After the destruction of the Deathstar by Luke Skywalker and the Rebels, the emperor placed the majority of the blame squarely on Darth Vader for his mistakes. After acquiring the assistance of archaeologist, Doctor Chelli Aphra, Vader has put together a small personal army made up of the very same battle droids he fought against during the Clone Wars, in order to hunt down anyone who opposes him and threatens to take his position as the sith apprentice to Palpatine.
In this personal army was a pack of extremely loyal recovered Separatist Commando droids.
So the story begins with Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra aboard Padme’s Naboo Royal Starship, which Vader acquired in the last issue of the comic.
The two are on the search for one of Palpatine’s operatives known as Cylo-IV and are currently travelling towards his secret research base. Aphra calls Vader over to her, and tells him that she doesn’t want to jinx anything, but she believes she might have found his base.
Vader hilariously responds to her saying “you are correct”, already knowing that Aphra was just joking and that the base is clearly in sight already.
Eventually, the two arrive at the abomination of a research, and Vader immediately orders Aphra to begin. Aphra quickly agrees to the illegal boarding mission, and prepares the ion charges on the ship, while Vader’s horde of Commando Droids line up behind him, ready to strike.
As Vader prepares to board the ship with his Commando droids, Aphra wishes him well and tells him “may the force be with you”, in awe at her current job.
Soon after this, a massive blast tears through the deck of the research base, scaring everyone on board and leading the security teams on board to quickly mobile, after realizing that it was an ion charge that hit. All circuits on the base are down, along with all of the doors being sealt.
As the alarms on the station blare out, an unauthorized docking is immediately detected, terrifying the security staff even further. The security teams then line up in a very similar way to A New Hope and Rogue one, while Vader uses his red lightsaber to melt through the blast doors… but he’s not the first one through. Instead, Aphra’s droid, Triple zero is the one to come through the smoke filled entrance, begging that the security forces don’t shoot him.
They immediately demand that he identify himself, and Triple Zero has no problems doing this, before also introducing his droid friend, BT.
Not long after this however, a scorching red lightsaber blade plunges through the wall, and Triple Zero reveals to the guards that he was trolling them badly, and servingly only as a distraction for Darth Vader’s entrance.
As Vader bursts his way into the facility, many security staff are vionelty ripped out in to the cold void of space, but Vader Aphra’s droids have no problem because they’re wearing magnetic clamps. Aphra is quietly very pleased to see the security members be ripped out into space, saying “ thats what you get for not wearing magnetic clamps.”. Aphra immediately reseals the station remotely, before Vader’s commando droids enter the area and line up behind their master, Darth Vader.
Triple Zero is looking for Vader’s approval after serving as a distraction, but Vader is unfortunately not one for compliments, brushing him off and ordering that he help open the door.
Triple Zero is saddened by this, remarking that he has had far more grateful masters in the past, and coldying saying “no, it didn’t stop me killing them and drinking their blood… Yeah this droid is absolutely maniacal. How can you not love him.
Followinm this, Vader holds his flickering lightsaber out in front of him, before ordering his Commando droids to follow him into the next room. The pack of Commando droids clank forward all in sync, following Vader to their next objective.
Back on the ship, Chelli Aphra has just received the plans that the little astromech, BT managed to steal from the internal computer system, and is slowly putting together a layout of the research base. Aphra immediately spots two main areas of resistance. One is the barracks and the other is the Dojo. Aphra relays this information to Vader, which leads him to send his second platoon of Commando Droids to the Dojo, and the first to follow him.