Jodo Kast

"You're no one!"

- Boba Fett, upon unmasking Jodo Kast

Jodo Kast was a member of Alliance SpecOps who became a bounty hunter in the time of the Galactic Civil War. In his suit of modified Mandalorian armor, Kast was sometimes mistaken for the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett, a fact he capitalized on when possible. Valuing credits over ideals and loyalties, Kast worked for the Empire, Black Sun, the New Republic, or anyone who would pay him.

Kast participated in a number of hunts, some successful, some, like those of Cornelius Evazan and Adar Tallon, unsuccessful. He worked for a time with fellow hunters Puggles Trodd and Zardra, before eventually going solo. Having once modeled his career after Boba Fett, Kast later established himself as a rival to Fett, concerning himself with building his reputation. Forsaking even the rules of his profession, Kast took Fett's name for the sake of higher-paying jobs, while setting the goal for himself of taking Fett's place in the top echelons of bounty hunting.

Kast's impersonation of Fett eventually caught up with him, though, when the other bounty hunter sought to reclaim his own reputation. Fett baited a trap on Nal Hutta, using an alias to offer a bounty on a nonexistent man. When Kast came to Nal Hutta, Fett attacked and defeated him, leaving Kast to be killed by his own exploding jetpack.

Rebel career
Jodo Kast was once a SpecOps resistance member, fighting for the Rebellion when it was still confined to local insurrections. Kast was less concerned with the ideals of freedom and justice, though, than he was with tangible credits. However, a Rebel mission to Goratak III changed his life. A Plexus Droid Vessel with sensitive information on Rebel manufacturing operations crashed on Goratak III, ejecting an I2-CG droid carrying the information into that world's Crystal Forests. The Rebellion dispatched three squads&mdash;Red Smoke, Safari One, and Buzz Boys&mdash;one of which Kast was in, as well as Grindol Maal and the Force-sensitive Wuwuhuul to retrieve it. The Empire sent their own forces, including the Mandalorian Feskitt Bobb. The battle was chaotic, and in the middle of the fighting Kast mistook Bobb for Boba Fett and killed him. After the battle he realized his mistake, but in doing so had an idea: he realized that with Fett's reputation, anyone who looked like the bounty hunter would gain an advantage in the field. Kast retrieved a suit of Mandalorian armor from the planet Zaadja, deserted the Rebellion, and took up bounty hunting, using Fett's name to get himself into the profession. Kast modified his equipment to resemble Fett's as much as possible, even repainting his armor to look like the other bounty hunter's. As he grew acquainted with the circles of criminal life, Kast realized the danger in stealing Fett's name; he repainted his armor in a unique design and took up contracts under his own name, staying enigmatic about the source of his armor and any connections he had to the Mandalorians. It was not long into his new profession before he joined with fellow hunters Zardra and Puggles Trodd. Kast acquired a Lambda-class T-4a shuttle that he armed, renamed Foxcatch, and turned into his base of operations, traveling in it for some time with Zardra and Trodd.

Early hunts
"I have thousands of eyes. They stretch across the galaxy and whenever they see something, Jodo Kast is not far behind."

- Jodo Kast

Kast did not see much success in bounty hunting, lacking the skills in tracking prey or capturing them without a battle. He stuck to low-level targets, and was more successful in scouting and mercenary work. Kast's partnership with Zardra and Trodd often saw them doing the work while he served as backup. At one point, Kast and Zardra took a hunt in the Stenness system, looking for a pair of spice-jackers known as the Thig Brothers. Kast suggested to Zardra that they split up, Kast making it public that he was looking for the Thigs while Zardra stayed out of sight to stun them when they came looking for him. The Thigs eventually came to find Kast in the Red Shadow cantina on the planet Taboon. In the ensuing fight, Zardra killed a Hutt named Mageye. Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure later placed a bounty on her for Mageye's death; when Kast learned of the bounty, he was believed to have warned Zardra.

