Craal "Al" Noarnn

> "*If I wasn't blowing this planet to pieces, I'd probably be painting a picture of it. Art is much more interesting than war.*"
> ― **Craal "Al" Noarnn** speaking to Vid Paratool
>
>

## **Overview**

**Craal "Al" Noarnn**was a human pilot from Coruscantthat fought in the Galactic Civil War and was assigned to Arrow Squadron. She joined the Rebellion in in 3 BBY and was a member of Alliance Starfighter Corp. She was a veteran Y-wing pilot and skilled bomber.  Shortly after the conclusion of the Hutt Campaign , she retired from military service, pursuing her dream of becoming a professional artist. Her call sign was Arrow Seven.

## **Prior to the Rebellion**

Noarnn was raised on the bustling world of Coruscant. While her father had never taken an interest in the arts, he endeavored to support his young daughter however possible. Noarrn, or Al as she was known by those close to her, did share a common love of art with her mother. As she aged, Al participated in everything from interior design contests, to recording her own music, as well as painting and photography. She enjoyed the work, but it never paid well and she took odd jobs working to support her artistic endeavors. One of those odd jobs was serving a delivery pilot navigating the busy sky lanes of her home world. She grew to be a talented pilot, but in her mind, she was still an artist first and foremost.

With the Empire's lock down on artistic expression, Al was forced to make a decision. She could either temper her creativity or continue to produce non-licensed, non-sanctioned artwork. She choose the later. After a particularly expressive set of digital photographs she took showing the poverty of those living just miles from the opulent Imperial Center made its way to the authorities, she was arrested and sent to the prison camp of Wobani.

In route to the system, the convey carrying her was ambushed Rebellion Forces and the prisoners freed. Craal, with no applicable military talents, offered her assistance with recruitment posters or some other means of creative expression. When she was flatly told that the Rebellion needed pilots, not artists, she volunteered for flight school.

## **Arrow Squadron**

Craal enlisted in one of the first classes to organize in the earliest days of the Rebellion. While she had never flown combat missions, her quick reflexes and intrinsic skills helped her through training. Despite her diminutive frame, she showed great promise flying the behemoth Y-Wing fighter/bomber. Originally assigned to the infamous Gold Squad, Noarnn missed the Battle of Scarif and the Battle of Yavin as she was away on a covert mission to recruit new pilots on Coruscant. This move proved to be extremely fortuitous as Gold Squad was nearly whipped out at both battles. The surviving members were transferred to other units and Craal was assigned to Arrow Squadron.

She went with her squadron mates as they were assigned to the Betseeda System, part of General Dodanna's strategy of liberating smaller systems one by one. Craal's quiet ways were confused with timidity; many members of Arrow Squadron had big personalities and the young woman initially felt very out of place. She kept quiet and tried to bond with the other pilots, befriending both Otan Vebb and Ide Jdre. It was Commander Jdre who encouraged Vebb and Craal to design the official Arrow Squadron insignia.

Craal fought valiantly at several battles in the Betseeda Campaign. She was particularly influential during the Battle of Faan Shaarada where her bombs helped to cripple the Star Destroyer Salient. She also was credited with saving Lieutenant Benere's life at the First Battle of Betseeda Prime.

During the Arrow's covert mission to Myyribod, Craal posed as a fictional traveling songwriter named Jesmina Dant in order to gain employment at a cantina - The Mossy Rock - frequented by Imperial officers. Cedric Rex, something of a cantina-fly himself and not averse to a good bar fight posed as her bodyguard and manager. Under Lieutenant Benere's instructions, Craal's show was risque and sensual, leading the number of Imperial officers in attendance to steadily grow. Word of her performances spread as did the crowd of loud, drunken men. Gaining the trust of her boss, a pig-headed businessman named Reza, Craal was able to learn the security codes of the cantina. Her and Rex used the security codes to sneak into the bar early one morning and plant several explosive charges. When the drunk and boorish Imperial officers had filled the cantina, waiting for her next performance, they detonated the explosives and killed scores of Imperials. Unfortunately, a few civilians were also killed in the attack. While it was a strategic victory for Arrow Squadron in the sense that it killed many junior officers stationed on the Salient, it was a public relations defeat as those in power on Myyribod used the attack to galvanize their support for the occupying Imperial Navy.

