An Imperial pilot’s view of a clash between task forces (Darren Tan)
“A wise admiral is never surprised by a scenario, for he has run them all in his head during sleepless nights.”
—Gial Ackbar, admiral, Alliance to Restore the Republic
The destruction of the first Death Star had infuriated Emperor Palpatine. But despite such reversals, events in the galaxy still hewed closely to his visions—and the Dark Lord of the Sith was certain that his long struggle to bring peace to the galaxy would soon end.
For years the Rebels had actually been helpful to the Emperor—they offered a convenient focus for the galaxy’s fears of chaos and disorder, much as the Separatists had a generation earlier, when he was consolidating his power and plotting the downfall of the Jedi Order. But now Darth Sidious no longer needed such distractions. A new Death Star was taking shape above the remote world of Endor, one shorn of its predecessor’s vulnerabilities. And soon Sidious would have a new Sith apprentice—one who could tap the dark side’s full potential.
The Rebels had won a substantial victory at Yavin, one that caused many more systems to reject the Empire’s rule. But since then, the Galactic Civil War had been a disaster for Mon Mothma and her fellow conspirators. The Empire’s ambush of the Rebel fleet at Deepspace Besh had deprived the Alliance of numerous capital ships; only the intercession of the Mon Calamari had kept the Rebellion alive. Daring raids on targets such as Gerrard, Milvayne, and Bannistar Station had kept the Empire off balance for a time, but the Battle of Hoth had been a disaster, decimating the Alliance’s primary base.
With the Rebellion still trying to regroup, Palpatine knew it was time to draw Admiral Ackbar’s fleet into a fatal showdown and force Luke Skywalker to confront his destiny. And so he quietly set his trap in motion.
The rumors seemed hardly credible at first: The Empire was building a second, more powerful Death Star somewhere on the fringes of the galaxy—one that would be invulnerable when construction was complete. But as more and more such reports reached Alliance High Command, Mothma began to believe them. Rebel agents destroyed the Tarkin and its turbolaser at Patriim, and learned of the construction of the Sanctuary Pipeline, a secret trade route driven at staggering expense from Sullust to the fringes of Wild Space. At Bothawui, Skywalker and Bothan agents intercepted the freighter Suprosa, whose computer core contained blueprints and construction schedules for the second Death Star. Then at Dennaskar they retrieved data tapes obtained by the Rebel agent Tay Vanis that confirmed the project’s existence.
The effort to warn the Alliance cost the lives of Vanis and many Bothans. But the Rebels didn’t realize they were walking into a trap. It was Palpatine who had arranged for the Bothans to discover the Death Star plans—just as it was Palpatine who made sure High Command learned he would be personally overseeing the new battle station’s construction.
After sending a strike team to destroy the shield generator protecting the Death Star, the Alliance assembled the largest armada in its history and raced down the Sanctuary Pipeline to Endor. There, they had a horrible surprise. The Death Star’s protective shield was still in place, and its superlaser was operational. Even incomplete, the Death Star’s gravity well made it difficult to jump to hyperspace—and Palpatine had deployed Interdictor cruisers to make escape impossible. Ackbar and General Lando Calrissian found themselves trapped—and from the far side of the Endor Moon came a task force of more than thirty Imperial Star Destroyers and support ships, led by the Executor.
Elsewhere in the galaxy, massive invasion fleets were moving into position, advancing on Mon Calamari Space and the rebellious world of Chandrila. The Alliance Fleet would be destroyed, and the Mon Calamari and Chandrilans pinned in place. They would have a few months to contemplate their mistakes before the new Death Star arrived to incinerate their worlds and end their insurrection.
A SOLDIER’S STORY: HOW I WON
THE BATTLE OF TAANAB
In this excerpt from Voren Na’al’s Oral History of the New Republic, Lando Calrissian looks back at one of his most famous exploits:
Taanab? Really, Voren—that tale’s been told so many times. Maybe another day … wait, where are you going? Tell you what, kid—because I like you, and because I know you feel like getting me another glass of Corellian Reserve, I’ll tell it just one more time. But only this once.
