Janks was a male Phindian who served as a crew member on the smuggling vessel known as the Uhumele following the Clone Wars. On the ship he served as an assistant to the chief engineer, a Tintinna named Meekerdin-maa, and also cooked for the crew. In 19 BBY a month after the Declaration of a New Order by Galactic Emperor Palpatine, Janks and his crewmates were trapped on the planet of New Plympto due to an Imperial quarantine. While stuck, the group were joined by Jedi General Dass Jennir and a local Nosaurian, Bomo Greenbark. With the pair's aid, the Uhumele escaped from New Plympto, after which Janks and the crew agreed to help Greenbark find his enslaved family. First traveling to the slave-world of Orvax IV, they learned that Greenbark's wife was dead but that his daughter, Resa, had b