Janks, a Phindian of the male persuasion, worked as a crew member aboard the Uhumele, a vessel engaged in smuggling operations, in the aftermath of the Clone Wars. His duties on the ship involved assisting Meekerdin-maa, a Tintinna who held the position of chief engineer, and preparing meals for the rest of the crew. In 19 BBY, one month following the Declaration of a New Order by Galactic Emperor Palpatine, Janks and his fellow crew members found themselves stranded on the planet New Plympto due to an Imperial quarantine. During their time on the planet, they encountered Dass Jennir, a Jedi General, and Bomo Greenbark, a local Nosaurian. With the assistance of these two individuals, the Uhumele managed to escape from New Plympto. Subsequently, Janks and the crew agreed to assist Greenbark in his quest to locate his enslaved family. Their journey first took them to Orvax IV, a world known for its slave trade, where they discovered that Greenbark's wife had [died](/article/death/legends]. However, they also learned that his daughter, Resa, had been sold and was now located on the planet Esseles.
The crew, including Janks, then made their way to Esseles, where they launched an attack on the villa owned by the individual who had purchased Greenbark's daughter. During this assault, Janks played a role in disabling the villa's security droids. Unfortunately, the Uhumele's crew arrived too late, as Dezono Qua, the man who had bought Resa, had consumed her not long before the attack. Although Jennir shot Qua, he chose to part ways with Janks and the crew after they discovered his identity as a Jedi. The Uhumele then proceeded to the planet Pizkoss to replenish their supplies. While there, Janks was apprehended by Imperial Stormtroopers. The Phindian was initially held on a Star Destroyer before being transferred to Imperial Prison ISO-L8. It was in this prison that he was interrogated by Darth Vader regarding the whereabouts of his former crewmates. Sometime after Vader's visit, Falco Sang, an assassin, located Janks and assassinated him as retribution for his involvement in Qua's death.
During the final decades of the Galactic Republic, a Phindian male named Janks lived through the Clone Wars that brought the Republic to an end. By the year 19 BBY, the same year the Clone Wars ended, Janks had become a member of the crew of the Uhumele, a Maka-Eekai L4000 transport. He worked as an assistant to Meekerdin-maa, the ship's technician. The ship, captained by a Yarkora named Schurk-Heren, was on the planet of New Plympto one month after the Declaration of a New Order by the newly appointed Galactic Emperor Palpatine. The Uhumele was grounded in Cadgel Meadows, a spaceport on New Plympto, by forces of the Galactic Empire. The Imperials were still fighting the local Nosaurian population in the Cleansing of New Plympto, and after a victory at Half-Axe Pass, they wanted to prevent any survivors from escaping. Janks and the Uhumele's crew remained hidden on their ship, hoping to avoid the attention of the Empire while they were trapped.
While waiting for their ship to be cleared for departure, two members of the New Plymto resistance, survivors of the recent battle with the Imperials, boarded their ship under the cover of darkness. One of them, Dass Jennir, a Jedi general, surprised Crys Taanzer, the Uhumele's pilot, as she stood in the ship's doorway and subdued her. However, Janks and the rest of the crew were nearby, and the Phindian pointed his blaster at Jennir along with other crew members, causing the Jedi to release Taanzer. Schurk-Heren, ordering the crew not to fire to avoid attracting attention, introduced Jennir and his companion, Bomo Greenbark, a Nosaurian. Janks initially kept his weapon raised, but after learning they had survived the Empire's victory at Half-Axe Pass, he approached them without aiming his weapon. Greenbark and Jennir explained that they were searching for the Nosaurian's family, who had fled the battle hoping to escape the Imperials. Meekerdin-Maa informed them that the Imperials had captured all the Nosaurian refugees and intended to sell them into slavery. The next morning, Janks joined the crew and the two resistance members in a meeting to discuss how to escape the Imperials and New Plympto. When Jennir rejected Ko Vakier's idea to fight their way out, Janks questioned whether he planned to do nothing instead. Jennir then revealed his plan to have all the ships in the spaceport leave at once, overwhelming the Imperials. The plan was executed, with Jennir stealing an Alpha-3 Nimbus-class V-wing starfighter and creating the illusion that the Imperials were attacking the grounded ships in Cadgel Meadows. The Uhumele took off amidst the chaos and managed to escape New Plympto after fighting off several Imperial starfighters.
