Krefin Tarak
From FABT
Biological information | |
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Born: |
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Died: |
11 August 2185 CE |
Physical information | |
Species: |
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Gender: |
Male |
Height: |
6.8ft |
Eyes: |
Black |
Political and military information | |
Affiliation: |
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Weapon(s): |
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Equipment: |
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Command(s): |
VIII Battalion, Eaglesong (2170 CE - 2177 CE) |
Rank(s): |
Lieutenant (Feksogar) |
Era: |
Asari Cycle |
Battle(s): |
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- "Jentha, get this scum out of my face! I don't have time for this shit! Fucking freelancers."
- — Tarak in response to a question asked by a freelancer during the Kima Siege in 2185 CE.
Commander Krefin Tarak was a former member of the Feksogar and an experienced Blue Suns legionnaire who lead the Omega chapter of the PMC from 2177 CE to 2185 CE. Born on Camala in 2138 CE, Tarak's father was a Feksogar spymaster who raised Tarak with the intention that he would succeed him and follow in his footsteps to join the Feksogar as well, as the pay was better than those who served in the Hegemony Armed Forces, and received special perks and bonuses that would secure his future for life. Tarak didn't initially understand his father's intentions until he was older, but by the time he finally was old enough to join the Feksogar, he carried with him many of the skills his father had taught him, and he steadily rose through the ranks as a professional torturer, trained in the use of advanced interrogation techniques to torture and break subjects for information or simply to make an example out of them. During his service, Tarak would wrack up numerous victims, many of them either rebellious slaves, captured rebels or political dissidents, all of them considered enemies of the state and of the Supreme Regent himself. In 2167 CE, Tarak would accidentally run afoul of the Regent when he accidentally tortured and killed one of his cousins, a rebel, who the Regency had granted immunity to, only for the Feksogar to mistake him for someone else and Tarak to accidentally kill him during interrogation. Despite being an honest mistake, Tarak knew the Feksogar would offer him up to appease the Regency, and so he used his contacts to help facilitate his escape from the Hegemony before he could be arrested. Fleeing the Hegemony, Tarak left for Illium, never again returning to his homeland and spending the rest of his days in the Terminus Systems. A year later in 2168 CE, Tarak would join the Blue Suns and become a mercenary, using the skills he learned from working in the Feksogar to secure himself a place amongst Santiago's elite forces, and after fighting numerous battles and leading forces with distinction and the capacity of a capable commander, Tarak was made a legionnaire, part of a echelon of the Blue Suns that represented the PMC's most experienced, veteran soldiers. Given command of his own battalion, Tarak would accept numerous contracts and completed them to the letter, demonstrating excellent skills as a negotiator as he managed to secure better deals for higher pay, managed high level extortion rackets across the Terminus, and he even managed to convince another PMC to turn down a contract to fight his battalion, winning a battle he knew he couldn't win, and managing to secure both a contract and exact a protection fee from the defeated party for triple the price. These extraordinary achievements impressed Santiago, who subsequently gave Tarak command the Blue Suns forces on Omega in 2177 CE, with the rank of commander.
