Cad Bane/Legends

"I'm in control. I make the rules now."

- Cad Bane

Cad Bane was a Duros male bounty hunter from the planet Duro who earned a reputation as the galaxy's best, deadliest, and most fearsome mercenary during the Clone Wars. Though he worked for a number of clients, his loyalty was ultimately to credits&mdash;and by extension, the highest bidder. Bane employed a variety of weapons and allies to ensure that he always got his pay, and he became the leader in his line of work after fellow bounty hunter Jango Fett perished in the opening battle of the war. His renown attracted the attention of Count Dooku and even the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, the latter of whom employed him numerous times for his own means. Working for Sidious, Bane stole a Jedi holocron from the Jedi Temple to unlock the Kyber memory crystal, a repository of all recorded Force-sensitive infants in the galaxy. After pilfering the crystal from Jedi Master Bolla Ropal on Devaron and forcing Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker to unlock it, Bane was sent to kidnap four of the infants listed in the crystal. Despite being captured halfway through his job by Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, Bane escaped from Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu by luring them into a trap on his hideout, Black Stall Station.

Bane was later hired by the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure and the Hutt Grand Council to break Jabba's criminal uncle, Ziro Desilijic Tiure, out of Republic custody on Coruscant. Forming a team of hunters to execute his job, Bane launched a brazen raid on the Republic Executive Building and captured ten prominent members of the Galactic Senate, using them as hostages to force Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to free Ziro. Once he had secured Ziro's release from the high-security Central Detention Center, Bane disbanded his posse and delivered Ziro to the Hutt Council. When Ziro escaped from their custody on Nal Hutta, Bane was re-hired to track down the crime lord. Though he arrived on Teth too late to secure his bounty, he managed to evade Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos, who failed to apprehend him for his crimes. At the close of the bounty hunting season, Bane's total bounties surpassed those of all others in field.

After breaking criminal mastermind Moralo Eval out of the Republic's Central Detention Center, Bane became a candidate in Eval's plot to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine for Count Dooku and the Confederacy. Bane thus entered Eval's Box to become one of the five mercenaries who would be hired for the job. After passing the competition alongside fellow hunters Embo, Derrown, Twazzi, and Rako Hardeen, Bane was personally selected by Dooku to lead the operation, and they traveled to Naboo to capture Chancellor Palpatine during the Festival of Light. Despite Bane's success with abducting Palpatine, he was betrayed by Dooku, who had intended for the bounty hunters' operation to simply be a diversion for his own attempt to kidnap the Chancellor. Abandoned by Dooku, Bane was defeated by Hardeen, who turned out to be none other than Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had gone undercover to infiltrate and foil Eval's plans. Bane nevertheless retained his formidable reputation throughout the Clone Wars, after which he became one of the preferred freelancers for the Galactic Empire.

Building a reputation
"I didn't catch your name, bounty hunter.''" "Bane. The name's Cad Bane." "Never heard of you." "''No. No, you wouldn't have. Not yet."

- The Hutt enforcer and Cad Bane

The Duros male Cad Bane lived during the last decades of the Galactic Republic and hailed from the planet Duro. He entered bounty hunting by around the year 24 BBY. Although he became attached to the financial reward of his missions, Bane recognized that a reputation would be necessary for success in the war-torn climate that he sensed was on the horizon, with rumors of secession abound in the Republic's Outer Rim star systems. To build a name for himself in the galactic community, he decided to kill a Jedi and thus took on a job from Akris Ur'etu, the crime boss of the Skar'kla Consortium, a criminal organization based on the galactic capital of Coruscant. Tasked with eliminating a Jedi who was threatening Ur'etu's operations, Bane worked independently of the gangster's bodyguard retinue and placed a portable sensor field on the compound's roof, which eventually alerted him to the arrival of the Jedi. As the Jedi broke into Ur'etu's compound, Bane followed from afar, noting the intruder's odd usage of several non-Jedi weapons such as a thermal detonator, as well as a long-hilted lightsaber that looked like it had been grafted onto a small pike. In addition, the Jedi appeared as though he was using small jetpacks attached to his feet, instead of jumping with the aid of the Force as Jedi usually did.

With such peculiar tactics on the part of the intruder, Bane realized that he was not dealing with a Jedi, but rather an impostor using technology to mimic one. He followed the enemy agent to the Skar'kla Consortium's security center, where he saw him kill Ur'etu's security chief and then Force-choke the crime boss himself. Yet Bane did nothing to help Ur'etu, letting his employer die so that he could confer with the false Jedi on the subject of his technology. Calling the agent out on his imitation of a Jedi, Bane summarily eliminated his lightsaber and then his right jetpack boot with two blaster shots, causing him to crash into a wall. When the false Jedi apparently used the Force to pull his blaster out of his hand, Bane recognized that the agent was using a monofilament cable with a magnetic grapple and thwarted his alleged Force pull, then discovered upon inspection of the agent's wrist gauntlets that his Force choke of Ur'etu had been nothing more than the use of a gas emitter. Speaking with the defeated agent, Bane confirmed his suspicion that the infiltrator was working as an enforcer for Ur'etu's Hutt rivals, posing as a Jedi to mask his affiliations. Because he would gain no credit for killing a false Jedi, the bounty hunter decided to spare the enemy agent on the condition that he explained how to build miniaturized equipment like his, as such technology would be an incredible asset in the coming war.

Basing his technology on that of the Hutt enforcer, Bane constructed a distinctive arsenal of weapons for himself, coming to rely on it in his line of work. He worked for the highest bidder, caring little for who employed him or the faction that his client represented, as long as he received his pay. His usual rate became quite considerable, and his allegiance to credits was so potent that if his quarry offered him a better fee, he had no qualms with turning on his original client. He established bases for himself in a number of locations across the galaxy, from a base of operations in the Outer Rim's Rogue Antar system named Black Stall Station to a secret hideout on the planet Tatooine. He outfitted the former with several booby traps and a laser defense grid to stop his adversaries, countermeasures that no one was reportedly able to survive. Numerous encounters with members of the Jedi Order furthered Bane's respect for them and their Force powers, though he was not intimidated by the Force and even began to specialize in fighting Jedi with his trademark equipment.

Wartime fame
"Master Cad Bane, I presume. I've heard much about you. Who hasn't? The greatest hunter since Jango lost his head&hellip;"

- Davtokk

As he gained prominence over the next few years, Bane earned notoriety and a reputation as the galaxy's preeminent mercenary. He became known as one of the most notorious, ruthless, and fearsome bounty hunters, particularly after the death of Jango Fett&mdash;the bounty hunter considered to be the galaxy's best &mdash;at the opening battle of the Clone Wars in 22 BBY. With Fett out of the picture, Bane's reputation grew as the war continued between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. He worked with several underworld dregs in his jobs; among their number was the shapeshifting Clawdite Cato Parasitti, a lethal assassin who shared his allegiance to credits. Parasitti subcontracted assignments for him and recruited extra help as he required. During the war, Bane flew the Sleight of Hand, a Telgorn dropship that he extensively modified; he used the ship's ion cannon many a time to disable merchant cargo ships. His work earned him some powerful enemies, and a undefined500,000 bounty was placed on his head for crimes against the Republic.

Bane was captured at least once by the Republic and was incarcerated in the high-level Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center on Coruscant, which was staffed by the clone troopers of the Coruscant Guard. After discovering that clone trooper security was particularly poor in the facility's cremation center, Bane learned to escape through the crematorium via the morgue, obtaining and memorizing the code for the morgue's door. From the crematorium, he found easy access to the prison's lower landing platforms, which opened out onto the ecumenopolis of Galactic City. From his numerous exploits, Bane attracted the attention of the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious and his Sith apprentice, Count Dooku, whom he worked for during the war. At some point, Bane had a run-in with Jedi Master Quinlan Vos, who swore to get even with him following the incident. On another occasion, Bane formed a temporary alliance with a pirate gang to advance his own interests. Once his business with the pirates was finished, he took one of the group's swoop bikes as part of his payment.

Manipulations on Kynachi
"I found this while I was searching for my own quarry. I suspect it may have belonged to the Jedi you sought.''" "Was there no other sign of him?" "Only the lightsaber. For what it's worth, I hope you find him." "Thank you. What'd you say your name was?" "''I didn't."

- Cad Bane gains the trust of Nuru Kungurama by returning Ring-Sol Ambase's lightsaber to him

In 22 BBY, the first year of the war, Bane was residing in a shabby hotel room on Coruscant when he was contacted through his compact holoprojector by Darth Sidious for a job. In what was to grow into an increasingly complex scheme, Bane was contracted to pursue Jedi Master Ring-Sol Ambase, who was embarking on a mission to the planet Kynachi with his Padawan, Nuru Kungurama, and a clone trooper squad. Though he raised his fee due to the involvement of a Jedi, Bane accepted the assignment and immediately left for Kynachi. After bypassing the Trade Federation's blockade of the planet and arriving on the Federation-controlled world, Bane hired the local diner owner Lalo Gunn to befriend and stick close to Kungurama and his squad's clone troopers, who had all been stranded on Kynachi following sabotage to their ship. He also recruited a food vendor to identify any strangers in a town on the planet, hoping to track Kungurama's progress. He provided the vendor with a special comlink that overrode the Federation's frequency jammer, which had been disrupting communications on the planet for over a decade.

While staying at a hotel on Kynachi, Bane was contacted by the food vendor, who reported that Kungurama and the three of his squad's clone troopers were headed with Gunn to her diner. Complying with Sidious's latest instructions, Bane proceeded to the diner and staged an elaborate deception in order to manipulate the group's actions, summoning four BX-series droid commandos to fake a fight with him at Gunn's starship, the Hasty Harpy. After the battle droids attacked Kungurama and the clones and were destroyed by the Republic squad, Bane pretended that he had been blinded by a luma grenade, and troopers CT-5177, nicknamed "Chatterbox," and Knuckles found him lying on the ground in front of the diner. The clones brought Bane into the building, where Kungurama, Dunn, and trooper CT-8863, nicknamed "Breaker," questioned him on his identity and business. Taking the risk of revealing to the trio that he was a bounty hunter in order to more effectively deceive them, Bane lied and stated that the droid commandos had been trying to arrest him and had opened fire on him when he had tried to run away.

When Gunn questioned why he was on Kynachi, Bane flatly replied that a job had brought him there, but the unsatisfied Gunn put one of the fallen droids' E-5 blaster rifles to his forehead and demanded to know how he had bypassed the Trade Federation's blockade. Bane stated that he had been hired to break someone out of the KynachTech Industries factory prison and that his client had provided him with a datatape of the facility's schematics and pass codes to get through the Federation blockade. His disclosures earned him freedom from the blaster on his forehead. However, Bane truthfully reported that earlier he had seen the factory's droid guards escorting into the prison four Republic troopers and an unconscious Ring-Sol Ambase&mdash;the latter of whom, unbeknownst to the others, Bane had been hired to capture alive. With the scenario that Bane had provided, Kungurama, determined to rescue his Master, developed a plan to have Breaker build a new droid&mdash;using parts from the disabled droid commandos and the Genetech brain of Gunn's assistant droid, Teejay, who had been destroyed in the droid ambush&mdash;to break into the prison. This idea was, in fact, the exact plan that Bane had intended for Kungurama to devise.

Bane accompanied Chatterbox, Knuckles, and Gunn as they reconnoitered the prison, and he then took them to the Kynachi spaceport's Docking Bay 21 to check out his ship, the Sleight of Hand, which the group planned to use to escape from the planet once they had rescued the prisoners from the KynachTech prison. The four then returned to Gunn's transport, where Breaker and Kungurama were assembling the new droid. The unit was successfully reactivated and was renamed "Cleaver." Bane proposed a risky plan to break into the prison and liberate the captives, and the group proceeded to put the stratagem into motion. With Kungurama, Gunn, the troopers, and a poncho-adorned Bane posing as prisoners and Cleaver acting as their droid captor, they were admitted into the facility. Upon entering the prison, the members of the squad dropped their disguises and confronted the facility's Techno Union overseer, Umbrag. As Kungurama cornered Umbrag and demanded information from him, the Overseer inadvertently caused a battle droid to fire its blaster rifle. At the sound of blaster fire, Bane drew his LL-30 blaster pistols and began to shoot at the nearest battle droids, sparking a chaotic firefight.

With the others' attention focused on the battle, Bane was able to slip away and capture Ring-Sol Ambase, who had been taken prisoner by battle droids. Bane placed the comatose Ambase in a transparisteel stasis pod to keep him in his near-death condition. Bane later returned to the prison with Ambase's lightsaber and found Kungurama, Gunn, and the troopers, who had driven Umbrag away and had been reunited with the rest of their clone squad. Bane continued to deceive the group, stating that he had been unsuccessful in finding his previous quarry. Despite lacking the clones' trust, Bane gave Ambase's lightsaber to Kungurama with the lie that it was all he had found of Ambase; he received Kungurama's thanks before departing, though he refused to give the Padawan his name. Bane used a gravsled taken from the KynachTech factory to transport Ambase's stasis pod and returned to the Sleight of Hand in Docking Bay 21, bringing Ambase's body onto the vessel. Departing from the planet, Bane used his pass codes to bypass several Republic Navy Star Destroyers that had arrived in orbit of the world.

After activating his ship's autopilot mode, Bane returned to the main cabin and contacted Sidious, to whom he reported his success. The Sith Lord was pleased with the result and told Bane to deliver Ambase to Bogg 5, the fifth moon of the Bogden system. During the Sleight of Hand hyperspace trip to Bogg 5, Bane passed the time by watching The Bounty Hunters' Guild's Greatest Hits: Volume VII, a collection of holorecorded assassinations compiled by the Bounty Hunters' Guild that featured the Guild's Trandoshan leader, Cradossk, and his son, Bossk. Bane also corrected a fluctuation in the Telgorn dropship's null quantum field generator and kept watch on Ambase's vital signs. When the Sleight of Hand exited hyperspace near the planet Bogden, Bane piloted his ship to the starship traffic–heavy Bogg 5 and obtained his landing coordinates from a satellite in orbit of the moon. Although his designated landing area on Bogg 5&mdash;an unpopulated spot north of Mong'tar City&mdash;was empty save for a waiting Punworcca 116-class interstellar sloop, he spent the next two hours circling the vicinity to ensure that he was not being followed.

Once he had confirmed as much, Bane touched down near the solar sailer and met with the Dark Acolyte Asajj Ventress, an agent of Sidious's associate, the Confederate Head of State Count Dooku. After showing Ventress how to operate Ambase's stasis pod, the monitor of which frequently built up with ice that required an ice pick to break, Bane handed the inert Ambase over to her. He then received Sidious's next assignment from her and left for the Bilbringi system to execute the job. He also sent a transmission to Gunn, promising to pay her more credits to ensure that Kungurama and the clone troopers of Breakout Squad, as they had become known, reached the planet Vaced, a task that she accepted. In addition, Bane received information from his client regarding the Black Hole Pirates, a pirate gang that had been stranded in the Black Hole sector due to a black hole that prevented interstellar travel out of the sector. Because Kungurama and Breakout Squad were being led to make a stop there, Bane subcontracted the Patrolian slicer Robonino to infiltrate the Black Hole Pirates, which would allow Robonino to monitor Breakout Squad and ensure that no harm came to any of its members. Bane supplied Robonino with his client's coordinates to the Black Hole sector and told Robonino to take backup with him for the job. These manipulations of Breakout Squad ensured that Darth Sidious's plans for Kungurama would be furthered.

