Keshli Tetaric - The Refugee

[only_lobo_republic]

Name: Keshli Tetaric
Age: 23
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Hair: Red/Orange
Eyes: Green
Home Planet: Serroco

Keshli was young when the Mandolorian wars started. Not many memories of her childhood home world are present in her mind. Some glimpses of her father, mother, and older brothers sometimes, but never enough to form a happy enough childhood. Instead her memories of home are of terror and fear, sounds of alarms and panicked streets. People shouting one order or terrified plea. In the chaos of the Mandolorian attack Keshli was separated from her family, snatched by the hands of some unknown Red armored trooper and thrust into the evacuation shuttle. The last thing Keshli would see from home would be its skies burning and cities torn apart. Forests and lakes consumed in an Inferno of nuclear fire from uncaring Mandolorian weapons.

Keshli would live the unfortunate life of a refugee during much or her informative years, learning how to scrounge to survive in camps where there was never enough to go around, and the Czerka officials charged with looking after these displaced people instead using them as cheap labor. Keshli grew to hate these conditions, hate, Czerka, and most importantly, hate Mandolorians, as they were the cause for the misfortunes she now endured. With the fires of her home world shining behind her eyes, she became consumed with revenge on those people. When she was first able, she stole a blaster from a Czerka guard who had passed out on duty and disappeared from the camp.

Flash forward years later and Keshli was adorned with the thrown together armor of fallen Mandolorian warriors when she sought her next mark. She descended on the blue armored warrior, but found them much their better after her element of surprise was lost. When she thought that her life was ended, looking up into that visor, blasted pointed at her face, the warrior lowered his weapon. “Were you born a Mandolorian, or did you kill that many for your armor? Either way… you’ve proven to be one little warrior.” This enraged Keshli, but before she could lash out in her rage the warrior but his boot to her head, leaving her unconscious. After coming to she was captive by the warrior, and he offered her a choice. To die where she was now, or to learn to work with them. Keshli, feeling her hatred still, was forced to calm and consider. Eventually she concluded, she could betray the man later when she had taken what she could learn from them and agreed. Thus started her travels with the Mandolorian.

Keshli and Rhirk traveled everywhere together after that, with the young girl learning much from her Mandolorian teacher. Though he did not teach her much of the Mandolorian ways, she did learn the language and how to protract battle and war to the extent that a team of two could. Some more years pass and Keshli starts to lose the hatred for this warrior, getting to know them and see them as a person more than a Mandolorian. When the two went into a particularly rough job Rhirk caught a blaster bolt to the chest and thigh. Keshli then thought of leaving that man to die there, but instead realized he was the only real family she had since her planet burned. So she pulled him out and got them both to safety, never once admitting to the man what she had thought. Though Rhirk would always grin at her knowingly.

The war with the Sith starting saw the two moving from planet from planet once again, the pair eventually ending up on Viscara. In Veles Keshli once more saw what she grew up hating. Czerka handling refugees, abused and displaced people, and more war. It has been some time since she first arrived on world, and she has had time to think and reflect on herself. The people she has met and challenges she has faced makeing her realize she wants to help now, far more than get revenge. The hatred in her still burning like the inferno of her home world, but seeing it to another end rather than just destruction.

[only_lobo_republic]

The quiet thuds of Keshlis boots sounded on the dirt of the woods, the foliage slightly disturbed and rusting as she stalked past. Her armor that of that ramshackle and cobbled together pieces of Mandolorian gear that she come to be comfortable in. Her Republic trooper armor seemed unfitting for trying to be undetected in the woods. A sheen on the plates, glinting armor a dead give away to her position should a stray ray of light penetrate through the trees. Her cloak draped lightly over her shoulders in that camouflage pattern, colored to fit this wooded terrain surrounding Veles. Behind her were two other troopers, Privates Gelen and Mezroth, armored in the standard pattern of equipment fitting Republic line troopers. They did not move through as quietly as Keshli was attempting to, makeing the Corporal look back at them, the T Visor on her helm ensuring they knew she was directed to them.

“Lighter on the brush. Dont step so heavily” She then turned back ahead. Looking out through the brush and trees. The forest was quiet. The sound of scampering Kinrath absent, and the KAth seemed rather cowardly as of now. Keshli gripped her weathered Rifle tighter in her fingers, keeping a low ready, then speaking quietly into her comms.

