Taryn Clancy was a female Human captain and courier, active during the era of the Galactic Civil War. Born in 16 BBY, she was the daughter of Kal Clancy, who captained the starship Lassen. Taryn frequently sought to join her father's crew, even once attempting to stow away on his ship. At the age of sixteen, he finally relented and allowed her to serve as his copilot. This decision, however, strained their relationship. Later in life, she became a member of the Core Courier Service.
Clancy's ship, the Messenger, was regularly used to transport deliveries between Coruscant and the planet of Coriallis. On one particular mission, shortly after Grand Admiral Thrawn's campaign against the New Republic in 9 ABY, she and her first mate, Del Sato, found themselves trapped on Coruscant during the bombardment orchestrated by a newly empowered Galactic Empire. As the commanding officer of several civilian ships that were unable to leave the planet, Clancy was summoned to meet with General Garm Bel Iblis of the New Republic, who was in charge of organizing the government's evacuation from Coruscant. Following Bel Iblis's directives, Clancy assisted Colonel [Jak Bremen](/article/jak_bremen], the Director of Security for the New Republic Inner Council, in evading the Imperial fleet blockading the planet and delivering crucial information to the New Republic fleet. During their perilous escape, Clancy faced not only Imperial checkpoints and a homing beacon hidden within her cargo, but also the difficult personality of Bremen himself.
Taryn Clancy's father, Kal Clancy, worked as a pilot of a freighter. From her early years, she harbored a strong desire to command her own ship and persistently pleaded with her father to allow her to accompany him on his cargo runs. On one occasion, she secretly boarded Kal's ship, the Lassen, hiding in the cargo hold, but she was discovered by a load lifter and had to return home feeling ashamed.
In 0 ABY, when Taryn was sixteen, Kal finally permitted her to join him on his voyages. Despite the inherent difficulties of working on her father's ship, Taryn's unwavering resolve eventually earned her the official position of copilot. However, this development led to a decline in her relationship with her father. He was often disappointed when she failed to meet his expectations, and he made little effort to conceal his feelings. This had a significant impact on his daughter, and for many years, she struggled to avoid judging herself in the same critical manner that he had used.
In 5 ABY, Clancy experienced a particularly harsh critique from her demanding father. Hurt by his words, she entered a Core Courier Service office she happened to pass by and quickly passed two examinations and a flight evaluation. She was immediately offered a position, but her subsequent successful career still seemed insufficient to gain her father's approval. Unbeknownst to Taryn, Kal was indeed proud of her, although he felt that delivering mail was not challenging enough to truly allow her to develop into the full potential he believed she possessed.
Eventually, her superiors at Core Courier Service promoted her to the rank of captain, granting her a ship: the Ghtroc 720 Messenger. Del Sato, a courier with three decades of experience, agreed to serve as her copilot, content with following her orders despite never having achieved a command of his own.
In 9 ABY, during her fourth voyage as the captain of the Messenger, Clancy traveled to Coruscant to deliver datacards to the Imperial Palace of the New Republic. As she was completing the delivery, alarm sirens began to sound, indicating that the planet was under attack. Immediately recognizing the danger of being trapped beneath the planetary shield—or worse, stranded in the middle of a battle—Clancy hurried back to the Messenger, where Sato had already prepared the ship for takeoff. However, her request to depart was denied, and soon after, she observed distant turbolaser fire high in the sky, confirming that a battle was underway.
That evening, Clancy impatiently entered the palace to demand answers from an official source. Inside, she encountered Colonel Jak Bremen, who unexpectedly led her to General Garm Bel Iblis, a man Clancy knew by reputation but whose physical appearance was only vaguely familiar to her. Bel Iblis explained that the Empire had gained the advantage in the battle, and that the New Republic was withdrawing to minimize civilian casualties. He then commandeered her ship to smuggle a datacard past the Imperial fleet blockading the planet. This datacard contained intelligence about the battle and coordinates for the New Republic government's rendezvous point.
