Anduvil

Anduvil was an Ogemite born on the planet Ogem. Ogemites were known to be traders to the galaxy at large, and Anduvil's father was no different. Ogem was divided along gender lines with males dominating the trading business and women being left out. Anduvil seemed destined for a life outside of the trading business until the timely death of her father. Anduvil's father contracted Bledsoe's disease, an extremely contagious and deadly disease and eventually succumbed to the ailment. As her father's only child, Anduvil inherited his business and became one of the very few female Ogemite traders.

Although Ogem was known to be concerned solely with profits, refusing to get involved in galactic politics, many Ogemites joined the Rebellion, claiming that the Empire had overextended its credit, and relying on the Rebels to pay in cash. Anduvil was among the number of Ogemites to ally with the Rebellion, and she went to work as an intelligence agent, bringing valuable information to Alliance Command. Although allied with the Rebels, she still maintained separation from the group, working as an independent smuggler.

Working as an Alliance intelligence agent, Anduvil began to investigate outbreaks of Bledsoe's disease arising on several disparate worlds. Anduvil was operating on the world of Tay'ah'loo when a transport capsule filled with squills crash-landed on the planet. The squills, infected with a genetically altered version of Bledsoe's quickly infected the populace. Unknown to Anduvil and the Rebellion, Bledsoe's disease had been co-opted by the Galactic Empire in their quest to wipe out the seeds of rebellion. Bledsoe's disease caused the infected individual's eyes to change consistency. By manipulating the disease, the Empire was able to cause infected individuals to show a star map in their eyes that could be read by Imperial agents, pinpointing rebel bases for destruction. As Bledsoe's disease decimated the population of Tay'ah'loo, the Imperials were able to read the star map in the eyes of the infected which identified a rebel outpost on the planet Kholes. After the Imperials destroyed the rebel base, Anduvil became suspicious of the order of events, and although she was still unaware of the Imperial's manipulation of Bledsoe's disease, she noted the occurrence to her Rebel handlers.

This same pattern of a transport capsule landing on a world and a nearby rebel outpost being destroyed shortly afterwards occurred three more times in Imperial sectors, but Anduvil was still unable to connect the two events or surmise their correlation. When a transport capsule carrying squills crash-landed on the planet Tatooine, Anduvil made her way to the world and notified Alliance command, who assigned Rebel pilot Luke Skywalker to follow up the investigation. Skywalker piloted his starship to the world, despite his reluctance to return to his home planet. After landing on Tatooine, Anduvil's ship was confiscated by the Empire, but she still made her way to Mos Eisley Cantina to wait for her Rebel contact. As Skywalker's ship entered space above Tatooine, Anduvil contacted the Rebel ship, requesting that he meet her at the cantina and to ask for her by name.

Anduvil was at the bar when she spied the Rebel pilot entering the cantina. As Skywalker looked for her, she spotted a bounty hunter of Jabba the Hutt training his blaster pistol at her Rebel contact. Anduvil acted quickly, firing a blaster bolt into the bounty hunter's arm, throwing off his aim and leaving him on the floor of the cantina nursing his injury. Skywalker thanked Anduvil, who identified herself as the intelligence operative that Skywalker was there to meet. Anduvil ordered two red dwarf beverages for the both of them, and they made their way to a corner table to talk business.

As Skywalker listened, Anduvil relayed the information she had gathered about the transport capsules, Bledsoe's disease, and the Empire transmitting data about Rebel outposts through an unknown method. Just as they were discussing the Bledsoe's outbreaks, a Jawa at the bar suddenly collapsed, as the bartender tended to his fallen patron, he identified the Jawa as a carrier of Bledsoe's disease. The cantina quickly emptied, the customers hoping to avoid contracting the deadly ailment. At Anduvil's suggestion, Skywalker and his droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO boarded a landspeeder and left Mos Eisley, hoping to outrun the plague. After asking Luke for a place where they could lie low for a while, Skywalker guided into the Tatooine Desert and towards an abandoned hut. Anduvil questioned Skywalker about the hut and its previous owner and received a brief description of Ben Kenobi and how he had taught Skywalker about the mystical energy field known as the Force. As they were talking, the Force warned Skywalker of an ambush by Tusken Raiders, and he was only jus barely able to push Anduvil out of the path of a swinging gaderffii weapon. Anduvil and Skywalker worked together to defeat the force of Tusken Raiders but were unable to stop the raiders from destroying their landspeeder.

