Gemmy

During the [High Republic Era](/article/high_republic_era], Gemmy, a tooka cat, made his home at the Jedi Order's temple located on the Outer Rim planet Dalna. In 230 BBY, Jedi Knight Vernestra Rwoh and her Jedi Padawan apprentice, Imri Cantaros, arrived at the temple to investigate the kidnappings perpetrated by the Nihil pirates. Gemmy, along with the other tookas of the temple, were present at the entrance, and Cantaros was delighted to see them. After they accompanied Jedi Master Nyla Quinn, the temple's leading Jedi, inside, Yacek Sparkburn appeared carrying bags of items, and the tookas surrounded him, wailing pitifully. Sparkburn chuckled and suggested the cats must have smelled the moon fish he had brought.

The next morning, Gemmy was in the temple's common room and jumped on Cantaros after he sat in a chair with a plate of food and began to growl. The Padawan responded by breaking off a piece of cheese and feeding it to the tooka while ensuring the cat did not catch his fingers. Sparkburn laughed and stated that while Gemmy did not usually like others, he had taken a liking to Cantaros, to which the Padawan replied that he liked the tooka as well. He then scratched the cat behind its ears.

Later, when Cantaros stood, ready to depart the temple for a meeting in the capital city of Saludad with Vice President Hackrack Bep, Gemmy climbed onto his shoulder and dug his claws into him to remain steady. Despite the pain the actions caused, the Padawan asked what to do about the tooka, to which Sparkburn stated that the cat wanted to go with him and that as long as Cantaros did not mind, he should allow him to. Cantaros was happy to let Gemmy accompany him and scratched his head; the tooka had begun to make the Padawan feel better as he had been feeling sad and not himself. In response, the cat made an unusual growling sound low in his throat.

Gemmy then went with Rwoh, Cantaros, and Sparkburn in a landspeeder to Bep's house in Saludad. Upon arrival, the tooka leaped off the Padawan's shoulder and began chasing a furry puffball creature down an alley. Sparkburn reassured Cantaros that the cat would return shortly. After the Padawan inquired whether he should wait outside for Gemmy, Rwoh suggested he could if he wished, as she anticipated her meeting would be brief. While seated on the house's steps, Cantaros pondered whether he should search for the tooka but was then approached by his friend, the Dalnan Honesty Weft.

Eventually, by the time Rwoh's and Sparkburn's meeting with the vice president had finished, Gemmy had returned to the speeder and began laying across Cantaros' shoulders. After the two left the house, the Padawan asked them if they had learned anything, and the tooka purred as he burrowed into the top of Cantaros' tabard as the Jedi then spoke about the meeting and the Padawan's interaction with Weft. When Cantaros groaned about waiting longer for their investigation to continue, the cat yowled in sympathy. The four then entered the landspeeder and returned to the Jedi temple.

The following day, after Cantaros slept at the temple following an incident, he woke to find Gemmy kneading him with his claws. While unhappy about the wake-up from the tooka, he told him that he understood before getting up and going to the common room to discuss their next steps. The Padawan agreed to travel with the vice president and Jedi Knight Lyssa Votz to the Galactic Republic space station Starlight Beacon to ask for help in fixing a broken communications relay in the Dalnan system that was preventing messages from being sent and received. After Cantaros grabbed his belongings, Gemmy trotted alongside him as he made his way to the T-1 shuttle Wishful Thinking, which he was piloting to Starlight Beacon.

Vernestra Rwoh described Gemmy as a large tooka. Nyla Quinn commented that while the Dalna temple's tookas appeared "cute and cuddly," they were also mischievous. Yacek Sparkburn remarked, upon Gemmy's befriending of Imri Cantaros, that the tooka typically disliked everyone. Sparkburn later observed that once Gemmy had made up his mind, little could be done to alter it.

Yacek Sparkburn noted that the tookas of the Dalna Jedi temple, including Gemmy, were adept at keeping pests away from the temple.

Gemmy made his debut in the 2022 junior novel The High Republic: Mission to Disaster, penned by Justina Ireland and released as part of Phase I of the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project.