The deception continues
"Bilbringi Depot is secured.''" "You have done well, bounty hunter. I trust you left no evidence of your work." "I never leave a mess unless I'm paid to leave a mess. I'm a professional." "''Payment has been transferred to your account. I shall contact you when I next require your services."

- Cad Bane and Darth Sidious

On his next assignment for Sidious, Bane set out to secure Bilbringi Depot, the primary settlement of the system's largest asteroid, Bilbringi VII. He brought an old leather satchel with one thousand peggats from Sidious to buy the depot from its owner, Drixo the Hutt, but he also took along three deadly IG-86 sentinel droids in case Drixo refused to sell her property. Arriving at Bilbringi Depot, Bane was stopped by two Gamorrean guards at the entrance to Drixo's headquarters, and he used chips of precious metal to bribe them into admitting him to the compound. When the Gamorreans demanded more, Bane simply killed them with his silencer-capped blasters, retrieved his metal offerings, and admitted himself to the depot, with his IG-86 sentinel droids secretly following behind. Proceeding to Drixo's chamber, Bane was intercepted by several of her bodyguards, and he was stripped of his blasters by a pair of Klatooinian guards while a Rodian guard took the peggat satchel.

Speaking with Drixo from the chamber overlooking her pit, Bane conveyed his client's offer to buy Bilbringi Depot for the one thousand peggats. Although Drixo dismissed the bid, she also refused to return the peggats, an action that displeased Bane. With Drixo remaining uncooperative, Bane resorted to his backup plan and had his IG-86 sentinel droids enter the room and open fire on everyone there. In the ensuing chaos of blaster fire, he retrieved his blasters from the Klatooinians and promptly killed them too. With all of Drixo's guards dead, Bane dispatched the two Theelin servants that were down with her in the pit. Though Drixo begged for her life and offered to give Bilbringi Depot to him for free, Bane simply had his droids eliminate her, claiming the depot by force. Leaving no evidence of his work, Bane reported to Sidious the successful capture of Bilbringi Depot, and a pleased Sidious transferred payment to his account. Bilbringi Depot was meanwhile used to further manipulate Breakout Squad.

Bane next traveled to Vaced Spaceport on Vaced to meet with Lalo Gunn, who had covertly ensured that Breakout Squad had reached there. However, the job had cost Gunn the Hasty Harpy, and she had subsequently been stranded on Vaced. Finding Gunn in a cantina at the spaceport, Bane assured the cross Gunn that she would be well paid for her exploits. As night fell on Vaced, Bane and Gunn waited at the cantina for the bounty hunter Doxun Feez to bring Gunn's payment. While they waited, Gunn attempted to make sense of the "coincidences" surrounding Breakout Squad, many of which had been orchestrated by Bane in line with Sidious's plans for Kungurama. Bane nevertheless remained tight-lipped when responding to Gunn's observations, though Guun thought that he seemed surprised to learn that a saboteur on the Hasty Harpy had been responsible for Breakout Squad's detour to the Black Hole sector. Eventually, Robonino showed up with Gunn's pay instead of Feez, who had joined the Black Hole Pirates. Discussion between Gunn and Robonino further revealed that the latter had subcontracted the bounty hunter Bossk, whose capability Bane severely doubted, as "backup" for the infiltration of the Black Hole Pirates. After giving Gunn the pouch of credit chips that Robonino had brought, Bane left the cantina to have a brief word in private with Robonino outside.

Besides not being pleased to learn that Doxun Feez had failed to bring Gunn's payment, Bane was further irked that Robonino had subcontracted Bossk for the job involving the Black Hole Pirates. Just as he was lecturing Robonino on subcontracting, Bane noticed a small transmitter on his comrade's shoulder and realized that Gunn, looking to eavesdrop on their conversation after Bane's withholding of information, had secretly placed it there. After alerting Robonino to the device, Bane immediately strode back into the cantina to confront Gunn, who had anticipated and evaded him by hiding in the tavern's storeroom. Failing to find Gunn, Bane returned outside and crushed the transmitter, but he was stopped from pursuing Gunn by an incoming transmission on his holocomm. Taking the message privately, Bane was hired by Sidious for an assignment that required him to leave Vaced immediately. He was surprised to learn that it again involved Ring-Sol Ambase, who had escaped from Bogg 5 with the clone trooper CT-4012, nicknamed "Sharp." Sharp had been previously captured on Kynachi by Asajj Ventress as Bane had captured Ambase, who&mdash;under the impression that he could not trust his fellow Jedi&mdash;was now headed with Sharp for Coruscant, where he intended to secure an exotic Chiss escape pod that was currently under study by the Jedi Order. Sidious thus hired Bane to help Ambase retrieve the escape pod.

Abandoning his search for Gunn, Bane brought Robonino along on the Sleight of Hand journey to Coruscant. There, they located Ambase, who was traveling with Sharp aboard a Corona-class transport to Moxonnic Manifacturing, an abandoned establishment in the Dacho District that had been converted to house the Jedi's laboratory for examining the Chiss escape pod. Heading for Coruscant's night side, Bane landed the Sleight of Hand on the rooftop where Ambase and Sharp had landed, and he went with Robonino to meet them. Speaking with Ambase, Bane told the Jedi Master that he had been hired to help him retrieve the escape pod, having been provided by Sidious with the access codes and equipment to bypass the laboratory's security systems. Bane also provided Ambase and Sharp with Republic Navy officers' uniforms to gain access to the lab building from the guards stationed inside. Though Ambase, who had been manipulated by Dooku and had expected the Count himself to help him retrieve the pod, was skeptical of Bane, he conceded that they were wasting time and followed the bounty hunter's plan. Entering the lab, Bane, Ambase, Sharp, and Robonino bypassed both automated and guard security, with Robonino sealing the checkpoint door behind them with a magna lock. Along the way to the room housing the escape pod, Bane shot down three sentry droids that Sidious had not made him aware of, while Robonino was forced to use thermal detonators to open the door to the room.

Once inside the main laboratory room, Bane powered up the Sleight of Hand from his gauntlets while Robonino planted explosives on the far wall, so that Bane could use his Telgorn dropship's tractor beam to remove the escape pod from the lab. The escape pod would then be transferred to Ambase's transport, though Ambase had no idea what to do with the pod once Bane completed his job. With everything in place, Robonino blew apart the westward wall, allowing Bane to remotely guide the Sleight of Hand through the hole to lock onto the Chiss spacecraft. After Ambase had unlocked the Jedi energy lock keeping the pod secured to the ground, Bane climbed into his dropship and locked onto the pod with the tractor beam. Robonino, Ambase, and Sharp then joined him aboard the ship, which Bane piloted out of the laboratory, heading for the building's roof. There, Bane and Robonino helped Ambase and Sharp load the Chiss spacecraft onto their Corona-class transport. As soon as they had finished, Bane heard the whine of an approaching starship's engine and sighted an incoming TL-1800 freighter, which in fact contained Kungurama and Breakout Squad, who intended to prevent Ambase from stealing the escape pod. Before Kungurama could land, Bane immediately boarded the Sleight of Hand with Robonino, firing a missile at Kungurama's freighter before departing from the vicinity. Focused on Ambase, Kungurama believed that Ambase had been responsible for the missile, and a duel between the two erupted as soon as Bane had left, as Darth Sidious had planned.

Theft from Kul Teska
"Bane? Ha, ha, ha. Forgive my surprise. I didn't think even you were foolish enough to steal from me.''" "''Pity you didn't go down with the ship, Teska."

- Kul Teska and Cad Bane exchange pleasantries on Ryloth

Later that year, using the Sleight of Hand, Bane hijacked the Gravitic Core of the gravitic polarization beam weapon manufactured by the Separatist scientist Kul Teska&mdash;a "competitor" of his&mdash;over the ice world Alzoc III. After stealing the crate containing the Core, Bane fled Teska's Munificent-class star frigate and left it to be hit by an explosion. He took the Sleight of Hand to the planet Ryloth, which had recently been liberated by the Grand Army of the Republic from the Confederacy. In the city of Resdin, Bane captured Clone Captain CT-7567 and Clone Sergeant CS-2207&mdash;nicknamed "Rex" and "Boomer," respectively&mdash;to assist him in his exploits. Bringing Rex and Boomer to a hangar and placing them in explosive-wired binders, Bane forced the clones to comply with his demands. As Separatist battle droids broke into the hangar, Rex and Boomer agreed to defend Bane's crate and take the cargo to his ship elsewhere on the planet. With the pair's promised cooperation, the bounty hunter released the links on the pair's handcuffs, allowing them to operate freely. Bane and his new accomplices defeated the attacking lines of B1 battle droids and B2 super battle droids. Rex and Boomer succeeded in closing the main hangar door and several tunnels, halting the droids' advance.

When a Vulture droid starfighter broke through the main entrance and opened fire on the group, Bane offered some heavy artillery to the clones, and they used it to destroy the droid. Shortly thereafter, Separatist reinforcements appeared in the form of B1, B2, and sabotage droids, but with the arrival of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano&mdash;who had come to rescue the clones and grudgingly decided to assist the bounty hunter&mdash;Bane, Rex, and Boomer were able to defeat the droids. After the group had taken down a large octuptarra magna tri-droid, Bane directed his blaster fire at the Jedi and clones. Skywalker rebounded the laser shots, causing the bounty hunter to lose his balance atop a platform and tumble to the ground; the Jedi then held Bane at lightsaber point. The bounty hunter's bargaining chips were rendered defunct when Skywalker severed the clones' binders. Rex and Boomer then disarmed Bane, though he kept an extra pistol hidden elsewhere. As explosions went off outside, Bane proposed the Sleight of Hand as a means of escape. With no other options, Skywalker took Bane up on his offer and sent Rex and Boomer to provide covering fire from an elevated position. Though unaware of the crate's contents, Skywalker and Tano were unwilling to let it fall into Separatist hands and forced Bane to carry the Core to his ship. En route to the Telgorn dropship, Skywalker, Tano, and Bane encountered numerous B1, B2, chameleon droids, and droidekas, but the Jedi were able to defeat all of them.

Along the way to the Sleight of Hand, Bane frequently grew tired from carrying the heavy weight of the Gravitic Core and stopped several times to rest behind larger crates scattered around the landscape, relying on the Jedi and clones to protect him from the enemy droids' fire. When the path was blocked by starship wreckage, Rex fired a rocket launcher at the rubble, and the Jedi and Bane climbed the debris. Skywalker and Tano jumped across a gap in their path and used the Force to collapse a fighter wing, enabling Bane to cross the divide with the Gravitic Core. When Skywalker, Tano, and Bane took a cliff-side path, they gradually moved beyond the clones' range and were forced to cope without their covering fire. After Skywalker and Tano had eliminated a thicket of B1, DSD1, sabotage, and destroyer droids in addition to a squad of LM-432 crab droids, Bane followed the pair to the ground and across a destroyed droid tank to an adjacent ridge. Arriving at the Sleight of Hand, Bane set his crate down and slowly retrieved his alternate pistol as Skywalker conferred with his Padawan. At that moment, some of the wreckage surrounding the dropship exploded. Although Skywalker and Tano were occupied with holding the debris in the air with the Force and were open targets for the bounty hunter, Bane's firing hand was hit by a piece of wreckage before he could take advantage of the Jedi's distraction and fire at them.

Teska himself blasted out of the wreckage and confronted the three, demanding that Bane hand over the Gravitic Core. Teska used a grappling hook to seize the crate, but Skywalker intervened and Force-pushed the device into Bane's ship. Before Bane could board the Sleight of Hand and escape with the crate, Tano trapped him under a slab of metal. As the Jedi and Teska engaged each other in a duel, Bane sneaked away and made his own escape from Ryloth. Although Teska fled with the Core and stole the Sleight of Hand, Bane later intervened in the Republic's siege of Teska's facility on the planet Behpour. While Teska's gravitic beam powered up to attack the Naboo sun, Bane exacted his revenge on the scientist by firing at Teska's rocket boosters during the scientist's fight with Skywalker and Tano in the weapon's core room, stranding Teska on the central platform. Leaving Teska to be defeated by Skywalker and Tano, Bane retrieved his Telgorn dropship and escaped from Behpour. Following that incident, Bane sabotaged the Sheathipede-class transport shuttle that Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress were using to flee from Behpour; the mercenary watched the pair's vessel malfunction in space from the Sleight of Hand before rocketing away.

While on Duro, Bane was sought out by a Jedi Knight, who was after information on Asajj Ventress. Bane suggested&mdash;correctly&mdash;that Ventress was after a bounty on a senator, and the Jedi Knight was able to thus able to prevent Ventress from kidnapping Senator Padmé Amidala. It was not long, however, before Bane was fighting the very same Jedi Knight. When the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure hired Bane to deal with an ongoing conflict between the Jedi and a pirate gang in Tatooine's Dune Sea, the Jedi Knight became Bane's target. Eventually, Count Dooku hired Bane to spread a clone trooper virus at the Republic's Kaliida Shoals Medical Center. During the course of that gambit, Bane was captured and incarcerated in a Republic detention center, but he approached the Jedi Knight he had dealt with earlier, offering to make a deal while instead intending to escape from the prison. Bane was able to break out of the facility using a hold-out blaster, and he also freed fellow prisoner Ziro Desilijic Tiure, a Hutt crime lord. The pair escaped from the prison aboard a Munificent-class star frigate, and after dropping Ziro off on Tatooine, Bane headed to meet with the pirate leader Hondo Ohnaka on the planet Florrum. Bane next went to see the Confederate Captain Mar Tuuk before proceeding to the Kaliida Shoals medcenter, where he infected the clone trooper healing tanks with Dooku's virus so that it would spread amongst the Republic Grand Army.

Despite his efforts, Bane was defeated, and a team of Jedi healers was sent to stop the spread of the virus. Bane then headed to the third moon of the planet Vassek, where the Confederate General Grievous maintained a stronghold. There, the pursuant Jedi Knight battled Grievous and Count Dooku before confronting Bane himself in a final showdown. Ziro, meanwhile, was reinstalled in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center, though he was not to stay there for the remainder of the war.

Stealing a Jedi holocron
"To get a holocron, I'd have to break into the Jedi Temple. It's impossible. Not to mention&hellip;deadly.''" "Perhaps your reputation has been exaggerated." "I want a Rogue-class starfighter with elite weapons, cloaking device, the works. Oh, and&hellip;triple my usual rate." "Your price is of no concern. I will also provide you with the means to get inside the Temple." "''You've got a deal."

