Ton Phanan

Ton Phanan was a doctor from Rudrig who joined the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Phanan was badly wounded while serving aboard a frigate at the Battle of Endor; allergic to bacta, he had to accept cybernetic replacement parts to survive. Phanan fell into a deep depression after this incident but used his strong sense of humor to present a cheery front to those around him. Phanan transferred to New Republic Starfighter Command, where he quickly joined Wraith Squadron.

Among the Wraiths, Phanan was assigned Garik Loran as a wingman. Kindred spirits, they quickly became mutual best friends, spreading their sense of humor throughout the unit. Phanan served with distinction in the commando squadron, aiding in the destruction of Admiral Apwar Trigit's forces, helping root out a black market ring aboard a training frigate, fighting as one of the Hawk-bat pirates in a deception designed to bring down Warlord Zsinj, and constantly raising morale. In a mission over Halmad, however, Phanan was shot down and grievously injured. When the other pilots had to evacuate, Loran stayed behind to rescue his friend. He recovered Phanan, but the doctor passed away as Loran tried to spirit him to safety. In his last hours, however, Phanan composed a message to Loran telling his best friend to exorcise his own personal demons as Phanan had never managed to, a lesson Loran took to heart.

Doctor Phanan
Born on Rudrig in the Tion Hegemony as the only child of wealthy parents who raised him late in life, Phanan grew up developing a strong sense of humor and, as a schoolboy, an interest in insects; he liked them because they made girls squeamish. Eventually, Phanan became a licensed doctor, presumably after having gone through medical school; before he graduated, both his parents had died, leaving him with no living relatives of any closeness and a large inheritance. He practiced for years and joined the Alliance to Restore the Republic during the early years of the Galactic Civil War. He served as a doctor aboard an Alliance Fleet frigate. Phanan was present at the Battle of Endor, at which his frigate was fired upon and he was wounded badly, losing a leg and suffering other injuries. Phanan was allergic to bacta, and so his wounds had to be replaced with cybernetics; by 7 ABY he was twenty percent cybernetic. Phanan began to feel that his future had been lost and eventually decided that the healing profession was not for him; he received no enjoyment from it, and instead turned to a trade in which he could strike back against the Galactic Empire, rather than heal those he had no like for. He applied for a transfer to, and was accepted into, the New Republic Starfighter Corps.

Becoming a Wraith
Joining the Starfighter Corps, Phanan was able to fly five combat missions; in two of them, he was shot down. Combined with his inability to be treated with bacta, he was considered a liability for his unit and his career prospects were dim. In 7 ABY, Commander Wedge Antilles of Rogue Squadron decided that the New Republic needed a new type of fighter unit, a commando team cross-trained to fly fighters as well; he felt that it would create a more versatile unit that could accomplish more missions on its own. He was able to get Admiral Ackbar to sign off on the plan, and to avoid having to train new pilots, he requested washouts, troublemakers, and pilots otherwise on the verge of being kicked out the service, giving them one last chance to prove themselves. Hearing of this, Phanan requested a transfer to this new unit and reported to Folor Base, where Antilles reviewed the candidates. Phanan quickly made friends with Garik Loran, who shared his extravagant sense of humor. They flew together in exercises, and after one simulation they proceeded to the DownTime cantina, where they met fellow candidates Kell Tainer, Tyria Sarkin, Voort "Piggy" saBinring, and Hohass "Runt" Ekwesh. Tainer was able to figure out that Loran was actually Garik "Face" Loran, the former Imperial propaganda holodrama child star, a fact that greatly amused Phanan. Phanan jokingly flirted with Sarkin, who was eventually offended and left when Loran made light of the Force, for which she had a minor aptitude. The pair made friends with the other pilot-candidates, however, and all of them, Sarkin included, made the final unit roster; Phanan had the fourth-highest scores of the group, behind Tainer, Loran, and Falynn Sandskimmer. Phanan would serve as the squadron&mdash;temporarily dubbed Gray Squadron&mdash;medic and was given the callsign Gray Seven, with Loran as his wingman and Tainer leading the flight. Ekwesh filled out Two Flight as Tainer's wingman.

