Jelcho

"We do not deserve to live in your sight. Please destroy us..."

- Jelcho to Odion

Jelcho was a male Givin who served as a follower of the Sith Lord Odion and his second in command aboard the Sword of Ieldis during the New Sith Wars. He met his death during the Battle of Gazzari when he charged Jedi Knight Kerra Holt on a speeder bike, only to be knocked unconscious by her and have Baradium explosives strapped to him and his bike and sent into Odion's Death Spiral and detonated. The resulting explosion killed Jelcho and also destroyed the Death Spiral, inflicting substantial casualties on Odion's forces on Gazzari.

Early life
Jelcho was a male Givin who lived during the Republic Dark Age, the last century of the New Sith Wars. During this period, much of the galaxy fell under the control of various Sith Lords as the Galactic Republic contracted into a rump state centered around the Core Worlds and Colonies. When Jelcho came of age, he found himself living under the Sith Lord Odion, the ruler of the Odionate, a fiefdom that emerged following the collapse of the Chagras Hegemony in 1,040 BBY. The Sith Lord Odion saw himself as the "destroyer of the universe" and became the leader of a nihilistic death cult whose followers were known as Odionites.

Odion believed that the existence of other sentient beings was a source of torment for him and that he could only find true peace by destroying all other life in the galaxy. Odion also encouraged his followers to sacrifice their lives to satisfy his nihilistic tendencies. Since Odion practised a policy of "species segregation" within the Odionate, his subjects including Jelcho were forcibly assigned to jobs which he deemed their species were best suited to. Since the Givins were naturally good at navigation, Jelcho found himself working as a navigator aboard Odion's flagship Sword of Ieldis.

The Baradium Leak
In 1,032 BBY, Jelco participated during the Chelloan affair. The Jedi Master Vannar Treece and his independent team of Jedi "knight errants" had discovered that Odion's estranged younger brother Sith Lord Daiman was mining baradium, an explosive compound used in the manufacture of various munitions, on Chelloa. Daiman was shipping large quantities of baradium to his war forges near the front lines. Since the collapse of the Chagras Hegemony, the Grumani Sector had become locked into a second series of family feuds known as the Second Charge Matrica. These conflicts had been encouraged and abetted by the Calimondra family matriarch Vilia Calimondra for the sole purpose of prevent any of her grandchildren from usurping her rule over her own empire. Vannar, a perennial foe of the Sith, wanted to knock out a portion of the Chelloan baradium production offline before Daiman could use it to alter the balance of power within the Grumani Sector. Daiman wanted to end the stalemated conflict and gain a decisive advantage over Odion.

The former Jedi Knight and mining leader Gorlan Palladane had been the source of this intelligence leak. He and the Rodian mechanic Skodo had used a stolen transmitter to reactivate a single interstellar routing station to send their message to the Jedi Master. However, Odion's agents intercepted the transmission and alerted their master. Odion learnt about Daiman's baradium mining operations on Chelloa and ordered an invasion of the planet. He brought a fleet of kinetic corruptors for the twin purposes of harvesting the volatile baradium compound and then destroying Chelloa. The large amount of baradium on Chelloa's surface made the planet a fiery powderkeg should someone ignite all its baradium deposits. At first, Treece's Operation Influx succeeded in infiltrating the Daimanate and landing on Chelloa. With the assistance of Palladane and the local miners, the Jedi party secured control of the spaceport at Jenith. However, Odion's forces then attacked and he deployed one of his kinetic corruptors. During the fighting, Treece was personally slain by Odion himself while the remaining Jedi were killed during an explosion unleashed by the kinetic corruptor.

The sole survivor of the Chelloan debacle was the novice Jedi Knight Kerra Holt, a young Human woman who had escaped Odion's rampage of her homeworld of Aquilaris Minor in 1,042 BBY. Since then, she had become a sworn enemy of the Sith and a devoted Jedi Knight. She was given shelter by Palladane and attempted to assassinate Daiman. However, Daiman managed to convince Kerra that Odion posed a greater threat to Chelloa because he planned to destroy the planet with his fleet of kinetic corruptors aboard The Spike, a large mobile war forge. The Jedi woman then hijacked one of Daiman's starfighters and head towards the space station. Her mission coincided with a failed Daimanate starfighter attack on Odion's fleet. In reality, Daiman had launched a feign attack in an attempt to provoke Odion into launching a ground invasion.

