Lana Beniko

Lana Beniko was a Human female Sith Lord of the reconstituted Sith Empire. During the Galactic War against the Galactic Republic she served as an advisor to Dark Council member Darth Arkous. Investigating Arkous' unusual activities in the wake of the Korriban Incursion, Beniko discovered that Arkous was a traitor secretly working for the Order of Revan. To expose Arkous, Beniko teamed up with unusual allies, including Republic SIS agent Theron Shan, a Wookiee smuggler named Jakarro, and other figures of importance on galactic scale. The group tracked Arkous and his Revanite ally Rian Darok to Rakata Prime, where both were killed, only for Revan himself to enter the scene and attempt to kill Beniko and her allies. Proclaimed a traitor to the Empire, Beniko was forced into hiding along with Theron Shan and Jakarro. The three eventually tracked the Revanites to Rishi and were able to expose the conspiracy to Darth Marr. To stop Revan from resurrecting Sith Emperor Vitiate, Beniko and Marr joined forces with Jedi Grand Master Satele Shan and traveled to Yavin 4, forming a temporary coalition between the Republic and the Empire. Beniko stood against Revan himself alongside Darth Marr, Satele, Theron Shan, Jakarro, and Shae Vizla. Though Revan was defeated, the Emperor nevertheless returned to life. Darth Marr appointed Beniko as the new head of the reformed Sith Intelligence. As the new Sith Intelligence Minister, Lana opposed Vitiate's resurgence on Ziost, working with her assistant Rane Kovach and her partners from the Yavin Coalition to stop the rampage caused by the former Emperor. Though Shan and Beniko were able to shock a large number of Vitiate's victims unconscious and remove Sixth Line Jedi Master Surro from the planet's surface, Vitiate still performed the ritual that wiped out all life on the planet.

Later that year, the galaxy was invaded by the Eternal Empire of Zakuul, which overwhelmed both the Republic and the Sith Empire within a single year. Sith Intelligence effectively ceased to exist, and Beniko ventured into Eternal Empire space, looking for her partner from the Revanite crisis, believing them to be the galaxy's last hope of defeating the Eternal Empire. Over five years, Beniko made multiple contacts, such as former Knight of Zakuul Senya Tirall and exiled Zakuulan naval officer Koth Vortena, with whom she eventually managed to find and free the one Zakuulans had taken to calling the Outlander from being frozen in carbonite. While escaping pursuit, Beniko's group located and repaired the Gravestone - a legendary vessel capable of opposing the might of the Eternal Fleet. Beniko called her multiple contacts from the Sith Empire, the Republic, and the criminal underworld to converge on the remote planet Odessen, where she laid the foundations of an Alliance dedicated to defeating Eternal Emperor Arcann, becoming the right hand to her old associate, who became the Alliance Commander. In a bid to remove the advantage of Arcann's Eternal Fleet, the Alliance agreed to SCORPIO's plan to remotely take control of the GEMINI captains, but SCORPIO followed her own agenda and used that opportunity to claim the Eternal Throne for herself. In the resulting battle of Odessen, Beniko accompanied the Commander to their duel with Arcann, which ended with the Emperor defeated and taken away by his mother Senya Tirall. Arcann's sister Vaylin allied herself with SCORPIO and became the new Eternal Empress, and Beniko stood by the Commander's side as they battled her forces on Voss. An attempt by Vaylin to take control of the Gravestone led to the discovery of the hidden artificial world Iokath, which Alliance forces had to temporarily abandon when it was covered in deadly radiation. Beniko assisted in the mission to sabotage the Grand Festival of Empress Vaylin and accompanied the Commander on a mission to Nathema. Vaylin soon launched an assault on Odessen, in which Beniko fought on the front lines and which led to Vaylin's death at the Commander's hand. Alliance forces then traveled to Zakuul, where the Commander claimed the Eternal Throne and took control over the Eternal Fleet, transforming the Alliance from an anti-Zakuul insurgency into the Eternal Alliance.

As one of the highest-ranking members of a new galactic power, Beniko had to contend with new threats from the earliest hours of its existence. She identified and ordered the neutralization of several local uprisings against the Alliance and personally led a mission to Iokath once its radiation levels had subsided. Faced with both the Republic and the Sith Empire fighting over control of an Iokath superweapon, Beniko followed the Commander's decision to ally with the Republic. Beniko soon discovered that the War on Iokath was orchestrated by an outside party that had leaked information to all three sides, hoping to start a war between them over control of Iokath. She began to search for a traitor within the Eternal Alliance, which led to the shadow world of Umbara. Lana Beniko, Theron Shan, and the Commander traveled there to intercept the traitor, only for Theron to reveal himself as the traitor and sabotage the hovertrain the Commander and Beniko were on. Escaping the train before the crash, Beniko and the Commander were unable to stop Theron before his shuttle left Umbara. They returned to Odessen, where Beniko began to search for Theron's whereabouts. After failing to apprehend him on the Chiss world of Copero, Beniko and the Commander eventually followed Theron and the Order of Zildrog to Nathema, where Theron revealed himself to be a double agent working for the Alliance the whole time. Together, they rushed to stop Vinn Atrius from awakening Zildrog, but were too late to prevent the complete destruction of the Eternal Fleet, the Gravestone, and the Eternal Throne. Though the Alliance lost its most powerful assets, Lana ensured the Commander that she would remain at their side through whatever would come. As the third Galactic War approached, Beniko alongside the Alliance joined the Galactic Republic.

Text and facts from the “Lana Beniko” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.