Battle of Devaron/Legends

"When Darth Sidious asked me to loan you the Trade Federation, he didn't say you were going to war! Bane, you've already lost four warships!"

- Viceroy Nute Gunray

This battle took place on and in orbit of the planet Devaron during the Clone Wars around 22 BBY. Bounty hunter Cad Bane led a force of Confederate Munificent-class Star Frigates in a surprise attack on the Republic outpost on the Devaronian homeworld to take the Jedi Master Bolla Ropal hostage. While Sith Master Darth Sidious gave Bane the assigned task of stealing a Jedi holocron, Ropal kept a Kyber memory crystal, which contained a list of every known Force potent child in the galaxy, essentially the future of the Jedi Order.

In the ensuing battle, Ropal was taken hostage by Bane, and the Republic outpost on Devaron was destroyed. As Cad Bane attempted to make a jump to hyperspace out of the system, a task force led by Anakin Skywalker and Wulff Yularen in the Resolute arrived and intercepted Bane's frigate. Since they hadn't brought the necessary boarding craft along with them to board his ship, AT-TEs were used as makeshift boarding craft, since they were pressurized and had magnetic feet, a tactic suggested to Yularen by Skywalker.

During a botched attempt to force Ropal to activate the holocron, Ropal was accidentally tortured to death. Bane thought of it as only a minor setback to his mission and was determined to get Anakin Skywalker to activate the holocron for him. He manipulated the battle on board his frigate to separate Skywalker's Padawan Ahsoka Tano from him and used her as bait to lure Skywalker in. Left with no other options that would end in his favor, Anakin was forced to open the holocron for Bane, who then attempted to flee the ship. The ship was set to self destruct, and as the Jedi task force prepared to leave, Bane confronted two clone troopers while making his escape. To the Republic forces, he appeared to be killed in the ensuing struggle, but in reality, Bane had switched his clothing with the armor of the clone trooper Denal after killing him. Under the guise of Denal, Bane managed to leave the doomed frigate on the same shuttle as the Republic survivors.

Upon return to the Resolute, Bane's cover was blown by Ahsoka Tano, and despite attempts by Skywalker and Yularen to block his exit, Bane escaped in a stolen starfighter with the active holocron.

Prelude
Following the success of Cad Bane's assignment to rescue Ziro the Hutt from Republic imprisonment, Darth Sidious began to rely on Bane for his own personal use. One of these missions was to infiltrate the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and extract a Jedi holocron from the library. Bane hired Clawdite bounty hunter Cato Parasitti to assist him, Parasitti being a valuable asset to the mission with her natural Clawdite shapeshifting abilities.



In order to complete the holocron, the Kyber memory crystal held by Bolla Ropal would have to be retrieved as well, and following the heist at the Temple, a Trade Federation fleet was sent to escort Bane to Devaron, where the Jedi Master was assisting the Devaronian ministers in making the land more fertile. Since Bane had abandoned Parasitti at the Temple, he brought his occasional partner Aurra Sing along to assist him, placing her in command of Nashtah Team.

Invasion
"Sir, we've caught them by surprise. Initiating land assault."

- A B1 battle droid to Cad Bane

The Separatist fleet under the command of Cad Bane had taken the Republic forces stationed on the planet off guard. While Aurra Sing had the opportunity to apprehend Ropal upon landing, Bane ordered her to hold back, as he wanted to capture him himself. In the ensuing crossfire, Nashtah Team destroyed a gunship that was carrying Padawan Tyzen Xebec, who had narrowly escaped death by the explosion.

Ropal was captured during the battle.

Space battle
"You are NOT thinking of using those to transport the clones to the frigate."

- Admiral Yularen

During Bane's heist in the Temple, the captured Cato Parassiti revealed to the Jedi that Bane's next target would be Ropal on Devaron, so a rescue team led by Anakin Skywalker and Wulf Yularen was sent to retrieve Ropal. However, by the time the rescue team had gotten to Devaron, Bane was already fleeing the battle with Ropal in his Munificent-class frigate. The team was prepared to deploy onto the planet, and therefor didn't bring the necessary boarding craft to conduct a boarding operation.

