Sand Blasted Sand Blasted is a short comic featured in " Star Wars Tales # 4 " . The story is perhaps most notable for briefly expanding on the dark trooper assault on Talay , as seen in " " . It was reprinted in " Star Wars Tales Volume 1 " and " " . Plot summary . Darth Vader and General Rom Mohc are testing out the dark trooper project on Rebels in the Tak Base on Talay . One Rebel ship ( the " Grey Damsel " ) is in a position to escape and the Commander of Tak Base tells the ship ' s crew to flee and tell the rest of the Rebel Alliance about the new threat . The ship escapes the planet and is about to head into hyperspace when something blasts through the door to the bridge . Quickly realizing their weapons are useless against the attacker , Captain Bok screams for the jump to hyperspace to be aborted . It is too late , however , and the ship makes the jump into hyperspace . All hands aboard are killed . Upon exiting hyperspace the ship suffers engine failure and crashes into the Tatooine deserts . Three years later , Big Gizz , Spiker and the cowardly Onoh are camped out under the Tatooine night sky . A loud rumbling awakens Onoh and Spiker , who jumps aboard his swoop . Gizz is also awakened by the rumbling but is too disoriented and slow to get to his swoop before a convoy of sandcrawlers crushes it . Luckily a quick thinking Spiker flies in and whisks Gizz out of the way of being crushed as well . Infuriated that the Jawas driving the sandcrawlers didn ' t stop and that he had to sell his blaster to buy the swoop , Gizz swears that the Jawas will pay . He stops ranting when he realizes the sandcrawlers are going to drive off the cliff and into the abandoned Podracing track . On his swoop , Spiker is the fastest to make it down to the sandcrawlers and realizes that the " ' Crawler ' s still goin ' " and that it will " overheat fast ! " As Gizz heads towards a door on the sandcrawler he notices some blasters burns on the outside of the ' crawler . Spiker suggests that the blaster burns are patterned like those of an Imperial AT - AT walker . Gizz doesn ' t care and rips off the door so he can grab a Jawa by the hood and threaten it . After Gizz throws the squealing creature to the ground , the Jawa tells of a " Monster Droid " of the " ugly white clan of the sky . Suddenly Spiker notices a droid fall out of one of the sandcrawlers . Onoh screams in fear that it is an " Imperial battle droid ! " but Gizz looks at it and dismisses it as an IG - 97 droid which " ain ' t scary . " Gizz also refers to the fact that the Galactic Empire never made any Battle Droids ( and therefore it should not have been referred to as " Imperial " ) Just then an explosion blows a hole in the side of one of the sandcrawlers . The Jawa ( called Klepti B ' ay ) screams with fear as the dark trooper , he was referring to earlier , walks out of hole . The dark trooper flies at the group scattering them and attempts to blast Gizz , Onoh and Klepti with a rocket . Luckily Spiker shoots the dark trooper in the back sending the missile off target . Spiker yells at Gizz to distract the trooper , who punches Klepti and takes his blaster . Spiker then ties up the trooper with a tow cable . While the dark trooper is incapacitated by the cable , the IG - 97 droid stands up and takes a few shots at the Trooper . Gizz also takes a few shots at it , but Spiker yells " Don ' t waste your time Gizz . That wreck is gonna blow sky high ! Time to ride ! " Then the dark trooper snaps the tow cables and frees itself , but the IG - 97 still firing at the trooper shoots its hand causing the trooper to drop its blaster . As Gizz chuckles in approval of the IG - 97 ' s actions , Spiker flies down and retrieves the blaster seconds before the dark trooper reaches its location . The dark trooper realizes Spiker has its blaster and grabs the back of Spiker ' s swoop , attempting to throw him off . Spiker manages to stay on the front of the swoop , however the blaster is too heavy for him to use against the dark trooper and the droid takes it from him . Spiker , realizing that the dark trooper is about to kill him , cuts the thrusters of the swoop . This causes the dark trooper who was previously holding it steady , to fly backwards with the swoop . Spiker jumps off the swoop and falls awkwardly to the ground . The dark trooper throws the swoop aside effortlessly and heads towards the pair , aiming its weapon . Luckily a sudden avalanche crushes the trooper . Looking at the source , it seems that Onoh and Klepti " ain ' t so useless either ! " Unfortunately the rock fall is only a temporary solution and the dark trooper emerges once again , chasing Gizz and Spiker away from the sandcrawler ' s wreck , which suddenly explodes engulfing the dark trooper . Gizz and Spiker awaken after the explosion to the sounds of Klepti talking to Onoh . They are carrying Spiker ' s helmet and after giving it to him , Onoh explains that Klepti now thinks of the group as his tribe . As they look down at the slowly diminishing remains of the explosion , a figure begins to emerge . Fortunately it is the IG - 97 droid and there is nothing to worry about . Big Gizz grabs the droid by the arm and begins dragging it away . Klepti suggests selling the droid as the amount he could get might be pleasantly surprising . Meanwhile a falling rock hits an old pit droid on the eye , awakening it . The droid heads immediately to another pit droid , which it awakens . They then begin to carry out their programming ; picking up the pieces of the destroyed Dark Trooper to rebuild it .