Aurra Sing

"Aurra Sing" Aurra Sing, also known as Nashtah, was a female Near-Human Jedi Padawan, but following a series of tragedies and misfortunes, she left the Jedi Order, blaming them for what had occured to her.

She resurfaced as a vicious bounty hunter, selling her Force-enhanced skills and assassin services to the highest bidder. Throughout her tenure as a mercenary, Sing associated herself with Cad Bane's posse and later helped mentor a young Boba Fett in his vendetta against Jedi Master Mace Windu.

Following her repeated attempts on Senator Tikkes' life, her jobs for Count Dooku, her goading of Fett into trying to kill Windu, her keeping members of the Galactic Senate hostage as well as her assassination of Senator Elsah'sai'Moro on behalf of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the bounty hunter was captured by a Jedi task force and imprisoned on Oovo IV.

In 18 BBY, Aurra Sing was freed by Darth Vader, offering her services as a specialized Jedi hunter to him and becoming "close" to him. Shortly after, she was sent by him to track down former Jedi Padawan Jax Pavan, though she ultimately failed on her mission.

Sometime prior to 10 BBY, Tobias Beckett had a run-in with Sing which ended in her seemingly falling to her death, gaining the pirate a bonus from Dryden Vos of Crimson Dawn.

Nonetheless, she had in fact survived and continued her work as a bounty hunter. During the Second Galactic Civil War, Sing was hired to kill Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo and Chume'da Allana, only to be beaten by the latter. She was shortly after arrested by the security forces and placed in a holding cell aboard the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo.

Sing's career spanned over seven decades, from at least 36 BBY to 40 BBY, an impressive feat that few bounty hunters could or would accomplish.

Early life
Aurra Sing was born in the slums of Nar Shaddaa to a spice-addicted mother named Aunuanna and a Palliduvan father she never knew. It was also rumored she was once owned by Sennex slavers.

She was brought to the Jedi Order as a candidate for Jedi training. In an attempt to control the young woman's overtly aggressive instincts, the Council assigned her to the Dark Woman, a mysterious and secretive Jedi Master with a track record of training difficult apprentices. However, the two did not get along well and Sing never progressed past the stage of Padawan.

Around the age of nine, she was kidnapped by Sennex pirates on Ord Namurt, who played on her deep-seated fears of abandonment and betrayal to shake her trust in the Jedi. They raised the conflicted young woman as a fellow pirate.

Tragedy struck again when she was eventually captured by the Hutt crime lord Wallanooga, who in turn lent her to a group of Anzati assassins. The Anzati trained her to be a remorseless killer, even equipping Sing with a bio-computer that fed her additional sensory data. Her training was paid for by the family of Hutt crime lord Urdruua, something which set his family back a generation in debt.

The Jedi Hunter
Her tragedies caused her to have a deep hatred of the Jedi Order, especially the Dark Woman, who had allowed her to be captured and had left her to endure so much suffering. As such, she devoted her life to hunting bounties, especially those of members of the Jedi Order.

Sing became known as a hunter of Jedi, carving a bloody swath of victims including well-known Jedi Masters such as Sharad Hett on Tatooine, Peerce and J'Mikel on Coruscant, and Mana Veridi on Kwannot, where she also attempted to kill Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Master Qui-Gon Jinn, who barely managed to fend her off.

Thus, Aurra became an expert when it came to hunting Jedi Knights, having a vast array of weapons at her disposal. In addition to her blasters and a slugthrower rifle, Sing wielded a red-bladed lightsaber and relished defeating Jedi in combat with it.

