there were still no civil rights afforded to the reptilian Gorvan.  While citizenship was guaranteed to Narlins and Hylons no such provision was afforded the Gorvan.  She used her position as the heir to Verona to gain support and petition Parliament for Gorvan civil rights. An effort that eventually proved fruitless.

In 2218 Audren Swiftblade graduated from the Military Academy after ten years as a tavet (ensign) where she served as centurion commander within the 3rd Legion.  Over the course of the next sixty years, Audren served in the military off and on eventually attaining the rank of  Torres Le’Vek (Commander).  Both Hylons and Narlins are very long-lived and it is common for them to not stick to a particular profession uninterrupted.

During this time she married and had six children with a merchant from her local province. They built a home in the Hylon city of the Bormel, and Audren started to attend to her father’s parliamentary duties.  She pushed several reforms including the establishment of the Gorvan homeworld in a nearby star system where the planet would be renamed Gorvan Prime.  She continued to push for Gorvan civil rights and sponsored several for the Narlin Military Academy which caused considerable controversy and nearly lead to her being stripped of her titles, but Emperor Halgen Stormtalon was sympathetic and stopped the proceedings.

In 2278 Audren returned to the Military Academy and transitioned from Infantry to starship command. The two-year course trained her in everything she needed to know about ship operations and she was given command of the light destroyer HRS Gwynedd as part of the 12th Fleet, Task Group 5.

CARDASSIAN WAR

First contact with the Cardassian Union began with the invasion and occupation of Jalkor Prime.  To the Cardassians, it was just another lightly populated planet rich in resources used in the construction of starships. To the Narlins it was home to the sacred temple of Ev, the Goddess of love and fertility. War quickly broke out.

Narlins were technologically inferior to the Cardassian Empire, but what they lacked in raw power they more than made up for in sheer numbers.  Narlin engineers developed a computer virus that would disrupt the ship’s systems allowing Narlin infantry to board the enemy ship and take over from the inside.

On July 2, 2280, Audren lead the first Narlin raid onto a Cardassian ship, and Remember Ev” became the battle cry for the duration of the war.  The virus had disrupted the shielding around the warp core, and the resulting radiation rendered energy weapons inoperable, and the Narlin soldiers fell onto the Cardassians with their ceremonial swords in bloody hand-to-hand combat.

Audren had the Cardassian ship towed back to Talaria, and she and her crew were issued awards of valor. There wasn’t much downtime for them and the ship was back on the frontlines the next day. In total,l the Gwynedd fought in over one-hundred separate engagements during the war. It was one of the most decorated ships in the conflict but also had one the highest casualty rates since they were often in the thickest of the fighting.

Captured Cardassian ships were incompatible with Narlin systems, but reverse engineering lead to several leaps in advancement to the Narlin fleet after the war.  This created a balance of power between the two states which persists still.

At the end of the war IN 2301, Audren once again left the military to care for her father who was dying of Krenin’s Disease.

RACE TENSIONS ESCALATE

On February 14, 2302, Huwcyn, the Twenty-third Viscount of Varona died, and Audren became the Twenty-fourth Countess of Varona assuming the Uchelcastel titles and lands.

At this time, due in part to the bravery of Gorvan troops fighting alongside Narlins, there was an upswelling of support for Gorvan civil rights. Picking up where she left off Audren fought to recognize the Gorvan as equal citizens.  Progress was slow, but on December 31, 2319, both houses of Parliament conceded and agreed to recognize all Govan military veterans of the Cardassian War as partial citizens allowing them to vote in Imperial elections (not local) and collect military pensions and medical benefits.

It was touted as a victory, but Audren knew that wasn’t enough. There would be children born into the empire without any rights to parents who had limited rights.  Everyone knew “separate but equal” was anything but equal.

Riots broke out across the Empire led by a Gorvan known as S’lissik who had become tired of the limited progress.  The Gorvan would demand their freedom either with words or with a disruptor.

Seen as a Gorvan sympathizer, Audren was the victim of a failed assassination attempt by Jorok Mistmantle on June 23, 2345, which precipitated the “Bloody Summer of ’45” where 385 people were killed in the violence.  Extremist groups from both sides were arrested and tried over the next five years. Mistmantle and S’lissik were both executed on August 21, 2353.

NARLIN CIVIL WAR

The Narlin Civil War broke out with the secession of Gorvan Prime on October 15, 2358.  The planet was not only the de facto homeworld of the Gorvan but also the home to the Empire’s military industries including the primary shipyards.  The next thirty years would prove to be one of the bloodiest wars in the history of the galaxy.

At the behest of S’tal, nearly half a million Gorvan defected and joined the cause, and for those serving on ships, they slaughtered the Narlin crews. Several defectors even ejected their prisoners into space.

This crippled the Narlin response, and at this time the majority of the Narlin military had become Gorvan with Narlin and Hylon officers leading them.  Audren reluctantly returned and took command of the HRS Tris’val a heavy cruiser that for the entire time under her command was perpetually understaffed until it was destroyed in 2366.

After the Tris’val she was given command of the HRS Ardenweld where she took part in the Battle of Glen Arvy. The month long battle saw the ranks of the two armies swell to 687,235. At the end of the battle the Narlins only had 15,123 and the Gorvan 9,057 still able to fight. Both sides withdrew from the planet neither able to declare victory.  The battle also saw the rise of Narlin defectors, sympathetic to the Gorvan cause joining the Gorvan Confederacy to fight against the Empire.

Audren, like many others who survived those battles, also suffered great loss. Her oldest son and heir, and a daughter and another son were killed in those battles.  Audren went into a deep depression and she was relieved of command by the new emperor Magus Stormtalon.

Audren returned home, but the empty house did nothing for her mental health and she returned to service teaching at the military academy which they were giving officers an abbreviated course and pushing younger and younger Narlins into battle, sometimes as young as fourteen.  It was a desperate time.

On September 8, 2379 a Gorvan raid on the weapons factory near Uchelcastel Manor brought the war directly to the estate.  The house was completly destroyed killing Audren’s husband and last three kids, and leaving Audren paralyzed.

THE EREBUS

The USS Erebus encountered the Narlin Empire in 2380.  Captain Rebecca Talon was able to bring the two sides togehter and help negotiate peace. As on of the few remaining nobles to survive the war Audren was present at the peace talks and finnally after so many years and the death of over seventy percent of the population war was over.

The Andorian doctor aboard the Erebus thought he could cure her peralyis and she and several other badly injured were taken aboard the starship to retrieve treatment.  Becuase of the months of physical therapy needed she remained on the ship and soon started to make friends with the crew. Chief among them was a Lieutenant Commander Aeofa McKenzie.

There was nothing for her on Talaria except terrible memories so she stayed on the Erebus as a civilian and unoffical ambassidor to the United Federation of Planets as the two governments had no official dipllomatic channels.

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Bio written in part by ChatGPT