The Essential Guide to Force Exile/Pec Deplisk

"Sergeant Deplisk was as fine a soldier as anyone could ask for. He was loyal, dedicated, and devoted to the defense of this refuge. A veteran of many conflicts, he was a valuable member of the Guard and he will be missed."

- Spectre Kraen on Pec Deplisk

A career soldier, Pec Deplisk spent much of his life wandering from planet to planet in search of the next conflict. Ironically, it was only after he settled down into a steady job on the world of Yanibar that his past finally caught up to him. He bore the dubious distinction of the first Yanibar Guard soldier slain in combat, but his death was one of heroism, of courage under fire, and of self-sacrifice.

Pec Deplisk was born on the Zabrak colony world of Iridia to a family of hyperspace scouts. He planned on becoming a starship pilot from an early age, but the outbreak of the Clone Wars caused his plans to change. Republic restrictions and regulations crippled his family's business, forcing them to blaze riskier and more hazardous hyperroutes in order to get by. On one fateful occasion, his family accidentally discovered a hidden Separatist fleet while scouting a new hyperroute in their ship and were subsequently killed to protect the secret. An orphaned Deplisk joined a mercenary unit, eager to do battle with just about anyone. In his eyes, the Republic had merely led his family to the deathtrap while the Separatists had been their executioner.

Deplisk fought in dozens of battles across the galaxy, mostly in the Mid and Outer Rim. When the Clone Wars ended in 19 BBY, he wasn't done fighting. Sticking with his mercenary unit, he waged war on another 20 worlds over the next six years. He earned a reputation as an experienced soldier, knowledgeable in infantry tactics, reliable, and absolutely deadly in close-quarters combat.

However, after his mercenary unit ran afoul of the Empire on Iridonia and ended up disbanding, Deplisk sought to hide somewhere away from the scrutiny of the Empire. Drifting from one world to the next, now a loner, he nevertheless became involved in settling a number of petty squabbles. On Molavar, he settled a long-standing range war between a local crime lord by uniting and leading a number of smaller ranchers against them. His involvement was mostly due to being assaulted in a cantina by the crime lord's henchmen, but he nevertheless subdued the crime lord before swiftly departing so as to avoid attracting attention.

In another incident, Deplisk accidentally became involved in dealing with a corrupt mining operation on Roon. After subduing a drunk brawler who was threatening another man, Deplisk decided to leave Roon, only to find the transport he was riding attacked by bandits. He dealt with the bandits in his usual fashion, and then investigated further. Tracking the survivors back to their hideout, he discovered that the mining boss had kidnapped the daughter of the workers' foreman to compel his cooperation in signing an unfavorable work agreement. Deplisk rescued her and blasted through most of their stronghold, also seizing documents which implicated local law enforcement and mining officials in the scheme.

Once again drifting on to another isolated world, Deplisk also became entangled in two competing cargo lines in the Tau Sakar system. Deplisk protected the son of one of the company's heads from being killed, which earned him the enmity of the rival corporation. He took up arms against the company, inflicting thousands of credits in property damage and killing several people that were sent after him. Finally, after killing the chief strongarm and threatening the company's head, they called off the deathmark on him.

Thoroughly fed up with the do-gooding he'd become involved in, Deplisk drifted out into Wild Space, to Yanibar, where he arrived in 14 BBY. He started work as a bouncer in a local dive, but was dissatisfied with the work. One bright spark in his life was meeting Hespa, an Iridonian girl who worked as a waitress in the same restaurant. They fell in love, to the point where Deplisk was contemplating making their arrangement permanent by marrying her. He was already been willing to settle down and stay on Yanibar for her and envisioned living with her for the rest of his life. However, he also wanted to find more meaningful employment.

When a patron named Olno Mada told him that there was work to be made by working as a soldier for a new refuge on Yanibar, Deplisk jumped on the offer. He and Hespa moved to the refuge, where he soon became the second-in-command for one of the refuge's infantry squads: 3 Company, Cresh Squad. He worked to train the younger soldiers of his command well and they soon became one of the more competent units in the fledgling Yanibar Guard. Equipped with the new Battlesuit52-A, they cut imposing figures, but Hespa disapproved of his career choice, wishing he would truly settle down.

In 12 BBY, Cresh Squad was called upon to spot airstrikes on a group of pirates that had landed on Yanibar far too close to the refuge for comfort. Deplisk did his job well, but he and Specialist Feran Slayn could not abide watching Twi'lek slaves be brutalized by the pirates, particularly since the slaves were also in the strike zone of the impending airstrikes. He rescued the Twi'lek slaves, killing several pirates, but was discovered in the process, even as the droid fighters swooped in to deliver their ordnance. Pec Deplisk fell in a hail of blaster bolts, surrounded by the corpses of pirates he had single-handedly killed. The droid starfighters pounded the encampment, ending their threat.

He was memorialized in a service by the commander of the Yanibar Guard Army, General Spectre Kraen. Hespa ultimately remained in the refuge and she mourned his loss for years before marrying much later in life. Deplisk's name went down in history as the first combat casualty of the Yanibar Guard and a statue of him was erected in the Hall of Remembrance in a wing devoted to the Yanibar Guard.

Behind the scenes
The character of Pec Deplisk was conceived as a one-shot character for the war drama Thunderchief. He was characterized as an experienced soldier, but also one with a conscience. His gruff exterior belied his inner nobility and sense of duty. Backstory for Pec Deplisk was influenced by protagonists from a number of Western books regarding soldiers-of-fortune, as well as the canonical character of Darca Nyl.

Appearances

 * Thunderchief
 * Yanibar Guard Sourcebook