Aiding Sith Lord Darth Maul
On Nar Shaddaa, she and fellow bounty hunters Cad Bane and Vorhdeilo met Sith Lord, Darth Maul. Sing picked up a transmission that Jedi were on their way to Hutta Town to investigate. Together with Bane's group, despite Sing's suspicions about Maul, they attended Xev Xrexus's Cartel's auction of the Jedi Padawan Eldra Kaitis. During the auction, Sing, Bane, and Vorhdeilo spoke with Maul aboard their ship. Together, they planned to take Kaitis from Jee Kra, who had successfully won the padawan in the auction. Sing and her compatriots killed Kra's crew. Sing, Maul and the others met Kra and Kaitis at his ship. After Maul subdued Kra and his remaining crew, Sing spoke with Bane about about leaving or killing Maul after their job was done. Having discovered the theft, Xrexus ordered the ship shot down.

After the group crashed onto the moon of Drazkel below, Xrexus allowed the rest of the bidders to hunt them down for sport and offered Kaitis to anyone who captured her. Maul and Kaitis split off from the group to distract the hunters, instructing the bounty hunters to steal a ship. Turning the tables on the hunters, Bane, Sing, and Vorhdeilo set a trap. Bane lured a group of Trandoshan hunters into a kill zone, where Sing sniped them from a distance and Vorhdeilo attacked them at close range. The group then stole a Ohnaka Gang starship and picked up Maul, who promised they would be compensated.

Naboo crisis
In 32 BBY, during her time on Tatooine, Sing watched the Boonta Eve Classic Podrace from a balcony on Beggar's Canyon. She noticed that the young Human slave, Anakin Skywalker, was not cheating, which was astounding to her. She had reasoned that it was his strong connection to the Force that helped the boy win "an honest race in a contest that has no rules." At the same time, Skywalker won his freedom, which earned Sing's begrudging respect. They would formally meet a decade later.

Hunting Senator Tikkes
After the deaths of Peerce, J'Mikel and a group of Republic Peace Officers, J'Mikel's Padawan Xiaan Amersu described the attack to the Council. The Council then decided to send Jedi Masters Ki-Adi-Mundi and Adi Gallia alongside Knight A'Sharad Hett to begin a hunt for the Jedi killer.Sing was soon brought to the planet Talas where she was attacked by droidekas dispatched by two Quarrens named Tallet and Lekket. The Quarrens explained to Sing that they needed her services to assassinate the Quarren Senator Tikkes, who had tipped off the Republic on an operation the Quarrens had been running. Sing took no interest in the senator but agreed to the mission anyway after finding out that her former master, the Dark Woman An'ya Kuro, led the raid. Sing was nearly captured by the Jedi hunting her, but escaped aboard a personal flier. After crashing on a lush jungle world, Sing engaged the Jedi protecting Tikkes. Sing managed to get aboard the ship holding the Senator with only Hett guarding him. Sing and Hett dueled with their lightsabers with Hett coming out as the victor. Sing soon escaped, however, as the Jedi and the Senator left the planet. On Balmorra, Sing ran into Jango Fett while hunting Rigorra the Hutt. Aurra apparently had had a connection to the Hutt when she was just a slave to Wallanooga. Sing and Fett managed to infiltrate the Hutt's well defended palace but were captured along with two other bounty hunters—Bossk and Skorr—who were hunting Rigorra's brother. All four managed to escape after being poisoned with powerful toxic flowers and Sing captured Rigorra.

Confederate employment
Sing was employed for a time by Confederate Head of State Dooku, who sent her to find young Boba Fett, as the boy was thought to have information vital to the Serennian Count. Upon discovering that young Fett was heir to a large amount of money, Sing attempted to take the money herself, by seemingly accepting his offer of half the cash. This plan failed, however, when the young Fett escaped her on the InterGalactic Banking Clan's vault-world of Aargau. During the Cortosis droid crisis, Anakin Skywalker encountered Sing on Tatooine. She first posed as one of the locals, and asked the young Jedi's help in eliminating a womp rat nest that was harassing the inhabitants. To her surprise, Skywalker managed to solve the problem without any incident. She revealed herself, and temporarily distracted him, by setting off a thermal detonator. Skywalker chased after the Dark Jedi and cornered her near crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure's palace. However, before they could fight, Saato managed to incapacitate Anakin, and ordered Sing to throw the Padawan into the palace dungeons.

