Gaib & TK-0 Inc. was a technological bounty hunting company owned and operated by the slicer Gaib, along with his droid TK-0, which specialized in the acquisition of information and technology for its clients. The company operated throughout and after the Clone Wars, a period of service during which several employers hired the company's services, among them crime lord Jabba the Hutt and members of the Mandalorian Skirata clan.

Contents 1 Organization 2 History 3 Behind the scenes 4 Appearances 5 Notes and references

OrganizationEdit

Gaib & TK-0 Inc. was a bounty hunter organization that was formed of two individuals: a male Human slicer by the name of Gaib, and a droid known as TK-0,^[1] which resembled a taller and armored version of a standard R2-series astromech droid.^[4] Considered "tech-hunters", the company focused on the acquisition of information and technology for its clients,^[2] and specialized in locating more obscure data and hard-to-source hardware.^[1] TK-0 was looked upon for providing computing power, data correlation, and accessing local networks. At the same time, Gaib was responsible for logistics, TK-0's maintenance, and for directing the droid's searches.^[2]

HistoryEdit

In 22 BBY, following the kidnapping of the young Huttlet Rotta from his home on Tatooine, the services of Gaib & TK-0 Inc. were called upon by the criminal empire of Rotta's father, Jabba Desilijic Tiure. Both Gaib and TK-0 reported to Jabba's palace on Tatooine with their findings: utilizing Air Traffic Control records, along with comlink relay records, and medical database access records, Gaib and TK-0 were able to determine that the pilot of a ship leaving Tatooine around the time of the abduction had accessed the Galactic All-Species Self-Help Database, requesting information on Hutt healthcare and sickness. That same ship later landed on the planet Teth, in Wild Space. With that information, Jabba ordered for his bounty hunters to be dispatched to Teth and for Gaib and TK-0 to be paid. Jabba also offered the two a substantial retainer's fee should they make themselves available to him whenever he needed, stating that the alternative should they choose not to, was death.^[3]

A year later, in 21 BBY, Gaib & TK-0 Inc. was contracted by Null Advanced Recon Commandos N-7 and N-11—also known as "Mereel" and "Ordo", respectively—on behalf of the clones' adoptive father, Kal Skirata. Mereel had originally contacted the bounty hunting duo as a means of acquiring hardware upgrades for Skirata's recently purchased submersible, Aay'han. He then put the company to work tracking shipments of laboratory equipment being illegally transported to circumvent the Republic Senate's ban on commercial cloning, as part of Skirata's search for the rogue Kaminoan scientist Ko Sai. The information and leads gathered by Gaib & TK-0 Inc. would lead Mereel and Skirata to Dorumaa, the moon of Almas in the Cularin system, where they would indeed find and capture Ko Sai. For their efforts, the two technological bounty hunters were paid no less than one hundred thousand credits for their equipment and informational services.^[4]

Gaib & TK-0 Inc. would again find itself in the employ of Kal Skirata and his clan in the year 19 BBY, in the weeks following the transformation of the Galactic Republic into the new Galactic Empire.^[1] As it were, during the events of the night Order 66 had been issued by then-Chancellor Palpatine, the clone troopers and commandos associated with Clan Skirata had attempted to all desert the Grand Army of the Republic for Mandalore, when unfortunate circumstances left the commandos Darman and Niner behind on Coruscant.^[5] In payment of a favor owed to Mereel, Gaib was able to secure service work for the Imperial Army, where he was able to spy on the Imperial Commando Special Unit of the 501st Legion, and therein determine the status of both commandos. For additional payment, TK-0 was able to infiltrate the 501st barracks and modify the helmets of both Darman and Niner to allow for secure communication between the two Imperial commandos and Clan Skirata's base of operations on Mandalore.^[1] When the clan decided to extract Niner and Darman, Gaib & TK-0 Inc. was called upon to acquire four sets of Imperial Stormtrooper armor to allow the clan's clone members to infiltrate the 501st, a task which Gaib and TK-0 completed and even exceeded, delivering a full ten sets of Stormtrooper armor should their employers have need of them. Having been awarded an Imperial contract for servicing suit systems, it had become their right to mark suits of armor they deemed as defective to be returned. The incredibly large scale of Imperial Army operations, however, allowed for a lack of oversight that enabled the bounty hunter pair to keep what suits they marked as defective for sale, rather than truly return them. Clan Skirata would be unsuccessful in their attempts to rescue their left-behind comrades, although Gaib & TK-0 Inc. was handsomely paid with a stack of credit chips. TK-0 also stated that it was billing the Empire two hundred credits for every servodriver they needed for their armor servicing contract.^[1]

Behind the scenesEdit

Both Gaib and TK-0 first appeared in the novel Republic Commando: True Colors by author Karen Traviss, the third book in the Republic and Imperial Commando series. They were later given a brief role in Traviss' novelization of the 2008 film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but it was only upon the release of Imperial Commando: 501st that their tech-hunter company was finally given the name "Gaib & TK-0 Inc." during the third chapter's epigraph.

AppearancesEdit

• Star Wars: The Clone Wars novel
• Republic Commando: True Colors (First appearance)
• Imperial Commando: 501st (First identified as "Gaib & TK-0 Inc.")

Notes and referencesEdit