Tanbris Tanbris was a male Human who served Palpatine ' s Galactic Empire at the time of the Galactic Civil War . A capable TIE Fighter pilot , he reached the rank of lieutenant , but was grounded after an injury . By 0 BBY , Tanbris was a tactical officer aboard the first Death Star as part of Darth Vader ' s personal crew . He was killed that same year when the Death Star was destroyed by Luke Skywalker , a pilot of the Rebel Alliance . Biography . A Human male , Tanbris joined the Imperial Military , the armed forces of Emperor Palpatine ' s New Order , in which he became a TIE / LN starfighter pilot and attained the rank of lieutenant . At some point during his Imperial service , Tanbris came to work with Thul Fain , who later left the Empire and became a smuggler for the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure . Tanbris ' promising career as a fighter pilot was ruined when he was injured . Following the accident , he was grounded and got reoriented , becoming a tactical officer . By the year 0 BBY , Lieutenant Tanbris served aboard the first Death Star , a deep - space mobile battlestation built by the Empire to destroy entire worlds with a single superlaser shot . He was made a crew officer of the Emperor ' s right - hand man Darth Vader , answering directly to his orders . When the Rebel Alliance launched an attack on the station , Tanbris rushed to Darth Vader in the corridor of the Death Star ' s command center , informing him that the enemy ships were too small to be shot down by the meridian trench ' s turbolaser towers . After being so ordered by Vader , the lieutenant had Black Squadron , a unit of elite fliers , get to their fighters so they could shoot the Rebels one by one . A few moments later , the Rebel pilot Luke Skywalker fired proton torpedoes in the the trench ' s exhaut vent , triggering a chain reaction that propagated to the Death Star ' s core . The battlestation exploded , and Tanbris was among those killed from the explosion . Personality and traits . Throughout his military career , Tanbris had emerged as a capable pilot and skilled officer . He had brown hair and blue eyes . Equipment . While serving aboard the Death Star , Tanbris wore the black variant of the Imperial officer ' s uniform . Behind the scenes . Tanbris first appeared in , the first movie of the " Star Wars " original trilogy . Although he was not credited , stuntman Andy Bradford played the character according to the fan website Dahoov ' s Autograph Collecting . The lieutenant went unnamed in the film itself and was referred to as one Vader ' s " astro - officers " in the script . Tanbris was first identified in the " Premiere Limited " set of the " Star Wars " Customizable Card Game . Tanbris was present in most adaptations of " Star Wars Episode IV " , including the 1977 — in which he was referred to as a " a harried Commander " — and Marvel , as well as the 1997 by Dark Horse Comics . In the 1977 comic book , the lieutenant was depicted with blond hair and wearing an olive green tunic with a tan officer cap . A string in " " has TEXT _ UNIT _ TIE _ TANBRIS as the string ' s name , with TIE Advanced X - 2 as the data in the string ; however no unit uses this string , and there is no TEXT _ TOOLTIP string to go with it as its description as there is for all other units . This suggests that Tanbris was to pilot a TIE Advanced x2 starfighter in the game , but was canceled early on , and its name string was left in . In 2008 , Tanbris received his own entry in " The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia " . He was also mentioned in Thul Fain ' s entry , although oddly misspelled as " Trabinis . "