Raid on the Spike
During the raid, Jelcho served on the command bridge of the Sword of Ieldis with Odion himself captaining the ship. He ordered Jelcho to bring the Sword of Ieldis had about and target the trailing wave. The superior firepower of Odion's gunships wiped out most of Daiman's starfighters and forced the survivors to retreat. Odion was aware that his younger brother knew about the destructive capabilities of his kinetic corruptors but expressed his bemusement that Daiman would only send a small token force of starfighters. Jelcho reported that the Daimanites had been recalled back to Chelloa and also expressed his surprise at Daiman's change of tactics. Odion replied that Daiman probably became bored and was not taking the fighting seriously; vowing to crush Daiman's forces. Jelcho witnessed a starfighter pilot, later revealed to be Kerra Holt, ejecting from her starfighter. While the Daimanite starfighter did not pose a threat, Odion ordered his gunners to destroy the spacecraft to satisfy his blood lust. He then reminded the Givin crew that they could do some target practice in order to instill blood lust into these Odionite navigators.

At the end of the battle, Odion ordered Jelcho to dock the Sword with The Spike after they had cleared the warzone. Meanwhile, Kerra infiltrated The Spike and headed to the factory complex. There, she overpowered and reprogammed a labor droid known as GAD-3. While Kerra and GAD-3 were hiding beneath a catwalk at Pod Seventeen, Odion and Jelcho arrived at the facility. The two were greeted by a Verpine Odionite and Jelcho complained that they had been kept waiting since there had been no droid stationed outside the station. That droid turned out to be GAD-3 who had already been reprogrammed by Kerra. However, Odion was unaffected by the delay and told the Givin to pay more attention to bigger things like finishing construction of the Corruptors and loading them aboard landing ships. Odion commented that Daiman had been making "strange moves" within his territory and he wanted to know more intelligence about his military plans on Chelloa. Odion then asked Jelcho about their local informant who had informed them about Daiman's baradium operations. This source turned out to be Gorlan Palladane.

Jelcho had also received a new transmission on his datapad which lead him to question the reliability of the source. He then played the transmission in the presence of his master Odion. During the recording, Palladane claimed that Daiman's mining operations had been permanently shut down which meant that the planet was no longer a concern for the Sith Lord. However, Odion refuted the source's assertations as a lie since his forces had only knocked out one mine. This led Odion to conclude that either the source or Daiman was trying to play games with them. In response, Odion ordered Jelcho and his entourage to load all the kinetic corruptors into the landing ships and reiterated his command to destroy the planet. Odion wanted to deny any of his enemies including the Jedi and the Republic access to Chelloa's baradium deposits. He was also pleased that the Jedi strike force had been wiped out much earlier. Odion remarked cheerfully that Jelcho should have seen the death throes of his late enemy Vannar Treece, a perennial foe of the Sith. He further disparaged the slain Jedi as a "crying coward" who was little better than the people he had come to save.

At that moment, Odion sensed the presence of a Jedi hiding under the catwalk. Despite Jelcho's cries for caution, Odion activated his lightsaber and recklessly destroyed the catwalk in an attempt to flush out the Jedi intruder, who turned out to be Kerra, the last survivor of Treece's ill-fated mission. Odion engaged Kerra in a lightsaber duel which caused extensive interior damage to The Spike's facilities. At the climax of the fighting, Kerra managed to create a diversion that allowed her to escape the mobile space factory by ordering the reprogrammed GAD-3 to deactivate the overhead containment fields which exposed much of the station to zero-gravity space. Jelcho attempted to stop the labor droid but it was too late. The sudden exposure sucked several droids and workers into space where they were destroyed by compression. Further destruction was averted only by Jelcho reactivating the emergency shielding. As with all Givin, Jelcho had a tough exoskeleton that could seal all external orifices for protection against depressurization, allowing him to survive in hard vacuum.

