Part I
Keth
Keth slowed and paused for a moment, taking the time to try and listen around the edge of the corner. Just strolling around a corner in an near-abandoned area of Nar Shadda was a good way to end up dead, or knocked unconscious only to wake up missing everything but your skivvies, and sometimes even those. Deciding it was safe, he stepped around the corner, his light carbine held loosely in his right hand, ready to come up at a moment's notice for a hip shot.
Eyes sweeping the alleyway, he checked the datapad his employer had given him for the salvage mission. Apparently there was some sort of early Clone War tech that had been stashed here and forgotten by the so-called "Republic Commandos." He wasn't sure he believed it, mainly because he was pretty certain the "Commandos" had never existed. The Clone Wars were still pretty fresh in everyone's minds, and while he admitted there had to have been some form of special forces, he didn't think that the average clones had been trainable to that level. Great for standard infantry, but even the command and control clones had really only had extra access to military tactics and such. Well, that was what the media had explained, anyway.
The datapad beeped, and he moved up to a large pipe that ran down the side of one of the buildings that would give him a bit of cover if one of the denizens of this run-down section of the Smuggler's Moon decided he was worth taking a shot at. Once he was in cover, Keth took his eyes off his surroundings for a moment and checked the pad. He was indeed getting close. There should be a door of some sort about five meters ahead and on his left. Tucking the datapad back in his vest pocket, he took his carbine in both hands and moved down the alleyway at a slower pace. The carbine was in a low ready position, pointed forward but with the barrel at the ground.
He reached the door without incident, and, of course, it was locked. And no windows. That figured. Pulling his regular knife from his left boot, he took a moment to tap a button on the control panel to see if it still had power. It beeped at him , and he smiled as a faint green tinge covered a small area. He looked around once again, checking to see if anyone might have taken advantage of his momentary lack of attention. That would've just sucked, really. He shrugged, and turned back to the panel He pried the front panel off of the entry panel before retrieving the datapad and opening the appropriate compartment. He held up the 'pad to the panel, and it hummed slightly as the software his employer had added to the small computer did its job. It beeped at him and showed him the appropriate wires to attach the small clips on the datapad's own wires to. He followed the layout, double checking to make sure he had the right wires, and tapped the "accept" prompt on the screen. A small heating element in each clip melted through the insulation on the control panel's wires, allowing the metal in the clips to contact the material in the wires of the panel, and the software started its work.
All of this took about 10 seconds, after which he set the pad on a small outcropping and let the software work while he turned and swept the area again. So far, it had all gone according to plan. He re-sheathed the knife while the datapad did its work, and kept an eye out. Once or twice he was pretty sure he saw shadows move when they weren't supposed too, but he wasn't certain enough to fire a shot.
This is ridiculous, he thought to himself. I'm getting jumpy, and the only thing that's really down here with me is the sith-spawned wind. He smiled grimly to himself. Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that. If there's not someone who's interested in taking all this gear you've managed to accumulate, there's definitely something.
The pad beeped softly, for which he was thankful. Then the door screeched open, for which Keth most definitely was not grateful. The sound echoed loudly off the walls and into the night. Keth released his grip on the carbine as he swung, letting the straps on his sling catch the gun while his left hand detached the wires and snapped the cover of the panel back on; his right hand grabbed the pad and stuffed it in between his vest and his utility coveralls. He clambered through the door and palmed the door control, wincing as it screeched again on the tracks as it closed. He leaned against the wall, holding his breath and trying to hear over the pounding of his heart in his ears. Slowly the beating subsided, and he let out his breath slowly. That's when he realized he wasn't alone in the room. He waited, listening.
Yep, there was definitely someone or something with him in the room, and he had outlined himself nicely in the door from the ambient light of the flickering neon signs and natural light of the moon reflected from the world it orbited. Very slowly, he reached into one pocket of his vest and pulled out one of his three glow rods. Closing his eyes, he set it to flash beacon and thumbed it on as he tossed it away and to his left at the same time he jumped to his right. A screech to his left told him he had chosen wisely, and he opened his eyes to see a massive, fur-covered something landing where he had been a moment ago. In the time it took for the beacon to flash once, he had grabbed his carbine, and when it flashed again, the thing was in the air coming at him, mouth full of teeth wide open and aimed for him.
Ducking, Keth deflected the attack, cursing as he felt the thing's claws go right through his thin shirt sleeve as he drove his left elbow into its stomach. Spinning as the thing completed its jump, he followed it in the flash and pulled the trigger twice, hitting the creature once, but right smack dab in the head. Sighing for a moment, he retrieved his glow rod and switched it to steady illumination. He let his carbine hang while he pulled a medpac from his belt and applied some anti-bacterial salve and bandages to his arm after cutting off the now-tattered sleeve.
Grumbling to himself, he secured the medpac before pulling the datapad from his vest and stowed the wires, closing the small compartment with a small click. He checked the map, and headed out of the room and through several rooms and hallways, encountering no other living beings, which just happened to serve the purpose of making him even more paranoid.
A couple of hours later, he was finally at his destination. And sure enough, a false wall, right where the map said there would be. This was going a little too well for his liking. Checking carefully, he waved the datapad over the edges of the hidden door, letting the software check for booby traps. Apparently any there were had been defunct for a while, because he didn't pick up any power sources. Grabbing the small demolition piece he had been given specifically for this part of the assignment, he applied it to the center of the hidden door and set it for a five-second delay. He trotted down the hallway and grinned at the muffled crump of the false wall being collapsed.