Tarak's outside the box thinking and preference to using negotiation, diplomacy and extortion to win battles instead of fighting them made him a shrewd, quick-thinking tactician that was rarely seen in PMCs, and his diplomatic scheming and maneuvering benefited the Blue Suns on Omega greatly, allowing them to expand their business, tighten control over their turf and even outplay their larger and older rivals, the Eclipse and Blood Pack. Despite preferring to avoid battle, Tarak was more than capable as a battlefield commander as well, and possessed a keen strategic mind for warfare, rarely losing a battle that he himself did not fully command. During his time on Omega, Tarak took up the hobby of flying, having always wanted to be a pilot since he was a child, and used his personal funds to purchase an A-61 gunship that he named the Blue Scimitar, donning it in the trademark Blue Suns colors of blue and white, and frequently piloting it on the field of battle, preferring the pilot seat to boots on the ground: whenever a battle took place and Tarak was involved, he was always to be found at the cockpit of his prized gunship, modified with stronger kinetic barriers and an upgraded fuel tank for extended flights. In 2179 CE, Tarak met a human woman and they married, adopting a batarian orphan to start a family, becoming a staunch family man and spending a lot of his time away from the base raising his child. In late 2179 CE Tarak, becoming quite sick of his incapable, malcontent second-in-command Ikern Rasdechar, replaced him with Jentha Renmark, a legionnaire who was further down the command chain but who he recognized as being a trustworthy, competent and proven officer who had won the respect of her troops and proven herself in battle many times over and had prior military experience, having served in the Systems Alliance Marine Corps. Jentha proved to be his most trusted confidante, commanding his forces in Tarak's stead many times and exceedingly loyal to him. Despite the stigma of batarians and humans hating each other, Tarak greatly respected humans, and his choice of a human wife and a human for his most trusted second-in-command were almost unheard of for a batarian, especially one who was former Feksogar, the Regent's secret police.
Tarak's operations continued to run smoothly and soundly up until late 2183 CE, with Tarak even respected by Aria T'Loak for being "harder to manipulate" and "far more clever and reasonable" than his predecessors. This all changed with the arrival of the mysterious vigilante Archangel, who soon formed a squad to make life a living hell for PMCs and other criminal groups operating on the station. It wasn't long before Tarak's Blue Suns fell in the sights of Archangel's squad, their operations becoming subject to numerous raids, ambushes and sabotage, trade deals raided, their men killed, shipments lost or destroyed, relations sabotaged as investors and contacts cut themselves off from Tarak to avoid any further resources being lost, and the list went on. Unaccustomed to fighting such an illusive, shadowy enemy, Tarak was forced to take a more proactive role in fighting back, but even this wasn't enough as the nature of Archangel's attacks were often unexpected, untraceable and by the end of it, could not be retaliated against as the location of their base of operations remained unknown. Things finally snapped for Tarak when Archangel targeted Tarak at his own home, waiting for him to leave for work before making a move. By sheer luck one of his guards spotted the glint of Archangel's scope and stepped in the way of the bullet, giving Tarak enough time to run for cover behind his car before Archangel could fire again. Eventually reinforcements arrived and Tarak was able to escape, but the attempt on his life permanently changed the man, becoming paranoid, overtly suspicious, easily irritable, prone to outbursts and frantic. Tripling the guard rotation at his home and insisting on an armoured convoy to escort him whenever he went to and from home, Tarak became obsessed with eliminating Archangel, enraged by the threat to his life and how close the vigilante had come to his family. However this move would prove to be Archangel's undoing, as Tarak would hatch the idea to form an alliance with the Blood Pack and the Eclipse to pool their resources and manpower to finally bring down their shared adversary. Known as the Kima Alliance, Tarak used his negotiating skills in a sit down with Weyrloc Garm, where he managed to get the krogan to reluctantly agree to an alliance, on the promise of being able to kill Archangel personally. Through further negotiation, he convinced Gaehok Jaroth to commit his Eclipse as well, and through this Tarak had achieved what the galaxy viewed as impossible: a coalition of cooperation between the three most powerful PMCs in the galaxy at the time. The alliance was kept under wraps however so as to not alert Archangel, and they made their plans to find Archangel's hideout, with Tarak firmly believing that if they were going to find it, they needed to capture one of Archangel's men and get them to talk, and with his knowledge of advanced torture, he believed he could. Tarak knew the alliance would not last, so he needed to end Archangel quickly and conclusively before it inevitably disintegrated. Until this time, Jaroth and, more begrudgingly, Garm, accepted Tarak's de facto leadership over the alliance, making the Kima Alliance a Blue Suns-led coalition.
