Sodarra

Serving the Galactic Empire as a dedicated captain, Sodarra oversaw an elite group of stormtroopers, which included Lieutenant Birdloe and trooper CV-481. Despite trusting Birdloe, his second-in-command, due to his spotless service record, the lieutenant was secretly a spy working for the treacherous Governor-General Nox Vellam. Following the Battle of Yavin, Sodarra accompanied Darth Vader to Vaal to retrieve the Dark Lord of the Sith's damaged TIE fighter, which had been abandoned after the battle. They successfully recovered the starfighter; however, through the schemes of Vellam, a vindictive and rogue Imperial governor who resented Vader's influence with the Emperor, the Dark Lord was incapacitated inside its cockpit. The cockpit, its wings and support structures detached, was placed inside a black plasteel container. Carrying Vader's unconscious form, Sodarra and his unit escaped Vellam's forces aboard an Imperial corvette. With Vellam's Star Destroyer, the Eradicator, closing in within the Aldo Spachian system, Sodarra's ship crash-landed on the core of the Aldo Spachian Comet, and they sent a distress signal.

This signal was intercepted by Han Solo, the captain of the freighter Millennium Falcon, who was racing to rescue Rebel leader Princess Leia Organa from the bounty hunter Alfreda Goot. Being pursued by the Eradicator's TIE fighter squadron, Solo landed on the comet's surface, believing the distress call originated from Organa's vessel. Wearing a vac-suit, Sodarra, accompanied by three of his soldiers, approached a surprised Solo. In an attempt to gain Solo's assistance, Sodarra misrepresented himself and his men as Imperial deserters, claiming they were being hunted for attempting to sell a prototype cloaking device to the duplicitous Ploovo Two-For-One instead of delivering it to secret Imperial Production Laboratories on Rigoron. Solo agreed to help in exchange for four shares of the supposed device's sale. Sodarra, his six troopers, and Vader's crate—allegedly containing the cloaking device—boarded the Falcon just as Vellam's TIEs arrived. With Sodarra's stormtroopers at the ship's weapons, Solo piloted the Falcon into the cover of the comet's gaseous tail, evading the Star Destroyer and its TIEs only to encounter Alfreda Goot, who restated the terms of the race and initiated a hyperspace jump towards Tatooine.

Although Sodarra recognized Alfreda Goot from her work for Vader, he did not correct Solo's mistaken belief that Goot was Organa in disguise. Instead, he downplayed the importance of the race and urged Solo to take him, his men, and the cargo to the planet Shador, hoping to contact Darth Vader's Togorian agent Taslo Deville. After discovering that Vellam's forces were tracking the Falcon via its faulty transmitter, Sodarra suggested that deviating from the race to drop off his group would free Solo from the governor's pursuit. However, Han refused to further endanger Leia, and he followed Goot into hyperspace. Sodarra initially opposed using the cloaking device to evade Vellam, asserting that the Falcon's reactor lacked sufficient power, only for Solo to uncover the crate's true contents and Vader's presence. His deception exposed, Sodarra compelled Solo to take them to Shador, though Solo and his Wookiee copilot Chewbacca managed to plant a bomb on Vader's cockpit.

However, the traitorous Lieutenant Birdloe had informed Vellam of the Falcon's movements, and the governor's forces assassinated Taslo Deville at his Fink's Hole residence before the ship arrived. Landing at Shador's Mud Station, Sodarra received no communication from the agent and ventured with Solo to Fink's Hole, instructing his men to kill Solo if he returned alone. At Deville's residence in Zeboron Gamma, Solo and Sodarra fought and killed his assassins, a group of human and Gamorrean mercenaries. Hours later, after a thorough but fruitless search for answers, Sodarra was guided by Solo back to the Falcon, stealing a boat to evade a group of Vellam's stormtroopers. As they departed the planet just as the Eradicator arrived, Solo revealed the bomb on Vader's cockpit, threatening to detonate it and kill the Dark Lord. Sodarra countered by revealing that Alfreda Goot was a bounty hunter and ruthless killer, not Princess Leia in disguise. Solo agreed to spare Vader's life in exchange for Sodarra's help in rescuing the princess, before tricking Birdloe into revealing his treachery and launching an escape pod which Solo then destroyed, having already suspected that one of Sodarra's men had orchestrated the events on Shador.

As the Falcon traveled through hyperspace, Sodarra expressed surprise that Birdloe had been an agent of Vellam. After landing at Bay 32 in Mos Eisley on Tatooine, Sodarra volunteered to scout the Dockside Cafe, the location provided by Alfreda Goot. While Solo and Chewbacca entered the cantina, Sodarra and his stormtroopers waited outside, hoping to surprise Goot. After Solo noticed a group of aliens hired by the bounty hunter as backup, he signaled Sodarra to enter, initiating a blaster fight with Goot's men and other hostile patrons. Sodarra and his men cornered the aliens as Solo pursued Alfreda Goot—and a captive Princess Leia—into a stockroom. With Goot dead and Leia freed, the enraged princess questioned Solo's alliance with Imperial forces, prompting Sodarra to claim that their agreement forbade such discussion and to remark privately to Solo that both would suffer if the affair was discovered. Despite Sodarra's newfound respect for Solo, he, Organa, and Chewbacca were forced to escape in the Millennium Falcon after the captain betrayed him and summoned Imperial reinforcements.

Sodarra, a compact and sturdy human male, was a devoted Imperial, showing no remorse for the deaths of traitors and insistent on wearing his officer's uniform, even on worlds hostile to the Empire like Shador. Sodarra felt lost on Shador, easily disoriented in its maze-like canals, and disturbed by the planet's strange smells and creatures. While he saw Han Solo as a valuable ally, offering to request a pardon from Darth Vader, he was skilled in deception and willing to lie to and betray Solo to achieve his goals.

Sodarra's first appearance was in the choose-your-own adventure book Scoundrel's Luck, authored by Troy Denning and published by West End Games.

Scoundrel's Luck features numerous branching paths with varying outcomes, some leading to Sodarra's death. However, the Star Wars Insider article The History of the Mandalorians confirms that Goot successfully lured Solo to the Dockside Cafe, but ultimately failed in her hunt, an outcome dependent on Sodarra's survival.

Other possible paths involve Sodarra's corvette being boarded by the Eradicator or crashing on the planet Mon Torri, leading to a collaboration with Solo to evade snowtroopers and AT-AT walkers. These events only occur if Solo takes a shortcut through the Mon Torri system, while Kendal Ozzel's entry in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia establishes that the canonical path involves taking a longer route through the Black Widow Nebula.