Cad Bane

Cad Bane was a Duros male bounty hunter from the planet Duro who earned a reputation as the galaxy's best, deadliest, and most fearsome mercenary during the Clone Wars. Though he worked for a number of clients, his loyalty was ultimately to credits—and by extension, the highest bidder. Bane employed a variety of weapons and allies to ensure that he always got his pay, and he became the leader in his line of work after fellow bounty hunter Jango Fett perished in the opening battle of the war. His renown attracted the attention of Count Dooku and even the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, the latter of whom employed him numerous times for his own means. Working for Sidious, Bane stole a Jedi holocron from the Jedi Temple to unlock the Kyber memory crystal, a repository of all recorded Force-sensitive infants in the galaxy. After pilfering the crystal from Jedi Master Bolla Ropal on Devaron and forcing Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker to unlock it, Bane was sent to kidnap four of the infants listed in the crystal. Despite being captured halfway through his job by Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, Bane escaped from Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu by luring them into a trap on his hideout, Black Stall Station.

Bane was later hired by the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure and the Hutt Grand Council to break Jabba's criminal uncle, Ziro Desilijic Tiure, out of Republic custody on Coruscant. Forming a team of hunters to execute his job, Bane launched a brazen raid on the Republic Executive Building and captured ten prominent members of the Galactic Senate, using them as hostages to force Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to free Ziro. Once he had secured Ziro's release from the high-security Central Detention Center, Bane disbanded his posse and delivered Ziro to the Hutt Council. When Ziro escaped from their custody on Nal Hutta, Bane was re-hired to track down the crime lord. Though he arrived on Teth too late to secure his bounty, he managed to evade Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos, who failed to apprehend him for his crimes. At the close of the bounty hunting season, Bane's total bounties surpassed those of all others in field.

After breaking criminal mastermind Moralo Eval out of the Republic's Central Detention Center, Bane became a candidate in Eval's plot to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine for Count Dooku and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Bane thus entered Eval's Box competition to become one of the five mercenaries who would be hired for the job. After passing the tournament alongside fellow hunters Embo, Derrown, Twazzi, and Rako Hardeen, Bane was personally selected by Dooku to lead the operation, and they traveled to Naboo to capture Chancellor Palpatine during the Festival of Light. Despite Bane's success with abducting Palpatine, Dooku betrayed him, having intended for the bounty hunters' operation to simply be a diversion for his own attempt to kidnap the Supreme Chancellor. Abandoned by Dooku, Bane was defeated by Hardeen, who turned out to be none other than Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had gone undercover to infiltrate and foil Eval's plans. Bane nevertheless retained his formidable reputation throughout the Clone Wars, after which he became one of the preferred freelancers for the Galactic Empire.