#vasha bannley: she who has a big storm coming

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Can't write to save my life right now but I am full of character thoughts again, this one for my trooper in Caibos' universe:

Vasha Bannley's time in Havoc Squad starts bad and gets worse. Originally a wide-eyed kid who genuinely thinks joining the army will make the galaxy a better place, she breezes past the events of Ord Mantell with the blithe conviction that, since she's not a bad person, nothing Tavus said or did has any possible implications for her. Then she slams up against the wall that is Garza's more awful orders, and things go downhill from there.

Vasha joined the army because her idol/childhood friend/babysitter was a soldier, and she wanted to follow in her footsteps. (In a twist of me being an asshole writer, Kayva deserted from the army, disillusioned, on the very day Vasha joined up; she's my smuggler in this universe.) Vasha is a talented mechanic/droid technician, and pretty much always has some small probe or recon droid following her around ostensibly for scouting purposes but mostly because they're her precious little buddies. She finds her droids easier to talk to than her squad - with the exception of M1-4X, notably also a droid, she has a variety of reasons relating to her growing disillusionment to put up walls between herself and her fellow soldiers.

The first nail in the coffin is early, when Garza asks her to kill Coruscanti citizens who may be a threat. Vasha obeys, because she has to believe Garza knows best and wouldn't make such a call if she hadn't exhausted all other options, and spends the rest of her life hating that she did. Each subsequent order or choice like that draws her further from that naive kid she used to be. She finds out that Kayva left the army midway through this, and is furious that Kayva would leave rather than fight to make the army better - at this point, though she sees how bad things are, she's still clinging to the idea she can change things. By the end of the class story, though, Vasha fully believes there's no saving the army, but also that this is the only kind of work she's good for anymore. Thanks to her technical expertise she actually ends up tapped for the SIS, where she continues to make morally dubious choices but can no longer blame them on Garza's orders.

It's not until the Alliance era that she reconciles with Kayva, her old squad, and herself. Working alongside Koth helps and hurts at the same time - they relate on many levels, but she envies the level of hope and conviction he clings to, even if it is placed in Valkorion of all people. Slowly, as he figures out more about his one-time ruler and she adjusts to working for a much kinder boss, they help each other find a way to move past those hurts.