User:Lord Hydronium/Workbench

"You called me a 'fossil'. If you were going to be me, you should have learned from this fossil."

- Boba Fett

Jodo Kast was a bounty hunter active in the Galactic Civil War era. Kast wore modified Mandalorian armor, and was sometimes mistaken for Boba Fett as a result, a fact he capitalized on when possible. However, he had no known connection with the Mandalorians. He was an independent bounty hunter, who was known to occasionally work for Black Sun.

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. 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 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. The Empire sent their own forces, including the Mandalorian Feskitt Bobb. The battle was messy, 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.

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 him into the profession. It was not long before he joined with fellow hunters Zardra and Puggles Trodd.

Early hunts
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 Taboon. In the ensuing fight, Zardra killed a Hutt named Mageye. Jabba later placed a bounty on her for the killing, which Kast was believed to have warned her about.

Kast had a run-with Ponda Baba a few months before the Battle of Yavin. The bounty hunter killed Baba's partner, then reneged on his promise to split the reward with Baba. Not long after, he set his sights on Cornelius Evazan, a "doctor" who mangled 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 the Corellian system, where Evazan was operating a clinic on the outskirts of a small city.

Kast 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. He realized that it was a dummy&mdash;Evazan had seen him coming and was running. Kast followed, 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 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 soon took on a job for the Empire.

Hunt on Tatooine
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 sector-wide bounty on Tallon, bringing dozens of hunters to the planet. Before leaving the Relentless, Kast helped deal with a Rebel agent onboard, Dana. As the Star Destroyer was docked at Kwenn Space Station, 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. While the others did battle, Kast slipped back into the airlock.

Kast was on Tatooine as early as 35:3:6, where he told Spurch Goa that Jabba had given the Zardra bounty to Gorm the Dissolver. He and his fellow hunters had been given accommodations by Jabba in his town house, 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 shopkeeper Heff. Kast sent Trodd to sign up the other bounty hunters to accompany him on a journey into the Jundland Wastes, his way of keeping the less competent ones in line.

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, then left behind a squad of bounty hunters to deal with any of her associates and a datapad threatening the local Old Arno. 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, he decided to eliminate them. Malloc, claiming to have arranged a meeting with Arno, drew them into an ambush at the 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 flee.

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
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 may have 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
Kast continued to used Fett's name, posing as the other hunter to get higher bounties even after Fett fell into and later emerged from the sarlacc. Kast posed a double threat to Fett: 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 Fluwhaka. Nosstrick attempted to ambush Kast with a detonator, but the bounty hunter avoided it and fired several 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&mdash;who he believed to be Fett&mdash;pulling himself out of the pit. He found Nosstrick's paralyzed body not far away, but when he attempted to claim it, Kast pulled a blaster on him. Dengar, realizing from the mistakes that Kast had made and the fact that he was pulling a gun on another hunter that it was not Fett, warned him about imitating the other bounty hunter. Kast let Dengar leave, and the bounty hunter, angry that Kast had pulled a gun on him, decided to call in Fett and tell him about his impersonator.

Fett disguised himself as "Sava Brec Madak" and approached the House Benelex bounty hunter's 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 lit them on fire with his flamethrower 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 as he was 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 it had been a hologram and pronouncing him dead.

Kast tried reasoning with Fett, informing him that he would be violating the Bounty Hunter's Creed, but Fett informed him that he had done so first and ordered him 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, then 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 begin beating him. Fett damaged Kast's jetpack, and Kast fell, catching Fett around the ankle; Fett 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; upon seeing that Kast was "no one", Fett grew angry and began pulling off Kast's armor as he informed the bounty hunter of the dangers of taking a reputation unearned. He left Kast with three vials, one containing 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
Even in his time during the Rebellion, Jodo Kast cared more about money than he did in 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.

Kast was ambitious, wanting 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 arrogant the more bounties he took, though they were not the first-rate ones. He prided himself on his skills, believing that he never missed a shot or that no one could outmaneuver him.

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.

Behind the scenes


The cover of Tatooine Manhunt displays a group of bounty hunters, presumably meant to represent the ones featured in the book. This picture was originally concept art from The Empire Strikes Back, showing the group of bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader posing on Bespin. Thus, the picture actually does not depict Kast, but Boba Fett.

Appearances

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

Notes and references
Jodo Kast Jodo Kast Jodo Kast Jodo Kast