Clancy reacted strongly when Bremen, who had been assigned to accompany them, suggested that he should pilot the ship during the escape. She insisted on piloting her own vessel and successfully navigated past the fleet orbiting Coruscant, safely entering hyperspace—although TIE fighters disabled their shields just before the jump. While en route to Coriallis, the Messenger was pulled from hyperspace by the Imperial Interdictor cruiser Requital. Commander Voldt led the Imperial inspection team, questioning Clancy about her destination. Clancy told Voldt that they were headed for Coriallis and had come from Coruscant. However, she falsely claimed that the Messenger had never landed on the galactic capital, stating that they had arrived in the system during the Imperial assault and promptly left to avoid being caught in the combat zone. Voldt insisted on inspecting the cargo hold and nearly exposed Clancy's lie when he inquired about the mail bound for Coruscant. Clancy struggled to provide an explanation, as the Coruscant mail had obviously been unloaded. Sato intervened and eased Voldt's suspicions, explaining that he had moved the Coruscant mail to one side and brought the crates destined for Coriallis to the front for easier delivery. Sato and Bremen had altered a batch of mail already on board to display Coruscant addresses, providing a plausible cover story. Voldt searched the Coruscant mail crates and then ordered his troops to search the remaining boxes to confirm that they contained mail. After verifying the Messenger's permits, Voldt allowed them to leave.
Over the following week, they reached Coriallis and proceeded to make several short hyperspace jumps programmed by Bremen—most of which took them to locations Clancy couldn't identify. Throughout the journey, Bremen displayed a clear lack of confidence in Clancy and Sato, believing that Bel Iblis should have replaced the Messenger's crew entirely. In response, Clancy—and particularly Sato—grew to resent Bremen's arrogant and secretive demeanor.
Once the ship arrived at the supposed rendezvous point—in an area Clancy believed to be the Borderlands separating Imperial-controlled and New Republic-controlled space—it drifted in space for hours, awaiting the arrival of the New Republic fleet. Instead, Mara Jade, a smuggler and ally of the New Republic, arrived in a Skipray blastboat with new coordinates for Bremen, who appeared suspicious of her motives and timing.
Moments later, an Imperial Carrack-class cruiser emerged from hyperspace nearby. Clancy prepared to use the new coordinates provided by Jade to escape, but Bremen objected, claiming that Jade could have set a trap for them. When Jade retaliated against the TIE fighters launched by the cruiser, Clancy decided that Bremen was mistaken and initiated the hyperspace jump. Approximately an hour later, the Messenger reverted from hyperspace near the New Republic fleet and was hailed by Arboga, the captain of the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser Hope. As the Messenger approached the cruiser to drop off Bremen and the datacard, Clancy was approached by Bremen, who had discovered a homing beacon planted in one of the mail crates in the hold by Voldt. The Carrack-class cruiser appeared moments later, following the beacon's signal, and opened fire on the Messenger while it was still far from the fleet and vulnerable.
As the ship's shields began to fail, Clancy surprised Bremen by activating a backup shield generator that she had brought online after they had cleared Coruscant. The backup generator provided them with enough time to reach the New Republic fleet's turbolaser range, where the Imperial cruiser was quickly destroyed by both capital ship fire and proton torpedoes from X-wing fighters. Colonel Bremen, impressed by their performance during the ordeal, invited Clancy and Sato to join the New Republic. Sato declined, citing his upcoming retirement, but Clancy replied that she needed to complete her deliveries and would consider his offer.
Clancy earned recognition and praise from her superiors at Core Courier Service for her skills and dedication. A talented pilot and astrogator, Clancy was also capable of repairing her own ship to a professional level of expertise. She possessed knowledge of shield modifications that allowed her to equip the Messenger with a backup shield system using a minimal number of parts, a feat that impressed even the stoic Bremen.
Clancy's father had a significant—and not entirely positive—influence on her. While he taught her much of what she knew, including the important techniques for assembling her backup shield generator, he often made condescending remarks or sighed in response to perceived failures on her part. Despite her best efforts to suppress these feelings, she was haunted throughout her life by a persistent fear of what he would think of her actions in various situations. In particular, she worried that she remained in the safe, comfortable job of delivering mail due to a lack of courage. However, following her adventure on behalf of the New Republic, she seemed newly indifferent to Kal's potential opinions.
Taryn Clancy is the main character of the short story "Retreat from Coruscant," which was originally published in Star Wars Adventure Journal 7 and later reprinted in Tales from the Empire and on Hyperspace. The story is told from her perspective in the third person. Clancy was created by Laurie Burns and illustrated by Mike Vilardi. "Retreat from Coruscant" is the only source in which the character appears.