Lexine Lambert, born Alex Ordina but going by Lexi and later known as Darth Aivela, was a female Twi'lek who lived during the Cold War and the Galactic War that followed. She was mother to Ben, Alucia and Acina Lambert and wife to Benjamin Lambert.
Born on Ord Mantell in 6 BTC, Lexi grew up on a small ranch with her mother and father. An isolated child, Lexi spent most of her free time in a nearby scrapyard, where she became familiar with various types of technology, before she eventually away ran from home following an altercation at school, becoming a droid engineer for Czerka Corporation.
Refining her engineering talents at Czerka's Corulag laboratory, Lexi used the credits she earned for multiple gender reassignment surgeries to fulfill her lifelong ambition of being recognized by society as a woman, whereupon she took the name Lexi. She eventually departed Corulag and gave up on her career with Czerka to engage in volunteer work on Balmorra, almost meeting her end at the hands of a xenophobic Imperial officer until the Sith Benjamin Lambert stepped in to save her.
Lexi worked for Benjamin for several years during the Cold War, managing his facility on Tatooine and helping to rehabilitate the refugees the Sith used as his workforce. During this time, Lexi discovered she was Force-sensitive and fell in love with the kind-hearted Sith Lord. Lexi learned to use the Force and build and wield a lightsaber under Benjamin's instruction, and later accepted his proposal of marriage, abandoning her maiden name of Ordina to become Lexi Lambert.
It was only after her marriage that Lexi put her husband's resources to use following up reports of a machine that could reprogram a person's genetic structure. Hiring a small group of mercenaries for security, Lexi traveled to war-torn Belsavis and ventured out to the site mentioned in a report made by Talos Drellik of the Imperial Reclamation Service.
Initially, the technology she found was unresponsive and too alien for her to make use of, and a frustrated Lexi was on the verge of giving up until her seemingly fruitless inquiries were noticed by the intelligence that had once been housed in the facility, freed by the last individual to make use of its unique services.
Lexi explained her situation to the machine, who was all too happy to assist one of her "children". Desperate to make her transition more absolute, Lexi did not hesitate when the machine agreed to help her and stepped into a small chamber as instructed, where she was briefly wracked with a torturous energy that set her body alight. Fortunately, it took only seconds; Lexi thanked the machine, who wished her luck, and departed the planet with a newfound confidence.
In the early days of the war against Zakuul Lexi became the owner of Magenta Sparrow Medical – her husband's medical company – when Benjamin was presumed killed during the attack on Korriban.
After a period of grief and a devastating attack on the Tatooinian facility, Lexi pulled herself together for the sake of her children (Alucia and Ben Lambert, just a few months old at the time) and started investing her company's profits into bulk purchases of salvaged Zakuulan technology in an effort to neutralize their technological advantage.
Reverse engineering the technology expanded her knowledge and allowed her to begin creating new droids of all kinds, some of which she sold to the Eternal Alliance at cost in the early days of their fight against the Eternal Empire, although she would not commit to providing anything more than covert, token support out of fear of discovery. The company also relocated its new headquarters from Nar Shaddaa to Lok around this time, setting up a compound not far from Mount Chaolt to escape the shadow of the Star Fortress in orbit above the Smuggler's Moon.
As the war escalated, Lexi and a number of her old allies joined forces to attack and capture a Star Fortress orbiting the world of Leritor, finally participating in the conflict directly only due to the fact that the attack had been proposed to her via prerecorded message by her supposedly deceased husband. Understandably, she had questions for her resurrected spouse.
Reuniting with Benjamin spurred Lexi into a more active role in the war, nipping at Zakuulan forces in smaller and more remote engagements with a force made almost entirely of her own brand of Skytroopers, until her decision to restructure the company kept her too busy to participate further in the growing conflict.
Magenta Sparrow Medical became Magenta Sparrow Innovations, changing focus from medical research, development and supply to a wider array of tech products aimed at both civilian and military markets, using the innovations gained from Lexi's study of Zakuulan technology to gain a short-term edge over their rivals. Speeders, blasters, droids, comlinks – MSI stepped into a dozen new markets and reduced their value as a target of the Republic in one unexpected move.
This short-lived exclusivity of the then bleeding-edge technology was bolstered enormously once again when Benjamin joined Imperial forces on the ancient world of Iokath during the stand-off between the Alliance and the two long-standing galactic powers. Under the cover of the conflict, Benjamin was able to gather massive amounts of technical data and dozens of samples of technology for Lexi to reverse engineer.
After her husband experienced a vision of himself becoming a Jedi to combat a great evil some months after the outbreak of hostilities on Iokath, the duo concocted an elaborate plan to eliminate conservative Sith and Imperials who wanted Empress Acina removed from the throne and hand over Benjamin's title of Darth to Lexi in one stroke, a title she had been denied when he had been declared missing in action during the war.
Developing dangerous new droid soldiers built from her discoveries on Iokath for exclusive company use, Lexi also started making connections within the Sith Empire, seeking out progressive Lords and Moffs while manipulating events so that the blacklisted former Sith apprentice Sera Artofen would willingly surrender her Sith status – at Lexi's indirect suggestion – and submit to the trials of the Korriban Academy to escape her late mother's political shadow.