Anduvil was able to mend Luke's wounds that he had sustained in the battle, but she lamented the fact that they were now stranded in the desert. However, Skywalker noted that the Tusken Raider's banthas were now free for them to use. The group commandeered the dead Tuskens' mounts and headed off into the desert. As they made their way, the Rebels spied a taskforce of Imperial stormtroopers investigating a stopped sandcrawler surrounded by Jawa victims of Bledsoe's disease. The Rebels watched as the stormtroopers looked into the eyes of the Jawas, but were unable to find what they were looking for, and they departed after incinerating the infected Jawa corpses with their blaster rifles. Anduvil and Skywalker headed for the sandcrawler to investigate further, but as Skywalker attempted to enter the Jawa vehicle, an escaped squill bit the young man. Although the bite was not deep, Anduvil knew that the creatures were carriers of Bledsoe's disease and warned Skywalker that he had been contaminated.

As Skywalker mended his wound, the stormtroopers returned to the sandcrawler that they had kept under surveillance. Despite Anduvil's protests that she was a simple trader and that her "customer" had been bitten by a squill, the stormtroopers pushed her aside and looked into Skywalker's eyes. The young Rebel was already showing signs of the disease, and his eyes had begun to show the star-chart that the Empire needed. The stormtroopers took Anduvil and Skywalker into their custody, leaving R2 and C-3PO behind, and transported them to Imperial garrison base for further evaluation. After being escorted into a medical room, Skywalker was tended to by Doctor Kaaldar who confirmed the diagnosis of Bledsoe's disease and used an ocular printer to capture a photo of the star map that was showing in his eyes. Anduvil asked whether Dr. Kaaldar would be able to cure the deadly disease, but although there was a serum to cure the ailment, Kaaldar refused to use it. Skywalker's eyes now contained the secret behind how the Empire was communicating the location of the Rebel bases, and he would not be permitted to live. However, as Anduvil and Skywalker were escorted to the base's detention center, Skywalker lashed out with his lightsaber, killing the guards and allowing Anduvil to get ahold of one of the stormtrooper's blaster rifles.

Anduvil held Kaaldar at blasterpoint and forced him to administer the serum to Skywalker. On the threat of further violence, Kaaldar revealed the Empire's scheme, confirming the connection between the outbreaks of Bledsoe's disease and the destruction of the Rebel bases. Kaaldar's confession also linked the Empire to the epidemic of Bledsoe's that had been afflicting various populations. Just as Kaaldar was finishing telling the Rebels everything he knew, they were interrupted by a battle alert, indicating the base was under attack. Unknown to Anduvil and Skywalker, R2 and C-3PO had commandeered the abandoned sandcrawler and followed their master. R2 had crashed the vehicle into the base's main gate, destroying it and triggering alarms throughout the base. As Anduvil and Skywalker rushed out to investigate, they witnessed the Imperial commander issuing an order for the two droids to be disposed of. As Skywalker immediately attacked, unwilling to let his droids be destroyed, Anduvil made her way to the abandoned hangar to cause a distraction. Working quickly, Anduvil rigged one of the TIE fighters to explode by sabotaging its P-s4 twin ion engine. By realigning the energizer and thus compromising the recharging system, Anduvil had transformed the fighter into a time bomb.

