Cally McKnight

Formative Years

Unlike many Duros, Cally McKnight was born in Year -22 on her home planet's surface instead of in the orbiting shipyards. Much of the planet's surface is uninhabitable after long-term destruction, pollution, and exploitation at the hands of the Galactic Empire. While the majority of the Duros people were moved into shipyards and space colonies to continue their traditions of shipbuilding and commerce, those left on the surface were forced to do the dangerous jobs of keeping factories in the barely-inhabitable areas running, salvaging their former neighborhoods for scrap, and attending to the needs of the various Imperial divisions sent to the surface for training exercises. As a Class-C sentient, Duros are permitted to be enslaved by the Empire. Cally's parents were two of these such Duros. Both her parents worked recycling the homes of former residents, and scrapping it for use by the Imperial army. Cally started helping them at age five. They lived in a shabbily-repaired shack not too far from an Imperial barracks.

When Cally was eleven she started noticing strange behavior in her parents. Her mother had problems sleeping and her father would come back from work with more bruises and scratches than normal. Both of them would slip out at odd ours in the night, or go to work incredibly early or stay much later than required. After being denied straight answers, she decided to follow her mother early one morning. She watched as her mother dug carefully around a scrap piles behind their shack and pulled out a set of kinetic armor and hurriedly strapped it on, picked up a blaster, and ran off into the dawn. Cally followed at a distance as best she could.About two miles down the road she saw her mother meeting some others who looked familiar to her, and climbing on a barge with them. They were all in armor and had weapons. The barge quickly sped out of site, and Cally returned home and shortly went to work.

Her mother never came home that night. Her father refused to talk about it, but was obviously devastated as if he had little hope of her returning. Cally was sent to a family friend's house. Her father said he had to work late. At the other house she found a smuggled subspace radio and began to put some pieces together. There reports of a raid on a supply convoy bringing newly produced weapons and medical supplies from a factory to a starport. Three raiders were reported captured, two killed. Hours later there were fresh reports coming in of an attack on a nearby detention facility. She wondered if her parents were in anyway involved. Her questions were answered when they arrived at the house Cally was staying at in the early hours of the mourning. They were both injured, but very much alive, and the three of them returned to their house. Cally was instructed to gather her things quickly because they had to lave as soon as they could.

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