Star Wars: Knight Errant: Influx

"Star Wars: Knight Errant: Influx" is a short story written by John Jackson Miller. It was originally published on StarWars.com on October 19, 2010. On October 1, 2012, it was republished on the Del Rey Website.

The story details Phase One of the Operation: Influx: the hijacking of a Daimanite Heavy-Lift Starcrosser in Oranessan by Kerra Holt, Vannar Treece and their Jedi team.

Publisher's summary
''Influx takes place in the Grumani sector in 1,032 B.B.Y., immediately before the events of Star Wars: Knight Errant, now available from Dark Horse Comics. It serves to introduce characters and themes for comics readers and readers of the forthcoming novel, due out in January from Del Rey Books.''

Plot summary
This short story occurs in the backdrop of Operation Influx which was a covert Jedi "knight errant" operation led by the Jedi Master Vannar Treece during the Republic Dark Age in 1,032 BBY. During that period, the Galactic Republic had been reduced to a rump state centered around the Core Worlds and the Colonies, leaving much of the galaxy under control of various Sith warlords. The Grumani sector was controlled by several rival warlords including the two Sith brothers Daiman and Odion who were bitter rivals. In 1,032 BBY, the Jedi Order learnt that the Sith Lord Daiman was mining baradium&mdash;a volatile compound used in the manufacture of munitions including thermal detonators&mdash;on the agrarian world of Chelloa. The baradium was being extracted on Chelloa before being shipped offworld for processing at munitions factories situated near the front line. Since the Jedi feared that Daiman's access to baradium would change the balance of power within the Grumani sector, Treece assembled a strike team to sabotage the shipment of baradium offworld. This mission became code-named "Operation Influx" and involved a three-stage process of infiltration, sabotage, and exfiltration back into Republic space.

Knight Errant: Influx is told from the point of view of the series's main protagonist Kerra Holt, a novice Jedi Knight who had been rescued from her Sith-occupied homeworld of Aquilaris Minor years earlier by Master Vannar, who became her foster father and guardian. In the exposition, the two main protagonists Vannar Treece and Kerra Holt along with two other Jedi (including the Cerean Jedi Knight Dorvin Eltrom) have just landed on the rain-drenched planet Oranessan. It is a polluted rain-drench world located at a key hyperlane within the Daimanate. Earlier, the Jedi team had intercepted and shot down a small personnel shuttle while approaching Oranessan. The shuttle had been carrying several flight crew to the planet's spaceport where a fleet of Daimanite Heavy-Lift Starcrosser transports was waiting to depart for a delivery run to Chelloa. These flight crew would be used to crew the vast transports. The shuttle crashed on top of a hillcrest in the mud flats and the Jedi advance team retrieved the fallen crew's cloaks and identification badges.

The two Jedi then encountered a Daimanite party consisting of a female ground crew chief and four armed sentries who attempt to execute them for being late to a flight prep meeting that occured twenty minutes earlier. However, the Jedi quickly kill the Daimanites with their lightsabers. After stealing the dead Daimanites' equipment, the four Jedi commandeer an empty Starcrosser transport. Vannar then contacted the rest of the team via comlink to inform them that the objective vessel had been secured, that Operation Influx had been confirmed, and that they could now rejoin the advance team. During a brief conversation with her master Vannar, Kerra reflected on how she had switched from using Force Persuasion to lightsaber combat during her encounter with the ground crew chief. Kerra admitted that she did not like posing as a Sith and Vannar responded that she could not get very far in enemy territory without employing subterfuge. In the first section, the reader also gets a brief insight into the protagonist's background particularly her Jedi training and the political dynamics of the Sith-controlled Grumani sector.

The Jedi have taken over the Starcrosser transport and are preparing to depart for Chelloa. The reader is also given a brief history of the events leading to the short story including the Republic Dark Age and the "knight errant" missions carried out by Vannar Treece and his Jedi volunteers. While most of the Jedi Order had retreated to the safety of the Core Worlds to stave off a Sith invasion, Vannar staged hit-and-run raids with secret consent from the Jedi leadership of the Republic. By 1,032 BBY, Vannar's missions were the only Jedi activity in the entire Grumani sector. For Operation Influx, Vannar had taken great pains to recruit several senior Jedi whom he was connected with or who had achieved distinction in combat. Some of these figures included the Trandoshan Jedi Knight Mrssk who had served in earlier Treece operations and the Quarren Jedi Master Berluk. Treece had exploited the threat of Daiman's baradium operations as a means of calling in every favor that was owed by other Jedi comrades. For Kerra, this marked her first mission as a Jedi Knight.

Kerra has another brief conversation with the Cerean Dorvin. He asked the young Human woman whether her decision to wield a green lightsaber reflected her aspiration to become a Jedi Consular like Supreme Chancellor Genarra. Kerra explained that she had only grabbed a lightsaber crystal from the top of a pile which turned out to be green in color. Dorvin was disappointed but Kerra did not believe in adhering to tradition since she was more interested in learning Jedi skills as quickly as possible to avenge the conquest of her homeworld by the Sith. At that point, the mission encountered a new obstacle since the vessel's navicomputer lacked an activation cylinder. Without this key, the Starcrosser transport was unable to start up and Operation Influx would have to be aborted. Meanwhile, the other transports were already departing for Chelloa.

Kerra quickly recalled that she had forgotten to retrieve a dispatch case from the wreckage of the downed personnel shuttle they had shot down earlier. The case had been trapped under one of the shuttle's consoles and she had mistaken it for a personal item. While it was standard protocol in the Republic for most flight crews to keep their activation cylinders with the ships, the Starcrosser lacked one since Daiman had decreed that his crew had to keep them on their persons to minimize the risk of desertion. While Kerra expressed frustration, Treece was sympathetic towards the young Jedi woman since it was impossible for her to do everything. The Jedi were unable to travel to Chelloa on their own ship since the planet was tightly guarded by Daiman's forces. Time was running out since they had only one hour to infiltrate Chelloa and sabotage the baradium shipping before departing for neutral space.

Vannar considered activating the fallback plan which involved returning to their Jedi vessel and using it to shoot down the Daimanite transports before returning to the Republic. However, this plan had a serious drawback since Daiman could respond by rerouting other vessels to Chelloa. Kerra opposed this idea and sugggested hijacking an ore transport but Vannar ruled it out since the ore transports were heavilly armed. Finally, Kerra suggested returning to the wrecked shuttle and retrieving the dispatch case. However, Vannar was uneasy about this plan since he did not want to risk the lives of the Jedi Knights involved. However, Kerra was still determined to carry out Operation Influx due to the considerable amount of energy, time, and resources they had committed to the mission.