Taanab’s not much—an ag world whose only redeeming feature is that it sits at the intersection of the Perlemian and the Hapan Spine. I was there not long after Yavin, nursing a warm Ebla in Pandath’s least-worst casino, when the alert sirens started going off.
The Taanab defense fleet was a bunch of rustbuckets, gunships that were old when Hutts had a conscience. I didn’t think they’d even get out of the atmosphere, and I said so. The sad-sack bartender told me it would be better if they didn’t—the inbound ships were the Norulac pirates, arriving for their annual tribute. And the only question was if they’d feel like shooting this year.
I couldn’t believe it—the Norries were low and mean, but they were also a bunch of amateurs and everybody knew it. There was no way the Taanabs should have let themselves be pushed around by such a sorry lot, but once you get used to being scared, you let a lot of things happen to you. I watched on the holovid as the Norries intercepted the week’s rhuum convoy. There were about two dozen of them up there, maneuvering like a herd of nerfs. They couldn’t have flown worse if they’d already hit the rhuum, and I knew just one real pilot with a little courage could mop up the lot of them.
And then it hit me: There was a real pilot right there on Tanaab, one who just might be crazy enough to pull it off. I don’t need to tell you who that pilot was, do I, Voren?
What’s that? Uh, no. He wasn’t there.
Stang, Voren, you know I meant me. I told everybody in that cantina as much, and this rich merchant—guy named Danager—laughed and said if I drove the Norries off, he’d give me the deed to one of his breweries on Clendor. That got everybody laughing at me—I think I also got offered the Imperial Palace and the Sceptre of Nopachi—but I didn’t mind. I love a good Clendoran ale, and this was a chance at a lifetime supply.
So a few minutes later I fired up the Mama Tried, stood her on her tail, and went topside. The Taanab boys were spread out in orbit around the Banthal docks, leaving a trail of bolts behind them. The Norries, meanwhile, were still trying not to fly into each other and whooping over the comm. They had two corvettes and a bunch of rusty gunships painted with badly drawn fangs and claws—typical tacky pirate stuff.
So I headed for the Taanab moon’s ice ring and waited.
See, I’d picked up several hundred Conner nets I’d promised to run out to Socorro for this guy I knew. When the Norries got close enough—which took the better part of forever—I shot out among them and let the Conners go right in the middle of their formation. Being vac-heads, about half of them immediately hit their jets, flying right into the nets and shorting out their systems. Three or four of the others flew straight into each other like spooked nuna.
Before they could get it sorted out, I fired up Mama’s tractor beam and started slingshotting chunks of ice from the ring into them. The Norries might have been amateurs, but they were spitting mad now, and I didn’t want them to open up on me or the Taanabs. Speaking of the Taanabs, that was about the time they arrived with guns blazing. I racked up nineteen kills in about as many minutes, and shot up the corvettes’ coolant pipes, taking their engines offline. I had a bunch of nets left, so I fired those into the escape pod bays. After that, nobody was getting off those corvettes. The Taanabs called in the Imps, who showed up a few days later and captured the corvettes with all hands. And that was the end of the annual tributes.
The Taanabs offered to make me marshal of their defense fleet, but I said no. You know what salary a planetary militiaman pulls down, Voren? Besides, nothing ruins the cut of a good suit quicker than epaulets. You remember that—they ever want to make you a general, you insist on braid. Epaulets are showy; braid’s classy.
Besides, I had a new brewery to inspect. One that turned out to be run by a Zeltron who was pretty as a Tellanadan moonflower and mean as a Hismauli hawk-snake. But Voren, my friend, that’s another story.
Lando Calrissian during the Battle of Taanab (Chris Scalf)
The Mon Calamari shipyards have been the pride of the Calamari sector since before 4000 BBY. Toward the end of the Republic, they became a key Rendili affiliate, producing Dreadnaught variants alongside their native vessels.
