Alexsandr Badure

A Human male, Alexsandr Badure was a long-time military man and skilled pilot who started his martial career during the last years of the Galactic Republic, seeing combat during the Twi'lek Spice Conflict, as well as the Corellian Territories Engagements and the Outer Rim Wars. While serving the Republic Military he began to serve as an instructor at the prestigious Academy of Carida,  before serving as a line officer after the rise of the Galactic Empire. Badure earned several decorations in the Imperial Navy, but ultimately got in trouble for running an illegal gambling operation on his flagship, leading to his permanent reassignment as a flight instructor at Carida. Among the young pilots Badure taught at the academy was a Corellian named Han Solo, a bold and brash talent whom Badure taught almost everything he knew about flying. Badure gave Solo the nickname "Slick" after one incident during his schooling, when Solo managed a miracle landing of a malfunctioning U-33 orbital loadlifter with Badure and his entire class aboard. In exchange, Solo knew Badure by the nickname "Trooper."

Badure eventually left Imperial service to blaze his own trail in the wide galaxy, winning and spending a number of fortunes over the coming years. Badure and Solo stayed friendly, and would encounter each other again after Solo and his Wookiee partner Chewbacca entered the smuggling trade. Once, Badure saved both Solo and Chewbacca's lives during a botched Kessel spice run, earning him a life debt from the pair. Badure fell on hard times in the years to come, eventually finding himself in the Tion Hegemony, where he signed on as contract labor at a mining camp on the backwards world of Dellalt. In the squalid and dangerous conditions of the camp, Badure formed a friendship with a pair of young Human sisters, Lanni and Hasti Troujow, and the three began looking out for one another.

Life on Dellalt wasn't good for much, but after a time, they found what they believed to be a tip towards the score of a lifetime. Dellalt was the home of the treasure vaults of the ancient galactic tyrant known as Xim the Despot, and was the final intended destination of Xim's fabled treasure ship, the Queen of Ranroon. As the story went, the Queen of Ranroon had disappeared after the climactic Third Battle of Vontor, and had passed into popular legend. But on one brief work run, Lanni Troujow came across an ancient log-recorder bearing the Queen of Ranroons name, which they hoped could point them to the location of the long-lost treasure. Lanni placed the log-recorder within Xim's vaults, and shortly afterward was killed by a local criminal named J'uoch, who was also after the log-recorder. With one of the sisters dead, Badure and Hasti left Dellalt behind, hoping to obtain help in tracking down the treasure. To them, the Queen of Ranroon was the ticket to a new life—Troujow planned to use her share to buy her childhood home and settle there with Badure, taking care of her father figure as he advanced into old age.

By 2 BBY, Badure and Troujow's search had taken them to the world of Rudrig, where Badure found everything he needed to finally make a run at the Queen of Ranroon. At the prestigious University of Rudrig, Badure linked up with a Ruurian scholar of of pre-Republic history and languages, S. V. Skynx, who was eager to help unravel the mystery of the ancient vessel. Then, searching for an able ship and a trustworthy pilot, "Trooper" ran into an old friend: "Slick" himself, Han Solo, who along with Chewbacca had continued a semi-successful smuggling career that had brought him to the Tion Cluster. Holding high regard for Solo and Chewbacca's skills, Badure aimed to call in the favor he had earned on the Kessel Run years before, asking the smugglers to aid them on their search for the Queen of Ranroon in exchange for a full cut of whatever treasure they might find. Although Solo initially passed on the offer, Chewbacca valued a life debt over anything, and convinced the Corellian to sign on. The newly-formed crew nearly didn't make it off Rudrow—an attack from a group of assassins required some creative groundcoach driving from Solo to escape, and Badure absorbed a stun bolt in the process—but they succeeded in reaching Solo's Millennium Falcon, and took ship to Dellalt with Skynx.

