Spiker Spiker was a Chiss mercenary and a member of Big Gizz ' s swoop gang , working for Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine . One of few Chiss to ever leave the Unknown Regions during the time of the Empire , none knew of his heritage , not even Spiker himself . Several years before the Battle of Yavin , he became an undercover agent in Jabba the Hutt ' s swoop gang , spying on the gang ' s leader , Big Gizz , for Jabba , while severely downplaying his intelligence . For his efforts , Spiker was rewarded with a suit of uniquely spiked armor from Jabba , from which he earned his nickname . Spiker worked with Gizz for several years , and his deception was never discovered ; together with the rest of the gang , he intimidated Jabba ' s clients and customers into repaying their debts , and earned a reputation for surviving extremely dangerous maneuvers . In 3 ABY , the gang took on a new member , Jix , who was in truth an agent of Lord Darth Vader . Jix attacked Gizz , and later lied to Spiker , claiming that Gizz had been killed in a collision . Jix left Spiker to die after his swoop bike exploded several days later in a chase for Boba Fett . Spiker survived , and was healed by members of the B ' omarr Order ; he was also reunited with Gizz , and the two hatched a plan to commandeer a secret ship of Jabba ' s in Glass Mountain . Their plan went awry when Gorga the Hutt also attempted to claim the ship , and they ultimately came away from the adventure with nothing , save for a straggling Lizling named Onoh . During their travels , the trio were attacked by a rogue Imperial dark trooper , though they managed to survive , barely . After that , Spiker and Gizz were believed to have disappeared . Biography . Early life . The being who eventually became known as " Spiker " was a male Chiss hailing from the Unknown Regions , though he knew nothing of his origins . Although no one knew exactly how , he ended up in the Outer Rim Territories some time after the rise of the Galactic Empire . He was one of extremely few Chiss who had ventured beyond Chiss Space in over a century . Working for Jabba . He eventually found himself in the employ of Jabba Desilijic Tiure , an influential Hutt crime lord on the planet Tatooine . Jabba paid a swoop gang , led by " Big Gizz , " to run various errands for him , though he was not entirely trustful of Gizz and sought to infiltrate another , more loyal biker into the gang to ensure that Gizz was following his orders . Jabba ' s Chiss recruit had a lust for death - defying feats of bravery , so a position in Gizz ' s swoop gang suited him perfectly . Jabba had made for him a suit of spiked red armor , complete with a helmet that would obscure his identity , to protect him while he was using his swoop bike and to stop any attempts Gizz might make to kill the Chiss should he discover he was a spy for Jabba . The suit spawned the nickname " Spiker " because of its spikes , and the Chiss was known by his nickname for the rest of his life . Spiker joined Gizz ' s troupe of bikers , acting as a fear monger and debt collector for Jabba ; he demonstrated a keen grasp of tactics and strategy , and he eventually became Gizz ' s lieutenant . Everyone who met Spiker thought him dim - witted and slightly insane ; he laughed manically at Gizz ' s jokes , often picked fights with spacers in Mos Eisley — Tatooine ' s capital city — who were far bigger than he was , and had a penchant for high - risk maneuvers , often coming out of them with grievous injuries . However , this was all an act drawn up by Jabba and Spiker to ensure that no one suspected his true motives , and while his outward persona was seen to worship Gizz , inwardly he hated the other biker . Spiker reported back to Jabba on all of the swoopers ' activities , informing him when Gizz attempted to siphon off extra funds . Spiker was perceived as a bully by many of his subordinate bikers , such as Vol Hamame . Hamame eventually left the gang after a rift with other members to find work with a criminal named Phedroi . Several years before the Battle of Yavin , Spiker was running an errand on Coruscant . Some time later , Spiker , Gizz , and several other bikers traveled to Mos Eisley to collect a sum of money owed to Jabba by Twi ' lek smuggler Whizzer . They found and cornered Whizzer , though he did not have the money ; he told them that he would pay off his debt in a week or so . Gizz was not satisfied , and ordered Spiker to kill Whizzer with his hands . Spiker knew that a crate alongside the Twi ' lek was likely filled with spice , so rather than killing him , he suggested that Gizz allow Whizzer an extension on his debt in exchange for some of the drug , in an effort to goad Gizz into defying Jabba ' s orders . Whizzer agreed and gave the swoopers some of the spice , though they returned to collect his money several days later . Later , around 0 ABY , Spiker , Gizz , and another biker named Twitch searched the old home of the late Jedi Master Obi - Wan Kenobi for anything of value . The swoop gang was due to return to Jabba ' s Palace , but decided to visit Chalmun ' s Cantina in Mos Eisley first . En route , they were ambushed by a group of droids led by 12 - 4C - 41 , who wished to learn the location of Jabba ' s fortress . Spiker and the others were able to escape , and fearing that the droids planned to kill their Hutt employer , they fled toward Jabba ' s Palace to warn him . 