Rekkon

The only child of a middle class family in the Roundtree system, Rekkon was a star student as a youth, mastering one subject after another and filling his free time by learning how to slice computers. Raised by his parents to respect and appreciate the value of education, Rekkon in turn started to tutor slower students, and in doing so discovered a love of teaching. That drove him to become an educator himself: he very quickly became a popular lecturer, garnering large crowds for his speeches on independence and freedom of inquiry. He ultimately was offered a prestigious position in the Corporate Sector as a dean at the University of Kalla, near where Rekon's brother and his family had moved some time earlier. There he became close with his nephew, Tchaka, a previously unmotivated student in whom Rekkon fostered a love of history and philosophy. Tchaka's parents died when he was still young, and Rekkon stepped into the role of paternal figure, raising the boy as if he were his own son.

In the Corporate Sector, however, Rekkon found political obstacles he had never encountered back home. A strong believer in liberty and free expression, Rekkon was very much at odds with the totalitarian Corporate Sector Authority, and began finding ways to subtly subvert those policies. But while Rekkon knew how to adeptly toe the line, his nephew Tchaka lacked his restraint. Zealously sharing his uncle's principles, Tchaka began to openly speak against the Corporate Sector Authority, pulling the children of several Authority officials into his orbit. That attracted attention and a profile as a "dangerous revolutionary," and although Rekkon planned to step down from his position to protect Tchaka, before he could do so his nephew suddenly disappeared. Rekkon's repeated inquiries about Tchaka's whereabouts were stonewalled by the Authority's Security Police, leading the academic to take a look at the problem with a wider scope. Rekkon realized that Tchaka was far from the only dissident to have mysteriously disappeared in the Corporate Sector, and managed to pull together a group of like-minded citizens also looking for their lost loved ones.

By 2 BBY, Rekkon's squad of searchers had grown to include two Trianii, mother and cub Atuarre and Pakka, a landowner from the Kail Ranges named Torm Dadeferron who served as his second-in-command, and a young man named Engret. With the group's core in place, Rekkon and his new compatriots began investigating, turning their eyes toward the Authority Data Center on Orron III. Under the guise of research for a project on agricultural methods, Rekkon made several trips to Orron III over the coming months, and found an opportunity to brush off his slicing skills to forge himself authorization into the Data Center's systems. That set him and his group up to slowly infiltrate the Authority installation, with Rekkon posing as a new computer programmer and others of his team posing as various workers. However, during the ensuing month on Orron III, Authority troops started to appear in inopportune places, leading Rekkon to suspect that there was an informant inside his little group. In addition, two of his group were killed while on Orron III after Rekkon believed they had discovered the name of the mole. In response, Rekkon reached out to a sympathetic contact named Jessa Vandangante—an outlaw tech whose father, Klaus, was among the missing—and called in a favor.

Vandangante hooked Rekkon up with an acquaintance named Han Solo, a notorious Corellian smuggler who could help not only uncover the mole but provide Rekkon's group a lift off Orron III once they had retrieved the data they needed. In return, Solo wanted repairs to his starship, the Millennium Falcon, along with a waiver allowing it to fly unmolested in Corporate Sector space—the latter, at least, Rekkon could provide.

Rekkon soon met Solo and his Wookiee companion Chewbacca upon their arrival on Orron III, finding that the newcomers had brought with them two droids, Bollux and Blue Max, which could expedite the process of downloading the needed data. Rekkon and his new partners returned to the Authority Data Center, leading them back to his office to give the droids the chance to sift through the massive amount of information stored in the facility. They were soon joined by the rest of their group, save one: when Atuarre and Pakka arrived, they brought with them the news that Engret had mysteriously vanished. Blue Max quickly finished his download, bringing with it the news that the Security Police had uncovered their activity and were moving on their location, forcing Rekkon and his crew to move. Blue Max tapped into the facility's alarm system to trigger alerts all over the planet, causing just enough confusion to give the interlopers a fighting chance of escaping. Even so, the group had to fight its way out of the Data Center, ultimately stealing a ground skimmer and making a dash towards the local spaceport and the Millennium Falcon.

