Naastau

Naastau was a Mandalorian Human male who lived during the late Rise of the Empire era into the New Republic era and saw combat during the Great Clan Wars, the Clone Wars, and the Galactic Civil War.

Naastau began his warrior career at the height of the Great Clan Wars on Mandalore in his teenaged years as a foot soldier in a Supercommando militia that opposed the remnants of the Death Watch faction. After many victories against the Death Watch, the militia began carrying out air raids over towns and cities across Mandalore at random with a squadron of bomber airspeeders. Soon enough, the militia's leaders planned an air raid over the central regions of Evaarmorut city (known also as New Haven by its 500,000 inhabitants), where Naastau was from. Bent on protecting his home, Naastau infiltrated the militia's secret hangar in the Enceri township and used thermal detonators to sabotage the airspeeders. This was discovered only hours later and Naastau was captured and set to be executed the following morning. Naastau escaped his underground dungeon around dawn and went to the nearby city of Keldabe, where he used his connections with mercenary brokers and black market dealers to form his own Mandalorian warband that was also supported by speederbikes and gunships. In order to pay for these assets, Naastau pulled off a bank heist in the town of Bralsin. Upon consolidating his forces as a warlord, Naastau led his warriors in brief though effective raids on the holdings of various Mandalorian groups such as the Death Watch (Kyr'tsad) and the Sons of War (Akaan'ade), among others. As a result of his constant raiding across Mandalore and its moon Concordia, Naastau quickly became despised among most other Mandalorian warlords and clan chieftains. While Naastau and his warriors identified as Supercommandos, they typically disregarded the tenets of the Supercommando Codex. In the final weeks of the Great Clan Wars in 32 BBY, Naastau was betrayed by his lieutenant, a secret Akaan'ade sympathizer, who set off a detonator in their stronghold's armory causing a chain reaction that killed six Supercommandos. The lieutenant convinced his fellow warriors that their warlord was responsible and should be put to death. Naastau once more narrowly escaped execution and began operating as a pirate and a smuggler throughout Mandalorian space and neighboring sectors for the following years. As Naastau avoided ever returning to the Mandalore system unless to sell his plunder in Mandalore's black markets, the exile soon became forgotten by the Old Mandalorians.

Around 24 BBY, Naastau made his way to Ord Mantell where he took up a contract with the Black Sun crime syndicate as an assassin. Operating across the known galaxy, his targets during this time included crime lords, businessmen, and even politicians.

In 22 BBY, over a month into the Clone Wars, Naastau was captured by Republic agents while meeting Black Sun contacts in the Coruscant underworld and imprisoned in Coruscant's military prison after a heated pursuit that resulted in the deaths of some agents. It was only days into his imprisonment when Jedi Master Rahm Kota, impressed by the Mandalorian's fighting skill, came to him and offered him immunity from his crimes if he served in Kota's penal unit under the Grand Army of the Republic; Naastau eagerly accepted the offer. Naastau served throughout the entire Clone Wars as one of General Kota's lieutenants as their unit - one of the now few Republic military formations that did not feature any clone troopers, but rather mercenaries and hand-picked prisoners of war - was sent into battle against Separatist forces across the Outer Rim. Kota's unit still saw combat alongside clone armies such as at the Battle of Viidaav and numerous deployments in the Outer Rim Sieges. Naastau was also occasionally sent on espionage and special reconnaisance missions by the Republic Special Operations Brigade and typically carried out these missions by himself or with a squad of clone commandos.

When Order 66 was executed in 19 BBY, Kota escaped the genocide and Naastau went off to form a mercenary unit under Black Sun contract. Once more under the Black Sun, Naastau's company and other mercenary companies fought throughout Hutt Space in the Black Sun's war with the Hutts, who also featured mercenaries as the bulk of their forces. Around 10 BBY, Naastau returned to Mandalore, which was under Imperial occupation, and eventually joined a local resistance force led by Fenn Shysa, under whom Naastau participated in convoy ambushes as well as raids on Imperial slave camps across the planet for some years. As the Galactic Civil War soon engulfed the galactic community, Naastau once more left his homeworld to work as a smuggler for the Rebel Alliance with an armed Action VI transport as his personal vessel. In 1 ABY, Naastau terminated his contract with the Rebels and began operating as an independent treasure hunter. Assisted by a squad of scrap-built assassin droids, Naastau tracked and obtained valuables such as lightsabers, holocrons, and kyber crystals, which he then sold to black marketers on Coruscant. Throughout his many treasure hunting missions, Naastau frequently had hostile encounters with both Imperial and Rebel personnel, among others, and slayed at least two Jedi in this time period. Alliance Intelligence began sending agents to eliminate the Supercommando and seize his treasures, though many agents were killed or injured in their attempts. The Imperials also set out a bounty of 250,000 credits for his death, although the bounty hunters that took up the job were also either killed or evaded. After hearing of Palpatine's death in 4 ABY, Naastau returned to Mandalore where he retired in his home city of Evaarmorut.

Throughout his extensive combat career, Naastau wore a black-colored set of durasteel Mandalorian armor that was enhanced with a heads-up display as well as various weapons and gadgets integrated into his wrist vambraces, much like many other Mandalorian warriors and mercenaries of his time period. His helmet, chest plating, and vambraces were later extensively modified and his suit was also fitted with an energy shield generator. He wielded many weapons in his lifetime, though by the time of the Galactic Civil War his signature armament was a modified EE-3 blaster carbine.