Brejik

Brejik was the leader of the Black Vulkars, a swoop gang of the Lower City on Taris that, under his direction, led a gang war against their rivals the Hidden Beks in the time of the Jedi Civil War. Formerly the lieutenant to Gadon Thek, head of the Hidden Beks, Brejik defected to the Black Vulkars when his mentor refused to retire and allow him to succeed. The war he prosecuted as head of the Black Vulkars wrecked chaos throughout the Lower City. When he captured and enslaved the Jedi Knight
 Bastila Shan, he provoked the intervention of two agents of the Republic, Revan and Carth Onasi, ultimately leading to his downfall.
==Biography==
===Mandalorian resistance===
In the days leading up to the Mandalorian attack on Taris, Brejik kidnapped the children of Sector Constable Noana Sowrs, planning to hold them for ransom and gain a profit as Gadon had taught him. Before he could make any demands, however, riots broke out on the planet. Rather than letting the children go, Brejik chose to hold them until the opportunity to contact the constable presented itself. He enlisted to the help of fellow gang member Griff Vao to help him take care of the children and keep his secret. When the Mandalorians invaded, Brejik fought with the rest of the Beks in resisting them.
Soon, Griff's sister Mission discovered her brother's covert activities, and shortly after the arrival of Zayne Carrick, she followed him with Zayne and his companion Marn Hierogryph. Not wanting his secret discovered, Brejik attacked Zayne with a vibrosword, but was stopped by Del Moomo before he could kill the former Padawan.
Though Gadon was furious that Brejik had not only kidnapped the children, but kept them secret, he recognized that they were a good opportunity to convince the Taris Resistance to ally with their gang. Brejik accompanied the rest of the Beks to the Resistance headquarters where the temporary alliance was forged. Brejik was later part of the mission to destroy the Jedi Tower, where he helped rig explosives in its foundation to bring the building down in hopes of killing Mandalorian military leader Cassus Fett. The mission was a failure, however, as Fett had already vacated the building and the Mandalorians had discovered and attacked the Resistance headquarters. Always eager to use his blaster, Brejik led Del Moomo back to the compound to fight the Mandalorians and return to the Beks' fallout point, the Pit.
===Schism===
At some point between the Siege of Taris in 3962 BBY and the Sith occupation in 3956 BBY, Gadon Thek was the victim of a severe swoop racing crash, a disaster that left him blinded. The handicap prompted the expectations by many in the Hidden Beks, not least of all Brejik, for his retirement. When Thek restored his vision with cybernetic implants, however, he declined to step down to make way for Brejik's succession, deeming the moment a few years too soon for the inexperienced Brejik. Outraged and impatient, Brejik refused to wait any longer and defected to the arch-rival gang: the Black Vulkars, taking many of the disgruntled, younger Beks with him.
Not long afterwards, Brejik seized power as Black Vulkars' new gang leader with the aid of his followers and initiated a devastating gang war with the Hidden Beks in an attempt to conquer the entire Lower City. Unlike the Beks, the Vulkars openly engaged in trades such as illicit drugs and slavery and fired indiscriminately at gang members and civilians alike. Thek wondered if the gang war could have been avoided had he chose to step down, but Zaerdra pointed out he would have simply led the Beks against the Vulkars; one way or another, Brejik wanted this gang war to unite all the Lower City Gangs under his control.
===Capture of a Jedi===
In 3956 BBY during the Jedi Civil War, the Sith Empire ambushed a Galactic Republic cruiser, the Endar Spire, in the hopes of capturing the Jedi Knight Bastila Shan on board, as her unique ability of battle meditation was pivotal to the Republic war effort. As the Endar Spire was boarded by Sith forces, Republic officers, including Shan retreated to Taris on escape pods. Shan's pod, in particular, crash-landed in the Undercity. Within hours of the crash, Black Vulkars arrived to scavenge the pods where they found Shan, alive. Hoping to sell her into slavery, they captured the Jedi and delivered her to Brejik.
While Brejik did not realize that Shan was a Jedi, he did know her as a Republic officer and therefore, a prisoner too valuable to merely sell to the Exchange or on the slave market. He devised a plot to offer her as the grand prize of that year's annual swoop race, the Tarisian Season Opener, in the hopes that this would cultivate the loyalty of many of the smaller gangs that could bolster his forces against the Hidden Beks. With such a scheme in mind, Brejik took measures to hide Shan in a secure location away from the Black Vulkar Base until the day of the swoop rice, not even trusting his own subordinates to be near her.
Meanwhile, the Hidden Beks developed a prototype swoop accelerator that was expected to be far superior to the engines of all other swoop bikes at the race. As the accelerator was designed to guarantee victory for the biker using it, the Black Vulkars to stole it for themselves. With the prototype engine secured, Brejik hoped that the prize he offered would fall back to the Vulkars anyways. He had not counted for the intervention of Revan and Captain Carth Onasi, two other Republic soldiers that had survived the destruction of the Endar Spire.
