Zule Xiss was a Falleen Jedi Padawan during the first few months of the Clone Wars. She was the apprentice of Glaive but after Glaive was killed by Asajj Ventress, Zule became an "orphaned" Padawan and member of the "Padawan Pack". She was killed during the battle of Jabiim.
Biography[]
Troubled Padawan[]
The female Falleen, Zule Xiss, served the Galactic Republic as a member of the Jedi Order during the Clone Wars. Xiss was headstrong and quick to anger, becoming a difficult student who was shifted between several Jedi Masters during her time as a Padawan. At some point, her rogue attitude led the Jedi High Council to predict that she would some day die in a bar fight. She was eventually apprenticed to Glaive, a Human Jedi Knight with a rough disposition. During her training with Glaive, she became acquainted with the Gand Vaabesh, a fellow Padawan. Vaabesh admired Glaive's instruction of Xiss, but the Falleen would later claim that she despised her Master. Following the Battle of Geonosis and the start of the Clone Wars, Xiss and her Master joined the Grand Army of the Republic in its fight against the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
Battle on Ohma D'un[]
During the Clone War the Gungan leader Boss Rugor Nass lost contact with a colony of Gungans on Ohma-D'un, a moon of their homeworld of Naboo. Naboo's Queen Jamilla, believing disgruntled spice miners to be behind the loss of communication, contacted the Jedi Order to request an investigation team. The Jedi Council believed that the loss of contact was in fact caused by a Confederate attack and so dispatched Zule Xiss, Glaive, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, to the moon. The four Jedi traveled to the Naboo system alongside a contingent of clone troopers led by Captain Rex. Upon reaching the system, Xiss and her companions were briefed on the situation by Queen Jamilla. The Jedi, Rex, and several clones then descended to the surface of Ohma-D'un in a single LAAT/i gunship and began to search for the Gungans.
Xiss and the Republic forces soon came upon a massacre, discovering that every Gungan in the colony had been killed. The Jedi engaged several Confederate battle droids that were examining the Gungan bodies, concluding that the massacre was not the work of spice miners. Then they were ambushed by a group of Super Battle droids. While the Jedi fended off their attackers, Asajj Ventress and Rum Sleg attacked them. Ventress quickly slew Glaive and Sleg stabbed Zule in the back. The Padawan collapsed in the dirt and Rex shot Sleg in the leg in retaliation before Denal knocked him out. To Zules surprise the two Clones came to see if she was alright. Meanwhile Ventress was engaging Anakin and Obi-Wan in a vicious duel before the two Jedi forced her to retreat. Rum Sleg also fled using his jetpack.
Zules wound was bad and became worse once the clones discovered it was infected. Anakin Skywalker thought the Falleen was as good as dead but remarkably Zule survived though she had to spend three weeks recovering.
Battle on Jabiim and death[]
Xiss eventually joined a group of Padawans whose Masters had also been killed over the course of the war. This group, colloquially known as the "Padawan Pack," consisted of Xiss, the Aqualish Windo "Warble" Nend, the Sullustan Elora Sund, the Zabrak Kass Tod, the Humans Tae Diath and Mak Lotor, and Xiss's old acquaintance, Vaabesh. The Padawan Pack was assigned to the embattled world of Jabiim, where political unrest had resulted in a civil war. Jabiim was a Republic world that had been largely ignored by Coruscant and was left to deal with local problems without the assistance of the Jedi or the Republic's Judicial Forces. Alto Stratus, a vocal Jabiimi politician and leader of the Nationalist party, called for the succession of Jabiim to the Confederacy and killed most of the pro-Republic members of the Jabiim Congress after forming an alliance with the Confederacy's Head of State, Count Dooku. However, before Stratus could use the Confederate droids and arms provided by Dooku to finish off pro-Republic forces, the Grand Army of the Republic invaded the world to aid Captain Orliss Gillmunn and his Jabiimi Loyalists in their fight against Stratus and the Nationalists.
Xiss once again fought alongside Rex, Anakin Skywalker, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, as Kenobi had been assigned as theater commander for the Jabiim conflict. Eventually, eighteen Jedi and nine thousand clones had been killed. Kenobi and General Sirrus were presumed to be among the dead, adding Skywalker and Sirrus's apprentice, Aubrie Wyn, to the Padawan Pack. General Leska, now the highest-ranking Jedi on Jabiim, ordered the Padawan Pack to avoid the front lines and protect a supply convoy headed toward Cobalt Station, as she refused to send more Padawans to their deaths. While guarding a convoy of All Terrain Experimental Transports and All Terrain Tactical Enforcers, the Padawans were attacked by Stratus's droid forces. Xiss followed Skywalker and several other members of the Pack into battle against the droids while Wyn and Nend remained with the convoy. Knowing that the battle droids were single-minded, the Padawans distracted them with an obvious target before launching a successful ambush. The tactic, which had been developed by Skywalker and his Master, repelled the droids and allowed the Padawans to get the convoy moving once more. Despite the victory, Xiss remained pessimistic of the situation, citing that even the most advanced Padawan, Mak Lotor, was inexperienced in war. Later, Windo Nend attempted to make conversation with Xiss, but she quickly became annoyed and threatened the Aqualish. Vaabesh explained to Nend that she was only defensive as a result of the loss of her Master on Ohma-Du'n, whom Vaabesh believed to have truly taught Xiss what it meant to be a Jedi.
