Eurrsk Thri'ag

Eurrsk Thri'ag, also known as Grinder, was a Bothan male slicer and pilot. In 7 ABY, during the Galactic Civil War, Thri'ag applied for famed New Republic pilot Wedge Antilles's new squadron. One of the criteria for the applicants was that the pilots had to be on the verge of washing out or possess marks in their service records. Upon accepting the invitation to transfer, Thri'ag was sent to Folor Base—a New Republic training facility on Commenor's moon of Folor—for training. He passed the simulation tests, and placed eighth out of the ten pilots chosen.

Temporarily designating the starfighter unit as Gray Squadron, Antilles informed the new pilots that it was their secondary skills that had earned them their positions in the squadron; in Thri'ag's case, his code slicing skills. Thri'ag became the squadron's official slicer and received the designation of Gray Four; he was eventually paired with a female from Tatooine, Falynn Sandskimmer, as the squadron continued its training under Antilles.

Shortly after approving the squadron's official name of Wraith Squadron, which had been suggested by the squadron's intrusion expert, Tyria Sarkin, Antilles announced that they would begin their training for hyperspace skills and accuracy in navigational plotting. The Wraiths were individually tasked to create a three-stage course to a location nicknamed Doldrums, then a two-stage course back to Folor Base. Two hours after being handed the assignment, the Wraiths were about to jump to hyperspace when the squadron's communications expert, the Mon Calamari Jesmin Ackbar, started receiving transmissions on an Imperial channel. Postponing the training exercise, Antilles ordered the Wraiths to stand by and be useful while he informed Folor Base of the situation.

Hoping to distinguish himself, Wraith demolitions expert Kell Tainer asked Thri'ag, now designated as Wraith Four, to slice into Commenor's official computer system. Tainer had Thri'ag search for new mobilizations of government forces, recent reservations for ship berths prioritized for military ships and hyperdrive-equipped shuttles, sudden hotel and resort reservations, and astronomical data in the area. In just a few minutes, Thri'ag discovered that a private yacht named Implacable had been directed to Orbital Spaceyard 301—the largest service berth on the planet—and had been given permission to conduct military exercises in the area.

Antilles recognized the ship's name as an Imperial-class Star Destroyer commanded by Admiral Apwar Trigit, who had allied himself with Warlord Zsinj after Director of Imperial Intelligence Ysanne Isard's death. Due to the actions of Thri'ag and Tainer, Folor Base was able to set up its defenses and prepare for evacuation. Thri'ag and the rest of the Wraiths provided cover for the fleeing transports before making their own hyperspace jump for Doldrums.

Before reaching Doldrums, the Wraiths and their shuttle, the Narra, were pulled out of hyperspace by the gravity well projector of an empion mine, a type of weapon capable of disrupting hyperspace travel. Besides pulling them out of hyperspace, the mine disabled several of the Wraith's X-wings—including Thri'ag's—as well as shorting out the memories of all their astromech droids. Antilles ordered the Wraiths to land and make repairs on the planet Xobome 6, the only nearby world with an atmosphere.

After Thri'ag's X-wing was repaired, he helped to assemble a crude vehicle—later dubbed the Lunatic—in order to infiltrate the Imperial ship that would eventually arrive in the system. Thri'ag worked with the Wraith's Gamorrean pilot, Voort saBinring, in programming the R2 unit and control datapad installed in the Lunatic to better guide its trajectory. Some time later, a modified CR90 corvette named Night Caller arrived in-system under the command of Captain Zurel Darillian, a subordinate of Zsinj who had been temporarily assigned to Trigit.

Night Caller tractored the Lunatic into its hold, unaware that saBinring was inside its hidden compartment armed with a stripped-down X-wing laser cannon. saBinring managed to fight his way through Night Callers bridge and commandeer the ship, thereby allowing the Wraiths to escape the Xobome system. However, instead of returning to a New Republic-occupied system, Antilles acted on his own initiative and began an undercover operation with the Wraiths posing as Night Callers crew, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike at Zsinj.

After rendezvousing with a New Republic force on Doldrums, where the Wraiths received additional supplies, a crew for the ship which included Choday Hrakness as the captain of Night Caller, as well as Admiral Gial Ackbar's approval to continue their mission, Thri'ag got into an altercation with fellow pilot Sarkin. Being on the bottom rankings of the squadron, Sarkin trained tirelessly on the X-wing simulator to improve her skills. Believing that he might be able to help, Thri'ag volunteered to slice into Sarkin's simulator records and improve her scores. Owing to a previous traumatic experience in which her simulator scores had been altered, Sarkin physically lashed out at Thri'ag, bloodying his nose and had to be restrained by Tainer and Phanan.

