A male Koorivar named Cala functioned as an operations expert. He became part of a rebel cell under the leadership of Berch Teller five years after the Galactic Empire was formed. Cala took part in the theft of the Carrion Spike, which was the personal starship belonging to Imperial Governor Wilhuff Tarkin. Subsequently, Cala was involved in Berch Teller's insurgent campaign against the Empire. Tarkin defeated the insurgents at the Battle near the Gulf of Tatooine.
During the Clone Wars, Cala was a Koorivar loyalist who specialized in munitions and surveillance during the Separatist occupation of Antar 4, a moon of the Gotal. He received training from Republic Intelligence operative Berch Teller and joined the loyalist resistance against the Separatist forces. After the Galactic Republic was reorganized into the Galactic Empire, Imperial forces, commanded by Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, started a brutal crackdown known as the Antar Atrocity in 18 BBY. This resulted in the arrest and execution of numerous Koorivar and Gotals on Antar 4, including Republic loyalists.
Teller managed to rescue Cala, along with the Gotal starship pilot Salikk, from the Antar Atrocity. Cala then became a member of Berch Teller's rebel cell, which consisted of several Gotals, Koorivar, and members of other species who had either survived or witnessed the Antar Atrocity. Other significant members of Teller's rebel cell included Anora Fair, a former Republic journalist; Hask Taff, a Zygerrian filmmaker; Dr. Artoz, a Mon Calamari starship engineer; and Knotts, an information broker. These dissidents opposed the Galactic Empire and held a particular grudge against Moff Tarkin, the architect of the Antar Atrocity.
In the years leading up to 14 BBY, Teller's insurgents amassed a considerable collection of droid starfighters, warships, and communications equipment and jammers from the Clone Wars era. They received assistance from Dodd Rancit, an Imperial Vice Admiral and Director of the Naval Intelligence Agency, who used his intelligence and connections to provide the insurgents with equipment and weapons. Rancit, a rival of Tarkin, aimed to improve his position in the Imperial Ruling Council. Cala and the other insurgents were unaware of the true identity of Teller's informant.
After an attack on [Sentinel Base](/article/sentinel_base] failed, Teller and his followers planned to steal Moff Tarkin's stealth corvette, the Carrion Spike. The rebels intended to use the Carrion Spike to attack Imperial targets throughout the galaxy and broadcast holovids of their attacks to inspire rebellion. With Vice Admiral Rancit's help, the insurgents managed to lure Tarkin and Darth Vader to Murkhana, a war-torn planet, to investigate a communications cache. While the Imperials were examining the cache, Cala, along with Teller, Salikk, Anora, Hask, and Artoz, seized and stole the corvette, escaping offworld.
Following the heist, Cala joined Teller, Salikk, and Artoz in the Carrion Spike's cockpit, where Artoz inventoried the ship's communications equipment. Cala remarked that the ship's advanced technology surpassed that of a Star Destroyer. When Teller mentioned Tarkin's designs featuring swivel cannons, Cala suggested they would be useful. When Hask inquired about why the Emperor had sent Lord Vader to escort Tarkin, Cala explained that Vader had visited Murkhana after the Clone Wars to execute a Black Sun racketeer. He added that the Emperor would be displeased by the potential loss of his two top subordinates.
Cala, operating the ship's sensors, warned of an approaching vessel. It turned out that Tarkin and Lord Vader had commandeered the Sugi crime lord Faazah's ship, the Parsec Predator, and were in pursuit. Salikk noted that the second ship was mirroring their movements, prompting him to take evasive action. Cala then alerted his fellow rebels that the pursuing ship was not scanning them. The rebels quickly realized that their Imperial pursuers were still tracking them, despite the Carrion Spike's stealth mode. After discussing the possibility of a tracking device, Cala commented that they should have launched earlier. Following a chase, the rebels managed to escape the Murkhana system by jumping into hyperspace.
The Carrion Spike reappeared in the Fial system. While monitoring the sensor suite, Cala spotted the Parsec Predator. The insurgents quickly determined that the Imperials had a tracking device on board their ship. After assigning Cala and the other insurgents to their stations, Teller ordered Salikk to jump to Galidraan.
Under the cover of the Carrion Spike's stealth mechanism, the insurgents raided Galidraan Station, inflicting significant damage. The rebels also shot down several Imperial V-wing and ARC-170 starfighters. Tarkin and Vader soon arrived aboard the Parsec Predator and engaged the Carrion Spike in a dogfight. However, the rebels used the Carrion Spike's pintle cannons to disable their Imperial pursuers' ship.