Despite this setback, Craal began to bond more with her squadron mates. The death of Ide Jdre hit her particularly hard, but she opened up after his untimely death and began recording some music on her own, something she hadn't done in many years.

During the Arrow's campaign to win over support from the fledgling government in Tazion, Craal fell in love with a young local man named Ton Hogre. The two were inseparable and Craal eventually felt as though she could let her guard down. Unfortunately, Hogre was an Imperial spy and was doing his best to gain information about Arrow Squadron from the love-sick pilot. The ruse was exposed by fellow pilot Udas, much to the heartbreak of Craal.

Craal flew with Arrow Squadron throughout the campaign in the Betseeda System. She was credited with three kills at the final battle to liberate the system, the Battle of Jonquil Station, a battle that cost the life of her closest friend, the Gungan Vebb.

## **The Glaston Pirates War**

Following the liberation of the Betseeda System, Craal and the remaining Arrow Squadron pilots were transferred again, this time to the Chommell Sector. Their mission was to eradicate a group of local brigands known as the Glaston Pirates. The pirates had been wagging a war of terror against civilian and Alliance shipping lanes coming to and from the planet of Naboo from a secret base on the swamp moon of Rori. The pirates were being paid as mercenaries by the Imperial Navy to destroy and disrupt as much as possible. Their wanton cruelty and vicious attacks eventually drew the attention of the Rebellion.

Initially, the Arrows flew against the assembled pirate forces at the Battle of Ruaha. However, the pirates offered only minimal resistance in the face of experienced Alliance pilots and Lieutenant Benere was forced to change his battle strategy.

While the campaign was brief, Craal's expertise as a performer and singer was once again put to use. A trio of Arrow Squadron pilots - Craal, Sorshara Bray, and S'Hral Glaso - acquired a junked old freighter to pose as a disabled ship right in the middle of the Chommell shipping lanes. Like clockwork, the Glaston Pirates answered their distress call and commandeered the ship.

Bray, leading the mission, explained to their captures that they were musicians traveling to play, under contract, for Niima the Hutt. Intrigued at the prospect of a ransom, the three were taken to the pirates stronghold - Vagabond's Rest - and held captive. A homing beacon that was secretly affixed to Bray allowed the Arrows to zero in on their location and begin planning an attack.

However, one of the pirates, a man named Hollis DeMeers, recognized Craal from her days posing as Jesmina Dant at the Mossy Rock. He was a smuggler by trade, but felt as though the Glaston Pirates were growing too violent. Looking for a way out for him and his two adult aged children, Saffron and Nath, out of the pirates, he helped free Craal and Sorshara. S'Hral was not able to be freed, but the others escaped and returned to the squadron where the DeMeers family officially joined up, eager to take the fight back to their former allies.

Eventually the squadron destroyed the pirate resistance at theBattle of Vagabond's Rest and helped restore trade coming to and from Naboo.

## **The Hutt Campaign**

The Arrows once again found themselves transferred, this time to Hutt Space. A large Imperial garrison had been stubbornly holding out against Hutt forces. Eager to expand their pool of allies, but wary of the Hutt's ultimate goal, Alliance High Command sent several squadrons to help eradicate the Imperial garrison in order to help curry favor with the Hutt Clan.

Arrow Squadron was one of the many units and flew in the single, decisive victory at the Battle of Ullatak. Shortly after the battle, however, Arrow Squadron was assigned to return to the main fleet and fly as escort duty. While some pilots viewed this as an insult being that they were now a battle-tested unit, others viewed it as a temporary reprieve from years of combat and loss. High Command gave every pilot the opportunity to put in their papers for retirement given their long service to the Rebellion.

Several pilots in the unit viewed the this as their opportunity to retire or pursue other outlets.

## **Retirement and Legacy**

Craal was one of the pilots who used the Arrow's nearly year long assignment to the Main Fleet as her opportunity to retire. Although not even 30 years old, she had spent a good portion of her adult life fighting the Imperials from Coruscant to Hutt Space to the Outer Rim. Craal retired just before the Battle of Endor.

She left for Bimmissaari, a remote world far away from the Galactic Civil War in order to rekindle her love of music and to live out her days creating instead of destroying.