General Korak, we’ve just received a report. Coruscant is under attack!”
"Well what are we waiting for? Chart a course and get us there!
—Major Locke and Aaley Korak
Aaley Korak was a Jedi during the time of the Clone Wars. Shortly after being promoted to the level of Jedi Knight, she assisted her former master, Kuroth Dahn, and a squad of clone commandos in sabotaging a Separatist factory under the surface of the planet Geonosis. While in the factory, her master was killed in a droid attack. After the battle, Aaley was assigned to lead Master Dahn's unit of clone troopers, the 205th Attack Battalion. Aaley continued to lead these clones through the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire, until her death in 2 BBY.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Aaley was born on the planet Ryloth to her mother, Kistra Korak, and an unknown father. At the age of three, the Korak house was invaded by two assailants suspected to have been Dark side assassins. However, this attack coincided with the arrival of Jedi Master Mithus Ulluto. After dispatching the attackers, Master Ulluto took Aaley to be raised and trained in the Jedi Temple.
While at the Temple, Aaley met fellow Youngling Aayla Secura, also from Ryloth. The two quickly realized that their names shared a common root between two dialects of Twi'leki, and from such a simple beginning, the two became fast friends.
At the end of Aaley's initiation in 29 BBY, she was sent to the ice caves of Ilum to find her lightsaber crystal. She was quickly separated from her fellow Initiates, a condition in which she had not found herself since she had joined the Order. She fell into meditation to calm her mind and expand her consciousness, and through the Force, she was able to sense her fellow Initiates, Masters Yoda and Qui-Gon Jinn, and the structure of the caves around her. Soon, she began to hear a faint ringing down a tunnel to her left. She stood and followed it, and soon found a pair of Kyber crystals glowing from inside the ice at the end. Aaley went on to construct a pair of blue lightsabers before returning to the Temple.
Soon after earning her sabers, she was selected by Master Kuroth Dahn to serve as his Padawan.
Career[]
As Master Dahn's Padawan, Aaley traveled the galaxy for several years, learning her Master's skills in diplomacy, negotiation, and combat. Master Dahn had, by this time, been instrumental in the conclusion of several delicate political situations, including the Hynah-Sorrus standoff and the Socorro Civil War. His unique mix of tact and aggression was passed on to Aaley, who prospered under his tutelage. In their six years together, the two formed a close bond and an effective team. In 23 BBY, Aaley passed her Trials and was knighted.
Less than a year later, at the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Aaley was deployed to assist her former Master and a squad of clone commandos in sabotaging a Separatist droid factory on the planet Geonosis. Once inside the factory, the two Jedi parted ways, each taking two commandos. While inside, one of the men under Master Dahn's command tripped an alarm, alerting the droids in the area. By the time Aaley reached the battle, one of the commandos under Dahn's command was dead. Soon after the two Jedi reunited, Master Dahn sensed they were about to be overrun. He ordered Aaley to leave him seconds before he was cut down by a blast. The remaining commandos pulled Aaley out of the factory and detonated the charges the team had spread across the factory. This loss was the first time Aaley had had to deal with the death of a loved one, having been too young at the time of her mother's passing to properly process what had happened. Her Jedi training soon triumphed over her grief, however, and sixteen hours later, she found herself on Kamino being introduced to the men of the 205th Attack Battalion, the clone troopers she would lead for the rest of her life. Her early career was marked with some major successes, most notably spearheading the recapture of Columex after its succession.
Near the end of the first year of the war, Aaley was deployed alone to investigate Separatist weapons development on the planet Telaris. After being compromised, her Delta-7 starfighter was destroyed, and she was backed into a corner. Luckily for her, her astromech, R1K4, had sent out a distress signal before being destroyed. This signal was picked up by a Vanguard gunship, carrying Leveren "Lev" Mexxa and his squad. The ten Vanguard soldiers were able to destroy the droid forces and returned Aaley to Coruscant.
Over the course of the war, Aaley made a concentrated effort to learn from her troopers, becoming a highly capable military commander. This capability led her to further noteworthy accomplishments, such as the invasion of Bothawui, the defense of Gerrenthum, and the suppression of the Raithal rebellion.
At the end of the operation on Raithal, Aaley received word of the attack on Coruscant. She immediately ordered her Star Destroyer, the Freedom, back to the Republic's capitol. Upon arriving at the planet, Aaley led fighters in attacks on the Separatist frigate Fate and the Separatist flagship, the Invisible Hand. After damaging both ships and retrieving Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, who had escaped the Invisible Hand, the Freedom rallied with three surviving Venators; the Antaeus, Eremont, and Navaro, rescued the Jedi and Vanguard who escaped from the Temple, and retreated from the system.