The next morning, Two Flight set out in the unit's four new T-65 X-wing starfighters for a live-fire exercise, launching proton torpedos at a target strung behind the Narra, the squadron's support shuttle. They operated in wing pairs; when Phanan and Loran opened their strike foils, Phanan lost control of his weapons systems and Loran's targeting sensors failed. Phanan immediately improvised, feeding Loran his own targeting data; the pair scored a kill on the target. They continued with the training, Phanan receiving his R2-series astromech droid, Gadget, until Antilles deemed the unit, now named Wraith Squadron, ready for a navigational exercise to Doldrums. As the squadron was about to leave Folor, however, squadron comm specialist Jesmin Ackbar detected Imperial comm activity. Determining that Warlord Zsinj's subordinate Admiral Apwar Trigit was about to attack the base, the Wraiths returned and prepared to defend the facility. Along with the RZ-1 A-wing interceptor Blue Squadron, the Wraiths set up position in the Pig Trough canyon, ready to ambush the Imperial forces as they approached the base. They were successful, eliminating many enemy starfighters as the base was safely evacuated; once the last transport was away, they too evacuated&mdash;to Doldrums. Phanan was struck by shrapnel and sustained a minor injury in the battle, but was able to treat it himself. On their way to Doldrums, they were pulled out of hyperspace early and struck by a particularly powerful ion blast in the Xobome system. Phanan's fighter was rendered completely inoperable; the ion charge also wreaked havoc on his cybernetics. He was evacuated to the Narra, and his fighter was gutted to build the Lunatic, a jury-rigged armed compartment. This crude and hastily contrived device was designed to allow fellow squadron mate Voort saBinring to infiltrate the ship they assumed would follow up on the triggering of the mine which had disabled them. The gambit was successful, and saBinring was able to force the crew of the CR90 corvette Night Caller to surrender when he took control of its bridge. Phanan, along with the rest of the squadron, transferred aboard the ship to patch himself up fully and work on bringing his prosthetics back to full functionality.

Aboard the Night Caller
"I only met him a few weeks ago. But by the end of the second day, we were finishing one another's sentences and being obnoxious enough to drive everyone around us crazy."

- Garik Loran, to Lara Notsil, speaking of Ton Phanan

As the crew of the Night Caller had not had time to send out a distress message, Trigit had no idea the ship under his command had been captured. Antilles stationed Wraith Squadron aboard the ship and brought in a New Republic crew to have it make its appointed rounds, maintaining the subterfuge that the ship was still serving Zsinj. While serving aboard the ship, Phanan and Tainer approached Sarkin in an attempt to get her to loosen up from her intense training. When unit slicer Eurrsk Thri'ag approached and jokingly offered to boost her scores by slicing them, Sarkin suddenly snapped and attacked him. Phanan and Tainer, shocked, went to visit her after the incident and she confessed to them that she had been on the verge of flunking out of the training academy when her trainer, Colonel Atton Repness, approached her with the offer to raise her grades if she cooperated with a plan to eject from an X-wing following supposed equipment failure; he would in fact retain the fighter to sell on the black market for profit. She said she would turn him in, but he revealed that her grades had long been below failing and that turning him in would cause her to wash out; faced with this, she had reluctantly agreed to keep quiet but felt lingering shame over having given in. The two agreed to keep this secret.

The ship continued making its rounds, with Wraith Squadron striking Zsinj's covert assets after Night Caller visited and discovered them; Antilles hoped to lure Zsinj into setting a trap for the Wraiths, who were apparently following the Night Caller, and turn the tables on the warlord. On Xartun, the Wraiths targeted a transparisteel factory supplying Zsinj, sneaking in at night to sabotage it. Phanan was standing guard with Sarkin and Ekwesh when they were ambushed by a probe droid; Ekwesh was knocked unconscious while Phanan and Sarkin fired on the droid, but it was too heavily armored for them to damage it. Phanan fired on it to cover Sarkin as she backed a repulsorlift cart into it to pin it; Ekwesh awoke and was able to put two more carts into place, trapping it long enough for them to escape before Tainer set off his explosives to destroy the factory.

At M2398, the Night Caller was ambushed by a pirate gang who had decided not to take Zsinj up on his offer of alliance. Phanan launched along with the rest of the pilots; his X-wing had not yet been replaced, but he used Sandskimmer's, as she was piloting one of Night Caller's TIE/ln starfighters. In the battle, Jesmin Ackbar was killed; Tainer had attempted to save her by using his own fighter to push her disabled one off course, but her trailing power cables disabled his fighter and her ship crashed. Tainer suffered an anxiety attack and reported to Phanan in sick bay; Phanan had already treated Myn Donos for what he claimed to be a concussion. In fact, Donos had frozen up after the loss of his astromech, Shiner, the only survivor of Donos's previous command, Talon Squadron, and had not exited his barely lucid state. Realizing that reporting this would destroy Donos's career, Phanan instead kept it from Antilles and second-in-command Wes Janson for several days until Loran, Tainer, Sarkin, and Sandskimmer were able to arrange an intervention in which they helped Donos overcome his feelings of guilt over the loss of his former squadron. When Sarkin began dating Tainer, Phanan was somewhat annoyed, having found her highly attractive.