Artofen was important to Lexi because she possessed a natural talent for Sith alchemy, which Lexi needed to help her in her most ambitious project yet; artificially infusing the Force into her machines. Benjamin only knew of the girl due to his previous friendship with her mother, Lord Braevis Artofen, whom he had killed in a mercy duel at her request to help her escape the orbalisks that were threatening to end her life.
Benjamin had promised to look out for the younger Artofen when possible; by not helping her sooner and forcing her to go through the tombs to earn prestige, he hoped to lessen the political backlash when Lexi took her on as her new apprentice.
Regardless of the potential political backlash, Lexi was insistent that she needed Artofen for her project; a project she was unwilling to be talked out of.
While her lab on Sonn Vilmari provided promising initial results on animal test subjects, it was Sera's successful completion of the trials that tipped the scales and initiated the final phase of Lexi's scheme. The young Human completed the final trial with her friend Artem Phond – a Changeling – and argued that they were more effective as a pair than they were individually.
Lexi agree to take both of the acolytes as her apprentices, believing that it would make a powerful statement to the rest of the Sith Empire.
As soon as the Artofen started working with Lexi they made rapid progress, and after the successful creation of several prototypes to test the process of artificial Force infusion using a combination of Gree nanites, Adegan crystals, Sith alchemy, Mechu-deru and Mechu-deru vitae, the pair were able to fashion a pair of cybernetic arms and legs, all of which were impregnated with the Force.
Lexi, heavily pregnant with her third child at the time, underwent surgery to install her new limbs, allowing her to expand her personal Force reservoir by drawing on the power infused within the cybernetics.
Deciding it was time to put her newfound power to use, Lexi and Benjamin agreed to move the final pieces of their scheme into position, with the latter gathering together the treasonous forces he had recruited at one location where they could be "discovered" and eradicated by Lexi. He would make his escape from the Empire during the fighting, allowing Lexi to appear to be a dedicated servant of Empress Acina.
Lexi called on her allies to join her and within a few days had a small fleet waiting to deploy on her word. Traveling to Taspir III as she had secretly planned months in advance, Lexi's forces were briefed en route and engaged the traitors just a few hours later, with Lord Lambert leading the charge into the hidden facility despite being heavily pregnant at the time.
The battle plans were kept from Lexi to sell the deception and prevent things from being suspiciously smooth, although Lexi knew the layout of the remote facility, allowing her to navigate the ventilation system when chance put her in a position to do so. Killing a number of lesser Sith Lords on her descent to the command center, Lexi confronted and defeated Darth Salvharroh by using her technical know-how to compromise his life-support systems and leave him for dead.
When she finally arrived at the command center only Darth Enigmus – her husband – was still alive. However, as per their plan, Enigmus lured her into a network of caves connected to the back of the facility.
While the pair fought ferociously, the fight was inconclusive; Benjamin seemingly killed himself during a pause in the combat, dislodging the unsteady platform on which they were fighting to fall through into the dark chasm below. Only Lexi knew that the fall would bring her husband to an underground river that ran from one end of the mountain to the other, a ready-made escape tunnel that would lead him to freedom.
Lexi admitted that she had not sensed her husband's death to the soldiers who had caught up with her, knowing that Sith Intelligence would confirm his survival sooner or later, though she had enough witnesses to confirm she had made a clear and dedicated attempt to end his life – her efforts could not be called into question.
Returning to the Empire victorious, Lord Lambert traveled to the Citadel on Dromund Kaas, arriving in the early hours of the morning with an escort of her advanced droids and a handful of her elite guards, demanding to see the Empress.
Unfortunately, Acina herself was off-world at the time, though Darth Vowrawn cheerfully accepted her insistence of an audience and listened to her tell the tale of her patriotic operation in service of the Empress and her Empire. Lexi stated that she had been cheated out of the title once before, but that she would accept nothing less than her husband's position of Darth.
Lord Lambert then boldly proclaimed that she would henceforth be known as Darth Aivela, approaching the situation with strength and confidence, knowing that her claim to the title was almost undeniable.
Amused, Vowrawn agreed with Lexi's assessment of her contributions to the Empire, both in the long-term and in terms of what she had accomplished just hours earlier, teasing out his actual response for some time before he finally granted her "request" and declared her as she had indicated. He noted the Zakuulan origins of her choice and sarcastically remarked that she was very much "embracing modern times", stating that he was looking forward to seeing what surprises she would come up with next.
Lexi did not linger once she had what she was after, and once she had left the Citadel she returned to her ship and plotted a course for Lok to wait out the last few weeks of her pregnancy in the comfort of her own home.
Several weeks later, Lexi gave birth to her second daughter and named her Acina; on the surface another show of loyalty to the Empress, though – in truth – Lexi was simply fond of the name. She was disheartened that it would be some time before Benjamin would meet his new daughter, but relieved that her fusion with the products of Sith alchemy had not been detrimental to her then-unborn child.