- Cad Bane and Darth Sidious

Bane was eventually hired by Darth Sidious for another ruse, but he first had to first prove his skills to Sidious in a mission to the heart of the Republic: the Senate Building. Blasting his way through the Senate security, which consisted of clone troopers and Senate Commandos, Bane uncovered the location of Ord Enisence, a Jedi Master whom Darth Sidious wanted eliminated and who was away from Coruscant, fighting against the Separatists. After killing Enisence, Bane moved his body to his apartment in a seedy Coruscant Underworld hotel, where Sidious personally contacted him with his real mission: stealing a holocron from the Jedi Temple's Archives. Sidious required the holocron to access the Kyber memory crystal, a repository of all Force-sensitive children in the galaxy that was under the protection of Jedi Master Bolla Ropal; the Sith Lord also employed Bane to purloin the crystal. Bane initially believed infiltrating the Temple to be impossible, but when Sidious put his reputation into question, Bane agreed to the assignment regardless of its costs, albeit with the request for an elite Rogue-class starfighter and triple his usual rate. Sidious agreed to meet these terms and also provided the schematics of the Temple.

In preparation for the operation, Bane subcontracted Cato Parasitti for assistance and prepared his techno-service droid, Todo 360, for the job. As Bane worked on Todo in his apartment, he lied to his droid that he was only doing some maintenance, while in actuality he was installing an explosive in the droid. Bane had Todo let Parasitti into the apartment when she arrived, and the two bounty hunters examined Sidious's intelligence file on Ropal. Though Parasitti questioned whether they were going after him, Bane replied that they soon would but brought her attention to their current assignment&mdash;stealing a holocron from the Jedi Temple. Despite Sidious's inside information, Bane still required help beyond what Todo could provide&mdash;an agent on the inside of the Temple. To that end, Bane pointed Parasitti to Enisence's body, whose form the Clawdite easily assumed to pose as the dead Jedi. Bane passed an ear-comlink to Parasitti so that they could maintain contact, and although Parasitti questioned the details of Bane's own plan to break into the Jedi Temple Holocron Vaults, Bane kept a calm demeanor and stated that he would handle it. With that, the bounty hunters proceeded to the Jedi Temple and set their plan into motion. Bane and Todo used their rocket boots to reach an unattended overhang on the side of the Jedi Temple, close to the building's roof. With Parasitti at a computer terminal in the Archive Library, Todo was able to locate a weak point in the Temple's energy shield and opened up an aperture in the shield with a touch of his finger.

Bane and his droid zoomed in through the breach and entered a ventilation shaft, where they descended into a wide, vertical passage that was being blocked by a set of large, active fans. Parasitti directed Todo to the control board, and the droid deactivated the fans so that he and Bane could slip between their blades. Once Bane and Todo had passed between the blades of one of the fans, the droid accidentally reactivated the fan from a motion-sensing security switch. Before the two could be sucked into and sliced by the blades, Parasitti disabled the fan, saving both of them. With the way clear, the pair continued on through the vent system to a shaft directly overlooking the high-security Holocron Vaults, which was being protected by a dense laser web. Although Todo wanted to bypass the grate, Bane stopped him and checked with Parasitti on the vault's security measures. Bane noted a change in his comrade's voice, as the shapeshifting Parasitti had assumed the form of Jedi librarian Jocasta Nu. Hearing the sounds of the Jedi searching for them, Bane impatiently waited as Parasitti deactivated the vault's laser sensor system from her terminal. The instant that the primary laser systems were down, Bane and Todo descended into the shaft leading to the Holocron Vaults. While Bane used his gauntlet to cut through the safe's lock mechanism, Todo deactivated the remainder of the laser beams surrounding the vault's entrance.

Bane directed Todo to slice through the wall and cut a passage to the Temple's communication center in order to have his techno-service droid lure the Jedi away from the vault, although the bounty hunter hid his intentions&mdash;and the fact that he had implanted a bomb in the droid&mdash;from Todo. Parasitti, meanwhile, was captured by Ahsoka Tano and revealed Bane's objective to the Jedi. Losing contact with his inside agent, Bane was unable to access the diagrams that would help him deactivate the lock. He barked at Todo to go to the Jedi Temple's communication center to pose as a distraction for the Jedi, and once the droid departed, Bane primed a bomb of the same model that he had installed in his droid to break through the vault's lock. The hunter hid from the approaching Jedi&mdash;Anakin Skywalker and Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had been tipped off by Tano to the mercenary's target&mdash;as the explosive went off and waited until the pair had followed Todo to the communication center before emerging from the shadows. Bane heaved the Holocron Vaults' door open all the way and proceeded unopposed into the room, where he extracted the holocron from its holding place. He then stuffed the holocron into a pocket and donned a Jedi robe to sneak away through the Archive Library, slipping out in broad daylight in a display of his sheer nerve.

Despite catching sight of a cuffed Parasitti being led away by Tano and the real Jocasta Nu, Bane did not attempt to rescue her and ducked his head, heading away in the other direction. Bane escaped the Temple without either of his accomplices, leaving Parasitti in the Jedi's custody and allowing Todo to serve his purpose as a decoy by being destroyed by the explosive that he had installed in the droid earlier.

Exploits at Devaron
"You have nowhere left to run, bounty hunter.''" "Let me worry about that, Jedi. If I activate this control, the outside airlock will open, and she will be sucked into oblivion. Do you think you can kill me and then save her before she's pulled out into space? It's a horrible way to die. Besides, isn't negotiation the Jedi way?" "What do you want?" "''This holocron carries information I've been paid to collect. I can't unlock it, but you can. The last Jedi who had it wouldn't open it. I hope you don't make the same mistake."

- Anakin Skywalker and Cad Bane negotiate the unlocking of the holocron in exchange for Ahsoka Tano's life

With hired assistance from Jedi hunter and fellow bounty hunter Aurra Sing, Bane took a fleet of Munificent-class frigates and C-9979 landing craft to mount a surprise attack on the planet Devaron, where Bolla Ropal maintained a Republic base called the Temple of Eedit. Initiating a ground assault on the planet and commanding his armada from his lead Munificent-class frigate, Bane contacted Sing's battle droid squad, codenamed "Nashtah Team," to check on her progress. Sing reported that she was on the western end of the valley where the outpost was located, but even though she spotted Ropal and had a clear shot at him, Bane ordered her not to shoot the Jedi Master, as he was his target. Instead, Bane told Sing to distract Ropal's Padawan, Tyzen Xebec, and several clones who had just arrived. In the meantime, Bane left his command ship and moved in to capture Ropal. En route to the surface in a Rogue-class starfighter, Bane shot several clone troopers before landing and heading for Ropal's position. Along the way, Bane received word from his command ship's crew that the Republic Star Destroyer Resolute had arrived out of hyperspace and realized that Parasitti had betrayed his target to the Jedi, at which he swore to return the favor. Bane ordered his armada of frigates into defensive formation to stop the Resolute before it could interrupt his task. He found Ropal deflecting blaster shots with his lightsaber and loaded an expensive shot of cortosis ore into his blaster pistol, using it to short out Ropal's weapon.

With Ropal disarmed, Bane threw a cord at the Jedi Master, tying his legs together and knocking him to the ground. Although Ropal tossed his temporarily defunct lightsaber aside and refused to open the holocron for him, Bane had one of his super battle droids shock Ropal, rendering him unconscious. Bane took Ropal hostage and stole the Kyber crystal from his person before loading him on board a Sheathipede-class transport shuttle and taking him to his command ship. As Bane rendezvoused with a Trade Federation escort of Munificent-class frigates over Devaron that had been dispatched by Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray at Darth Sidious's request, they were ambushed by the Resolute, commanded by Skywalker. Ordering his battle droid crew to move the ship out of the battle zone and prepare to jump to hyperspace, Bane went to confront Ropal in the Jedi's holding cell, as only a Jedi could open the holocron and combine it with the Kyber crystal to make it readable. However, the Resolute targeted the frigate's hyperdrive and compromised the ship's power converters, trapping Bane in the system. Bane was notified of this impediment on his way to Ropal's cell by a battle droid, and wondered out loud what the Jedi were planning.

Though Bane tortured Ropal with electrical charges, the Jedi Master continued to refuse to unlock the crystal with the holocron. Having no use for an uncooperative prisoner, Bane ordered his droid subordinate to increase Ropal's electrocution to full power, killing the Jedi Master. Bane saw this murder as only a slight setback to achieving his objective, but he still required a Jedi to access the crystal. Returning to his ship's bridge, Bane was contacted by an upset Gunray, who was angered that four of his loaned ships had been destroyed. Bane remained unconcerned about the losses; he knew that Sidious valued the information in the memory crystal and believed that the Sith Lord would compensate Gunray's expenses. As Skywalker and Tano landed on the dorsal hull of Bane's frigate with All Terrain Tactical Enforcers, Bane refused to send out Vulture droid reinforcements into the battle&mdash;to the surprise of both his battle droid crew and Gunray. Although Gunray demanded that he transmit the information and abandon the plan before the Jedi boarded his ship and stole the holocron back, Bane replied that he could not submit the data, but still intended to let Skywalker and Tano embark his ship in order to get one of them to unlock the crystal with the holocron. Ending his conversation with Gunray, Bane gave orders to his crew, telling them to wipe the frigate's memory, activate the self-destruct sequence, and transfer control of all shipboard functions to his wrist-com.

Leaving his battle droids to defend the bridge, Bane escaped through a ventilation duct moments before Skywalker, Tano, Clone Captain Rex, and their clone trooper squad arrived there and captured it from the droids. On the frigate's gunnery deck, Bane assembled lines of B1 and B2 battle droids, intending to have them fight and distract the clones while he himself separated the Jedi and led one of them away. With his troops in place, Bane ran through the hallways of his frigate and lured the Jedi and clones&mdash;who had found the late Ropal in his holding cell&mdash;to the gunnery deck. Once Skywalker, Tano, and the clones had arrived in the darkened room, Bane revealed his forces by reactivating the lights and ordered the droids to open fire on the Jedi and clones. As a gunfight erupted as planned, Bane secured himself to the floor with his magno-grip boots and increased the fight's stakes by disabling the frigate's gravity generators and deactivating the artificial gravity. The Jedi and clones rose off the floor, while the battle droids, still magnetized to the deck, continued to fire at them. Bane targeted his blaster fire at Skywalker, who made it past him, and the bounty hunter quickly got out of range of the Jedi's lightsaber slashes. Bane opened fire on the clones, shooting and killing several of them. However, Skywalker soon returned to fight Bane, surprising him from behind and delivering a kick that knocked the holocron out of his grip. Just as Skywalker was about to grab the holocron, the astromech droid R2-D2 reactivated the gravity, plummeting everyone back down to the floor.

Bane retrieved the holocron and shot at a trooper still magnetized to the roof, keeping Skywalker occupied with safely lowering the clone to the floor while he himself made his escape. Bane drew Tano after him, and the Padawan fell into his trap. Luring Tano into a dead-end corridor away from Skywalker, Bane cut her off from her Master by closing the hallway's blast doors behind her. Bane's first laser shot at the Padawan was deflected back at one of his gauntlets, but he managed to deliver a kick that knocked her lightsaber out of her hand. Before he could fire at her again, Tano brazenly grabbed his blaster arm and flipped him to the ground. Bane stopped Tano from telekinetically retrieving her lightsaber by grabbing her ankle and sending a paralyzing stun charge through her body that knocked her unconscious. He picked up the holocron and placed Tano in self-tightening stun cuffs that had been specially designed for Jedi. Once Tano had woken up, Bane stole her Padawan braid jewelry from her as a trophy. As the two exchanged banter, Bane electrocuted Tano to increase Skywalker's sense of urgency. He then moved the subdued Tano to the frigate's airlock and placed her on the space-ward side of the shield. After receiving word from a battle droid outside the airlock that Skywalker had arrived, Bane activated the airlock's shield, trapping Tano so that she could serve as a bargaining chip.

Skywalker entered the room to find Tano at Bane's mercy, and Bane demanded that Skywalker unlock the memory crystal, fully prepared to open the airlock to the vacuum of space and send Tano to her death if he refused to do so. With his Padawan's life at risk, Skywalker handed over his lightsaber and used the Force to disassemble the holocron, combining it with the crystal and making the crystal's contents readable. Once Bane had taken the holocron, Skywalker retrieved Tano's lightsaber and his own weapon with the Force and made quick work of Bane's super battle droid bodyguards. In retaliation, Bane opened the airlock, keeping the two Jedi occupied while he flew away with his rocket boots through an emergency bulkhead that sealed behind him. Bane made contact with Gunray and informed him of his success with gaining access to the crystal. Although Gunray offered to send an escape vessel in exchange for the transmission of the data, Bane remained too cagey to give in to his terms. With his own plans for escape, Bane made his way to a shaft overlooking the frigate's hangar bay, which was housing a firefight between the clones and droids over control of a Sheathipede-class shuttle. While looking over the firefight, Bane was confronted by troopers Denal and Koho. The bounty hunter killed both Denal and Koho and stole the former's armor, using it to pose as the clone. Bane also removed his own cybernetic breathing tubes in order to don the trooper's helmet.

To convince Skywalker and Tano that he was Denal, the clone armor–clad Bane shot a figure garbed in his own outfit. The Jedi witnessed Bane's exploit, and as they believed him to be dead, they did not suspect that the trooper was Bane when he joined them on their shuttle and escaped the frigate with them shortly before it exploded, though Skywalker could still sense his persona in the Force. After returning to the Resolute with the Jedi and clones, Bane disembarked the shuttle with the others and discreetly made his way away from the group, though he left green blood behind on the shuttle due to an arm injury that he had sustained. Tano followed the disguised Bane to get him to receive treatment for his injuries at the medical bay, and she eventually realized that he was not a clone. Bane responded to her voiced realizations by kneeing her in the midsection, causing her to fall to the floor. Making his way to a V-19 Torrent starfighter, Bane took out several troopers around the fighter and boarded the ship. Skywalker jumped onto Bane's activated fighter and knocked his helmet off, revealing the true identity of the "trooper." Bane piloted his fighter out of the hangar and its magnetic shield, forcing Skywalker to jump off, and proceeded to the Resolute set of hyperdrive rings. Although struggling with the starfighter due to his lack of specialist training for the vehicle, he managed to steal a booster ring before the Resolute crew could lock them down, escaping to hyperspace and evading capture by the Jedi.

Kidnapping younglings
"It is only a matter of time before we locate the holocron. Make it easier on yourself.''" "What are you going to do, Jedi? Torture me?" "''I think the fear of whoever you work for outweighs your fear of us."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi, Cad Bane, and Mace Windu

Returning to Black Stall Station, Bane informed Sidious of his success with unlocking the crystal and asked if there was anything else that he could do for him. The Sith Lord gave Bane a new job: capturing four of the Force-sensitive infants listed in the crystal and delivering them to the remote planet Mustafar, where Sidious planned to experiment with them to build his own personal corps of Force-wielding spies. Bane agreed to do the job, provided that he continue to get his pay. Leaving the stolen holocron at his hideout, Bane used the Xanadu Blood, the elite Rogue-class starfighter that had been gifted to him by Sidious, to capture the young Nautolan Zinn Toa on the planet Glee Anselm. Next traveling to Rodia, Bane donned a Jedi robe to pose as a Jedi and avoid attracting unwanted attention in the operation at hand. Bane met with the Rodian Mahtee Dunn, the mother of the Force-sensitive Wee Dunn, in their home in Kay-Tap square. Though the Rodian mother recalled Bolla Ropal's previous statement that her son would not have to start his training at the Jedi Temple for some time, Bane deceived her, stating that Jedi impostors had been stealing Force-sensitive children across the galaxy&mdash;with the increased danger, he claimed that he had to take the young Dunn immediately.

