Cal Kestis had been living on Bracca for almost five years now. When the Republic fell and the Empire took control of the galaxy, he had been aboard the Albedo Brave, a Venator class Republic warship in orbit over the Bracca. He and his master, along with the 13th Clone Battalion, had successfully invaded the starship production planet and were preparing for a new mission to Mygeeto when the clone soldiers suddenly turned on them. His master, Jaro Tapal, had sent him to the escape pods through the ship's maintenance tunnels while Tapal himself used his lightsaber to cut his way there through waves of clones. They had nearly made it to safety when they were outnumbered in the launch bay. Tapal put himself between the clones' barrage of blaster fire and Cal, sacrificing himself for his young padawan.
The escape pod jettisoned from the ship moments before it exploded from a reactor overload Tapal had initiated and crash landed on the planet's surface. Fearing pursuit by any troopers who might still have been stationed on Bracca, Cal did not light a traditional burial pyre for his master but instead sealed up the pod as best he could and left it half buried in the dirt and rocks where it had landed.
Cal stepped into his new life on Bracca with all the grace of a loth-cat scrambling across a frozen lake on Hoth. By the first night blood dripped onto the clothes, modest garments he had stolen from a home on the edge of town to replace the Jedi robes that would give him away instantly, while an Abednedoan man helped him stop the flow from his nose. Somehow he had managed to enrage a local in a bar who felt it was a good night to put his fist into the face of the small red-haired kid no one had ever seen there before. Being new to town was probably reason enough to the ruffian to start a fight. After all, what else was there to do on Bracca once the work day was done?
Along with how to keep his guard up when fists started flying, Cal quickly learned that the Jedi had been labeled as traitors and were now wanted by the Empire. Anyone who learned what he was could turn him in for a glorious payday. So he kept his head down, made sure not to make trouble, and kept the damaged remains of his master's lightsaber securely hidden beneath his poncho, the only thing that shielded him from the unending rain on that soggy, sopping planet.
Prauf, the Abednedoan man, took Cal under his wing and helped him get set up with lodging and a job with the Scrapper Guild that had taken over the planet ever since the Empire shifted production from building and repairing ships to dismantling them. It didn't pay much, just enough credits to keep a roof over one's head and enough food in one's belly to keep sleep from being interrupted by a rumbling stomach. What credits he did earn were all cycled back into the Guild's pockets anyway through the shops, restaurants and services that all belonged to the guild. It was a living, but not a place easy to get away from.
Cal was able to make a decent living as a scrapper, largely due to his natural talent for building and, at thirteen years old, his small size which allowed him to crawl into parts of ships no one else could reach. By the time he turned eighteen however he could no longer fit into many of those spaces and had to resort to more dangerous assignments to continue making the credits necessary to keep himself fed. One day, as he and Prauf made their way up the side of an old Venator for yet another tricky maneuver, they had stopped to watch the descent of a Lucrehulk, an old Separatist warship. Cal hadn't seen one of those since he crashed down on this rock of a planet and could only imagine what it would be like scaling the side of its massive curved bulk, his stomach trying to escape each time his grip slipped. He did not look forward to it.
The life of a scrapper was an unforgiving one filled with backbreaking labor, injuries and the constant threat of slipping on one of the many wet, slippery surfaces of the old Republic warships they dismantled and falling through the great cavernous tears in the ships to a gruesome and unceremonious end. It was good pay, however, and a relatively quiet life, ideal for someone wishing to remain hidden from the Empire. The worst part of the job to Cal, however, has nothing to do with the job itself. Rather the process of dismantling the same kind of warships that has been his home for so long. The memories the now dark corridors and consoles brought to the surface made him feel like he was constantly surrounded by ghosts while he picked the bones of his old life.
