Jessa Spanjaf Jessa Spanjaf , a human female , was the mother of Merei Spanjaf and the wife of Gandr Spanjaf . She and her husband worked as data - security specialists and were contracted by several ministries of the Galactic Empire . Several years before the Battle of Yavin , Gandr and his family moved to the planet Lothal to help the local Imperial ministries boost the security of their data networks . Both parents were unaware of their daughter Merei ' s illegal activities ; which included hacking the Transportation Ministry ' s data network , working as a courier for the criminal Gray Syndicate ; and consorting with known rebels and rebel sympathizers including the Spectres cell , her former classmates Zare Leonis and Beck Ollet , and the fugitive Holshef . Merei was helping her boyfriend Zare to find his sister Dhara Leonis , who had been abducted for a secret Imperial program known as Project Harvester . After Merei hacked into the Transportation Ministry ' s data network , Jessa was part of the anti - intrusion team that was assigned to investigate that data breach . Merei spent much of that year trying to stay ahead of the Imperial investigators by altering her school photo while working as a courier for the Gray Syndicate at the same time . In a misguided attempt to free herself from the Gray Syndicate and to mislead the Imperial investigation team , Merei staged her own kidnapping , which led to a deadly Imperial raid on Ake ' s Tavern , the Gray Syndicate ' s headquarters . As a result , Jessa and her husband came to believe that the Gray Syndicate were the culprits behind the Transportation Ministry ' s data breach and that they had kidnapped Merei to stop the Imperial investigation . Jessa and Gandr were later forced to flee Lothal with their daughter Merei after the Empire launched a crackdown on all sedition and crime following the Spectres ' hijacking of the Imperial Communications Center at Jalath . While Jessa was initially furious with Merei for " ruining their lives , " she changed her mind after Merei revealed that she had downloaded secret Imperial documents that revealed Imperial atrocities and abuses on Lothal . After fleeing to the planet Garel with the help of Old Jho and the Spectres , Jessa accompanied her daughter Merei on a mission to rescue Zare and his sister Dhara from Area Null , a secret Imperial facility on the planet Arkanis . Following the rescue mission , she and her family assumed new identities crafted by her husband , Gandr . Biography . Moving to Lothal . Jessa Spanjaf was a native of the Core Worlds planet of Corulag . She was the wife of Gandr Spanjaf and the mother of Merei Spanjaf . Jessa and Gandr were data - security specialists who worked as contractors for several Imperial government ministries . They used their intrusion skills to track down would - be saboteurs and thieves , who were subsequently arrested by Imperial stormtrooper s . Several years before the Battle of Yavin , Jessa and her family migrated to the the backwater Outer Rim world of Lothal to take advantage of new Imperial developmental opportunities there . The local Imperial ministries needed data - security specialists to secure their data networks , which were constantly plagued by rogue programs and data breaches . Jessa and her family settled into an apartment in Lothal ' s Capital City . Jessa ' s daughter Merei spent her first year on Lothal at the Junior Academy of Applied Sciences in Capital City . She played in the school ' s grav - ball team and became a friend of Zare Leonis and Beck Ollet , two rebel sympathizers who were critical of the Empire ' s policies towards Lothal . After Zare ' s sister Dhara , a cadet at the Academy for Young Imperials , disappeared , Merei agreed to help Zare to find his sister . The following year , Merei enrolled at the Vocational School for Institutional Security in order to follow her parents in their career of information security . Unknown to Jessa and Gandr , Merei intended to used her computer slicing skills to find Dhara . A Daughter ' s double life . One morning , Jessa chanced upon Merei in her room and told her to get ready for school . Unknown to Jessa , Merei had been using her datapad to access several Imperial data networks for information on Dhara . Later that term , Merei embarked on a mission to hack into the Imperial Transportation Ministry ' s data network , which was linked to the entire Imperial data network on Lothal . From Gandry , Merei had learned that it was relatively easy for intruders to gain access to networks by physically visiting government offices and other premises . Through her classmate Jix Hekyl , Merei also made contact with the Gray Syndicate ' s boss Yahenna Laxo , who agreed to sell her three snooper programs in return for her services as a courier . One evening , Merei returned with several grocery items including prairie - fowl breasts and tubers . When Jessa inquired about her other bag , Merei claimed that it contained items she needed at school . Unknown to Jessa , the second bag contained the three snoopers that Laxo had sold her . While preparing dinner , Jessa asked her daughter about her studies at V - SIS . She was pleased to learn that Merei was working on anti - intrusion measures and had joined her school ' s anti - intrusion club ; activities which she regarded as preferable to grav - ball and joy - riding with boys . Knowing her mother ' s inquisitive nature , Merei chatted about anti - intrusion methods . During their conversation , Jessa mentioned that government offices