Yurik Azarin

Yurik Azarin was a tank commander in the 's during the  who went on to become one of the top "s" of the.

Early life
Born to a family of lesser nobility on that made its fortune in the planet's shipbuilding industry in 30 BBY, Yurik was raised in a regulated environment that befitted a member of the  aristocracy. From his early years he was raised with the expectation of continuing the family's tradition of civil service on their homeworld, but the young Kuati's aspirations were in the martial sphere. Even as a child he had the pride befitting a Kuati noble, was gifted with a keen intelligence, and possessed ambitions beyond the modest government career that his family intended for him. He was also a successful, an ancient sport among the upper class of Kuati society. But Azarin's proud and unapologetic attitude meant that he had few friends during his teenage years and he quickly became disgusted by the highly rigid structure of Kuati society, believing it to be unjust and corrupt. The fact that At the age of 14 he left his parents, with whom he increasingly got into disagreements, to attend the sector military prep school, where he excelled and was later accepted into the famous  in 5 BBY.

he main reason for his joining the the time was that he considered the military as the fastest way of advancing up the social ladder in the rigidly structured Kuati society. When he arrived at the Imperial Academy he did not know quite what to expect, but it was not long until he was disillusioned by the indoctrination in the principles of the. While he agreed with many of the basic tenets behind the ideology and agreed that the general system of the was good in principle, as the Kuati cadet studied the political events he came to the conclusion that the current system was completely corrupt and desperately needed reform. He opposed the nature of the Empire, believing in meritocracy, and found the nepotism and Imperial crimes against different peoples to be unjustifiable. Still, while being opposed to much of the Empire did he regarded it as the better system than the and regarded the rising  as a terrorist organization for its tactics, or at best, a "gang of bandits." It became his ambition to reform the Empire from the inside.

Besides the political indoctrination, Azarin spent his time on learning the art of war with numerous other cadets from throughout. During their training he was identified by instructors for being a capable, setting him on that path from his first days there. Further tests determined his placement into the Heavy Armor section of the Imperial Armor Corps. Azarin completed his courses at the Academy as the class valedictorian, but was not particularly liked by the other cadets or the instructors due to what they viewed as his distant and cold personality. The Kuati was commissioned as a of the Army in 2 BBY.

On the Frontier
While graduating as the valedictorian from one of the best Imperial Academies would have normally sent an officer to a prestigious position in the, his instructors on Raithal noted Azarin's "lack of enthusiasm and devotion to the principles of the Great New Order" and Observ agents recommended that he be sent to a frontier post. Ironically, this was actually what Azarin wanted, detesting the idea of getting a comfortable post on some luxurious Core World. Instead he wanted to be at the front lines in order to render distinguished service and work his way up the ranks, and also firmly believed that any good leader had to lead his troops personally instead of staying where it was safe. Azarin was assigned to the 76th Heavy Armor Regiment, an average Imperial armor unit that primarily fielded and ended up being posted to the —a very remote region of  on the frontier of the vast, putting the Kuati lieutenant literally on the furthest edge of the galaxy.

Recent attacks on Human colonists on remote worlds in that region of Wild Space by a previously unknown species called the forced the Imperial government to respond. The official narrative, which Azarin sound found was not true, was that these massacres were the result of Rebel attacks. Although he was concerned that the Empire tried to attribute the blame for killing colonists to the Rebels, at the same time Azarin acknowledged the need to keep such things a secret to prevent panic. In any case it was not long before the 76th Heavy Armor saw action as reports of contact between Ssi-ruuk invaders and colonists on the distant world of Quatrus Prime reached the Imperial forward headquarters on. The local commander quickly dispatched the 76th to the rugged planet.

The canyons and long rugged patches of desert of Quatrus Prime managed to slow down the invaders from reaching the world's one major settlement. Second Lieutenant Yurik Azarin found himself piloting and serving as the commander of the four gunners in his tank. His squadron left the settlement not long after arriving to scout the territory around them for the enemy, and it was not long before they ran into an advance column of slave soldiers and Ssi-ruuk droids moving down a canyon towards the town. The tank patrol ambushed the attackers, and although they put up a fanatical resistance, the tanks gunned most of them down while the rest fled. It turned out this had only been a small vanguard, and the main army was encamped further beyond. Azarin and the other tankists of the 76th spent the next few months combating the Ssi-ruuk invasion force in the canyons of Quatros Prime, which saw a stalemate as the Imperials fought of continuous assaults in fierce combat.

During that time, the Kuati aristocrat earned the respect of the crew of his tank, as they were mostly from the Outer Rim and were doubtful that the blueblood possessed any real abilities. To the contrary, Azarin proved to be a capable leader and led the tank crew with discipline. In the process of the fighting they had destroyed a larger number of enemy assault droids and infantry than most other individual tanks. However, the young lieutenant was frustrated by the passive strategy of their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Zaxus Stagler. He recommended to the commander to go on the offensive, but the lieutenant colonel refused and instead assigned Azarin to lead a small tank patrol to scout for the location of the enemy's base on the planet.