Enraged, Thri'ag challenged Sarkin to a fight but was stopped when Antilles and his executive officer, Wes Janson, arrived on the scene. Thri'ag and Sarkin were ordered to Antilles's office, where they were interrogated by their commanding officer as to what had caused the fight. Thri'ag explained that he had offered to do something unethical for Sarkin as a "joke," omitting the fact that he had planned to help her cheat. Sarkin took the brunt of the punishment by also withholding Thri'ag's offer. As a result, Thri'ag received a minor admonition from Antilles, while Sarkin was disciplined by having her X-wing transferred to Phanan, whose own X-wing had been destroyed during the capture of Night Caller.

It was during this time that Thri'ag compiled a holographic overlay that presented a computer model of Darillian's body from the waist up, and his voice into an overlay. Using Night Callers journal, which was kept in full holo by Darillian, Thri'ag had more than enough sample to encode his program. This allowed Garik Loran, their insertion and make-up expert, to impersonate Darillian during holo communications in their later missions.

One of their first missions under the guise of Night Callers crew was aimed at destroying a transparisteel product factory on the planet Xartun. Loran disguised himself as an Imperial lieutenant and met with planetary officials while inspecting the factory. The rest of the Wraiths hid in a nearby glade and studied the data sent to them by a hidden camera in Loran's hat. By nightfall, the Wraiths had infiltrated the factory under the command of Tainer. Thri'ag in particular was responsible for spotting a hidden security measure that would have compromised the operation, as well as slicing into the factory's hangar doors to open them. While Tainer was planting explosives, the Wraiths were attacked by security probe droids. They managed to neutralize all of the droids and escaped the factory by commandeering a cargo skiff before Tainer's charges went off, destroying the transparisteel factory.

A day after the mission, the Wraiths met in Night Callers conference room for debriefing. They came to the conclusion that Zsinj was setting up a secret financial empire to support his flagship, the Executor-class Star Dreadnought Iron Fist, and was also forming cells in different systems similar to a resistance movement. In light of this information, Antilles assigned Thri'ag to look into Night Callers records for all the planets that the ship had visited while under Darillian's command. When Night Caller—with the Wraiths secretly aboard—visited a planet again, Thri'ag was to slice into the planetary records and look for any properties that had been recently switched or transferred. The Wraiths would then investigate and destroy the properties if Zsinj turned out to be the new owner.

The Wraith's next stop was the planet Belthu, where Thri'ag correctly identified the President of the planet's second largest company and the Chairman of the planet's mining coalition as contacts of Zsinj. The two Zsinj collaborators provided Loran—under the holographic disguise of Darillian—information regarding the prices of ore stockpiles, in addition to the location of a durasteel shipment awaiting pickup from Zsinj's cargo hauler. Antilles forwarded the information to New Republic Intelligence Service, which then took over the operation. Thri'ag stayed behind while Night Caller jumped out of the system, and he was then delivered by Intelligence agents into the mining corporation's headquarters to search for property transfers. Thri'ag discovered a small outdated durasteel foundry that had been transferred to an alias of Zsinj. Thri'ag rejoined the Wraiths aboard Night Caller, and two days later, Intelligence destroyed the foundry.

The Wraiths continued their charade with a visit to the M2398 system, home of a pirate group that Zsinj was trying to hire as mercenaries. Night Caller was in the process of docking at the given coordinates when the pirates launched a surprise attack. Due to the swiftness of the ambush, the Wraiths were forced to fly out of Night Callers hold quickly and form up in temporary wing assignments as they launched. Thriag's wingmate for the battle was the Thakwaash pilot Hohass Ekwesh. The battle ended when the pirates surrendered after suffering heavy losses despite their superior numbers. Thri'ag and Sandskimmer, armed with blaster rifles, were assigned to guard the pirates who surrendered, while the rest of the Wraiths scoured the pirates' base for supplies.

After the funeral of Wraith Jesmin Ackbar, who had died in the battle with the pirates, Zsinj contacted Night Caller and ordered Darillian—Loran in holographic disguise—to support Trigit's attack on a New Republic base on the planet Talasea. Night Caller was also ordered to rendezvous with the supply ship Hawkbat, wherein its captain was to come aboard Night Caller for an inspection tour. To prevent the inspection from taking place, Loran and Phanan suggested a plan where the Wraiths would infect the crew of Hawkbat with a non-lethal disease during their shore leave on the planet Storinal. The Wraiths also planned to use the opportunity to steal two TIE fighters from a local base on the planet to replace the ones that they had destroyed when they captured Night Caller.