and facilities were vulnerable to outside programs being installed and that several of the security chiefs at Lothal ' s ministries were ignorant of basic information security protocols . Unknown to Jessa , she inadvertently provided her daughter with ideas on how to infiltrate the Imperial Transportation Ministry ' s headquarters on Lothal . Following Merei ' s breach into the Transportation Ministry ' s network , Jessa was part of an anti - intrusion team that was assigned to investigate that breach . Jessa was completely unaware that her own daughter was responsible for the data breach . She and her colleagues attempted to investigate how the intruders had accessed the building and what network defenses had been penetrated . When Jessa requested cam - feeds , she was dismayed to learn that the Transportation Ministry staff had only been keeping two days of video archives . They spent the afternoon searching the network for unauthorized transmissions and rogue programs but were unable to detect the intrusion due to the high volume of inter - ministry activity . Later that evening , Jessa had a discussion about Lothal politics with her husband Gandr at dinner . Merei then asked her parents about a ZX - 5 access disk , a high - powered military decoder . Jessa and Gandr explained that this particular decoder model was used by Imperial officials to decrypt classified government documents . Using this information , Merei put into motion a plan to steal a ZX - 5 decoder with the connivance of her boyfriend Zare Leonis . During the conversation , Jessa discussed her ongoing investigation into the data breach at the Transportation Ministry with her family . With few leads , she planned to question the custodial crew at the Transportation Ministry , some of whom were alleged to have connections with criminal gangs in the Old City ' s alien quarter . With the connivance of Zare and an undercover rebel cadet named Dev Morgan , Merei managed to obtain a stolen ZX - 5 decoder from Morgan ' s rebel associates . She used the decoder to decrypt a classified Imperial file which revealed that Dhara had been forcibly inducted into a secret program known as Project Harvester , which was based on the planet Arkanis . Meanwhile , Jessa continued her investigation into the Transportation Ministry data breach . She discovered that the intruders had managed to gain access to the building ' s network through three snooper programs . While two of the snooper programs had managed to delete themselves , the third had failed to delete itself due to a faulty chronometer . As a result , her team was able to freeze and preserve its code . While Jessa and Gandr were pleased that they were closer to finding the intruders , Merei was fearful that the Empire would eventually come after her . Hiding in Plain Sight . Jessa was present when her husband Gandr questioned Merei about her failing grades at V - SIS during a dinnertime conversation . While Gandr accepted Merei ' s explanation that she was struggling with her school work , Jessa was not so certain and questioned her daughter whether she was fraternizing with boys . Merei defensively responded that she had a boyfriend named Zare but that they only communicated three times a week for fifteen minutes . Before a sharp exchange could break out between mother and daughter , Gandr intervened and reassured Merei that her parents were only there to help her . Merei then told her parents to let her figure things out on her own . In reality , Merei ' s grades were failing because she had devoted much of her time and energy to hacking into the Imperial data network and creating a fake ISB account . In addition , Merei was fearful that Jessa would eventually track down the source of the intrusion to her own daughter . When Merei questioned Jessa about the progress of her investigation , Jessa was initially reluctant to discuss this matter with her daughter . However , she relented when Gandr frowned at her and Merei reiterated that she wanted to follow in her parents ' footsteps as data security specialists . Jessa disclosed that she and her team of investigators were still trying to match the captured snooper ' s code with the work done by known criminal programmers . In addition , she revealed that one of the Transportation Ministry staff had encountered an intruder posing as a Phelarion School student who was selling raffle tickets . However , Jessa ' s investigation had determined that the real Kinera Tiree had not visited the Transportation Ministry ' s headquarters because she was having an exam that day . Thus , she deduced that the intruder was a teenaged girl who had impersonated the real Kinera . When Merei suggested that the intruder was from a shapeshifting species , Jessa ruled that out since Imperial intelligence monitored any shapeshifters with underworld ties . With their witness unable to provide anymore details of the mysterious intruder , Jessa and her team had decided to examine the photos of every schoolgirl within a hundred kilometers of Capital City . She commented that this " old - fashioned " method of police work helped investigators build a more solid case without having to go through the courts . Using the information gleaned from Jessa ' s investigation , Merei got her classmate Jix Hekyl to switch her V - SIS photo with that of Hestia Tarleton , a student at the Young Ladies ' Seminary of Lothal Settlers , in an attempt to mislead Jessa ' s investigation team . Jix ' s trick succeeded in stifling Jessa ' s investigation efforts since the witnesses