Beilert Valance

Beilert Valance, designated Cadet 404-913, was a human male who hailed from Chorin. Born into slavery, Valance became a miner like his father before him. He later left his homeworld and joined the Galactic Empire.

He served alongside Han Solo as a cadet at Carida Academy, the Imperial Naval Academy on the planet Carida. He was involved in at least two altercations with Solo and both ended up crashing during an exercise due to their conflict. While covering bombers on Qhulosk, Valance was shot down, leaving him with several permanent injuries.

After being rescued by Solo and a few other cadets, Valance enlisted for the infantry and was deployed to Mimban, where he was severely injured in the ensuing battle and was given cybernetics. He was later discharged from the Empire and became a bounty hunter, where he was eventually hired to hunt down Darth Vader.

Early life
"The Valance family has dug, scratched, and clawed through these hills for centuries. But you? You're different. You were born free. You belong in the stars, Beilert."

- Valance's father

Beilert Valance was born into a mining family which had dug the hills of their homeworld of Chorin for centuries as slaves until the Galactic Empire liberated them. As a child, Valance spoke with his father about his heritage, asking if he would follow in his father's and grandfather's footsteps as a miner. His father informed him that, because of the Empire's efforts, their people were no longer slaves, and Valance was free to venture into the stars. Valance too worked in the mines and soon decided to join the Empire. Before he left, Yura, who he was very close to, gave him a red gem to remember her by. Valance's father told him to work as hard as he did in the mines.

Meeting Han Solo
"The Empire is good. And pure. Scrumrats don't belong in the Navy, Solo."

- Beilert Valance, to Han Solo

Valance eventually became a cadet for the Empire at Carida Academy, the Imperial Naval Academy on the planet Carida in the star system of the same name. At the Imperial Academy, the Imperial cadets were referred to by their assigned operating numbers instead of their real names, with Valance being known by the digits "404-913." While he was able to seemingly win the love of the Empire, due to his belief in beating others into submission to show he was the best, one of Valance's fellow cadets, Kanina Nico, particularly hated him, even more than she hated everyone else.

Valance came to have a dislike for fellow cadet Han Solo, as he believed Solo was holding him back and viewed him to merely be a Corellian scrumrat. At one point during training, Solo spoke out of turn to their training officer Lieutenant Triosa Broog. She responded by ordering the cadets to run up a mountain in full swamp trooper gear. In response to this several cadets attacked Solo. Afterwards, Valance insulted Solo, claiming scrumrats like him didn't belong in the navy, but before he could cause any serious physical harm, cadet Nico cut in and told him to let the other cadet go.

Causing trouble
"As you can see on the leaderboard&hellip;you're still right where you belong."

- Valance taunts Han Solo

While Solo was detained temporarily for trying to escape Carida in a TIE fighter, Valance climbed to the top of the cadet leader board, competing heavily with Nico. When Solo returned to see the leader board, he confronted him again. Solo tried to fight him, but was knocked to the ground by Valance. Solo then kicked him in the groin and hit him around the face with a tray. An officer arrived and questioned the incident, but Solo and Valance dismissed it as a misunderstanding to avoid punishment. Valance briefly threatened Solo after, before they both parted ways.

Later, Valance was partnered with Lyttan Dree for another training session. In TIE fighters, they were tasked with working together against the other pairs to obliterate their target. During the session, Lyttan's brother, Tamu Dree, flew in a collision course. Lyttan abandoned Valance and their mission for his brother, but it was Solo which saved him in the end. After, the cadets were put in a cell for not completing their task. Their punishment was making soup for the other cadets. When Solo became covered in live roots, Valance refused to let the Dree brothers help him.

