A soldier through and through, Gaege Xarran found himself in the ranks of the Imperial Army, starting as one of the Emperor's Royal Guard, before eventually becoming a general. Utterly committed to the military, Xarran was given command of an Imperial garrison located on the planet of Vryssa when the Galactic Empire was at its peak. With his planetary base defended by cutting-edge technology, and with a complement of troops and starfighters in whom Xarran placed all his faith, the Imperial general gave sanctuary to his errant brother, Rivo Xarran. Rivo had angered the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure and was running from pursuing bounty hunters. However, upon Rivo's arrival, it quickly became apparent that General Xarran's garrison had become an obstacle for Boba Fett, who was chasing the bounty placed on Xarran's sibling.
Xarran's boastful claim that the Vryssa garrison could repel any intruder was perceived by Fett as a direct challenge. Fett then began systematically eliminating or bypassing the base's numerous defenses and soldiers. After Xarran witnessed two of his military units annihilated by the bounty hunter, and his starfighters outmaneuvered by a clever distraction, the general became increasingly frantic. He recklessly endangered the lives of his subordinates in futile attempts to get rid of his adversary. Ultimately, Xarran chose to abandon his base, arm himself, and confront Fett alone, ambushing and wounding the bounty hunter deep within the garrison's confines. During the brief battle that followed, the former Royal Guardsman met his death at the hands of his target.
Rivo Xarran and Gaege Xarran were raised together, but Gaege was clearly favored by their parents. Xarran, who was obedient, accomplished, and had a perfect record, was the polar opposite of his brother, as their parents often pointed out. The two brothers went their separate ways once more when Rivo was jailed for a minor theft and Xarran enrolled in the Imperial Academy. Rivo then left home, making a living as a criminal and a slicer. Xarran rarely heard from his brother over the years, except when his younger sibling needed assistance. Xarran thrived in the military, initially serving in the Imperial Army before being accepted into the prestigious Imperial Royal Guard. Xarran's brief tenure as a Guardsman gave him excellent close-quarters combat skills. He went back to the regular army, swiftly climbed the ranks, and soon attained the rank of general.
As a general, Xarran was assigned to command an Imperial garrison on the heavily forested planet of Vryssa. The garrison complex was heavily fortified, featuring not only an electric "death fence," as Xarran liked to call it, but also shielding, tractor beams, watchtowers, sensors, and droids. To augment the passive defenses, Xarran also had forty TIE/LN starfighters, a number of All Terrain Armored Transports and their All Terrain Scout Transport counterparts, and the necessary squads of stormtroopers. Xarran grew confident in his own abilities and the abilities of those under his command with such a vast array of firepower at his disposal.
When Xarran's brother found himself in trouble again, the Imperial general was once more contacted by Rivo, who requested assistance. The slicer had stolen more than 150,000 credits from Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure and had been designated for capture and subsequent execution by Jabba. Xarran, knowing that his brother was in danger of death, offered Rivo refuge on Vryssa, confident that even if the slicer's location was discovered, the garrison could shield him from any intrusion. Rivo arrived by shuttle at the base's landing platform, where Xarran and an honor guard of stormtroopers greeted him. When Xarran saw how anxious his brother was, the disciplined general was disgusted and scolded Rivo in front of his men. Xarran struck his brother in rage, and was surprised when Rivo retaliated by pulling out a hold-out blaster. After calming his brother and taking his weapon, the general reassured Rivo, saying that even if a bounty hunter had tracked the slicer to Vryssa, the garrison would protect him from any enemy. Xarran then escorted his brother into the garrison complex. Unbeknownst to Xarran, a bounty hunter had indeed tracked Rivo to Vryssa: Boba Fett, a notorious professional who overheard the general's conversation and interpreted Xarran's claims about his garrison's invulnerability as a personal challenge.
Shortly after his brother's arrival, Xarran was informed by Commander Tyrix in the base's command center that a patrol had failed to report in. Despite his sibling's immediate fear, the general did not think anything was wrong. Xarran could no longer ignore the facts when Tyrix reported that all four members of the patrol had been discovered dead, without having fired a single shot in self-defense. He sent two detachments, Alpha and Delta Group, each consisting of one AT-AT, three AT-STs, and several squads of stormtroopers, into the forests to find the bounty hunter, who Rivo identified as Boba Fett. Xarran, still confident in the overwhelming strength of his force compared to a single man, ordered that the intruder be brought before him, preferably alive. The general proudly watched the search being coordinated. Then, without warning, the base's entire communications network went down, preventing Xarran and his subordinates in the command center from contacting the detachments. The communications blackout lasted for just under an hour, infuriating Xarran, who ordered Tyrix to fix the problem. Once Fett's jamming device had finished its work, communications were restored, and Xarran had Tyrix establish a connection with Alpha and Delta groups. When neither unit responded, Xarran began to panic; initially blaming Tyrix for failing to repair the communications network, he then struck his brother when Rivo said that Fett had undoubtedly destroyed both detachments.
