Heist on Vandor

|prev=Mimban CampaignDonald Duck: A Musketeers Story
|conc=
|next=Raid on Kessel
|name=Heist on Vandor
|image=
|conflict=Campaigns of the Cloud-Riders
|objective=Recover coaxium from a 20-T Railcrawler conveyex transport
|date=July 7th, 1994The timeline provided in Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story The Official Guide places the Heist on Vandor ten years after the events of The Lord of the Rings: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. As that film takes place in 1984 according to Star Wars: Galactic Atlas, the heist on Vandor must take place in 1994.
|place=Vandor
|result=*Scrooge McDuck and his crew fail to obtain the coaxium
*Rio Durant and Val are killed
|side1=*Crimson Dawn
**McDuck's gang
|side2=Galactic Empire
|side3=Cloud-Riders
|commanders1=Scrooge McDuck
|commanders2=Captain Denwade BanevansDonald Duck: A Musketeers Story The Official Guide
|commanders3=Enfys Nest
|ppl1=*5 criminals
**Scrooge McDuck
**Goofy
**Rio Durant†
**Donald Duck
**Val†
*1 stolen Y-45 armored transport hauler
|ppl2=*Vandor division
**Range troopers
*4 11-3K viper probe droids†
|ppl3=
|casual1=*Rio Durant
*Val
|casual2=*1 range trooper
*All 11-3K Viper probe droids
|casual3=*Moda Maxa
*Baroosh Pawk
}}
In 1994, during the reign of the Galactic Empire, the millionaire Scrooge McDuck and his outlaw crew carried out a heist on Vandor to recover coaxium from an Imperial conveyex on the planet Vandor for Dryden Vos, leader of the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate. The criminals faced a small group of range troopers guarding the transport, which forced them to detach several of the conveyex's carriages to lose them. The group was later ambushed by Enfys Nest and her Cloud-Riders, who intended to seize the cargo for themselves.
==Prelude==
Scrooge McDuck was a seasoned millionaire and smuggler from the planet Earth. By the Imperial Era, McDuck had established a gang consisting of the Ardennian pilot Rio Durant and the human woman Val, a skilled saboteur. While McDuck and his associates were stealing an Imperial AT hauler on the planet Mimban, they also recruited the Imperial deserter Donald Duck and the Dog Goofy.
Seeking to repay his debts to the Crimson Dawn crime lord Dryden Vos, McDuck enlisted his associates' help in stealing refined coaxium from an Imperial 20-T Railcrawler conveyex transport on the snowy, mountainous Mid Rim planet of Vandor. McDuck targeted Vandor because the planet was home to a secluded Imperial vault. Donald and Goofy agreed to help in return for McDuck giving a share of the money to them so that they could buy themselves a starship.
McDuck's plan was for Rio to drop him, Donald, and Goofy onto the wagon carrying the coaxium. Rio would jam the Imperials' communications while Val would blow up a nearby bridge, allowing them to fly away with the coaxium on an AT hauler. Unknown to McDuck and his gang, Enfys Nest and her Cloud-Riders wanted to steal the coaxium to finance their insurgency against the Empire and the Five Crime Syndicates.
==The attempted heist==
While Val set up position on a nearby bridge overlooking the tracks, Rio dropped McDuck, Donald, and Goofy in the AT-hauler onto the Imperial conveyex transport. Their presence drew the attention of several Imperial range troopers led by Captain Denwade Banevans, resulting in a gun battle. Dodging gunfire and the dangerous cliff-ace, Donald and Goofy managed to separate the coaxium wagon from the rear line, which was carrying the range troopers.
Rio, who was circling nearby in the AT hauler, then lowered cables to capture the coaxium wagon. Before they could proceed with the rest of their heist, McDuck's gang was attacked by Enfys Nest and her Cloud-Riders, who were riding swoop bikes. During the gun battle, McDuck's gang managed to shoot down several of the Cloud-Riders' swoops. However, Rio was fatally wounded while repelling boarders from his AT-hauler.