Eventually the convoy protected by the Padawan Pack walked directly into a minefield set up by Alto Stratus's Nimbus commandos. Unable to safely navigate the field, the trapped convoy was quickly attacked by Stratus's forces. Although Kass Tod ordered that the convoy stay stationary in order to avoid the mines, Xiss and Skywalker insisted that they fight back against their attackers. After Mak Lotor passed out from overexerting himself in the Force while remotely detonating several mines, Xiss aided him in moving to cover. The Jabiimi Nationalists soon retreated, allowing the convoy to continue on to Cobalt Station. Once there, while enjoying a brief break in the rain, Xiss and the Padawans witnessed Confederate reinforcements landing on the planet. During a communication with Orliss Gillmunn, the Padawans were informed that General Leska had gone missing and that they were now the highest ranking members of the Grand Army of the Republic on Jabiim. Cobalt Station was the last remaining Republic fortification on the planet, and it stood between Stratus's approaching forces and Monsoon Mesa, the evacuation site for the remaining Jabiimi Loyalists and clone troopers.
Despite their likelihood of defeat, all of the Padawans agreed to remain at Cobalt Station in order to buy time for the escaping Republic forces. Xiss was initially reluctant to commit herself to what would be an almost certain death, but ultimately decided to stay and fight. While preparing for Stratus's assault, she armed herself with a DC-15S blaster. The Confederates eventually attacked and found the defense of Cobalt Station to be far stronger than they had anticipated. Xiss spent time in the station's trenches with Windo Nend, encouraging her allies to push their attacks. On the second day of the assault, Xiss was running about the battlefront, using both blaster rifle and lightsaber to assail her enemies. By this point, her aggression had begun to worry her fellow Padawans, with Mak Lotor going so far as to say that she was falling to the dark side.
Embracing the anger that her Masters had long warned against, Xiss was able to kill many members of the Nimbus Commandos. Fighting in the shadow of one of the Republic's few remaining AT-AT walkers, Xiss maimed a Nimbus and prepared to execute him. However, before she could, the AT-AT was hit by heavy fire and fell to the ground, crushing Xiss and the commando.
Legacy[]
The battle of Jabiim ended two days later with the death of Alto Stratus at the hands of Aubrie Wyn. Despite Stratus's death, all of the Republic forces at Cobalt Station were defeated and killed, including the remaining members of the Padawan Pack. Anakin Skywalker, who had been recalled from the battlefront days earlier, arrived at Monsoon Mesa to oversee the evacuation of the surviving Republic forces there. Despite the pleas of the Jabiimi Loyalists looking to flee their home and reprisals from the Nationalists, Skywalker chose to only evacuate the Republic's clone troopers, as the number of evacuation transports was limited. Having earned the hatred of Orliss Gilmunn and the Jambiimi despite the Padawans' efforts to protect them, Skywalker and the clone forces pulled off the planet and headed for the Republic hospital world of New Holstice.
On New Holstice, Skywalker was shown a monument for fallen Jedi built by the planet's natives. Skywalker added the names of his fallen comrades to the monument, including Zule Xiss, by whispering their names into memory moths which would in turn be whispered by the wings of the moth for eternity. The struggles and failure of the Xiss and Padawan Pack on Jabiim were later covered up by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's administration in an effort to keep negative news of the warfront from reaching the public.
Personality and traits[]
Zule Xiss was a headstrong and rather aggressive Padawan who was quick to anger and often demeaning to others. Her attitude led her to be passed from Master to Master in her early career until she was placed under the instruction of Glaive. Glaive, who was similarly abrasive, served as her final Master up until the mission to Ohma-Du'n. During the briefing for the mission, Xiss expressed her skepticism of the combat abilities of Gungans, claiming that they would be no match for spice miners with a vendetta. The Padawan also though little of clone troopers and was surprised when Captain Rex and Denal tried to help her after she was injured by Rum Sleg as she thought of clones as little more than droids.
As time went by Xiss grew colder and less tolerant of others, and by the time of her tour of duty on Jabiim, the young Falleen was completely distanced from her peers. Xiss refused to make conversation and had a highly pessimistic outlook on the abilities of the Padawan Pack. When Windo Nend attempted to interact with Xiss, he was met with threats and irritation. As Vaabesh attempted to rationalize her anger by claiming that her difficult apprenticeship and the loss of her Master led her to act out, Zule denied Glaive's influence on her. She claimed that she hated the man and often wished she had killed him herself.
When it came time to decide whether or not to abandon Cobalt Station or to stay and fight to the death, Zule was the only Padawan hesitant to stay. She eventually relented, however, glad that her death would now be on the battlefield instead of in a cantina brawl. As the battle wore on day after day, Zule slid toward the dark side, embracing her aggressive nature and using it to her advantage while battling the Confederate forces. At least one member of the Nimbus Commandos referred to her as a monster after witnessing her brutality. Despite her resentment of both her allies and enemies, Zule wished the best for her comrades in the final moments before her death.
Xiss behaved unlike most members of her species, openly displaying raw emotions to others and maintaining a constant shade of red in her skin pigmentation. She commonly wore sleeveless robes and carried a green lightsaber.
Powers and abilities[]
Zule Xiss wielded a green bladed lightsaber and was capable of defending herself against numerous opponents on Ohma D'un and Jabiim. Because of her aggressive personality, her combat style was also aggressive and she was a practitioner of Djem So. However Xiss' Force Sense didn't appear to be very strong as Rum Sleg was able to sneak up on her and stab her in the back before she knew he was there. Zule was more resilient than she appeared, managing to survive being stabbed even though the wound became infected in Ohma D'un's filthy swamp.
On Jabiim Xiss wielded her lightsaber along with a blaster she'd picked up on the battlefield. Though she'd never been trained in the use of a blaster the Falleen defeated numerous enemies and her power was augmented by her rage. This anger led the other members of the Padawan Pack to think she was falling to the dark side.