During the Clone Wars, Mon Calamari supported Palpatine, but the pro-Separatist opposition made several attempts to liberate the shipyards, while exiled shipwrights revised the Rendili Dreadnaught into the Confederacy’s Providence-class battleship. Moff Tarkin later subjugated the system, hoping to retool the shipyards for Imperial use, but the navy quickly dismissed the Mon Cals’ technology as too alien.
Nonetheless, Tarkin admired the elegant winged hullforms of the latest MC80 cruisers, so he allowed the shipyards to build variants as luxury starliners for Galaxy Tours and Kaliida & Rimward. The Mon Cal shipwrights repaid him by developing every component of these new liners as a prototype for future warships.
Pinpoint targeting computers were devised for sport lasers on the promenade deck of the Kuari Princess, while the RNS Queen Amidala IV boasted an innovative Class One hyperdrive. This was only part of a wider plan for liberation. The Imperial garrison was ejected in 1 BBY, and Mon Calamari committed fully to the Alliance two years later.
By the Battle of Endor, Mon Calamari had also produced eight new heavy cruisers based on the Kuari Princess design, and nearly fifty escorts—an even more impressive achievement considering that a good chunk of the shipyards’ resources was given over to starfighter construction at the same time.
After Endor, the shipyards doubled their production every year, taking advantage of massive New Republic funding: In some years, as much as 5 percent of the entire government budget was assigned to Mon Cal–led shipbuilding efforts. In response, the designers created increasingly powerful battleships.
Admiral Ackbar visits a Mon Calamari orbital shipyard (Paul Youll)
A-WING
The fastest starfighter to see service during the Galactic Civil War, the RZ-1 A-wing was assembled by hand in secret Alliance factories and combined extremely powerful sublight engines with extraordinarily sensitive controls. Not since the Jedi starfighters of the Clone Wars had there been a starfighter so perfectly suited for an ace pilot—or so unforgiving of a lesser pilot’s mistakes.
While the A-wing resembled the ancient Aurek starfighter, its direct ancestor was the R-22 Spearhead, a speedy starfighter favored by pilots who liked to tinker, further increasing the Spearhead’s speed and maneuverability by upgrading its flight systems and stripping it of any and all components that could be jettisoned. The Rebel pilot Jake Farrell was one such tinkerer, and brought a pair of R-22s to Yavin 4’s Massassi base.
After the Battle of Yavin, General Jan Dodonna, Adar Tallon, and Walex Blissex decided the Alliance needed a new starfighter that was faster than the X-wing—particularly since the Empire was already beginning to deploy speedier TIE models. Working with Farrell, the team began drawing up designs.
The A-wing got its speed from two Novaldex J-77 Event Horizon engines; its maneuverability came from a combination of adjustable thrust-vector controls and thruster-control jets. The fighter needed every bit of its speed, as its armament was much lighter than that of an X-wing or Y-wing: two wing-mounted blaster cannons that could pivot sixty degrees up or down to cover a greater field of fire. To take on bigger targets, A-wings generally carried concussion missiles. The starfighter was lightly armored, carried a small shield generator, and had no astromech—though it did compensate for these weaknesses with powerful sensor jammers that could blind enemy pilots.
A-wings were prone to breakdowns and notoriously hard to keep flying; flight crews hated them, and officers planning offensives had to wonder if the fighters would be available. But they proved their value in raids, activating their sensor jammers, streaking in to hit blinded targets with concussion missiles, and then racing away before an effective defense could be mounted.
A-wings helped turn the tide at the Battle of Endor, as pilots from Green Squadron destroyed the Pride of Tarlandia and then the Executor. Gemmer Sojan—a Rogue Squadron veteran flying as Green Two—destroyed the Tarlandia, degrading the Imperial fleet’s communications, and Farrell (flying as Green Four) and Green Leader Arvel Crynyd brought down the shields protecting the Executor’s command bridge. Struck by point-defense turbolasers, Crynyd guided his tumbling A-wing into the bridge, causing the dreadnought to collide with the Death Star.