In the midst of the chaos, Holt hijacked a construction shuttle, incapacitating the pilot and then fleeing into space. Meanwhile, Odion ordered his entourage back to his flagship Sword of Ieldis. Understanding his Jedi opponent, Odion knew that Holt would return to confront him which was proven right. In an ensuing cat-and-mouse race in space, Holt;s shuttle engaged Odion’s gunship. Anticipating that Holt was going to ram her shuttle into his ship, he ordered his crew to open fire. However, the duel was interrupted by an incoming transmission from Lord Daiman. In a live broadcast from his Chelloan headquarters, a furious Daiman revealed to Odion that he had seized and tortured his informant, Gorlan Palladane. In response to the intelligence leakage, Daiman had ordered a military crackdown on all mining settlements on Chelloa with his troops destroying Jenith.

Witnessing the plight of her friend, Holt aborted her run by doing a quick jump into hyperspace and returned to Jenith to save Palladane. The Sword's gunners attempted to shoot Kerra's shuttle but it was too late. A dejected Jelcho lamented his failure to destroy the Jedi woman and apologized to Odion, claiming that he and his fellow Givin did not deserve to live and that they would be willing to accept death as punishment. To the relief of Jelcho, Odion chose to spare his crew due to the intelligence on Daiman’s mining operations he had discovered from Holt. Rather than using his kinetic corrupters to destroy the surface of Chelloa, the Sith Lord ordered his elite Lightning Guard to be loaded into landing ships to capture Daiman’s factories near the baradium mines. Odion also planned to conquer the entire Chelloa system and annex to his interstellar principality&mdash;the Odionate. All this played into Daiman's hands.

The Trap
During the ground invasion of Chelloa, Jelcho remained behind on The Spike while his master Lord Odion led the assault on the planet. Odion's forces landed near the spaceport town of Arboth and quickly wiped out Daiman's token resistance. They were about to seize the Mobile Munitions Complexes for themselves when the vehicles suddenly shedded their metal hulls to reveal that they were actually kinetic corruptors. Daiman had shipped a fleet of kinetic corruptors to Chelloa with the intention of destroying the planet's surface in order to deny its valuable supply of baradium to his enemies. This "scorched earth" tactic also involved the deaths of Chelloa's civilian population. Odion and his troops were trapped on the surface and his entire Lightning Guard contingent was wiped out by the magma flows triggered by the kinetic corruptors. Meanwhile, Kerra and Palladane, who had escaped Daiman's prison, managed to evacuate much of Chelloa's population&mdash;63,000 individuals&mdash;on a make-shift fleet of transports known as the Freedom Fleet.

During the evacuation, Odion was grievously wounded during a duel with Kerra and Palladane. At the climax of the fighting, Palladane personally pushed the Sith Lord into the engine thrusters of an ascending transport. Both men were badly burned and Palladane later succumbed too his wounds but Odion managed to escape because of his jetpack. After several days, Odion was rescued and brought back to The Spike for medical treatment. Several cyborg surgeons began removing chunks of his armor that had become fused to his skin. While Odion was undergoing burns treatment, Jelcho and the Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane gave an intelligence report about the Chelloan affair. While Jelcho and Odion were probably aware that the Bothan was an independent intelligence operative, they did not know that his true master was the Calimondra family matriarch Vilia Calimondra, the de-facto manager of the Sith warlords in the Grumani Sector.

Jelcho reported that the Freedom Fleet had left the Daimanate for the Republic. He also tried to paint the Chelloan debacle as a victory by claiming that Daiman had lost significant vessels and slaves. Finally, he claimed that the Chelloan invasion had been a victory because Daiman had been denied access to his prized baradium deposits. However, a furious Odion rejected Jelcho's optimistic report by citing the destruction of an entire legion of his Lightning Guard. He was also in an excruciating state of pain due to his burn injuries. When one of Odion's surgeons pleaded with the Sith Lord to remain still so that he could remove the shards of armor without causing further pain, the furious Sith Lord screamed that he wanted to remember the pain so that he could exact vengeance against Vannar's successor, Kerra. Following the Chelloan affair, the Odionate fleet returned back to Odionate space to recuperate. Kerra's actions also attracted the attention of the Calimondra family matriarch Vilia Calimondra. However, the Sith Lord tolerated the Jedi since she wanted to give her grandchildren some experience in dealing with a Jedi to prepare them for a future invasion of the Galactic Republic where they would again have to contend with the Jedi Order.