Aboard Narra, which was repainted to look like a private shuttle, the Wraiths managed to pass through Storinal's customs inspection undetected, largely in part due to their stereotype disguises and fake identification cards forged by Thri'ag. Thri'ag himself also joined the group but was forced to hide in Narras smuggling compartment because of the Imperial's distrust of Bothans, which was due to the participation of Bothan code-slicers in obtaining the plans for the second Death Star years earlier.

After surveying the Scohar Xenohealth Institute—where Storinal kept samples of diseases—Phanan, Tainer, and Sarkin brought Thri'ag with them on their second trip back to the institute. Dubbed as Plague Group, their mission was to obtain the disease with which they would be infecting Hawkbats crew. Phanan in particular believed that Thri'ag's slicing skills would be helpful in their intrusion. This proved true when Thri'ag was the one to gain access to the building's records by slicing into the institute's mainframe with ease, and providing the group with floor plan schematics.

While sneaking into the area where the diseases were stored, Thri'ag came across a cache of Storini glass prowlers. Deciding that the insect could be used as a prank later on, Thri'ag took one without the rest of the group's knowledge. With the first part of their mission complete, Plague Group's next assignment was to plant canisters containing Bunkurd Sewer Disorder, the disease that the group had stolen from the institute, into Hawkbat's Perch and Hawkbat's Vigil, the shuttles used by Hawkbat to ship its crew to and from Revos. The group successfully rigged the shuttles and escaped by boarding Narra while Ekwesh strafed Revos Spaceport in his X-wing as a distraction. All of the Wraiths managed to escape the planet with Antilles and Sandskimmer piloting their stolen TIE fighters.

The Wraith's next mission was to deploy surveillance satellites given to them by the crew of Hawkbat. By this time, Thri'ag had started to plague the squadron with pranks, setting up greasy tubes and metal springs inside Tainer's locker, where they sprung out and surprised Tainer when he opened his locker, and putting a pressurized suit with a knife taped to its glove inside Sandskimmer's closet, arranging it in a way that it appeared that someone was trying to attack her. Before the mission commenced, Thri'ag took the opportunity to pull a prank on Loran by setting loose the glass prowler inside Loran's X-wing. Thri'ag anticipated that Loran would panic during the mission upon seeing the insect. However, the mission was completed without any incident. Confused, Thri'ag inspected Loran's snubfighter afterward for any sign of the insect but found nothing.

Unbeknownst to Thri'ag, Phanan had also taken a glass prowler from the institute, and had kept it as a pet. Because Phanan was Loran's wingman, the latter was familiar with the insect and thought that Thri'ag's glass prowler was Phanan's when it crawled on him during the mission. Realizing that it was another one of the pranks being perpetuated on the squadron, Loran surmised that only someone who knew his passcode could have left the glass prowler, and deduced that Thri'ag was the prankster.

As payback for the many pranks Thri'ag had pulled on the squadron, Phanan, Loran, and Tainer plotted their own prank against the Bothan. Loran created a false entry regarding the fictitious Storini Crystal Deceiver on Night Callers encyclopedia, while Tainer created a device that mimicked the sound of a glass prowler crawling. The three of them were able to fool Thri'ag and convince him that the glass prowler he took was actually a crystal deceiver—a similar-looking insect often mistaken as a glass prowler but far more deadly—and that the insect was planning to eat him inside his room. In the end, Thri'ag fainted from fright and was sent to Night Callers sick bay for medical evaluation under Phanan. There, Thri'ag was finally confronted by Loran and Phanan, and was forced to admit to being the perpetrator of the pranks. The Bothan also agreed to stop pulling pranks in exchange for Loran's and Phanan's promises not to spread the story of him fainting across the New Republic armed forces.

After their rendezvous with Hawkbat, the Wraiths took Night Caller to join Implacable, the corvette Constrictor, and the EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate Provocateur for the planned assault on Talasea. Unbeknownst to Admiral Trigit was the fact that the New Republic had a superior force waiting to ambush his forces at Talasea. After being shown evidence that it was a trap, Trigit had Implacable drop out from hyperspace. The three other ships arrived at Talasea, and Captain Hrakness of Night Caller, decided to attack the two ships before they could escape, taking advantage of their unshielded hulls. During the short battle, Night Callers bridge was destroyed, killing everyone inside. Loran, who was aboard the ship, took command of the auxiliary bridge by using a password provided by Thri'ag. The battle ended when Constrictor surrendered and Provocateur was destroyed after a proton torpedo barrage from the Wraith's X-wings.

