Hal Horn

Valin Horn was a Corellian survivor of the Great Jedi Purge who became a noted Corellian Security Force officer. Born Valin Halcyon, the secret son of Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon, he was apprenticed to his father, who died shortly after the Clone Wars. When the Jedi Purge began, Nejaa's former Corellian Security partner and best friend, Rostek Horn, married Scerra Halcyon and adopted young Valin, whose name became Valin Horn, though he went almost exclusively by the nickname Hal Horn, a sly reference to Halcyon. Rostek hid all evidence of the family's Jedi past, and Valin Horn went on to marry Nyche Horn and father a son, Corran.

Horn became a CorSec officer just like his adoptive father, and excelled in the position. He quickly became an Inspector, and his tenacity and investigative skill became legendary. He developed a longstanding rivalry with smuggler Booster Terrik, eventually catching him, and with Moranda Savich, the pursuit of whom got Horn into a sticky situation on Darkknell. In 2 ABY, Horn was joined by his son Corran in CorSec, but lost his wife to a landspeeder accident.

Later that year, Horn and his son successfully captured Zekka Thyne, the head of Black Sun on Corellia. In 3 ABY, Horn was killed by the bounty hunter Bossk. Corran strongly suspected that he had been deliberately assassinated, but could never identify who had ordered it. A message Horn had recorded for his son enabled Corran to eventually train as a Jedi, becoming a Jedi Master in the New Jedi Order.

Jedi past
"The Halcyon family is well known among the Corellian Jedi. We were well respected and many were the tributes to Nejaa Halcyon upon his death. You can find no record of them now, of course. What the Empire did not destroy, Rostek did destroy or hid away&mdash;he won't even tell me where the records are, but I cannot believe he would have allowed all traces of his friend to perish. The Halcyons were strong in the Force but not flashy or given to public displays of power. A word here, an act there, allowing people to choose between good or evil at their own speed and peril was more our way."

- Valin Horn, in a recorded message to Corran Horn

Valin Halcyon was the son of Scerra and Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon. Halcyon's father trained him as his Padawan from childhood, teaching him the Jedi ways but keeping their familial relationship secret. He was only ten years old when Nejaa left to fight in the Clone Wars in 22 BBY and he was left in the care of Rostek Horn, Nejaa Halcyon's longtime partner in the Corellian Security Force. When Nejaa was killed shortly after the Clone Wars, Rostek Horn adopted Valin Halcyon and married Scerra, removing all traces of their links to the Jedi as the Great Jedi Purge began. Valin's name became Valin Horn, though he went by "Hal Horn" for most of his life, a reference to his former family name.

Horn dated a woman named Nyche, then married her. They had a son, Corran, in 18 BBY. He raised his family in a house across the street from Rostek's, in Coronet City. Shortly thereafter, Horn graduated from the Corellian Security Force Academy, where he excelled and set many training records, several of them by beating Rostek's records. He saw working in CorSec as a way of honoring both his father and stepfather, continuing their work of protecting innocents. Early on, Horn was partnered with Gil Bastra, and he quickly rose to the position of Inspector.

While he was careful to avoid being outed as a Force-sensitive, Horn kept his father's Jedi Credit&mdash;a medallion marking Halcyon's ascent to the rank of Jedi Master&mdash;as a good-luck charm. Horn also continued using Jedi techniques. Corran sometimes observed him going through meditative exercises and attempted to imitate him. Horn taught Corran the exercises, which would not reveal his Force-sensitivity, but told him that they were their secret game and should not be shared with anyone else.

CorSec career
"While Rostek and my father worked together, CorSec and Jedi, I have used what I learned from my father to work within CorSec. In this way I serve both the Halcyon and Horn traditions."

