Dust Dancer

"Dust Dancer has entered the system. Wynn will be here within half an hour by shuttle."

- Desha Lor, to Chief of State Natasi Daala

The Dust Dancer was a Kuat Drive Yards cargo transport owned by former smuggler Booster Terrik. It was loaned to the Jedi Order in 44 ABY to transport well-known individuals off the planet Borleias in the Pyria system to Coruscant, capital planet of the Galactic Alliance, so they could use the attached shuttles to take the well-known individuals into the Senate Building.

Description
The Dust Dancer was an eighty-meter-long cargo transport manufactured by Kuat Drive Yards. It was capable of holding two shuttles, one of which was the DeepRay. It had a ball for the command center at one end, a long connecting spar, and many engines. The spar was thickly covered with cargo pods and shuttle attachment points.

History
"If you'll give us landing authorization, we'll bring the Dancer down and off-load."

- Seha Dorvald, to Dolo Karenzi

The Dust Dancer was a legitimate cargo transport owned by former smuggler Booster Terrik. In 44 ABY, Terrik invited some very well-known individuals to his personal starship, the Errant Venture for a large sabacc tournament. He was actually bringing them onto his ship to use as hostages, knowing that the Galactic Alliance would make a move to fight and control the Jedi Order. He used these players as hostages to keep the Galactic Alliance from making there move on the Jedi. When he was ready to release the hostages, he loaned the Dust Dancer to the Jedi Order so they could use it to transport the celebrities to the planet Coruscant, capital of the Galactic Alliance. But, the Jedi actually had some of their own members hidden in the Dust Dancer shuttles so they could smuggle them into the Senate Building to overthrow Chief of State Natasi Daala.

Jedi Master Octa Ramis, along with Jedi Knight Seha Dorvald, piloted the Dust Dancer to the planet Borleias in the Pyria system just before Terrik left his hostages there. The Jedi brought the Dust Dancer into orbit above Borleias, and Dorvald took a shuttle down to the planet's surface. On Borleais, she met with Dolo Karenzi, the night-shift quartermaster of the Borleias outpost, and told him that the Dust Dancer was carrying a load of consumable luxury items&mdash;expensive wines, exotic foods, fresh sabacc decks, entertainment datapads, candies, and pastries&mdash;with the outpost as the items' listed destination. Karenzi realized that there had to have been a mistake, but he decided to sign for the items in the Dust Dancer and keep them himself, hidden in a storage pod. After the Dust Dancer landed, Karenzi attempted to unload the cargo fast. Right in the middle of the off-loading process, however, the Errant Venture entered the system to drop off the celebrities. Karenzi quickly got the cargo hidden and made a false manifest for the Dust Dancer so no one would know about the real cargo.

The Jedi had worked it out, though, that almost the only way for the celebrities to get back to Coruscant would be by taking the Dust Dancer. That way, the Jedi could use the shuttles on the Dust Dancer, with Jedi hidden inside, to take the celebrities to the Senate Building so the Jedi could attack it from the inside. So, with the Jedi piloting, the Dust Dancer made its way to Coruscant to drop off the celebrities.

Commanders and crew
The Dust Dancer was owned by former smuggler Booster Terrik, who loaned the ship to the Jedi Order to pick up the celebrities that he had held hostage after dropping them off on Borleias. Jedi Octa Ramis and Seha Dorvald piloted the Dust Dancer when they picked up the celebrities and took them to Coruscant.

Behind the scenes
The Dust Dancer made its first appearance in the sixth novel of the Fate of the Jedi series, Conviction, written by Aaron Allston and published on May 24, 2011.

Appearances

 * Conviction