Dash Rendar was a human smuggler. His family was a wealthy Correllian family. He decided he wanted to be an officer in the Imperial Navy and did not want to go into the family business, RenTrans, a shipping service.
Rendar was skilled with piloting and impressed many of his instructors and fellow students at the academy, including a young Han Solo.
Eventually, Prince Xizor, the head of Black Sun Crime Syndicate wanted Rendar’s parents to sell him their company so it could merge with his own shipping company. When they refused to do so, Xizor sabotaged a freighter flown by Dash’s older brother Stanton, who crashed the freighter into the Imperial Museum.
Emperor Palpatine was enraged by the destruction of Jedi and Sith artifacts that the crash had caused. Due to this, he banished the Rendar’s from the Core Worlds and Prince Xizor could completely take the shipping company for his own. This also led to Dash being expelled from the academy. This led to a grudge that Rendar would always carry towards the Empire and Black Sun.
Fleeing to the Outer Rim Territories, Rendar gained a reputation as a great pilot and smuggler. He eventually gained a ship, YT-2400 light freighter, Outrider, and a Le-series repair droid (who he named Leebo) and a navigator Eaden Vrill.
In 0 B.B.Y, Rendar and Vrill agreed to protect Holo star Javul Charn during her tour to repair the Outrider. Charn originally revealed she needed to be protected from an obsessive fan, Rendar later found out she was a part of the Rebel Alliance and was being pursued by the Imperial ecurity Bureau and elements of Black Sun, which included the dark prince himself, Xizor. Rendar safely escorted Charn to Alderaan but Vrill was killed on Bannistar Station.
Although Rendar despised the Empire, the refused to join the Rebellion due to his own motivations. He did not want to owe anyone or for anyone to owe him. He would work for whoever paid the most. However, he would occasionally aid the Rebellion and would be well compensated for his assistance.
In 0 A.B.Y, Rendar snuck aboard the Star of the Empire with the idea that he would take it for himself and then sell it to the Rebel Alliance. However, after joining with Professor Hoole and his adopted children Tash and Zak Arranda, stopped the ships computer, SIM.
In 3 A.B.Y while delivering supplies to Rebels on their secret base on Hoth, Rendar ended up becoming trapped in Echo Base due to the attack by the Empire. Rendar, following a recommendation from Han Solo, flew a snowspeeder with Rouge Squadron while waiting for his turn to leave. He even managed to take down an Imperial Walker, a feat which Luke Skywalker complimented him on later.
Following the Battle of Hoth, Lando Calrissian hired Rendar to track down Boba Fett who had captured Solo and was delivering him to the gangster Jabba the Hutt. Knowing Princess Leia Organa would pay well for finding Solo, Rendar tracked own IG-88D after finding out he and Fett were in a dogfight over the planet Tattooine. After Fighting IG-88D on Ord Mantell, he learned Feet was on the Zhar system on the planet Gall.
Rendar snuck through Smuggler’s Gorge and eventually made it to where Boba Fett was docked. Rendar was able to damage Fett’s ship, Slave I and left him stuck on Gall.
After contacting Calrissian to let him know of Fett’s location he led them to Gall, but the Rebels unfortunately could not save their friend as Fett escaped after the Rebels arrived.
Soon after, Rendar was hired by Organa to watch over Luke Skywalker after a recent assassination attempt on his life had occurred above the planet. Rendar followed Skywalker to Tatooine where he saved him from a swoop gang. Following this. Rendar accompanied Skywalker on a mission to recover the plans for the Empire’s second Death Star. The mission was successful, but cost the lives of many Bothan spies.
Rendar volunteered to aid Skywalker, Calrissian and the Wookie Chewbacca to rescue Princess Leia after she had been taken prisoner by Prince Xizor on Coruscant. In a final battle with the Empire and Black Sun, the Outrider was apparently destroyed, however, Rendar faked his death as to avoid being followed by Black Sun or the Empire. Later, he met up with the Human Replica droid Guri to form a new mercenary team.
Eventually, by the time Jaina Solo infiltrated the Onadax facility, Rendar was still believed to be dead, although reports of him fighting during the Yuuzhan Vong War were eventually coming up.
Dash Rendar was created for the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project. I first met him in the video game based on the novel, and comic book. This was his first starring role as in the novel by Steve Perry, he was mainly a supporting character. The game was fun but I prefer the novel to it. However, to get the full story of Shadows, one would need to play the game, read the novel, comic and all other supplements that came out during that time.
Rendar has since appeared in Shadows of the Empire: Evolution, A.C Crispin’s Han Solo trilogy, the Galaxy of Fear series, and even starred in his own novel, Shadow Games.
Dash Rendar has always been one of my favorites in the EU and I always enjoyed seeing him pop up. He has become a fan favorite and many enjoy his adventures including a guy named George Lucas. The Outrider can be seen in the special edition of A New Hope leaving Mos Eisley. (And I thought George hated the EU.)
The Outrider in A New Hope
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