Kast had a run-with the Aqualish thug Ponda Baba a few months before the Battle of Yavin. The bounty hunter promised to split the reward on Baba's partner Jothel Merritt with the Aqualish if he helped him to capture the arms dealer; however, upon killing Merritt, Kast reneged on his promise. Not long after, he set his sights on Cornelius Evazan, a "doctor" who mangled and tortured his patients, and who now had a bounty of a million credits on his head, dead or alive. Kast followed the information from his sources to Truuzdann in the Corellian system, where Evazan was operating a clinic on the outskirts of a small city.

He stunned Evazan's receptionist, then stormed into the room where the doctor plied his trade, firing a hail of blaster bolts into what he thought was Evazan. Kast then realized that it was a dummy&mdash;Evazan had seen him coming and had fled beforehand. Kast pursued him, chasing Evazan to the city's docking bays. Evazan entered the wrong bay, and Kast soon had him cornered against a ship, despite Evazan's attempts to shoot at him. Kast fired across the doctor's face, permanently scarring it, then moved in for the kill. Just then, a turret emerged from the ship and fired at Kast, blowing a hole in his armor. Realizing the odds were against him, Kast used his jetpack to escape, catching a glimpse of the ship's pilot in the process&mdash;Ponda Baba. Kast vowed to track down Baba and Evazan later, but fortunately for Evazan, he was soon distracted with a job for the Empire.

Hunt on Tatooine
"Arno's next."

- Jodo Kast leaves a threatening message for his next target

When the pirate Quist betrayed the location of Adar Tallon, a hero of the Galactic Republic thought dead, revealing him to be living on Tatooine, Captain Parlan of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Relentless hired Kast and his team&mdash;including Trodd and Zardra&mdash;to go to Tatooine and capture the man alive. Kast, wanting to earn the reputation that he felt was rightfully his, accepted. Parlan planned two other forms of insurance: he placed Quist in the camp of Tallon as a backup in case Kast failed, and issued a bounty across the Arkanis sector on Tallon, bringing dozens of hunters to the planet. Before leaving the Relentless, Kast helped deal with a Rebel agent, Dana, who had been aboard working undercover. As the Star Destroyer was docked at Kwenn Space Station undergoing repairs, Dana attempted to rendezvous with a group of Rebels, and Kast shot her in the neck with a Sennari poison-tipped dart. When the Rebels arrived, they ran into Kast, two bounty hunters, and Lieutenant Voor of the Relentless standing over her body in the airlock of the Relentless. While the others did battle, Kast slipped back into the ship.

Kast had arrived on Tatooine as early as 35:3:6, days before the Battle of Yavin, when he told the hunter Spurch Goa that Jabba had given the Zardra bounty to Gorm the Dissolver. Kast and his fellow hunters had been given accommodations by Jabba in his Mos Eisley townhouse, where Jabba could keep watch over the bounty hunter. Kast's plan was to locate all those who had information on Tallon, extract it from them, then kill them to keep them from warning the man; the first victim of this plan was the Lepi shopkeeper Heff. Wanting to keep the less competent bounty hunters in line, Kast sent Trodd to sign up the others to accompany him on a journey into the Jundland Wastes to find Tallon.

Kardue'sai'Malloc, a Devaronian known to the locals as "Labria," informed Kast that the Ithorian crime lord Slag Flats was seeking Tallon herself. Kast killed Flats with another dart, then left behind a squad of bounty hunters to deal with any of her associates and a datapad threatening the local Old Arno, who knew Tallon's location. Arno had vanished, though, and when Kast learned that a group of Rebels&mdash;the same ones he had encountered on Kwenn Station&mdash;had intended to meet with Flats and Arno, and were themselves looking for Tallon, he decided to eliminate them. Malloc, claiming to have arranged a meeting with Arno, drew them into an ambush at a local cantina. Kast's hunters fell upon them, their orders to kill, and Kast himself arrived in the middle of the fighting to fire a poison dart at the group, then fled.

The next day, Kast and his hunters set off into the Wastes after Tallon. They came to the town of Oasis, a sanctuary of the Dim-U religious order, but upon receiving no answers to their questions became angry and were sent on their way. Kast later sent Zardra to attack the village until she got answers, but the Rebel group drove them off. Quist, concerned about the Rebels' intrusion on his plans, at last betrayed Tallon to Kast. The bounty hunter and his group came to Fort Tusken and burst in on Tallon while he was meeting with the Rebels. Kast paralyzed Tallon's mercenaries Vytor Shrike and Jungen with his darts and the fight began. But the Rebels were ultimately victorious, and Kast fled. His humiliation in the Tallon hunt would become well-documented.