One day, the cadets under punishment were approached by training officer Yurib Nakan, who reported that their work duties were already fulfilled for the day, supposedly thanks to Valance. He had Valance returned to flight training and other four flying the Quasar Fire-class cruiser-carrier which carried the rest of the cadets flying in TIE fighters. As a part of their training session, the cadets in TIEs had to fly across open space to rendezvous with a destroyer while Solo, Nico and the Dree brothers flew the carrier. Following the exercise, Valance was with the four cadets after they returned with the carrier. They had all been reinstated to full-flight status following their success in returning on time. Nakan entered the room after the news came to light and told Valance and the others that they would be combating real enemies.

Shot down
"I can't believe the Empire sent you to rescue me.''" "''The Empire didn't send us, Valance. We came on our own."

- Valance and Solo

Valance and the rest of the squad were assigned to Qhulosk. Before the Battle of Howlan, he argued with Nakan about Solo's fitness to fly into battle. Once the attack began, Valance took the lead. Solo strafed some cannons, but was pursued by three Qhuloskian fighters. Valance dropped in behind them, destroying them and saving Solo. He then took the point and led an attack on the shield generators that were protecting the Qhuloskian army. After a successful attack, Valance's TIE fighter was hit by enemy fire and heavily damaged. A pair of Qhuloskian fighters got behind him but Solo convinced Valance to turn off his engines so he would drop out of the line of fire and give Solo a clear shot at them. He restarted his engines, but was unable to maneuver his fighter. Before Solo could assist him, his fighter was hit by more enemy fire and he crash-landed, unable to eject.

Valance got out of his crashed starfighter and set up a defensive perimeter. When Solo and the rest of the squad approached him, he fired on them thinking they were enemies. Tamu applied first aid to his wounds. Valance expressed disbelief that the Empire would send his squadmates to rescue him and Solo informed him they did it on their own. While Valance couldn't believe it, Solo told him that Valance was like all soldiers, expendable. Solo got Valance on the back of his speeder bike, and Valance begrudgingly thanked him for the rescue.

On their way back to base, they ran into a large group of Qhuloskian soldiers. Valance fired upon them, but the squad was quickly surrounded. They were saved by a group of Ghular slaves. After learning Nico's planet was next to be conquered by the Empire, Solo concocted a plan to make it look like she died in combat. Valance agreed to go along with the falsehood but warned her she'd be wanted by the Empire. When Valance got back to base and was sent to medical bay, he learned the Empire wouldn't replace his eye or leg and he would lose his flight privileges. He was upset, but Tamu guessed he would pay for them himself and re-enlist as a soldier so he could continue to serve.

Fighting battles
"You didn't bat an eye when you were demoted to a grunt&hellip; you just went right back to the fight. Never questioning. Never stopping."

- Yurib Nakan, to Valance

Valance did indeed serve in the infantry. During one battle in the Mid Rim, serving as a stormtrooper, Valance was pinned behind a trench alongside three of his comrades. When one of them asked him if his death was worth it, Valance recounted how the Empire had saved his family, implying that his death was worth it for that. Four enemy soldiers when arrived to kill the stormtroopers, only for them to be killed by Darth Vader as he brought reinforcements with him.

During an assignment to Mimban, Valance served as a swamp trooper and was pinned down in a trench with several other troopers. One attempted to climb out, only to have his head vaporized by enemy fire. When Valance failed to muster air support through his comlink, the other soldiers claimed the Empire did not care about them. Determined to complete his mission, Valance led them out of the trench. That was when the enemy fire on him, injuring him gravely as he was swept away by an explosion. As his body burned, he told his comrades to "keep going."

Discharge
"You're being discharged, Valance. You've lost a lot of flesh for the Empire. But you won't be losing any more&mdash;"

- Yurib Nakan informs Valance he is being discharged

At the Imperial medical facility, Captain Valance received cybernetic arms and legs, as well as having the left side of his face cybernetically enhanced. Although Valance wanted to return to battle, his old instructor, Yurib Nakan made sure that he was discharged, wishing for him to not be sent to his death. Valance was shocked at this news, but Nakan told him that he would get to go home, something which most soldiers in the Empire could never do.

