| abstract | - Jarrow Rusher was male Human mercenary who lived during the Republic Dark Age. He was the brigadier of the mercenary group Rusher's Brigade which operated in the Grumani sector during the New Sith Wars. During his youth, he had worked as a mercenary under the banner of Beld Yulan, a respected independent military operator who adhered to a military code developed by the Sith Lord Mandragall which emphasized autonomy and mutual cooperation. After Yulan joined the Sith Lord Odion's nihilistic death cult following the death of his children and began to send his men on suicide missions, Rusher parted company with his mentor. Jarrow Rusher gradually assumed the rank of Brigadier and then started his own independent mercenary operation, which became known as Rusher's Brigade and operated from the modified starliner Diligence. Rusher would work for several different Sith Lords throughout his career and earned a reputation for his efficiency and reliability. In 1032 BBY, Rusher became caught up in a scheme by the Sith Lord Daiman to lure his estranged older brother Odion into a trap on Gazzari. Rusher agreed to take part in the operation and planted an ambush on the volcanic planet. During the subsequent battle, Rusher's forces sustained heavy casualties after Odion deployed his mobile siege weapon known as the Death Spiral. While on Gazzari, Rusher also crossed paths with the Jedi Knight Kerra Holt, who was operating as a "Knight Errant" in Sith Space. After much cajoling, she convinced him to take a thousand student refugees that she had rescued on Gazzari. These refugees had been sent to the planet by Daiman as bait, under the pretext that he wanted to purchased an arxeum—a mobile war museum—from the Quermian Sith Lord Ayanos Bactra, the ruler of the Bactranate which had substantial corporate holdings. Daiman had offered in return to provide these students for the arxeum. In reality, this had only been a ruse to lure Odion to Gazzari where Daiman planned to kill him in retaliation for the destruction of the Black Fang research facility on Darkknell. In the end, Rusher reluctantly took Kerra's students and fled into hyperspace on the Diligence. Meanwhile, Odion and Daiman turned on Bactra and invaded the Bactranate, after receiving orders from their grandmother and Calimondra family matriarch Vilia Calimondra, who felt that Bactra had outlived his usefulness. Following an acrimonious and strenuous journey, the Diligence finally arrived at Byllura, an apparently pleasant world where Rusher had hoped to drop the students. However, the planet was part of the Dyarchy, a Sith dynasty ruled by the twin Sith Lords Quillan and Dromika. The true power behind the throne was their Regent Saaj Calician who had used their Force powers to mentally enthrall his subjects. Kerra and Rusher successfully resisted attempts by the Dyarchy to assimilate them, setting the stage for a climatic confrontation at the Loft, the nerve center of the Dyarchy. In the end, Kerra kidnapped Quillan and escaped aboard the Diligence. The Dyarchy was then conquered by the female Sith Lord Arkadia Calimondra, the twin's older sister and the ruler of the Arkadianate. Arkadia was warm and hospitable towards Rusher and Kerra, offering to give the crew and passengers aboard the Diligence shelter within her realm. After traveling to her capital world of Syned, Arkadia took Rusher and Kerra on a tour of her city Calimondretta as part of a propaganda effort to convince them that she was a benevolent Sith ruler who had forged an enlightened society built on rotating people through different jobs through their lives. She initially won Rusher over through her charismatic personality and offer to take the student refugees aboard the Diligence. Since she did not need the services of mercenaries, Arkadia had also promised to give Rusher safe passage out of her territory. While Rusher was open to such a deal, the Jedi Kerra was suspicious of Arkadia, suspecting rightfully that she had ulterior motives. Kerra's suspicions were proven right when Arkadia tried to recruit the Jedi to assassinate her grandmother Vilia. When Kerra refused, Arkadia had her imprisoned. She then reiterated her demand that Rusher bring the refugees over to her in return for being given hyperspace coordinates leading out of the Arkadianate. In reality, Arkadia had planned to kill Rusher and his mercenaries by sending them to the Nakrikal Singularity, a black hole. However, Rusher and Kerra were saved by the Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane, who was secretly working for Vilia. In return for being given hyperspace coordinates into neutral space, Ka'hane convinced Rusher to work against Arkadia in order to create a diversion that would allow him to escape the Arkadianate with Quillan. As agreed, Rusher hijacked an icecrawler and used it to infiltrate Calimondretta, before attacking the fortress from within. Meanwhile, Ka'hane rescued Kerra from her prison and then escaped to Vilia's planet with Quillan. After using the Diligence to destroy Arkadia's massed fleet and tractor beam emitters by dropping its massive cargo assembly arms on them, Rusher rescued Kerra, who was engaged in a lightsaber duel against Arkadia. He used one of his artillery cannons to fire a precision shot at Arkadia's museum, creating a hole in the dome which allowed the Jedi woman to escape. After rescuing Kerra and bringing her aboard the Diligence, Rusher also evacuated 500 defecting Arkadianate citizens. Having escaped the Arkadianate into hyperspace, Rusher reconciled his earlier differences with Kerra and developed a closer friendship with the young Jedi woman, promising to help her out in the future by giving discounted trips. They subsequently returned to the Republic where Rusher was able to safely offload the refugees from Sith Space.
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