After Xarran had apologized to his brother, Tyrix reported that a lone AT-AT had returned. The image of the walker was displayed on the tactical screen, but, as with previous attempts, the general received no response when he tried to open communications. The AT-AT then exploded in front of the control room staff, including the Xarran brothers, destroyed by a thermal detonator as a message to the garrison's occupants. Disgusted, Xarran retreated to his office, where Rivo joined him. The general decided to change tactics, ordering a complete lockdown of the base and relying on his "death fence" to keep Fett out. Although Xarran chastised his brother for his actions in crossing Jabba, the former Royal Guard remained convinced that his bounty hunter opponent would ultimately fail. As night fell, the general believed his prediction had come true. Fett's personal starship, Slave I, began a series of strafing runs on the base, which Xarran, from the safety of the command center, declared to be a desperate suicide run. When the base's turbolaser turrets failed to prevent the craft from inflicting significant damage on the deflector shields, an enraged Xarran ordered Tyrix to scramble the base's forty TIE Fighters. Demonstrating his stubbornness, Xarran refused to sound an alarm, even though the starfighters were unable to destroy the bounty hunter's ship. Eventually, however, as the starfighters were drawn further and further away from the base, Xarran realized that Fett was not even on the Slave I; he had already breached the "death fence" and was inside the complex. The general then sounded an intruder alarm.
When Tyrix informed the general that someone was using an old code to access a base computer to cut off power to the complex, Xarran ordered the intruder's location sealed off and gassed with Chemtrox, disregarding the danger to any nearby technicians. Fett still managed to shut down all power to the base before killing Tyrix inside the base command center. Driven into a frenzy by Fett's apparent invulnerability, Xarran ordered his command crew to evacuate, then activated the base's self-destruct system and set out to ambush and kill Fett. Xarran, armed with a carbine and its attached grenade launcher, waited near the barracks for the bounty hunter to approach. As Fett passed the general and used explosives to destroy the barracks door, Xarran seized the opportunity and fired on his target, wounding the bounty hunter in the side and triggering a brief firefight that left both participants injured. The general slowly approached the doorway to the room into which Fett had retreated, unaware that the spot-luma mounted on his carbine was giving away his position. As Xarran jumped through the entrance to the room, one of Fett's thermal detonators landed at his feet and exploded, killing the general instantly.
Xarran's self-destruction destroyed his garrison, but failed to kill Boba Fett. The elimination of the Imperial force on Vryssa, accomplished without any external assistance, reaffirmed Fett's reputation following a recent setback, and was later regarded as the most impressive achievement of the bounty hunter's long career. Despite Fett's defeat of his forces and evasion of his prized defenses, Xarran's mission to protect his brother was ultimately successful. Distracted by the events in the garrison and the general's ambush, Fett was unaware of Rivo Xarran's escape.
The slicer contacted the bounty hunter and negotiated a deal that granted him temporary amnesty while he fled. Rivo eventually traveled to the remote world of Ladarra, where he lived as a storyteller. Fett eventually caught up with Gaege Xarran's brother some years later—coincidentally at the same time as Rivo was recounting the events on Vryssa to an audience of children—but did not kill the former slicer, as Jabba the Hutt had died in the interim.
Gaege Xarran was a proud man who did not tolerate disobedience or hesitation from his subordinates. The general hated being ignored and was prone to lecturing and criticizing his brother from the moral high ground he saw in an honorable military career. Nevertheless, Xarran loved Rivo, despite the flaws he saw in his criminal sibling, and offered asylum and the promise of protection. When Boba Fett threatened this, Xarran's pride in his garrison and himself led him to underestimate the bounty hunter on several occasions. The general's anger, which he usually managed to suppress, came to the surface during Fett's assault, along with fear, defeatism, nervousness, and stress.
The general saw Fett's actions as a challenge. As his prized troops and technology failed him, Xarran initially became obsessive, risking the lives of his technicians to halt Fett's progress, and later became frenzied and erratic, shooting his own commander and setting up the base's self-destruct in an attempt to get even. In his unstable state of mind, the well-trained Xarran made mistakes, forgetting the disadvantage of the spot-luma on his rifle. Although he did die at the hands of the bounty hunter, Xarran was able to acquit himself while dueling Fett, despite being past his physical prime, as he managed to wound and trap his quarry, driving Fett to the brink of suicide.
Gaege Xarran was created by Paul Danner in the short story No Disintegrations, Please, which remains his only appearance to date. The majority of Danner's story is structured as a flashback to the events on Vryssa, narrated by an elderly Rivo Xarran to a group of children on the planet of Ladarra. Gaege Xarran is portrayed as Fett's adversary in the flashbacks. The Xarran brothers, along with other events from the short story, were depicted in Star Wars Adventure Journal 14, a role-playing publication that included No Disintegrations, Please. The short story's tagline alluded to the tale told by Rivo Xarran in his guise as The Storyteller, and the possibility of it simply being a fabrication. Indeed, although the tale of Vryssa is related by Rivo, there exists in the story moments that the slicer could not possibly have witnessed. Its in-universe veracity, however, is confirmed when Boba Fett appears at the end and speaks with The Storyteller, referring to him as Rivo. Thus, the Vryssa episode, while related by Rivo Xarran, is simply presented to the reader as an extended flashback to the past, told from many perspectives.
Along with the images of the Xarran brothers and other moments from the story, a short blurb was included in Adventure Journal 14 that detailed facts about Gaege Xarran's early life and relationship with his brother. The general was later indirectly referenced in The New Essential Guide to Characters, under the entry for Boba Fett. Daniel Wallace provided the Vryssa episode with some chronological context, placing Fett's destruction of the garrison—and thus the death of Gaege Xarran—between Imperial General Rom Mohc's downfall in 1 ABY and the Battle of Hoth two years later.