The New Republic turned A-wing production over to Incom, whose standardized methods made for more reliable fighters. The Rebel leader Garm Bel Iblis developed the A-wing Slash, a tactic in which a group of X-wings would attack an Imperial convoy, with A-wings flying right behind them. The X-wings would pull away to draw enemy fire, and the A-wings would unleash their concussion missiles into the convoy’s heart.
B-WING
The B-wing was created by the Alliance to be a ship like no other—a starfighter that could ignore opposing starfighters and attack capital ships head-on.
The B-wing boasted powerful shields energized by a Quadex power core, same as that used by the Millennium Falcon. The power core also drove fast sublight thrusters and a long-range hyperdrive. In place of the astromech and scanner array found on most other snubfighters, the B-wing carried a powerful navicomputer and sensor suite, both originally designed for small capital ships.
It also boasted the most powerful armament seen on an Imperial-era fighter. A turbolaser cannon and two proton torpedo launchers delivered a devastating punch against armor and shields, while three ion cannons assisted in commerce raiding, and twin blasters defended against starfighters.
The B-wing’s spaceframe was a complex blade-shaped design, capable of flying either as a vertical keel or a horizontal wing. The cockpit rotated in a gyroscopic frame, remaining upright no matter what the hull was doing, with small strike foils folding out on either side of the the keel during combat. The fighter normally sat vertically in its launch rack—standing 16.9 meters tall—but the horizontal option enabled it to set down on landing pads, and also provided superior flight characteristics in atmosphere.
The B-wing was officially designed by the Verpine of the Slayn & Korpil construction hives, but a key role was also played by the Mon Calamari shipyards, where many B-wings were built. It was developed in secret among the Roche asteroids under the supervision of Admiral Ackbar, with the first squadron entering service in the months after Yavin.
The B-wing had its critics—it was expensive to build, difficult to fly, useless in a dogfight, and costly to maintain. Imperial captains learned to fight B-wings by sending out TIE bombers to launch salvos of unguided missiles into their attack flight paths. Nonetheless, the B-wing proved its worth many times. Unsupported B-wings destroyed two Star Destroyers at Endor, and after 10 ABY the design superseded the Y-wing as the New Republic’s assault starfighter.
MON CAL STAR CRUISER
Some saw the Mon Calamari Star Cruisers as the soul of the Rebellion—elegant, streamlined ships, each a unique work of art, with bespoke sensors and a sculpted hullform. They were also large and heavily armed. A typical MC80 of the Civil War era measured around twelve hundred meters and was armed with forty-eight turbolasers, twenty ion cannons, and thirty-six starfighters.
Mon Cal cruisers were originally built as exploration vessels for deep voyages into Mon Calamari Space, but carried military shields and starfighter wings, and became the main defense force for a colonial empire spanning several hundred systems.
When the Empire conquered Dac, a handful of exploration cruisers escaped and joined the Alliance fleet—notably the Independence, which served as the Rebellion’s spacegoing capital. Meanwhile, in the occupied shipyards, Mon Cal workers initiated a secret rearmament program, and when the Mon Cal resistance destroyed the Empire’s garrison in 1 BBY, their plan swung into action.
Under Imperial rule, the shipyard had built luxury cruise liners, which were swiftly fitted out for war—as had always been the Mon Cal designers’ plan. Viewports were plated over and turbolaser batteries added. While these Star Cruisers lacked the raw firepower of Imperial Star Destroyers, the strength of their shields and the accuracy of their targeting computers gave them the edge in long-range duels. The older command ships were given new weapons and deflector shields, and as soon as they were refitted construction began on a lean, combat-focused variant cruiser known as the MC80A.
After Endor Star Cruisers increased in size and numbers—the MC80B outgunned an Imperial Star Destroyer, while the MC90 was the most powerful warship built for the New Republic before the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, with seventy-five turbolaser batteries, thirty ion cannons, six heavy proton torpedo tubes, and two full wings of starfighters.