“Havoc 5 to hope. Coming up on the point where we lost contact with Corporal Tevek.”

The electrical response come over the comm set in Keshlis ear. “Copy that Havoc 5. Report anything you find. Over.”

“Copy Hope.” She quietly breathed it out, her steps continuing the thud lightly, grass rustling against her boots. Pushing forwards the woman now was on a heightened state of alert. A bead of sweat on her brow, and a sense of unease. Every step, bringing her further into an uncertain scenario.

Keshli broke through another set of brush and was granted the sight of a grizzly scene, her heart dropping and stomach tying into a knot. The trees were marked and pocked with the blackened scorches of blaster fire that had gone astray. Dirt disturbed and scattered, cratered from some explosions that had rocked the area. And not to far from that, the bodies.

“Gelen, Mezroth, Search for survivors! Beware of traps.” The privates nodded at her command, darting into the battle site as Keshli moved forward was well. One… two… three… four dead privates. Two riddled with blaster fire. And the other two, maimed, carved and cut with the tell tale signs of a lightsabre. Not to far away from them was the sheen of grey armor. Fallen Malakite troopers. Seems they didn’t care enough to recover their own men when they expired.

“They’re gone Corporal” Gelen said as her hung over one of his fallen brethren. Keshli clenched her teeth and growled low. She looked back over the forest, away from the dimmed out eyes of the trooper below her. There was still one missing. She moved forwards, tense, looking for the Missing Corporal, stepping over another body of a fallen and discarded Sith trooper. Though the search did not take long.

Tied to a tree the leader of this patrol was found. Arms behind his back, shoulders slumped and body unsupported by his splayed legs. His helm was shattered and she could see through it the face of Tevek, wearing the ghost of his final scream. The tell tale signs of torture from one of the merciless Sith was clearly present, and the smell of cooked flesh nearly made Keshli vomit.

“Damn it…” After suppressing a retch, Keshli took stock. It was the same story of so many other lost patrols. Ambushed. If lucky, the troopers died quickly. If not… She checked over the late Corporal for booby traps, as the Sith were oh so fond of their parting gifts, as she had come to learn from the harsh lesson of the med bay. “No survivors” She gave a sigh, frustrated, despaired. No doubt exactly what the Sith were going for. Haveing found no explosives, Keshli looks back to the privates with her. “Start heading back. Ill Call this in and send for recovery”

Mezroth gave her a concerned look. “You staying here?”

“Not for long. Ill be fine. Get going. Watch you backs”

They gave her a look, but shrugged, giving an affirming not before they moved back through the trees together. Keshli looked over Tevek, her eyes furrowed and face scowling under her helm. They hardly ever left survivors. The tactics of which she understood. They wanted them to fear, to have their resistance falter under the knowledge that fighting them would bring only pain and death. They wanted to make them give up. Despair. Keshlis grip on her rifle, her knuckles going white.

“Havoc 5 to Hope” She reached forwards, pulling the dog tag of Corporal Tevek from his neck. “Found our lost patrol. Send recovery team to my position. Lets bring them home” There wasn’t a response immediately. And she heard it. A soft groan to her right. Every sense on her turned its attention to the noise, to the source of the groan, rifle pointed downwards at the potential threat.

One of the Sith troopers was still alive. A hand groping at the wound in his gut as the other tried to help him crawl to his rifle. The man moving in a desperate bid for his weapon as Keshli stood over him. Her T visor looked down on him, and the back of her eyes filled with the inferno that was behind them. She then quickly moved in front of the trooper, kicking away his rifle into the brush. A crack of a few branches sounded befor it clattered against a tree, too far away to be able to save this man. Keshli heard what may have been a gasp, the man now looking back at her with that black visor. His expression was hidden from her, and Keshli could see only this Sith trooper before her. Why She thought to herself. What gives him the right. She levels her rifle, training it in on the defenseless trooper. What gives him the right to live. This monster. This sub sentient trash the burns the galaxy and leaves behind only destruction. Her finger presses lightly on the trigger of her rifle. She sees it now. The trooper was trembling. His shaking shifting the grass. His fear evident on him.

“Copy that Havoc 5… Any survivors?” The pause that followed was long. The forest dead silent. Keshli staring down at this trooper with the hate of she had born for those that burned her world not pointed at this single Trooper. Her finger firmly on her trigger. The guttural pained gasps from the wounded man, clutching to his gut, shivering in terror as his life was now in a peril he may not have actually considered. Here now, at the wrong end of a blaster.