Encountering difficulties with convincing Mahtee to surrender her son to him, Bane used a hypnogazer to temporarily alter her memory and force her into complying with his demands. Preparing to escape with the young Dunn in his arms, Bane witnessed Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi&mdash;who had been dispatched to prevent the kidnapping&mdash;enter the room and learn of the child's capture from Mahtee. When Kenobi caught sight of him, Bane activated his rocket boots and soared to the platform where the Xanadu Blood was docked. Kenobi went after Bane but arrived too late to prevent him from leaving Rodia with Dunn. After delivering both Toa and Dunn to Sidious's Mustafar facility and wiping the Xanadu Blood navigation records, Bane traveled to the planet Naboo to track down his next target &mdash;the Gungan infant Roo-Roo Page. Touching down near Page's home, located in the waterfall-surrounded Jan-gwa city, Bane proceeded to Page's home and witnessed her mother place a small figure in a crib in the nursery before leaving the room. Believing that she had left behind Page, Bane entered the nursery and pulled back the crib's blanket, only to find a tooka doll in place of the expected infant. A moment later, Ahsoka Tano jumped into the room, lightsaber drawn. Remarking on the Padawan's combination of cleverness and naivety, Bane ensnared her lightsaber with his gauntlet's lanyard and yanked the weapon out of her grip. He released a barrage of blaster fire at Tano, who ducked behind some furniture to avoid the attack.

With Tano briefly distracted, Bane attempted to escape out the window with his rocket boots but was stopped by Skywalker, who jumped off the building's roof and grabbed onto his boots. With the extra weight, Bane's boosters were disabled, and the two tumbled onto a roof. The pair engaged in a brief struggle before landing on the ground, and the outmatched Bane looked up to see Tano's lightsaber in his face. Bane was placed in binders, and Tano retrieved her Padawan braid jewelry that he had previously taken from her at Devaron. When Tano told Page's relieved mother that her Force-sensitive daughter was safe, Bane questioned that claim before being led away by Skywalker. Bane and the Xanadu Blood were taken to the Resolute, where the bounty hunter was placed in a shielded holding cell aboard the Star Destroyer while his starfighter was examined by the Jedi. During an interrogation by Masters Kenobi and Mace Windu, Bane refused to reveal the whereabouts of the kidnapped children, the location of the holocron, and the identity of his client, and the Jedi left his cell to devise another way to glean the information from him. With no alternative methods of interrogation, Windu, Kenobi, and Skywalker bound together and employed the Force to compel the strong-minded Bane to lead them to the stolen holocron&mdash;an act that came at the risk of destroying his mind. Thrashing from his attempts at resisting the Jedi's influence, Bane promised to take them to the holocron, albeit with the intention of leading them into a trap.

The handcuffed Bane was escorted into a waiting T-6 shuttle, where he dictated Black Stall Station's coordinates to his accompanying guards&mdash;Kenobi, Windu, and Clone Commander CC-2224, nicknamed "Cody." After arriving in the asteroid-strewn Rogue Antar system and docking to the station, Kenobi and Windu left Cody with the ship and followed Bane into his headquarters. Though neither Jedi sensed the kidnapped infants, Bane told them that the children were safe and focused on the holocron, leading them to the station's control room and directing them to the holocron on a table across the room. Although Bane volunteered to get the holocron for them, Windu refused to let him continue his tricks and proceeded to retrieve the holocron himself. However, Windu unintentionally activated the station's intruder alert system, triggering Klaxon alarms and a laser system that targeted the Jedi. Bane sneaked away from the distracted Jedi Masters and evaded the pursing Kenobi by escaping through a concealed hatch, bidding the Jedi farewell as he left.

Breaking out of his binders, Bane departed Black Stall Station in an escape pod, triggering the station's self-destruct sequence and leaving the Jedi occupied with securing their own getaway. Despite his escape from the Jedi's custody, Bane was ultimately unable to complete his kidnappings of the infants, as Sidious's plot was foiled by Skywalker and Tano shortly thereafter.

Plot to free Ziro the Hutt
"The almighty Jabba requires further assistance.''" "You're saying there's still more moves to this dance?" "Name your price." "''Aww, s'pose I could rearrange my busy schedule, but I'll need details. Oh, and an advance on my services while we negotiate new terms."

- TC-70, translating for Jabba Desilijic Tiure, and Cad Bane

Following his work for Darth Sidious, Bane retrieved the Xanadu Blood as well as Todo 360, whom Skywalker had rebuilt in an attempt to learn more about Bane and his whereabouts before the droid had escaped. Bane was soon hired by Jabba Desilijic Tiure to retrieve the plans for the Republic Executive Building as part of a plot to free his uncle, Ziro Desilijic Tiure, from Republic custody. After meeting with Jabba at his palace on Tatooine, Bane took the Xanadu Blood to Coruscant, where he intended to capture Senator Padmé Amidala's personal protocol droid, C-3PO, whom he assumed would have the plans to the Galactic Senate's headquarters. After setting up a hideout in Coruscant's industrial sector, Bane proceeded with Todo 360 and the IG-86 sentinel droid HELIOS-3E to the planet's underlevels, where he found C-3PO shopping with R2-D2 for some jogan fruit. Bane had Todo separate C-3PO and R2-D2 by sending the latter to a droid spa, and after Todo and HELIOS-3E had delivered the captured C-3PO to him, the protocol droid was transferred to a ComfortRide passenger airspeeder piloted by a Nikto associate of Bane's. The group spirited C-3PO away to their industrial sector hideout, where the droid was attached to a torture apparatus and was affixed with a restraining bolt.

When the 8D smelter droid J0-N0 forcefully delved into C-3PO's memory banks, Bane found that his prisoner was devoid of the plans to the Executive Building or any other information useful to him. Despite this setback, Bane realized while conferring with C-3PO that R2-D2, as an astromech droid, would likely hold the plans to the Executive Building, and he thus sent Todo and HELIOS-3E after R2-D2. Bane continued to have J0-N0 electrocute C-3PO, who at one point mistook Bane for Skywalker and recalled his previous service to the chief negotiator of the Manakron system. After HELIOS-3E brought R2-D2 back to Bane, the astromech droid took C-3PO's place on the torture apparatus and was also fixed with a restraining bolt. Before J0-N0 accessed R2-D2's memory banks, Bane threatened the astromech droid, ordering him to surrender the plans to the Executive Building. The droid did so, and Bane immediately had J0-N0 download the data to a memory drive. While Bane returned to Tatooine to deliver the information to Jabba the Hutt, he had Todo and HELIOS-3E dump C-3PO and R2-D2 back at the street where they had found them; Todo and HELIOS-3E only had to remove the droids' restraining bolts to wipe their memory of the incident. After landing the Xanadu Blood at Jabba's Palace, Bane proceeded to the complex's throne room and met with Jabba, to whom he delivered the Senate's floor plans on a datapad.

While collecting his pay&mdash;a large case laden with Republic credit ingots&mdash;from Jabba's protocol droid translator, TC-70, Bane learned that Jabba required him for further assistance, as his successful acquisition of the Senate's floor plans had proven his worth to Jabba. Conferring directly with Jabba, Bane requested details for the new assignment and an advance fee for his services while new terms were negotiated. Jabba revealed that he required the Hutt Grand Council's approval for the potential venture, leading Bane to recognize that the job held a significant amount of weight. Dismissing everyone from the throne room save for Bane, Jabba opened communications with the other heads of the five Hutt families that comprised the Hutt Council &mdash;including the Hutts Arok, Oruba, Marlo, and Gorga Desilijic Aarrpo &mdash;and began to discuss the matter of freeing Ziro the Hutt, who had been arrested earlier in the war for crimes against both the Republic and Jabba himself. As his ancient Huttese was rather rusty, Bane had TC-70 translate the Hutts' deliberations for him. Through TC-70, Bane learned that the Hutt leaders sought to take Ziro in under their "protection" because he possessed and had hidden a record of all the Hutt families' criminal dealings. When Oruba inquired as to who would be undertaking the dangerous task of liberating Ziro, Bane took that as his cue to make his entrance and introduced himself to the Hutts, who hired him for the job.

Instead of mounting a straightforward prison break to free Ziro from the high-security Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center on Coruscant, where he had been incarcerated, Bane was to use the stolen plans for the Republic Executive Building to organize a raid on the Senate and take senators as hostages to force the Republic into freeing Ziro. To do so, Bane required a skilled group of bounty hunters and infiltration specialists, as even he could not hold the entire Senate hostage on his own. Recognizing that he required the long-distance sniper abilities of Aurra Sing &mdash;who had been taken into Republic custody earlier in the war &mdash;for the job, Bane broke her out of prison with the assistance and financing of the Hutts so that she could provide support in the prison break. In addition to enlisting a number of BX-series droid commandos and IG-86 sentinel droids as backup "muscle" for his team, Bane recruited Robonino and the Weequay mercenary Shahan Alama for what became his bounty hunter posse.

Because Sing, Alama, and Robonino normally operated alone, Bane decided to arrange a test for them to ensure that they could effectively work together. To that end, Bane lured Davtokk, a rival bounty hunter of his, to the planet Keyorin under the cover of holding a recruitment drive for his posse. Knowing that Davtokk intended to kill him and collect the bounty on his head, Bane assembled a life-size mannequin of himself from a scrapped B1 battle droid to fool Davtokk. Upon entering Bane's trap with directions from Todo 360, Davtokk fired upon the droid mannequin, assuming it to be Bane, but after uncovering the deception, he came under attack by Robonino, Alama, and Sing. After watching his team battle and succeed in crippling the enemy mercenary, Bane emerged from the shadows and confronted Davtokk, explaining that the entire operation had been arranged as a final test for his accomplices. He then pointed one of his blaster pistols at Davtokk's head and discharged the weapon, killing the incapacitated mercenary. Now confident that his comrades could properly and effectively work as a team, Bane took his posse to Coruscant to secure Ziro the Hutt's freedom.

Raid on the Senate
"Sorry to bother you, Chancellor, but I've taken control of the east wing of your Senate Building, and the occupants are now my hostages. If you care about them, I'd advise you to free Ziro the Hutt from the Detention Center."

- Cad Bane speaks to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine

Upon arrival on Coruscant, Bane carefully timed his raid on the Senate concurrently with the Senate Commando guards' shift change to maximize his casualties. After dispatching Sing, Robonino, and two of the sentinel droids in an airspeeder to a nearby tower to wait as backup, Bane, Alama, another sentinel droid, and two droid commandos for Bane's protection proceeded to the Republic Executive Building's restricted landing platform in another speeder. Bane's arrival did not go unnoticed; he was greeted by a squad of Senate Commandos, who made to arrest him for his violation of security protocols. As Senate Commando Captain Jayfon ordered him to assume a submissive position and sent one of his subordinates forward to handcuff Bane, Sing opened fire on the guards with a sniper rifle from her long-range post. In the confusion, Bane rushed forward and personally eliminated Jayfon by tackling him and snapping his neck. At the same time, Alama and the droids rushed out of the speeder and efficiently dispatched the rest of the Senate Commandos. With the guards' threat rendered moot and the coast clear, Bane signaled for Sing and the rest of the group to join them at the Executive Building. Bane also ordered the droid commandos to assume the Senate Commandos' armor and pose as the guards.

Once Sing, Robonino, and the droids had arrived at the platform, Bane ordered the droid commandos to remain outside and finish clearing the platform while he proceeded into the headquarters of the Senate with the others. After eliminating the Senate Commando posted at the Executive Building's power control room as well as several Republic droids inside, Bane left Robonino there to shut off the power while the Duros hunter headed for the building's east wing atrium with the rest of his team. Along the way to confront the senators, Bane took advantage of the Senate Commandos' shift change by tossing a primed thermal detonator into their crowded barracks, removing most of the active Senate security from their duties. Continuing on, Bane, Sing, Alama, and the sentinel droids entered the atrium through different doors and converged on the ten senators there who were discussing an upcoming vote on the Enhanced Privacy Invasion Bill legislation. Bane caught the senators' attention by firing several blaster shots into the ceiling and asserted that they were now all in his power. When Senator Philo voiced objections to being taken hostage and attempted to leave, Bane shot him in the back and turned back to the shocked senators, ordering them to turn over their communication devices before they could call for help. With the first stage of his operation complete, Bane contacted Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in his office via a holotransmission and dictated to him his terms: the hostages would be freed if Ziro was released from prison. Although Palpatine objected to this impertinent show of force, Robonino shut off the Executive Building's power at that moment, trapping Palpatine and Senator Orn Free Taa in the office and compromising all external communications.

As the bounty hunters collected the senators' transmission devices in the atrium, Bane came across Senator Padmé Amidala and conferred with her, though she stated that the Senate would not deal with terrorists. Bane then noticed Amidala glance at something behind him, and the bounty hunter turned around to see Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker surveying them from an upper level of the atrium. Bane immediately opened fire on Skywalker, and the Jedi Knight's escape prompted Bane to order Alama and an IG-86 sentinel droid after their quarry. When Alama returned without the droid, he reported to Bane that the droid had been destroyed by Skywalker but reported that an examination of the droid's remains had revealed that Skywalker was without his lightsaber. Bane then dispatched Sing to assist Alama in finding, apprehending, and bringing Skywalker back to him. When the senators began to talk amongst themselves, Bane quieted them by firing off a blaster round and contacted Palpatine once more. He told the Chancellor to make a pardon disc to free Ziro, and Senator Taa would be picked up by Bane's airspeeder to deliver the disc to the prison. Taa reluctantly obeyed, and the sentinel droid HELIOS-3D, one of Ziro's own droids, transported Taa to the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center where the Hutt was being held. Shortly thereafter, Sing and Alama came back to the atrium with Robonino and an unconscious, handcuffed Skywalker in tow. Bane taunted the comatose Jedi Knight before having his accomplices toss their prisoner in with the senators.

Once HELIOS-3D reported that he and Taa were arriving at the Detention Center, Bane prepared to leave and had his comrades set up their "parting gifts" for the senators&mdash;a laser web that would activate explosives upon the slightest touch. After warning Palpatine not to mount any last-ditch attempts to apprehend him, Bane bade the senators farewell and left the Senate with his accomplices. Upon arriving at the landing platform, Bane and his team were confronted by a pair of LAAT/i gunships that landed and deployed clone troopers of the Coruscant Guard under the command of Clone Commander CC-1010. While the clones blocked the bounty hunters' escape, Palpatine contacted Bane and demanded his surrender. However, Bane revealed that the senators were trapped by his laser web, and with the senators at the bounty hunter's mercy, the outwitted Palpatine reluctantly relinquished his attempts to apprehend the mercenary. Dangling his finger over the button that would destroy the east wing atrium and kill the senators, Bane was able to buy himself and his team safe passage from the Executive Building and the Coruscant Guard.