12 - 4C - 41 captured one of Spiker ' s fellow riders , though the swoop gang managed to send a message to Jabba ' s Palace of the incoming barge the droids were using to travel to the desert citadel . Jabba was pleased with his bikers for their warning , though they neglected to tell him they had discovered that the droids had not been after Jabba , but his torture - droid , EV - 9D9 . Hunting Luke Skywalker . In 3 ABY , while terrorizing the citizen ' s of Mos Eisley , Spiker was attacked by a Human on a swoop bike ; he was sent sprawling to the ground , and he and Gizz furiously announced the Human ' s death . Before Gizz could pull the trigger of his blaster , Spiker ' s attacker identified himself as Jix . His defiant attitude impressed Gizz , who decided to take him to Jabba and induct him into the swoop gang . Spiker reluctantly agreed , though he was still angry at Jix for his attack . They arrived at Jabba ' s Palace and informed the Hutt of Jix ' s joining the group , though Jabba expended it little attention ; news had come in of a death mark placed by Black Sun on a prominent Rebel named Luke Skywalker . Skywalker had been spotted near Obi - Wan Kenobi ' s hut on Tatooine , and Jabba sent his swoop gang to the area to attempt to kill him . Confident of their prospects against the Jedi Knight - in - training , they set off toward Skywalker ' s location . They made inroads towards Kenobi ' s hut , and planned to sneak up on Skywalker and surround him . Their plans were ruined by Jix , who began firing earlier than Gizz ordered , giving Skywalker a warning and allowing him to find shelter . Using his lightsaber , Skywalker fought off several of the bikers , commandeering a swoop bike and using it to flee towards Beggar ' s Canyon . Spiker and his comrades were quick in pursuit , though Gizz and Jix were both incapacitated when their swoops collided by accident . Skywalker ' s quick maneuvering proved too much for many of Spiker ' s fellows , who crashed into rocks jutting out from the cliff face , though Spiker was able to evade any obstacles . Numerous other attempts of Skywalker ' s to throw Spiker off his bike failed ; however , with most of his comrades downed , and with the arrival of Skywalker ' s ally , Dash Rendar , on another swoop bike , Spiker decided to give up their pursuit and called a retreat . Jix had managed to survive his crash and teamed up with Spiker before they visited Jabba to explain their failure ; according to Jix , Gizz had been killed when his head was crushed by his swoop bike . They told Jabba that Skywalker was simply lucky , and that the next time they went after him , they would be successful . The Hutt was suspicious of Jix , though ; in response to one of Jabba ' s questions , the Human implied that he thought Spiker a coward for calling the retreat . Infuriated , Spiker prepared to attack the new recruit , but Jabba stepped in before things could escalate . Spiker was fortunate to escape Jabba ' s Palace with his life , though the Hutt soon recalled all of his bikers to his court : one of his trusted lieutenants had been found dead , and a secure communications relay had been broken into and used . Jabba trusted all of his other employees in the Palace , leaving one of the swoop gang as the likely culprit . Jabba ' s interrogation was cut short when his majordomo , Bib Fortuna , appeared with the news that Boba Fett — a renowned bounty hunter who was delivering the carbonite - encased body of Han Solo to Jabba — had set his ship down near the palace . Jabba did not wish to pay Fett his asking price , and tasked Spiker and Jix with intercepting the Mandalorian bounty hunter en route to the palace and retrieve Solo ' s body , offering them five thousand credits for their efforts . A horde of other bounty hunters were on Tatooine attempting to steal Solo from Fett , though Spiker was able to push them aside as he approached Fett ' s speeder bike . However , one of the bounty hunters , Bossk , fired at him and Jix , shooting the Chiss in the stomach and destroying his swoop , leaving Spiker unconscious and badly wounded . Jix survived , and put Jabba ' s code book — which had been used to access his communications replay — on Spiker ' s body in order to evade suspicion . The Jabba Tape . Although his wounds were life - threatening , Spiker made his way to the Citadel of B ' omarr , where the B ' omarr monks nursed him back to health . By the time Spiker was permitted to leave , Jabba had been killed at the Battle of the Great Pit of Carkoon , leaving him without a means to earn credits . To Spiker ' s immense surprise , Gizz arrived in his room the day he was planning to leave ; Gizz told his companion that Jix had tried to kill him , and that the Human was a spy for Darth Vader . The B ' omarr had found Gizz and replaced part of his broken skull with a metal plate ; its only downside was that it intermittently picked up comlink and other signals from nearby . The two left the B ' omarr Citadel , though Spiker was unsure exactly what they would do with no money and no one to employ them . Gizz had heard of an old storehouse of Jabba ' s in the nearby Glass Mountain , where Jabba supposedly stored a well - armed ship for escape purposes . They hatched a plan to steal the ship and become pirates in the local star systems . When they reached Glass Mountain , they found they had been beaten to the punch by a group of thugs employed by Gorga Desilijic Aarrpo , Jabba ' s nephew . The bikers made short work of the thugs , however , and rescued a Lizling named Onoh , who had been posted by Jabba to safeguard Glass Mountain several years prior . Gorga ' s men had already opened the hangar and prepared the secret ship , " Spirit of Jabba " , for take off , leaving little additional work for the swoop bikers . Onoh initially objected to their boarding the ship , though his resistance subsided when they informed him that Jabba had been killed . Spiker and Gizz found the ship to be very well - stocked and fitted with numerous weapons that they hoped would help them carve out a piece of the Outer Rim for themselves . They also decided to take Onoh on as a member of their pirate crew . One of Gorga ' s henchmen had survived and alerted the Hutt to the events , though Spiker was able to fly the ship into space and open up a good lead on Gorga ' s pursuing enforcers . However , an interactive security tape — the " Jabba Tape " — kicked in , immobilizing the ship until the security clearance code was submitted . The tape also began draining oxygen from the ship ' s bridge , and closed off all exits , estimating that they had approximately four minutes left to live . While all this was happening , one of Gorga ' s ships caught up with the would - be pirates . Gizz was able to pick up transmissions on his skull plate , telling them to surrender . The ship fired several shots at " Spirit of Jabba " , damaging it severely but also ripping apart a bulkhead and allowing Spiker , Gizz , and Onoh to escape the oxygen - deprived bridge . With the artificial gravity disabled , Spiker and Gizz could do little but float aimlessly around the bridge , and were unable to reply to Gorga ' s ship ' s transmissions and warnings , because the Jabba Tape was blocking communications . Eventually , Onoh revealed that he knew the override code , and the bikers were able to deactivate the tape and announce their surrender to Gorga ' s ship . The other vessel escorted them down toward Mos Eisley , though when Gizz ' s skull plate picked up a transmission from Gorga announcing that Spiker and his companions would be killed when they reached the surface , they decided they would not be quite so cooperative . Gizz felt they would have a decent chance of evading the other ship if they could lighten their load , so Spiker and Onoh ventured into the cargo hold and began preparing much of the ship ' s provisions to be let loose onto Gorga below . They attempted to flee in " Spirit of Jabba " , but Gorga ' s ship was able to disable them , and they crashed - landed in the desert , kilometers from the nearest settlement . The dark trooper incident . The group exited the ship , and with little other option , began their long trek back to civilization . They eventually found somewhere to acquire replacement swoops , though the times of old were no longer ; they never hooked up with the rest of the gang , and Onoh was their only follower . Some time after Gorga ' s pursuit of them , the trio were sleeping close to the Mos Espa Grand Arena , when a loud noise woke both Spiker and Onoh . A group of Jawa sandcrawlers , seemingly out of control , arrived and almost ran over the bikers and their Lizling companion . Spiker quickly mounted his bike and managed to save Gizz from being crushed by the largest sandcrawler , though Gizz ' s bike was destroyed . The bikers watched in awe as the three sandcrawlers continued to the edge of the Mos Espa Grand Arena and fell into , dropping over fifty meters . Determined to enact his revenge , Gizz led the others down to the largest sandcrawler , which was sitting on its side . They realized that the vehicle had a multitude of blaster burns covering it , which they suspected were of Imperial origin . Gizz found just one Jawa survivor , a male named Klepti B ' ay , who repeatedly told them to flee while they could . Translating from Klepti ' s Jawaese , Onoh told Spiker and Gizz that his tribe had been attacked by a " droid of kind unseen . " Surveying the area , Gizz found a deactivated