Dezmyn
Character · also known as Dez
A droid who serves as the partner, bodyguard, and copilot of smuggler Quinel Neviden aboard the Misfit Stray.
Appearance
Dezmyn — "Dez" for short — is a large, heavily armored battle droid with a plated frame, mechanical hands, and green optical sensors (also called photoreceptors) that flash, flicker, dim, and brighten with his attention, glowing a solid green when he shifts into full combat assessment. He moves on heavy, clanging footfalls yet with surprising grace, and reads to bystanders as an imposing, menacing presence — likened at rest to a particularly menacing statue. Concealed in his forearms are double-barreled heavy repeater blasters that fold out with a mechanical whir and retract back into their housings; he can also mag-lock additional weapons, such as a compact blaster rifle, to his back plating and carry spare power cells in pouches on his frame, and a cable from his chassis lets him slice door locks. He speaks in a flat, digitized, mechanical voice. Arc 2 establishes that he is a former Separatist combat prototype, built for close-quarters urban combat and the elimination of high-value targets — pointedly "not an astromech."
Personality
Dez insists, constantly and emphatically, that he has no emotions, framing what he says as logic, probability, and statistics and describing himself as "an autonomous weapons platform." He is dry, sardonic, and relentlessly deadpan, trading banter and mock-threats with Quinel — a running "verbal agreement" in which Quinel handles his maintenance and Dez refrains from shooting him. Quinel programmed him to distrust most people, and he defaults to suspicion, caution, threat assessment, and being over-prepared, frequently supplying blunt survival odds and factual exposition on people and places. Despite his denials, he is plainly invested in keeping Quinel alive and voices genuine confidence in him ("I believe you will succeed"); both the narration and Quinel note the gap between his claim of having no feelings and his evident loyalty. He is capable of marked restraint, at times on his own initiative — sparing a man who had fired on Quinel rather than killing him — and keeps protective watch even while powered down. He warms cautiously to Tammea, whom he calls "the small organic," attributing his concern for her to a "threat-assessment subroutine that prioritizes crew survival" rather than anything he will admit resembles care.
In the story
These sections contain spoilers, grouped by arc. Open only as far as you have read.
Arc 1 — Escape from Ghauba
Dezmyn — usually called Dez — is a heavy-framed droid with green optical sensors (also referred to as photoreceptors), and the partner and bodyguard of Quinel Neviden. Quinel introduces him as "this bucket of bolts" and states that he programmed Dez not to trust most of the people they meet. Dez conceals double-barreled heavy repeater blasters that fold out of his forearms, and describes himself as "an autonomous weapons platform."
He reasons in terms of logic and probability and repeatedly claims to have no emotions, yet Quinel remarks that he is "very invested in keeping me alive," and Dez tells Quinel that he is "a better person than you want to admit to being." He alludes to shared history, including a "Kessel incident" after which Quinel asked him to stop calculating their odds of survival aloud.
On Ghauba, Dez advises immediate departure once the Imperial crackdown begins, then covers Quinel through the fighting — shielding him with his own body in an alley and holding his repeaters on threats. In the colonists' security center he confronts an armed Deklaen, giving a three-count for the man to lower his weapon before standing down. He survives the hangar ambush and the escape, taking damage but acting as copilot and gunner as the ship breaks orbit.
Arc 2 — Cloud City Blues
This arc establishes that Dez is a former Separatist combat prototype, built for close-quarters urban combat and the elimination of high-value targets — pointedly "not an astromech droid." He has been with Quinel for about nine years, a span that included the Separatist blockade at Felucia, where the two were trapped while running supplies for the Republic.
He continues to speak in statistics and percentiles and to insist he has no feelings, while Quinel notes that his reassurance — "I believe you will succeed" — carries weight precisely because it comes from a droid who denies being capable of such things. On Cloud City he confronts a man who draws a blaster on the crew but declines to kill him even after the man fires, characterizing this as "significant restraint" on his part. Aboard the lent apartment he keeps watch even while powered down in standby, positioned to watch both the entrance and the common room. His rapport with Tammea begins to form through dry banter, and she coins the nickname "oversized calculator with guns."
Arc 3 — Crossfire Run
Dez insists on regular maintenance protocols and threat assessment, and serves as the crew's source of exposition — on Black Sun once the syndicate is identified, and on their destination, Taris. After the cantina meeting he quietly detects that the crew is being followed, tracking the two tails without reacting until they break off.
When Quinel recognizes a Black Sun tattoo, Dez runs the numbers: he calculates the odds of a complication-free delivery at under four percent, and the crew's survival probability at under fifteen percent if they try to renege on the contract. He confirms that Garaath had warned them the client seemed "off," and warms the ship up for departure at Quinel's order.