HELIOS-3D arrived at the Executive Building with a freed Ziro the Hutt in tow, and Bane and his comrades boarded the speeder and left the Senate. As they headed away from the Senate, Bane conferred with Ziro, who professed that the indignities he had suffered in prison were unimaginable. Bane offered some dead senators to the Hutt as payback for his grievances, and with that, the bounty hunter remotely detonated the explosive charges in the Executive Building's east wing atrium. Skywalker had recovered in the meantime and managed to cut a hole in the floor around himself and the senators, allowing them to drop into the room below seconds before the atrium was hit by the explosives. Though Ziro congratulated Bane on his success, Bane ignored the accolade and demanded his pay from the Hutt, as he worked only for money. Bane then convened with his team at a hideout elsewhere on Coruscant, where he told his comrades that they had been handsomely rewarded for their part in the operation. Although Alama did not believe that he had transferred all of the proper credits, Bane went on to tell his accomplices to execute the last part of their gambit: to abandon their prides and flee separately to hide from the Republic, stating that it would not do for them to get captured. Alama expressed his mistrust of Bane one last time before the Weequay and the other bounty hunters complied with his orders, escaping from Coruscant.

Despite being pursued across Coruscant's skylanes by Quinlan Vos, Bane and Ziro escaped the Jedi on an airspeeder and made it to the bounty hunter's ship. Bane was able to evade apprehension by the Jedi Order following the hostage crisis, though Alama, Robonino, and HELIOS-3D were not as successful in their endeavors. The Senate hostage crisis benefited Bane not only in his considerable payday, but also by ensuring that he would have new clients in the future due to the raid's sheer audacity.

End of the line
"Looks like we're both too late for the party.''" "So this is not your handiwork?" "No, I wouldn't have made such a sloppy kill. Doesn't seem like much sense hanging 'round here&mdash;or making any trouble between us." "Are you forgetting how you held the Senate hostage? I may not be capturing Ziro, but you are going to prison." "''Well, now that you mention it, the Separatists are paying a million credits a head for Jedi."

- Cad Bane and Obi-Wan Kenobi, upon discovering Ziro the Hutt's body

Bane delivered Ziro to the Hutt Council's headquarters on the planet Nal Hutta, where he remained for some time while the Hutts imprisoned Ziro within the palace. After Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos came before the Hutt Council to report Ziro's escape from Republic custody as part of a Jedi-sanctioned hunt to recapture the crime lord, the Hutts discovered that Ziro had escaped from his detention cell in the palace. Bane and Todo 360 joined the Hutt leaders Arok, Marlo, and Gardulla Besadii the Elder &mdash;who was representing Jabba on Nal Hutta &mdash;at Ziro's empty cell block, where the bounty hunter deduced upon examination of the crime scene that the Jedi had not been responsible for Ziro's escape; another party had helped the crime lord to make another getaway. After securing a job from the Hutts to track down Ziro, Bane set out with Todo on a Pongeeta-class swamp speeder to find Ziro, whom he presumed had not yet left the planet. With Todo piloting the craft, Bane followed Ziro's trail through the swamps of Nal Hutta and came upon the home of Ziro's mother, Mama the Hutt, whom Bane and Todo interrogated and learned of Ziro's next destination: the planet Teth, where Ziro had hidden his holodiary record of the Hutt Council's dealings.

Bane and Todo proceeded to Teth aboard the Xanadu Blood and arrived at the grave of Ziro's father in a canyon on the planet, where they found that Ziro had been killed&mdash;someone had beaten them to the crime lord and had also stolen the holodiary. Before he and Todo could leave Teth, Bane spotted an incoming Eta-class shuttle with Kenobi and Vos aboard. As the Jedi arrived and began to inspect Ziro's body, Bane emerged from the shadows of the cliffs and conferred with them on the subject of the unattributable kill. Although Bane then made to leave, Kenobi stopped him, for even though Ziro could not be returned to Coruscant, the Jedi Master still sought to take Bane into custody for his raid on the Senate and told him that he would be going to prison. Intending to do no such thing, Bane recalled that the Separatists were paying a million credits a head for Jedi and resolved to try his hand at collecting one of those bounties. Drawing his blasters, Bane released several rounds of blaster fire at Kenobi and Vos as he fled away through the canyon. Though he briefly delayed Vos by tangling his legs in a bola, Vos broke free, and he and Kenobi pursued Bane to the cliff at the end of the canyon.

After firing at the rock face that Kenobi was standing on, Bane fought Vos, whom Todo grabbed from behind and distracted long enough for Bane to kick him onto an adjacent crag. However, Kenobi forced Bane off his perch with the Force and caused him to drop one of his blasters. As Kenobi foiled an attempt by Todo to impale him with Vos's lightsaber and recovered his fellow Jedi's weapon from the droid, Bane jumped into the air with his rocket boots and fired at Kenobi, who deflected one of his shots at his firing hand, forcing Bane's remaining blaster away. Not to be outdone, Bane directed projectiles from his gauntlets at Kenobi, who blocked the shells and flipped onto a nearby crag to fight him at a closer proximity. Despite being kicked backward by Kenobi, Bane managed to wrest Vos's lightsaber from the Jedi Master's grip, using it to briefly duel Kenobi. When that failed when Kenobi disarmed him, Bane simply electrocuted Kenobi and kicked him aside. A recovered Vos then re-entered the fight by knocking Bane to the ground as the bounty hunter was trying to rocket away. Though briefly disoriented from landing badly on the ground, Bane used his gauntlets' flamethrowers to shoot fire at Vos before fleeing to the Xanadu Blood. In spite of Vos's and Kenobi's efforts to stop him, Bane escaped from Teth with Todo, albeit without completing his job for the Hutt Council; it was in fact the singer Sy Snootles who had killed Ziro for Jabba the Hutt.

After hijacking a Confederate trade barge with two million credits' worth of raw spice, Bane stashed the pilfered shipment at the hideout of a fellow bounty hunter, Clawfish, in Tatooine's Mos Espa spaceport. With the profit from the spice, he hoped to pay off some bills he had acquired while out on the job. Little did Bane know, however, that rival hunter Sülphurr Cyander&mdash;seeking to claim the price on his head&mdash;had placed a tracking beacon in the spice so as to thwart Bane's plan and capture the reputed mercenary. When Bane and his Jawa associate, Ttekket, went to retrieve the stolen spice from Clawfish, Cyander followed him to the safe house with several droid commandos and confronted him there. Outnumbered and disarmed, Bane and Ttekket were taken to Cyander's R-41 Starchaser at the Southdown Landing Platform, and they were imprisoned in a holding cell aboard the craft. Promising to report Bane's actions against the Confederacy to Count Dooku, Cyander intended to usurp his position as the galaxy's premiere hunter. However, Ttekket used a concealed arc wrench to disable the holding cell's power, and Bane set off to show Cyander the reason that he was the galaxy's best bounty hunter. Luring several droid commandos to the ship's cargo bay&mdash;where the spice was being held&mdash;by triggering the cargo hold's fire alarm, Bane retrieved his blasters from the droids, and he and Ttekket worked in tandem to defeat the droid commandos.

Even when faced with seven of the elite droid commandos, Bane made quick work of them with his blasters. When Cyander arrived, he trapped Bane and Ttekket in a crystal prison, but he did not have the upper hand for long&mdash;Ttekket used his arc wrench to break the crystal apart, and Bane overpowered and captured Cyander. Although Bane intended to throw his prisoner into one of the ship's engines, he decided to spare Cyander's life at the request of Ttekket. Instead, Bane dropped Cyander off on Chenini, one of Tatooine's barren moons, with only a breath mask for support. He also contacted Dooku and blamed the theft of the spice on Cyander, whom Dooku promised to personally confront on Chenini. Thanking Cyander for his R-41 Starchaser, Bane took off in the pilfered craft with Ttekket and left the stranded Cyander for Dooku to find him.

On his next gambit, Bane was hired to hunt down Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. He pursued them and Clone Commander Cody from the Sullustan moon Sulon to the remains of a Republic repair yard, which had been destroyed by the Separatists earlier in the war. Along the way, the hyperdrive of the Jedi's Consular-class cruiser encountered some malfunctions, preventing the Jedi from escaping to hyperspace. Flying the Xanadu Blood, Bane engaged Skywalker and Kenobi in starfighter combat and crippled their ship's primary laser cannon. However, as he caught up to the Republic vessel near the remains of an Acclamator-class assault ship, Bane fell for one of the Jedi's deceptions. Kenobi released the Republic transport's tibanna gas in order to attract a group of nearby mynocks, and he also released a distress flare that tricked Bane into believing that the small ship's systems were exploding. Rising to the bait, Bane moved in just as Skywalker, Kenobi, and Cody&mdash;having made repairs to their hyperdrive&mdash;escaped to hyperspace. The Xanadu Blood meanwhile fell prey to the mynocks, which had been attracted by the tibanna gas and attacked Bane's starfighter.

Rescuing Moralo Eval
"If I'm breaking out this goon along with us, it'll cost you double my rate. [&hellip;] Any imbecile can kill a Jedi with a lousy sniper blast. You want my respect? You do it face to face.''" "Who said I want your respect?" "Make that triple'' my rate."

- Cad Bane and a disguised Obi-Wan Kenobi

Around 21 BBY, at the end of the current bounty hunting season, Bane's total bounty tallies surpassed those of all the other mercenaries in the field, with the bounty hunter Embo coming in second behind him. By that time, the price on Bane's head had risen to undefined2,500,000. After being captured by Republic forces and being incarcerated in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center, criminal mastermind Moralo Eval offered Bane a fortune to break him out of prison, as Eval was conspiring with Count Dooku for a Separatist plot to kidnap Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Accepting the job, Bane allowed himself to be captured and installed in the Central Detention Center, where Eval used his criminal influence to have Bane placed in the same prison cell. Bane intended to break the two of them out of the facility with his usual plan involving the crematorium, and he also became a candidate in Eval's eyes to participate in the kidnapping of Palpatine, which was to take place in three revolutions' time at a public festival on Naboo. Just as Bane was preparing to set his prison escape plan into motion, Eval invited another prisoner, the recently detained bounty hunter Rako Hardeen, to their cell as a potential candidate for the kidnapping plot. Both Bane and Eval were unaware that Hardeen was in fact a disguised Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had faked his death by Hardeen's hand to assume the latter's identity in the criminal underworld, hoping to uncover Eval's plot for the Jedi High Council and prevent it from coming to fruition.

Bane took an instant disliking to the alleged Hardeen: he believed that anyone could kill a Jedi with a sniper shot as Hardeen had with Kenobi. He told the disguised Kenobi that he would have to kill a Jedi face to face to earn his respect, going so far as to request double, then triple, his usual rate from Eval if he had to break out the disagreeable Hardeen along with the two of them. Amused at their rivalry, Eval had the Coruscant Guard troopers transfer Kenobi to another prison cell, telling him to forget their discussion on pain of death. At a meal the next day, Bane launched his plan to free himself and Eval, hiring the young bounty hunter aspirant Boba Fett&mdash;the son of his old rival, Jango Fett&mdash;to create a diversion in the mess hall. Fett picked a fight with the undercover Kenobi, and once his mercenary ally, Bossk, joined the fray, a full-scale riot erupted between the prisoners and the Coruscant Guard. In the midst of the intended chaos, Bane led Eval out of the mess hall to the morgue as the entire facility was placed on lockdown. The undercover Kenobi soon caught up with them and demanded to be a part of their escape; only Eval's belief in his potential led Bane to accept the newcomer as an ally.

At the morgue, Bane discovered that the door's code had been changed since the last time he had been at the prison. Although Eval lost faith in Bane and his escape plan, Kenobi convinced them that he could slice into the door's access port. While Bane and Eval were standing guard for him along the hallway, Kenobi simply used the Force to open the lock, granting them access to the morgue. As soon as the three of them were inside, they heard the clone guards returning and quickly slipped into the coffin transports that took casualties to the crematorium, where their vital signs were immediately noticed by the clone technicians. Bane and his accomplices wasted no time in attacking the clones, stealing their DC-15S blasters and using them against the technicians. During the ensuing firefight, Kenobi hesitated in blasting one of the technicians and claimed that his blaster had jammed, prompting Bane to shoot the trooper for him. His suspicions about "Hardeen" raised, Bane led the way to the prison's lower landing bay, summarily gunning down all of the clone troopers in their path. After commandeering a police speeder, Bane piloted the group to a civilian landing dock, where they stole an HCT-2001 Dragonboat-class freighter from its Quarren owner. As they lifted off from Coruscant aboard the freighter, Bane delivered a blow to Kenobi's head, intending it as a lesson for hesitating over killing the clone technician back at the morgue.

Bane, Eval, and Kenobi made their way to Nal Hutta, where Kenobi, to Bane's incredulity, intended to crash their Dragonboat-class freighter into the swamps to get Republic authorities off their trail. Surviving the crash, the three of them abandoned the freighter and made their way to the Bilbousa Bazaar, a marketplace in the planet's capital city, Bilbousa. There, Kenobi hoped they could buy a new starship, though Bane pointed out that as they undoubtedly had a bounty on their heads for escaping, they first had to replace their prison fatigues. To re-equip themselves with bounty hunting gear, Bane took them to Pablo's Pawnshop, a choice venue of his that was operated by the pawnbroker Pablo. At the pawnshop, Bane found some new armor and equipment, including a new hat. Despite usually being satisfied with Pablo's stock, Bane found his selection of weapons to be lacking on this occasion and inquired where they could find quality blasters. When Pablo suggested that the three mercenaries were not in a position to be picky, being on the run, Bane threatened him, warning him not to report them to the Hutt authorities. Bane promptly left without paying for his gear, though Kenobi slipped Pablo and his Twi'lek partner some credits on his way out. Once back at the plaza, Bane advised that they split up to avoid attracting further attention&mdash;he and Eval would buy some weapons, while Kenobi would find them a new ship, having crashed their last one.

Once Kenobi was out of earshot, Bane told Eval that they would ditch "Hardeen" as soon as they were aboard the ship, so that he could take the fall for them under interrogation by the Hutts. When asked by Eval if this decision was business or personal, Bane replied that it was both. While Eval opted for a sniper rifle, Bane had him buy a Mandalorian blaster rifle and an LL-30 blaster pistol for himself, neither of them bothering to find a weapon for Kenobi. Bane and Eval rendezvoused with him at a starship vendor yard, where Kenobi had negotiated a deal with the Bith starship merchant for a YV-666 light freighter. As Bane and Kenobi argued about whether the latter would be accompanying them to Serenno, where Count Dooku was expecting Eval, several of the Hutt authorities' Gamorrean guards, tipped off by Pablo's Twi'lek partner, arrived at the starship field to arrest the three Republic fugitives. Telling Kenobi that his reward would be being spared from death, Bane sprayed Kenobi in the face with knockout gas and kicked him to the ground, leaving him to be taken into custody by the Hutts. However, Bane and Eval were unaware that Kenobi had planted a tracking beacon on the light freighter while haggling with the Bith dealer.