As the Republic fleet opened fire on Bane's frigate, Bane was forced to speed up the interrogation process to get Ropal to activate the holocron. Ropal refused, and was accidentally tortured to death. At General Skywalker's advice, the ship's payload of walkers were used as makeshift boarding craft, as they were pressurized and had magnetized feet, after bringing down Bane's escort and destroying the ship's hyperdrive. While Admiral Wulff Yularen was hesitant, Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex liked his idea. Walkers 773 and ATAT300 were activated, manned by Carnivore Battalion and Execute Battalion, respectively, as well as an unidentified third walker. The three walkers were dropped onto the hull of the Separatist frigate, which threw the droids heavily off guard, as they have never seen this tactic before. The Jedi crossed the ships hull and used the astromech droid R2-D2 to open an airlock to gain access to the frigate.

Viceroy Nute Gunray was angered at Bane's disregard for his fleet, which Gunray donated to him at the request of Darth Sidious. Bane assured Gunray he would be compensated for it, most likely by Sidious if Bane succeeded his mission of stealing the kyber crystal. Gunray asked Bane to transmit the information on the holocron to him, but Bane would need a Jedi to open it, and Bane pointed out to Gunray there were two about to board the ship, one more than necessary. Bane ordered for the ship's memory banks to be wiped and its self destruct sequence to be activated, as well as the ship's functions to be transferred to his wrist-com, before fleeing the bridge in a chute, just before the Jedi and clones stormed the bridge and destroyed its crew.

Confronting the bounty hunter
"Let's make this a bit more interesting."

- Cad Bane

After clearing the main bridge, the Jedi found a hologram recording of Bane's conversation with Gunray, which confirmed that he was in possession of the kyber crystal. To prevent Bane from escaping the ship, Rex and his squad destroyed the ship's supply of escape pods. Yularen witnessed an explosion in the ship's aft section, but Anakin still pressed on to find Ropal.

The Jedi and clones searched the ship for Ropal, and Ahsoka found his body in a prison cell. Anakin ordered a few clones to bring Ropal's body to the Resolute. They had no other options than to find Bane and retrieve the crystal. Bane had deactivated the ship's lights using his wrist-com, and so the clones were forced to use night vision. Bane was spotted by R2-D2's scanners, and the Jedi pursued. He led them to the ship's gunnery deck, where he reactivated the lights to reveal an army of droids awaiting. The droids opened fire, and in the midst of the firefight, Bane used his wrist-com to deactivate the ship's artificial gravity wells, turning the ship into a zero gravity environment. The clones were trained for this type of situation, and were equipped with magnetic boots, as were the droids. To make matters worse, the gunnery deck was full of ammunition canisters, which meant stray fire could cause the entire gunnery deck to explode.

Bane and Skywalker fought. Skywalker kicked Bane in the face, which caused him to float away in a spinning motion, causing the holocron to fall out of Bane's duster. Just as Anakin was about to grab it, R2-D2 reactivated the gravity, sending him, Bane, and the holocron falling to the floor. As Skywalker was dazed, Bane snatched the holocron and fled. Anakin pursued, but Bane distracted him by causing a clone attached to the ceiling with his magnetized boots to fall. While Anakin was distracted saving the clone, Ahsoka gave chase. Bane used his wrist-com to close the blast door, separating Ahsoka from her master. When Anakin attempted to cut through the door, a droid accidentally shot an ammo canister, causing the ceiling to collapse, trapping Anakin in the rubble.

As Bane reached a dead end in the hallway, he took a shot at Ahsoka, which she easily deflected back to his left arm. Bane managed to disarm Ahsoka, but she still managed to flip the bounty hunter onto the floor. She thought she had beaten him, but the bounty hunter grabbed her ankle and delivered a massive stun charge through her body, knocking her unconscious. Anakin sensed this, and in his rage broke through the rubble that surrounded him. He then ordered Rex and his squad to return to the hangar bay and find a transport. When Anakin received the order from Admiral Yularen to abandon the mission because the ship was about to explode, he in turn ordered Yularen to move the Resolute a safe distance from the ship and moved on to save his Padawan.

