Moldy Crow/Legends

"She may not look like much, but she'll get off the ground."

―New Hope Deck Master describes the Crow

The Moldy Crow was a Corellian Engineering Corporation HWK-290 light freighter that was used by Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors on their missions. It was later replaced by the Raven's Claw.

Description

The Moldy Crow was a modified HWK-290 light freighter and transports. By its tenth year of service, although externally it looked badly hit, as if the hull was barraged by asteroids; its bow was also much scarred, after multiple atmospheric entries. Along its both sides, the name Moldy Crow was painted. Despite these, it enjoyed a recent overhauling of its drives, its shield operated almost at one hundred percent, and Kyle Katarn equipped it with a reconditioned navcomp.

Its security systems included external rivet-size microcameras. Its emergency start-up sequence was relatively faster, and the drives, coming online, brought up the navigation, weapons, and life-support systems.

History

The Moldy Crow was built circa 10 BBY. It was part of the Corellian Engineering Corporation's Hawk series of transports.

Owners

One of the ship's earliest owners was the smuggler Roark Garnet, who used it until he inherited the Dorion Discus from his dead gunslinging sister, Neena. He used the Crow as payment for debts incurred to Grappa the Hutt.

It was eventually stolen from Grappa by Dace Bonearm and IG-72. The Moldy Crow was subsequently abandoned on the planet Teth after the two hunters used it as a decoy to capture Rebel commander Winfrid Dagore and claim the Imperial bounty on her. The Crow then fell into the hands of Lieutenant Palob Godalhi, who gave up the beat-up freighter to the Rebel Dreadnaught New Hope.

Use under Kyle Katarn

"You've got to be joking. This isn't even a ship! Hey, I thought you said this thing would get off the ground!"
"It will. But after that, I'm not making any promises."

―Kyle Katarn to the deck master at his first sighting of the Crow

In the hands of the Rebels, the ten years-old Crow stayed in the hangar bay of the New Hope. Although its external appearance looked much abused, its engines had an overhauling and its last maintainers kept her logbooks up to date.

Mon Mothma assigned it to Kyle Katarn, along with a gig and a slouching courier ship, and after performing several lengthy checks on their weapons, defenses, engines and systems, the Crow was better conditioned than either. Preparing for the Mission to Danuta, he spent several days complementing it with several pieces of equipment, from a new navcomp and parts, to tools and commodities. Rebel experts forged documentation so that it appeared as a civilian freighter delivering high priority spares from Drog VI for the Brodsport Mining Corporation on Danuta.

The trip took five days, mostly piloted by the navcomp; and arriving at the planet, the Crow was approached by two patrolling TIEs, and Katarn stated his identity to X-Ray 291, before landing the Crow on the Trid spaceport. Katarn spent his first day on Danuta in recon and while the Crow stayed in the spaceport, three times common thieves approached and tried to break in; their unsuccessful attempts were caught on video by the Crow's rivet-size microcameras wired to its security system. Kyle returned to have his dinner and sleep.

The next day he arranged with Jan Ors to pilot it herself and land on the top of the Danuta research facility in order to pick him up with the Death Star plans. In the meantime the customs agent and some Stormtroopers had realised that something was not right with the Drexel character who was using the ship right when Jan was attempting to board it. The ramp retracted as they ran towards her, and while the emergency start-up sequence was coming online, the soldiers started shooting, although their bolts were useless against the Crow's shields. Jan lifted it off and swung it, and fired the belly gun against then, then headed for the nearby TIEs parked in the spaceport, in order to have less pursuit on their way out. She raised the Crow for three meters and shot at the TIE pilots running towards their ships. One managed to lift off one TIE while the Crow needed time to stabilize. While the TIE pilot missed his shot, Jan's detonated the enemy vessel, and proceeded with the other pursuit craft, before heading west to the research complex. The same patrolcraft that contacted "Dan Drexel" earlier, X-Ray 291, ordered the Crow to reverse and circled around the ship shooting, but the TIE was also shot down by the belly cannon.

