Ryce Treldo
Contents |
Basic Overview
Commander Ryce Treldo is the XO of The Bravado, although he is not a very good one. Though a great deal is known about him in many circles around the galaxy, no one can seem to get the story straight. He has broken many laws, but his fame comes from smuggling anything and everything. A once loose cannon, Ryce is grounded (though, sometimes, only marginally) by his best friend and commanding officer Alec Brand. He is deathly afraid of droids and has a superhuman thirst for bantha milk.
Early Life and Academy
Ryce Treldo had it easy on his home planet of Alderaan: an aristocratic family; a younger brother blessed for politics; a best friend; and a free ride in school. Much of his time was spent dreaming and learning on his own, through books and explorations of the Treldo and Brand estates. When he wasn't studying the way his home city worked, he was making up stories in the lakeside tree house with Alec and his brother, Garron Treldo.
When Ryce and Alec reached the age of 18, Alec was sure the Imperial Naval Academy was the right choice, and Ryce was hard-pressed to find something else. He followed his friend into the Academy with the help of the Treldo name, and immediately started trouble.
The Academy caused a bit of contention with Ryce, who found it difficult to run gambling rings with so many officers watching him. He was forced to play small potatoes for the first few months, learning the ropes and above all, who he could pay off. The credits Ryce borrowed from the family disappeared more often than paid off, but that did not slow him down. Eventually, the small matter of theft, bribery, racketeering, impersonating an Imperial Officer, and destruction of Academy property landed Ryce on the fast track out of the Academy.
Ryce, the Smuggler
Having been fully expelled, despite his best friend's strong protests, Ryce decided to spend the last of the credits his family had given him for school to buy a wreck of a ship-- a Dynamic-class Freighter which he 'cleverly' (and ironically) named Nihil Bettor, a tip of his hat to his worst habit and failings of High Galactic.
After many close calls, he managed to cement himself into the less popular trade routes as a decent smuggler. He ran spice, ship parts, anything that would keep food in his mouth. Despite (or perhaps, because of) his disrespect for authority, he developed quite a reputation with Imperial soldiers. It was during this time that Ryce developed an unhealthy affliction to glitterstim, caf, and a dozen other hallucinogenics. A few pilots involved recall when Ryce took a shipment of mines through an asteroid field at breakneck speed, higher than Bespin on a stim-cocktail that could have killed a hundred Rancors. His life, rather than spinning into a quick and decisive oblivion, rather corkscrewed into a noose that he always managed to miss.
The destruction of Alderaan had caught him by surprise, and he had not found out until several days after it had happened. His mission at the time had landed him in the middle of an Imperial outpost on Corellia: it was not the safest place for a smuggler to be, but he knew many of the officers he was delivering to, and they always paid well for restricted Holovids and glitterstim.
Instead of delivering the contraband and leaving, he stayed to waste time and try to make more contacts. It was absolute chance that he should be around to watch one of the officers play one particular Holovid: a snuffvid that he simply called 'The Destruction of Alderaan.' It was more than Ryce could stand to watch the officers laughing and hooting at the complete ending of his homeworld.
He stole the vid, copied it, and immediately sent it, along with an encrypted message, to his old friend Alec Brand. Soon thereafter, he met up with Alec and the two of them fled from the clutches of the Empire and into the waiting arms of the Rebellion.
Life with the Rebels
With no direction and only Alec left as family, Ryce dedicated himself to correcting the wrong that had been done to him: he would avenge his family. He joined Alec on a mission to alleviate the Empire of the burden of one of their ships, The Justice, a Nebulon-B class frigate. During his stay on The Justice, Ryce almost killed himself and everyone on the bridge during a hostage attempt.
Eventually, Ryce did manage to get himself killed. During the battle of Derra IV, Ryce destroyed his own ship during a suicide mission to keep the Alliance freighters on target. Having survived the collision of the Nihil Bettor with the hangar floor and walls of The Justice, Ryce was crushed by a Y-Wing landing strut, dragged to a bacta tank and revived, only to enter service once again: this time, training Captain Gilad Sev, the new captain of The Justice. Afterwards, he was returned to full service under the command of Captain Alec Brand aboard The Bravado.
