Attack on an unidentified pirate base During the Galactic Civil War , not long after the Battle of Yavin , a robotic CR90 corvette belonging to pirate s — who were funded by the Crymorah syndicate — attacked an Imperial shuttle carrying Imperial weapons . The Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader , stopped the corvette . Soon after , Grand General Cassio Tagge sent Vader aboard the captured pirate ship to attack the pirate ' s base , and to learn the larger organization behind the constant raids — after assigning Lieutenant Oon - ai to serve as a Tagge ' s spy to Vader . Once at the base , Vader , Oon - ai , and six stormtrooper s quickly killed all the resistance , including a pair of customized droideka s , while a black astromech droid planted false evidence in the station ' s computer incriminating Oon - ai as a traitor . Vader , with Oon - ai in tow , went farther into the station to retrieve the evidence as the station self - destructed around them . After obtaining the information , they boarded the corvette as the station exploded entirely . The strike team returned to the " Annihilator " where Vader claimed Oon - ai was a traitor and that the Crymorah Syndicate had been backing the pirates . Later , Vader located Aphra , the archaeologist who had provided the pirates with the droidekas , and enlisted her services for a secret mission . Prelude . During the Galactic Civil War between the Galactic Empire and the Alliance to Restore the Republic , Luke Skywalker of the Rebel Alliance managed to destroy the Empire ' s greatest weapon : the planet - destroying Death Star battle station . With the Death Star gone , the Empire had become weaker than Emperor Palpatine had ever imagined it would ; so he was forced to deal with the Outer Rim crime lord Jabba the Hutt . Jabba sent an envoy to Cymoon 1 to negotiate the terms , however the Rebel Alliance had recently launched a galaxy - wide campaign to take advantage of their victory at Yavin . A team led by Leia Organa intercepted and posed as the Hutt ' s envoy , and assaulted Weapons Factory Alpha . Vader fought against the attackers , but failed to stop them before Skywalker succeeded in their task , and blew up the factory ' s power core ; causing the entire facility to explode . Vader , now in an even worse position with his master for losing the Death Star and Weapons Factory Alpha , was ordered to continue the negotiations with Jabba on Vader ' s homeworld of Tatooine . The Empire ' s terms were ultimately agreed upon , and Jabba became a supplier for the Empire . Not long after , Vader , now under the command of Grand General Cassio Tagge , were working to stop pirate s and other lawless beings who took advantage of the Empire ' s disarray , with neither the Imperial Senate or the Death Star holding order , they pillaged and plundered Imperial ships and equipment at a much higher rate than was classified as normal . One such group was funded by the Crymorah syndicate , and enacted several raids using a robotic CR90 corvette . Vader and Tagge soon tracked down the pirate ship when it attacked CZ - 246 , a " Lambda " - class T - 4a shuttle carrying recently supplied weapons from Jabba ' s enterprise . The corvette soon disabled the shuttle ' s engine s , however the pilot of the shuttle blew themselves up to prevent the pirates from gaining the Empire ' s property . The robotic corvette began to flee , but Vader arrived in his TIE Advanced starfighter and quickly blew up the corvette ' s engine block , ending the skirmish . Soon thereafter , Vader returned to report to Tagge aboard his " Executor " - class Star Dreadnought " Annihilator " . The pirate ship was put into a hanger where it was repaired well enough to pass a cursory exam . Then Tagge conceived a plan to send Vader , their greatest warrior , to trace the pirates to their home base using the captured corvette , and learn the larger organization behind the raids , before assigning an Adjutant to Vader who would serve as Tagge ' s spy . Vader was unhappy with the situation but obeyed in respect for the Emperor . However , he planted incriminating evidence into a black astromech droid that would identify Adjutant Oon - ai as a traitor . Soon , Vader , Oon - ai and a squad of six stormtrooper s set out aboard the corvette and located the pirate ' s base of operations ; a space station on the extreme edge of the Outer Rim . The attack . The pirates , a Twi ' lek , a Mon Calamari , and a Sullustan , noticed the return of their corvette and prepared to unload the contraband and begin repairs on it . However , the Twi ' lek was killed by Vader when the Twi ' lek was instead met by Vader ' s strike team . The astromech droid went outside of the station ' s airlock and made its way to the command center where it planted the information that would convict Oon - ai of treason . The other two pirates realized they were outmatched , so they released a pair of customized droideka security droid s sporting missile launcher s to repel the boarders . The droidekas killed four troopers before Vader , at Oon - ai ' s urging , used the Force to throw a pair of missile s back at the droidekas and pirates — killing them all . Except for the Mon Calamari , who activated the station ' s self - destruct as he lay , dying . The station went to red - light , and Vader ordered the surviving stormtroopers to return to the corvette and prepare it for launch . The troopers obediently did so while Vader went to the station ' s command center to retrieve the computer records , and the " evidence " the droid had planted — much to Oon - ai ' s dismay , as he was to follow per his orders from Tagge . Vader ordered the Lieutenant not to abandon his orders while Vader retrieved the information from the computer console . He finished and he casually strode to the awaiting corvette as the station exploded around them . The corvette blasted away as the pirate ' s base exploded entirely . Oon - ai was surprised they had survived the ordeal , Vader was not and told them they would immediately report their findings to Tagge . Aftermath . Vader then killed Oon - ai to finish his plan of using the attack to rid himself of Tagge ' s spy , and send a message of who was really in control to Tagge . And once back on the " Annihilator " , Vader reported to the Grand General , telling him he had been impressed with the results of Tagge ' s plan : the intelligence he had gathered from the pirate ' s computer confirmed the raiders had been backed by the Crymorah syndicate . Vader also claimed Oon - ai was a traitor , and that he had used his closeness to Tagge to achieve his ends . Vader then went to the black astromech droid and insured it had deleted all records of its data upload to the pirate station . It then ejected itself into space and exploded , leaving Vader to lament how only droids were truly trustworthy and loyal . Soon thereafter , Vader learned from the information obtained from the pirate base ' s computer , that the droidekas the pirates had utilized had been supplied by a rogue archaeologist , Doctor Aphra . Vader had been impressed by the customized droids , and wished to have some in his personal service to use against his enemies and on private missions . So he left the " Annihilator " to search for the Doctor . He searched many worlds , and killed many witnesses before learning that Aphra was on Quarantine World III in Kallidahin Space . Vader arrived on the quarantined asteroid and saved her from imprisonment and told her of his plight . She was a " fan " of the Dark Lord ' s , and agreed to help him secure his own army of unquestionably loyal battle droid s on the old warzone of Geonosis . Behind the scenes . The Attack on an unidentified pirate base first appeared in the Marvel comic book series of their ; it was released on February 25 , 2015 . It was written by Kieron Gillen , with art by Salvador Larroca . Gillen has been working alongside the Lucasfilm Story Group to develop the story and events of the ongoing comic series .