- Valin Horn, in a recorded message to Corran Horn

In 10 BBY, Horn was assigned to investigate the activities of Jenos Idanian. He was hot on the tail of the Corellian criminal, freezing his bank account, but Idanian disappeared on Coruscant and never resurfaced. Horn never learned that Idanian was actually Han Solo. In that same year, Horn received a report of an attempted rape from a young transport pilot named Soontir Fel. A group of youths, including Ilir Post, had attempted to rape a girl named Pamr on an agro-combine run by Allied Grain and Roughage. Fel had fought the three assailants off, but as they were the children of management figures, the local police, in AGR's pocket, refused to prosecute. Fel came to Horn and Corellian Security, and Horn took Fel's statement and prepared an investigation of Post and the others. However, on his return to the agro-combine, Fel was given an appointment to the Academy of Carida and told that his family would be taken care of if he would go. If he did not accept it, the company would make it hard on Fel's family, who all worked for the corporation. Feeling he had no choice, Fel accepted the appointment and left for Carida. Without Fel to testify, Horn's case fell apart. He understood the situation Fel was in, however, and met him as he left, encouraging the young man to make the most of the opportunity and not put his family in danger. Horn would be keeping close watch on Post, and was confident he would slip up again and be caught. Post did eventually misstep once more, and was sent to the prison world of Kessel.

In 5 BBY, Horn was assigned to the case of the pirates who destroyed the Gus Treta fueling station owned by Wedge Antilles's parents. Though he devoted himself to the investigation, he could not find the pirates. Even so, he kept an eye on young Antilles, who was left orphaned by the accident. When Antilles began smuggling weapons for the Rebel Alliance, Horn pronounced Antilles a lost cause. Horn pursued the infamous smuggler Booster Terrik for a considerable period of time, with Terrik frequently eluding him. Horn caught him once, but he later went free, only to be pursued again by Horn. The two became tremendous rivals. Eventually, in 2 BBY, he was able to arrest Terrik on smuggling charges and sent him to Kessel for five years.

Horn encouraged his son to follow his hunches and senses of unease. He had a very good relationship with Corran, serving as his son's friend as well as his father, and the pair made an excellent team. Corran felt comfortable taking his problems to Horn and discussing them, and always looked to his father for moral guidance. Horn, in return, was extremely proud of his son and confident in his ability to make good choices. Around 2 BBY, he recorded a holographic message for Corran telling him about his Jedi heritage, in the event that he himself died before it was safe for Corran to learn of it. He told his son how proud he was of him, and of his hope that Corran would continue the family's Jedi heritage. Horn hoped that eventually he would be able to train his son as a Jedi himself.

The hunt for Moranda Savich
"Strange as it may seem, Garm, over the past few years I've gotten sort of used to having Horn on my tail. He's a pretty good opponent, you know, well worth matching wits against. I rather enjoy that sort of challenge. Besides, I know that if he's the one who brings the hammer down on me, I'll be treated fairly. In Palpatine's grand new Empire there aren't a lot of enforcement types I would trust that far."

- Moranda Savich, to Garm Bel Iblis

In 0 BBY, Horn was in pursuit of pickpocket, con artist, and thief Moranda Savich. He had pursued her for a few years, and followed her trail from Corellia to Kreeling, Dorsis, and Mantarran before ending up on the distant Outer Rim world Darkknell. As he technically had no jurisdiction there and was obliged to rely on local authorities' cooperation, he had to surrender his blaster when he touched down in the city of Xakrea. The Darkknell Defense Agency, however, was far more concerned with a recent alert that an important Rebel was present on Darkknell and had to be detained, and offered no real assistance to Horn. Horn traveled to Arky's Emporium of Forgotten Treasures, run by Seb Arkos, a known document forger and a man Horn had once had imprisoned. He asked Arkos about Savich, and after pressuring him the convict revealed that Savich had sought his help in leaving Darkknell and would be coming by the shop soon.

Horn would have waited outside, but a woman arrived claiming to be Katya Glasc, a Darkknell Special Security agent&mdash;she was actually Ysanne Isard of Imperial Intelligence. She told him that he had a break in Savich's case, and took him outside to speak. On leaving, he saw Savich in the street and moved to arrest her, but was held back by Isard as her bodyguard, Trabler, moved to shoot the thief. Realizing that he intended to kill her, Horn used a Force illusion to affect the man's aim and Savich was only shot in the shoulder. Isard made Horn leave Savich, telling him that he was needed in a vital mission to catch a Rebel who had just recently bombed a building in which Corellian Senator Garm Bel Iblis was about to give a speech. While Horn was uneasy with Isard and Trabler, he was eager to catch the man who had killed Bel Iblis and hundreds of innocents, and agreed to cooperate.

They spent much of the day checking what Isard described as Rebel contact points, and Horn soon realized that the pair were not what they claimed to be; they were from the Core. On confirming his suspicions, he took charge of the interrogation at the next point, the Continuum Void tapcafe. In the course of it, he realized that the pair were likely Imperials, and were chasing something that had been stolen by Savich from a man who had been in that tapcafe. However, he showed the manager a holo of his wife, not of Savich; when the manager claimed not to recognize the holo, Isard, assuming Horn had showed an image of Savich, lacked any lead.

