While out exploring their native Tatooine, the Nkiks found an old, crashed freighter, and began to dig deeper around the crash site. Within, they found the burned and tangled components of an E522 assassin droid. Though the droid seemed hopelessly damaged, Jek and Het vowed to repair it, and secretly scrounged spare parts from the Jawa fortress storehouse in order to complete their project. Their clan leader, Wimateeka, suspected that the two young Jawas were up to something, and watched them closely—although this only made the Nkiks more determined to succeed.
Jek and Het spent months in a secret hideaway out in the badlands piecing together tiny components and servomotors, until finally the assassin droid was fully repaired. The Jawas had purged all of the droid's hunter-seeker weapons and all initiatives to cause violence, and it had been emasculated of its murderous programming. The E522 functioned perfectly, but as little more than an extremely powerful messenger droid. Jet and Het Nkik proudly displayed their triumph to Wimateeka, who scolded the boys for such folly; he believed that no one would want to buy a reprogrammed assassin droid.
However, Jek and Het surprised themselves by selling the the repaired assassin droid to Lady Valarian, Jabba the Hutt's rival on Tatooine. Because of this, Jek and Het had to separate. In two years after selling the assassin droid, Jek served as a scout in Chief Nebit's scouting party, led by Dathcha, in the search for R2-D2. Their Jawa clan was attacked by sandtroopers who destroyed the sandcrawler and killed all the Jawas onboard, including Jek Nkik. Het later tried to avenge his death.
Jek was portrayed by in Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope, but did not receive any credit.