Thri'ag then participated in the Battle of Ession, which was another trap created for Trigit. Under the cover story that Night Caller was luring in the New Republic's elite Rogue starfighter squadron for an ambush by Zsinj's forces, Loran was able to convince Zsinj to provide a target that the Rogues would want to destroy. Zsinj selected the Pakkerd Light Transport plant—a factory that produced TIE fighters for him—located on the planet Ession. The battle started when the cargo transport Red Feathers jumped in-system. The ship was actually the Super Transport VI Blood Nest, the baseship of the pirates that the Wraiths had fought in the M2398 system. The transport contained three New Republic squadrons hidden in its cargo hold and was rigged to detonate upon entering the planet's atmosphere, thereby releasing the starfighters. When Blood Nest broke apart, Rogue, Green, and Blue Squadrons flew out of its cargo hold. In response, Implacable and Night Caller launched their TIE fighters to engage the enemy ships, but the ones piloted by the Wraiths, designated Gray Flight, stationed themselves near Implacable. While Implacables TIE fighters raced ahead to engage the New Republic squadrons, Antilles gave the signal to strike. Gray Flight fired on Implacables bridge, destroying it in the process, while the Wraiths fired a salvo of proton torpedoes from Night Callers hold before launching to join the fight.

During the battle, Sandskimmer found a unique opportunity to destroy Implacable by flying her TIE fighter through a hole on the ship made by Night Callers turbolasers, then attacking it from within. Despite Antilles's disapproval of her plan, she flew in, accompanied by Thri'ag, who chose to disregard Antilles's order to stop Sandskimmer. Inside Implacable, they both systematically destroyed its power cells, rendering the ship powerless and sending it on a collision course with one of Ession's moons. While making his way out of the doomed ship, Thri'ag's X-wing hit a piece of wreckage, and he temporarily lost control of his starfighter. Upon gaining control, however, his X-wing received a direct hit from one of Implacables turbolasers, killing Thri'ag instantly.

After the capture of Night Caller, Thri'ag's creation of the holographic overlay that had allowed Loran to impersonate Darillian proved invaluable. Without the program, Wraith Squadron would not have been able to pull off their Night Caller deception, which provided them with the opportunity to gather information on Zsinj's operations, as well as setting up traps such as the battles at Ession and Talasea.

Because of Thri'ag and Sandskimmer's daring actions in the Battle of Ession, Implacable was forced to surrender due to the loss of its main power cells, thereby preventing further casualties on both sides. Thri'ag's call sign, Wraith Four, was later assumed by new Wraith pilot Dia Passik, and his role as the squadron's code slicer was taken up by another new Wraith recruit, Castin Donn.

Eurrsk Thri'ag was considered aloof and mostly kept to himself, preferring not to bond with any of his squadron mates. A practical joker, Thri'ag used his slicing skills extensively in pulling pranks at the expense of his fellow Wraith Squadron pilots. He was able to gain complete access to their starfighters, lockers, and living quarters aboard Night Caller by acquiring their passwords.

Thri'ag was somewhat arrogant concerning his abilities, especially when his slicing skills were needed in crucial times. Whenever his assistance was needed, Thri'ag implied how easy it would be for him to complete the task, no matter how difficult it was. Wedge Antilles was of the opinion that Thri'ag acted close to being insufferable most of the time. Despite his arrogance, Thri'ag exhibited acts of bravery and loyalty toward his comrades on many occasions. During the Battle of Ession, he flew inside the hole on Implacables keel, accompanying Falynn Sandskimmer, even though Antilles deemed it too dangerous and forbade them from going in. After destroying as many power cells as they could, thereby causing the Star Destroyer to crash, Thri'ag refused to leave unless Sandskimmer was with him.

Eurrsk Thri'ag was a capable slicer, a skill that prompted Wedge Antilles to recruit him for Wraith Squadron. Throughout his time with the Wraiths, Thri'ag proved to be instrumental in all of their missions; he never failed once in slicing security systems or obtaining needed data. He always carried with him a list of his key codes for times when he was needed to slice a system on a moment's notice. As a pilot, Thri'ag proved proficient despite Ton Phanan's pronouncement of him as mediocre.

Thri'ag was also a self-proclaimed expert on Human psychology. During the screening process for Wraith Squadron, he surmised that Falynn Sandskimmer's interest in Myn Donos was not due to romantic yearnings, but merely a byproduct of female Human instincts of wanting to nurse him back to health. This assessment was seconded by Tyria Sarkin, another female Human in the squadron.

Eurrsk Thri'ag was a character created by author Aaron Allston for his novel X-Wing: Wraith Squadron, the fifth volume in the Star Wars: X-Wing published in 1998. He was illustrated by Star Wars artist Scott Roller in the article Who's Who in Rogue Squadron, which appeared in Star Wars Insider 59 published in 2002.

• "Wraith Squadron: The Dirty Dozen of Star Wars" — Star Wars Gamer 9
• "Who's Who in Rogue Squadron" — Star Wars Insider 59
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