They returned to Isard's headquarters, where Horn had a split second of warning through the Force before he was attacked by Trabler. He was able to fend off the Imperial, taking the other man's blaster and firing at Isard. He killed Trabler when the man came after him again, and, in a standoff with Isard, he destroyed his holo of Savich and told Isard that now he was the only chance of her catching the person who had whatever she wanted. He suggested that if he helped her catch Savich, she would let him go and call the deal even. Revealing her true identity, Isard accepted, but forced Horn to wear a choke-collar, which would activate and cut off blood flow to his brain on her order or if she died.

Knowing through his long experience with her that Savich would be looking for gralish liqueur and that the Continuum Void was the only establishment in Xakrea that sold it, Horn led Isard back there. After arriving, they learned that Savich had been there with an accomplice, but left again after persuading the manager that he had a family emergency and getting him to leave. Isard was convinced that Savich had run the manager off-world for a reason, and decided to check out his background with Horn. They traveled to Imperial Intelligence's local secret facility to access files, and there Horn received a comm call from Savich, who set up a meeting to turn over the datapack that had been stolen in exchange for pay.

On moving into the tapcafe next to the Intelligence facility, Horn received another call, and was startled to hear a nearby thud from a dropped crate repeated over the comm. He realized Savich was nearby and found one woman who was a possible candidate to be Savich in disguise. However, in the middle of Savich's instructions, she got up and introduced herself to Horn as an old friend, hugging him. When he smelled the gralish liqueur on her breath, he quickly recognized that she was indeed Savich. She used the cover of the hug to pick the lock to his choke-collar and bumped into Isard as she stepped back. Immediately afterwards, Colonel Nyroska of the Darkknell Defense Agency arrived, and the mystery woman, who was indeed Savich, had Nyroska arrest Isard as the Rebel agent; she had palmed Isard's identification card when she bumped into her and now claimed to be Isard herself. When Horn was asked to help make the matter clear, he confessed that the only identification Isard had ever showed him were her false credentials as Glasc. All three were taken to the local precinct to clear up the matter, but Savich escaped her cell before Isard's identity was confirmed. Horn, however, was able to escape any consequences for his role in the matter.

Pride and suffering
"One of the reasons she was a good woman, wife, and mother was because she didn't think about herself first. Not a selfish bone in your mother's body. Everyone else came first and what she wanted was saved for later because we needed her now. And now she has no more later, and there seems little reason in having a later without her."

- Valin Horn, to Corran Horn

In 1 ABY, Horn was present in the city of Tyrena, where he investigated the trafficking of survapierre, an illegal alcoholic beverage. By that time, Horn was a veteran Corellian Security agent, with a reputation as one of the service's best officers. Horn was known to mentor rookies, helping train them and acclimate them to CorSec, and had many protegés and friends within the service. Horn was deeply upset with CorSec's role in hunting Jedi and strongly disliked the Imperial Intelligence liaison officer assigned to his area, Kirtan Loor.

Around 2 ABY, Corran, who had followed his father into the Academy, graduated and began a career as a Corellian Security Force agent. Horn had kept an eye on his son's training, with his cronies in the training program forwarding him some of Corran's results. The younger Horn excelled, beating many of Valin Horn's own records. The two frequently worked as partners, much to Horn's delight. As an additional precaution, he uploaded the message he had recorded about their Jedi heritage to Corran's droid partner, Whistler. Later that same year, Nyche was struck by a drunken driver in a landspeeder accident. Horn and Corran rushed to the hospital to be with her. She spoke with them about their future before passing away, leaving father and son grieving together.

Black Sun bust
"It is my duty to inform you, Zekka Thyne, that I am Inspector Hal Horn of the Corellian Security Force and you are under arrest. I have a valid warrant for your apprehension for violations of smuggling laws. Let your hostage go and stop making things more difficult for yourself."

