User:Master Jonathan/Wedge Antilles/4

The last Grand Admiral
"It's been eight or nine years now that I've been fighting against the Empire. There were times I didn't think I was going to live another moment. I don't think I ever let myself dream I might survive this long, to see this sort of victory. This was always a goal, but now that it's here&hellip;I never really dared let myself look beyond the next battle, and now, it seems, there might truly be an end to the warfare. I don't know what I'll do with myself."

- Wedge Antilles, to Ackbar

By 9 ABY, the Empire's territory was shrinking, and the New Republic, short on cargo ships to the point that commerce was suffering, began tasking warships to cargo-ferrying duty. As this was an unsatisfactory temporary solution and the government was desperate for any other measure to expand its hauling capacity, Antilles, along with Judder Page, was assigned to support Solo as the former smuggler canvassed his illicit connections with Chewbacca, attempting to solicit them into taking legitimate shipping contracts. Antilles functioned as a visible backup man for Solo, keeping contacts from detecting the less obvious Page. Solo had little luck in the endeavor, and after their final meeting with smuggler Dravis in Mos Eisley, they took a detour to the planet Obroa-skai to investigate the site of an attack that had destroyed an entire New Republic task force, much to the New Republic's consternation.

It soon became clear that that battle was only the opening salvo of an Imperial resurgence, as Imperial strikes greatly increased in sophistication. At the same time, Imperial agents executed a kidnapping attempt against Skywalker and the Solos on the planet Bimmisaari that they narrowly foiled. On the Solos' next excursion, to inspect the damage from an Imperial attack on Bpfassh, Rogue Squadron was assigned to escort them. Antilles was showing a ruined site on Bpfassh to them when Imperial agents attacked once more. What seemed to be the Millennium Falcon flown by Chewbacca quickly showed up to rescue them, but Organa Solo, who had been training as a Jedi with her brother, sensed something wrong. Solo realized that the ship was a double of the Millennium Falcon, and he used his wife's lightsaber to disable it and send up a plume of korfaise coolant gas that quickly attracted Rogue Squadron to drive off the would-be captors. No longer confident of their security, the Solos slipped away from the rest of the delegation to investigate the situation themselves, while Antilles remained with the other New Republic diplomats that were present.

Much to his dismay, Antilles was soon assigned a different sort of escort duty, guarding the Nebulon-B frigate Larkhess, put on cargo duty, as it moved to the planet Sluis Van, then waited for a convoy to form for travel to Bpfassh. Seeing it as boring and demeaning work&mdash;the Rogues spent most of their time aboard the frigate, doing little as it traveled slowly or sat in port&mdash;he did not find any greater joy when the ship's captain, Afyon, took out his own frustrations on the Rogues. Afyon, who had once worked with the Rogues as captain of Eridain, resented the cargo run as much as Antilles did and bore his own grudges against the glitzier fighter pilots, causing him to frequently bemoan their easy lot and unhelpful presence aboard his ship. Antilles meanwhile mulled over his own annoyance at the increasing support of Borsk Fey'lya within the Defense Fleet. Fey'lya, who longed to control the military for its political power, postured as the soldier's champion and the new authority on military policy, currying favor with officers and talking down Ackbar as old-fashioned and irrelevant. That servicemen were giving credence to the Bothan senator's politicking and ignoring Ackbar's long record fired Antilles with outrage. While waiting at Sluis Van, Antilles ran into Sair Yonka, who had brought the Freedom into the New Republic and was having the Star Destroyer refitted at the docks.

As Larkhess neared its departure window from Sluis Van, Antilles noticed an A-class bulk freighter approaching the Sluis Van Shipyards unescorted and immediately found it suspicious. A sensor scan that he ran from the bridge found its hold empty, which immediately roused his distrust. On a hunch, he decided to scramble Rogue Squadron and investigate, only for the freighter to explode as they approached, deploying a mass of TIE fighters that had been hidden in its cargo bay by a cloaking device. At the same time, an Imperial fleet arrived outside the shipyards and began a full attack. Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Lando Calrissian happened to arrive at Sluis Van in the Millennium Falcon at the same time and linked up with the Rogues as they attempted to stop the wave of TIEs released within the dock area. During the battle, Antilles noticed that the Imperials were using mole miners to bore through the hulls of the undercrewed warships pressed into freight duty and capture them. He and his group prioritized destroying those mole miners that had not already been used to capture ships. Calrissian was able to use his command codes to activate the mole miners, which had been stolen from his mining operation on Nkllon. Their plasma beams crippled the hijacked ships, denying them to the Empire and leading the Star Destroyers to withdraw.

After the battle, Antilles heard news that Ackbar had been arrested on charges of treason. He attempted to help Skywalker, whose X-wing was in need of repair, rush back to Coruscant in Ackbar's support, but the Sluissi refused to raise the fighter's repair priority. He offered Skywalker, who had resigned from the military years beforehand, his fighter, which was against regulations and could well have had him court-martialed, but Skywalker declined. With the aid of Calrissian and some sliced work orders, Skywalker got his fighter in working order and returned to Coruscant, where the Solos were already working to defend Ackbar. Having received some help from Talon Karrde, including obtaining the information that a Grand Admiral had reemerged at the head of the Empire's military forces, Han Solo returned a favor by arranging for one of Karrde's ships, Etherway, to be released from impound on the planet Abregado-rae. Antilles was escorting a convoy nearby, so Solo sent him to bribe the spaceport administrator into releasing it. The pilot then waited with the ship until Karrde's lieutenant Mara Jade came to claim it; when she did, he passed on a message from Solo asking for more information on the Grand Admiral before returning to his convoy.

After some time spent on the planet Ando, the Rogues returned to Coruscant. There, Skywalker called on Antilles for a favor, asking him to muster the Rogues for a special mission. Antilles agreed to his old friend's request without a second thought, finding as they traveled that Skywalker, Solo, Chewbacca, and Calrissian were moving in to secure the fabled Katana fleet with a team of technicians authorized by Leia Organa Solo. The expedition was not authorized by the Provisional Council, however, as negotiations with Karrde to turn over the fleet's location, which he held, to the New Republic had gone slowly and those involved feared Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo, known as Thrawn, already had the coordinates. They found the lost fleet of Dreadnaughts, but the Nebulon-B frigate Quenfis soon arrived with the politically ascendant Fey'lya aboard, crewed by a handpicked group of loyalists. Fey'lya attempted to arrest Solo's group, which was aboard the Dreadnaught Katana, but Antilles immediately questioned the order.

As the confrontation roiled, the Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator arrived, causing Antilles to lead Rogue Squadron against the TIEs and drop ships it deployed, covering the expedition's extraction from the Katana. Fey'lya initially ordered the Quenfis to retreat, but Organa Solo and Karrde, aboard the ship with him, managed to fool Fey'lya into stating his complete disregard for military personnel except as tools augmenting his own political power over an open comm, completely destroying his credibility with the armed forces and provoking the Quenfis and its squadrons to join the Rogues in battling the Imperial forces. As Solo's team decided to stay aboard the Katana rather than risk the numerous fighters in their transport, the Rogues and the newcomers cleared the TIEs, but one dropship got through to the Katana. Judicator deployed more starfighters, but the New Republic forces were aided by the arrival of several ships of Karrde's fleet and six Dreadnaughts under ex-Rebel Alliance leader and current independent freedom fighter Garm Bel Iblis, former senator from Corellia. Hope seemed lost when the Imperial Star Destroyer Peremptory entered the battle, but Solo and Calrissian used the Katana slave-rigged control systems to pilot one of the Dreadnaughts into the larger ship and destroy it. Judicator fled, giving the New Republic the field, but it turned out that the Empire had already seized all but fifteen of the Katana ships, and was producing clones with which to crew them.

A small compensation for the loss was that Ackbar was soon cleared of any wrongdoing when Karrde's chief slicer, Zakarisz Ghent, proved he had been framed by Imperial Intelligence. A month later, as Grand Admiral Thrawn stepped up his assault on the New Republic, the Rogues were escorting the Millennium Falcon on a diplomatic mission to Filve when they stumbled into an Imperial attack on the planet. They used a Cracken Twist to escape back into hyperspace safely. The Rogues later fought at the planet Qat Chrystac under Garm Bel Iblis, who had rejoined the New Republic as a general. There Bel Iblis pioneered the A-wing Slash with Antilles leading an X-wing wave that hid the A-wings from the oncoming enemies until it was too late. Even with Bel Iblis's famed tactical brilliance, the battle was still a loss and Rogue Squadron had to retreat with the rest of Bel Iblis's forces, ceding the system to the Empire.

They returned to Coruscant, where Organa Solo had Antilles provide a quiet Rogue escort for a group of Noghri warriors she had brought in secretly as bodyguards for herself and her newly born twins Jaina and Jacen Solo. Soon afterward, Thrawn's fleet arrived over Coruscant and, standing off, deployed cloaked asteroids before leaving. Coruscant was forced to keep its planetary shields up at all times to prevent a catastrophic impact, effectively blockading the planet.

Antilles, above the shields for the battle, was called in to a briefing by Ackbar, who was on the front and thus free to act. Having determined that only a crystal gravfield trap would allow the New Republic to detect the asteroids by sensing their gravitic signatures, Ackbar and Crix Madine planned to steal one from the Imperial shipyards at Bilbringi. They would work to convince Thrawn that their objective was to steal the crystal gravfield trap at the Ubiqtorate base at the planet Tangrene, however, and Antilles was involved in the deception. Rogue Squadron was stationed on a world near Tangrene, and the pilots spent time in the local cantinas making sure Imperial Intelligence agents had the opportunity to see them. On the final night of their presence, Antilles was at the Mumbri Storve cantina with Klivian and Janson when the group was joined by Aves, Karrde's lieutenant, who had flown with them in the battle for the Katana fleet. Aves led them to an alley, where several of Karrde's people waylaid an Imperial spy who had followed them. Antilles was disappointed&mdash;it had been the point to be spied upon&mdash;but glad Karrde's organization seemed still to be on the New Republic's side. Aves wanted to know the timing of their attack, suggesting that Karrde was planning an operation that he would like to go off at the same time. Antilles hinted at it, knowing the knowledge would either be safe or would filter back to the Empire and help convince Thrawn of the existence of the Tangrene operation.

