Kal Skirata

"He cared what happened to us. He was one of us, pretty much. Not just there because he couldn't cope with not being in the army anymore, or had to disappear. No, he was a good man."

- Niner

Kal Skirata, sometimes called Kal'buir (Mando'a for "Papa Kal") by the clone commandos that he trained, was a Mandalorian instructor for clone commandos in the Grand Army of the Republic. The armor he wore was colored a dull sand brown.

Life as a Mandalorian
As a boy, he was orphaned by war and adopted into a Mandalorian clan by Munin Skirata. Kal's three-sided knife was all he could salvage from his father's body. When Munin found the young Kal, the first thing Kal did was attack Munin with his knife. Munin adopted Kal in a very Mandalorian fashion, and gave him the name Kal, meaning knife in Mando'a. His careers included being a mercenary, bounty hunter, bodyguard, assassin, and debt collector, along with many other tough jobs.

He married a non-Mandalorian, Ilippi, whom he had three children with. However, she could not understand his Mandalorian ways or accept his long absences, so she eventually left him, taking their children with her. A few years before Kamino, his ankle was shredded by a Verpine shatter gun. The injury would later become a grievance for the rest of his career.

When Jango Fett was recruiting the Cuy'val Dar, Kal was one of the first names on the list. He and Jango went back a long way, and had an up and down relationship. Kal was a very aggressive Mandalorian traditionalist and was devoted to the welfare of his troops.

Training clones


Eight years before the Battle of Geonosis, Kal was brought to Kamino when he answered Jango Fett's call for clone trainers. He was disgusted with the Kaminoans' arrogance and indifferent attitude toward the "processing"&mdash;killing&mdash;of children. He first met the Nulls when the Kaminoan technicians considered them failures and had to be destroyed. He became sympathetic to the clones, and took the Nulls under his wing, giving them names and training them specifically. The Nulls were very fond of Kal, and would only answer to or accept orders from him.

Shortly after the Battle of Geonosis, when Kal's contract as a Cuy'val Dar was finally over, Kal had to be placed in custody to help calm down the Null ARCs, but he helped on the condition that he would be re-enlisted in the Grand Army of the Republic.

Mission on Coruscant
One year into the war, Skirata teamed up with Delta and Omega Squads, Ordo, Mereel, Walon Vau, and Jedi Generals Etain Tur-Mukan and Bardan Jusik for a classified mission to locate terrorists deep in Coruscant's heart. The object of the mission was to locate and eliminate Separatist terror cells operating on Coruscant. For the mission, Ordo "borrowed" a large cache of explosives from GAR facilities, and Skirata used contacts within the more seedy areas of Coruscant to set himself up as a man looking to sell the explosives. Once contact had been made with the terror cell, the different teams were given different objectives. Omega and Delta Squads, along with Jusik and Tur-Mukan, tracked the members of the terror cell. Walon Vau served as interrogator for any prisoners taken. Once the exchange took place between Skirata and the terror cells, a strike was made to eliminate all members of the cell.

The hunt for Ko Sai
A few months after the mission on Coruscant, Kal Skirata, along with Ordo and Mereel, traveled to Kamino to find information on the whereabouts of the missing Kaminoan scientist, Ko Sai. He manages to track Ko Sai down and capture her. However, she commits suicide before Skirata can obtain the full knowledge on how to stop the clones' accelerated aging. Fortunately, he still possesses all of Ko Sai's research and already has an alternate plan to stop the accelerated aging process.

Legacy
In 40 ABY, Taun We told Boba Fett that Skirata found and killed Sai and used her data to stop the aging process of at least one clone. This clone would later go on to tell Boba Fett that his father, possibly meaning Kal, had died.

It also appears that Kal had cared for Venku, the son of Omega Squad Commando Darman, and Jedi Etain Tur-Murkan.

Personality
He disliked many of the things that the Kaminoans did to the clones, and was deeply disturbed by the treatment of his "boys". He was able to smuggle in treats and other restricted things for the clones, and wanted them to embrace their Mandalorian heritage. He also hated living on the water world of Kamino, as it made his shattered ankle play up. The Kaminoans also unnerved him, and irritated him with questions about how he felt being "defective". He also had serious differences with Walon Vau (differences which bordered on outright hatred), as he felt Vau was sadistic toward the clone troopers (a source of contention was when Vau sicced his pet strill, Lord Mirdalan, on a young Ordo).

Behind the scenes


Robert Hendrickson's illustrations of Kal Skirata for Star Wars Insider bear a close resemblance to actor Ed Harris.

Appearances

 * Republic Commando: Hard Contact
 * Omega Squad: Targets
 * Republic Commando: Triple Zero
 * Odds
 * Republic Commando: True Colors
 * Bloodlines
 * Sacrifice