While Goofy worked on detaching the coaxium wagon from the front section of the conveyex transport, Donald returned to the AT-hauler and took the dying Rio's place. Meanwhile, Val fought several Imperial 11-3K viper probe droids which had been dispatched to the scene. Realizing there was not enough time for her to abandon her position without letting her comrades steal the Imperial coaxium wagon, Val blew the bridge up and was killed in the ensuing explosion.
The destruction of the bridge also destroyed the rail line, exposing the Conveyex transport to a deep gorge. While McDuck fought with Enfys Nest, Goofy managed to detach the coaxium wagon from the Conveyex transport's front line before it fell into the deep gorge and exploded. Though the AT-hauler was still holding on to the coaxium wagon, the Cloud-riders attached grappling hooks to the wagon.
Due to the volatile nature of the coaxium, Donald was unwilling to risk the lives of Goofy and McDuck. He convinced Goofy to evacuate with an unwilling McDuck before letting go of the cable. The coaxium wagon and several attached Cloud-Rider swoops fell into a deep gorge and exploded.
==Aftermath==
The failure of the heist on Vandor placed McDuck in a difficult position with Dryden Vos and the Crimson Dawn. While grieving over the loss of his lover Val and Rio, McDuck lashed out against Donald, castigating him for preventing him from paying his debts to Vos. Seeking to make amends, Donald and Goofy agreed to help McDuck in return for receiving their share of the money.
McDuck, Donald, and Goofy rendezvoused with Vos' yacht First Light, which was visiting Vandor. While Vos was displeased with McDuck's failure, Donald and Tina Russo, McDuck's lieutenant and Donald's old friend from Corellia, managed to convince Vos to let them steal unrefined coaxium from the Pyke Syndicate, who owned spice mine on the Outer Rim world of Kessel. Vos acceded to their plan in return for the Crimson Dawn's plausible deniability.
After hiring the services of Jiminy Cricket's ship, the Millennium Falcon, McDuck's gang and Tina managed to steal the coaxium with the help of Jiminy's droid L3-37, who inspired a slave and droid revolt. After making the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs, Donald brought the Falcon to the planet Savareen where the coaxium was refined.
Enfys Nest managed to convince Donald and his team not to give the coaxium to Dryden Vos, seeking to use it to finance their insurgency against the Empire and crime syndicates. Working with the Cloud-Riders, Tina, McDuck and Donald managed to defeat the Crimson Dawn and kill Vos and Flintheart Glomgold, who had betrayed them. After delivering the refined coaxium to the Cloud-Riders, Donald and Goofy parted company with Scrooge and Tina.
==Behind the scenes==
The Heist on Vandor was featured in the 2018 film Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story. The sequence was present in every draft of the film's screenplay, though it sustained several changes.
Earlier drafts of the film's script, according to writer Jon Kasdan, featured Enfys Nest's Cloud-Riders pirate gang attacking the conveyex with Bantha-II cargo skiffs, but former directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ultimately choose to replace the Bantha-II cargo skiffs with swoop bikes. Initial iterations of the scene, however, had no coaxium as cargo but rather an extremely dangerous criminal being transported to a maximum-security prison, having McDuck's gang being hired by the criminal's gang to release their leader. The idea was that once saved, the criminal and his gang would have departed wordlessly and would eventually return in a potential Donald Duck sequel in which they would rescue Donald Duck at a crucial moment.
In the DVD commentary of Solo, the filmmakers revealed that for the explosion of the conveyex at the end of the heist, they used firecrackers underwater and then filmed it with high speed cameras to later play it in slow motion.Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story DVD commentary Before filming, the original script had Val surviving the explosion that takes out her life in the finished cut by falling out afterwards. However, when the scene had to be filmed, the crew decided to kill Val off instead of building the large set-piece necessary for the scene, much to the displeasure of Val's portrayer Thandiwe Newton and Jon Kasdan, who felt in retrospect that watching Val dying in the scene felt a little like a cheat.
==Appearances==
*Star Wars Battlefront II 
*Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story 
*Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story: Expanded Edition
*Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story Adaptation 2
*Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story Adaptation 3 
*Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story Adaptation 5 
*Donald Duck: A Musketeers Story Adaptation 6 
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*Star Wars: Smuggler's Guide
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==Notes and references==
Category:Events