Having Jentha deploy with some of his men to every gun store and market on the station to photograph and document everyone who came and went, they were able to identify Lantar Sidonis and, through careful deduction, concluded he was a member of Archangel's squad. Abducting him during another supply run, Tarak personally performed the interrogation himself, using every method in the book he knew in order to break Sidonis' spirit, and he was ultimately successful, getting him to blurt out the location of the hideout (the Suri-Kara Hotel) in exchange for safe passage off the station. Tarak's initial plan was to attack the hideout and wipe out both Archangel and his team all at once, finally ending the threat he posed in one fell swoop, but was forced to compromise when Garm insisted they lure Archangel away and let him return to find his squad wiped out, wanting to break Archangel's spirit and make him suffer. Tarak saw this as a risky move, as Archangel could slip away or have some plan up his sleeve, but was forced to accept when Garm threatened to pull out of the alliance. Using Sidonis to lure Archangel away and having the Kima Alliance's forces quietly mobilize, Tarak ordered the attack on the hotel, wiping out the whole squad, leaving only one mortally wounded survivor for Archangel to find (again, at Garm's insistence) before pulling back and waiting for the turian to return. To Tarak's relief, he did, and they quickly surrounded and cut off what they believed to be his only escape: the bridge. Garm's plan ultimately failed, as Archangel contacted them over the comms and, full of rage, proclaimed he intended to make sure Tarak, Jaroth and Garm were all dead before he allowed himself to die. Not wanting to give the turian time to prepare, Tarak ordered a full-scale assault across the bridge, with the Blood Pack and Eclipse going first, followed by his Blue Suns, wanting his rivals to soak up the most damage. The first wave, to Tarak's disappointment, was a failure, resulting in heavy casualties and a disorganized retreat. He ordered a second assault, and when this too failed, Tarak became frustrated and took matters into his own hands, forced to commit his own troops and piloted his gunship into the fray to provide support. Believing this to be enough to overwhelm the lone vigilante, Tarak was shocked when Archangel was able to hit the fuel tank of his gunship and disable his weapons, forcing Tarak to retreat or risk being shot down. Nearly crash landing his gunship, Tarak ordered a full retreat and called off any further assault, having the alliance to fortify their positions and set up for a lengthy siege, hoping to starve out his adversary. This lasted a few days until Garm convened a meeting and, due to impatience, insisted they make a move soon. Once again forced to compromise, he agreed to begin hiring freelancers to make up for their depleted manpower and made probing attacks against Archangel periodically to test his defenses while simultaneously trying to find another way into the hotel.
When Tarak finally discovered the tunnels that Archangel's team had used to get in and out of the base quietly, he decided to use the freelancers in a diversionary assault while Garm's Blood Pack would use the tunnels to sneak up from behind and hit Archangel in the rear. While his attention was divided, Tarak would get his gunship, now repaired, and lead the Eclipse, followed by the Blue Suns, in a full frontal assault and finally kill Archangel. Tarak felt he was ready on 11 August and ordered the attack, but an unprecedented new factor would sabotage the entire operation. The Normandy Squad, having infiltrated their operation masquerading as freelancers, with the intent of recruiting Archangel, and betrayed the freelancers during the assault, using them to get to Archangel's position so they could join them. They alerted Archangel to Tarak's plan, and subsequently foiled it by destroying both the Eclipse and Blood Pack assaults, killing both Jaroth and Garm in the process. Fed up and enraged, Tarak manned his gunship and led his forces in an attack, successfully managing to catch Archangel by surprise and mortally injure him with a rocket to the face. Tarak never got to enjoy his perceived victory, as Commander Shepard and the Normandy Squad shortly after managed to bring down the gunship for good, Tarak unaware that Shepard had sabotaged the gunship whilst in the camp and had compromised the heat dispersion system, causing his main gun to lock up and unable to fight back after he used up the last of his rockets. Shepard proceeded to destroy the Blue Scimitar with a well placed missile, with Tarak still inside, killing him.