Daiman's Plot
As a Sith devotee, Jelcho would again become ensnared into the machinations of the two warring Sith brothers: 0dion and Daiman. After Odion recovered from his injuries, he sought revenge against Daiman for the affront on Chelloa. The Sith Lord hired the Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane for a mission to infiltrate the Daimanate capital of Darkknell and gather information on Daiman's starship, Convergence, which was under construction at the Daimanate Dynamic Testing Facility and subsequently, to destroy the ship. Using a Cyricept Personal Concealment System, Mark VI stealth suit, Narsk infiltrated the testing facility and downloaded the Convergence technical readouts onto a datapad. Leaving several baradium thermal charges with the ship, Narsk left the facility. However, he was intercepted by the Jedi Kerra Holt, who hoped to obtain the Mark VI for her own use against Daiman. After a chase through the streets of the city Xakrea, Holt incapacitated Narsk and activated his remote detonator, which caused the destruction of the testing facility. Taking Narsk's Mark VI and detonator, Holt left the Bothan in a garbage bin, where he was captured by Daiman's police, the Correctors.

Despite Narsk's initial denials, Daiman rightfully suspected that Odion had a hand behind the destruction of the facility. In revenge, he concocted an elaborate plot to ambush and destroy his older brother once and for all. He brought Narsk to his fortress, the Sanctum Celestial, where he contacted the Quermian Ayanos Bactra, a neutral Sith Lord who preferred to gain power through corporate bureaucracy rather than military might. Daiman had recently allowed one of Bactra's corporations, Industrial Heuristics, to recruit students from Darkknell and elsewhere in his territory&mdash;known as the Daimanate&mdash;in exchange for the fruits of the students' research. Daiman requested an arxeum, a mobile university dedicated to the science of war. In exchange, he allowed Industrial Heuristics to recruit students from the Daimanate and also granted Bactra's forces safe passage through the Daimanate to strike at Vellas Pavo, a gadolinium-rich planet. Bactra agreed to deliver the arxeum and the students to the volcanic world of Gazzari, on the frontier of Daiman's border with the Odionate&mdash;Odion's territory.

Intending to lure Odion to Gazzari, Daiman allowed Narsk to listen in on his conversation with Bactra and secretly ordered the bonds holding the Bothan spy to be loosened, so that Narsk could escape and tell Odion what he had overheard. With the help of Holt, who sneaked into the Sanctum with Narsk's Mark VI, the Bothan escaped into the junkyard and made his way to a spaceport where he found passage offworld to a neutral world. There, he met several Odionites and hitched a ride back to the Odionate. Meanwhile, Daiman recruited the services of several mercenaries to execute the ambush including Brigadier Jarrow Rusher, Mak Medagazy, Kr'saang the Togorian, and a Nosaurian mercenary.

Upon arriving on Gazzari, they assembled a series of Kelligdyd laser cannons on the eastern ridge of a massive bowl crater several kilometers across. Daiman's forces, invisible from orbit due to the thick clouds of volcanic ash, lined the ridge on all sides, surrounding the crater, where the trap set for Odion was to be sprung. As part of the plan, the Industrial Heuristics arxeum and transports would land in the caldera. Odion's forces would then appear and the mercenaries would keep them at bay until Daiman's regular forces and fleet arrived from hyperspace. Daiman planned to trap Odion's fleet on Gazzari and then eliminate Odion during the battle. Unknown to Daiman and the other participants, their perennial Jedi opponent Kerra had secretly stowed away on his flagship Era Daimanos.

Taking the Bait
As Daiman had expected, Odion took the bait since he saw an opportunity to eliminate his estranged younger brother once and for all. While the Sith Lord was enraged that Narsk had failed to steal the military secrets, he spared the Bothan spy since he had revealed that Kerra had returned to the Grumani Sector. Despite Narsk's warnings that Daiman had planned a trap, Odion was more concerned with satisfying his nihilistic blood lust and assembled a large invasion force. It consisted of one-quarter of the Odionate home fleet, large ground units, and the giant mobile siege platform known as the Death Spiral. Jelcho would again serve as navigator aboard Odion's flagship Sword of Ieldis. Narsk was also present since the Sith Lord felt that he would need the Bothan to blow up more enemy assets. From their first meeting aboard the Sword of Ieldis, Jelcho and the Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane took an immediate dislike toward one another since the latter regarded the former's species as physically unapealling. Nevertheless, the two men served the same Sith master and had to keep their own prejudices to themselves.