Life as a bounty hunter
"Ah, Jodo Kast, finally we meet. Normally I do not retain an individual I have not met, but your reputation precedes you."

- Zekka Thyne, to Mitth'raw'nuruodo disguised as Kast

After a number of successful hunts, Kast's partnership with Zardra and Trodd ended after a botched mission on Dura-Kahn. He forsook his tendency to work in teams and organizations, focusing on solo hunts. He took jobs from Imperial officers, often moving between rivals and taking hunts that let him use the information learned in prior jobs at the previous employer's expense, and also occasionally worked for Black Sun. Though the bounties Kast took were not first rate, this did not concern him, and he grew arrogant with his success. He participated in Arden Lyn's combat tournament in this time as well.

Kast's earlier tendencies to imitate Fett eventually gave way to a stark hatred of the man. The reasons for this were speculated on, with some theorizing that Fett had killed a friend of Kast's, and others saying that Kast had ruined one of Fett's hunts. Other rumors about the two men's relationship arose due to their similar armor, with claims that they had served together in a military unit or that Fett had been Kast's mentor. For his part, Kast sought to supplant Fett as the most infamous bounty hunter in the galaxy, saying that he would even break the Bounty Hunters' Creed to do so. He kept track of Fett's whereabouts while sticking to the Outer Rim Territories and other remote regions, building his reputation with some degree of success. In 2 ABY, Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo disguised himself as Kast, using the bounty hunter's reputation to get close to Black Sun vigo Zekka Thyne and attempt to kill him.

In 3–4 ABY, Kast once again teamed up with Zardra. The two were hired by Captain Govin Thane of the Empire to kill a Bothan known as "Silver Fur" in Cloud City, on Bespin, and retrieve a datacard containing the location of Rebel refugees from him. Kast concealed himself in a room of the Grand Bespin Hotel, overlooking the plaza where the Bothan waited to meet with his contacts, while Zardra waited in one of the shops below. When Zardra ran out of the shop and grabbed Silver Fur's pouch with the datacard, Kast fired a rocket at the Bothan that killed him. He used the last of his missiles to hold off Silver Fur's contacts, who had just arrived. Kast then launched himself with his jetpack down to Zardra, grabbed the pouch from her, and raced off into the clouds while she made her own escape.

Boba Fett's trap
"You didn't earn this armor! You didn't earn my reputation. You called me a 'fossil'. If you were going to be me, you should have learned from this fossil. You'll never be me."

- Boba Fett, after defeating Jodo Kast

When Kast heard that Fett had fallen victim to a sarlacc on Tatooine and was now widely assumed to have been killed, he decided it was time again to take Fett's name and charge higher prices accordingly. Though Fett had not in fact died, this was not known, and Kast spent much of his time trying to convince people that Fett was still alive. For Fett, Kast posed a double threat: he was both capitalizing on Fett's reputation unearned&mdash;and sullying it whenever he failed at a job&mdash;and he threatened to expose that Fett had survived his fall into the sarlacc. In 5 ABY, Fett at last took action.

When the pirate Jerresk's cadre attacked New Republic shipments, a bounty was placed on their heads, one that Kast took up. Kast and Fett's associate Dengar both independently tracked Nosstrick, the last of Jerresk's crew, to the world of Fluwhaka. Nosstrick attempted to ambush Kast with an explosive device, but the bounty hunter avoided it and fired two Frinka venom-laced darts into Nosstrick, who escaped through a door. Kast blew down the door and followed Nosstrick, informing him that he would soon be paralyzed, but the pirate dropped a trapdoor out from beneath Kast. The bounty hunter narrowly avoided falling into a spiked pit, catching himself on the rim. Dengar arrived shortly thereafter, finding Kast, who he believed to be Fett, trying to pull himself out of the pit. He blasted the controls, which raised the trapdoor, and found Nosstrick's paralyzed body not far away. However, when he attempted to claim it, Kast pulled a blaster on him. Dengar, realizing that Kast had made more mistakes than Fett would have, and unlike Fett had pulled a gun on another hunter, realized that Kast was not Fett and warned him about imitating the other bounty hunter. Kast let Dengar leave, and Dengar, angry that Kast had pulled a gun on him, decided to call Fett and tell him about his impersonator.

