Ambush on the Vulture ' s Claw / Legends The Ambush on the " Vulture ' s Claw " took place in 22 BBY , the opening year of the Clone Wars , when Jedi General Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan , Ahsoka Tano , attempted to recover the astromech droid R2 - D2 . The astromech droid had gone missing during the previous Battle of Bothawui , so Skywalker and Tano set out aboard the freighter " Twilight " and ventured to the droid ' s last known location : Bothawui Prime ' s asteroid belt . While scouring the asteroid belt , they happened upon the scavenger Gha Nachkt ' s salvage ship , the " Vulture ' s Claw " , and boarded it disguised as peasant customers . Nachkt showed the Jedi to his wares , but after Skywalker ' s replacement astromech droid , R3 - S6 — who was secretly a spy for General Grievous of the Confederacy of Independent Systems — activated a pair of IG - 86 sentinel droids within the cargo hold , Skywalker and Tano were forced into combat with the deadly assassin droids . After dismantling their assailants , the Jedi left the " Vulture ' s Claw " empty - handed , remaining unaware that Nachkt had salvaged R2 - D2 and promised the droid to Grievous . Prelude . In 22 BBY , the first year of the Clone Wars , Jedi General Anakin Skywalker marshaled a Republic Navy fleet in defense of the strategic planet Bothawui , which was being targeted by General Grievous of the Confederacy of Independent Systems . In the ensuing Battle of Bothawui , Grievous ' s Confederate Navy flotilla suffered critical losses , prompting the cyborg general to flee from the battlefield with Skywalker in hot pursuit . However , shrapnel spawned by the disintegrating Confederate frigates wrecked Skywalker ' s Delta - 7B interceptor , which consequently veered into the asteroid belt of the gas giant Bothawui Prime . Although Clone Captain CT - 7567 , nicknamed " Rex , " rescued Skywalker from the asteroids , he was unable to save Skywalker ' s astromech droid , R2 - D2 . Skywalker had developed an attachment to R2 - D2 and , as a result , had never wiped the droid ' s memory , which was thus full of classified Republic Military data . When High Jedi General Obi - Wan Kenobi learned of Skywalker ' s dilemma , he ordered him and his Padawan , Commander Ahsoka Tano , to find and retrieve R2 - D2 , as the information within his databanks would prove fatal to the Republic if it fell into Confederate hands . As Skywalker and Tano prepared to depart from their flagship , the " Venator " - class Star Destroyer " Resolute " , aboard Skywalker ' s personal freighter , the " Twilight " , they were issued a replacement droid : R3 - S6 , an R3 - series astromech droid with more powerful capabilities than R2 - D2 ' s model . However , both Jedi were unaware that R3 - S6 was a spy and enemy agent working for Grievous , intent on removing Skywalker as an obstacle for the cyborg general . Also unbeknownst to the Jedi , the scavenger Gha Nachkt salvaged R2 - D2 from the asteroid belt and offered the droid to Grievous , who in return promised Nachkt a number of credits . Nachkt concealed R2 - D2 in a cockpit compartment aboard his GS - 100 salvage ship , the " Vulture ' s Claw " . Weaving through the battlefield debris amidst Bothawui Prime ' s asteroids , Skywalker and Tano spotted the former ' s Delta - 7B interceptor . Yet the starfighter ' s astromech socket was empty , and though Skywalker believed that R2 - D2 had escaped , Tano failed to locate the droid on the " Twilight " scanners . They caught sight of the " Vulture ' s Claw " and decided to board the vessel to see if the scavenger had recovered R2 - D2 . After docking with the " Vulture ' s Claw " , Skywalker and Tano donned simple robes to disguise themselves as peasants , then boarded the craft with R3 - S6 . Upon greeting his new customers , Nachkt lied and told them that he had not picked up any R2 units for a long time , as war shortages had made the R - series scarce . When Skywalker flashed a handful of shiny credits , the greedy Nachkt amended his statement with a smile and told the disguised Jedi that there might be an R2 unit buried in the depths of his cargo hold . He allowed Skywalker , Tano , and R3 - S6 to browse through his wares there , warning them to be careful of his " unique items " before leaving . The ambush . After a short time , Tano found the unique items of which Nachkt had spoken : a pair of deadly but inactive IG - 86 sentinel droids , which were connected to the ship ' s systems via cables . As they continued to peruse Nachkt ' s inventory , Skywalker ordered R3 - S6 to access the ship ' s cargo manifest to see if any droids matching R2 - D2 ' s description were logged . Suddenly , they heard a sound that Skywalker concluded was R2 - D2 ' s trademark whistle , and he bolted over to a nearby blast door from which the sound had originated . Although Tano was skeptical of whether it had