Crimson Jack

Crimson Jack, nicknamed "Redbeard" by Han Solo, was the Pirate Master of a gang of space pirates which operated in the Outer Rim. Although originally using gunships to carry out their raids, the pirate gang eventually discovered a crippled Imperial cruiser that had limped away from the Battle of Toprawa. After raiding the ship, Crimson Jack appropriated the craft for his own use, making his pirating operation much more formidable. To repair the craft, Jack received funding from Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure, in return for a share of the profits. After restoring the Imperial vessel, Jack and his crew encountered smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon, fresh from their participation in the Battle of Yavin. Upon bringing the Falcon aboard the ship with a tractor beam, Jack stole Solo's reward that he had received from rescuing Princess Leia Organa.

Jack let Solo leave with a tracer placed aboard his ship, hoping that he might be able to pull the same caper on Solo at a later time. A short while later, Jack captured both Leia Organa and Solo, intent on ransoming the Rebel princess to the Alliance command. In an elaborate ruse, Solo and Organa convinced Jack that a Rebel treasury was in the Drexel system. After arriving in the system, Solo and Organa escaped, when the ship-dwellers of Drexel attempted to pull Crimson Jack's ship out of the sky. The threat of the ship-dwellers was eventually resolved, and Jack sent his Raider Squadron, led by his second in command, Jolli, to shoot down the Millennium Falcon. However, Solo defeated Jack's starfighters and crippled Jolli's ship. Jack continued to pursue the Falcon, but Solo revealed that while on Jack's ship, he had erased Jack's navi-computer star charts, stranding his ship in the system. Solo and Jack agreed to meet in space, using a magnetic field, to negotiate the return of the star charts. During the encounter, Jack double-crossed the smuggler, ambushing Solo with his own men. However, Jolli, who had survived the encounter with the Falcon, turned on her captain for abandoning her after her craft had been disabled. Using Jolli's distraction, Solo escaped the ambush. Facing Jack in one-on-one combat, Solo fired a blaster bolt through the man's chest, killing him.

Text and facts from the “Crimson Jack/Legends” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.