Upon arriving within the Gazzari system, Odion ordered Jelcho to do a scan for Daiman's forces. Although they saw no trace of Daiman's fleet in the system, they did spot about a dozen of Bactra's ships near Gazzari's sun, where they could observe the events on the planet from a safe distance. Bactra had already arrived on the planet with the arxeum, which landed in the crater along with four transports filled with hundreds of students, impoverished younglings who had been recruited from the Daimanate. Although Odion knew that Bactra had just delivered the arxeum, he ordered his fleet not to fire on the Quermian's forces since he intended to attack his estranged younger brother Daiman, whom he regarded as his main rival. He also intended to track down his perennial Jedi foe: Kerra, whom he regarded as a dangerous threat to his nihilistic ambitions. After sighting Bactra's fleet, Odion contacted the Quermian, and Bactra informed him that the deal with Daiman had taken place, and that the Bactranites were no longer concerned with the fate of the arxeum. Bactra's fleet then remained in the Gazzari system, observing the battle between the Daimanites and the Odionites.

The Odionate flotilla then formed an orbital perimeter around the planet and awaited the arrival of Odion's most important weapon, a massive siege tower called the Death Spiral. Once the Death Spiral exited hyperspace behind Odion's fleet, the Sith Lord ordered his Thunder Guard units to their transports. He then boarded his own transport, ordering Jelcho and Ka'hane to come with him. During the subseuqent Battle of Gazzari, Odion's forces including the Death Spiral landed inside a crater. In the subseuquent fighting, Odion's forces engaged Daiman and his mercenaries, destroying all four transports and significantly damaging the arxeum. The mercenaries bombarded the Death Spiral with cannon fire, but were unable to destroy the tower, which deployed several speeder bikes, airspeeders, and walkers from its base. Unable to withstand the firepower of the Death Spiral, Daiman's mercenaries were forced to retreat and the Death Spiral inflicted heavy casualties on Daiman's mercenaries. Meanwhile, the Odionate's Jedi adversary Kerra resurfaced on the battlefield. After fighting several Thunder Guards and stealing their speeder bikes, Holt shepherded the students off the battlefield to the cliffs of the crater.

An Untimely Death
Meanwhile, Jelcho and Narsk remained aboard one of Odion's transports during the battle. Odion assigned the Givin navigator with the task of "babysitting" the Bothan spy Narsk who was still regarded as an outsider due to his status as an independent operative. While the Odionate did not have any formal ranks, the Givin served as the Sith Lord's de-facto aide-de-camp. Narsk would later recall the time spent with Jelcho as an unpleasant experience since he regarded the Givin as both noxious and obnoxious. Jelcho also commented that he and his Givin comrades would prefer that Lord Odion slew them but admitted that he was happy to accept death at the hands of the Destroyer's enemy: Daiman. Jelcho's blind devotion to someone Narsk regarded as a "mad man" annoyed him so much that the Bothan recalled wishing that he could hit Jelcho in the head. When Jelcho heard news that Daiman's fleet had just arrived in the Gazzari system to engage Odion's fleet, the Givin Odionite welcomed this as an opportunity to kill more lives and even hugged Narsk, telling the Bothan that he had made it possible.

However, Narsk disagreed with Jelcho's assessment and rightfully saw the battle as a trap planted by Daiman. After Odion had departed to join the battle, Narsk received a signal from his true master, Vilia Calimondra. The Sith Lord wished for her grandsons to unite against Bactra, who was still observing the battle from space, and she ordered Ka'hane to deliver her message to them. However, the Bothan's comlink was not working due to his proximity to the Death Spiral's energy shield. He then convinced Jelcho to leave him and join the battle against Daiman. The Givin was initally reluctant to disobey his master's commands that he remain aboard the transport so that Odion would at least have a navigator in the event that his operation on Gazzari failed.