The Rogues quickly left and joined the Bilbringi strike force, escorting Home One into battle. After jumping into the Bilbringi system, Antilles found that Thrawn had anticipated their attack, increasing the myth around the seemingly infallible commander that was growing in the heads of Antilles and many others in the New Republic. They were left in a fight to survive Thrawn's ambush, and just as Celchu suggested targeting the shipyards to split the Imperial forces, Aves contacted Antilles. Karrde had put together a Smugglers' Alliance, and the Alliance had launched an operation to steal the CGT array from Bilbringi, hoping to sell it to the New Republic. The smugglers were about to escape with the array, and Aves and Antilles arranged for them to fly past a Golan II platform, attacking it in cooperation with Rogue Squadron. He led his squadron in an assault that cleared the way for a pair of Assault Frigates. As the squadron moved past the crippled station and into the shipyards, the Imperial armada broke off and retreated. Antilles immediately suspected another trick, but Ackbar recalled the squadron to Home One.

Isard's last gasp
"It is interesting that we have not met before, you and I, having been foes for so long. I expected you to be taller.''" "''I expected you to be dead."

- Ysanne Isard and Wedge Antilles

The admiral debriefed Antilles and informed him that during the battle, Thrawn had been assassinated by his bodyguard Rukh, a member of the Noghri species, who learned through Organa Solo's efforts that the Empire had been deceiving the Noghri people. Between Thrawn's death and the destruction of Thrawn's cloning facility at Mount Tantiss on the planet Wayland, the threat posed by the Grand Admiral was largely over. Astonished and relieved, Antilles hoped this would mean an end to the fighting. Ackbar, though, asked him to accept a promotion to the rank of general. He offered Antilles continued command of Rogue Squadron, but insisted that Antilles had to accept advancement in order for his subordinates to follow his lead and take the long-overdue promotions they had been turning down, and so that he could play a greater role in planning Rogue Squadron's next assignment: with Thrawn toppled, the New Republic would begin going after the warlords, starting with Delak Krennel and his Ciutric Hegemony fiefdom.

They returned to Coruscant, where Mirax Terrik Horn and M-3PO threw the squadron a welcome-back party at Ackbar's request. The party broke up when Urlor Sette, one of the missing prisoners from aboard the Lusankya, showed up and died upon approaching Corran Horn. An autopsy revealed that a vial of venom had been implanted and set to go off when his name was spoken. Iella Wessiri began an investigation, attempting to track down the person taunting Rogue Squadron&mdash;presumed to be whomever Isard had put in charge of the Lusankya prisoners. Working with Antilles, she traced the components of the fatal implant to the Xenovet facility on neutral Commenor. The Rogues were smuggled onto the surface, as were Colonel Kapp Dendo's Commando Team One and Captain Judder Page's Katarn Commandos. The squadron launched from the city of Munto early one morning and provided air cover as the commandos secured the Xenovet property. Antilles put down once the area was pacified, and Page and Dendo showed him several prisoners who had been left to die in the barn. One of them, Lag Mettier, swore that Isard had been there within the last two weeks.

While New Republic Intelligence investigated this disturbing possibility, the effort to unseat Krennel began. The first target was Liinade III, a middling Hegemony world. The New Republic task force deployed against the planet's sole defender, the Star Destroyer Direption, and Antilles ordered the Rogues to break up Direption TIE Interceptors before they reached General Salm's wing of B-wings. Once they cleared the TIEs away, the Rogues moved on to provide air support for the ground invasion. One Flight was assigned to secure the spaceport in the city of Valleyport, where, in the middle of clearing out the light defenses, Antilles found four AT-ATs emerging from a hangar. Antilles finished off two of them, while Klivian took care of the other pair. Dendo's troops seized the spaceport, and soon the planet was in the hands of the New Republic.

During the capture, Horn found a secret lab working on plans for a Death Star-like battle station, which the New Republic dubbed Pulsar Station. After three weeks spent pacifying Liinade III, Antilles and Horn were recalled to Coruscant to testify before the Provisional Council about the station. The pair of pilots advocated sweeping the Hegemony to find the station, if it was under construction, and either destroying it or forcing it to flee until its supplies were exhausted, as it was unlikely to be in a shape to stand and fight. Antilles also suggested that the New Republic make the findings public to increase support for the war against Krennel.

The leadership agreed on both counts, and the Rogues were assigned to scout the Corvis Minor system, where the New Republic suspected that the Pulsar Station could be under construction inside Distna, the moon of Corvis Minor V. To pilot the reconnaissance X-wing, Nrin Vakil was brought back into the squadron, and flew with the Rogues over two days of simulations. On investigating Distna, the Rogues were ambushed by a full wing of TIEs. Though the squadron lost Janson, Sei'lar, Khe-Jeen Slee, and Lyyr Zatoq, it gave an excellent accounting of itself against the seventy-two enemy fighters until two squadrons of TIE Defenders arrived, proclaiming themselves friendly. The Defenders finished off the remainder of Krennel's fighters and demanded that the Rogues depart with them. Antilles was unwilling to leave his extravehicular pilots, but the TIE commander, Colonel Broak Vessery, insisted there were no survivors and the New Republic pilots had to leave immediately. Devastated by his close friend Janson's apparent death, Antilles grudgingly conceded.

They were taken to a secret base, where Vessery escorted Antilles to the office of the base's commander. Antilles was astonished to find out that it was Ysanne Isard who had ordered Rogue Squadron's rescue. She explained that the shuttle at Thyferra had been rigged to simulate her presence aboard, but she had actually hidden. Moreover, a clone of her, to whom she had given the responsibility of stashing the Lusankya prisoners, had also survived. It was the clone who had allied herself with Krennel, bringing the prisoners to Ciutric IV, and worked to destroy Rogue Squadron. Isard wished to work with Antilles to bring down Krennel and the clone, inserting the Rogues as a TIE Defender unit offering Krennel its services. In exchange, she asked for clemency from the New Republic. Though he did not trust her, Antilles had little choice but to agree, hoping he could work out her full plan and prevent the betrayal he fully expected.

The squadron immediately began training on the TIE Defenders, spending weeks mastering the craft and simming against Vessery's pilots. Before leaving for Ciutric, Antilles recorded a message for the New Republic, which believed that the squadron had perished, requesting that they send a fleet to support the operation and outlining Isard's plans and requests without specifying her identity. Rogue Squadron would clear the prison defenses for Isard's commandos and disable the planetary shields, allowing the New Republic to take Krennel's capital. Before they departed, Antilles took his pilots aside for a private meeting, having deactivated Isard's listening devices in a conference room. They went over their own doubts and expectations that Isard would betray them. Antilles considered that she could have infected the prisoners with a disease, and they agreed that quarantine procedure would be necessary.

Two days after that meeting, Antilles arrived on Ciutric IV as Colonel Antar Roat, leader of Requiem Squadron, and was personally greeted by Krennel. The squadron spent a week there, waiting for the invasion. They integrated into the Hegemony's defense system, working under Colonel Lorrir. Antilles was forced to spend time socializing with Lorrir and Krennel's other officers, whom he thoroughly despised. A few hours before Ackbar's fleet was scheduled to arrive, Krennel mustered his forces for a surprise strike against Coruscant. Antilles delayed launching until Lorrir confronted him, then stunned the man inside a hangar office.

He launched as Ackbar's fleet arrived and engaged Krennel's assembled forces. He sent Two Flight under Celchu to secure the prison while he led One Flight to destroy the shield generator. He torpedoed the generator himself, opening the capital city of Daplona to attack, but Isard's promised support failed to arrive. Antilles had to take his flight to help defend the prison, which Horn, Qrygg, and Vakil had penetrated. While doing so, he noticed an assault shuttle with one pilot aboard launch from the Daplona base. He correctly suspected it to be Isard's clone duplicating her creator's escape technique, but could not engage the ship before it fired a pair of concussion missiles at the prison. Antilles shot one missile out of the sky, and the other failed to kill the Rogues and freed prisoners within the building. While Kapp Dendo and his commandos landed and secured the prison, Antilles led One Flight against the assault shuttle, which he quickly realized was piloted by Lorrir, and used the Imperial pilot's fondness of sideslips to set it up for Gavin Darklighter to land the killing shot. Having traced the shuttle's comm transmissions, Antilles then fired on the command center from which Isard's clone had been broadcasting and using the shuttle as a relay.

With the clone dead, Jan Dodonna and the rest of the prisoners freed, and Krennel defeated in orbit by Ackbar and Bel Iblis, the victory at Ciutric was complete. The Hegemony agreed to join the New Republic, while at Bilbringi, Iella Wessiri shot the original Isard as she attempted to steal the refitted Lusankya. Antilles was ecstatic when, in quarantine aboard the Lusankya with the other Rogues and prisoners, he learned that Janson had survived the battle at Distna. Despite Ackbar's earlier agreement that Rogue Squadron would be a sufficient command, Antilles soon received command of a wing of fighters, dubbed Rogue Wing, which included Rogue Squadron.

Palpatine's return
"Yeah, I started out as a lucky pilot who managed to survive the Battle of Yavin, and look where I ended up: commanding a Super Star Destroyer."

- Wedge Antilles, to Mirith Sinn

Soon afterward, a massive and unexpected Imperial assault erupted from the Deep Core. Antilles and the Rogues battled back, but the Empire quickly drove the New Republic into retreat. It soon came to an attack on Coruscant, which the New Republic lost. Antilles assisted in coordinating the New Republic's flight from its capital as the attackers took Coruscant, rallying militia units in ground combat and then covering the retreat with Rogue Squadron. In the wake of the evacuation, Ackbar informed him that there had been devastating losses among the highest ranks of army commanders, and asked Antilles to accept a temporary emergency transfer to the New Republic Army in the position of Fighter Command Liaison, serving on Ackbar's command staff. Unenthused by the thought of serving in the army, Antilles acceded to Ackbar's emergency request, but insisted he retain command of Rogue Squadron, to which the admiral agreed.