IG - 97 battle droid , and , believing it to be the droid Klepti spoke of , shot at it , believing he had destroyed the IG - series droid . However , the droid the Jawas were speaking of was in fact an Imperial dark trooper that had fought against Rebel forces . It had survived on board a Rebel ship that crash - landed on Tatooine almost 3 years earlier . The dark trooper emerged from the sandcrawler and launched itself at Spiker and Gizz . Gizz , Onoh , and Klepti fled while Spiker started up his bike ; their plan worked to perfection , with the dark trooper following the three beings on foot , while Spiker was able to get behind it and fire several blaster shots at the droid . The droid shrugged off the blaster shots , though , and began its pursuit of Spiker , who had little option but to try to flee . Unable to evade the dark trooper , Spiker hatched a plan to tangle it in fiber wire connected to part of the Grand Arena , and although he was able to tie up and momentarily disable the droid , it broke free and continued its chase . Gizz and the newly reactivated IG - 97 droid began firing at the dark trooper , but their efforts were in vain ; eventually , though , the dark trooper dropped its blaster , giving Spiker an opportunity to grab it . The Chiss biker reached the heavy blaster before his opponent , but the dark trooper took hold of his swoop bike and sent Spiker sprawling . The bike landed on the dark trooper , though it once again shrugged off the damage and continued in its efforts to kill the bikers . Klepti and Onoh released a barrage of boulders from atop of one of the arena ' s stands , crushing the dark trooper , and in the explosion that followed , it was finally destroyed . The group — which Klepti , swearing a life debt to Spiker and Gizz , had joined — left , taking the ruined IG - 97 droid with them , so they could use its blaster . Spiker ' s whereabouts after these events were unknown , and he was believed to have disappeared soon after them . A document written by Tem Eliss for the University of Sanbra reported that Spiker was a Chiss , and also speculated that he may have had a learning disability . Personality and traits . Spiker was a cunning being , with a keen grasp for tactics and strategy not possessed by the majority of his peers . Despite being quite intelligent , most believed Spiker was in fact quite dim — either due to his repeated collisions or some sort of learning disability — though this was exactly as he liked it . He purposely laughed at all of Gizz ' s jokes and made himself seem unintelligent so that his true motivations would not be discovered . He was also quick to anger ; when Jix implied that he was a coward , he challenged the Human to a fight , though Jabba intervened . Spiker was extremely brave , risking his life numerous times in his career . The Chiss had a penchant for performing extremely dangerous maneuvers with his swoop , which most other bikers would not have even considered . He had a particular taste for bashing his swoop bike against walls . He looked down on Gizz and the other criminals he was associated with , believing that they were all talk and no action . Despite initially despising Gizz , Spiker actually grew to like and respect him after Jabba ' s demise . During the dark trooper incident , rather than fleeing in his swoop , he saved Gizz , Klepti , and Onoh ' s lives . Spiker barely ever took off his trademark , spiked armor , and only Gizz and a select few others had ever seen his face . Behind the scenes . Spiker was created as part of the " " multimedia campaign . First mentioned in Steve Perry ' s " Shadows of the Empire " novel , he played a more significant role in John Wagner and Kilian Plunkett ' s comic adaptation . His backstory was expanded upon in the " Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook " , by Peter M . Schweighofer , and he also appeared in two tie - in comics , " The Jabba Tape " and " Sand Blasted " , written by Wagner and Plunkett , respectively . He can also be briefly seen on Coruscant in a background panel of " First Impressions " , which was also illustrated by Plunkett . An article written by Juan Schwartz appearing in " Star Wars Gamer 5 " , " " , established that Spiker was a Chiss ; although his appearance in " The Jabba Tape " and " Sand Blasted " hinted at this , this is the only official confirmation of it . Initially , in " Shadows of the Empire " , part of Spiker ' s skin is visible through his eye holes , and is of a Human coloration . Spiker is also a playable character in " " ; in " Missions " , as well as in the " Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook " , his mask is illustrated differently to his comic appearances . At Celebration VI , author Ryder Windham suggested to Leland Chee , keeper of the Holocron continuity database , that Spiker could be an adult Kung ' urama ' nuruodo , the Chiss Jedi who was the main character of Windham ' s " " series . Chee personally supported the retcon .