[hider=Kaili Brand]
[b]Name:[/b]  Kaili Brand
[b]Age:[/b] 17
[b]Class:[/b] Jedi Service Corps Technician (Specialization: Star ship maintenance and repair) 
[b]Home Planet:[/b] Naboo
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[b]Appearance:[/b] At five foot two and one hundred and twenty seven pounds there is no escaping that Kaili is...small. Rail thin and all limbs, even the most diminutive races would be hard pressed to call the youth intimidating. Years of spending most of his waking hours tinkering or meditating in the temple have left his skin chalky white, sans for the occasional grease stain smearing his face.  A mop of long black hair shades over icy blue eyes, which are normally cast firmly down towards the floor. 

In terms of clothes, as he no longer holds any hope for passing his trials, Kaili tends to avoid the more traditional garb of the Jedi. In place of lose fitting earthen toned robes are plain blue coveralls, stained brown to black in places and fraying near his ankles and sleeves wrapped tightly around his waist as a makeshift belt, and a plain black shirt covered by a flight jacket that is perhaps a size or four to big on the techie. A small thin blue crystal hangs around his neck at all times, the last piece of a lightsaber he had.

[b]History:[/b] There is shockingly little Kaili remembers of Naboo. The name itself lends itself to the musky stench of swamp water, rotting vegetation, and the taste of spiced meats that warmed the lungs as you breathed out. But beyond these vague sensory memories, there is nothing. He is sure he has parents, though what their names are or were they lived (if they still lived at all) he has never bothered to learn. Being a youngling at his temple was...really the only thing he COULD remember. 

His time as an initiate was little to write to the masters about. He progressed slowly but surely, as most do. His mind at first clumsily flailing at the force, bumping into the ocean of energy that surrounded him like a belly flopping beast of burden in a kiddy pool. But by thirteen he could dip into its vast waters as gracefully and easily, the once churning briny seemingly endless depth of...everything now settling comfortably like an ankle deep stream in all directions. 

Frankly, it was an almost idyllic setting to grow up in, though he did occasionally get into small amounts of trouble. Particularly when he would hack the hologame board to receive holovids that were, and quote, “Absolutely not appropriate even if you WERE NOT Jedi Youglings”. But a certain amount of mischief was probably expected from any growing boy, force sensitive or not. 

He was excited when he had the opportunity to take his trail and become a Padawan. To excited, as it turned out. He stumbled over the questions of philosophy, and his saber work was sporadic at its best.  The number of things the poor masters who were forced to correct would have been embarrassing, if not for the fact they had done so as gently as possible and with an ever encouraging soft grin. 

Master Farr Noncoma was the first to suggest the JSC Repair Wing to the aspiring Jedi, a temporary solution he had assured at the time. It was supposed to help him find his focus, and further let the boys enthusiasm for tinkering grow (that it would reduce the considerable amount of holo-game boards they would need to replace was also brought up, albeit teasingly). 

And to be entirely fair to the aged Rodian, the two years Kaili spent there had helped. He was less easily distracted, matured from the excitable youngling to a still excitable (if somewhat more restrained) proper initiate. One who could break apart and fix a star ship engine in under six hours with an eagerness that would shame most veteran mechanics, sure, but a proper initiate none the less. 

The second attempt at his trails had started infinitely smoother. Questions about the Jedi code and its application flowed easily, well practiced by the months spent reciting them in the crapped maintenance ducts of Republic vessels. Lightsaber demonstration went well, though with the small hiccup as he stumbled the first few steps, shyly explaining the training saber was far lighter than the Hydrospanner he had been using. Noncoma had laughed at that far harder than she probably should have. 

Were things went wildly off the rails was the practical exam. It was the one thing that he had not failed in his first attempt, even if that was only due to him not making it that far the first time. Noncoma assured him he would do well, though even he could feel the faint twinge of nervousness the elder Jedi had. 

It was supposed to be an easy job, and for a real Jedi Padawan, it probably would have been. His masters had received a call of a hostage situation, and Kaili was meant to act in tandem with the local peace keeping force’s negotiator to help defuse the situation, with a saber as an added measure of safety should the worse come. An ex-mechanic at a local Speeder shop had apparently become to strung out on his spice and had been fired. After a few weeks, he’d returned to the shop with blaster in tow, taking his replacement as hostage. 