Lifting off from Nal Hutta, Bane piloted the light freighter while Eval reported to Count Dooku that he was en route to Serenno, apologizing for the delay in his rendezvous. When an impatient Bane demanded his pay for breaking them out of prison, Eval, currently short on funds from purchasing the weapons and the freighter, promised that he would be paid when they reached Serenno. At that moment, their freighter was assaulted by a trio of HH-87 Starhoppers dispatched by the Hutt authorities, as Kenobi had tipped them off to the tracking beacon that he had placed on the freighter. Their engines disabled by the pursuant HH-87 Starhoppers, Bane was forced to turn the ship back for the Bilbousa Bazaar, though he and Eval managed to escape from the Hutt authorities upon landing. The two bounty hunters found their ex-partner, the still-disguised Kenobi, at an outside restaurant in the plaza. Although Bane was furious with him for double-crossing them, smashing him against a table and locking him in a stranglehold, Eval was losing patience with their bickering and broke up their fight, allowing Kenobi to speak. Offering them a ship that he had acquired to leave Nal Hutta, Kenobi demanded to be made a full partner in Eval's operations, a deal that Eval grudgingly accepted. In response to Bane's fury with being betrayed to the Hutts, Kenobi stated that Bane would have done the same thing in his situation&mdash;for the time being, they were even.

While the three mercenaries made their way to Kenobi's purchased ship, a Personal Luxury Yacht 3000, on the outskirts of Bilbousa Bazaar, Kenobi stated that a fifty-fifty split of Bane's fee from Eval sounded fair to him, though Bane did not think so. To top it off, the Bith starship dealer from whom Kenobi had bought the luxury yacht had swindled him, only filling the yacht with enough fuel to reach his brother's refueling station on the nearby planet Orondia. Bane, Eval, and Kenobi were thus forced to make a stop on Orondia to purchase fuel from the second Bith dealer. Just as they were pulling away from the station aboard their yacht, the bounty hunters were set upon by Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, who were tracking down Hardeen to bring the fugitive mercenary to justice. Not being part of the High Council's deception involving Kenobi, Skywalker and Tano were unknowingly following the disguised Kenobi instead of the real Hardeen, complicating matters for Kenobi. Unable to gain altitude with the Jedi's T-6 shuttle bearing down on their yacht, Bane and Kenobi were forced to keep dangerously close to Orondia's barren surface, maneuvering through abandoned mining sites and pipelines as they avoided the opposing Jedi shuttle. During the course of the chase, Skywalker left the controls of the shuttle to Tano and jumped onto the bounty hunters' yacht, intending to sabotage the vessel's engine pods so that "Hardeen" could not escape.

Although Kenobi, hoping to prevent Skywalker from compromising his deception, made to confront him on the yacht's exterior, Bane claimed the opportunity to kill a Jedi and went to face off with Skywalker, leaving Kenobi at the cockpit's controls. Exiting the starship, Bane activated his rocket boots and fired his grappling hook onto the side of the yacht, using it to steady himself with one hand as he raised his blaster pistol against Skywalker with the other. Skywalker deflected the blaster fire with his lightsaber and managed to hit Bane's left rocket boot, sending him flying out of control onto the yacht's hull. Despite the setback, Bane used his remaining rocket boot to propel himself backward in front of the cockpit, firing at Skywalker with both blasters as he went. As Bane and Skywalker fought in front of the cockpit, Kenobi intentionally tipped the yacht to one side, throwing both Skywalker and Bane off-balance and interrupting their fight. As Kenobi was bringing the yacht under a rock arch, Tano, piloting her shuttle over the arch, misjudged the distances, and the two vessels collided. Bane and Skywalker were thrown from the yacht, landing in a canyon as the yacht and shuttle crashed further on.

After recovering from the fall, Bane set out into the clouds of dust upturned by the crash and found Skywalker about to kill "Hardeen," the undercover Kenobi, in vengeance for his former Master's death. Bane fired a cord around Skywalker and pulled him away from Kenobi, but he was kicked backward by Skywalker before he could kill him. Bane was forced backward as his blaster shots were deflected by Skywalker's lightsaber, and his blaster rifle was eventually knocked out of his hand. However, Kenobi attacked Skywalker and, after a brutal brawl, managed to knock him unconscious, whispering to his former student not to follow him. Just as Bane reclaimed his blaster rifle and prepared to shoot at the despondent Skywalker, Tano jumped into the fray to defend her Master, repelling all of Bane's gunfire with her lightsabers. Amidst Bane's and Kenobi's standoff with Tano, Eval informed his associates that the yacht was still operational and announced that they were leaving. Apologizing that they were in a hurry, Bane told Tano that they would have to "dance" some other time and left for the yacht, with Kenobi following in his wake. Bane, Eval, and Kenobi departed from Orondia aboard their yacht, leaving Skywalker and Tano behind.

Competitor in the Box
"You already owe me for one job, Dooku. Anything else will cost you triple.''" "''I assure you that if you survive the challenge, the reward will be well worth it."

- Cad Bane and Count Dooku

Bane and Kenobi piloted the battered Personal Luxury Yacht 3000 to Serenno, where they landed at Count Dooku's palatial estate and met with Dooku himself. Although Bane and Kenobi wasted no time in demanding their pay from Eval now that they were on Serenno, Dooku offered the former two mercenaries places in a competition that would determine the participants in the plot to kidnap Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Bane, who reminded Dooku that he still owed him for a previous job, demanded triple his rate if he was to participate, to which Dooku replied that the reward for surviving the competition would be well worth it. Bane and Kenobi subsequently agreed to the tournament, which took place at the palace that night. While waiting that evening amongst the other competitors, Bane killed one of the other mercenaries, Bulduga, for his hat, exchanging it for the one that he had acquired at Pablo's. Shortly thereafter, Dooku and Eval arrived and welcomed the competitors, eleven in total, to the competition: Bane; the undercover Kenobi; ex-pirate Kiera Swan; Parwan mercenary Derrown; Sixtat, an accomplished hunter and sniper; Embo, who had been Bane's runner-up in the seasonal bounty tallies; Onca, whose brother, Bulduga, had just been killed by Bane; Twazzi, an acrobatic Frenk bounty hunter; and other criminals Jakoli, Sinrich, and Mantu. All had been invited due to their widespread repute across the galaxy.

The tournament was to take place in the Box, a massive combat arena of Eval's design that would test their abilities while allowing Eval and Dooku to monitor their progress and control the environment. The competitors were required to leave their weapons behind, with only the five most skilled contestants being promised roles in the kidnapping operation. Upon entering the first chamber of the Box, Bane, Kenobi, and their comrades were presented with the first challenge from Eval: escaping from the lethal gas dioxis, which would kill them upon inhalation. Bane and his comrades made it onto separate platforms that rose above the dioxis, but the platforms then began to rise into the ceiling, forcing them to find another means of escape. His helmet filters temporarily protecting him from the dioxis, Kenobi jumped back to the floor and discovered that their escape was the hatch through which the gas had been released; below the gas line was a tunnel leading out of the chamber. Forced to trust Kenobi to avoid the dioxis, Bane led the others into the tunnel, reaching the next room and challenge. Although all of them had passed the first challenge, Eval guaranteed that this would not be the case for the second one. For this test, Bane and his associates were faced with electrified laser blades that sporadically extended from panels along the room's walls, forcing them to stay alert as they looked for a way to escape.

Kenobi was again the one who found the escape path: a shaft in the ceiling that could be accessed by using the laser panels as steps, as the platforms leading to the ceiling formed a pattern. Bane followed on Kenobi's heels as they worked their way up the room, as did their comrades. At one point, Bane jumped short of one of the platforms and almost lost his grip on the panel, but he was surprised when Kenobi stopped to help him up. With the exception of Onca and Kiera Swan, the competitors made it to safety and reached the chamber of the third challenge. For this task, Eval activated ray shields along three of the adjacent walls, with the fourth housing the deactivation switch, which was also isolated by a shield. The only tool that Eval supplied was a highly electrolytic serum that would bestow temporary immunity from the shield to only one of the hunters, being toxic to the others. The eight contestants were given little time before a platform in the middle of the room began to rise, with another ray shield activating along the floor and electrocuting Jakoli to death. As more platforms formed a path to the shielded switch, Kenobi realized that there was a fifty percent chance that Derrown's Parwan blood could take the serum, which Derrown did. While Derrown made his way to the shield switch, Bane and the others struggled to maintain their positions on the platforms, some of which receded back into the floor as the shields began to close in on them.

Just as the ray shields claimed Mantu and were on the verge of electrocuting Bane and the others, Derrown reached the switch and deactivated all of the shields. The six remaining competitors&mdash;Bane, Kenobi, Embo, Twazzi, Sixtat, and Derrown&mdash;thus entered the fourth and final challenge of the Box. With the mercenaries, particularly Kenobi, having passed his tests with apparent ease, Eval was quickly losing respect in Dooku's eyes, but he resolved to secure his right to lead the planned operation by increasing the test's stakes. After Bane and his comrades arrived in the final chamber, they were trapped on a platform above a series of flame emitters that completely covered the floor. With Eval arriving to personally oversee the test, the final challenge was to test the competitors' sniping abilities: they were provided with a single blaster rifle, along with a rapidly moving target on the wall to hit. Sixtat initially took charge, taking the rifle and hitting the target twice. When he missed on his third attempt, he was dropped by Eval to the flames below: as Kenobi realized, the platform upon which they were standing would reduce in size with failures to hit the target. Confident enough in his own abilities, Kenobi took the next rifle, scoring three successful hits. Not to be deterred, Eval lowered Kenobi's platform and reduced it in size, before giving him another five shots to make. However, he intentionally caused Kenobi to fail because the rifle ran out of charges after four hits.

Informing Kenobi that his luck had run out, Eval collapsed Kenobi's platform above the flames. Yet Bane intervened, firing his grappling cable for Kenobi to hang onto, telling a furious Eval to kill Kenobi like a man instead of at the push of a button. Agreeing with Bane, Dooku modified the chamber arena, deactivating most of the floor's flame emitters before pushing Eval into the fray with Kenobi to test both hunters. With Bane, Embo, and their comrades watching from above, Eval initially used his controls for the Box against Kenobi until his wrist control system was compromised by the undercover Jedi Master. Kenobi furthermore bested him in unarmed combat, though he refused to finish off Eval, claiming that he simply wanted his money. Though disappointed by Kenobi's decision, Dooku congratulated the five survivors of the Box, all of whom would be hired for the kidnapping of Chancellor Palpatine the next day. Dooku revealed that with the Supreme Chancellor as a hostage, the Confederacy would demand the release of all Separatist prisoners from Republic custody. Though Dooku retained Eval's plan, he entrusted leadership of the operation to Bane, for whom Eval, Kenobi, and the others now worked.

Target: Palpatine
"Kenobi! I should have known. Something smelled wrong about you from the start.''" "Yes, well, spending so much time with you hasn't been a reward, either." "Reward? I'll give you a reward when I plug you full of laser bolts!" "''Such a pleasant fellow."

- Cad Bane learns from Obi-Wan Kenobi about the "Rako Hardeen" undercover operation

For all the time and planning that Dooku invested into the bounty hunters' kidnapping of Chancellor Palpatine, Bane and his comrades were unaware that their operation was simply a diversion for Dooku's real kidnapping attempt, which the Count intended to carry out himself once the Jedi Order had been distracted with Bane's plan. Dooku thus traveled with Bane, the undercover Kenobi, and the other bounty hunters to Naboo aboard the Personal Luxury Yacht 3000 that Kenobi had purchased on Nal Hutta. Upon landing in the capital city of Theed, which was to host Chancellor Palpatine and the Festival of Light, Bane had his team target a warehouse so that it could serve as their base of operations, sending in Embo, Eval, and Derrown to dispatch the Naboo workers inside. Once his comrades had taken care of the majority of the workers, Bane killed the last one himself and gave the all-clear to Kenobi, Twazzi, and Dooku, with whom he entered the building. Laying out their plan for kidnapping Palpatine, Bane entrusted holographic devices to each of the other five bounty hunters with instructions on their role in the operation: Derrown would breach the ray shield that would be protecting the festival stage, where Palpatine would be speaking; Twazzi and Embo would impersonate guards protecting Palpatine; Eval would be the getaway driver for their quarry; and Kenobi would be the sniper to immobilize the Chancellor.

Because the final part of the plan called for Senate Commando disguises, each of Bane's associates save for Eval was given a holographic disguise matrix, developed by Box competitor Sinrich, for the duration of the operation. After Bane sent his comrades to their positions around Theed, Dooku applauded his handling of the plan but advised him to keep an eye on "Hardeen," having become suspicious of the disguised Kenobi. Bane resolved to keep his eye on all of them, as each mercenary had to meet with success for the operation to succeed. The Festival of Light took place the next evening at the Theed Royal Palace, with Palpatine having arrived that day with a clone shock trooper security detail from the Coruscant Guard, along with Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu on behalf of the Jedi Order. Before the festival began, Bane adopted the guise of a Neimoidian delegate using a holographic disguise matrix and infiltrated the audience on the main stage, where Palpatine was to preside over the ceremony. As the program began, Palpatine arrived with Queen Neeyutnee of Naboo, Senator Padmé Amidala, and other Naboo dignitaries, along with his security troupe, consisting of Skywalker, Windu, clone shock troopers, and Senate Commandos. With Palpatine delivering an address in celebration of Naboo's rich history, Skywalker, Windu, and their comrades failed to notice the disguised Bane amidst the stage audience.

Just as Palpatine began the scheduled fireworks sequence, Derrown reached the shield generator on the east side of the stage and compromised the ray shield over the stage, setting off an explosion that interrupted the ceremony and knocked the Chancellor unconscious. As the audience panicked and scrambled for the exits, Windu ordered two Senate Commandos&mdash;the disguised Embo and Twazzi&mdash;to get the comatose Chancellor onto a Flash speeder. With Skywalker and Windu otherwise occupied, Embo placed a holographic disguise matrix emitter on Palpatine to disguise him as a Senate Commando; Twazzi then adopted the Chancellor's guise, with Embo escorting her to the Flash speeder as her Senate Commando guard. Thanks to Twazzi's switch with Palpatine, she and Embo were able to distract Skywalker and Windu long enough for Bane to reach Palpatine and bring him onto a second Flash speeder, this one piloted by Eval. Bane and Eval escaped with Palpatine before Skywalker and Windu could reach them, though they were trailed to the rendezvous point by the still-undercover Kenobi. Arriving at the abandoned plasma refinery where Dooku had agreed to meet them, Bane offloaded Palpatine, who had regained consciousness, and disembarked with Eval. Presently, Kenobi arrived aboard a speeder, stating that he had not wanted to be double-crossed again, as had been the case back on Nal Hutta.

