The seventeenth deck was situated on the Executor, a Super Star Destroyer that served as the flagship for Darth Vader. During 3 ABY, as the Executor underwent an attack by the Hutt Clan within the Jekara system, Boba Fett and Beilert Valance, both bounty hunters, infiltrated the vessel to liberate Han Solo's carbonite-encased form, which had been brought aboard the Executor. After Fett's betrayal, which left him for dead, Valance proceeded to the seventeenth deck, where he encountered Venn, an Imperial cadet. While the bounty hunter convinced the cadet not to apprehend him, Lieutenant Jyala Haydenn, present on the Executor's bridge, received notification from a midshipman regarding the bounty hunter's presence on that deck. Consequently, Haydenn instructed the midshipman to initiate a vacuum procedure in the compartment occupied by Valance.
Initially, the midshipman hesitated to execute the order because a fellow Imperial was with the bounty hunter, but ultimately complied after Haydenn threatened to eject them from an air lock. As the compartment prepared for depressurization, Venn detected an unusual sound and inquired about its source. Valance, realizing the impending danger, attempted to rescue Venn but was unable to prevent the cadet from being ejected into space and killed. Enraged by the Empire's willingness to sacrifice its own personnel, Valance destroyed a nearby camera, an action observed by Haydenn and the midshipman on the bridge.