During the Galactic Civil War, shortly following the Battle of Yavin, a droid-operated CR90 corvette under the control of pirates—financed by the Crymorah Syndicate—launched an attack against an Imperial shuttle transporting Imperial weaponry. The Sith Lord Darth Vader intervened, halting the corvette's advance. Soon after, Grand General Cassio Tagge dispatched Vader aboard the captured pirate vessel with orders to assault the pirate's outpost and uncover the larger organization orchestrating the persistent raids. Tagge also assigned Lieutenant Oon-ai to act as his informant on Vader's mission. Upon reaching the base, Vader, accompanied by Oon-ai and six stormtroopers, swiftly eliminated all resistance, including a pair of modified droidekas. Meanwhile, a black astromech droid covertly inserted fabricated evidence into the station's computer, falsely implicating Oon-ai as a betrayer. Vader, with Oon-ai in his custody, ventured deeper into the station to retrieve the fabricated evidence as the station initiated its self-destruction sequence. After securing the information, they escaped aboard the corvette just as the station was completely destroyed. The strike team returned to the Annihilator, where Vader declared Oon-ai a traitor and asserted that the Crymorah Syndicate had been supporting the pirates. Subsequently, Vader located Aphra, the archaeologist responsible for providing the pirates with the droidekas, and recruited her for a covert operation.
During the Galactic Civil War that pitted the Galactic Empire against the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Luke Skywalker of the Rebel Alliance successfully annihilated the Empire's most formidable weapon: the planet-destroying Death Star space station.
With the Death Star's demise, the Empire found itself in a weaker state than Emperor Palpatine had anticipated. Consequently, he was compelled to engage with Outer Rim crime boss Jabba the Hutt. Jabba dispatched an emissary to Cymoon 1 to discuss the terms, but the Rebel Alliance had recently initiated a galaxy-spanning campaign to capitalize on their victory at Yavin. A rebel squad led by Leia Organa intercepted the Hutt's envoy, impersonated them, and attacked Weapons Factory Alpha. Vader engaged the attackers but failed to prevent Skywalker from completing their mission, which involved detonating the factory's power core, resulting in the facility's total destruction.
Vader, facing even greater disapproval from his master for the loss of the Death Star and Weapons Factory Alpha, received orders to continue negotiations with Jabba on Vader's birthworld of Tatooine. Ultimately, the Empire's terms were accepted, and Jabba became a supplier for the Empire.
Shortly thereafter, Vader, now under the direction of Grand General Cassio Tagge, was tasked with suppressing pirates and other lawless entities who were exploiting the Empire's instability. With the Imperial Senate and the Death Star no longer maintaining order, these groups were raiding and looting Imperial ships and equipment at an unprecedented rate. One such group, funded by the Crymorah Syndicate, carried out several raids using a droid-piloted CR90 corvette. Vader and Tagge soon located the pirate ship when it attacked CZ-246, a Lambda-class T-4a shuttle transporting recently acquired weapons from Jabba's organization. The corvette quickly disabled the shuttle's propulsion systems, but the shuttle pilot detonated the vessel to prevent the pirates from seizing the Empire's property. The droid-controlled corvette attempted to escape, but Vader arrived in his TIE Advanced fighter and swiftly destroyed the corvette's engine block, ending the engagement.
Soon after, Vader returned to report to Tagge aboard his Executor-class Star Dreadnought Annihilator. The pirate ship was brought into a docking bay where it was repaired sufficiently for a basic inspection. Tagge then devised a plan to send Vader, their most powerful warrior, to trace the pirates back to their home base using the captured corvette and uncover the larger organization behind the raids. He also assigned an assistant to Vader to serve as Tagge's informant. Vader was displeased with the situation but complied out of respect for the Emperor. However, he planted incriminating evidence into a black astromech droid that would frame Adjutant Oon-ai as a traitor. Soon, Vader, Oon-ai, and a unit of six stormtroopers departed aboard the corvette and located the pirate's headquarters: a space station situated on the extreme edge of the Outer Rim.
The pirates, a Twi'lek, a Mon Calamari, and a Sullustan, noticed the return of their corvette and prepared to unload the contraband and begin repairs. However, the Twi'lek was killed by Vader when the Twi'lek was instead confronted by Vader's strike team. The astromech droid exited the station's airlock and proceeded to the command center, where it planted the information that would convict Oon-ai of treason.
The other two pirates, realizing they were outmatched, deployed a pair of customized droideka defense droids equipped with rocket launchers to repel the boarders. The droidekas killed four troopers before Vader, at Oon-ai's urging, used the Force to hurl a pair of rockets back at the droidekas and pirates, killing them all. Except for the Mon Calamari, who activated the station's self-destruct as he lay dying. The station's alarm system was activated, and Vader ordered the surviving stormtroopers to return to the corvette and prepare it for launch. The troopers obeyed, while Vader went to the station's command center to retrieve the computer records and the "evidence" the droid had planted—much to Oon-ai's dismay, as he was to follow per his orders from Tagge. Vader instructed the Lieutenant not to abandon his orders while Vader retrieved the information from the computer console. He finished, and he casually strode to the awaiting corvette as the station exploded around them. The corvette blasted away as the pirate's base exploded completely. Oon-ai was surprised they had survived the ordeal; Vader was not and told them they would immediately report their findings to Tagge.
Vader then eliminated Oon-ai to complete his plan of using the attack to rid himself of Tagge's spy and send a message of who was really in control to Tagge. And once back on the Annihilator, Vader reported to the Grand General, telling him he had been impressed with the results of Tagge's plan: the intelligence he had gathered from the pirate's computer confirmed the raiders had been backed by the Crymorah Syndicate. Vader also claimed Oon-ai was a traitor and that he had used his closeness to Tagge to achieve his ends. Vader then went to the black astromech droid and ensured it had deleted all records of its data upload to the pirate station. It then ejected itself into space and exploded, leaving Vader to lament how only droids were truly trustworthy and loyal.
Soon thereafter, Vader learned from the information obtained from the pirate base's computer that the droidekas the pirates had utilized had been supplied by a rogue archaeologist, Doctor Aphra. Vader had been impressed by the customized droids and wished to have some in his personal service to use against his enemies and on private missions. So he left the Annihilator to search for the Doctor. He searched many worlds and killed many witnesses before learning that Aphra was on Quarantine World III in Kallidahin Space. Vader arrived on the quarantined asteroid, saved her from captivity, and told her of his plight. She was a "fan" of the Dark Lord's and agreed to help him secure his own army of unquestionably loyal combat droids on the old warzone of Geonosis.
The attack on an unidentified pirate base first appeared in the Marvel comic book series second installment of their Darth Vader series; it was released in 2015 and was penned by Kieron Gillen, with artwork by Salvador Larroca. Gillen has been collaborating with the Lucasfilm Story Group to develop the narrative and events of the ongoing comic series.