Fett disguised himself as "Sava Brec Madak" and approached the House Benelex bounty hunters' guild to hire Kast. According to "Madak," a man called Satnik Hiicrop had stolen his name and reputation; Hiicrop, "Madak" said, could be found in a clan keep on Nal Hutta, and he wanted Kast to bring him in. When Kast arrived at the keep, he was immediately sealed in by the doors closing behind him. Kast fought his way past Fett's traps, escaping a room full of laser webs by blowing apart the ceiling and launching himself through it on his jetpack. Finding himself at the control station for the keep's defenses, Kast shut them down, only to be attacked by a swarm of leech-like quamillas. Kast destroyed them with his Blastech J3-E left handed blaster rifle and moved on, promising to make Hiicrop pay for the trouble he was causing him. At last Kast spotted what he believed to be Hiicrop escaping down a stairwell; Kast pursued, catching up with Hiicrop, who was now sprawled on the floor. The bounty hunter approached the prone form, only to watch in confusion as it faded from view. At that moment Fett appeared behind Kast, a blaster to his head, informing him that "Hiicrop" had been a hologram, and pronouncing Kast dead.

Kast tried reasoning with Fett, informing him that he would be violating the Bounty Hunters' Creed, but Fett replied that he wasn't the first one to break the creed, and ordered Kast to remove his helmet. As Kast moved to do so, he ignited his jetpack, sending Fett flying backwards and himself forward. Kast fired at Fett, who took cover, and then Kast attempted to escape on his jetpack so he could fight on his own terms outside. Fett fired a grappling hook at him, catching him around the ankle, then rocketed up and began beating him. Fett damaged Kast's jetpack, causing the fuel to spill out, then fired a paralyzing nerve toxin into his neck, and Kast crashed to the ground. Fett stripped Kast of his jetpack, then removed his helmet; angrily informing Kast that he was "no one." Fett pulled off Kast's armor as he informed the bounty hunter of the dangers of taking a reputation unearned. He left Kast with three vials, claiming that one contained the antidote for the nerve toxin; if Kast had enough strength to get it, Fett said, he could escape before his jetpack exploded. Kast was unable to, though, and the ensuing detonation killed him.

Personality and traits
"Watching prey squirm gives me a feeling of absolute power."

- Jodo Kast

Even in his time during the Rebellion, Jodo Kast cared more about money than he did about ideals. Credits took precedence over ideals in his new career as well. In his years as a bounty hunter, Kast took on only the best-paying jobs, holding no loyalty to his previous customers and indeed specifically picking jobs that could allow him to use their secrets against them. He cared little for the Bounty Hunters' Creed, either, breaking it if it helped him gain an edge on Fett.

Kast could be vengeful, wanting to inflict pain on those who caused him a great deal of trouble in a hunt or those who themselves inflicted pain indiscriminately. "Jodo Kast never forgets," he was to known to have said, a vow to track down those bounties that escaped him at first. The bounty hunter was a perfectionist, planning out his hunts beforehand and thereby making each one take longer. He was cold and calculating, and enjoyed it when his prey squirmed, getting a feeling of power from it. He was nonetheless lacking in the skills necessary to be a top bounty hunter, like tracking targets or bringing them in without setting off a battle.

An ambitious man, Kast wanted to make a name for himself. He cared deeply about his reputation, feeling that he deserved one and taking on risky missions that would establish himself. At this, he had some degree of success; some believed Kast to be one of the best, and Grand Admiral Thrawn even used his name and reputation to establish credence with Zekka Thyne. He could overextend himself in this quest, though, becoming humiliated as he was at the loss of the Tallon bounty. Nonetheless, Kast grew increasingly arrogant the more bounties he took, though they were not the first-rate jobs. He prided himself on his skills, believing that he never missed a shot or that no one could outmaneuver him. Kast was, at least, capable in a stand-up fight.