Despite their successful raid, the Carrion Spike sustained considerable damage. Under Teller's orders, Cala inspected the aft maintenance bay. He found the hyperdrive generator operational but noticed unusual noises. Cala was uncertain when the Carrion Spike could jump again. When Teller inquired, Cala estimated it would take between ten and fifteen minutes. He remarked that the Imperials knew where to strike. Teller replied that Tarkin was familiar with his stolen ship's weaknesses.
After the hyperdrive generator completed its self-test, Cala informed Teller. Before departing the Galidraan system, the rebels jettisoned Darth Vader's meditation chamber, which the Sith Lord had been using to track them. They also destroyed Galidraan's hyperspace buoy, preventing the Imperials from following them. Following their raid on Galidraan, the insurgents attacked the TaggeCo mining facilities on Lucazec and broadcast their attacks on HoloNet. This caught the attention of the Emperor and his Imperial Ruling Council.
Having been warned by Vice-Admiral Rancit that the Empire had dispatched a task force to Gromas, the insurgents decided to travel to Phindar in the Mandalore sector to refuel the Carrion Spike. For the trip, Teller disguised himself as the Imperial Commander Abel LaSal. When Cala commented that the uniform did not fit him, Teller responded that poverty would change a being. When Teller asked Cala about his duties with the hyperdriver, he confirmed it was done but added that he had to spend extra time in decontamination.
When Teller remarked that Cala looked ruddier than usual, Cala quipped that the stint could cost him two years of his life. Teller reassured him that it would be a higher cost for the Imperials. Despite Teller's disguise, the Phindian administrator of the orbital tanker was suspicious about his new "Imperial" customer and alerted Moff Tarkin. Tarkin instructed the Phindians to refuel the Carrion Spike as usual to avoid arousing the insurgents' suspicion.
As they were nearing the completion of refueling the Carrion Spike, Cala reported an Imperial escort carrier exiting hyperspace. Cala identified the ship as the escort carrier Goliath, which carried a wing of starfighters and was armed with ten Taim & Bak H-eights and a Krupx missile delivery system. Tarkin and Vader were commanding the Goliath. After the Imperial ship deployed starfighters, Teller asked Cala how much time it would take for them to jump into hyperspace. Cala responded that it would take 15 minutes.
During the dogfight, the Carrion Spike flew rings around the Phindian tanker to prevent the Imperials from targeting them. The insurgents also engaged Darth Vader's Yellow Squadron and the tanker's ARC-170 starfighters. This bought the insurgents enough time to jump into hyperspace. Before leaving, Cala also remotely detonated a concealed explosive inside a used fuel cell aboard the Phindian tanker in an attempt to take out Tarkin and Lord Vader. However, there was a delay in the explosion. While the explosion destroyed the tanker and several fighters, Tarkin and Lord Vader's starfighters as well as the Goliath survived the skirmish.
After escaping Phindar, Cala and his fellow insurgents nursed their wounds in the Expansion Region system designated as LCC-4-4-7, which lay between the planets Aquaris and Thustra. Cala remarked that the explosion would have taken out Darth Vader's black Eta-2 Actis-class interceptor and all the V-wings had the charge not been late in detonating. Salikk responded that they were lucky to escape. Cala and his comrades listened as Teller recounted Tarkin's ruthless career in the Outland Regions Security Force. Teller believed that the Emperor and his disciples Vader and Tarkin were winnowing the galaxy into submission. Teller also explained that they had stolen Tarkin's starship Carrion Spike in order to turn an Imperial symbol into an icon of resistance.
While repairing the damaged Carrion Spike, Salikk detected a discrepancy in the ship's fuel cells. At Teller's prompting, Cala donned a hazmat suit and entered the fuel bay to run tests on the Wiborg Jenssen fuel cells they had obtained from the tanker above Phindar. Cala quickly suspected that the Phindian administrator had cheated them. While checking the fuel cells, he found that the cell reading was empty. After removing the fuel cell, he discovered that it carried a concealed paralight tracker, a type of Imperial homing beacon.
When Cala asked if they should disable the paralight tracker, Teller instead decided to mislead Tarkin by transmitting coordinates claiming that the rebels were planning to travel on the Carrion Spike to Obroa-skai. Teller also made arrangements with the information broker Knotts to send the crew of the Reticent as decoys to Obroa-skai. As a reward for discovering the paralight tracker, Teller gave Cala the privilege of destroying the Imperial tracking device.