Valance returned to Chorin in a Zeta-class cargo shuttle. Upon his arrival, he discovered his home in ruins and a graveyard of miners beside it. Kneeling before his father's grave, Valance said he was "sorry." Approaching the ruins of the village, he found Yura among the people. She told him the Empire had taken everything from the mines and left the people defenseless to raiders, which they were not able to stop. Valance told her he would make the raiders pay. He found where they had been, but the raiders were already gone. He was determined to keep going, and the raiders became The Hidden Hand syndicate.

The new job
"Wait. The target&mdash;''" "Don't care." "&mdash;the target is Darth Vader." "Tell me about this&hellip; "team''.""

- Gwi and Valance

Valance was eventually became a bounty hunter. In his new career, he notably developed a grudge against the famous Dengar over some incident the latter referred to as "the Ralen job." In what Valance called "the hangar job," he teamed with the Besalisk Fetya. However, Valance was shot down and held captive during the job, and Fetya escaped empty handed. Moreover, Valance made a habit of stealing bounties, which put him at odds with the Bounty Hunters' Guild. At one point, he lured a number of colleagues who had a score to settle with him to BG-RT's Tavern and Spirits on Coruscant. Xonr, of whom Valance had stolen five bounties from, confronted him first. Valance revealed his plan to the bounty hunter and incinerated him. As the other bounty hunters Valance had lured confronted him he killed them all in the middle of the crowd, further flouting the Bounty Hunter Code.

While returning to his ship, the Broken Wing, Valance was approached by the Tarsunt Gwi, representing The Hidden Hand. As the Tarsunt tried to talk him into joining a team of rule breakers assembled by the Hand, Valance initially refused, since he would only work alone. However, he was quick to change his mind when he heard the target was none other than Darth Vader, the Galactic Emperor's right-hand man. The former Imperial met with the rest of the team: the tracker Honnah, the sniper Urrr'k, the slicer Chio Fain, the killer droid R9-19, and Dengar. Valance's very first reflex after punching Dengar was to incinerate R9-19, not just out of dislike for droids, but because he suspected him of being a mole. As it turned out, the loose cannon was right, since a snitch for the Hutt Clan was found inside the droid's remains.

Chaos on Arvina
"So you're a good guy now, eh, Fetya?''" "I been in this business for decades'', Valance&hellip; there are no good guys."

- Valance is betrayed by Fetya

Aboard the Broken Wing, Valance took his new team to Arvina. Piloting his ship, he destroyed an Imperial patrol. Although Dengar disliked this, Fain assured him Valance was jamming transmissions so the Imperials could not call for help. Landing on the surface of Arvina, Valance had Urrr'k stay to guard the bounty hunters from afar with her sniper rifle as they entered Fetya's Hollow, in search of Valance's former accomplice Fetya. As Valance led the others into a weapons shop, Fetya confronted them and hugged Valance. He asked for sonic cannons, which Fetya supplied stating the cost was on the Hidden Hand. Fetya then explained how she had been selling weapons to the syndicate and told Valance of one of it's contacts who wore a starbird, the symbol of the Rebel Alliance.

As Valance called her out for working with "the good guys," Fetya told him there were no good guys and the bounty hunters found themselves surrounded by her armed assets. She and Valance exchanged threats until they were both interrupted by cannon fire from an Imperial-class Star Destroyer which was raining down on the whole of Fetya's Hollow. Firing on Fetya's men, the bounty hunters fled the weapons shop and Valance revealed that he had actually amplified the signal of the patrol he had destroyed to lure Darth Vader. Fetya and her men pursued the bounty hunters as they boarded a re-purposed Imperial troop transport. Urrr'k, however, fired on them, covering Valance and the other bounty hunters as they fled the destruction that was Fetya's Hollow.

Skirmish on Heva
"Vader is as much machine as I am, Chio."

- Valance to Chio Fain

Valance and the crew arrived on the planet Heva, where they planned to use an electro-pulse device on Vader in order to immobilize him. They purchased a number of bot-drones from the arms dealer Wef, right as Vader promptly arrived in the Star Destroyer Formidable. The team quickly moved to their designated positions. While Dengar and Honnah remained on the ground, Valance flew the Broken Wing with Urrr'k and Fain on board and engaged the star destroyer with the bot-drones escorting them. He ordered Urrr'k to man the guns and shoot down the TIE fighters chasing them, while Fain remotely controlled the drones. He distracted Vader and the other fighters while giving the drones enough time to create a formation and destroy the Formidable. The Broken Wing was heavily damaged in the engagement, forcing Valance to make a crash landing. He and the others quickly escaped the starship as Vader and his forces surrounded them. Using the dust cloud created by the crash landing as an opportunity, Valance and his team trained their weapons on Vader.

Valance prepared the electro-pulse device he had acquired earlier, ordering the rest of the team to standby and await his signal. However, Fain grew impatient and began firing at Vader. He deflected his shots, catching the rest of the team off-guard and injuring Valance in the process. Urrr'k quickly arrived to check on him, revealing her true identity as the rebel spy Gita. Valance then ordered her to cover him while Fain and Honnah were killed by Vader. He dashed towards the Sith Lord to activate his electro-pulse device. However, he failed to place the device on Vader, and was promptly electrocuted by Dengar, who revealed his true client to be the Empire. His betrayal led to Valance's capture.

Return to Chorin
"The Empire abandoned Chorin. But&hellip; so did I."

- Valance to Darth Vader

Valance was transported to the Star Destroyer Vengeance and was interrogated by interrogator droids for many days, dreaming of his past life on Chorin and the battle on Mimban, repeating the words "keep going," in his sleep. Vader entered his interrogation room and ordered everyone else to leave. Valance woke up, stating that he had Vader right where he wanted him. He was tortured and interrogated about the locations of the Hidden Hand outposts, but stated that the outposts were already destroyed. Later on, Valance managed to escape by severing his arm, and copied the data on the outposts by connecting his arm to the terminal. Using the noise produced by the limb, he attracted and incapacitated the stormtroopers outside the room, disguising as one of them in the process. However, he discovered that the Broken Wing was also brought on board, and was caught by Vader. Vader accompanied him on the starship and travelled to his homeworld, Chorin.

While on the planet, Valance lamented the attack on his village, stating that while the Empire abandoned the planet, he also abandoned his people. He told the story of how he returned to kill the raiders that laid waste to his home, but was too late as they had already left. He explained to Vader that the Hidden Hand was created as a result of these events. Vader stated that his people were still safe for now, and invited him back to the Empire. Valance later travelled to a rebel outpost on Lowik, where he met Gita and her commanding officer. He stated that he needed to meet the Hidden Hand while the Rebellion required weapons from them. He connected his arm to the terminal and displayed the location of a Hidden Hand outpost, claiming he knew where both he and the Rebellion could fulfill their goals.

Personality and traits
Beilert Valance believed he could prove he was the best by beating others into submission, as demonstrated by his fight with Solo, which made him well suited for service in the Imperial Military. He held a distaste for Solo for his past.

Behind the scenes
Beilert Valance first appeared in Star Wars canon in the comic book Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 1, which was written by Robbie Thompson, illustrated by Leonard Kirk, and published in 2018. He was later identified as Valance in the third issue and further identified as Beilert in the fourth. He later received his own comic book miniseries in Star Wars: Target Vader, also written by Thompson and released in 2019.

The character of Beilert Valance originated in the Star Wars Legends continuity, first appearing in Star Wars 16: The Hunter—a 1978 comic book written by Archie Goodwin. The name "Beilert" was established in Jason Fry's The Hunt Within: Valance's Tale.

Appearances

 * Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 1
 * Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 2
 * Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 3
 * Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 4
 * Han Solo - Imperial Cadet 5
 * Target Vader 1
 * Target Vader 2
 * Target Vader 3
 * Target Vader 4
 * Target Vader 5
 * Target Vader 6
 * Bounty Hunters 1
 * Bounty Hunters 2