Name: Kerrick "Clang" Shan
Species: Human
Age: 22
Planet of Origin/Birth: Urtan
Force Sensitive Y/N: Yes
Rank: Flight Lieutenant
Role: Pilot
Unit: Lightning Squadron, just in from Intruder Squadron
Appearance:
5’9 and trim, with dark hair. His eyes are dark and his facial features are relatively nondescript; pleasing as humans go, but not particularly striking at first glance. He is extensively tattooed on one arm with swoop ganger ink. Shan's typical attire is a pair of no-nonsense pants with lots of pockets, a belt for tools and a jacket.
• Force Precognition - it comes in torrents, rather than whispers.
• Other Force abilities come to the fore at times -- Shan brims with it.
• Piloting
• Maintenance/Tech knowledge
• Decent with a blaster.
• Strong language skills, including an understanding of binary (which astromech droids speak).
Weaknesses
• New Guy - The new CO doesn't trust him the way Captain Dia'Xiann did.
• Likes the girls, and is easily distracted by them.
• Not just wanted, really, really wanted. Shan has no idea, but the Inquisitorius wants him badly.
• Jumpy. He hears things that others don't.
• Distracted. Same. Has to do with the Force.
• Seems very, very reckless. The Jedi are gone, but Shan flies like one, and that seems like suicidal tendencies to a non-Force user.
• Fringer and proud - Liquor, cursing, hair in strange colors? All things that drive the conventional military types up the wall. But heck, they're a Rebellion, right? He's not big on protocol.
Equipment:
• Regular clothes -- he prefers a sleeveless shirt, vest, cargo pants and spacer boots, along with a tech belt to hold his tools.
• Coveralls for maintenance work.
• Vacuum suit; the rebels typically do orange, because it's easier to be spotted in space if you have to eject.
• Theed Arms S-5 with custom grips and a barrel shroud.
• Various tech tools, such as laser welders and spanners.
• A working PDA.
• R2Y5, his astromech counterpart in the X-Wing, who has a strong bond with the pilot. Regs say wipe the droids. Starfighter Command ignores these regs as droid-starfighter pairings, where the computers get to working together more closely, mean that you can't switch droids around between ships as easily, but you get more out of a 'mating.' Techs hate it, pilots love it. Shan has replaced a number of internal components in the droid and upgraded the processing hardware.
History:
Born on Urtan, a desert planet whose primary industry is metal operations in the Tengaru sector, he lived a rather unremarkable existence as the member of a family that ran a local salvage yard for speeders of various types, which allowed him plenty of time to tinker with machinery, particularly high speed machinery like swoop bikes. His parents were involved in anti-Empire activity with a local resistance cell, one of many that existed in a myriad of systems prior to the establishment of the Rebel Alliance, and were killed while conducting an operation to try and get a Jedi to safety.
The authorities on Urtan sensed an opportunity and used these crimes and the threat of accusing Kerrick’s grandmother, to buy out the salvage yard business at a cheap rate, leaving Kerrick and his grandmother, Nomi, impoverished. During this time, he found himself hooking up with one of the local swoop gangs, the Sons of Sin, who were loosely involved in operations for one of the local crime lords, largely in theft and the fencing of stolen goods and the dealing of arms.
However, the Sons quickly got ahead of themselves, and Kerrick quickly decided to skip the system rather than have things go sour for his grandmother. Through a series of mishaps, he found himself on the planet of Sluis Van, one of the bigger shipyard planets in the entire galaxy , working first as a construction welder in zero-G and then as a rescue shuttle pilot, extracting wounded construction types from mishaps in the Yards. During this time, he managed to find himself hooking up with a group of people his age that were part of a nascent cell of Rebels working in the shipyards. When this small group of resistance members got into trouble, it was Shan who used his knowledge of the shipyards to acquire and escape with a hyperdrive capable shuttle, dodging patrols in a harrowing escape through an asteroid field where everyone was sure they were going to die, and yet miraculously, Kerrick managed to pull them through even though their pursuit were hitting the rocks and pulling back.
When they finally did hook up with the Alliance, Kerrick joined along with his comrades, but they lost touch when Kerrick was taken in for starfighter pilot training.
The Alliance’s intelligence people got him to come clean about the Sons of Sin and his record as a rescue shuttle pilot recommended him to officer flight training with the Alliance where he excelled, though not without the occasional mishap, such as when he landed a little too hard on a flight exercise and earned the callsign, “Clang.”
However, he was more than good enough for the Alliance and was assigned to Intruder Squadron, a unit operating in the Outer Rim near Hutt Space, interdicting Imperial supplies and assisting Sector Forces as much as it could. In a short time with the Intruders, Kerrick Shan obtained a reputation as the best pilot in the squadron, but spooky – contrary to X-wing doctrine, he operated with almost no shields to boost engine power and seemed to fly by an uncanny instinct – his squadron commander cracked down on people imitating the practice, even while permitting Shan to carry on. If asked why, she’d say, “Because Shan operates on a higher frequency than you do, stoopa.”
Shan was happy with Intruder squadron, but Lightning needed people and Shan got transferred in to help replace losses from Anaxes.
Psychological Profile
Kerrick isn't sure why he does some things a certain way, he just explains that they 'feel right.' The thing is, his feelings seem to be highly accurate. He is perfectly willing to swagger, crack wise and employ sarcasm as his mode of defense against the personalities of other people, particularly some of the Lightning Squad guys and, particularly, the CO, who has a real chip on his shoulder after losing one in the last engagement. As befits a former swoop-ganger, he loves things that accelerate to high speed, and an X-wing squadron is the perfect place for him.
Other
Kerrick doesn't know it, but the Empire wants him, badly. They want to ask him a few questions about old family history (that he isn't aware of) and there is an Imperial Inquisitor trying to track him down.