- Valin Horn, to Zekka Thyne

Later in 2 ABY, Horn and his son were working as partners in surveilling the Treasure Ship Row stall of Sajsh, an agent of Corellian Black Sun kingpin Zekka Thyne. While doing so, Corran noticed a man approach Sajsh and attempt to make a delivery for Borbor Crisk&mdash;a rival crime lord. The Horns kept an eye on the man, and after Sajsh told him to come back later to another stall, they found him returning to an unusual set of companions, one of which appeared to be bounty hunter Jodo Kast&mdash;he was actually Grand Admiral Thrawn posing as Kast, though Horn never learned that. Corran figured that Thyne would likely want to bring the group back to his fortress for questioning, and considered joining the odd party as a way of getting into the heavily-guarded fortress to actually serve a warrant and arrest Thyne. Horn considered it incredibly risky, but the pair continued watching the group.

When two of them ran into trouble attempting to save a shopkeeper and his daughter from the Brommstaad Mercenaries, the Horns drew their blasters to protect them, forcing the mercenaries to stand down. The grateful members of the group introduced themselves as Kast, Riij Winward, Rathe Palror, Haber Trell, and Maranne Darmic. The Horns passed themselves off as a pair of criminal partners, unrelated to each other and looking for work with Crisk, and suggested that they go along with the others to their meeting with Crisk's agent. Thrawn, the party's leader, decided that Horn would go along with Trell and Palror to the meeting while Corran, Winward, and Darmic unloaded their delivery cargo. Thrawn would provide backup to the first group.

Horn's group proceeded to the meeting, and were captured by Thyne's thugs. Taken to Thyne's fortress, they were beaten for information, but had little to offer. Relatively soon, Thrawn and Corran arrived, but Thrawn told Thyne that the group was planning to assassinate him, and turned Corran over. The four prisoners were put in the cellar, and Horn noted from Thrawn's taunts that most of Thyne's enforcers would be gone, ambushing Winward and Darmic. He also noticed that Thrawn had placed a molecular stiletto on the bars to their cell. Realizing "Kast" was playing a complex game to infiltrate Thyne's palace but seemed to be on their side, they used the stiletto to cut their way out and ambushed the guard, giving Trell and Palror the stiletto and telling them to escape on their own while they took on Thyne.

With most of Thyne's men away, the Horns were able to make it back up to Thyne's office, where Thrawn helped them defeat the guards; Thyne, however, fled through a secret escape tunnel. The CorSec agents followed Thyne down the tunnel and into a cave, where the crime lord began shooting at them. They advanced stealthily through the cave, but Thyne caught Corran and used him as a hostage. He demanded that Horn show himself, which he did, but Horn ordered Thyne to surrender. When it was clear that Thyne would not, Horn agreed to lay down his weapon. Calming his concern at his son's position, he centered himself, focused on aiming at Thyne's eye, and used the Force to project an illusion of himself removing his finger from the trigger. In fact, he kept his carbine on Thyne and triggered a stun shot that incapacitated the crime lord. He explained the feat to Corran as having used his middle finger to stroke the trigger.

They exited the cave with the unconscious Thyne and ran into a stormtrooper patrol, with Horn having to use a mind trick to keep the stormtroopers from executing them. The commander of the Imperial assault, Colonel Maximilian Veers, had instructions from Thrawn to expect them and allow them to leave with their prisoner, which he did upon learning of the situation. Horn also formally asked Veers for aid in executing his warrant to search Thyne's fortress, giving the colonel legal justification for raiding the building. Thyne was duly prosecuted and convicted, and he blamed the Horns bitterly for his imprisonment on Kessel.

Death and legacy
"I guess, old man, you really aren't gone. I've got your sense of duty and your good luck charm. Definitely puts me ahead of the game."

- Corran Horn

Around a year and a half after arresting Thyne, Horn and Corran were sent on a mission on which they anticipated trouble. Horn met with two other individuals while Corran monitored him by remote. He was killed when the bounty hunter Bossk entered and washed a spray of fire across the entire table at which Horn sat. Corran rushed out but could only hold his father's dead body in his arms. The director of the Corellian Security Force himself was present at Horn's wake, in which the great many people affected by Horn celebrated his life. Horn's keepsake of his father, the Jedi credit, was passed on to Corran.