In 25 ABY, as the first alien scouts appeared in the Outer Rim, two even larger types entered service. Mediator-class battlecruisers were fast and powerful successors to the MC80, but proved poorly armored in close-range battles with the Yuuzhan Vong. The massive Viscount-class Star Defenders, meanwhile, represented the apogee of Star Cruiser design. As with all Mon Cal classes, no two Star Defenders were alike: The prototype Viscount was an impressive three-kilometer battlecruiser, but the mighty Bounty and Krakana that followed were seventeen-kilometer dreadnoughts, intended as the centerpiece of the Outer Rim defenses.
Even incomplete, Bounty deterred the Yuuzhan Vong from attacking Mon Calamari until the desperate last stage of the war. Krakana was ordered to Kuat in 27 ABY, where the Defense Force planned to use her as an orbital artillery battery, but the Vong destroyed her en route.
WAR PORTRAIT: ADMIRAL ACKBAR
The most famous leader in modern warfare, Ackbar was the victor of Endor and Bilbringi and twice liberator of Coruscant. While Luke Skywalker destroyed the Emperor, it was Ackbar who brought down the Empire. His stature is such that none need explain who he was or what he did.
Gial Ackbar was born into a prominent merchant clan in the city of Foamwander, served his planet’s king during the Clone Wars, and held high military and political office in the early years of the Imperial era. At first, Ackbar saw the New Order as restoring Republic law and justice—but the Empire soon brought an invasion fleet to his homeworld. The peaceful cultural and technological achievements of Dac had to be suppressed to preserve the idea of human superiority.
Ackbar was taken prisoner, and after the pacification was assigned to the Conqueror of Calamari, Grand Moff Tarkin, as a valet—a slave in all but name.
Despite his situation, Ackbar managed to make contact with the Alliance. His position, while humiliating, made him an ideal spy, and after contributing valuable intelligence about the Death Star project for many months, Ackbar escaped and resumed his rightful place as a fleet commander.
Ackbar became the senior admiral of the small Rebel Navy, leading a battle line of exiled Mon Cal cruisers under the overall command of General Jan Dodonna. But when his people threw off their Imperial shackles, they invited him home to lead their rebuilt fleet.
Resigning from the Alliance, Ackbar worked to secure Mon Calamari’s commitment to the Rebel cause while continuing to supervise Project Shantipole—a secret project to produce the B-wing starfighter. After Dac became a full partner in the Alliance, Ackbar returned his flag to the Independence. After that, he was the undisputed head of the navy and senior commander of the military. Over the years, his title changed—Supreme Commander, minister of defense, Commander in Chief, Admiral of the Fleet—but the rank hardly mattered. He was Ackbar.
Ackbar’s military thinking was cautious, conservative, and ruthlessly effective. He was a fleet officer to the core of his being, and saw capital ships as the decisive force in warfare—like the mighty ocean predators of his homeworld, their role was to stay safe in the deep and then strike when their enemy showed weakness.
Ackbar’s leadership enabled the Alliance Fleet to win at Endor, and allowed the New Republic Defense Force to triumph over repeated Imperial challenges in the years that followed. He was a master of administrative and technical details, serving as project lead on the B-wing, the MC90 battle cruiser, and the Viscount-class dreadnought. He also personally oversaw the basic structural and logistical aspects of the navy, guiding its development from a single squadron of aging cruisers to the powerful fleet of the dominant galactic hyperpower. Politically, he also served—somewhat against his will—as his people’s chief representative in the government. As the onetime Rebels established themselves as galactic rulers, he ensured that both Dac and the Defense Force were unstinting supporters of the civilian democracy and the Jedi Knights.
If Ackbar had a weakness, it was that he was irreplaceable. He retired in 25 ABY following the liberation of the last Second Imperium fortress worlds, and his absence was keenly felt when the Yuuzhan Vong crossed the Rim. During the invasion, he took charge of the defense of his homeworld and its shipyards. When the Senate relocated to Dac in 27 ABY, the aged admiral returned to public duty, drafting the war plan that turned the tide against the Vong.
