Raid on Chelloa

"So this is just some kind of filibustering raid? You sally in and fly and back out? And you think that's enough"

- Gorlan Palladane

This Raid on Chelloa was a Jedi mission against the Sith in 1,032 BBY during the Chelloa campaign of the New Sith Wars. It was part of the three-stage Operation Influx which aim to disrupt Daiman's production of baradium. The Chelloan resistance led by the undercover former Knight Gorlan Palladane had supplied the Jedi with intelligence about Daiman's baradium mining operations. The Jedi strike team landed at the spaceport in the town of Jenith and overwhelmed a small Daimanate security force with the assistance of local miners who were members of the resistance. Their attack was interrupted by the arrival of Sith Lord Odion's forces which had deployed a kinetic corrupter, which ignited a large area and killed many Jedi, Daimanate guards and miners. Vannar himself was slain during a duel by Odion with Kerra being the sole Jedi survivor. Gorlan managed to evacuate several of the survivors including Kerra to Jenith. From that point, Kerra was forced to operate undercover within Daiman's realm. This skirmish on Chelloa effectively terminated Operation Influx while giving Odion a foothold in the Chelloan system.

Background
"The Jedi couldn't mean to free Chelloa with this [sic] few knights.''" "''Er--this isn't that kind of mission. The Jedi are busy holding the line back home--"

- Gorlan Palladane and Vannar Treece

By time of the Republic Dark Age, the New Sith Empire disintegrated into several factions including the Chagras Hegemony. These factions fought the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order in a protracted and stalemated war. By 1,040 BBY, the Hegemony had collapsed into several warring factions led by rival Sith Lords such as Daiman and Odion. The bleak planet of Chelloa became an exporter of baradium for Daiman's war effort against both the Republic and his own brother. This mining operation was dangerous and he utilized slave labor during the extraction efforts.

Daiman's mining operations attracted the attention of the Jedi who dispatched a mission of Jedi Knights under Vannar Treece to disrupt shipping and to liberate the slaves. Treece's operation required his team to first, strike at the Daimanite transport hub on Oranessan. To do this the Jedi would need to steal one of the massive ore transports that went to Chelloa. Once there they would be required to knock the baradium shipping depot offline before any of the material could reach Daiman's munitions factories near the front lines.

Due to the weakened state of the Republic's finances, Treece had personally raised the funds for the trip and recruited the Jedi volunteers. The operation was a hit-and-run raid aimed at sabotaging the export of baradium from Chelloa. With the supplies to the frontline cut, the Sith would buckle to Jedi pressure. Gorlan Palladane, a relief-worker and an undercover Jedi agent, had supplied the Jedi with intelligence on Daiman's baradium mining operation.

The attack
"What in--? That cargo liner's firing on our own ships"

- Sith trooper commander

Daiman's slaves were loading crates of baradium onto cargo liners destined for the war effort under the supervision of several Sith troopers. During the process, Treece's Jedi team infiltrated the spaceport using a captured cargo liner, destroying several of the waiting liners and igniting some of the baradium crates, creating chaos among the Sith ranks. The disembarking Jedi quickly overwhelmed the Sith defenders before attending to the wounded. Treece also made contact with Gorlan Palladane, the leader of the slave miners. Another objective of the Jedi mission was to liberate Daiman's slave miners and to return to Republic lines aboard their captured cargo liner.

However, this short-lived victory was interrupted by the arrival of an offensive force of ships above Squatter's Hill under Daiman's older brother and rival&mdash;Lord Odion. Odion's forces included a massive kinetic corruptor, a massive mobile machine capable of igniting baradium deposits. During a heated duel, Treece and Holt took on Lord Odion which was interrupted by an explosion generated by the kinetic corruptor which killed and wounded many of the assembled workers and combatants including most of the Jedi team with the exception of Holt. The duel culminated in the death of Treece who was impaled by Odion while distracted.

However, the slave leader Palladane and Holt survived the explosion since the former had managed to evacuated many of the workers on a cargo liner. With Vannar and the other Jedi dead, Kerra and Palladane began to attend to the wounded including both slaves and Sith troopers. The blast created by the kinetic corruptor had freed the baradium gases from shale by iginiting the veins. A significant proportion of the wounded were burn victims due to the vast baradium deposits on the ground.

Behind enemy lines
"I'm glad you're here, Lord Daiman. There are many injured. Not just workers -- also many of your soldiers!''" "''Then death will claim them. I require knowledge. You saw the device my brother brought-- it was a Kinetic Corruptor?"

- Palladane and Daiman

While the survivors began attending to the wounded, Lord Daiman arrived on a repulsorcraft. He was unconcerned at the loss of lives and the wounded, demanding to see Palladane, the spokesman for the workers. Palladane pleaded for help in treating the wounded but Daiman was more concerned with wanting to know how his rival Odion and the Jedi discovered his secret baradium mining operations. When Palladane expressed his ignorance of the matter, Daiman used Force choke to strangle the former. However, Kerra intervened and tried to force Daiman to stop tormenting Palladane at gunpoint.

Amused by her courage and dismissing her as an orphan, Daiman relinquished his grip on Palladane and fondled with her. He mockingly told her to embrace her anger as a diversion and released her since he was preoccupied with the threat of Odion to his goals. Showing little concern for the well-being of his subjects, Daiman ordered them to erect up one of his statues in the village square before dismissing the crowd.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knight Errant: Influx
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 0
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 1: Aflame, Part 1
 * Knight Errant novel