Name: Kerrick "Clang" Shan
Species: Human
Age: 22
Planet of Origin/Birth: Urtan
Force Sensitive Y/N: Yes
Appearance:5’9 and trim, with dark hair, though dyed purple, that tends to be thick and unruly if not combed back; he doesn’t bother and leaves it at medium length. His eyes are dark and his facial features are relatively nondescript, though his nose is narrow and somewhat pointed and his forehead is rather high; 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 to hold tools and other items, and sleeveless shirts.
Skills/Abilities:• 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).
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, as well as a vacuum suit and blast helmet and so forth -- civilian models, not Rebel issue.
• 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 and was requisitioned along with Shan by the Senator. Shan has replaced a number of internal components in the droid and upgraded the processing hardware.
• A
YG-4210 Light Freighter, with an upgraded hyperdrive. It is the Senator's covert transportation, but only recently acquired -- the only work done on it is a hyperdrive refit, so far.
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, but allowed Shan to do it. If asked why, she’d say, “Because Shan operates on a higher frequency than you do, stoopa.”
Shan was pulled off Intruder Squadron and assigned to Special Operations on a priority request for a pilot when the team's previous pilot, Yel Janner, was killed. Senator Nath Brujan required the best pilot he could locate on short order, even if it was a fighter jock that didn't like being turned into a chauffeur.
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, though within his squadron, he is accorded considerable respect for his abilities -- even if his commander cracks down on the other pilots lest they get ideas that they can get away with the sort of things Shan does. As befits a former swoop-ganger, he loves things that accelerate to high speed, which is why he was very miffed to be taken off an X-wing squadron roster. He still keeps his hand in with swoops when he can.
Contacts, Allies and Enemies: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. His Squadron, the Intruders, are deployed elsewhere, but if they were nearby, he could probably swing favors. He still has connections with his swoop gang on Urtan, but they are not terribly current.