Nar Shaddaa
Shortly after the Battle of Geonosis, Urdruua the Hutt, a crime lord based on Sing's home moon of Nar Shaddaa, placed a death mark on a Jedi and Sing accepted the bounty. However, the Hutt revealed that the Jedi Aurra was supposed to be hunting was in fact herself. He shot poison gas into his main chamber, but Sing escaped, to find herself surrounded by Nikto assassins being led by a Chadra-Fan with a nail gun. After finding another way to escape, she sniped out three Duros assassins, who were also trying to snipe her. After getting on a comlink with the Hutt, she noted that she had placed a bomb in the Hutt's palace, and a few seconds later it was destroyed. Aurra Sing left the scene saying: "Such a waste. Now I have to go to find real Jedi to kill."

Mentoring Boba Fett
Around 22 BBY, during the Clone Wars, Sing reconciled with Boba Fett and joined him in his attempt to kill Jedi Master Mace Windu for revenge for Boba's father and brief lover and partner of hers: Jango Fett. Boba, under the name of "Lucky", boarded the Endurance in the guise of a clone cadet. After his first attempt on Windu's life failed, he contacted Sing to ask for advice. Sing told him to blow up the reactors, much to Boba's surprise. After Boba successfully destroyed the Endurance's reactors, sending it crashing towards Vanqor, he got into one of the escape pods along with several of the other cadets. Once they were away from the plummeting vessel, the pod was docked by Slave I. Sing and fellow bounty hunter Bossk entered the pod to confront Boba. After telling him that the other cadets must be launched into space, due to the fact that they are "living witnesses", Boba reluctantly came aboard Slave I and jettisoned the pod from Slave I's docking area. Although the group of mercenaries escaped, the cadets were saved by Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Windu, who had escaped the Endurance in their Jedi Starfighters. She later abducted Admiral Kilian, Commander Ponds, and a naval officer from the crash site of the Endurance on Vanqor. After Skywalker and Windu triggered their bomb in the crash site, Boba convinced Sing to go back there and get the two Jedis' heads to bring to Count Dooku, who might pay them for their trouble. Sing, along with Boba and Castas, went to the crash site. Due to the ship falling apart, and R2-D2's interference, Sing decided to blow up the crash site. As they left, Bossk contacted Sing, telling that a explosion happened near where the Jedi landed. She then ordered the Trandoshan to jam all transmissions from the planet. When Sing and her team returned to Slave I, they saw Windu's Jedi starfighter taking off. Unbeknownst to her, only R2-D2 was aboard. Though Slave I took out the Jedi fighter's communications, Artoo reached the hyperspace rings and escaped. Knowing that Windu would not hold a grudge against them, she decided to motivate Windu by using the hostages.

When contacting Mace Windu to come and find her, Sing shot Ponds, whom she had abducted, after Boba wouldn't do it. The group of bounty hunters then docked on Florrum for a visit with Sing's old flame Hondo Ohnaka to see if he would give them any advice. During a visit in the bar with Hondo, Sing overheard Castascommunicating via hologram to a friend on Coruscant. After hearing him calling her an old hag, she shot him. Plo Koon and Ahsoka Tano later caught up with her. After having a quarrel in a room, Sing fled away, leaving a discouraged Boba behind. Tano chased her, but after getting an order from Plo Koon, she went to free the hostages. Sing got suspicious, so she went to go and stop the Padawan. After Tano pursued her, she fled on Slave I, but because of a wing failure caused by Tano, the ship crashed. Sing was presumed dead by the Jedi. Unknown to them, Hondo salvaged her out of Slave I's wreckage.