Ahsoka was placed in self tightening stun cuffs. Bane took her Padawan braid as a trophy for his success over the girl, and placed her in between an airlock and a force field. With the press of a button on his wrist, the airlock can open, sucking Ahsoka out into the vacuum of space. He further lured Skywalker to them by applying a stun charge to Ahsoka, and Anakin arrived after cutting down three battle droids. Bane promised he would kill Ahsoka if Anakin refused to open the holocrton. Left with no other options that were in his favor, Anakin put his lightsaber down and agreed to activate the holocron.

Escape from the frigate
Around the same time Rex and his squad found a shuttle in the hangar bay that could be used as their escape from the ship. In the firefight destroying the remaining droids, a fuel leak leading to a group of ammo canisters was lit, and Yularen detected that the ship's main reactor was going to collapse any minute. Rex ordered soldiers Denal and Koho to break off from the main squad and find Anakin.

With Bane momentarily distracted by the holocron, Anakin used this opportunity to retrieve both his and Ahsoka's lightsabers and cut down the battle droids flanking Bane. Bane opened the airlock, and Anakin quickly tossed a chunk of a battle droid at the force field controls, deactivating them. The entire airlock vestibule was compromised, and Bane escaped using his rocket boots, before the emergency blast door sealed itself shut. Anakin managed to close the airlock and cut Ahsoka out of her stun cuffs. While Anakin wanted to pursue Bane in retaliation, Ahsoka urged him to have patience, and he agreed.

Bane reported to Gunray that he was successful in activating the holocron, and assured the Viceroy that he had his own means of escape. He was then confronted by troopers Denal and Koho in the hallway leading to the hangar bay. Bane quickly killed the two clones, and proceeded to switch his clothes with Denal's clone trooper armor. To make it seem like he was dead, Bane took Denal's body, now wearing the bounty hunter's clothes, and shot it off a balcony in clear view of the surviving Republic forces. Bane, under the guise of Denal, regrouped with the other Republic forces at the shuttle, delivering the news that he failed to retrieve the holocron. They fell for his ploy. Just as the shuttle carrying the survivors fled, the fuel leak exploded, and, combined with the explosion in the main reactor, compromised the entire frigate.

Cad Bane's escape
Upon arrival at the Star Destroyer, Admiral Yularen was dissapointed in the outcome of the battle, crediting the outcome as Anakin's version of success. Bane attempted to leave while everyone else was distracted.

However, traces of alien blood were found on the floor of the shuttle. Rex pointed out that it did not belong to any of his men. Ahsoka Tano intercepted Bane, and quickly discovered that he wasn't Denal after inspecting the blaster shot on his arm. Bane then proceeded to knee Ahsoka in the midsection and flee to a V-19 Torrent Starfighter while incapacitating the two clones guarding it-one with his backpack and the other with a punch-, prompting Yularen to order all of the hyperspace rings to be locked down.

As Bane took off, Skywalker attempted to pull him out of the cockpit, but only managed to knock the bounty hunter's helmet off. The rings weren't locked down in time, and Bane escaped into hyperspace.

Aftermath
After Bane successfully escaped with the holocron, he retreated to his personal safehouse, Black Stall Station. There, Darth Sidious gave Bane a new assignment: to kidnap four of the children listed in the holocron and bring them to his lab on the volcanic world Mustafar.

Behind the scenes
The torture scene, which was all on screen, was a bit controversial at the time of the episode Cargo of Doom's release. Director Dave Filoni said that the design team never once considered toning it down, as the scene was depicted as how it should've been depicted. The scene was meant to display the character Cad Bane's ruthlessness. Another point of interest during the scene was the depiction of the battle droids, whose voices are almost monotonous and almost morbid.

The script originally called for a group of black painted retail droids to haul Bolla Ropal around.

Appearances

 * The Clone Wars: Act on Instinct
 * The Clone Wars: Act on Instinct

Notes and references
Schlacht von Devaron (Klonkriege) Batalla de Devaron (Guerras Clon) Battle of Devaron Bitwa o Devaron (wojny klonów) Devaronin taistelu (kloonisodat)