Hestizo Trace, also called Zo, was a Human female and a member of the Jedi Agricultural Corps during the Cold War. While at the Marfa agricultural labs, she was kidnapped by Whiphid bounty hunter Tulkh, who was hired by Darth Scabrous, to retrieve the Murakami orchid and bring it to Odacer-Faustin. Hestizo had a connection to this orchid and thus could not venture too far away from it, otherwise the plant would wilt. She managed to escape with the orchid after Scabrous used a chemical from it to engineer an immortality formula. The drawback of the formula was that it ravaged the body until there was nothing left but a cannibalistic monstrosity, which quickly spread throughout the academy. Allying herself with Tulkh, Hestizo convinced the orchid to grow the pieces of itself within the zombies to stop them, only to exhaust the orchid. However, Scabrous used the Neti librarian, Dail'Liss, into luring Hestizo to the library by mimicking the voice of the orchid, still alive amidst the infection known as the Sickness. The plan worked after she and Tulkh parted ways. Scabrous strapped Hestizo down on a sacrificial altar, ready to cut out her heart with a traditional Sith sword and become forever immortal.

Hestizo was able to free herself from Scabrous's sacrifice, but before Scabrous could outright kill her, Hestizo's brother, Rojo, arrived and briefly duelled the Sith Lord. Scabrous prevailed and killed Rojo, but Hestizo was able to kill him by telepathically convincing the orchid to sprout itself outward from his head, severely weakening him. She was then able to finish off Scabrous, now a complete zombie, using his own Sith sword against him. Then Hestizo escaped infection from the remaining Sith zombies when Tulkh's ship, the Mirocaw, piloted by Pergus Frode, flew in to save her. After evading the academy's perimeter defenses, Scabrous' HK droid managed to manipulate the turbolasers into destroying the control tower instead of the Mirocaw, taking with it all the zombies.

Even then, Hestizo found that the Sickness still had a chance of infecting the rest of the galaxy. She realized this when she saw that Tulkh had chained himself up against a wall when he felt the Sickness taking over him. This had happened back on the planet when an infected tauntaun's spittle dribbled into his eye, getting past his notice. Tulkh asked Hestizo to open up the wall he chained himself to so that he would be blown out into the vacuum of space. Before she could do so, however, an infected apprentice from the academy, Rance Lussk, attacked, but Hestizo was able to avoid his attack and send both Tulkh and Lussk out into space. She sealed the room from they were blown out of, and rested assured that the Sickness was over.

Hestizo returned to Marfa where a new black orchid was waiting for her care. However, she instead decided to return to Coruscant where she could resume her Jedi studies.

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AppearancesEdit

• Red Harvest (First appearance)