Stepping through the clearing dust, he swept the hidden room before gasping in surprise. Apparently Republic Commandos existed after all. The sounds of blaster fire jolted him out of his reverie, and he cautiously moved up to the window to check out the sounds. A group of armored humanoids was in serious trouble, trying to survive a fighting retreat against what looked like a mutated version of what he had killed earlier. Only this time, they had blasters. He watched as one of the creatures made it past the humanoid's defenses and launched itself at one of them, only to be stopped cold by one of the most brutal takedowns he had ever seen. The victor of the small hand to hand was cut down as he tried to make it back to cover, and the warrior dropped to the ground in that limp sack fashion that told Keth he was already dead. When the body rolled over from its awkward position, the T-shaped visor looked right up at him, and it was like a kick in the stomach. They were Mandalorians!
He spun and rummaged through the room, looking anything to help the armored humanoids. He cracked the seal on one of the containers, and his eyes settled on something he had only seen in the 'vids: A Special Ops DC-17 modular carbine! Further inspection located the anti-armor attachment and a couple of reloads. He fumbled for a moment as he tried to figure out the attachment, his actions hurried by the continuing firefight in the alley below him. Hurrying back to the window, he realized that he had better hurry; the Mandos were in a bad spot. Extending and shouldering the stock, he took careful aim, fingered off the safety and pulled the secondary trigger. Chunka-BOOM!
Three of the things disintegrated, along with their cover. The smoke and explosion shocked everyone, it seemed, except for the Mandalorians. They took vicious advantage of Keth's lethal distraction and hammered the mutants with everything they had. Keth reloaded as the mutants tried to regain the initiative, but Keth's second shot dismembered two more of them, placing the Mandalorians firmly on the offensive and scattering the rodents, who not only went into branching alleyways, but also up the walls, chattering angrily and firing retreating shots at the Mandalorians who were still hammering down on them.
What he wasn't expecting, however, was as he went to find something to signal the Mandos with, a rodent would try to make its way into the same room as he was in. Having automatically reloaded, there wasn't time to drop the DC-17 (usually a bad idea with any loaded anti-armor weapon, anyway) for his carbine, so he spun and pulled the trigger.
Bad idea. Okay, really bad idea. When he woke up, he was only partially aware of his extremities and the feeling of some sort of cloth brushing up against his skin. Well, the fact that he was awake meant he had at least survived, obviously. The fact that there were bandages on him meant someone not something had taken care of him after the anti-armor round went off in an enclosed space. He sighed, and it hurt. Retard. In more than one fashion, even. He sighed again, apparently not having learned his lesson the first time, and managed to hurt himself into a coughing fit. Which really hurt. He moaned after he was done coughing, and was surprised to see a pretty face (for a human) come into view.
"Glad to see you're awake," she said. "We thought you were a goner for a while there. Thanks for the help back there, I'm not sure we would've only gotten out of there with only one loss."
Keth asked, "Where am I?" Or at least, he tried. It came out more as "Wh'r'm'i?"
She laughed and propped him up, giving him a drink of something...strong. He coughed and sputtered, which hurt some more, but a warm tingly feeling started spreading from his stomach, and he was finally able to speak, albeit slowly.
"Where...am...I?"
"You're in the residence of Mando'a Clan Juan-Tung. When you revealed your position so...spectacularly, we used our jump packs to get up to your floor and keep you from dying from your wounds. Then we tried to figure out what you were doing with all that clone gear. That was some very fancy gear you had in there, and not only are you not a clone, you're not human."
There was a definite overture of curiosity in her voice, tempered by discipline, but there wasn't any anti-alien sentiment, at least not that he could tell. He was also feeling enough better to talk straight.
"I was actually there on an assignment from a collector or businessman of some kind who gave me some detailed information on how to find it. I was supposed to call him on the comlink when I found it, then wait for the main group to arrive and secure as much of it as we could."
Keth paused and looked at his erstwhile doctor more squarely. Most humans looked similar enough to him to have a hard time telling them apart, but this female was a little different. Her eyes had a more pronounced slant that most humans he was familiar with, and her skin tone was a bit darker, closer to his own. Her silky black hair was a little longer than shoulder length, hanging down onto dented and scratched but well-cared for armor plates covering what looked like some sort of flight suit, and most of said plates were painted a dark yellow, almost mustard color. Her helmet, with the familiar T-shaped visor, set within easy reach, while at least five blaster pistols and several vibrodaggers were scattered across her armor, also within easy reach.
"What were you and your...clan, doing down this way, anyway?"
She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, as if deciding how much to tell him.
"We were transporting some sensitive cargo. We're attempting to work out passage for our entire clan, but most small freighters don't like carrying more than five or six people, and most of the large passenger liners don't like a fully armed and kitted out Mando Clan strolling around their passageways. So we've been waiting and building up credits, working towards purchasing our own light freighter, so we can get off this rock and make our way back to our home world."
Keth nodded, for getting off this rock was high on his priority list as well. As he continued to talk to her, he learned more about her family, and several days later, he was finally well enough to move around and help out. During his time with the Juan-Tungs, he picked up the Mandalorian language, and several of their customs. They eventually built up enough credits to buy a tramp freighter, many of which came from selling the equipment his foolish anti-armor escapade had nearly destroyed to the collector who had hired him in the first place. The rest of the crew wasn't too pleased, but there weren't many sentients in the galaxy who were going to argue with five Mandalorians in full kit. The Mandos gifted him with a well-used armored flight suit that wasn't made of Mandalorian iron, but it was pretty close, as well as one of their carbines and some other equipment that would help in a fight.
After leaving Nar Shadda with the Mandos, Keth was eventually dropped off on a Mid Rim world that was less likely to get him killed and was on the way to Mandalore, the Mando home world. From there, he bounced around from planet to planet and crew to crew, making a living and seeing a large part of the galaxy in the process, not to mention becoming something of a decent pilot along the way.