Kaili wishes he could remember what their initial reactions were as he slowly stepped into the garage, his nose filling with the relaxing mixed scents of coolant and oil. If he had to wager, the Ex-mechanic, a Bothan he would later learn was named R’yo, was probably mixed between drug addled confusion and panic as the situation and its severity began to dawn on his now slowly clearing mind. The Twi’lek, Rey’Lan, was probably just between panic and more panic. Being held at blaster point and your only hope being a magic toddler and his deputized babysitter kind of did that, even to the most level headed of people. 

The four of them talked for hours, the negotiator handling the official questions with Kaili stepping in with his own small ones, typically ones related to their work or technical issues he’d faced himself. R’yo seemed to cling to those questions like an anchor, the familiar technobabble rolling off his tongue and calming his nerves as his brain slowly cleared itself. Rey’lan would even occasionally give a biting, if polite, quip of her own whenever Kaili or R’yo would suggest a fix or patch job that they were CLEARLY over complicating. 

By the time the negotiator whispered to him that the strike team was in position to secure R’yo, Kaili had learned more about the two mechanics than he thought possible. R’yo had been married once, before the spice had taken that too. Rey’lan had a son his age, Kol’th, who she swore had a girlfriend he refused to talk about. The negotiator had suggested she have her husband talk to the boy about that to which R’yo laughed that would never work before becoming darkly quiet. Kaili had been forced to change the subject very quickly after that.

But the strike team...it was too much. He could feel the force screaming at him to tell the negotiator to back away. R’yo was as beautiful, panicked, kind and furious as the Twi’lek in his choke hold. Kaili could feel the man’s fog lift, and he only needed a few more hours to clear it away. But he said nothing, nodding softly at his negotiator as he turned to the Bothan. 

R’yo had taken the request to letting Rey’lan go so easily, an arm sliding away from her neck with a jagged arc before limply resting at his side. A soft weary half sob escaping him as the Twi’lek rushed past Kaili, the Bothans final defeated words of ‘ok’ ringing in the initiates ears sounding far louder than it should have had any right to be. 

Then the roof exploded. 

R’yo had jerked his blaster pistol up, only barely visible as the duracrete mist of the former roof engulfed him. Kaili’s lightsaber had hit his palm before he even had the consciousness of mind to summon it. The muffled ‘pew’ of fire, a sound that Kaili once found to be laughable, rung through the air with sickening weight; undercut by the hiss of his lightsaber’s magnetic field slapping against the clumsily placed shot and returning it. 

The Force muted itself around Kaili. The negotiators words a hushed distant whisper that only registered physically as he stared a R’yo. Very much dead. Very much dead because HE had failed to think for even the tenth of a second it had taken. He had struck him in the neck, the wound a through and through, glaring a black and ember red charred eye at Kaili. 

Explaining the situation to his masters had hurt. They said nothing as he recounted the evening slowly, pausing as wave after wave of regret and anger at himself crashed through him. He did not need to read their minds to know he had failed, R’yo had told him that already. 

Master Nomcoma had welcomed him back to the JSC three days after that, her voice low and as warm as she could manage. Kaili ignored it, setting to work almost immediately to begin his punishment. The Masters never said it was, Noncoma even assuring him it was not when they reached their agreement, but Kaili wished they would just admit it was.

Recovering from that night had taken almost a year of near continuous work. Kaili would wager he’d fixed thousands of ships in that time, though he could name none of them. His lightsaber had not survived the first month, Kaili having bashing the wretched thing with a hydrospanner until it bent and snapped. He saved the crystal, but flung the rest into the nearest incinerator and stared into the open flames until he managed to calm himself enough to return to his room. 

Others in the JSC tried to help, but he would always shut them out whenever they came to close. Burying his thoughts deep in his mind and erecting walls around it until they stopped noticing. It..It was better this way. His work calmed his mind and, so long as he avoided Noncoma like so much blaster fire, no one attempted to know him. 

Two months ago she had asked if he wish to take the trials again, offhandedly. Two months of not seeing the Rodian was probably the harshest no she’d ever been given, but Kaili was pretty sure she would get over it. There is no emotion, after all. 
 