Ziro Desilijic Tiure's gun-for-hire
Sing was later hired by Ziro the Hutt to assassinate Senator Padmé Amidala in retaliation for imprisoning him. She tracked the Senator to Alderaan, where Amidala was due for a conference on refugee concerns. Infiltrating the conference through the vents and snapping the neck of several Senate Commandos, Sing set up a sniper position. Only the timely intervention of Tano gave Amidala a flesh wound, forcing Sing to flee.[23]

Sing later made a second attempt on Amidala's life when she tracked down the Senator, not being fooled by the BD-3000 luxury droid acting in her place. But once again, Tano interfered. Sing outdrew Tano as she grazed the Padawan, but Amidala used a stun blaster on her. Sing was then arrested and brought to Coruscant.

Working again with Cad Bane
Later in the Clone Wars, Sing teamed up with Cad Bane's bounty hunter team for the raid on the Republic Senate Building. To see how "solitary types" like Aurra Sing, Robonino and Shahan Alama would work together, Bane set them on a test mission to capture bounty hunter Davtokk on the planet Keyorin. Davtokk attempted to take out Bane to collect the bounty on his head, but was overcome with relative ease by Bane's team. Pleased with their performance, Bane moved the team to Coruscant to prepare for an operation to rescue Ziro Desilijic Tiure.

During the hostage siege Aurra covered Bane's entrance to the building by taking out the Senate Commandos who attempted to stop him with a sniper rifle. After Bane eliminated the remaining Senate Commandos, Aurra shot a dying one. Later she aided Shahan Alama in searching for the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, whose presence in the Senate Building threatened to thwart Bane's plan. Eventually, with the help of Robonino they managed to render Skywalker unconscious. When the Hutt crime lord was freed, Aurra Sing successfully left the crime scene along with the rest of the group. Her actions earned her a one-hundred fifty thousand credit bounty on her head for "crimes against the Republic."

Mission on Devaron
At some point, Aurra Sing was hired by Confederate-aligned Senator Vien'sai'Malloc to assassinate fellow representative Elsah'sai'Moro, though she went even further by trying to kill a Jedi task force. The bounty hunter crossed paths with Jedi sent to investigate her, including Aayla Secura, Tholme, and her own former Master: An'ya Kuro the Dark Woman. She almost killed the latter two in a cave explosion but was defeated and captured instead by Secura, who scarred the bounty hunter and sliced off her bio-computer antenna. Sing was sent to a prison on Oovo IV, where she remained for the rest of the Clone Wars.

The Search for Jax Pavan
Sometime in 18 BBY, she was freed by Imperial Supreme Commander Darth Vader, becoming one of his most-trusted agents. Her flirtarious advances towards him as well as her describing him as her "flame" caused many Imperial officers to speculate on their relationship, though on the Sith Lord's part it was purely proffesional. Shortly after, she was to kill the former Jedi Jax Pavan. Vader had her transported to Coruscant, and she went to the remains of the Jedi Temple to search for any clues to Pavan's whereabouts. While there, she encountered Captain Gregar Typho and in the resulting duel between them, she lost and became unconscious. Typho then took one of her lightsabers, which he would later send as a gift to Jax.

Sing was closing in on her quarry, getting nearer and nearer to finding Jax, and at one point engaged in a duel against Jax's Gray Paladin ally, Laranth Tarak. Later, she caught up with Pavan and engaged him in a duel. The Jedi outsmarted Sing, and dropped her into a reposticator, where he presumed Sing met her death.

Run-in with Tobias Beckett
At some point prior to 10 BBY, Sing resurfaced and had a run-in with pirate Tobias Beckett, during one of his missions on behalf of Crimson Dawn, which ended with her being pushed and falling to her apparent demise. Crime lord Dryden Vos gave Beckett a bonus for killing her, while also benefiting smuggler Lando Calrissian, who owed Sing some money.