As planned, the Imperials were tricked into believing that the Carrion Spike was heading to the Obroa-skai system. Tarkin assembled a sizable force including three interdictor vessels to intercept the stolen corvette. However, the Immobilizer 418 cruiser's gravity well projector malfunctioned, causing a massive hyperspace accident which killed 1,100 people. Despite the chaos, Vader and Tarkin managed to capture and interrogate the crew of the Reticent, who revealed that they had been hired by Knotts to travel to Obroa-skai to deliver Sephi flyers. Tarkin subsequently consulted Republic and Imperial records on the HoloNet and discovered information on Teller's rebel cell including Cala's escape from Antar.
Under Dodd Rancit's guidance, Teller's insurgents attacked the Imperial facility in the Nouane system. However, Rancit had redeployed Imperial forces to fortify the Nouane Imperial facility. The insurgents managed to escape but the Carrion Spike sustained considerable damage to its weapons systems, shields, and hyperdrive motivator. Following their escape, Cala reported that the ship's armament was down to two forward laser cannons and one starboard battery before listing the damage to the ship's shields, hyperdrive motivator, stealth systems, and sublight drivers.
Following a discussion, the insurgents deduced that Teller's source Vice-Admiral Rancit had betrayed them. They decided to abandon the Carrion Spike but not before setting the abandoned ship on an autopilot journey to Carida. Rancit had given Teller the green light to attack the Imperial Academy on Carida. However, Teller rightfully suspected that Rancit was setting a trap for them. In an attempt to cover his collusion with Teller's rebels, Rancit attempted to destroy the Carrion Spike. However, Lord Vader, who had discovered his treachery with the help of Tarkin, stopped Rancit and had him executed.
After evacuating the Carrion Spike, Cala and his fellow insurgents rejoined Knotts and the other rebels aboard Berch Teller's warship, a modified Providence-class carrier-destroyer in an uncharted system near the Gulf of Tatooine. Having diverted much of the Imperial Navy to hunt for the Carrion Spike, Teller planned to raid an Imperial convoy ferrying supplies to the mysterious Death Star project. For that attack, the insurgents had mustered a Providence-class carrier-destroyer, an EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate, numerous droid fighters, and several starfighters.
While Teller, Knotts, and Artoz were discussing their struggle against the Empire in the carrier-destroyer's hangar bay, Cala entered and informed them that the supply convoy had exited hyperspace. He added that the HoloNet and communications jammers had been enabled and that all weapon systems were ready. Before boarding his Z-95 Headhunter, Teller told Cala to tell Anora and Hask that he expected "nothing less than a galactic-class holovid."
The insurgents' attack initially went well. Teller's droid and organic starfighters proceeded to wreck havoc among the convoy's escorts and transport ships. Though the escorts formed a protective perimeter around the transports, they were unable to call for help since their communications had been jammed. However, Moff Tarkin arrived aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer Executrix and dispatched starfighters to protect the convoy. After destroying the Nebulon-B frigate, Tarkin launched a head-on attack on Teller's warship.
Though the insurgents managed to transmit hyperspace coordinates that allowed their leader Teller to escape, their flagship was disabled. and boarded by Imperial forces. 13 crew members were killed during the battle but about 26 insurgents including Anora, Hask, Knotts, and Dr. Artoz were taken prisoner. It is unknown whether Cala was killed during the battle or taken prisoner. Vader, Tarkin, and the Imperial Security Bureau interrogated Teller's followers and collaborators before executing them.
Cala was a male Koorivar distinguished by a spiraling cranial horn, stout fingers, and thick thighs. As an operations specialist, he demonstrated the ability to operate complex starships like the Carrion Spike. While Cala was comfortable working alongside droids, his fellow rebel Salikk harbored a dislike for them.
During the Clone Wars era, Cala was a Republic loyalist who aligned himself with Berch Teller's resistance movement, viewing Teller as a respected leader. Throughout the Imperial era, Cala maintained his loyalty to Teller, joining his rebel cell. He effectively utilized his expertise in munitions and surveillance during Teller's brief campaign against Tarkin and the Galactic Empire, discovering and destroying an Imperial paralight tracker.
Cala's character was first introduced in James Luceno's 2014 canon novel, Tarkin, which delves into the origins of the character of the same name.