Sergeant Kal Skirata

(First draft, stream-of-consciousness kind of thing.. be kind)

Kal Skirata was speeding through the desert on a speeder bike. The binary suns were finally setting, which would bring relief from the scorching suns, but it would soon turn freezing cold. He was still a day away from his ship.. tracking and catching up to his bounty had taken him much longer and much farther than he anticipated. As he crested and started down another dune he realized he had just crossed into an old, unmapped camp. He glanced around, his visor display showing no lifeforms and no light sources.. still abandoned then. His helmet picked up a clicking noise as though he had just activated a sensor. He accelerated hard, realizing that chances were the sensor had been set up at one time to prevent trespassers.. no good could come from setting it off. Suddenly, he was thrown hard off of his bike, the binding light and crashing sounds causing his helmet's sensors to kick off. He landed face first on the ground, felt a horrible pain, and finally his momentum slowed to a stop. He attempted to sit up and saw explosions of multicolored lights in his eyes. He felt himself succumbing to unconsciousness, the last odd thought coming into his mind was how like memories were to the sands in desert, blown by the wind, landing where they may. The grains of sand were no more immune to the winds than people were to where their memories. Where they would surface and where they would lead. Then he thought no more as he succumbed to the blackness.

Kal was back on Mandalore, he had just returned home after a tour with the reformed Journeyman Protectors. He had been promoted to Technical Sergeant and his buir, his father, couldn't be prouder. His father had served in the Grand Army as a Lieutenant and then escaped to Mandlore before the rise of the Empire. Kal had opted to follow in the footsteps of his namesake, his ba'buir Grandfather Kal, and serve as an NCO. His father had told him many stories about his ba'buir, the one repeated most often was that grandfather had saved his buir and his uncles from death, the Kaminoans wanting to terminate the Null-ARC's as a defective product. He entered the homestead bracing himself for an assault of welcomes, but found the place empty. He heard a couple of lowered voices and followed them, entering the room just in time to see a woman exiting the house, a lightsaber hanging from her side. Kal called out "Buir!?" and recieved a response "Kal'ika! Me'vaar ti gar? How are you son?" Kal hurried to his father and embraced him. "I'm good buir, better now that I'm home. Where is everyone?" he asked. "Oh, they're in Keldabe, a bunch of errands to be run and supplies to be gathered. We weren't expecting you Kal, but everyone will be glad to see you." Kal nodded, "Who was that woman, is she a jetii?" "No" his father answered, "just an old friend."

Kal groaned and rolled to his side. He was in horrible pain but needed to get his act together quickly. Slowly he remembered that he was on a remote desert world, on his way back to his ship after successfully terminating the bounty he had been tracking. He felt his front, nothing.. his beskar'gam was intact. But then where was the pain coming from? He pulled his glove off, and felt around his lower-back. A bar of some sort had been forced through, from the explosion no doubt. It was off to the side, well away from his spine, and should have hit nothing but intestine... not the best of scenarios, but a lot better than having penetrated his kidney or his liver. He cursed himself for not bringing his jetpack along. He hadn't needed it, but he also had not brought his spare set of backplates that weren't attached to the jetpack. He was paying for the few minutes he had saved by not taking the time to remove the backplates attached to the jetpack. His medical training told him to leave the bar where it was, pulling it out could cause more damage, especially considering how ackward it would be to reach it. He sat up carefully, pulled the small medpack from one of his flightsuit pockets, and located a painkiller syringe. He slammed the syringe into his thigh, getting enough momentum to force the needle through his flightsuit, but not break it, and injected the meds. He then stood up and surveyed the area. His bike was trashed, it would't be taking him anywhere, that left him to make his trek on foot. He saw a light off in the distance, at least a couple of klicks away. Follow it? No guarantee that there would be friendlies there.. no guarantee there would be anyone there. But he couldn't stay here, he needed medical attention which meant he needed to get to his ship and get off this dustbowl of a planet. Head towards the light then.

He stumbled into a small camp with two humans sitting around a campfire. He fell to his knees and hands as the two humans rose as one. Kal then noticed that they both wore lightsabers.. jetii then.. the blackness was engulfing him again. He fought it off and looked up. A woman stood over him, "You have nothing to fear from us. Be calm. Udesii." She knew at least a few words of mandoa then. Still no guarantee of a friend, but he had never encountered a jetii that knew the language. He attempted to stand up and the blackness took him again.