In spite of the fact that "Hardeen" had not been scheduled to arrive until much later, his appearance was the least of Bane's worries: Dooku had failed to show up, leaving them with the Chancellor. When Eval questioned what they should do with Palpatine, Bane stated his intention to ransom him themselves, as someone would undoubtedly pay them for their important hostage. This decision earned Bane a confrontation from Kenobi, who abandoned his cover to protect the Chancellor. As a fight broke out, Bane knocked Kenobi backward and fired upon him, using his rocket boots to gain elevation over his opponent. Just as he did so, Kenobi brazenly jumped after him and grabbed onto his legs, forcing Bane back down before throwing him straight into Eval. Kenobi's victory was soon followed by the arrival of Skywalker and Windu, along with a squad of clone shock troopers, who rescued the Chancellor from the bounty hunters. Bane and Eval were taken into custody by the clone troopers, with Windu finally revealing the real identity of "Hardeen" to Bane. Furious with being deceived, Bane spat venom at Kenobi as he was escorted away, his work for Dooku going unpaid. The Jedi Order also foiled Dooku's subsequent attempt to kidnap Palpatine, with Skywalker and Kenobi defeating Dooku and forcing him to retreat from Naboo.

Imperial service
Bane maintained his reputation as a veteran hunter throughout the Clone Wars, even until the war ended in 19 BBY. Following the newly christened Emperor Palpatine's establishment of the Galactic Empire, Bane became one of the Empire's select freelancers, playing a part in many Imperial dirty dealings. Although he worked with Boba Fett on another occasion, Fett came to be his closest rival in the bounty hunting trade.

Formidable mercenary
"Sure, sure. As long as I get paid, it makes no difference to me."

- Cad Bane, to Darth Sidious

One of the galaxy's most lethal, ruthless, fearsome, and deadly bounty hunters, Cad Bane earned the reputation of the foremost blaster-for-hire during the Clone Wars, filling the position that fellow mercenary Jango Fett had occupied until his death. Quintessentially cold, cruel, and capable in his line of work, Bane was unscrupulous and had much less moral content than his closest rival, Boba Fett; Bane ignored the morality of his work and often turned upon his own clients unless he was paid. His loyalty was ultimately to credits and therefore to the highest bidder who offered them. His usual rate was considerable, but so was his reputation, to the point that his quarries knew that nothing would stop him from capturing them. He regarded credits with the highest importance, and though he did not pass up the opportunity to demand more pay from his clients, he was very dedicated to his work if paid the right amount for it. He took on jobs that were considered to be tough, costly, dangerous, and even impossible, earning respect for accepting and accomplishing such tasks. If offered enough pay, he did not place any restrictions on the client or contracted quarry, regardless of whether the latter was a person or a possession.

Crafty, resourceful, vicious, and brutally ruthless, Bane was good at what he did. He was a clever strategist and carefully planned his trap for the Jedi during the Battle of Devaron; he was willing to sacrifice anything, even an entire Trade Federation fleet, to lure the Jedi into it. Displays of his astuteness included his setup for rival mercenary Davtokk to unwittingly serve as a test for his own team of hunters, his pilferage of the murdered Denal's armor to ensure his own escape at Devaron, and his ruse for Mace Windu and Obi-Wan Kenobi at Black Stall Station that allowed him another getaway. The fact that Bane was able to free Ziro the Hutt with consummate ease was a testament to his overall abilities. He chose to orchestrate his raid on the Senate during guard shift changes to maximize his element of surprise&mdash;and his casualties&mdash;by eliminating the majority of the active Senate security all at once, thereby showing his opponents no mercy. Even when tasked with bounties like the recapture of Ziro, he did not falter in the treacherous pursuit of his quarry. He was autonomous as a bounty hunter and did not place his trust in others easily or often, believing that the best way to ensure that a task was completed was to do it himself. As such, when his frigate was crippled over Devaron, he ordered his battle droid crew to transfer full control of the ship to his wrist-com so that he could use it against his opponents.

Bane was tirelessly patient, and it was said that he could not be stopped and would pursue his prey across the galaxy if necessary, no matter how dangerous the mission or the target. He even enjoyed difficult assignments. Early on in his career, he believed that war was on the horizon and sought to best profit from it, leading to his widespread success during the resultant Clone Wars. He was both respected and feared in his line of work, and he would not let anyone stand in his way. To him, a good bounty hunter made his own rules and ensured that the odds were in his favor. He was smooth and thorough in his jobs and did not leave a mess behind unless paid to do so; as such, he derided Sy Snootles's assassination of Ziro as sloppy. One of his worst pet peeves was when someone else did his assignment for him and denied him his client's payment, as was the case when Snootles killed Ziro before he could reach him. Despite his penchant for a good fight, Bane preferred to use stealth and surprise tactics to avoid a direct fight when possible. Although he would have enjoyed taking down the likes of Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and indeed pursued them on several occasions, Bane did not let personal feelings get in the way of his work. Even so, he pursued Kul Teska&mdash;a "competitor" of his&mdash;to Behpour after Teska retrieved the Gravitic Core and stole his ship on Ryloth. Bane took his revenge on Teska by firing at him, trapping him during his fight with Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano and leading to his death. In spite of his professionalism, he took it personally when people spied on him, as was the case when Lalo Gunn attempted to eavesdrop on him on Vaced. Bane did not hesitate to fight Kenobi and Quinlan Vos on Teth for the Separatist bounties on Jedi, and he also pursued killing Skywalker when their paths crossed on Orondia. Yet regardless of how tough he was, Bane always kept his cool under control. Whereas his client, Moralo Eval, panicked on several occasions due to setbacks to their escape from Republic custody, Bane kept a cool head and took time to think out a solution to their problems, not allowing unfavorable odds to get the better of him.

Solo hunter, effective leader
"Once you are all aboard the transport, Eval will walk you through his plan. However, the operation on Naboo will be run by&hellip;Cad Bane. All of you work for him now."

- Count Dooku, to the bounty hunters selected for the kidnapping of Chancellor Palpatine

Though Bane did not always operate alone, he usually worked solo, as doing so gave him the freedom of improvisation and more credits that did not have to be split with others. When he recognized that the job was big enough, he employed his fellow hunters for assistance, though he preferred to keep both his methods for selecting comrades for joint operations and his introduction into the bounty business itself obscure to the galaxy at large. He proved his skill as a leader while commanding the posse that he formed to free Ziro the Hutt from Republic custody, and his assured manner and brutal methods earned him respect from his underlings. Bane frequently displayed a lack of concern for his accomplices, caring little what happened to his team after they had liberated Ziro, provided that they avoided capture by the Republic. When his comrade, Cato Parasitti, was captured by the Jedi during their joint infiltration of the Jedi Temple, Bane did not attempt to rescue her. Instead, he ignored her plight and left her in the Jedi's custody to continue his work for Darth Sidious. He even swore to return the favor when Parasitti tipped the Jedi off to his next target.

When he subcontracted bounty hunters for his jobs, Bane chose his comrades carefully. At various times, he worked with Cato Parasitti, Robonino, Aurra Sing,  and Boba Fett on more than one occasion. He did not particularly care for the mercenary Bossk, whom he saw as a bumbling fool. He disliked operating in groups when not in charge, as was the case while working for Moralo Eval alongside Rako Hardeen. He took an immediate disliking to Hardeen, who was in actuality a disguised Obi-Wan Kenobi, while working with him to escape from the Central Detention Center. He went so far as to punch Kenobi on one occasion for hesitating to take a clone trooper's life during their escape, and also attempted to strand him on Nal Hutta to take the fall for his and Moralo Eval's crimes. As he admitted to Eval, the latter exploit came from both business and personal reasons. Nevertheless, the undercover Kenobi began to earn Bane's trust as they worked together on Orondia, and later in the Box as part of Count Dooku's mercenary competition on Serenno. When Eval attempted to kill Kenobi by deactivating his platform above a flame emitter field, Bane, who had amassed some measure of respect for the undercover Jedi Master, saved him by firing his cable launcher at him, telling Eval to kill Kenobi like a man instead of from afar in the Box. Even when working with such successful hunters as Embo, Twazzi, Derrown, and Moralo Eval, Bane did not tell his accomplices more than they needed to know in regards to the plan to kidnap Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Count Dooku himself recognized Bane's expert handling and execution of the plan, going so far as to comment that he should have placed Bane in charge from the start.

Morality, or lack thereof
"They want to know who shall take on this&hellip;very dangerous task.''" "''That would be me. Cad Bane, at your service. I'll take on any job&hellip;for the right price."

- TC-70 and Cad Bane, about the Hutt Council

Although laconic, Bane could be quite bold and impudent to higher authorities like Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who was outraged by his audacity, and the Jedi. He was fearless and unflappable in the face of danger, and he remained undaunted by the Senate Commandos' attempt to arrest him, Palpatine's threats of retribution for his crimes, and the Jedi's interrogation of him aboard the Resolute. During the latter situation, Bane refused to disclose the identity of his wealthy and powerful Sith Lord client, though Mace Windu simply attributed his lack of submission to the questioning to his fear of his hirer. Seeing as no client was too "wicked" for him, the grim-faced Bane worked for the shadowy Darth Sidious on numerous occasions, as the bounty hunter's reputation was distinguished enough to attract Sidious's attention. When Sidious recruited his services for infiltrating the Jedi Temple, Bane believed the mission to be a tough challenge, if not impossible and foolhardy. However, he immediately agreed to the costly assignment when Sidious challenged his reputation. He was gutsy enough to haggle with the Sith Lord, requesting three times his usual rate for the job.

Bane took pleasure in striking fear in his quarries and captives, as evidenced by his treatment of the senators during his brazen hostage-taking in the Senate. He responded to Senator Philo's refusal to submit to his "insolence" by killing Philo without hesitation, showing the other senators that he meant business. Bolla Ropal's refusal to help Bane open the holocron prompted the mercenary to intensify his torture of the Jedi Master, ultimately killing him. Bane deemed Ropal's sacrifice to be foolish and held little regard for his life, walking away from the murder scene without a backward glance and seeing the death as only a slight delay in achieving his objective. A dispassionate realist and an arrogant killer, the callous Bane was happy to cause collateral damage as part of his work. He did not take prisoners, preferring to instead obliterate everything and everyone in his path to his intended victims, regardless of the trail of carnage he left. As such, he sought to kill his senator hostages even after he had used them to secure Ziro the Hutt's freedom. He had no problems with going back on his word, exemplified in his discharge of the explosives that were keeping the senators trapped in the Executive Building's atrium, even after he and his Hutt quarry had successfully escaped from the Senate. Similarly, when Skywalker attempted to attack him during a standoff aboard his frigate, Bane opened the airlock that Tano was trapped in and endangered her life despite bargaining just minutes before for her safe release.

Tactics and methods
"You thought you could get away?''" "''You're not much of a challenge, youngling. I've got you right where I want you."

- Ahsoka Tano is lured into a trap by Cad Bane at the Battle of Devaron

A master bounty hunter, Bane saw preparation as the key to any operation's success. Even though he could not plan for every outcome, he tried to minimize the need to improvise on the spot by always having a plan ready. Whenever possible, he exploited his opponents' weaknesses, which was most often their care for each others' well-being. He put much effort into protecting the locations of his hideouts, specifically on Coruscant; he often commandeered civilian airspeeders while operating there to eliminate direct trails to his hideouts. Bane's heavy restrictions on the allotment of his trust led him to develop several special skills&mdash;including the ability to gather and make use of data to control situations&mdash;that rivaled his adeptness at creating chaos. He preferred that everything operated his way, and his perennial belief in the chance that someone was after him fueled his skill for staying ahead of his opponents. He valued security over punctuality, and while preparing to land on Bogg 5, he did not hesitate to spend an extra two hours executing a roundabout landing course to ensure that he was not being followed, regardless of the setback that he caused to his waiting client.

Bane made sure that he did not place all of his trust in starship sensors and developed several habits, including the constant monitoring of shipboard displays and reports, as part of his ongoing routine to ensure that he would not become a victim to anyone or anything, faulty technology included. He did not waste his time while out of combat, using a hyperspace trip from Kynachi to Bogg 5 as an opportunity to hone and broaden his bounty hunting skills by watching a pirated Bounty Hunters' Guild's Greatest Hits holovid. Although he did so intending to acquire the holovid's exclusive Guild techniques for killing amphibious targets, he only received a few laughs from watching the film's portrayal of the entertainingly disagreeable pair of Cradossk and his son, Bossk, who were both contemporaries of his. Bane frequently resorted to bribery and deception to achieve his own ends. He was a good liar, to the point that only experienced individuals like Lalo Gunn were able to tell when he was keeping information to himself. A talented actor, he was able to deceive Nuru Kungurama and a squad of clone troopers while on Kynachi, though the clones eventually came to mistrust him. He secretly manipulated the group into raiding the KynachTech prison by staging an elaborate fight with several droid commandos to mask his machinations. To gain the group's trust, Bane revealed that he was a bounty hunter; regardless of the risk he took in doing so, he knew that it was easier to deceive someone by telling most of the truth rather than a complete lie. He learned from experience that it was usually unwise to tell an outright lie to a Jedi.

Bane recognized early on that killing a Jedi would help him build a reputation, leading him to accept Akris Ur'etu's assignment to eliminate a Jedi. When the Jedi turned out to be an impostor working for the Hutts, he had no qualms with allowing Ur'etu to die so that he could learn how to construct the agent's miniature equipment, in which he saw incredible promise. Bane came to specialize in fighting Jedi and did not fear them like other bounty hunters did. Although he developed a certain level of respect for them and their abilities, he was not intimidated by the Force and believed that they sometimes placed too much faith in it. He was capable of outwitting and posing a significant challenge to the Jedi, and he even welcomed the chance to test his abilities against their legendary prowess. In the case of Ring-Sol Ambase, Bane would have gladly killed his Jedi target on the spot, but refrained from doing so because he had not been paid to. Despite the fact that his mind was too sharp and his will too strong to be bend by Jedi mind tricks, the combined influence exerted by Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, and Obi-Wan Kenobi forced him to submit to their demands. Because he lacked sensitivity to the Force, Bane evened the odds against his Jedi opponents by employing his surroundings as weapons, countering Skywalker's forces with his frigate's shipboard functions and escaping from Windu and Kenobi by maneuvering them into Black Stall Station's deadly laser grid. He regarded Skywalker as a formidable opponent and was quite pleased when Shahan Alama, Robonino, and Aurra Sing defeated Skywalker during the Senate hostage crisis.

Bane put considerable effort into analyzing his opponents, particularly the Jedi, to find and take advantage of their flaws. He took every chance to turn their "misplaced chivalry"&mdash;their inclination to capture rather than kill their quarries&mdash;against them, and he even exploited Ahsoka Tano's pride and overbearing faith in her own abilities. Bane found that the trick with defeating Jedi was to stave off an open fight for as long as possible, thereby whittling them down by attrition. He also discovered several effective ways of wearing down a Jedi's concentration and ability to use the Force: bombarding the Jedi with sonics and dense blaster fire, disorienting him or her by assuming complete control of the surrounding environment, and cutting his adversary off from any means of support. Bane recognized Skywalker as a deadly fighter in open combat, and instead of engaging him directly, he elected to confront the overly compassionate Skywalker with difficult moral choices by employing those close to him as hostages. He was careful to keep Skywalker occupied to prevent him from planning ahead. In the case of Tano, Bane found it easy to exploit the Padawan's pride and overbearing faith in her abilities by isolating her and waiting for the right moment to strike back. Even Grand Master Yoda's skill with the Force was not a source of intimidation for Bane; rather, he believed that given the right circumstances, Yoda could be pushed into a corner and then executed by means of an expertly timed sniper shot. Still, he overall preferred to kill Jedi face to face and did not respect anyone who employed less confrontational means&mdash;namely, sniping&mdash;to take out Jedi, as he told Rako Hardeen.

