He was quite good at any number of things, most of them illegal, and all of them virtual prerequisites to becoming a smuggler. He could perhaps have gotten an honest job working for the Empire, but he was always opposed to that lot. He hated the Empire, and for a time considered joining the Rebellion. But for many years, they didn't seem to stand much of a chance. It wasn't that Avon was afraid to risk his life for a good cause... he just didn't see the sense in risking his life for a hopeless cause.

Besides, he was more intrigued by a famous Corellian, Han Solo, as well as other smugglers. And so at age 22, he bought himself a ship. It was actually a YT-1300, but after making some modifications, he dubbed it a YT-1302. It had already been through a few modifications by its previous owner, but over the years, Jakkar would actually come to make quite a few of his own. The first things he did when he bought it were to thoroughly redesign the drive section, extend the forward mandibles slightly, and move the cockpit. He renamed the ship the Century Bat. (This was a pun based on the name of Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon; Jakkar knew it was a bad pun, but he didn't really care.) Aside from the original cosmetic changes, his later improvements would be more functional....

He never had a regular copilot early on. Over the first two years he owned the Century Bat, he tried out a number of possible partners, most of whom he parted with amicably after short periods. Some others not so amicably. But two years after he bought the Bat, he decided to buy himself a droid, (E-3PO or Feddy Bettamekka, depending on story continuity; see century bat crew), and they would have many adventures together after that...

Like most other smugglers, Jakkar occasionally worked for Jabba the Hutt. He never much liked Jabba, and he only took jobs for him when he was rather desperate. He managed to get by, though. At least he never upset the Hutt. Still, business eventually started to get rather scarce, especially for those who stuck to certain principles, as Jakkar tended to do.

Finally, he was beginning to think about just giving up. But then something surprising happened: Jabba was killed. And suddenly every criminal in the galaxy was trying to get a piece of his empire. New alliances were made, some were broken, some people were killed, some got rich...the entire fringe was in chaos.

But it did seem, eventually, that the best group to join was that of Talon Karrde. 'Talon, is it? Well, then there's meaning for the necklace, finally,' thought Jakkar to himself. So he joined the organization, bringing his droid and ship with him. After that, he studied practically everything Karrde or any of Karrde's top people ever did. Jakkar got to know and quite like most of the people working for Karrde. And he felt great loyalty and respect for the man, as well. Over the next two years, the crew of the Century Bat expanded to include an Alderaanian first mate named Tripp Tellureth, a Twi'lek medic named Becca Fonta, and a Jawa mechanic who went by the nickname "Pleep."

Four years after Jakkar had joined Karrde's smuggling group, and despite Karrde's best efforts, the organization became hopelessly enmeshed in the Rebellion. Karrde formed the Smugglers' Alliance, which was allied with the New Republic. Jakkar, of course, was ecstatic about this development, though he did his best to hide his feelings from Karrde, who he thought would have somewhat disapproved....

It was several months after that when a Mon Calamari slicer named Krika joined the crew of the Bat, and another few months later, Mara Jade (now effectively in control of Karrde's organization, after Karrde retired), sent the Bat on a mission to investigate rumors of ships disappearing in an area just outside the galaxy. In the course of this investigation, the Century Bat inadvertently stumbled through a wormhole into another galaxy. They later discovered that the wormhole was temporally unstable, so they dared not attempt to use it to return home. They knew that they had travelled hundreds of years into the future, but the return trip might have plunged them into any point in their own galaxy's history or future. And so, they made some new friends and contacts, and tried to make a life for themselves in the Milky Way galaxy's late 24th century... (Thus begins the Star Trek crossover story.)