Trapping Trigit
"Yes, I got so angry that I had to vent my spleen."

- Ton Phanan, to Kell Tainer, after having his spleen punctured

When Zsinj assigned the Night Caller to rendezvous with another of his ships, the Hawkbat, to take on supplies before participating in an attack on New Republic forces at Talasea, the Wraiths had to plan quickly to avoid having their deception exposed. Phanan worked with Antilles to develop a plan in which they would infect the Hawkbat ' s crew with some sort of contagious disease, leading the crew to avoid face-to-face contact. They decided to acquire the infectious agent on Storinal, where the Hawkbat ' s crew would have leave. They landed at Revos, all in disguise, and Phanan proceeded to the capital city, Scohar, with Sarkin and Tainer in order to procure the disease from the Scohar Xenohealth Institute, where many samples of diseases were kept for study. Phanan searched for possible agents held there, and decided to use Bunkurd Sewer Disorder, a stomach ailment. With Thri'ag added to their group, the four infiltrated the Xenohealth Institute through its waste-disposal chute and retrieved two samples of BSD. While in the Xenohealth Institute, they had to pass through an area containing various small creatures; Phanan stole a Storini Glass Prowler for a pet. They then planted the BSD in the air intakes of the two shuttles which would carry the Hawkbat crew back up to orbit, before stealing two TIEs from the local spaceport in order to fill out the Night Caller's TIE complement and escaping.

When they set up a pair of spy satellites as part of their Night Caller subterfuge, hoping to record the unit supposedly following them, Phanan and Loran flew cover for the vacuum-suited workers. Before taking off, Loran discovered a small insect in his cockpit; thinking it was Phanan's Glass Prowler, he called Phanan over to take care of it, but it was not Phanan's. Realizing that someone had attempted to play a prank on them, Phanan and Loran drew up an elaborate revenge on Thri'ag, who they realized had to be the prankster. With Kell Tainer's aid, they set up a small speaker in Thri'ag's room set to play the noise of the Glass Prowler moving and sliced Thri'ag's room terminal to contain an entry on the Storini Crystal Deceiver, a false creature which was supposedly quite similar to the Glass Prowler, relentless in its pursuit of its victims, and horribly deadly. They played the noise slightly on the first night, before returning to make the strike against the world, recorded by the spy satellites while masquerading as Rogue Squadron. The next night, they played the noise with increasing frequency until Thri'ag went to Phanan, in the next cabin, to request the use of some spray sealant Phanan had used on Storinal. The Bothan slicer spent much of the night methodically sealing every crack in his room to keep the creature from getting out of the walls, where it seemed to be, then returned to bed. Phanan and Loran waited until he was asleep, then cut power to his cabin and played the sound from directly beneath the bed. The terrified Bothan leaped to his feet and ran to the door, which he had to pry open before an insect-like assembly swung into his face and he passed out. Thri'ag was taken to the medical bay, where Phanan examined him; when Thri'ag insisted he had been attacked by a Crystal Deceiver in front of several others, Phanan showed there was no such thing in the ship's computers, making Thri'ag look ridiculous. Once the others left, Phanan and Loran admitted to the prank and forced Thri'ag to promise to end his own, which he agreed to do when the pair threatened to tell everyone he had fainted.

At Talasea, Trigit was able to figure out that it would be a New Republic ambush during his fleet's hyperspace jump there; when the other two ships involved realized this, they turned to flee before the New Republic forces entered the system. Night Caller was forced to fire on them, with Phanan participating in the "Loran Spitball" when, on Loran's suggestion, all the X-wings in the bow hold fired their proton torpedoes at the Provocateur before launching; Phanan was the first to notice that the Night Caller's bridge took a direct hit while its shields were down to launch the fighters. The Wraiths were able to destroy Provocateur and capture Constrictor, and so the Wraiths were able to maintain the guise that the Night Caller had barely escaped the ambush. Zsinj had the Night Caller and Trigit set up an ambush of Rogue Squadron, supposedly following them, at Ession; the New Republic prepared a trap of its own. They ambushed Trigit's Imperial-class Star Destroyer, Implacable, with another Loran Spitball before launching; the Wraiths harassed the now unshielded Implacable, crippling it. When the Implacable's fighters returned, the Wraiths faced them with the aid of several other New Republic squadrons, but Phanan was pursued by a TIE Interceptor and his fighter was heavily damaged; he had to eject. His spleen had been punctured and had to be replaced with a cybernetic, but he was recovered and survived, while his squadronmates destroyed the Implacable and killed Trigit. Sandskimmer and Thri'ag were both lost in the final battle, however.