Before they could make it home free, however, a Security Police hovervan overtook their skimmer and forced it to violently crash into a field outside the city. Rekkon assumed control in the chaos that followed, charging up his disruptor pistol to disable the oncoming hovervan as they made for the spaceport on foot. Chewbacca commandeered a nearby grain harvester to serve as a getaway vehicle, but in the process the Wookiee was grabbed by a squad of Security Police and hauled away—Rekkon was forced to knock a distraught Solo out cold to prevent him from going after his friend. Rekkon hauled Solo up onto the harvester, where they regrouped with Atuarre, Pakka, Dadeferron and the two droids, ultimately slipping aboard the Millennium Falcon and at last taking off from Orron III.

Rekkon and his crew had escaped Orron III with the data they sought, but the Millennium Falcon had hardly jumped to hyperspace when his worst fears were realized. Rekkon sat down at the freighter's dejarik board to analyze the data plaque taken from Orron III, seeing that the device indicated that the Corporate Sector's missing were being held at a facility called Stars' End on the desolate asteroid Mytus VII. But as Rekkon was absorbed in his findings, the Authority informant that he had hoped to uncover—Torm Dadeferron, all along—sneaked up behind the academic and killed him with a blaster bolt to the back, also frying the data plaque for good measure. However, in his last moments, Rekkon managed to shakily scrawl "Stars' End, Mytus VII" on the gameboard, keeping the hope of saving the prisoners alive. Taking command of Rekkon's group in his memory, Solo not only exposed and killed the traitor Dadeferron, but led Atuarre, Pakka and the two droids to the Stars' End prison and freed the thousands held there, including Rekkon's nephew.

Blessed with uncommon insight and an ability to always see the big picture, Rekkon had the necessary personal attributes to be successful in whatever he put his mind to. But Rekkon was uninterested in power, glory, fame or riches—he cared, more than anything, about knowledge and truth. He was raised to care for others and to believe in the value of education, which led him to considerable academic success. Along the way he discovered a love for helping others learn, which led him to his career as a teacher. The values instilled with him during his upbringing informed the notions he preached in his well-attended lectures: freedom of expression, liberty and empathy. He found those to be at odds with the cutthroat and totalitarian Corporate Sector, but never content to submit to an unjust system, Rekkon worked to find his own way to undermine those policies. A calm and rational man, he was able to walk the line to avoid serious consequences from the Corporate Sector government—something his young and rash nephew Tchaka was unable to do.

In the hunt for Tchaka and the rest of the Corporate Sector's missing, Rekkon's intelligence and insight served him well. His eye for detail and meticulousness helped him successfully infiltrate the Authority Data Center on Orron III, and inspired the admiration and loyalty of his team. A broad and powerful man, Rekkon projected authority, but also had an amiable personal manner that easily won him respect not only from the people around him, but droids as well. Even Han Solo, a noted rogue with little respect for authority, came to regard Rekkon as one of the finest people he had ever met. He also brought a singleminded commitment to his cause: he threw his entire being into saving the lost ones, caring about it more than his own life. Aside from his leadership and intangible qualities, Rekkon also had a number of practical skills that aided him in his quest to find the Corporate Sector's missing. He was a practiced and skilled computer slicer, a pursuit that he engaged in dating back to his youth in the Roundtree system. Physically strong, he knew how to handle himself in a fight, ably wielding a disruptor pistol and knowing how to maneuver in the line of fire. He was also multilingual, being fluent in Shyriiwook, a rarity among Humans.

Rekkon first appeared in Han Solo at Stars' End, a novel written by Brian Daley and released in 1979. Rekkon was later pictured by Alfredo Alcala in the story's comic adaptation, and by Mike Vilardi in 1993's Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook. The Han Solo at Stars' End comic incorrectly presents Rekkon as searching for his missing son, while the novel and other sources have him looking for his nephew, Tchaka.

• A Guide to the Star Wars Universe
• Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook
• Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Star Wars: The Comics Companion
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual
• The Essential Reader's Companion