been R2 - D2 , Skywalker told R3 - S6 to open the door , but the astromech droid instead flashed on the cargo hold ' s lights . Exasperated with R3 - S6 ' s apparent ineptitude , Skywalker activated his lightsaber and began to cut through the door himself . At that moment , R3 - S6 switched on the dormant IG - 86 sentinel droids , one of which grabbed Tano from behind . On hearing his Padawan ' s cry of surprise , Skywalker came to her aid , slicing off the arm of the assassin droid holding Tano and then using the Force to telekinetically push both droids into a pile of crates . Tano told R3 - S6 to shut down the assassin droids , but before R3 - S6 could do so , the two droids released themselves from the ship ' s cables . As the sentinel droids targeted the Jedi with their E - 5 blaster rifles , Skywalker and Tano deflected the oncoming blasterfire with their lightsabers , though their agile adversaries summarily launched themselves onto the adjacent shelves . Skywalker and Tano soon managed to knock them back to ground level , but Tano ' s one - armed opponent shoved a crate in her direction , pinning her against the shelf behind her . Before the sentinel droid could incapacitate Skywalker from behind , Tano jumped to her Master ' s aid , cleanly slicing the droid in half with her lightsaber . Skywalker took care of the second assassin droid , beheading it with a single lightsaber strike . Aftermath . Following the ambush , Skywalker rounded on R3 - S6 , criticizing the astromech droid ' s deficiency ; R3 - S6 responded by finally opening the nearby blast door . In the room on the other side was a surprised Nachkt . Activating his lightsaber , Skywalker threateningly questioned the scavenger regarding the whereabouts of R2 - D2 , but Tano convinced her Master that the missing droid was not aboard the " Vulture ' s Claw " . Still irate , Skywalker shoved past Nachkt , and Tano and R3 - S6 followed him back onto the " Twilight " . Before the Jedi detached from his ship , Nachkt called after them that they owed him for the mess — the butchered sentinel droids — that they had left behind . Shortly thereafter , Nackht holograph ically contacted Grievous and informed him that he was en route to rendezvous with him and deliver R2 - D2 . Although Nachkt attempted to negotiate a higher payment since R2 - D2 was obviously valuable to the Jedi , he acquiesced when Grievous did not respond positively to his haggling . Meanwhile , after hearing Skywalker ' s report of his failure to find R2 - D2 , Kenobi told him that they had to assume the droid had been destroyed in the explosion that had claimed Skywalker ' s starfighter . Skywalker then contacted Jedi Masters Yoda and Mace Windu of the Jedi High Council and declared R2 - D2 officially lost in action . Believing that his fleet of Star Destroyers — including the " Resolute " — could use some modifications , Skywalker took them back to the shipyards where they had been constructed to refit them . Eventually , Kenobi contacted Skywalker to relay his next assignment . Republic intelligence had confirmed the existence of a Confederate listening post , and Skywalker and Tano were to find and destroy it before it could intercept further Republic transmissions . Skywalker decided to personally scour the outer corridors of space that was suspected of Separatist activity , while Tano and Captain Rex maintained a more central path with the " Resolute " and the remainder of their forces . Once his starfighter had been retrieved and repaired , Skywalker departed on his new mission with R3 - S6 . Behind the scenes . The Ambush on the " Vulture ' s Claw " was created as part of the storyline of " Downfall of a Droid , " an episode in the of the . The episode aired on November 7 , 2008 . Besides being mentioned in various supplementary material for the series , the event was made into a Hasbro Battle Pack entitled Ambush on the " Vulture ' s Claw " , which provided the event with a name . The December 2008 novel " " , which made reference to Skywalker ' s unsuccessful search for R2 - D2 , introduced some continuity problems surrounding the event . The novel stated that after their unsuccessful search , Skywalker and Tano returned to the Allanteen Six shipyards , and they embarked on their sweeps of suspected Confederate space at the end of the book . This contradicted the events of the episode , in which the Ambush on the " Vulture ' s Claw " was immediately followed by Skywalker ' s mission to suspected Confederate space . Furthermore , the novel erroneously stated that R3 - S6 was not assigned to Skywalker until after his fruitless search for R2 - D2 , even though R3 - S6 had already been issued to Skywalker prior to the episode ' s events aboard the " Vulture ' s Claw " . This article assumes that the novel ' s interpretation of events is correct aside from the chronology error regarding R3 - S6 ' s issuance to Skywalker .