Eight days after the attack on Coruscant, Aaley joined Kit Fisto and a platoon of SCUBA troopers to rescue the survivors of the Separatist assault on Kamino that had occurred four hours after the Republic's defeat. The Jedi led their troopers into the rubble of the collapsed Tipoca City and recovered four hundred ninety-two clones and two hundred seventy-one Kaminoans from submarine bunkers that had survived the destruction of the city. The Kaminoan scientists and young clones rescued in this operation drastically extended the ability of the surviving Republic forces to remain combat viable.
In 12 BBY, Aaley took on a Padawan, a female Togruta named Sar'li. Aaley made every effort to impart on her charge all the lessons Master Dahn had given her, and everything a decade of war had taught her, and Sar'li proved an adept student. Sar'li also learned at the feet of the remaining men of the 205th, though her talent for commanding troops on the battlefield proved less than her abilities as a Jedi. In 7 BBY, Sar'li was killed defending four Younglings from an assassin sent by Darth Maul.
During the Jedi's schism, Aaley elected to join Master Windu's offensive. She was wounded early in the action on Hypori, this sparing her from being massacred by Maul, the fate that met Masters Windu, Fisto, Secura, and Koon. After this defeat, Aaley convinced most of the other Jedi to return to their previous strategy of isolation and guerrilla strikes. However, this and subsequent defeats led Master Yoda into isolation, leaving the Jedi Order conflicted and leaderless. Aaley made several attempts to reunite the remaining Jedi, but she was unable to save the Order from destruction.
Death[]
Aaley met her fate in 2 BBY on board the Vanguard Star Destroyer Fortune. The ship came under attack from six Imperial Star Destroyers and had been boarded by Maul's Dark troopers, led by the Sith Emperor himself. At the end of the battle, Aaley and Lev found themselves facing Maul aboard the ship's bridge. The pair managed to match Maul for nearly a minute, as Aaley was able to protect both herself and Lev from Force attacks, until Darth Vader joined the battle. With her attention drawn between two opponents, Aaley was unable to prevent the new Sith from breaking Lev's neck and killing him. Aaley could not hold her own against both Sith, and soon fell.
Post-mortem[]
Aside from Masters Kenobi and Yoda, Aaley was the last Jedi to die during the Galactic Civil War. After her death, the last sixteen troopers of the 205th erected a memorial to her aboard the Freedom. As the Fortune was scuttled after her defeat, Aaley's body was never found. In 7 ABY, the newly reestablished Vanguard, under the leadership of Katira Mexxa, christened the escort corvette Aaley, assigning it to protect the battle cruiser Leveren.
Personality and traits[]
Aaley was friendly and loquacious, and in her younger years was rarely seen without a smile. In her years studying under Master Dahn, she learned to be polite and succinct, and became quite skilled at talking her way to an advantageous position. As the years of war progressed, she became more reserved, more decisive, and developed respect and compassion for the men under her command. War taught her to be strategic, cunning, and, when necessary, ruthless. Her years as a master to Sar'li brought back some of the friendly demeanor she had possessed in her youth, as well as bringing on an affection she hadn't known she could feel. After Sar'li's death, Aaley spent her final years wholly dedicated to the cause of overthrowing Maul. As her fellow Jedi died, she slowly closed herself off to everyone around her, though to a lesser degree with Lev, who had suffered similar losses. In her final moments, Aaley made peace with her fate, and died with a resigned smile on her face.
Powers and abilities[]
Aaley primarily practiced a modified version of Form V lightsaber combat, and her use of dual lightsabers allowed her a wider range of offensive and defensive maneuvers than were possible with a single blade. She became a passable swordswoman under Master Dahn, and the following years of combat honed her skills, at the cost of a few new scars and burns. Her abilities never surpassed the likes of Anakin Skywalker or Cin Drallig, but they proved more than sufficient to defend her until the end.
After the 205th faced their first battle, Aaley began studying the art of Battle Meditation. She took to it well, and was able to use it in multiple encounters during the Clone Wars and the fight against the Empire. She was also able to combine her meditative abilities with Force Valor to augment her effectiveness in combat, describing it as "losing [her]self in the Force, letting it flow through [her] until it wash[ed] [her] away".
Behind the scenes[]
Aaley Korak exists in an alternate Star Wars timeline, in which Darth Maul leads the Separatist alliance to victory over the Republic and installs himself as Emperor.
The image of Aaley used in this article was made in Hero Machine 3 (http://www.heromachine.com/heromachine-3-lab/)