Invasion of At Attin

During the New Republic Era, an invasion took place on the planet of At Attin when pirate captain Jod Na Nawood tried to plunder the At Attin Mint. Despite enlisting help from his gang of pirates, Jod's plan to plunder Old Republic Credits from the Old Republic Mint was ultimately foiled due to the efforts of the Skeleton Crew and their parents who alerted the New Republic allowing a squadron of X-wings and B-wings to intervene and decisively defeat the pirates.^[3]

The invasion

Arrival

Upon arrival at At Attin, Silvo's frigate encountered the Barrier protecting the planet. When Jod Na Nawood volunteered to fly into the Barrier, to prove that At Attin was inside, Captain Brutus refused and called for a volunteer. Glerb then flew into the Barrier and was killed.

Soon after, the Onyx Cinder exited hyperspace. After Jod realized the ship was the key to getting through the Barrier, he had the ship captured with a tractor beam and brought aboard the frigate.

When Brutus boarded the ship, he was captured by the Skeleton Crew with a lift claw and held hostage, however, Jod killed him and had his crew board the ship. After viewing a massage from their parents, from a Communications buoy on how to find At Attin, the Skeleton Crew claimed the ship for themselves. SM-33 then assisted the Crew with getting the pirates of the ship.

The Onyx Cinder then escaped the frigate and flew into the Barrier. Two fighters flew in after the ship and were destroyed.

"Jedi emissary"

Upon the Onyx Cinder entering the atmosphere of At Attin, the ship was forced into autopilot and directed towards a landing pad concealed by a field in the center of At Attin's city. The Supervisor directed the city's population to cease non-essential work until the ship was loaded with credits and had departed.

A contingent of safety droids was sent to meet Jod Na Nawood as he stepped off the ship, introducing himself as a Jedi and Republic Emissary. The landing platform retracted into the ground to the Old Republic Mint, and over one thousand large identical vaults where the manufactured credits were stored.

As safety droids showed Nawood one of the vaults, the various parents of the members of the Skeleton Crew arrived on a hovercraft and were at last reunited with their children. Shortly after, Jod stepped out of the vault and ignited his lightsaber, subtly warning Wim and the others to say nothing of his true identity, while he retracted the blade and presented himself again as an emissary to their parents.

As a precaution, he ordered the safety droids to confine Neel, KB, and Wim to their homes, along with their families, which he took Fern and her mother Fara to meet the Supervisor, in order to allow Jod's other ship outside the Barrier to make entry.^[3]

Destruction of the Supervisor

Jod, Fara, and Fern travelled to the Supervisor's tower, escorted by many safety droids, while the others were taken home and the Onyx Cinder, loaded with credits, returned to the surface but remained locked on the platform by clamps. Wim tried to reason with his father over Nawood, but all of their communication was monitored by the safety droids, who had orders to report on them to Nawood. Neel decided to take a bubble bath while the situation unfolded but continued to try communicating with Wim.

As night fell, Jod arrived at the central control room of the tower, along with Fara and Fern. Jod was surprised to see the room empty, aside from droids, before the Supervisor revealed himself and turned to face him. Jod asked for permission to get his other ship through the Barrier by deactivating it, but the Supervisor grew suspsicious. While expressing interest in a new contact from the Republic, he stated the last transmission received from the Republic by At Attin declared that all Jedi were traitors, and asked if Jod was lying about being either a Jedi or an emissary.^[3]

When Jod hesitated to answer, Fern blurted out that Jod was a pirate, and the Supervisor directed the safety droids to neutralize him. Jod ignited his lightsaber and blocked the stun blasts fired by the droids, which ordered him to stand down. Surrounded and out of options, Jod drove his blade directly into the photoreceptor of the Supervisor, killing him.

Race to reactivate power

With the Supervisor dead, all of At Attin shut down, throwing the city and surrounding suburbs into a blackout, as well as deactivating all safety droids in the city. Public transportation and all other electronics completely ceased operation. When Jod fond the controls to take down the Barrier, Fara protested, saying that the Barrier was essential and offered to give him access codes that would allow his starship to pass through safely instead.

Fara granted the ship access, and Jod hailed Gunter, currently helming the frigate, and informed him it was safe to travel through the Barrier. The frigate passed through, unassailed by the electric mines within, while two snub fighters remained outside of the Barrier.

The citizens of At Attin gathered outside their houses and streets to watch as the pirate frigate descended through the clouds to hover right above the city. The ship soon opens fire on the city, destroying several parked cars and trams, while sending the citizens of the world fleeing for their lives. Wim argued with Wendle over how to respond to the attack in their home's garage, but as they do, Neel and KB arrived on their hoverbikes. Neel proposed taking the Onyx Cinder past the Barrier's comms jamming in order to contact the New Republic X-wings that they had encountered before.

Agreeing to the idea, Wim mounted his own hoverbike and sped off. Wendle chased after them and acquired his own hoverbike but eventually agreed to go on with their plan. The four raced through the suburbs, cutting through the nearby forest to reach the city. Meanwhile, the pirate frigate deployed numerous open-top dropships, loaded with pirates. Upon landing, the pirates, led by Kona, began to capture and round up the populace for use as slaves, though Jod order them to be unharmed.

Pirate dropships led by the Nikto Vane began to pursue Wim, Wendle, KB, and Neel as they approached the city. Following KB, the group cut through a building, but pirate fire blasted through the windows and destroyed Neel's speeder bike. Neel survived unharmed and told the others to keep going, while Neel made his way to At Attin Middle School Gamma with a plan in mind.