A pirate's life
The squadron headed to Borleias after the incident, where Phanan recovered in the hospital. There, he met Lara Notsil, a young woman who had been a prisoner aboard Implacable before being rescued when it was destroyed. Once they recovered, they returned to headquarters at Coruscant. One evening there, while on leave at a cantina, Ekwesh was struck by a cyborg attacker whom Tainer fought off while Phanan examined Ekwesh. Military police quickly arrived to hustle the Wraiths out of the fight, but Loran found their quick arrival and odd mannerisms suspicious, causing the Wraiths to strike out against their captors. Phanan used a laser scalpel to cut the throat of the man nearest him and took his blaster rifle, forcing the others to surrender. The Wraiths decided Zsinj had likely been behind the retaliatory attack, and tightened up security. In the aftermath of the incident, Colonel Atton Repness had questioned them; Phanan remembered that as the name of Sarkin's crooked trainer and came up with a plan to ask Notsil to enter Repness's training program and lure him into a repeat of his previous offer, catching Repness in the act and bringing him to justice.

Meanwhile, the Wraiths were assigned the task of brainstorming Zsinj's tactics, attempting to think as if they were Zsinj. Phanan was assigned to a planning group with Loran, Wes Janson, and new Wraith Dia Passik. While brainstorming, Phanan brought Loran in on the scheme to bring down Repness, and the two went to ask Notsil to cooperate. In order for her to agree, Loran had to promise to ask Antilles to give her a place in one of his squadrons after she graduated, as no one else would trust her. Antilles agreed that he would consider her for a position, which was good enough to begin the plot. The Wraiths continued brainstorming, and when their reports were turned in, it was decided that saBinring's theory that Zsinj was hiring pirates as a second navy of sorts was valid, and so the Wraiths were assigned to take on the identity of a pirate group and attempt to gain employment by Zsinj, gaining his confidence before betraying him.

The Wraiths, taking on the alias of a pirate gang calling themselves the Hawk-bat Independent Space Force, transferred to Halmad, where they based themselves out of an abandoned asteroid facility. Phanan, still without an X-wing of his own, put in time in the TIE simulators, as the "Hawk-bats" would be using TIE craft for their deception. At Halmad, they had to steal more TIEs; in a play on the earlier attack on them, Phanan started a fight with Tainer in a Halmad cantina which spilled over to involve a squadron of TIE pilots. The other Wraiths, dressed as military police, took the TIE pilots in and were so able to infiltrate the base. Phanan, now in stormtrooper armor, took the place of one of the guards of the TIE hangar after the guards were stunned; they guarded the Wraiths as they took possession of six of the TIE Interceptors within. During that period, a skimmer full of stormtroopers arrived for a scheduled shift change; Phanan and Loran were forced to fire on them, driving them off. Phanan piloted one of the stolen Interceptors out; he had never flown such a fighter before, and had difficulty keeping it under control, but successfully departed.

With their new fighters, the Hawk-bats began raiding local shipping, killing no one but seizing a great deal of cargo. Phanan participated in these raids both as a fighter pilot and a member of the boarding parties. Meanwhile, Notsil was able to bring down Repness on her own, and performed sufficiently well for Antilles to bring her into the squadron. While the other Wraiths went off to perform a strike in conjunction with the Solo Fleet to maintain the illusion that the Wraiths were with that unit, Phanan remained behind with Tainer, Ekwesh, and the new slicer, Castin Donn. Exploiting a gap in Halmad's sensor coverage, they robbed a bank. When the others returned, Phanan had dinner with Notsil, an attractive woman, but could see that she was not interested in him; none of the women he had attempted to flirt with recently were. Deeply depressed by his lack of success with women, Phanan returned to his room and began drinking. Loran had realized that something was wrong and went to speak with Phanan, who confessed to his best friend that he had lost some part of himself when he was wounded at Endor; he was convinced he had no future, and women no longer seemed interested in him. Loran attempted to comfort him, but Phanan maintained that he just could not see a bright future for himself. Loran confiscated his alcohol and left.

An untimely death
"I was just imagining what a sad galaxy this would be without my superior intellect and general state of wonderfulness."