Skills and abilities
"We're BX commandos and we outnumber you seven to one!''" "I know&hellip; not even a fair fight&hellip; But I don't have the time for you to find some more'' friends!"

- A BX-series droid commando and Cad Bane, before the latter makes short work of the droids

Besides being able to speak Galactic Basic Standard, Bane could understand Huttese, though he considered his familiarity with the language to be rather rusty. He was also familiar in Jawaese, the language spoken by his associate Ttekket; his knowledge of multiple languages helped him make a number of contacts in the criminal underworld. Given his formidable reputation, Bane was a highly skilled mercenary. He possessed a stoic tolerance for pain and Jedi mind tricks, the latter of which he was normally&mdash;though not always&mdash;immune to. A cunning fighter who was skilled in the various forms of the art of combat, Bane was well known for his prowess in combat and was one of the deadliest beings in the galaxy with a blaster. Said to rarely miss a target, he was able to kill targets with precise shots at point-blank range. He was also able to hit moving targets, such as clone troopers during the firefight aboard his frigate at Devaron. Although Ahsoka Tano got the better of him during that engagement by disarming him, he simply used her "victory" as a distraction to electrocute her and take her hostage. He was more confident as a long-range killer than in close-quarter combat, using technology and intellectual skill to take down targets.

In addition to a proficiency in armed combat, Bane's formidable skills included a talent in unarmed combat; he was quite acrobatic and was able to swiftly dispatch his opponents whether they were clone troopers during his escape from the Resolute or Captain Jayfon during the Senate hostage crisis. Despite not being Force-sensitive, he proved to be a tough quarry against Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos during a fight on Teth, using his arsenal of weapons to keep them off-balance until he could escape. Although he specialized in fighting Jedi, he was defeated and captured on Naboo by Tano and Anakin Skywalker, though he later managed to escape. Overall, Bane was not particularly athletically powerful; he instead relied on mechanical aids and sharply honed wits to survive outside of his native environment. He was an adequate starship pilot with the Xanadu Blood, and in starfighter combat, he was able to extensively damage Skywalker's and Kenobi's Consular-class cruiser during his pursuit of them, though he was eventually outmaneuvered by the Jedi.

Equipment
"Now all I need's a new hat.''" "For trying to blend in, your hat sure makes you stand out." "''I don't like to hide under a helmet."

- Cad Bane and a disguised Obi-Wan Kenobi

Bane used an impressive arsenal of weapons and tools to ensure that he would be well-prepared for any situation and to make up for his lesser prowess in athletics. He prided himself in arming himself with only the finest weapons and equipment. He carried a pair of personalized BlasTech LL-30 blaster pistols &mdash;which he capped with silencers when necessary &mdash;and wore a set of scuffed nerf-hide quick-draw holsters to hold them at his waist. He developed a habit of hiding spare weapons and so kept explosives, a concealed bola, and a smaller hold-out pistol on his person. When necessary, he used a customized projectile carbine to short out lightsabers with cortosis, which, despite being high-priced and "hell on barrels," got the job done. He used precious chips of metal for bribery when the situation called for it. Other tools of his included a durasteel ice pick, which he kept in his gun belt. He also utilized removable cybernetic breathing tubes that were embedded in his cheekbones; they were directly connected to his windpipe, allowing him to work freely in the harshest atmospheres without requiring additional protection.

The majority of Bane's miniaturized equipment was inspired by that of a Hutt enforcer who used it to imitate a Jedi. Bane's durasteel magno-grip boots were equipped with customized Mitrinomon jetpack thrusters, which gave him a distinct advantage in situations like the zero-gravity battle aboard his frigate. His bulky but useful multipurpose wrist gauntlets hid a variety of control devices, built-in tools, and weapons, including a cable launcher, comlink, data uplink, lanyard, and non-lethal contact stunners. His gauntlets were also capable of handling starship functions, from controls aboard his Munificent-class star frigate and a speeder bike to remotely piloting his personal Telgorn dropship, the Sleight of Hand. To top it off, each of his gauntlets was equipped with a projectile launcher and a flamethrower, which he sometimes used in place of his blasters. Bane's gear itself was designed to counteract the abilities of Force-users: his external breathing tubes prevented him from being Force-choked, his rocket boots rivaled a Jedi's Force speed and Force leaps, and his stunners were meant to electrocute foes in an imitation of Force lightning. His usual choice of clothing included a wide-brimmed hat and a Nashtah-hide tunic with a heavy cloak, a unique set that became his trademark appearance. For head gear, he preferred a hat to a helmet, the latter of which he refused to hide under in spite of its extra protection. His penchant for hats tended to stand out, leading those who were familiar with him, such as Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, to recognize him even when he was not sporting his trademark equipment.

While on the run from Republic authorities with Moralo Eval, Bane was forced to select new gear from Pablo's Pawnshop. He chose a light vest while making sure to acquire rocket boots and a new hat, which he later exchanged for his prized wide-brimmed hat from Bulduga, who had come into possession of it. He also obtained gauntlets that retained some of the functions of his usual ones, such as a cable launcher, while also incorporating a knockout gas dispenser. For weaponry, he secured a Mandalorian blaster rifle in addition to a familiar LL-30 blaster pistol, along with holsters to carry both. As far as droid assistance went, Bane used Todo 360, an incredibly useful techno-service droid who was equipped with a number of built-in gadgets, for various missions and jobs. Despite the droid's resentment of such disparagement, Bane viewed him as a "butler droid." At one point, Bane sacrificed Todo to distract the Jedi while he escaped from the Jedi Temple, but the droid was later reconstructed and returned to serve him. Bane additionally used some deadly IG-86 sentinel droids in his operations because of the line's agility and intelligence, often relying on them for muscle to supplement the skills of other mercenaries in his work. Among their number were HELIOS-3D and HELIOS-3E, who were both originally owned by Ziro the Hutt.

For transportation, Bane piloted a number of modified starships for his operations. He utilized the Sleight of Hand, a Telgorn dropship with formidable weapons and defensive systems that he personally outfitted with military-grade gear and an advanced hyperdrive to suit his needs as a transport vessel. The dropship was also equipped with a tractor beam as well as deflector shields, the latter of which were powerful enough to minimize damage and even prevent the pilot from being aware of collisions with other starships. A sophisticated sensor jammer even rendered the dropship invisible to most scanners. Bane also flew the Xanadu Blood, a heavily modified Rogue-class starfighter that he acquired from Darth Sidious. Although its layers of paint were chipped, the fighter served Bane's purposes in his hunt for Force-sensitive infants. Despite the fact that he lost possession of both of his starships on various occasions, he eventually retrieved both of them.

Portrayal and development
"The crew loves Cad Bane, and I really think the fans will, too. He brings a serious bad-ass sensibility to Star Wars. He's a lethal and ruthless bounty hunter, and you see that right away in the episode. Unlike Boba Fett, Cad doesn't take prisoners."

- Giancarlo Volpe, director of Bane's debut episode, "Hostage Crisis"

The character of Cad Bane was created for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series. He was first featured in March 2009 in the series' first season finale, "Hostage Crisis," as well as in its accompanying webcomic, Invitation Only. Because the episode introduced the role of bounty hunters into the series, Bane was one of the first such individuals to appear in the show. He also appeared in Hunting the Hunters, Part I, the first in a sub-series of The Clone Wars webcomics that transitioned between the television series' first and second seasons, and became a prominent character in Ryder Windham's Secret Missions novel series, which was released from 2009 to 2012. As of August 2010, he was voted the thirty-first most popular character in Star Wars canon on IGN.com.

Thanks to his instant popularity with the Lucasfilm Animation crew, Bane was featured in the three-part story arc&mdash;comprised of the episodes "Holocron Heist," "Cargo of Doom," and "Children of the Force"&mdash;that began the series' Season Two in October 2009. In addition to appearing in Act on Instinct, the season's accompanying webcomic, he was given roles in the multi-platform video game Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes and in Cartoon Network's The Clone Wars Game Creator. In 2010, Bane was collected in the Star Wars Miniatures line and in several of Hasbro's toy lines. He returned to the television series in the third season episodes "Evil Plans" and "Hunt for Ziro," which aired in November 2010 as prequels and sequels, respectively, to "Hostage Crisis." In December 2010, Bane was featured in his very own StarWars.com game, entitled Cad Bane: Jedi Hunter. He began to be featured in several comics released as part of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars Comic UK publication, and in 2011, he received a role in the non-canonical video game LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars.

Spring 2012 saw Bane featured in a story arc of the television series' fourth season, comprised of the episodes "Deception," "Friends and Enemies," "The Box," and "Crisis on Naboo." As part of his brief time as a prisoner in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center, he was given the inmate number twenty-two, corresponding to the placement number that he received in a wave of Hasbro's The Clone Wars toy line. In September 2012, Bane was featured in his own short story, Reputation, which was released in Star Wars Insider 136. Written by Ari Marmell, the story detailed one of his earliest assignments and explained the origin of his distinctive toolkit and weapons.

Throughout The Clone Wars television series and in Republic Heroes, Bane was portrayed by voice actor Corey Burton, who also provided the voices for Shahan Alama, Ziro Desilijic Tiure, and Count Dooku in the series. At the suggestion of Series Producer and Star Wars creator George Lucas, Burton took inspiration from film actor Peter Lorre in voicing Bane and used the character's pre-established Western American influences to bring the bounty hunter to life with his own original characterization. Portraying Bane as a "transplanted European immigrant in the Old West" who had adjusted to the local dialect, Burton was also influenced by a few contemporary actors who had played soft-spoken cinematic heavies, including Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum. Burton's voice was additionally modified on the computer by the series' sound production team before being set in the final version of each television episode.

Initially, bounty hunters were not to be a part of the television series, but as the first season's storylines developed, a character was required to fill the role of a hunter. Supervising Director Dave Filoni and writer Henry Gilroy explored the possibility of bringing the Gen'Dai mercenary Durge into the series, and the character was re-imagined as a Human. The individual evolved into one named "Nom Kahbah" before Lucas became personally involved with the development, suggesting that a Western American influence be used. At Lucas's request, inspiration for the character was taken from actor Lee Van Cleef's performances in the films The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More. Filoni found an unlabeled sketch of a bounty hunter from the original Star Wars trilogy, and the resultant creation was Bane, whose model drew from the concept art with additional expansion by Lead Designer Kilian Plunkett to incorporate the Duros species' features. Lucas eventually changed the character's name to "Cad Bane," paving the way for Bane's place in Star Wars canon.

Inconsistencies
"However, it seems that not everyone was pleased to see Ziro locked away. While it's not clear from this episode who was responsible, someone of considerable means must have hired bounty hunter Cad Bane and his team to rescue the Hutt. And from Chancellor Palpatine's exchange with Bane (where he warns the bounty hunter, 'You will end up paying for this outrage'), it seems doubtful that the Separatists are behind this rescue, either. But then again, Darth Sidious's mysterious plans have never been easy to unravel."

- The open-ended excerpt from The Official Episode Guide: Season 1

The party&mdash;left unnamed in 2009's "Hostage Crisis"&mdash;who had hired Bane to free Ziro the Hutt from prison was not clarified for quite some time. According to Bane's StarWars.com Databank entry, some first season publicity materials mistakenly implied that Darth Sidious and the Separatists had hired Bane to free Ziro. Although the Databank entry went on to state that Bane was working for the Hutts when he liberated Ziro, the 2009 Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Official Episode Guide: Season 1 publication further complicated the matter by claiming that Bane's employer had yet to be identified in Season Two, though none of the episodes featuring Bane even alluded to the Senate hostage crisis. The issue was finally resolved in the 2010 third season episode "Evil Plans," which solidified the Databank's claim that Bane had been hired by the Hutts, despite Jabba the Hutt's grudge against Ziro. Furthermore, an in-universe explanation for the mistaken involvement of the Separatists was provided in the 2012 Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded, which stated that the Hutts had framed the Confederacy for Bane's actions.

The storyline of the Nintendo DS edition of Republic Heroes greatly contradicts the plot of episodes within the television series' first season, as well as the other editions of Republic Heroes. In the DS edition, Bane contacts the Republic from a Separatist prison on Ryloth, where he is being held, and offers to sell information about a secret Confederate facility, but insists on only dealing with Senator Padmé Amidala. The Jedi believe the bounty hunter's information to be critical in uncovering a large Separatist plot and decide to rescue Bane, sending Jedi Master Kit Fisto as Amidala's escort. The two infiltrate the prison and rescue Bane, but Fisto gets separated from the Senator in the process. Bane promises to reveal the information if Amidala takes him to his ship, the Xanadu Blood, and they fight through battle droids before eventually reaching the craft. Sticking to his word, Bane tells the Senator of Juma 9&mdash;which, in this case, is a strategic Confederate outpost, while in the other editions of the game it is an active Republic mining facility. It is protected by a defense perimeter, which can only be bypassed with recent Separatist clearance codes. This leads into a storyline involving the Confederate General Grievous's castle on the third moon of Vassek that ignores the plot and aims of the Jedi raid on the lair already portrayed in the television series' first season. Because of this story's extremely conflicting plot that would otherwise require too much fan-based speculation to integrate into the canonical biography, this article assumes that the Nintendo DS edition of Republic Heroes is non-canonical.

Non-canon history
The publication Star Wars: The Clone Wars Comic UK 6.15 introduced an Infinities&mdash;non-canonical&mdash;version of the episode "Hostage Crisis." While taking the Senate hostage to free Ziro the Hutt, Bane and his accomplices are confronted by Senator Padmé Amidala, who is in possession of Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. Harnessing her latent sensitivity to the Force, Amidala duels Bane and rapidly disarms the bounty hunter and his comrades. While Bane and the others are put behind bars, Amidala goes on to train to become a Jedi.

In the LEGO online comic Jedi Journal Entry , Bane is in a cantina on a remote outlaw world, counting his credits from his last bounty, when General Grievous arrives. Grievous hires him to track down Jedi Master Plo Koon, who is after the cyborg General, but Bane fulfills the job by simply pointing out Koon and Jedi Knight Aayla Secura when they enter the cantina, searching for Grievous. While Grievous and IG-86 assassin droids battle the Jedi in a firefight, Bane simply sits back and watches the show. After Grievous flees from the cantina, Bane is hired by several battle droids to hunt down R2-D2, and he calls in several of his mercenary accomplices to assist him in the gambit.

In addition to presenting more humorous and comical depictions of Bane in "Hostage Crisis," the LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars video game also modified the episode's storyline. In the game, Ziro the Hutt directly hires Bane to free him from prison, without the involvement of the Hutt Council. The level featuring the Senate hostage crisis ends after the Republic Executive Building's power generator is shut down. Besides being a playable character in that level, Bane can be bought as an in-game character following the "Geonosian Arena" level, for use in the game's "Free Play" mode. In the Nintendo DS edition, he is available for play after the game's "Blue Shadow Virus" level.

Non-canonical appearances

 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars Game Creator
 * Jedi Journal Entry 
 * LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars