Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/February 28, 2011

Cad Bane was a male Duros 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. Bane's renown even attracted the attention of the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, who employed him numerous times for his own means. Bane also found a rival in the Separatist scientist Kul Teska, whose superweapon he hijacked a part of, leading Teska to forcibly retrieve the device from him on Ryloth. After being hired by the Hutts to break the Hutt crime lord Ziro Desilijic Tiure out of Republic custody on Coruscant, Bane formed a team of hunters to capture members of the Galactic Senate and force Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to free Ziro. Once he had liberated the Hutt crime lord from his prison and escaped from the Senate with his team, Bane disbanded his posse.

Later, under Darth Sidious's employ, 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. On Devaron, he then pilfered the crystal from Jedi Master Bolla Ropal, who sacrificed himself to protect its contents. When he was confronted by Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, on his command ship, Bane separated the pair and took Tano hostage, forcing Skywalker to unlock the crystal with the holocron. Escaping from the Jedi, Bane continued his work for Sidious by accepting the Sith Lord's next assignment of kidnapping four of the Force-sensitive infants listed in the crystal. Using his modified starfighter, the Xanadu Blood, Bane captured the younglings Zinn Toa and Wee Dunn and delivered them to Sidious's secret facility on Mustafar, but during his attempted abduction of the third child on Naboo, he was apprehended by Skywalker and Tano. After being forcefully interrogated by the Jedi, Bane lured Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu into a trap on Black Stall Station, his base of operations, and used the distraction to flee from their custody.