Meanwhile, there erupted a vicious internecine war for control of Coruscant between various Imperial factions. The New Republic took advantage of the confusion to begin guerrilla strikes against the Empire, launched from the secret Pinnacle Base on Da Soocha V, a moon of Da Soocha. Antilles and Calrissian, who had had his commission reactivated, commanded the Star Destroyers Liberator and Emancipator in strikes deep within Imperial territory set up to look like the work of other Imperial factions, sowing greater discord within the Empire.

When Antilles, Calrissian, and Luke Skywalker were assigned to strike Coruscant, Antilles and Calrissian agreed to take only the Liberator, thinking they would be less conspicuous with only one ship. The raid went awry almost immediately, as they were quickly identified as interlopers when Calrissian's purloined access code proved insufficient. The Star Destroyer was disabled swiftly by the planet's heavy defenses. Skywalker was able to guide the ship to a relatively safe crash landing, but the crew remained stranded in the middle of Imperial-held Coruscant. They had to guard the crashed starship while they awaited New Republic aid for five days. Han and Leia Solo led a rescue mission that arrived just as ground troops finally found and attacked the wreck. They evacuated the survivors except for Skywalker, who remained behind to face a hyperspace wormhole created by the dark presence he sensed seeking him&mdash;as it turned out, a clone of Palpatine, inhabited by the Emperor's spirit, who had regathered the Imperial war machine and secretly led the assault.

They returned to Pinnacle Base, where Antilles learned that the Empire had begun an attack on Mon Calamari using the new World Devastators, enormous war machines that consumed all in their way and forged new weaponry from those resources. Antilles and Calrissian were dispatched to battle the new threat and help the beleaguered Mon Calamari escape to Da Soocha. Leading a fleet from aboard the Star Destroyer Emancipator, the pair struck the Imperial forces. Antilles focused on the air defense, coordinating with Bel Iblis while Calrissian managed the ground battle, but a World Devastator in orbit began to disintegrate the Emancipator. They abandoned ship, and Antilles deployed with Rogue Squadron on Mon Calamari's surface. Flying one of the new V-wing airspeeders in combat, Antilles personally crippled three of the superweapons before they could menace Mon Calamari settlements and shot down several of the Empire's TIE/D droid-piloted starfighters. He returned to the frigate Antares Six in time to witness the World Devastators cease operations as Skywalker, having positioned himself as Palpatine's apprentice and the Imperial supreme commander, used the shutdown codes for the superweapons. The Imperial technicians briefly revived the weapons factories aboard them, but the Millennium Falcon arrived from a failed attempt to rescue Skywalker in time for R2-D2 to use the master control signal he had been slipped by Skywalker to set the World Devastators on each other.

With Mon Calamari liberated, they returned to Pinnacle Base, where R2-D2 revealed copies of Palpatine's plans for a massive offensive. Antilles served as an important component of the command staff, liaising between General Carlist Rieekan and the rescued General Dodonna as they planned the New Republic's next moves. Palpatine's enormous flagship Eclipse appeared over Da Soocha, but Skywalker and Organa Solo united their power to turn one of the Emperor's Force storms against the ship, killing him and eliminating the threat. Palpatine's plan to retake the galaxy, Operation Shadow Hand, went forward nevertheless, battering the New Republic yet further, and Palpatine entered a new clone body.

Governor Beltane of the factory world Balmorra, who was selling weapons to both sides but wished for the Empire's defeat, sent the New Republic information allowing them to hijack a shipment of cutting-edge X-1 Viper war droids destined for Palpatine's Deep Core throneworld Byss. Calrissian intended to steal them, but Antilles suggested smuggling troops into the droids and letting the shipment pass to Byss, where they could target the Imperial Citadel and hopefully end the war by destroying the Imperial high command. Calrissian and the top commanders agreed with Antilles's plan, despite objections from Skywalker that it was too risky, and approved it.

After capturing the shipment with Rogue Squadron, Antilles and Calrissian infiltrated the war droids with a commando team and the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO. Once they were unloaded on Byss, the team activated the droids and guided them to the Citadel. They tore through all resistance until, on the Citadel's threshold, they faced chrysalide rancors. The commandos evacuated the droids and left the war machines to fight the mutated beasts, but the dark side-enhanced creatures overcame the Vipers. They seemed stranded on Byss, but a gang of smugglers led by Calrissian's friends Shug Ninx and Salla Zend had been watching. They picked up the commando team and fled the Imperial capital.

Han Solo contacted them and informed the group that Pinnacle Base had been destroyed by Palpatine's Galaxy Gun superweapon. Antilles and the others rerouted to join the Solos and Skywalker on New Alderaan, arriving in the middle of an Imperial raid on the secure colony, where young Jaina and Jacen Solo were hidden. They evacuated the village aboard the smuggler ships and fled to the New Republic's new base in the space station above the planet Nespis VIII. Palpatine's Galaxy Gun, capable of destroying planets from its orbit over Byss, cowed worlds across the galaxy and put the New Republic on the defensive. Once the Galaxy Gun destroyed the Nespis VIII space station, with the leadership barely evacuating it, the command staff scattered.

Antilles was with Calrissian and Skywalker on the Vindicator when Chewbacca arrived, reporting that Palpatine had trapped Han and Leia Solo on the planet Onderon with their children. Skywalker put together a plan of attack and led a force there. While Skywalker and a pair of Jedi attempted to capture Palpatine on the world's surface, Antilles was part of a team that boarded the Emperor's flagship Eclipse II in the Millennium Falcon. With Calrissian, Chewbacca, and the redeemed Jedi Kam Solusar, he began sabotaging the ship. R2-D2 was able to seize control of the ship's computers and program it to enter hyperspace and ram the Galaxy Gun. Antilles and the others were unable to escape aboard the Millennium Falcon before the Super Star Destroyer began its jump, and had to wait until it exited hyperspace in the Byss system to escape. They fled the system as the Eclipse II destroyed the Galaxy Gun, and a misfired Galaxy Gun projectile annihilated Byss.

With the center of Imperial power destroyed and Palpatine killed for the final time on Onderon, the New Republic was able to battle back and reclaim its former power well within 11 ABY. Antilles led Rogue Squadron again as the New Republic once more captured Coruscant. As the weakened Empire fell under the control of Royal Guardsman Carnor Jax, the New Republic reevaluated its military capacities and instructed Antilles, back in Starfighter Command, to develop Rogue Squadron as a versatile unit featuring multiple fighter designs. Antilles objected to the change, saying it would compromise the squadron, but was overruled. Antilles reluctantly complied and integrated A-wings, B-wings, and the new E-wings into Rogue Wing. In exchange, he asked for command of the newly operational Lusankya as a platform for Rogue Wing. He was assigned to a special task force including the Rogues and the Lusankya and became, in effect, a naval officer. Antilles withdrew from direct command of the Rogues, overseeing battles from the Star Dreadnought's bridge due to his unhappiness with the situation.

When Jax attacked the New Republic's secret outpost on the planet Phaeda, the Lusankya was sent in to save the base. By attacking the base, Jax hoped to confront his nemesis Kir Kanos, whom the New Republic agents on Phaeda had been harboring; Kanos fled to the planet Yinchorr, however, prompting Jax to follow suit in his Star Destroyer, the Emperor's Revenge. Jax had already left Phaeda when the Lusankya arrived, but the Star Destroyer Steadfast was still in orbit and preparing to bombard the New Republic base. Upon arrival, Antilles demanded the Steadfast surrender, and was obliged by a crew that found themselves unprepared to take on a Star Dreadnought. While securing control of Phaeda for the New Republic and aiding the New Republic resistance fighters on the surface, Antilles met with Mirith Sinn, the Republic commander on Phaeda, and sent her on her way to Yinchorr to aid Kanos. After Phaeda was pacified, Sinn's lieutenant Massimo requested a ship so his men could follow her, and Antilles again obliged. Kanos killed Jax on Yinchorr, sending the Imperial Ruling Council into a chaotic scramble for power that ended with the Empire effectively destroyed.

Building the peace
"Nothing I'd like better than to be back with the squadron, but, you know, I've spent the last eleven years of my life blowing things apart. When I returned to Coruscant and I saw all that had been destroyed here, and all the folks left homeless&mdash;like you and Mirax&mdash;I don't know, something in me wanted a change."

- Wedge Antilles, to Corran Horn

With little remaining to challenge the New Republic and his mounting desire to set aside front-line work for a chance at a more normal life, witnessing the destruction on Coruscant reignited Antilles's childhood dream of being an architect and building cities. He turned his efforts to the work of rebuilding Coruscant, leaving Rogue Squadron entirely in the hands of Tycho Celchu. He spent four months overseeing the salvage effort for the battle debris that wreathed the planet, clearing orbit once more. When he tired of that, he requested a transfer to ground duty and was put in charge of a demolition team of nearly two hundred beings operating four construction droids. They razed war-torn sections of the city and left sound, rebuilt structures in their wake, or performed repairs if that was all the existing buildings required. Antilles had only to supervise the automated droids and intervene if refugees were found in the way.

During Antilles's construction work, Corran Horn sensed through the Force that Mirax Terrik Horn had gone missing. Airen Cracken informed Horn that she was on a mission for New Republic Intelligence but would not release information that would allow Horn to check on her. Horn appealed to the New Republic Ruling Council and visited Antilles in his office to attempt to enlist his support for the petition. During that visit, Han Solo dropped in to ask Antilles to accompany him on a diplomatic visit to Kessel. Antilles had to turn him down, but Solo offered to ask around about Terrik Horn. Antilles and Solo both counseled that there was no chance of the New Republic leadership acting on Horn's petition; Antilles instead took Horn to meet Luke Skywalker in the hope that Skywalker could help Horn sense his wife. Skywalker, planning to revive the Jedi Order, offered to train Horn as a Jedi so that he could track her down, and the pilot accepted.