[b]Personality:[/b]
Kaili is timid and, at the best of times, wholly unsure of himself. Any situation which does not fall well within his mastery of quote 'technological distractions’ is met with an awkward stuttering attempt to excuse himself to find someone more qualified. This is meekness is especially strong when dealing with any sort of high stress negotiation, as its a palpable reminder of his failure during his second initiates trial. He would argue that this is not out of fear (rather stubbornly in fact), though after many many discussions with fellow Jedi(...well, ACTUAL Jedi and himself to be more clear) he had resigned himself to simply throwing as many mental barriers around his emotions as he could at all times. If only to avoid a conversation that he knew would only serve to distract and frustrate everyone involved. 

However, all of this goes out of the window once the boy gets a hold of some sort of technical problem. There is no greater joy to him than fiddling with a long abandoned hyperdrive until it finally sputters to life, and no amount of meditation could replace the calming peace brought to him as he skims through line upon line of computer code. Technology just...spoke to him, sometimes literally, if he were in such a mood to allow The Force to flow through him more fully (rare, but it happened at times). If he were in an exceptional mood, he became a neigh unstoppable force of repair. Tools would flit to hands faster and more comfortably than any lightsaber could hope to and broken parts would be replaced with substitutions that only made sense to him many days after they’d been implemented. If a knights place is at the front lines protecting innocent people from bulwarks of darkness, and a consular place was mediating calmly among a thousand contrasting voices, then Kaili’s place was bent over Inertial Dampener system trying to divine which of a billion wires was responsible for a short circuit. ...He just wished it wasn’t some days. 

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[b]Equipment: [/b]
	[b]M296 Heavy Blaster Pistol, Custom:[/b] A relic of a blaster if there ever was one. But it has been a pet project for Kaili for the better part of a year. The internals had to be stripped almost entirely, replaced with newer variants or custom parts he tooled himself. The barrel had been rusted through and it took him almost four months to finally hunt down the old design documents to make a new one. He wish he had more time to work on the firing mechanisms a little more though...its rate of fire was a few shots too slow compared to its more modern brothers. Still, its the only tool Kaili really trusts himself with in a fight these days. 

	[b]Tool Bag:[/b] A small back pack filled with various tools and small replacement parts for both his blaster and various star ship systems. Nothing of particular worth in here, unless you fancy several dozen feet of wire with more guages than there ought to be. 

[b]Skills: [/b]

	[b]Force Concealment:[/b] While largely putting his force training out of his mind, Kaili does have some mild proficiency in force concealment, able to shield his emotions and surface thoughts from the passive gaze of most fellow Jedi. Any deep scrutiny will probably be able to strip away these defenses, but for what he uses them for they are sufficient. 

	[b]Lightsaber Proficiency:[/b] While its been nearly two years since he's even picked up a lightsaber, Kaili does occasionally find himself mentally running through the sequences of Soresu and Niman. This is more mental exercise however, and even the most generous of masters would be hesitate to call him a ‘novice’. 

	[b]Starship Maintenance and Repair:[/b] If it flys, he can fix it. If it cant fly, he can MAKE it fly. Let it not be said the JSC Starship Devision were not good at their jobs. 
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[b]Misc:[/b]
Heyo, know the application window has already closed but I felt sort of inspired by the stuff you all have put up. Decided to play around with an idea and it eventually turned into a CS. Ya’ll feel free to use this kid as a background character or group NPC if you want. Given his backstory and the amount of Jedi in the group, makes a small amount of sense a member of their Service group would show up. Also something potentially fun for the dark side players if they wish to corrupt someone through their fear. 

On a lore note: I always found the JSC to be kind of a intensely fascinating element of the Jedi Order lore. While much of what we see of it (what little there is) paints this sub-sect of Jedi in a very positive light, I can easily see it having an intensely negative connotation for initiates who failed their trials (possibly even seeing it as a ‘punishment’ for failure or weakness). I imagine it takes a great deal of guidance from older JSC members and Jedi involved in its  day to day operations for a youngling recently assigned to it to see the greater importance of these auxiliary groups.

Also, please feel free to correct me if the JSC is not established at this point in the canon. I am pretty sure it is, from my cursory rereading of Wookiepedia, but I could always be wrong. 
[/hider]