were unable to spot Merei ' s face . In response , Jessa decided to give the intrusion pattern to every repeater service on Lothal and demand that they look for a match . Once they had obtained a match , they would be able to obtain a warrant for any records of that account . Jessa reasoned that this tactic would allow them to ascertain the origin point of whoever had accessed the snooper ' s data . In the light of the recent rebel attack on the Empire Day celebrations in Capital City , Jessa was optimistic that the courts would grant such a warrant within the span of a few weeks . The " Kidnapping " . By the end of Lothal ' s winter break , Jessa and her team had managed to narrow down the Transportation Ministry ' s intrusion pattern to three repeater services , including Bakiska ' s . She decided to file a request for a search warrant from the Justice Ministry . During a dinner table conversation , Jessa expressed her hope that the investigation was drawing to a close and that they would be able to resume their normal lives . Claiming that she had a lot of homework to do , her daughter Merei contacted Jix and made arrangements to enter Bakiska ' s data warehouse and delete Merei ' s account data with a pulse - mag under the pretext of doing Laxo ' s " business " . However , their plan fell apart when the Bakiska ' s staff warehouse evicted them from the premises . In desperation , Merei staged her own kidnapping and dispatched a fake ransom demand to her parents ' channels . This message purporting to come from the Gray Syndicate demanded that Jessa cease her investigation into the Transportation Ministry data breach if she wanted her daughter returned unharmed . Jessa and Gandr received Merei ' s message and contacted the Imperial authorities , who sent stormtrooper s to raid Ake ' s Tavern . During the raid , the Imperials killed all of the criminals and rescued Merei , whom they thought was a hostage . Unknown to everyone , Merei took the opportunity to use her pulse - mag to delete all of the Gray Syndicate ' s data in the hopes of frustrating the Imperial investigation . Due to the elimination of the Gray Syndicate and Merei ' s rescue , Jessa believed that her investigation into the Transportation Ministry breach was finished . She was relieved that she and her investigators did not have to lock down and search three repeater services , which would have been a long and tedious undertaking . Jessa believed that the Gray Syndicate was behind the breach and accepted her daughter ' s testimony about her kidnapping as sufficient evidence to bring her investigation to a close . However , she was unable to establish the site where the intrusion had been launched . While the Imperial authorities had overruled her decision to close the Transportation Ministry breach investigation , they needed services for new priorities such as screening commercial transports . Shortly later , Merei received a call on her datapad from her boyfriend Zare , who informed her that he had received a mid - year transfer to the Imperial Academy on Arkanis . A Life Turned Upside - Down . Following the destruction of the Gray Syndicate , Jessa ' s daughter Merei was caught up in another scheme to get the fugitive poet Holshef offworld . Holshef was a poet and artist who had drawn the ire of the Empire and had struck a friendship with Merei . During a dinnertime conversation , Jessa and Gandr were talking about the Imperial bureaucracy ' s latest attempts to make their jobs more difficult . Merei then took the opportunity to raise a question about the Empire ' s recent efforts to tighten up offworld travel on Lothal . Jessa confirmed that this was the case and mentioned that the Empire had prohibited wildcat launches from the hinterland . However , she added that authorized travel was still allowed but subject to a stringent ID check and questioning by security personnel . Jessa explained that Imperial officers were trained to identify people who were nervous or hiding something . This information led Merei to realize that she could not get her friend Holshef offworld through a spaceport . The following week , the Lothal rebel cell known as the Spectres seized control of the Imperial Communications Center at Jalath and made a broadcast . In response , the Empire destroyed the tower . During a dinnertime conversation , Jessa explained that the tower ' s destruction had disrupted offworld communications and limited access to locally store information . As a result , data had to be couriered by Imperial communication droid s and uploaded to transmitters on orbiting communications ships . Due to limited resources , every Imperial agency on Lothal was fighting for priority in using courier droids . When Gandr suggested that the Empire would not have cut them off unless Lothal was in real danger , Jessa disagreed and speculated that the Imperial authorities had overreacted ; creating more hardship for data - security experts like her . Since all security sweeps of the network had been suspended to minimize the system load , hackers and other criminals had a " free ride . " After Merei discovered that the Empire was going to arrest her for her involvement in the Transportation Ministry data breach , she called her mother and told her and Gandr to leave Capital City immediately and meet her at a series of coordinates beyond the Easthills . While Jessa was annoyed that Merei had contacted her while driving a jumpseeder , she complied with her daughter ' s instructions after Merei stressed that they were all in trouble . Jessa and Gandr drove their landspeeder to Merei ' s coordinates , which turned out to be the bar at Old Jho ' s Pit Stop . Merei had earlier made arrangements with the Ithorian tavern keeper Old Jho to smuggle her poet friend Holshef offworld . Joining the Rebellion . Jessa initially reacted with anger when she learned that her own daughter Merei was the culprit behind the data breach at the Transportation Ministry . When Merei recounted the story of her involvement with the Gray Syndicate and how she and Hekyl had tried to evade Imperial investigators , Jessa expressed anger that Merei had ruined their lives by becoming an insurgent fighting the Empire . By contrast , her husband Gandr was amused to learn about their daughter ' s exploits . Jessa relented after Merei showed her and Gandr several highly - classified Imperial documents which documented various Imperial atrocities including Operation Guiding Light and efforts to cover - up the mass murder of protesters in the Westhills . These documents confirmed Jessa and Gandr ' s suspicions about the Empire ' s ulterior motives . While complimenting Merei ' s efforts to create a fake ISB identity which had enabled her obtain these classified documents , she pointed out that her daughter had left trails for Imperial investigators to follow . When Merei asked about her classmate Jix , who had been arrested in connection with the Transportation Ministry data breach , Jessa replied that the youth was beyond their help and that the best they could hope was a short sentence for low - level slicing . When Merei asked about checking on her boyfriend Zare ' s status , Jessa explained that his records had not fully updated yet and suggested checking them in the morning . That night , Jessa and her family stayed at Old Jho ' s Pit Stop since it was unsafe for them to return to their apartment in Capital City . The following day , Jessa and her daughter browsed through the Imperial data network . While there was no warrant out for Merei ' s arrest yet , the Imperial authorities had launched an inquiry into a highway accident involving her and Holshef the previous night and released Hestia Tarleton , the student whose photo Merei had stolen in an attempt to evade Imperial investigators . In addition , Jessa uncovered more information about the secret Imperial projects that were based on Arkanis ' Area Null . Shortly later , Jessa discovered that Zare ' s cadet status had been suspended and that he was scheduled to face a military tribunal . At the same time , Old Jho had made an arrangement to ferry the Spanjaf family and Holshef in his freighter to the edge of the Garel system , where they would be picked up by the Spectres rebel cell . Realizing that the Empire would arrest Zare ' s parents next , Jessa and Merei decided to return to Capital City and evacuate them before the Empire arrived . Jessa and Merei drove to the Leonis family residence in their landspeeder where they managed to pick up Tepha , Leo Leonis , and their nanny droid Auntie Nags . While driving towards the Westhills , they were contacted by Gandr , who had made arrangements with Old Jho to pick them up in his freighter on a farm road off the main highway . On the way there , they were pursued by several Imperial speeder bike s , which forced them to stop at a roadblock . Before the Imperial authorities could arrest them , Old Jho arrived with his freighter and blasted the Imperials . Together , the Spanjafs and Leonises then fled to the Garel system . After fleeing to Garel , Jessa and her daughter Merei took part in a successful mission to rescue Zare Leonis and his sister Dhara Leonis from Area Null . While Merei , Zare , and another prisoner named Beck Ollet went to free Dhara from her cell , Jessa took control of the facility ' s main computer nod and used it to lock Imperial reinforcements out of the towers and elevators . After rescuing Zare and Dhara , they escaped back to Garel . Personality and traits . Jessa Spanjaf was a petite , dark - eye d human female . She had an inquisitive nature and also had a penchant for noticing when things were not right , whether it was being two minutes late for a curfew or making a typo in a school essay . Jessa disapproved of her daughter Merei playing grav - ball or joyriding with boys ; two issues that were a bone of contention between her and Merei . Jessa was pleased when Merei decided to follow her career path by studying information security and anti - intrusion measures at the Vocational School for Institutional Security . As a data - security expert , Jessa was knowledgeable of both data networks and anti - intrusion measures . She was also skilled enough to freeze a faulty snooper program and preserve its code . Despite her initial angry reaction to discovering her daughter ' s double life , Jessa relented after Merei showed her classified documents exposing the Empire ' s atrocities on Lothal . Jessa later praised her daughter for risking her own life and freedom to uncover the Empire ' s unsavory secrets . While reading through the classified Imperial files that her daughter had stolen , Jessa exuded a level - head calmness that soothed her daughter ' s anxieties about her friends Jix Hekyl and Zare Leonis , who had also fallen afoul of the Empire . She also remained calm but alert when accompanying Merei to alert Zare ' s parents and move them into hiding . Jessa ' s slicing skills were put to great use when she and her daughter participated in a successful mission to rescue Zare and his sister Dhara Leonis on Arkanis .