However, before they could actually retrieve the log-recorder, Badure and his newly-formed crew were attacked by J'uoch and her gang, who themselves were after the ancient treasure. Badure and Troujow looked after one another in the frenzied battle that followed, as the Falcons crew quickly found itself outnumbered before evading pursuit into the wilderness around the local settlement. There, they watched as J'uoch and her men stole the Falcon, forcing them—along with Solo's droids Bollux and Blue Max—to proceed on foot. The ensuing march through the Dellalt mountains took weeks, and the group faced several perilous situations, including navigating a fraught intra-clan rivalry within the aquatic Swimming People of Dellalt. After a trek that left the party exhausted, they eventually stumbled upon what appeared to be a hidden landing field deep within the mountains—however, upon closer inspection, they found the ships parked there to be fake, and soon afterward were overcome by an odd phenomenon that rendered them all unconscious. They awoke inside a cavernous series of underground tunnels and chambers and discovered that they had in fact been gassed by a group known as the Survivors, primitive, inbred descendants of Xim's honor guard. Although the Survivors planned to sacrifice Badure and his group, they managed to escape by means of misdirection, using Bollux and Blue Max to distract the Survivors as they made a break for the trees. Badure went back to retrieve their confiscated weapons and nearly met his end for his troubles, but with the help of Chewbacca he made it clear and the group got away largely unscathed.

Reasoning that the presence of the Survivors meant that they had to be close to the location of the treasure, they pressed on, ultimately happening across a sudden sight in the hills beneath J'uoch's mining camp: a thousand fully operational war-robots from Xim's ancient and storied Guardian Corps, the same "thousand guardians" that were said to have accompanied the Queen of Ranroon on its final voyage. They arrived in time to see a man Troujow recognized as the assistant steward of Xim's treasure vaults command the droids to attack J'uoch's camp, forcing Badure's team into a desperate push through the ensuing firefight in order to board the Millennium Falcon in time. Badure threw himself headlong into the battle with a blaster pistol in each hand—"Trooper" was nearby when Troujow threw J'uoch off a bridge to her death, and prevented his friend from following the criminal over. Badure's group ultimately made it to the Falcon and escaped with the help of a famed gunman named Gallandro, who had followed Solo to Dellalt in order to settle an old score.

Although Solo and Gallandro had an adversarial history, Gallandro offered to help them secure the treasure, which the group reasoned sat deep within the same ancient vaults they had already visited. When the actual heist began, Badure and Troujow held the entrance as Solo and Gallandro searched within, and eventually followed after to find Gallandro dead—the vengeful gunman had challenged Solo to a duel within the vaults, only to be vaporized by the complex's ancient security system. Together, the group probed deeper to find the hidden rooms containing the treasure, but were dismayed to discover that the Queen of Ranroon actually held war materiel, not gold or jewels: objects like kiirium ingots that, while commonplace in the present day, were tremendously valuable in Xim's time. While Solo and Chewbacca, hoping for a big score, were dismayed, the rest of the crew was less so. Skynx was overjoyed at the academic meaning of such a find, and hired Badure, Troujow and the two droids on the spot to aid him in sifting through the site, a task he expected to take years. From there they parted with Solo and Chewbacca, as Badure remained on Dellalt to work on his life's new pursuit.

A large, physically imposing man standing half a head taller than his old friend Han Solo, by 2 BBY "Trooper" Badure had started to grow paunchy and his hair had begun to turn white, but he still retained much of the considerable physical strength of his youth. Known to be generous and openhanded to his friends, Badure developed close relationships with Han Solo and Chewbacca, and later the Troujow sisters on Dellalt. Badure was protective of the Troujows, having watched out for the sisters on Dellalt, and the sentiment was returned by Hasti, who planned to care for Badure as he entered old age.

Badure also held Solo in high esteem dating back to his academy days, feeling drawn to the man's cocksure attitude and immense skill as a pilot, although he was at times frustrated by Solo's lack of responsibility. Although Badure had fallen on considerable hard luck by his later years, he kept his jovial and friendly attitude, also forming a bond with Skynx during their run to Dellalt, as well as with the droids Bollux and Blue Max. Although past his physical prime by the hunt for the Queen of Ranroon, Badure was still quite capable, able to contend with men much younger than him in hand-to-hand combat and still retaining a good aim with a blaster. However, he was sometimes reluctant to kill—after years in the Imperial military, he grew to dislike unnecessary loss of life.

Alexsandr Badure first appeared in Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, a novel written by Brian Daley and released in 1980.

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