One month into his construction duty, Antilles noticed when one of his construction droids encountered a heavily reinforced building. Believing he should check out whatever was within, Antilles shut the droid down despite the three-day restart procedure it would require to return to work, and investigated the rooms. Within he found a dangerous armored rat, which his crew managed to kill before it could attack him, and a hidden Imperial interrogation center. The find proved important enough to draw Ackbar, Skywalker, and Organa Solo to view it the next morning, even though the mate to the armored rat returned overnight and smashed most of the equipment within. In the wreckage, though, Skywalker found a working Force detector, a device that sensed a being's affinity for the Force and proved highly helpful in Skywalker's effort to restore the Jedi Order and recruit candidates for his new Jedi Praxeum.

When Skywalker's quest for recruits brought him to Eol Sha, he promised the New Republic's aid in relocating that planet's small population off the dangerous, dying world. Ready for a return to space, Antilles volunteered for command of that operation. His team transferred the ragged band of refugees to Dantooine and built a functioning colony in which they could settle. Antilles then attended a debriefing session for Doctor Qwi Xux. Xux was an Omwati weapons scientist who had worked in the hidden Maw Installation within the Maw, performing superweapon research for Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. In her naivete, she had not understood the true purpose of her research and had turned to the New Republic's aid when Han Solo stumbled across the isolated Maw Installation. Antilles connected with her during the debriefing and agreed to serve as her escort in the belief that it was more important she be accompanied by someone with whom she was more comfortable than that she have a professional bodyguard. He was assigned to protect her from possible reprisal by Admiral Natasi Daala, the commander of the Maw Installation, who had begun a guerrilla rampage against the New Republic upon her discovery. Before beginning, he took on the assignment of delivering supplies to Skywalker's newly founded Praxeum on Yavin 4 for one last chance to see his old friend.

He returned to Coruscant, where he served as Xux's bodyguard and companion. The two grew close as Xux began to confide in Antilles, and he supported her desire to speak to the New Republic Senate to insist that they destroy the Sun Crusher, a new superweapon capable of triggering supernovas, which had been captured from the Maw Installation. He was with her as she presented her case, and the leadership agreed to send the nigh-indestructible Sun Crusher into the heart of a gas giant, where they believed it would be unrecoverable, and also acceded to Chewbacca's request to send a force to the Maw Installation to conquer it and liberate the Wookiee slaves kept there. Antilles piloted another transport to Yavin 4, with supplies and Xux aboard, while Kyp Durron, a youth who had escaped from the Maw in the Sun Crusher with Solo and Chewbacca, flew the Sun Crusher. Durron set the autopilot to fly the ship into Yavin's heart, then rode down to the Praxeum with Antilles, where the Force-strong young man joined the Jedi academy. On the moon, Antilles happily caught up with Horn, who was attending the academy, and introduced him to Xux. Privately, Horn warned him against falling for Xux, both because of her past and because Horn believed the relationship might be more the product of proximity than genuine compatibility. Antilles listened, but was not swayed.

After that, Antilles took Xux to inspect the reconstruction efforts at the Cathedral of Winds on the planet Vortex. Ackbar had destroyed the landmark in a tragic starfighter accident, prompting him to resign and exile himself to Mon Calamari. Antilles briefly volunteered on the cleanup crew, and after they were done there, he decided to surprise Xux with a visit to the planet Ithor. They traveled there incognito; Antilles hoped that the peaceful setting would be a pleasant escape for Xux and conducive to romance. As they landed on the herdship Tafanda Bay, though, the pair found that Mon Mothma had given their identity to Momaw Nadon, the high priest of the herdship, and arranged for special treatment. The general took Xux sightseeing on their first full day there, and at the end of the evening kissed her. The next morning, though, Antilles found Xux distraught in her room. Durron, fallen to the dark side of the Force, had found Xux in her cabin and used the Force to wipe her memory, desiring to eradicate her dangerous knowledge of superweapons. Overzealous and inexpert, he had blanked many of her memories, and she barely recognized Antilles. She managed to recover somewhat, and Antilles dedicated himself to helping the woman he had come to care for, feeling that he had failed as a bodyguard. He reviewed recent events and took her to the same places on Ithor, hoping to spark her recall. At the same time, he received a message from Horn informing him that Durron had rendered Skywalker comatose in an attack before fleeing.

Fleet operations
"I've been looking at the two sides of my life. My career and my personal life. Except for the fact that I'm not flying nearly as much as I want to, I have no complaints about my career. I'm doing important work and being recognized for it. But my personal life&hellip;Qwi, you were the last part of my personal life. Now there's nothing there."

- Wedge Antilles, to Qwi Xux

Hoping to return to where Xux had spent most of her life and perhaps find something to stimulate her memory, Antilles requested and was given command of the strike force assigned to take the Maw Installation. With Daala's forces gone, the New Republic sent only the frigate Yavaris and four CR90 corvettes. He brought Xux along, as well as Chewbacca and the Katarn Commandos. Antilles took his fleet into the Maw and crippled the science facility's defenses, losing one corvette to the experimental metal-crystal phase shifter weapon before it was destroyed. He then landed the commandos to capture the facility. They easily took the base, and once it was mostly secure, Antilles and Xux transferred to the asteroid installation to inspect it. Soon after they landed, however, the top staff of the base escaped in the Death Star prototype kept at the station. Antilles personally led his commando team into the asteroid in which the base's reactor was housed, only to witness the destruction of the reactor's cooling towers. To preserve the station and its vital data, he had the corvette NovaFlare shut down and its cooling equipment removed and installed in the station power plant.

Once the reactor was stabilized, however, Daala's flagship, the Imperial Star Destroyer Gorgon, which was the last remaining component of her fleet, appeared. Antilles rushed to activate the station's defenses and, with most of the data already seized and the Wookiees freed, prepared to evacuate. He had to order the abandonment of NovaFlare and mobilized the Wookiees in the base's complement of Gamma-class assault shuttles for the battle against Daala's battered but still-powerful Star Destroyer. Skywalker, recovered, showed up in the middle of the battle with Durron, who had rejected the dark side. They had brought the Sun Crusher&mdash;which Durron had pulled from Yavin's heart in the course of his fall&mdash;to destroy it in the Maw's black holes, but the pair docked and informed Antilles that the Death Star prototype was on its way back to the installation after attacking Kessel, with Solo, Calrissian, and Mara Jade inside aboard the Millennium Falcon. With its reactor going critical, Antilles evacuated the Maw Installation. The explosion of the station seemed to consume the Gorgon, while Durron took the Sun Crusher and lured the prototype into a black hole. The Sun Crusher was consumed as well, and Durron barely escaped in a message pod that was retrieved by the Millennium Falcon. The mission complete, Antilles returned to Coruscant aboard the Yavaris.

Though Durron rejoined the Jedi without consequence, Antilles remained resentful of the young man for the crimes he had perpetrated against Xux and against the people of the planet Carida, which he had destroyed with the Sun Crusher. Skywalker might have forgiven him, but Antilles did not. Horn, meanwhile, completed his Jedi training and rescued Terrik Horn with the aid of Luke Skywalker, lifting the burden of his old friend's safety from Antilles's mind. His relationship with Xux became his primary concern. He took her to the opening ceremony for the rebuilt Cathedral of Winds, then back to Ithor for a proper vacation. They became a close couple over the next year. Antilles, meanwhile, continued his work as part of High Command, cooperating with Bel Iblis in devising air defense techniques and commanding his task force, generally based around the Lusankya.

In 12 ABY, the New Republic came to suspect the Hutt crime lord Durga Besadii Tai of working on a superweapon. To investigate, Han and Leia Solo made a short-notice diplomatic visit to the planet Nal Hutta. To make a show of force and provide backup, Antilles and Ackbar were assigned to stage war games in the Y'Toub system. Each took a small fleet to the system for the exercise, and Antilles brought Xux as the Yavaris trainee science officer. Antilles set up his formation to draw Ackbar into an Ackbar Slash, then brought his six CR90 corvettes around to envelop the Supreme Commander's battle line once Ackbar began his attack. In one sustained attack, he was able to "destroy" Ackbar's entire force of three gunships and the MC90 Star Cruiser, Galactic Voyager, while losing only two ships himself.

They continued exercises as the Solos kept the Hutt busy. As the talks wound down, Antilles took Xux on a brief leave to Nar Shaddaa. On Nal Hutta's notorious moon, Xux claimed to recognize Bevel Lemelisk, the main designer of the Death Star, in the crowd, but Antilles reassured her that it was just a function of discussing her memories of the Maw Installation. They returned to the Yavaris, where Chewbacca reported from an information-gathering mission on Nar Shaddaa. He had learned that a man portraying himself as General Sulamar of the Empire was working with the Hutts on the superweapon, and the Solos found that Daala had survived the battle in the Maw and was reunifying the various Imperial warlords. Organa Solo, the new Chief of State, ordered the naval forces to continue maneuvering to keep the Hutts busy but prepare for action.

Crix Madine's distress signal was the catalyst that spurred Antilles to action. On a mission to find the superweapon, Madine had been captured by Durga; his signal revealed him to be in the asteroid field of the Hoth system. At the same time, however, Kyp Durron broadcast a message informing the New Republic that Daala planned to strike the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. Ackbar took his force to Yavin 4, while Antilles responded to Madine's beacon. Though he made all possible speed, Antilles was not able to arrive before Durga executed Madine. Unable to rescue the famed general, Antilles was left the task of destroying the Hutt superweapon, the Darksaber. Based on the Death Star's design, but reduced to only the superlaser and the minimum structure necessary to support it, the Darksaber attempted to flee through the asteroid field as Antilles gave chase. It proved unnecessary for him to do any more, as the Darksaber was so poorly engineered that the superlaser failed to work when called upon to clear a path, and the superweapon was smashed to scrap by asteroids. Antilles did find a valuable captive in Bevel Lemelisk, who had worked on the design and abandoned ship before its destruction. For his role in the victory, Antilles received yet more decorations.

Meanwhile, Ackbar's fleet and the Jedi on Yavin 4 defeated Daala's attack, driving her to resign and leave Admiral Gilad Pellaeon in command of the Imperial Remnant, the Imperial successor state she had cobbled together from the warlord holdings. Pellaeon secured a strong position for the Remnant, moving out of the Deep Core and into the Outer Rim, absorbing warlord fiefdoms and fortress worlds. Six months after Daala's defeat, Pellaeon made his first major attack, capturing the planet Orinda from the New Republic. With his Super Star Destroyer Reaper, Pellaeon seized six more systems as the New Republic struggled to coordinate a defense. Antilles, with the Lusankya under his command, was given the task of mounting a counterattack. He spent a month successfully rolling back the Imperial Supreme Commander's conquests, but in the final battle at Orinda, the Reaper destroyed the fleet carrier Endurance, which took with it most of Antilles's fighter complement. With his forces in disarray, Antilles had to retreat from the clash. The New Republic allowed Pellaeon to keep Orinda rather than stage another attack, but built up its defenses in the surrounding systems.

Emissary to Adumar
"We're in kind of the same position here. Play by the rules, do as we're told, keep our careers&mdash;and lose everything. Or risk, and probably lose, everything&mdash;except our word. The thing is, our word is the one thing no one can take from us unless we leave it vulnerable."

- Wedge Antilles, to Teren Rogriss

In 13 ABY, Antilles began examining his personal life. He realized that his relationship with Xux was almost the only element of his life that existed outside the sphere of his career, and he desperately felt the need to take some time for himself. He also came to the difficult conclusion that he had to break off his romance with Xux, as he did not see a future together with her. He took her to dinner, intending to break the news to her, but during the meal she surprised him by ending the relationship before he brought the subject up. She had come to the same conclusion, and Antilles confessed his own intentions to her, leading to an affectionate and mutual breakup.

After the breakup, he planned to take leave and stimulate his personal life, hoping to be able to return to Corellia. He was already technically on leave, packing his bags to depart his high-level quarters on Coruscant, when General Airen Cracken approached him with an assignment. Though it was technically a volunteer opportunity, Cracken insisted that Antilles had to take it, knowing his sense of duty would compel him to do so. The New Republic Intelligence commander explained that a world in Wild Space, Adumar, had been rediscovered after a long severance from galactic society. It was considering joining the New Republic, and would bring with it impressive ordnance-manufacturing capabilities, fulfilling Antilles's long-sought push to increase proton torpedo production. The catch was that fighter pilots commanded the greatest respect in Adumari society, which saw displays of aerial daring as the height of distinction. They would only deal with the New Republic's best fighter pilot, and so Cracken insisted that Antilles be the New Republic's point diplomat, supported by the professional diplomat already present on Adumar, Tomer Darpen. Hating the way he had been maneuvered into the mission by Cracken's manipulation of his sense of duty, at the expense of his much-awaited leave, Antilles grudgingly accepted the task after vituperating Cracken.

He was allowed to select three additional pilots to accompany him as part of the New Republic's delegation, and chose veteran Rogues Celchu, Janson, and Klivian. They rendezvoused with the Star Destroyer Allegiance, which would serve as their transport to Adumar and support once there. There Antilles met Captain Geng Salaban, commanding the ship, and the mission's documentarian, Hallis Saper. He was furious that Intelligence had decided to give the group no briefing until they landed on Adumar, forcing him to enter the situation without knowing what to expect.

On arriving, the pilots launched in their fighters, receiving a large honor guard of native Adumari Blade-series fighters. Their ignorance of Adumar led to confusion when four fighters unexpectedly penetrated the cordon and issued challenges to the New Republic fighters, then attacked. The X-wing pilots shot down the four Blades and were instructed by air control to continue to their landing as if the incident was routine; it was after putting down that Antilles learned of the Adumari practice of aerial dueling. They landed in Cartann City to ecstatic celebration, and Antilles met Darpen and gave a short speech to the adoring crowd.

Darpen showed them to their apartments, where they called for native dress rather than attend the reception at the palace of the perator of Cartann in their much-reviled dress uniforms. There they were introduced to Perator Pekaelic ke Teldan, who offered them Cheriss ke Hanadi, a young champion blastsword duelist, as a local guide. Mingling in the crowd, Antilles bumped into General Turr Phennir, commander of the 181st Imperial Fighter Group. He immediately realized that the perator had solicited both the New Republic and Imperial Remnant's overtures and would decide between the two major galactic governments. Soured, he continued circulating and saw Iella Wessiri, operating undercover. He dispatched Janson to set up a private meeting later. To keep attention off Janson, he agreed to allow ke Hanadi to put on a demonstration of which she had earlier spoken; when he realized it was a blastsword duel, he regretted it, already deeply uncomfortable with the casual violence of Adumari society. Ke Hanadi defeated her opponent and offered Antilles the choice to kill or spare him. When Darpen explained that letting him live would be seen as sentimental and unbecoming, Antilles spared the man, yet impressed the onlookers by declaring that the young man was not yet ready to meet death with dignity and needed to learn to handle pain first.

After the reception ended, Antilles privately rebuked Darpen for his presumptive manner and insisted he would not blindly do as Darpen said. Janson informed Antilles that Wessiri was undercover as a computer programmer working on interfaces between Adumari and galactic technology; she would meet him the next night. Klivian also informed him that, counter to Darpen's implications, Adumar did not have one global government; rather, it was broken into independent nations, of which Cartann was the most prominent. Distrusting Darpen, Antilles decided to play along but have the pilots seek more information and leverage on the situation.

The next morning, Antilles led Red Flight, his group of pilot-diplomats, in a test flight of the Blade-32 superiority fighter. He had to deny many dogfighting challenges, and so he decided that in the next outing he would accept duels using simulated weapons. That night the four and ke Hanadi had dinner with Cartann's Minister of Trade and came under attack while leaving. They defeated the half-dozen attackers, who they discovered were hired assassins. As he had the right to trophies, Antilles had the pilots claim blastswords from the would-be killers, allowing them to go armed in polite society should any further attempts occur. As they walked back to their quarters, Antilles slipped away to meet Wessiri, who explained that the Adumari had encountered the galaxy months before and been planning to determine their allegiance before the New Republic stumbled across the planet. He sensed a distance between himself and Wessiri, however, and asked if their friendship had broken apart after they had not seen each other much for a few years. She said it had, but would not explain what had changed, leaving him hurt and confused, trying to understand what had gone wrong.

The next day, still without diplomatic duties, Antilles began simulated-weapons duels. He found few takers, with only Captain Liak ke Mattino of Strike the Moons Flightknife and five of his men engaging them. Red Flight spent the day dueling them, then discussed Adumari tactics over drinks afterward, trying to convince the Adumari that there was greater honor in flying cautiously and coming home alive than in recklessly pursuing glory. They kept it up over the next several days, attracting more pilots, including ones from other nations, and sometimes flying their X-wings. Antilles began to win converts, though the Imperial pilots gained in popularity by dueling the Cartann way.

Ke Hanadi took the pilots of Red flight to a missile manufacturing plant buried below the city one afternoon, as Antilles hoped that it could one day produce munitions for the New Republic. Antilles found the grimness of the facility's workers disquieting, and learned from Berandis, the plant's assistant manager in charge of public concerns, that the majority of the workers lived in turumme-warrens below the ground but above the plant. The warrens were owned by the plant, and their residents often could not afford to live aboveground. Ke Hanadi privately informed him that the placement of the warrens above the plant ensured that they would absorb the impact of any potential bombing of the city, leaving their residents dead but the plant safe.

One evening Saper informed the pilots that she had seen a man in their quarters and followed him to another room in the building; they assumed he was a New Republic Intelligence agent checking on the room's listening devices, but Antilles asked her to see if she could find out more. While they were talking, Darpen entered and began chastising Antilles for the simulated duels, explaining that they lowered Adumari respect for the pilots. Outraged that Darpen wanted him to kill pilots in live-fire duels, Antilles told the diplomat that he would do no such thing. Darpen insisted that by orders of the regional head of New Republic Intelligence, who had control of affairs on Adumar, Antilles had to comply, but without knowledge of the regional head's identity and lacking any indication of this situation in his initial orders from Cracken, Antilles refused to recognize this as legitimate.

After Darpen left, Antilles asked his pilots if they were wondering whether Adumar was worth bringing into the New Republic, and all expressed doubts about its bloodthirsty society. Undecided, Antilles wanted a drink and solitude to mull it over. At a bar, he decided that it was likely that Adumar would be improved by membership in the New Republic, but could not bring himself to accept the prospect of killing innocent pilots to achieve his mission. If Cracken ordered him to do so, he would resign. While drinking, he heard a Core-accented voice, and found Admiral Teren Rogriss, his erstwhile ally from the hunt for Zsinj, drunk. Rogriss, too, seemed to be struggling with a question of honor, and after a brief conversation Antilles left him to it. He then took Janson with him to Allegiance, where they looked through records on Rogriss. When Captain Salaban informed him that the Adumari had made the ships in orbit swear to leave without attacking should Adumar choose the other side, Antilles realized that Rogriss was dealing with the issue of breaking his word to follow orders from above.

He also learned that the local Intelligence chief, who he concluded had to be Darpen, had instituted a comm blackout in which all messages had to be forwarded through him. Angry that he was clearly being cut off from Cracken and that Darpen would be petitioning Cracken without giving him the full story, Antilles had Janson give him Wessiri's address and set off to meet her with the other pilot as backup. At her apartment, he asked her for access to a holocomm, but she refused to break her orders from Darpen. Deciding he would have to send one of his pilots back to Coruscant, Antilles then asked her if she could find him a way to contact Rogriss, hoping that he could convince the admiral to defect. As one last request, facing the possible end of his career, he asked Wessiri how he had lost her friendship. She explained that she had been attracted to him, but never made a move, and when he became involved with Xux she felt she had blown her chance and could no longer face him. Told they had no future together, Antilles began to leave, but suddenly realized that he refused to let their past mistakes ruin the relationship and kissed Wessiri. They both realized they were in love, and Antilles nearly proposed before Wessiri insisted it wait until after the mission.