Around that time a makeshift bomb planted by Ors had detonated at the northern perimeter of the complex, attracting the attention of some Imperial forces and the Crow exited a ravine, locking on an AT-ST; the Crow received some hits but soon the walker's command module exploded, and the legs fell on a scout car, while Ors concentrated against the command car before Major Horst had time to order a retreat. The Crow arrived on the rooftop courtyard some time after Kyle reached it holding the memory matrix with the Death Star plans, and covered him with cannon fire against his pursuers, as he hurled himself onto the ramp. The Crow left Danuta's atmosphere in hypersonic speed, and returned to the Rebel base.

Despite his initial reservations for the ship, Kyle would grow attached to it during his career as a mercenary, and one reason would be its name: he also considered himself a bird estranged from his flock. He would utilize it later in his mission to discover and then destroy the Dark Trooper Project. More often than not, though, it was Ors, Kyle's partner and mission coordinator, who piloted the ship for pick-up and drop-off. The Crow travelled to Talay after some massacre, where it left Katarn near Tak Base, to discover the existence of the battle droids. Following the leads, the Crow travelled to Anoat where Katarn captured Moff Rebus for interrogation by the Alliance. Further investigation led the Crow to Fest, Gromas, Orinackra, Cal-Seti and Anteevy.

The Crow over Nar Shaddaa

The ship travelled to Nar Shaddaa to disrupt smuggling operations and discover the location of the Arc Hammer; however as they lifted from the Smuggler's Moon, the Crow was near-immediately snared in the tractor beams of the luxury yacht Star Jewel, the personal craft of the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. As it turned out, it was Jabba's smugglers that had been helping the Empire make the necessary trips to deliver the materials that the Dark Trooper Project needed across the galaxy. Ors was held captive and Katarn was almost executed if it weren't for his fighting and combating skills, who eventually retrieved his gear, rescued Ors and the pair found their way back to the Crow. Then they went to Coruscant where Ors was involved in an orbital skirmish against TIEs, before finally dropping Kyle off to Ergo.

The pair continued to work for the rest of the civil war. Sometime after the Battle of Endor Katarn left the Rebellion to return to Nar Shaddaa for some unspecified errand, and Ors travelled there with the Crow to find him. Kyle had fell on a platform with a TIE bomber of the Imperial Remnant about to shoot at him if not for Ors's firing. Kyle refused to board and they agreed to meet again at the top after he finished his task.

Destruction

The Crow was later captured on Ruusan by Jerec's forces and held onboard the Sulon Star during Kyle's and Jan's mission on the planet. When the Star's support systems were damaged, Kyle managed to reach his ship in the hangar and escape the disaster. However, the shockwave of the larger ship's explosion was too strong, and the Crow crashed near the Valley of the Jedi. She was soon replaced by Kyle's new ship, the Raven's Claw.

Behind the scenes

An early design of the Crow.

In early production of the game, the ship was named simply Crow and was intended to be a Baudo-class star yacht. Also, it was not a 3-D polygonal object, but a two-dimensional bitmap sprite rendered from different view angles.

In the alternate dark side ending of Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, the Moldy Crow was not destroyed. Instead, Kyle managed to avoid the rocks and successfully landed the ship. It was last seen right before his rematch with Yun.

Kyle Katarn's first meeting with the Crow appears in the novel Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire and its audio drama but the way Kyle reacts is different; whereas in the novel he is allowed to choose between a number of ships and eventually prefers the Crow over others, in the audio drama he is assigned the Crow without any option, expressing his dislike for it and saying that "it is not even a ship".

Appearances

• Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire / audio drama
• Star Wars: Dark Forces (First appearance)
• Dark Forces: Rebel Agent / audio drama
• Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
• Dark Forces: Jedi Knight / audio drama

Sources

• "Revving Up the 'Jedi Engine'" – Star Wars Galaxy Magazine 1
• "Game Room: Playing with the Dark Side" – Star Wars Galaxy Magazine 8 (Picture only)