After reaching safety, Janks and Mezgraf, a Togorian crewmate, prepared a meal for the crew, which they ate while discussing their next destination: Orvax IV, the slave world where Greenbark's family had been taken. Before reaching the planet, Janks and the crew met again to discuss Jennir's intentions on Orvax IV. Greenbark and Jennir revealed their hope to rescue the Nosaurian slaves, and Vakier, Mezgraf, and Meekerdin-Maa offered to help. Upon arriving, the rescue party disguised themselves and set off to find the slaves, while Janks and the other crew members waited on the Uhumele. The group returned without Jennir, having learned that Greenbark's wife, Mesa, had been killed, and his daughter, Resa, had already been sold. Jennir had left the group to find the slaver who sold Resa and ordered that Greenbark be kept on the Uhumele while he did so. Janks and Meekerdin-Maa were tasked with preventing the Nosaurian from leaving, which he constantly attempted to do to help Jennir. They eventually failed to restrain him and chased him through the ship, with Taanzer's timely intervention preventing his escape. Shortly afterward, Jennir returned with the location and identity of Resa's buyer: Dezono Qua, a wealthy Human from the planet Esseles. After the Uhumele left Orvax IV, Janks approached Jennir to congratulate him, but the Jedi ignored him, and Mezgraf warned Janks that Jennir probably wanted to be left alone.
Still determined to rescue Resa, the Uhumele traveled to Esseles, where Jennir left the group again to gather more information on Qua. While waiting for Jennir's return, the rest of the crew enjoyed the local cuisine, dining together in Calamar, Esseles' capital. When Jennir returned, he shared his findings and informed them that he and Greenbark would undertake the final part of the mission alone, an idea that was completely rejected. The entire crew of the Uhumele agreed to join the resistance members in an assault on the Qua family's villa, although some incorrectly assumed that Janks wouldn't help. Taanzer and her co-pilot, Lynaliskar K'ra Snyffulnimatta, piloted the Uhumele to Qua's mountain-top residence, where the rest of the crew disembarked and attacked Qua's security droids. Janks, Greenbark, and Meekerdin-Maa headed for a vent that provided access to one of the building's control panels. Janks guarded the vent entrance while his comrades crawled inside and successfully disabled the remaining security droids in the villa. They then moved on to find Qua, first encountering his servant droid, E-10, who Greenbark destroyed after the droid refused to reveal Qua's location. By the time the trio found Qua, Jennir had already reached him and had him at gunpoint. Once Schurk-Heren, Vakier, and Mezgraf arrived, the crew interrogated Qua and discovered he had eaten Resa, at which point Jennir shot him.
Greenbark, outraged that he hadn't been able to kill Qua himself, revealed to the rest of the group that Jennir was a Jedi, a fact the general had kept secret. Due to the bounty placed on all Jedi by the Empire, the crew decided not to travel with Jennir any further, as they didn't want to attract more attention to themselves. Leaving Jennir on Esseles, the Uhumele set course for the Core Worlds. One month after they had first met Jennir and Greenbark, the Uhumele's crew stopped on the planet Pizkoss for supplies, and Janks made sure to gather food to cook for his crewmates. After collecting the goods, Janks began heading back to the Uhumele, but was interrupted when Greenbark and Meekerdin-Maa collided with him in the street. The pair had been fleeing from Imperial troops, who quickly caught up and opened fire. Janks' crewmates escaped the Imperial Stormtroopers, but Janks, caught unprepared, was captured before he could run. The Imperials roughed him up, tearing his shirt and bruising his head, before taking him into custody.
Janks was imprisoned in a cell on board a Venator-class Star Destroyer, where he was questioned cruelly for several days about his crewmates. He was then left alone for several weeks, during which time he was served food daily by a faceless droid. Approximately three months after the Declaration of the New Order, Janks was visited by Darth Vader, a Sith Lord, and Fane Peturri, a scientist, who questioned him again about the Uhumele. The pair, planning an ambush for Janks' former crewmates, then left him alone again. At some point in the following month, Janks was moved to Imperial Prison ISO-L8, a space station in the Core Worlds. He remained imprisoned there until Falco Sang, an assassin hired by Qua's family to kill the Uhumele's crew, broke into his cell. Janks was questioned one last time about the crew who had abandoned him before Sang killed him. Shortly after his death, Vader, who was also visiting the prison to question Janks about Jennir, found his body but failed to stop Sang from escaping. The assassin would later boast about killing Janks when he tracked down Jennir, although he failed to kill any other members of the Uhumele's crew.