The three managed to reach the Onyx Cinder, but KB was unable to take off, as the power outage locked the ship in place with its docking clamps. Wim and Wendle leave for the Supervisor's tower in order to restore power and allow KB to take off. Meanwhile, KB gets to work repairing SM-33 from his current condition.

Jod made an announcement to the population over the city-wide intercom, stating he was in control and that he would be merciful if they worked for him. Meanwhile, Vane ruthlessly chases Wim and Wendle into the city, tearing up the streets behind them with blaster fire. The two cut across a waterway, entering at the base, which Vane peppers with lasers, though Jod calls him off, warning him to be careful as he is in the tower. Vane obeyed, but warned him of the speeders that approached his position.

Soon after, Wim took the turbolift up the Supervisor's room and began to confront Jod as a distraction, while Wendle snuck into the room and began working on the consoles, using his skills as a level seven Systems Coordinator to try and reactivate the power. Wim claimed to have used the "Crystal of the Founders" to contact the X-wings and gives him a chance to surrender. Jod refused to believe it, but the distraction worked anyway, and Wendle reactivated the power. Fern and Fara attempt to break free, but Jod quickly regained control of the room and forced all four to surrender.

Final flight of the Onyx Cinder

With the power back, the docking clamps released, and the Onyx Cinder was able to take off, piloted by KB and a semi-repaired SM-33, rocketing past the frigate and up towards the Barrier. Silvo's frigate aims a turbolaser battery at the escaping vessel to shoot it down, but the cannons are destroyed by Neel, who used the turbolaser on the roof of Middle School Gamma to fire at the vessel, remembering its existence from an identical school on fellow Jewel of the Old Republic At Achrann, which they visited earlier on the journey.^[5]

The pirates quickly turned their cannons on Neel and destroy the cannon only moments after he escaped, but the Onyx Cinder successfully escaped past the Barrier. Once beyond the Barrier, KB contacted the alien astronomer Kh'ymm. Kh'ymm was surprised to hear the children had made it home after a previous incident,^[6] and quickly complied when KB explained At Attin was being invaded and she wanted to call for help, transmitting At Attin’s coordinates.

Kh'ymm contacted the New Republic, which dispatched ships to assist, though it would be some time before they arrived. Not a moment later, the two pirate snubfighters that remained beyond the Barrier spotted the Onyx Cinder and strafed it. The attack destroyed one of the vessel’s engines and caused it to plummet back towards the surface of At Attin.

The Cinder crashed into the city, but KB performed a last-minute maneuver that directed the vessel to crash into Middle School Gamma, heavily damaging it but allowing all aboard to survive. Fern, who was watching from the Supervisor’s tower, however, believed KB to be dead.

Defeating Jod

Seeing the lever that would activate the Barrier's destruction, Fern lurched for it, but was stopped by her mother. Wendle attempted to intervene but Jod used the Force to hurl him to the floor. Wim rushed for the lever and held it, but hesitated as Jod threatened to kill Wendle with his lightsaber. Jod attempted to get Wendle to tell Wim to step way from the lever, as Wim denounced him as a false Jedi and a liar, adding that the "real good guys are coming."

Jod dismissed Wim's warning and, exhausted, began to rant anbout his life, explaining his childhood, starving and living in a hole before a desperate Jedi discovered him and briefly trained him before she was hunted and killed, while he was forced to watch as she was executed. Wendle convinced Wim not to touch the lever. When Wim backed down, Jod deactivated his lightsaber and said that he did not want to damage At Attin, commending the effort of the Great Work. Suddenly, Wendle broke free and attacked Jod. As they struggled near the lever, Wim too grabbed the lightsaber.

Jod remained preoccupied with Wendle and was unable to pull the lightsaber away from Wim and Fern, who helped pull it back. At the urging of Fern, Fara grabbed the Barrier override and pulled it, destroying the satellites that made up the Barrier. A wave of green washed over the sky as the Barrier disappeared, unveiling the true night sky, full of stars. Back in the tower, Wim ignited the lightsaber correctly. Jod threw down his blaster and surrendered, defeated.

Liberating At Attin

Only a few moments later, a squadron of New Republic ships dropped out of hyperspace and raced into At Attin’s atmosphere. Eight T-65B X-wing starfighters, led by commander Kent, who had encountered the Skeleton Crew and Jod before, strafed the pirate frigate, dealing damage to the upper portion of the vessel. Pirates began fleeing the bridge, and the ground forces abandoned their duties, fleeing back to their dropships and scattering to the skies as X-wings attacked them. Moments later, a pair of A/SF-01 B-wings blasted the frigate with their composite beam lasers, causing it to fall into the city. Gunter refused to believe his command chair while all the others fled the doomed ship.

The vessel’s bottom fin carved into the streets of the city as it crashed before it broke off the vessel entirely, and the top half of the vessel crashed into one of the waterways. Jod watched from the window of the Supervisor’s tower as the vessel went down, while Fara, Fern, Wim, and Wendle went to the crash site of the Onyx Cinder to recover KB.

KB was alive and unharmed, sliding down the ship’s boarding ramp and landing on a pile of credits that had fallen out of the cargo hold. She soon regained consciousness and, with SM-33, began to leave the unstable wreckage of the Cinder. Wim stared at the night sky and smiled as a CR90 corvette flew through the smoke above the frigate wreck, ignoring Wendle as he called after him.^[3]

Appearances

• Star Wars: Skeleton Crew — "We're Gonna Be In So Much Trouble" (First appearance)
• Star Wars: Skeleton Crew — "The Real Good Guys"

Notes and references