Hunting Wade Vox
The Near-Human bounty hunter escaped the clutches of death once again, returning to Lord Darth Vader's side during the Galactic Civil War, as a Jedi killer and Imperial agent. She was seen on Tatooine soon after the Battle of Hoth, once again on the hunt of a Jedi. Sing had followed her instincts to the planet as she had sensed a new Force-wielder there, but was unable to pick out her target at first as his powers hadn't yet surfaced and so she was unsure as to who it was. To find out, she entered crime lord Jabba Desiljic Tiure's demolition games on her swoop, using her sniper rifle to take out targets, while at the same time looking for her precious prey. She eventually discovered that that her target was the young Wade Vox, whom she tried to take out after he won his freedom. Sing was unable to do so, however, as Vox deflected her sniper shots with his newly-built crimson lightsaber.

New Republic and Galactic Alliance
In 40 ABY, using the name "Nashtah", Sing was accidentally hired by Lalu Morwan to assassinate Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka and her young daughter Allana. After allying herself with an undercover Han Solo and Leia Organa, whom she shared her tale of watching young Anakin Skywalker's race, her attempt to kill Allana was thwarted by Jacen Solo and ironically, her own quarry; while she managed to destroy the Defender Droid DD-11A and deal a few wounds on Solo, she had suffered a dislocated knee and was immobilized by Allana's injector pen. Soon afterward, she was captured by security forces and placed in a holding cell aboard the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo, seemingly ending her career as a mercenary and Jedi hunter.

Discrepancies
The character of Aurra Sing was first conceived in a sketch labeled "Babe Fett" by Lucasfilm's Doug Chiang, being supposed to be rather Boba Fett's consort than mentor.

Before the cancellation of The Clone Wars, several unfinished episodes featuring Sing were written for the show's season sixth, including one in which Sing was planned to be killed, according to King's husband Kyle Newman. Had this concept been canonized, it would have contradicted Sing's appearances in the Expanded Universe stories set during the Galactic Civil War and the New Republic and New Jedi Order eras.

Appearances

 * Aurra's Song
 * Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace  (First appearance)
 * Episode I: Queen Amidala
 * Star Wars: Republic: Outlander
 * Star Wars 13: Emissaries to Malastare, Part 1  (Mentioned only)
 * Star Wars 17: Emissaries to Malastare, Part 5  (Indirect mention only)
 * Star Wars: Republic: The Hunt for Aurra Sing
 * Heart of Fire  (Mentioned only)
 * The Bounty Hunters: Aurra Sing
 * Star Wars Adventures 6: The Warlords of Balmorra
 * Boba Fett: The Fight to Survive
 * Boba Fett: Crossfire
 * Boba Fett: Maze of Deception
 * Boba Fett: Hunted  (Mentioned only)
 * "Old Scores"—Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures Volume 8
 * The Clone Wars: Act on Instinct
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Death Trap"
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "R2 Come Home"
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Lethal Trackdown"
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Assassin"
 * The Clone Wars: Invitation Only
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Hostage Crisis"
 * LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars  (Non-canonical appearance)
 * The Clone Wars: Hunting the Hunters (Part I)
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars – "Hunt for Ziro"  (Appears in flashback(s))
 * "Jedi Masquerade"—Star Wars: The Clone Wars Comic UK 6.28
 * Jedi: Aayla Secura
 * Star Wars: The New Droid Army
 * Boba Fett: Pursuit  (Mentioned only)
 * Labyrinth of Evil  (Mentioned only)
 * Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows
 * Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force  (Mentioned only)
 * The Last Jedi  (Mentioned only)
 * Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds
 * "Once Bitten"—Star Wars Tales 12  (Appears in flashback(s))
 * Star Wars: Demolition
 * Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines  (Mentioned only)
 * Darth Maul, Part II
 * Darth Maul, Part III
 * Darth Maul, Part IV
 * Darth Maul, Part V
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story  (Mentioned only)
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story: Expanded Edition  (Mentioned only)
 * Solo: A Star Wars Story Adaptation 3  (Mentioned only)