Determined to rescue Shan, Revan and Onasi allied with the Hidden Beks when they were instructed by Gadon Thek that their only hope was to win the Great Swoop Race by stealing back the prototype accelerator. With the aid of the Twi'lek girl Mission Vao and her best friend the Wookiee Zaalbar, the group infiltrated the Black Vulkar Base and killed Kandon Ark, the Vulkar in charge of the garage, for the accelerator. Brejik had lost the accelerator back to Thek just a day before the Great Swoop Race.
===The Tarisian Season Opener===
Before the race, Brejik managed to discover that Shan was a Jedi. As a result, when he had her brought out to be displayed in a cage at the swoop platform on the day of the Tarisian Season Opener, he bound her with a neural disruptor collar, designed to disrupt her mental capacity and prevent her from casting her Force powers to escape. He additionally ordered the guard to forbid anyone from approaching to speak with her even though the collar also left her practically unconscious anyways.
At the Great Swoop Race, not even the Vulkars' best racer, Redros, could compete against Revan, whose swoop bike was equipped with the experimental accelerator. Revan, in spite of being entirely new to the sport, won the race and the grand prize Bastila Shan. The furious Brejik then emerged, announcing to everyone that he was withdrawing the victory prize in light of the fact that Revan, he claimed, cheated with his unique accelerator. Even with this accusation, the audience, including the race announcer, were appalled by what they saw as Brejik's sacrilegious violation of swoop racing traditions.
It was then that Shan suddenly interrupted the commotion by breaking free from her neural disruptor collar and her cage. As she proceeded to kill her guard and seize his vibro double-blade, the shocked Brejik rallied all the Black Vulkars present and called for them to slaughter the Jedi, Revan, and all the Hidden Beks. In the intense fight that followed, neither Brejik nor any of his cronies survived.
===Legacy===
Despite his betrayal, his former mentor Gadon Thek mourned his death, spending some time alone in his personal chambers to grieve. As Zaerdra explained to Revan and Mission, it was likely Thek's earnest hope that Brejik would eventually reform, in which case he would've readily forgiven him. The decisive Bek victory led to an upsurge in recruitment immediately after the race.
The Hidden Beks took care to warn Revan and his companions to be wary of the surviving Black Vulkars that would likely target them in revenge, yet ultimately the war between the two gangs would be brought to a close soon afterwards not from Brejik's death, but by the massive Sith bombardment and destruction of Taris.
==Skills and abilities==
No stranger to combat, Brejik was accustomed to firing rapid volleys of blaster bolts at his enemies. He had skill with a vibroblade, and he was particularly trained in capitalizing on opportunities when an enemy is outflanked or striking when an opponent is off-guard. Nevertheless, his martial skills, while proficient, were little match for a Jedi Knight and an amnesiac former Sith Lord.
==Equipment==
Throughout the Mandalorian Wars and the gang war between the Hidden Beks and the Black Vulkars, Brejik worn a military suit, standard for its time as a sturdy and durable suit of armor. His personal belt and arm band, in conjunction, generated a mild barrier against bludgeoning and slashing attacks while his gloves were designed to assist his hand-eye coordination. As many did at this time, he fought using a basic blaster pistol with a vibroblade as a side-arm in the event that his enemies closed the gap to him.
==Behind the scenes==
Brejik is a major antagonist on the planet Taris in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, in which he is played by veteran voice actor Nathan Carlson.
In the non-canonical dark side course, during the quest to rescue Bastila Shan, Revan accepts Kandon Ark's offer to betray Gadon Thek upon meeting him at the Black Vulkar garage in the attempt to steal back the prototype accelerator. The deal Ark presents is for Revan to kill Thek in exchange for being allowed to race for Shan on the side of the Black Vulkars using the prototype accelerator, alongside a bonus of 500 credits. Like Thek, Brejik allows Revan to ride the modified swoop bike primarily because it is unstable and may risk exploding and killing the rider. Regardless, once Revan wins, the gang leader will still withdraw the prize, but under a different justification: that Shan is a Jedi and too dangerous to serve as a slave to any winner. While he assures Revan he will compensate him through some other means, Shan will still break free from her restraints at that moment, provoking Brejik into calling for an attack against her, the Hidden Beks, and curiously enough, Revan as well.
The video game Star Wars: The Old Republic, set 300 years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic, introduces a swoop racer named Milos Brejik, but says that he survived the destruction of Taris; thus, they cannot be the same character.
==Appearances==
*Knights of the Old Republic 22
*Knights of the Old Republic 23
*Knights of the Old Republic 24
*Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 
==Sources==
*Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Prima's Official Strategy Guide
==Notes and references==
Category:Black Vulkars
Category:Crime lords
Category:Enslavers
Category:Hidden Beks
Category:Humans
Category:Individuals with he/him pronouns
Category:Males
Category:Swoop gang leaders
Category:Tarisians