- Ton Phanan, to Garik Loran

The next day, the Wraiths set out as the Hawk-bats, capturing the fuel tanker Bastion over Halmad before targeting a secret Imperial base south of the Halmad city of Fellon. At the base, they found an ambush waiting, three squadrons of fighters against what was not even a full squadron of Hawk-bats. In the dogfight, Phanan was able to shoot down several enemies, but he took a hit to the engines and crashed in the forest. His landing was extremely rough and caused severe internal injuries, but he was able to drag himself from the wreck and crawl away before Zsinj's forces on the ground could reach him. He made it to a river and kept crawling until his trail led to stony ground where he would leave fewer traces, then doubled back to the river and began moving downstream. Knowing that attempting to protect Phanan's downed fighter would only cause all the Wraiths to fall, Antilles ordered them to break off and flee; Loran stayed behind, losing his pursuers in the forests and landing his ship covertly to search for Phanan on the ground.

Loran, having stolen a speeder bike from some of Zsinj's troops, figured out Phanan's strategy where Zsinj's men did not and was able to catch up with him. Putting Phanan on the speeder bike, which had lost power to its engines and simply floated, Loran began towing the wounded man while Phanan used a sensor unit to track their pursuit. When Loran, worried over Phanan's worsening condition, suggested that they simply surrender and get Phanan medical care immediately, Phanan refused, telling his friend that they were too recognizable and their capture would blow the Hawk-bats' cover. He considered stopping Zsinj more important than his own life, and made Loran promise that if he were to die, Loran would incinerate his body to keep it from being identified. Knowing that he was dying, Phanan spent his time making a will on his datapad, and when he gave it to Loran he told his friend to stop punishing himself for the good he had done the Empire as a child. He also sent a message to Loran's account describing his injuries, telling him he knew he would die, and ordering him not to hold himself responsible for Phanan's death. He also left all his money to Loran, and thanked him for his close friendship. Some time later, Phanan saw Iron Fist, Zsinj's flagship, in orbit and remarked on it to Loran, passing away almost immediately thereafter, while simply appreciating the starry vista.

Loran was heartbroken, but returned to his fighter the next morning and was able to escape after using its lasers to incinerate Phanan's corpse. He also received Phanan's last message. In accordance with the terms of Phanan's will, he had a surgical procedure to remove his distinctive scar, his physical punishment of himself. If he had not, the money would have gone to Tetran Cowall, Loran's hated one-time rival as a child actor. Phanan's death hit Loran hard, but Phanan's words to him urging him not to punish himself were able to convince him to keep fighting in one battle when he would otherwise have let himself die. Phanan finally cured Loran of his desire to punish himself for his prior deeds.

Personality and traits

 * Phanan: "But something died when I was hit in that medical ward, and I think it was my future. I think people, maybe only women, can just look at me and say, 'There's no future in him.'" Loran: "That's ridiculous." Phanan: "There's no mechanical replacement for a future, Face. And every time I take a hit, and they have to cut away another part of me and replace it with machinery because I'm allergic to bacta, every time that happens I seem to be a little further away from the young doctor who had a future. He can't come back, Face. Not all of him is here anymore." &mdash;Ton Phanan and Garik Loran [src]

Ton Phanan grew up a relatively normal man, if in possession of a roguish sense of humor. However, when he was injured over Endor, he fell into a state of depression as he felt his future had been cut out from under him. As he picked up more wounds and more cybernetics, he felt that he was losing something of himself; his earlier optimism was replaced with cynicism, bitterness, and depression over his situation. He was no longer able to find success with women, something he blamed on his self-perceived lack of a future. This was a particularly cutting loss to Phanan, who was something of a ladies' man. Phanan covered his depression by adopting an exaggerated sense of humor, constantly making witty, sarcastic, or sly comments, puns, and jokes. Phanan hated the Empire, and sought to punish it directly for his injuries. While he could be flippant and informal with his superior officers, he always performed professionally in his actual capacity as a squadron member. He found refuge in friends such as Loran, but still felt haunted by the hollowness inside and was not able to find enough enjoyment in life to struggle for it on Halmad. Instead, he used his last acts to give Loran the peace of mind and psychological strength to overcome his own personal demons as Phanan never had.

Behind the scenes
The character of Ton Phanan was created by author Aaron Allston for X-wing: Wraith Squadron; he was originally intended to die as Jesmin Ackbar did, but Allston decided Phanan had too much to contribute to the story before dying. He ultimately fulfilled his purpose in X-wing: Iron Fist by giving Loran the impetus to overcome his own issues. Allston has said that the Phanan-Loran duo are his favorite characters for comedic material.

Phanan's death made the 20 Most Memorable Moments of the Expanded Universe list, the only source not directly dealing with Wraith Squadron to mention him. The article mistakenly cited his death as occurring in X-wing: Solo Command, however, rather than X-wing: Iron Fist.

Appearances

 * X-wing: Wraith Squadron
 * X-wing: Iron Fist
 * X-Wing: Solo Command

Notes and references
Ton Phanan