The seventeenth level was located on the Super Star Destroyer Executor, the flagship of Darth Vader. In 3 ABY, as the Executor was under attack from the Hutt Clan in the Jekara system, the bounty hunters Boba Fett and Beilert Valance boarded the vessel in an attempt to rescue the carbonite-frozen body of Valance's friend, Han Solo, who had been taken aboard the Executor. After Fett betrayed Valance and left him for dead, Valance made his way to the seventeenth level where he confronted by an Imperial cadet named Venn. As the bounty hunter talked the cadet out of arresting him, Lieutenant Jyala Haydenn, who was present at the bridge of the Executor was informed by a midshipman of the presence of the bounty hunter on the level. In response, Haydenn informed the midshipman to vac the compartment that Valance was in.
The midshipman was initially reluctant to carry out the act due to the fact a fellow Imperial was with the bounty hunter, but ultimately carried out the order after Haydenn threatened to have them thrown out of an air lock. As the compartment prepared to be vacced, Venn heard a noise and asked what it was. Valance, realizing what was about to happen, attempted to save Venn, but was unable to prevent the cadet from being sucked into space and killed. In anger to the Empire's willingness to kill one of their own, Valance destroyed a nearby camera, which Haydenn and the midshipman noted on the bridge.