He spent the night with Wessiri before returning to his quarters, where Darpen almost immediately intruded to announce that the perator had called a meeting of Adumar's nations to discuss the formation of a world government. Desiring to stand out from the crowd and make it clear they would not emulate the Adumari, Antilles had the pilots don their dress uniforms. They made a great impression on the court, and before the announcement, Wessiri slipped him Rogriss's comm frequency, and Saper confirmed Antilles's suspicion that it had been Darpen checking on the bugs in their room. When a disheveled ke Hanadi began accepting a series of challenges and defying the perator's decision to kill the defeated, Antilles spoke with her and realized that the girl, who had a crush on him, was in deep depression after spying on his tryst with Wessiri. The string of fights was broken up by the perator's unilateral announcement that he was forming a world government with himself at the head, absorbing all other states into Cartann. When ke Hanadi accepted another challenge, Antilles stormed off to chastise her for throwing her life away, arguing that she needed to look past her grief to find ways to be happy and rejecting the Adumari notions of honor. Though he reached her, she could not turn away from the challenge she had accepted and was defeated in it. Just before the challenger, Thanaer ke Sekae, was about to execute her, Antilles moved to challenge him but was beaten to it by Janson. Ke Sekae accepted the challenge on the condition he spare the girl, whom Antilles ordered Celchu and Klivian to rush to the medical facilities aboard Allegiance. Janson disarmed ke Sekae, then beat him into unconsciousness, ending the duel.

Afterward, Antilles began calling for Rogriss and was able to set up a meeting that evening. He told the drunken admiral that if he should be forced into a situation in which he had to choose between his career and his honor, the New Republic stood ready to receive him if he chose to protect his personal integrity. The next night was another statement by the perator, at which Antilles confronted Darpen and revealed that he fully understood that the intelligence agent had manipulated the perator into the declaration of war, desperate to pull Adumar into the New Republic camp, and that his career depended on success here and his bloody plan not becoming public knowledge. The perator, meanwhile, declared war against the nations holding out against his declaration and asked the Imperial and New Republic delegations to lead Cartann forces in the war so he could better measure their skill. Antilles refused, and after a discussion with Darpen, the perator issued a proclamation banishing Red Flight from Adumar while subjecting them to the gauntlet&mdash;allowing any citizen to kill them between the palace and Giltella Air Base, and again once they took off in the Blades prepared for them. In addition, Allegiance refused to acknowledge comm transmissions.

Trying to avoid being anticipated by the crowd of glory-hunting would-be killers, Antilles had the pilots steal a transport from the palace's courtyard and drove it to a balcony across the street, where they entered and stole cloaks to disguise themselves, losing their pursuit. Coming up with a plan to gain entry to the crowded gates at Giltella, Antilles had the group steal a flatcam, with which they recorded the group making a purported attack on an Adumari broadcaster in a recognizable area near the base. Dressed in women's clothing and aboard a groundcar, they broadcast the recording, which was then displayed on flatscreens across the city for the eager crowds. Many of the mob surged to the supposed attack site, allowing them to get near enough to fight their way into the base.

Fitted out with fighters, Antilles had them shoot their way out of the back of the hangar to avoid ambushers, but they found hunters on them from above and below. Antilles quickly devised a tactic to thin their numbers, drawing the pursuers into firing missiles, then having his own pilots launch missiles that detonated early, creating a cloud into which he flew. The enemy missiles lost their target lock and instead attached themselves to other Cartann fighters, destroying ten Blades. In the subsequent dogfight against thirteen fighters, Janson was shot down and all the remaining pilots suffered damage rendering their fighters not spaceworthy. Antilles ordered Klivian to protect Janson and rendezvous at Wessiri's apartment, then led the six remaining Blades into a chase through the city streets. He and Celchu destroyed their pursuit, but another group of attackers were en route. They were saved when Liak ke Mattino, one of the challengers they had befriended in the course of their exercises, led his flightknife against the hunters, allowing the pilots to put down and make their own way to Wessiri's apartment.

There they found that Saper had found her way there, as well as ke Hanadi after she was discharged from Allegiance medical bay. Saper displayed a holorecording she had made that showed Darpen had not been arguing on their behalf with the perator, but in fact had convinced ke Teldan that Antilles had refused assistance because orders from superiors kept him from fighting and, in his shame, wished for ke Teldan to contrive his honorable death. Outraged, Wessiri agreed to aid them against the traitorous Darpen, and ke Hanadi revealed that the nations opposing Cartann were willing to lend the group their assistance. An agent of the Yedagon Confederacy met them and smuggled them to Yedagon City. On the journey, ke Hanadi apologized to Antilles for her earlier behavior, admitting he was right and explaining that she had realized how much she had to live for when the medics aboard Allegiance were able to cure her vertigo, which had prevented her from becoming a pilot, with simple medication. She asked him to become a New Republic pilot, and he agreed to help her when he returned to the New Republic.

In Yedagon, Perator Escalion asked Antilles to command the combined forces resisting Cartann. With his name, yet more nations might join the cause, though they would still not have nearly Cartann's military strength. Surprised, Antilles considered the proposal and decided he could not abandon Adumar to Cartann's conquest. He agreed and prepared to plan a military strategy, but Celchu forced the exhausted general to get some sleep as he drew up plans himself. After a good rest, Antilles reviewed Celchu's plans for a dawn surprise attack on Cartann, preempting its expected assault on the alliance of free nations. Antilles approved of Celchu's envelopment attack, but added several refinements, such as false transponder signals disguising their Scythe-class bombers and Meteor-class Aerial Forts as Blade squadrons and allowing their most prestigious pilots to broadcast the signals of less famous pilots to keep glory-hunters off them, while other skilled pilots could assume the identity of the famed ones and draw off attackers. He also set up an advance group to fly low and set up an ambush of the Cartann formation at the moment it engaged, command of which he gave to Klivian after the pilot requested it. Janson went with Klivian.

Before the mission, Antilles addressed the assembled pilots and exhorted them to put aside thoughts of glory and instead focus their efforts on surviving and protecting those around them. The massive aerial armada launched with Antilles in direct command of Running Crimson Flightknife. They penetrated Cartann, attacking air bases as they came upon them, until they were met by the main force based in Cartann City. His planned ambush and envelopment worked as intended, and his bombers were clear to begin attacking the city's air bases. Conditions worsened when Phennir and his pilots showed up in their TIE Interceptors, far outmatching the Adumari Blades. Antilles kept his disguised transponder signal on and gathered Red Flight for a concentrated barrage against the swift fighters. They destroyed one, but the survivors quickly turned on Red Flight, shooting down Celchu. At that same time, Wessiri reported that ke Hanadi's commando team had found their X-wings stored in an annex to the perator's palace. Another fighter picked up Celchu, who had ejected, and the four fighters headed into Cartann City, navigating through its streets. At the hangar, Antilles used his missiles to blow an entrance into a hardened tunnel access connecting to the palace, which the commandos used to infiltrate it.

Restored to their X-wings, the New Republic pilots took off and sought out the Imperial fighters. Antilles shot down a second, but Klivian's fighter was damaged in the exchange. Antilles had Celchu play wounded with him, drawing one TIE to each of them. Celchu brought his pursuer into Antilles's sights, giving him another kill. Phennir, in the final fighter, abandoned the battlefield and returned to Agonizer. With the TIEs gone, the X-wings cut easily through the Cartann Blades, and Antilles soon began accepting surrenders. Wessiri confirmed that the palace was ordering Cartann forces to surrender to Antilles; ke Hanadi's team had captured the perator.

Antilles headed to the palace with Celchu, authorizing Janson and Klivian to accept the rest of the surrenders. There he found that Perator ke Teldan would not himself surrender; Antilles suggested he abdicate instead. As royal heirs were raised outside the family for their safety, Antilles found that the perator's son was Balass ke Teldan, whom he had known as Balass ke Rassa, one of the pilots who had eagerly participated in his training exercises and taken Antilles's words about honor to heart. The new perator also insisted he would not surrender, but explained that the surrender process would be too long to allow the planet to unite and join the New Republic in time to prevent the Empire's certain retaliatory attack. Instead, the Adumari Union agreed to a truce and accepted Cartann as a member.

Antilles arrested Darpen and forced him to rescind the comm blackout on Allegiance, then had Celchu inform Salaban of the situation and arrange for Darpen to be held prisoner. Outside, he met Rogriss, who had sent Agonizer back to the Imperial Remnant under a communications blackout. He thanked the admiral, who expressed an interest in joining the Adumari, and renewed an earlier promise to get word to Rogriss's family.

Adumar joined the New Republic, which rushed reinforcements to the world. As the planet began to recover from the war, Antilles grieved to hear that Liak ke Mattino, the pilot who had flown with him and defied the perator to allow his escape, had died in battle. To keep the Imperial attack force off-balance, fake news broadcasts pretended that the war was still ongoing, misinforming the Imperial Intelligence team on Adumar. When the expected Imperial strike force arrived, Antilles commanded his task force from his X-wing, escorting a bombing run against the Imperial fleet while atmospheric Adumari forces repelled the Imperial bombers, not expecting united resistance, that made for the surface. A handful of TIE Defenders were among the capital ships' fighter screen, and one of them disabled Celchu with ion cannon. Antilles destroyed the Defender, then entered a one-on-one dogfight with Phennir, also in a Defender. He crippled the fighter after two head-to-head passes, sending Phennir out of the fight. Suffering heavier resistance than they expected, the Imperials pulled out.

Glad to be done with his diplomatic duties, Antilles was sent off a hero from Adumar after a public speech and state reception. He took with him Cheriss ke Hanadi, whom he had recommended to the New Republic academy for starfighter training. Ke Hanadi was accepted, eventually graduating and entering service as a New Republic pilot. Antilles's example had an effect on the planet, which largely abandoned lethal dueling after joining the New Republic and improved conditions for workers. Months after the end of the Adumar affair, Antilles and Wessiri wed on Coruscant.

Keeping the peace
"If we win, you'll get the credit. It will stop the no-confidence vote when you return. It'll allow you to remain Chief of State.''" "And if we lose?" "''She denounces us. We become rogues who went off on our own, trying to save the New Republic, and failing. If we fail, Leia, our reputations won't matter."

- Wedge Antilles and Leia Organa Solo, discussing Mon Mothma

In 14 ABY, New Republic Intelligence discovered a tibanna gas mining platform on the planet Kril'Dor, under the control of Imperial forces affiliated with the Disciples of Ragnos dark side cult. Antilles was given the task of capturing the platform and decided that with its fairly light defenses, he could seize it with a single starfighter, provided he had an ally on the platform placing signal beacons for precision targeting. Convinced only a Jedi could manage to storm through the facility, he asked Skywalker for assistance, and the Jedi Master forwarded Jaden Korr, a capable Jedi apprenticed to Kyle Katarn, a friend of Rogue Squadron. Antilles flew the aerial portion of the mission himself, standing off until Korr placed a beacon on the facility's shield generator. Antilles acquired the target and destroyed it, easily evading the station's turbolaser fire. The two-man force repeated the procedure with the hangar, garrison building, communications array, power generator for the turbolasers, and command center. With the defenses down, though, the remaining troops deployed bombs to destroy the tibanna storage tanks, but Korr quickly defeated the troopers and disabled the bombs. The mission was a success, and the New Republic moved in to hold the platform. Korr went on to be promoted to Jedi Knight soon after and played a crucial role in the defeat of the Disciples of Ragnos.

When Ackbar came to the conclusion that the New Republic needed a fifth fleet, modernized and capable of planetary assault for dealing with the remaining Imperial fortress worlds, he commissioned the New Republic Fifth Battle Group, placed under the command of General Etahn A'baht and composed of new designs from the New Class Modernization Program. When the fleet performed its final exercise, a simulated invasion of Bessimir, before becoming operational in 16 ABY, Antilles was part of the Supreme Commander's presentation of the fleet's transmission to Chief of State Organa Solo, the Senate's Council on the Common Defense, and senior military officers. Senator Tig Peramis made a scene by accusing Organa Solo of intending to use the fleet to oppress member worlds and spread tyranny, sparking outrage from the rest of the guests. Senator Tolik Yar, a staunch ally of Organa Solo, angrily denounced him, and Antilles had to restrain Yar from violence before Peramis stormed out. When the Black Fleet Crisis broke out over the course of the next year, embroiling the New Republic in war with the xenophobic Duskhan League, A'baht and the Fifth Fleet eventually defeated the League, which Peramis had treasonously supported.

By 16 ABY, Antilles had fully ascended the ranks, serving as Chief of Staff for Starfighter Command. With mechanical failures among X-wings on the rise and component prices declining, he met with the other Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss modernizing the X-wing fleet. After reviewing a new prototype, the T-65D-A1 X-wing starfighter, which expanded the function of the onboard computer system and rendered astromech droids superfluous, he recommended and the Joint Chiefs authorized the reconditioning of older fighters to the D-A1 specifications as well as the purchase of new models as replacements. In 17 ABY the program was ready for implementation, and Antilles ordered that all routine maintenance now include the rebuilding of the fighters to the new standard.

Luke Skywalker's fighter fell afoul of the order when he brought it to Coruscant after a bombing of the Senate, and he had young mechanic Cole Fardreamer work to restore it. After Fardreamer found a bomb hidden in the fighter's new computer unit, he checked the prototype D-A1 fighter to see if the sabotage was systematic, but was arrested by guards who believed him to be a saboteur. Fardreamer insisted he speak with Antilles, and the general arrived in the repair bay to find that R2-D2, working with Fardreamer, had been shot. Antilles ordered the droid repaired immediately and listened to Fardreamer's explanation that he had found the bombs, marked with Imperial insignia, hidden within both the new fighters and the aftermarket computers. While Antilles was getting to the bottom of the issue, Organa Solo arrived with C-3PO, summoned by a message from R2-D2. Antilles was stricken that his initiative had opened the New Republic to far-reaching sabotage, and Organa Solo insisted that all the fighters be grounded until they could be checked and the explosives removed. Antilles gave the order and attempted to track down Skywalker, who had taken one of the new fighters out on a mission without letting anyone know where he was going.

He and Organa Solo rushed to inform the Inner Council, but she suddenly collapsed upon receiving a Force vision similar to one she had seen before the Senate bombing. She decided it was not a harbinger of another attack directed at her and went forward with the meeting, where Antilles was outraged to see the ex-Imperial Senator Meido accusing Han and Leia Solo of involvement in the Senate bombing and insisting Organa Solo had planted the X-wing bombs. Meido announced a no-confidence vote against the president, further provoking Antilles. He, Organa Solo, Ackbar, and other top military officials immediately began working to track down all T-65D-A1 X-wings.

They were together when Organa Solo received a transmission from a man in a Hendanyn death mask identifying himself as Kueller and claiming to have destroyed the population of the Pydyr, a remote moon of the planet Almania. He also transmitted an image of Skywalker, badly injured after the explosion of his fighter. Claiming to have Skywalker in his power, Kueller demanded that he be given control of the galaxy or he would kill the Jedi Master. While Antilles argued that the unknown man's claim to be able to kill the entire galactic population if he were not given power was absurd, Organa Solo sensed another mass death in the Force. Kueller gave a three-day deadline for her to decide and signed off. The officers immediately began searching to find out where the attack had been and who and where Kueller was. Communications had just stopped from Auyemesh, another moon of Almania. Analysis confirmed that Kueller's transmission had come from Almania itself, and Skywalker had been shown on Pydyr.

Organa Solo took a leave of absence from the presidency, absenting herself from decision-making as her family was threatened and hoping to keep Meido's faction from undermining the New Republic's leadership in a moment of crisis. Mon Mothma stepped in as her temporary replacement and, knowing Organa Solo planned to rush to Almania in her ship Alderaan to rescue Skywalker, ordered Antilles to take a fleet to Almania with her and attack immediately, rushing the mission through without Senate authorization. Mothma hoped that a quick victory, with Organa Solo present, would restore her political position. Antilles knew and accepted that if they failed, they would take the fall as rogue operators. He set out with thirty ships, most of the functioning ships available on Coruscant on short notice. As Organa Solo insisted on traveling in Alderaan, he assigned six soldiers to the ship to protect her.

After they emerged in the Almanian system, Organa Solo received a message under Skywalker's code informing her that new-model droids were dangerous and needed to be shut down. She let Antilles know, and mindful of the threat of the detonators, he took the fleet's complement of newer droids offline. Aboard his flagship, the MC90 Star Cruiser Yavin, he observed as three Victory-class Star Destroyers emerged to face the fleet, but felt something to be unusual about the enemy forces. He realized that Kueller was counting on the bombs inside his droids; these ships were likely all he had. Antilles ordered a full attack, directing General Ceousa aboard the the MC90 Star Cruiser Calamari to flank the Star Destroyers and approach Almania while the rest of the fleet battled Kueller's squadron. The battle began to tell against Antilles as he lost the Star Cruiser Tatooine, but one of the enemy ships peeled off when Talon Karrde's personal freighter, the Wild Karrde and the Millennium Falcon entered the system to rescue Skywalker. Karrde managed to defeat the Star Destroyer, but the TIE fighters' assault was relentless. Suddenly realizing the other ships were droid-operated, Antilles had the Yavin fire near misses against the Wild Karrde and Calamari, hoping to confuse the other ships' simple systems. It worked, and the two remaining Star Destroyers fell into escort position alongside the Yavin, reading its actions as those of a friendly ship. He readied the gunners for a sudden precision attack on a weak point in their shields and gave the order to fire. One was destroyed, but the last survived. Antilles took control of a turret himself and made the shot that destroyed the last capital ship, winning the battle in space.

On Almania, Organa Solo killed Kueller, and on the manufacturing planet Telti, R2-D2 disabled Kueller's detonation signal and drove off his confederate Brakiss. With the plot exposed, the New Republic was able to remove the bombs from the sabotaged droids and fighters, and the opposition to Organa Solo's administration was stifled as she returned to office. Antilles was once more hailed as a hero for his role in the mission.

In the wake of the rebuilt X-wing disaster, Antilles left his position as chief of staff and returned to command of Rogue Squadron. It was around this time that Antilles began a family, fathering a daughter around 17 ABY, named Syal for Antilles's missing sister. She was soon followed by Myri, another girl. Myri was named in reference to Antilles's close friend Mirax Terrik Horn, whom he had called Myra as a child. In 18 ABY, he and the other three pilots present at Adumar were interviewed for Hallis Saper's holodocumentary Adumar: Five Years of Union, about Adumar's planetary unification, entrance into the New Republic, and experiences since. They met aboard the Errant Venture as a group to share their experiences on the Adumar mission. Their recollections were recorded to be featured in the documentary, which proved an award-winning success.

In the same year, the New Republic was struck by yet another crisis as a massive interdiction field and powerful jamming isolated the Corellian system just as the Solos were on Corellia for a conference. Concurrent with the interdiction, New Republic Intelligence learned that a mysterious terrorist claimed to have destroyed one uninhabited star using a superweapon. The lightly populated Thanta Zilbra system was the next target. Rumors flew about the supposed superweapon, and about Organa Solo's status on Corellia. Though he was skeptical of the claim that yet another superweapon was in the hands of terrorists, Antilles was assigned to evacuate the planet Thanta Zilbra with a small fleet led by the Star Cruiser Naritus. He and the other Rogue Squadron pilots were among many flying evacuation missions, either escorting in a fighter or ferrying refugees in the ship's runabouts. When the system's star began to destabilize twelve hours before the threatened time of the supernova, all doubt about the threat evaporated. Aghast at the oncoming disaster, Antilles joined the mad rush to evacuate the entire system, flying nonstop rescue missions in an overstuffed runabout. With too few resources to evacuate the entire system, the population of which had been underestimated, Antilles was left shouting for clearance to make one more pickup as the fleet jumped into hyperspace just before the supernova erupted. The Naritus dropped out of hyperspace at a safe distance to observe the star's explosion via drones left behind. Antilles was at a loss as to how the New Republic would evacuate the next and yet more heavily populated target, Bovo Yagen, in time, but it did not come to that. Instead, the Solos, Skywalker, Calrissian, and Ackbar defeated Han Solo's Humanocentric cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo and his backers, the Sacorrian Triad, just in time.

End of the war
"Hey, you're the one who wanted to get back to the exciting life of an X-wing pilot, remember. You could have been safely flying a computer somewhere on Coruscant if you'd wanted.''" "''No, thanks. Tried it, didn't like it."