Corran tracked down Bossk, but Kirtan Loor let Bossk loose without so much as an arraignment, citing his lack of manual dexterity as making Horn's death collateral damage in the execution of a valid Imperial warrant against Horn's companions. The relationship between Corran and Loor continued to disintegrate, until Corran left Corellia and eventually joined the New Republic. While serving in it, he discovered his family heritage and played Horn's message to him; in 11 ABY, Corran trained and became a Jedi Knight as the order Horn had seen destroyed was restored by Luke Skywalker, with Corran eventually becoming a Jedi Master and sitting on the revived Jedi Council. In addition, Corran married Mirax Terrik, the daughter of Horn's old rival, and the pair had two children, Valin&mdash;named for Horn himself&mdash;and Jysella.

Personality and traits
"When I hear that stupid Lomin-ale ditty or eat part of a ryshcate, I remember my father. I remember his booming laugh and that secret smile of contentment he could flash you when things were good.''" "''And the way that smile would carry on up into his eyes and how, with a slight shift, it would harden into something that would make the most fearless of Black Sunners begin to tremble in interrogation."

- Corran Horn and Iella Wessiri

Valin Horn was generally good-natured and easygoing, but was utterly dedicated and unyielding in his pursuit of injustice. He was an absolutely relentless investigator, and extremely honest; he also had a knack for picking up on small details in his investigations that provided major breakthroughs. From an early age, Horn was taught by his Jedi father to keep his emotions in control, avoiding rage and panic and remaining calm. He was strongly against the unnecessary taking of life, and always found a way to avoid inflicting harm if he could. As a result, he almost always set his blaster on stun and encouraged his son to do so as well. A family man, Horn was a loving father to his son and a devoted husband. He and Corran got along extremely well, considering each other friends and coworkers as well as family, and their strong rapport allowed them to share their concerns with each other as adults.

As the Alliance to Restore the Republic gained more victories against the Empire, Horn felt its success emboldened criminals and helped lead to a more violent climate in the underworld. He was also annoyed that more government resources went towards battling the Rebellion and what he perceived as overblown suspicions of Rebel sympathies instead of stopping serious crime. The association of Corellians with crime and Rebel activities disappointed and angered him as well. While not a fan of the Rebellion, which he regarded as a lawless group, he disliked the Empire as well, considering it oppressive, and worried about the necessity of eventually opposing it.

Powers and abilities
Horn was capable of precognition with the Force, and could also sense feelings and emotions through it; this ability to read others strongly aided his ability to tell when a suspect was lying. Like all Halcyon Jedi, Horn had a talent for projecting illusions into the minds of others and confusing or persuading them with mind tricks, as well as an inability to perform telekinesis. However, he was only trained as a boy, and after years of not using the Force, even minor exertions of it left him drained.

Behind the scenes
The character of Valin Horn was created by author Michael A. Stackpole as the father of one of Stackpole's protagonists, Corran Horn. Horn was first mentioned as part of his son's backstory in X-wing: Rogue Squadron and much of Horn's own backstory was given in the course of Corran Horn's adventures. While his name was originally given as Hal Horn, and that name is used in almost all sources about Horn, X-wing: The Krytos Trap states that "Hal" was only a nickname, and he retained the given name Valin. Valin Horn himself made his first appearance in the short story Side Trip, written by Stackpole and Timothy Zahn. Horn also appeared in a flashback in X-wing Rogue Squadron 25: The Making of Baron Fel, also written by Stackpole, and in the short story Interlude at Darkknell, another collaboration between Stackpole and Zahn. In addition, Horn is a non-player character in the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game Star Wars Galaxies.

In I, Jedi, Horn is said to have been ten years old when his father left to fight in the Clone Wars; however, he also claims to have been ten years old when his father died. Subsequent canon has not only placed the Clone Wars approximately ten years later than Stackpole placed them, creating a situation in which Horn was barely in his teens when he had Corran, but has also separated Halcyon's departure for the Clone Wars from his death by three years. With those significant contradictions in place, Horn's canonical age remains unclear.

The article Bounty Hunters' Guild Handbook in Star Wars Insider 99 identifies Horn as the head of Corellian Security on Corellia, as does Bossk's entry in the Databank&mdash;a claim that would seem to conflict with the implications of Stackpole's stories, in which Horn is portrayed as a well-known but only mid-ranking field agent.

Appearances

 * Jedi Trial
 * The Paradise Snare
 * Interlude at Darkknell
 * Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided
 * Side Trip
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron 25: The Making of Baron Fel
 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron
 * X-wing: Wedge's Gamble
 * X-wing: The Krytos Trap
 * X-wing: The Bacta War
 * X-wing: Isard's Revenge
 * I, Jedi
 * Exile