Ackbar refused a formal military title, but continued to guide the new Galactic Alliance until his death shortly before the liberation of Coruscant and the final victory over the Vong.
The Ewoks join the fight (Chris Scalf)
A SOLDIER’S STORY:
DEATH IN THE WOODS
Excerpt from Portraits of the Galactic Civil War, by Cindel Towani, 41 ABY:
Hume Tarl. I served six years in Tempest Force, rising to sergeant. We were one of the finest legions in the New Order. Saw action at Kashyyyk, Marcelan Prime, Sarko, Aurimaus, and a lot of places you never heard of. We were on the Endor Moon for nine months—nine months at the back of beyond, with occasional liberty on Annaj. You’ve never been to Annaj, Miss Towani, but trust me—only someone doing time on the Endor Moon could find it interesting.
Our survey teams had discovered the indigenes, of course—you think we’d establish a shield generator protecting a project of this importance without a thorough survey? They were primitives—hairy dwarf bipeds with spears and slings, living in tree houses. We paid them no mind—they didn’t seem inclined to cause problems begging or stealing things, which is what most abos like to do. That would have led to an excision within a defined perimeter. But like I said, they seemed afraid of us—they didn’t like approaching the shield generator. And we didn’t think we’d be staying long enough for them to get acclimated and become a problem.
We were all on edge. Emperor Palpatine was aboard the Death Star—we’d shined up the plastoid and deployed aboard the battle station a few days earlier for a big ceremony to mark his arrival. I only saw him across the hangar, but even from far away your eyes were drawn to him.
We were protecting our Emperor—and we also knew there were Rebel agents on the moon. We’d had a speeder bike patrol go missing and we were on high alert. Then the craziest thing happened: A Rebel surrendered himself to us and handed over an old Jedi laser sword. I didn’t know it was Luke Skywalker—he seemed awfully short to be the most wanted Rebel in the galaxy. Skywalker claimed he was alone, but nobody believed that—I’d heard stories about the Jedi, but no way just one of them could take out an entire patrol. Lord Vader took him up the gravity well on a shuttle, and I assumed that would be the last the galaxy would ever hear of him.
The next day the Rebel fleet arrived, and we were attacked by Rebel guerrillas who’d been hiding in the woods. We captured them, and word was that the orbital battle was going the way the Emperor had planned. The officers were even talking about how we’d always remember the day we witnessed the end of the Rebellion.
And then it happened—the indigenes attacked.
I’ve seen the holo-thrillers, and those directors should admit they’re paid to tell New Republic lies. They make those things—those Ewoks—look cute, like stuffed toys. I was there, Miss Towani. They weren’t anything close to cute.
The first wave of troopers died with arrows through the gaps in their armor. The indigenes were primitive, but later I read about the bows they’d used, how they were engineered for immense leverage. I saw troopers falling with arrows that had gone completely through their throats. They were the lucky ones—some of our men took what looked like minor wounds, and minutes later they were clawing their helmets off and gasping for air. The abos had dipped their arrows in some kind of nerve toxin that paralyzed every muscle in the body. Troopers who got hit suffocated because their lungs wouldn’t work. I saw dying men staring into the sun, trying to blink.
Some of our men chased the indigenes into the woods and fell into hidden pits lined with stakes fixed in the ground. Scout troopers flew into trip wires that broke their necks. Elsewhere the indigenes overpowered troopers through sheer numbers, holding them down until they got their helmets off and other abos could kill them with stone axes and knives made of volcanic glass.
And every time one of our men fell, the indigenes had another blaster. They knew every tree and rock, and they picked us off one by one.
You look like you don’t believe me, but I was there. I saw what those Ewoks did. The historians love to talk about alleged Imperial atrocities, but what about what I saw on the Forest Moon? They slaughtered us like animals, Miss Towani. Shouldn’t that count as an atrocity?