“… No Survivors”

[only_lobo_republic]

Keshli was walking through the smoke filled corridors of the Maultire, Rifle couched in her shoulder, her breath shaky as she moved through those dark corridors. The only lights are the dim flickering emergency illumination from the back up lights. Her boots echoed off the metal panels of the hallway, the camo of her usual scout armor imperceptible from the sparse lighting. Keshli kept her rifle pointed at the closed door while her other hand held a bloody key card, still spattered with gore. Pressing it to the doors control panel, it beeps and it slides open, bringing with it a flow of more of the smoke and mist.

On the bridge, the signs of a struggle was all around. Blaster scorning, destroyed consoles and dropped weapons still smoking from use. Yet she could see no bodies. She could only see a huddled form of a woman in the mists, rocking back and forth cradling themselves as the muttered incoherently. Keshli moved up to them, keeping rifle trained on other areas, coming to inspect this survivor on the derelict ship. “Miss? Miss are you alright?” The woman froze, slowly turning to face Keshli, revealing she had a blaster pistol poised at her own head. Keshli stopped in front of her, letting a hand out for them to grasp. “Miss… Im here to help”.

The womans face was full of despair, looking up at Keshli, lip quivering and terror in the back of her eyes. “You cant save us” Her finger depresses on the trigger, and before Keshlis plea for her to stop is uttered past her lips, the cracking sound of a blaster discharge pierces the silence, the woman’s body slumping forwards with the smoking crater in her skull, blood dripping onto the deck.

As Keshli stands the, hand still outstretched, looking at that lifeless form bleeding on the ground, something drips from the ceiling, landing on her gloved palm. It was liquid, but thicker than water, and as Keshli looked at it between her fingers, another drop landed on her cloak. Then her helm. Soon it was raining these droplets, and Keshli turned her attention upwards to a horror show. The mutilated corpses of the crew, tied to the ceiling, all their paces and expressions contorted into a mix of pain and terror. Their bodies carved, broken and blood dripping down onto her as a rain. In unison, all their eyes snapped open, and focused on Keshli. “You couldnt save us”

Keshlis panting was filling her helm, and now she turned back towards the door, ready to make a run for it. She was however stopped dead in her tracks, as the mist had cleared enough for her to see the floor, her eyes widening. Littering the deck were all forms she knew. The forms of a Blue armored warrior, a hulking Cathar, and the rest of those of Havoc, a black clothed Togruta, a mix of Revanite and Jedi forms, broken a lifeless together

The sound of footsteps come closer to her as she stares at this field of corpses. She glances up, and the din of the derelict seems to get darker as a familiar dark robed man steps forwards. His expression was cold, bereft of amusement, and a red Crystalline object, covered in indecipherable runes hovered over one of his hands. The broken piece of some dark artifact in another. “You have been quite the nuisance” He crushes what remained of that artifact in his hands, and a glow of green energy flowed from it and into the crystal. From there, red energy flowed into the bodies of those before them. “No longer”

The corpses of those in front of Keshli started to rise, popping and moving in lurching motions not seen in those living. Slowly rising and turning to Keshli, their eyes now all a hateful yellow to match those of the one who now controlled them. “You… couldnt… save us” Keshli turns, tries to run but stumbles and falls to the ground. She looks down and clutches at where he left leg used to be, the panting and terror in her body as she realizes she faces the inevitable. She pulls her rifle up to fire at the corpses of her former friends, but it is pulled from her grip, and tossed aside by the telekinetic hand of the sorcerer. Keshli covers herself, unable to hear her own scream as several pairs of hands descend-

---

Keshli awakens to a loud thud and a pain in her side. She winces and pulls herself up, looking about. She had fallen out of the bed, sweat covering her as she panted, heart pounding in her chest. She wipes a hand across her forehead, going to stand and falling, forgetting her missing left leg. “Gah… Damn it!” She takes several moments to collect herself, before crawling to the bed stand and collecting her leg, affixing it to her stump. Over to the refresher, she went to the sink, splashing the water on her face.

She stares at herself in the mirror for a while, then lets out a huff. “…Not yet… Dont give up yet…” There is a beep from her comm pad and she looks down. It was time for rehabilitation. “Keep moving…”