However, Narsk convinced him that Odion's operation would not fail and appealed to Jelcho's nihilistic zeal by chastising the Givin's reluctance to participate in Odion's showdown. Narsk portrayed the Gazzari battle as an important "map-changer" in the Second Charge Matrica. Jelcho was moved by Narsk's argument and expressed his desire to contribute to the "void" in the Force on Gazzari by killing his own share of the enemy. The Bothan then handed Jelcho a blaster and a speeder bike while encouraging his nihilistic zeal. However, prior to leaving, he asked the Bothan spy about why he had used the personal prounoun "he" instead of "we" when referring to Odion's bombardment of the crater. Jelcho questioned Narsk's loyalty towards Odion but the Bothan urged him to focus on carrying out his "duty."

With Jelcho out of the way, Narsk Ka'hane then left Odion's transport and made his way south of the Death Spiral, where he hoped the reception would be clearer. However, he waited to deliver the message, as both Odion and Daiman were approaching each on the battlefield and were preparing for a duel. Meanwhile, the Jedi Knight Kerra attempted to blow up Daiman's command dome with a baradium nitrate detonator, not realizing that it was still on a bandolier slung around her body. However, Tan Tengo, a Sullustan student she had earlier befriended on Darkknell, prevented Kerra from detonating the explosives by distracting her. Kerra quickly realized that the bandolier was still on her and abandoned her original plan to assassinate Daiman.

Meanwhile, Jelcho piloted his speeding bike through the battlefield and eventually came across Kerra and Tan. However, Holt spotted Jelcho's speeder bike and used the Force to telekinetically push the bike to the ground. She then knocked the Givin unconscious by kicking him in the jaw. After that, Kerra used a bandolier to secure the unconscious Jelcho to his bike and then jammed the bike's accelerator. She then sent the bike on a one way journey into the Death Spiral's speeder bays. Once Jelcho and the explosives were inside the Death Spiral, Holt set off the explosives using the detonator she had stolen from Narsk, destroying the siege tower. The resulting explosion killed Jelcho and destroyed the Death Spiral in a massive firestorm that reduced the deadly siege platform to a metallic funeral pyre.

Legacy
Jelcho's death would have substantial repercussions for the Grumani sector and the Second Charge Matrica. His death destroyed the Death Spiral which eliminated a significant Odionite military asset. Jelcho death's also led to the destruction of the Bactranate since Ka'hane was able to deliver Calimondra's message to Odion and Daiman without interference from the Death Spiral's large mass. As a result, Odion and Daiman finally received Calimondra's orders and ordered their forces to cease fire. They then launched a joint attack on the Bactranate fleet and invaded the Bactranate. The Bactranate fell within days to the forces of Odion, Daiman, Malakite, and Lioko. Its former territories and corporate holdings were then redistributed by Vilia among her grandchildren during the next Bequest. Odion inherited Bactra's former capital of Jutrand while Daiman took control of Industrial Heuristics, a large corporation that produced war materiel.

During the Bequest, Odion protested Daiman's acquisition and reiterated his claim to the corporation on the basis that it was based in Jutrand. As quid pro quo, Vilia offered to compensate Odion's loss by providing him with three legions of Trandoshan slave warriors. While Odion accepted the deal, tensions would linger between the two brothers. Odion would later collaborate with the Hutt interloper Zodoh who attempted to conquer the Daimanate later that year. With Jelcho's death, the Tarro mercenary and de-facto General Beld Yulan came to replace the late Givin navigator as Odion's right-hand man and confidant.

For Kerra, Jelcho was just another Odionite minion who had to be destroyed as part of her wider crusade against the Sith warlords in the Grumani Sector. Meanwhile, Kerra and the students escaped to the top of the ridge where they encountered the Brigadier Jarrow Rusher and the tattered remnants of his brigade. She then convinced Rusher to allow her student refugees aboard his ship Diligence&mdash;a starliner that had been converted into a troop transport. They then fled Gazzari aboard the Diligence into hyperspace in an attempt to find a safe, neutral location to drop off the student refugees. This brought her into contact with the Sith domains known as the Dyarchy and the Arkadianate.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 3: Aflame, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 4: Aflame, Part 4
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 5: Aflame, Part 5
 * Knight Errant novel