Kast initially patterned himself after Boba Fett, dealing with situations the way he imagined Fett would deal with them. He eventually moved to taking Fett's name, capitalizing on the bounty hunter's own reputation, a practice that cost him his life when Fett sought to preserve his own reputation. Kast believed that no one cared who was in the armor anyway, that simply its appearance was reason enough to hire him. He came to think of Fett as a "fossil," even thinking of himself as better than the older bounty hunter. He was not as skilled as Fett, though, a fact that Dengar pointed out to him shortly before his death at Fett's hands.

Equipment
Kast wore a modified suit of Mandalorian armor. It was smaller and less equipped than that owned by Boba Fett, but like Fett's it included a jetpack and a magnetic grappler on his back, as well as a flamethrower. He also had incorporated into it a comlink, net, and syntherope, as well as poison dart launchers. Kast at first repainted his armor to look more like Fett's, later modifying it again to give it a unique appearance.

Kast was equipped with a number of weapons outside his armor, including a Blastech J3-E left handed blaster rifle, blaster pistol, grenades, and a stun collar. When he first started posing as Fett, the bounty hunter rigged a heavy blaster to resemble Fett's carbine. Poison darts were his preferred weapon, though, which he coated with a number of killing and paralyzing toxins including Frinka venom and his favorite, the lethal Sennari. Kast's personal vessel and base of operations was the Foxcatch, a Lambda-class shuttle that he loaded with guns.

Behind the scenes
The cover of Tatooine Manhunt displays a group of bounty hunters, originally concept art from The Empire Strikes Back, showing the group of bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader posing on Bespin. All but 4-LOM have similar-appearing counterparts within the book, with Jodo Kast as the analogue to Boba Fett. That same source includes a black and white promotional image of Fett inside, labeled as Kast. Kast was in fact created as a stand-in for Fett, to be used in roleplaying game scenarios when an equivalent to Fett was needed, only scaled down in power to be an appropriate challenge for novice players, or who could be safely killed without drastic effect on continuity. Kast's armor made him popular amongst fans. In late 1996, after appearing almost exclusively in Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game media, Kast was at last killed off. His death was first described in Daniel Keys Moran's short story The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett, and a month later shown in Andy Mangels' Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction. Because of the close proximity in the publishing times of these two stories, which of them conceived the idea of Fett killing Kast first is unknown. West End Games later commissioned a prequel to Twin Engines from Mangels, titled Jodo Kast and Dengar: Preying for Time. Intended to be a 2-3 issue comic, it would tell the story leading up to Twin Engines: a pirate attack occurs on a New Republic vessel, and Kast and Dengar take bounties to find the escaped pirates. The plot was approved by Lucasfilm Ltd., asking for a few changes; as they were being worked on, WEG went bankrupt, and the comic was canceled along with it.

Author Abel G. Peña, a self-professed "big Jodo fan", added the details of Kast's time with the Rebellion, his history with Feskitt Bobb, and the end of Kast's partnership with Puggles Trodd and Zardra in his Star Wars Insider article The History of the Mandalorians. Peña has also unofficially proposed that Boba Fett's appearance in Galaxy of Fear: City of the Dead, in which the bounty hunter pursues Cornelius Evazan, might be Kast, tying the novel in to Kast's earlier pursuit of Evazan in "One That Got Away", a vignette from Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope.

Kast was voiced by Neil Ross in Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi. He appears in the game as a playable character, though one that is unlocked through gameplay; it is therefore unknown whether he canonically takes place in the events of the game, or whether his appearance is a non-canon game mechanic.

Kast was released as an action figure in Fall of 2008 by Hasbro. The figure's package naturally uses a recolored image of Boba Fett, this time from the cover of Bloodlines. A second Jodo Kast figure was released by Hasbro in August 2010, this time with a removable helmet, as an exclusive for the retailer Kmart.

In the Swedish version of Tatooine Manhunt Jodo Kast is misspelled as "Jodo Karst".

Appearances

 * A Hunter's Fate: Greedo's Tale
 * Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi
 * Side Trip
 * Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction
 * The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett
 * Slave Ship
 * Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction
 * The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett
 * Slave Ship