With time running out on the bomb, Anduvil stole an Imperial speeder and used its blaster cannon to vaporize the stormtroopers that were about to fire on Skywalker and the Imperial commander that the Rebel pilot had taken hostage. Skywalker, the droids, and the Imperial hostage piled into the landspeeder and fled from the base as the remaining Imperials fired on them. The Imperial attack was suddenly halted as Anduvil's sabotaged fighter exploded, destroying the base. As the Imperial base crumbled, Anduvil piloted the speeder around a ridge, shielding them from the blast. The Rebels made their way back to Mos Eisley, where Bledsoe's disease had ravaged the population. Seeing the victims of the Empire, Anduvil and Skywalker resolved to bring the Imperial commander with them back to Alliance command so that he could reveal the Imperial plan to the rest of the galaxy.

As Anduvil's ship had been confiscated, the Rebels boarded Skywalker's ship. Using the Imperial commander to guarantee their safe departure from Tatooine, the group headed for Yavin 4. As they departed, Skywalker asked Anduvil to have dinner with him after their mission had ended. Anduvil agreed to the dinner date, but the romance did not last long beyond the mission, as Skywalker ultimately chose his duty to the Rebellion over a relationship with the Ogemite woman.

Anduvil was a a quick-witted Rebel agent with a forceful personality. She was tall for an Ogemite and kept her blonde feather-like hair short. Anduvil considered herself lucky to be able to work as a trader, due to the fact that many Ogemite women were kept out of the trading business. Although she identified as a trader, Anduvil also worked as a smuggler and maintained an independent operation despite her allegiance to the Rebel Alliance.

In her mission to Tatooine, Anduvil proved herself to be a capable intelligence operative, giving valuable information about the Empire's use of Bledsoe's disease to the Alliance. She was also skilled with a blaster pistol, as she proved by defending Luke Skywalker from a bounty hunter and fighting against marauding Tusken Raiders. She had some knowledge of medicine and was intimately familiar with Bledsoe's disease due to her father's death from the affliction. She was familiar with how the disease was contracted and tried to warn Skywalker to keep him from becoming infected. Anduvil was also able to help mend Skywalker's wounds that he received fighting Tusken Raiders. During their escape from the Imperial base on Tatooine, Anduvil proved to be famliar with the schematics of an ion engine, quickly sabotaging one to transform it into a makeshift bomb. She also had abilities as a pilot as she drove two different landspeeders during the mission to Tatooine.

During her interactions with Skywalker, Anduvil was impressed with his ability with a lightsaber, and she asked him about his abilities in using the Force. During their time on Tatooine, she saved his Skywalker's life on several occasions, and Skywalker returned the favor at least once, pushing her out of the way of an attacking Tusken Raider. Although she agreed to a date with Luke Skywalker following their mission, the chemistry that they experienced during their operation did not last and Skywalker ultimately abandoned the relationship to refocus his attention towards the Rebellion.

Anduvil was created by Steve Gerber and illustrated by Russ Manning for use in "Tatooine Sojourn", a comic strip published by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. The story was reprinted by Dark Horse Comics in Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures 4, which colored the originally black-and-white comic strip panels. The collection also chose to remove the Sunday comic strips, due to the fact that the Sunday strips generally repeated parts of the storyline already shown in the weekly strips. However, the Sunday strips did show some exclusive dialogue and action. In particular, the final Sunday strip for "Tatooine Sojourn" showed Luke Skywalker asking Anduvil on a date, which was not repeated in the weekly strips and therefore left out of the Dark Horse reprint.

The character received an entry in the StarWars.com Databank which listed her as "Anduvil of Ogem," the title the character used to introduce herself to Luke Skywalker. Two articles in Star Wars Galaxy Collector magazine also discussed Anduvil's exploits during the comic strip. ComicScan: Coming Full Circle referenced "Tatooine Sojourn" and Anduvil's role in the storyline in issue 3, and ComicScan: Luke-ing for Love in all the Wrong Places in issue 7 mentioned Skywalker's short-lived romance with Anduvil. The character also received an entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.

• "ComicScan: Coming Full Circle" — Star Wars Galaxy Collector 3
• "ComicScan: Luke-ing For Love In All The Wrong Places" — Star Wars Galaxy Collector 7
• Star Wars: The Comics Companion
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia