"I'm in control. I make the rules now."

Cad Bane was a male Duros bounty hunter from the planet Duro who earned a reputation as the galaxy's best, deadliest, and most fearsome mercenary during the Clone Wars. Though he worked for a number of clients, his loyalty was ultimately to credits—and by extension, the highest bidder. Bane employed a variety of weapons and allies to ensure that he always got his pay, and he became the leader in his line of work after fellow bounty hunter Jango Fett perished in the opening battle of the war. Bane's renown attracted the attention of Count Dooku and even the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, the latter of whom employed him numerous times for his own means. Working for Sidious, Bane stole a Jedi holocron from the Jedi Temple to unlock the Kyber memory crystal, a repository of all recorded Force-sensitive infants in the galaxy. After pilfering the crystal from Jedi Master Bolla Ropal on Devaron and forcing Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker to unlock it, Bane was sent to kidnap four of the infants listed in the crystal. Despite being captured halfway through his job by Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, Bane escaped from Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu by luring them into a trap on his hideout, Black Stall Station.

Bane was later hired by the Hutt crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure and the Hutt Grand Council to break Jabba's criminal uncle, Ziro Desilijic Tiure, out of Republic custody on Coruscant. To do so, he formed a team of hunters to capture members of the Galactic Senate and force Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to free Ziro. Once he had liberated Ziro from the high-security Central Detention Center, Bane delivered him to the Hutt Council and disbanded his posse. When Ziro escaped from Nal Hutta, Bane was rehired to track down the crime lord, and though he arrived on Teth too late to secure his bounty, he managed to evade Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos, who failed to apprehend him for his crimes. Bane eventually became the leader of an operation, designed by criminal mastermind Moralo Eval and funded by Count Dooku, to capture Supreme Chancellor Palpatine for the Confederacy. Bane retained his formidable reputation throughout the Clone Wars, after which he became one of the Galactic Empire's preferred freelancers.