- Corran Horn and Wedge Antilles

In 19 ABY, the Rogues were assigned to the command of General Garm Bel Iblis, and Antilles was given command of Bel Iblis's starfighter complement. When Bel Iblis's flagship, the Dreadnaught-class heavy cruiser Peregrine was tasked to visit the planet Morishim's New Republic base, Antilles avoided the opening stage of the meetings with the planetary authorities and instead spent his time in Morishim's markets. There, he and Janson encountered Lando Calrissian and were soon found by Celchu, who shared the news that fresh information had surfaced implicating a group of Bothans of complicity in the destruction of the planet Caamas more than three decades beforehand. The news had reached Morishim via a Morish hermit in the Tatmana Mountains known as the Old Recluse, who claimed to know of events transpiring across the galaxy. Wondering if the Old Recluse might be a Force-sensitive, Antilles decided to investigate, and the four flew to the Old Recluse's cave. The elderly hermit demanded credits for his story, but Calrissian quickly realized that there was electronic equipment hidden in the cave and exposed the fact that the Old Recluse was using an old, secret Imperial communications center to gather his information.

Their attention was quickly redirected when Antilles noticed that the sensor station showed an Imperial corvette entering the system, soon joined by a Star Destroyer. The group scrambled and reported the contact to the base, which mustered its own starfighters. With the other starfighters behind them and the Peregrine on the other side of the planet, the three X-wings and Calrissian's luxury yacht, the Lady Luck were the first line of defense. They soon realized that the Star Destroyer was firing upon and jamming the corvette, and they moved to run interference for the ship, which they guessed to be attempting a defection. Once the corvette was disabled and tractored, Antilles gave up and backed his group out of range. He followed Calrissian's suggestion to dilute the Imperial jamming, allowing them to record fragments of the corvette's broadcast that were sent in for analysis.

Bel Iblis's fleet continued its patrol as the Caamas Document Crisis increased and worlds began taking positions on Bothan responsibility for Caamas's destruction, using the new dispute as an excuse to reignite old feuds. When stationed near Sif'kric, Bel Iblis received a distress call from the Sif'kries indicating that their Frezhlix rivals had imposed a blockade of the planet in the middle of the economically vital and brief period during which the pommwomm harvest was shipped to Sif'kric for processing before it spoiled. Rogue Squadron rushed there with the rest of the armada to find a standoff. The New Republic task force lacked legal authority to intervene, but Bel Iblis contacted Rogue Squadron and suggested that they begin a supposed inspection of a ship owned by Booster Terrik on suspicion of smuggling. Flying directly toward the Frezhlix formation, they spooked the blockading fleet into firing on the squadron. Even after orders from Bel Iblis to surrender, the Frezhlix attacked the New Republic fleet once more, provoking their destruction at the hands of the superior New Republic force.

While Bel Iblis and Antilles were reporting on the engagement to Ackbar, their comm connection went out. They discovered that the relay station at the planet Mengjini had been disabled by an attack from dissidents, which Antilles assumed were linked to the shadowy Vengeance movement growing around popular resentment of the Bothans. The fleet quickly left to restore order at Mengjini.

As dissent spread, the fleet found itself summoned to the planet Di'tai'ni so Bel Iblis could mediate a dispute. The general suspected that the call to the system had been a ploy to get him near Bothawui and had the Rogues sleep in their cockpits, ready to respond to a distress call. He was proven correct when Antilles awoke in the middle of the night to an alert that a force of Leresai was about to attack Bothawui. Rogue Squadron was scrambled before the rest of the fleet and so proceeded to the Bothawui system first. Antilles called on the large Leresen fleet to explain itself, and learned that the Leresai demanded the death of twenty Bothans in exchange for the deaths of two Leresai during a riot on Bothawui, satisfying Leresen law. Antilles tried to interpose Rogue Squadron between the fleet and its intended target, a small manufacturing space station outside Bothawui's planetary shields, but Corran Horn detected danger through the Force. Antilles's visual inspection showed that the Rogue fighters had been rigged with disabling charges should their strike foils be deployed to attack position or their lasers fired. Antilles could do nothing but watch as the fleet destroyed the space station, killing twenty-one Bothans, before the Peregrine arrived. Both Generals Antilles and Bel Iblis were furious at the manipulation and sabotage, especially when punishment of the Leresai was blocked in the Senate.

After that attack, governments began sending warships to Bothawui in a massive standoff over the issue, which was only exacerbated by reports that Grand Admiral Thrawn had returned to power in the Imperial Remnant. Bel Iblis and Antilles requested that Ackbar move the task force to Bothawui, where they could mediate and prevent an outburst of violence. Though the Mon Calamari wished he could approve it, the Senate refused to allow a New Republic presence over the world on the grounds that it would be interpreted as support of the Bothans. Instead, Ackbar assigned the task force to a raid on the Imperial Ubiqtorate base at the planet Yaga Minor in hopes of obtaining a complete copy of the Caamas Document, which would provide the names of the specific Bothans involved in the attack. Bel Iblis, unhappy at having to leave Bothawui in danger, used the technicality that Rogue Squadron was assigned to him personally, not to his task force, to order Antilles and Horn to remain on Bothawui while he took the task force and the rest of the squadron to Ord Trasi to prepare for the raid. He suspected that Vengeance would attempt to sabotage Bothawui's planetary shields and assigned the pair of pilots to root out any such plots.

Antilles and Horn arrived in Drev'starn, the capital of Bothawui, and immediately began a surveillance of the city's pole of the planetary shield array. While outside it, the pair were pickpocketed, but their wallets were quickly recovered by Moranda Savich, who approached them and identified herself as an employee of Talon Karrde's network. She had been assigned the same counter-espionage task, and though Antilles did not entirely trust her, he agreed to join forces with her.

Antilles tried to search the public records of incoming ships for suspect arrivals, but found too many bureaucratic hurdles to gaining access. At Savich's suggestion, they instead turned to searching the communications records for suspicious transmissions. They found three short, encrypted messages, strengthening their belief that someone was operating in Drev'starn, and began looking for new businesses as the likely cover for the operatives. That night, they stole the blueprints for the shield generator from the construction records office to check for vulnerabilities. Over the next four days, the group visited the shops established after the naval buildup began, as well as some located over the power conduit into the generator. When in the Exoticalia Pet Emporium, Antilles witnessed the owners receive a call from a high-security facility requesting their assistance in exterminating an infestation of metalmites. After the review of fifty locations, that site stood out as the most suspicious. They concluded that the infestation had been in the shield generator, but just as they made that decision Antilles and Horn received Bel Iblis's message calling them back to Ord Trasi. They departed immediately, leaving the matter in Savich's hands.

For the data raid, Bel Iblis planned to disguise Booster Terrik's Errant Venture as the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic, with himself aboard, in order to break into the base while the task force distracted the base's defenses with an attack on the perimeter. Antilles realized that Bel Iblis and Terrik had resigned themselves to the likelihood of death and made it a point for Rogue Squadron to get the Errant Venture back out of the base safely. When the battle began, Rogue Squadron stayed just out of the defenses' effective range with the rest of the attack force, but it soon became apparent that Thrawn had anticipated their actions, capturing the Errant Venture in an array of tractor beams. As the fleet moved in to save Bel Iblis, Talon Karrde contacted Antilles, having just arrived in the system. He asked Rogue Squadron to escort him through the New Republic lines, stating that he could end the battle if he could reach the Imperials. Seeing an opportunity to lead the Rogues through the Imperial lines in Wild Karrde wake, Antilles agreed. They penetrated the base's defenses, but shortly thereafter the battle ended when Thrawn called a cease-fire.

Karrde had brought Imperial Supreme Commander Pellaeon and a datacard proving that "Thrawn" had in fact been Flim, a con man backed by Moff Vilim Disra. Pellaeon exposed the power play, enabling him to go through with his plan to sign a peace treaty with the New Republic, which had been disrupted when his emissary was captured by Disra's agents at Morishim. Meanwhile, Savich failed to prevent the sabotage of Drev'starn's shields, and the Imperial Intelligence team provoked a battle between the pro- and anti-Bothan factions over the planet. The Solos, Calrissian, and interim New Republic President Ponc Gavrisom managed a resolution to the situation after the Remnant's hand in it was exposed. Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade returned from the Unknown Regions with a copy of the Caamas Document, obtained from a secret facility known as the Hand of Thrawn. There, in the Empire of the Hand that Thrawn had created to guard against the many threats within the Unknown Regions, Soontir Fel had taken service with his family after Thrawn had captured him. Fifteen days after the battle, the Pellaeon–Gavrisom Treaty brought an end to the war between the New Republic and Imperial Remnant.

In the Unknown Regions, Skywalker and Jade had become engaged. Antilles was happy to learn that his old friend had found lasting love and began preparing for his own role in the wedding, which was to be a major public affair. His first order of business was to throw a bachelor party for Skywalker by taking him to the notorious Red Rancor cantina with Solo, where several of Skywalker's friends surprised him. A swoop gang picked a fight with the group, provoking a massive bar brawl that the Jedi, smugglers, and Rogue pilots easily won. The next day, the men of the wedding party had their suits fitted and shared relationship advice.

When it came time for the event, Antilles and Solo spoke with their friend before the ceremony, sharing their experience with married life, before donning their suits. Just as the wedding was about to begin, Karrde approached the group with Banner Sumptor, who revealed that he had been a participant in an Imperialist plot to attack the wedding before having second thoughts. Antilles refused to let Skywalker hold off the wedding and instead gathered the Jedi and Rogue pilots from among the ushers to mount a defense, insisting his friend's ceremony go off without disruption while he handled the matter. He dispatched Horn and Kam Solusar to watch for a diversionary attack by a swoop gang, sent Chewbacca to guard the ventilation system, and assigned the late-arriving Janson and Klivian to guard the annex in which the children were staying during the ceremony. He, Celchu, and Gavin Darklighter guarded the main entrance, driving off all the swoopers. Despite his efforts, Moff Derran Takkar still infiltrated and disrupted the ceremony, threatening to release a computer virus. Skywalker managed to talk him down, and Antilles was able to participate as the event went forward smoothly afterward.

With the Galactic Civil War over, Antilles took the opportunity to retire from the military and enjoy life with his family on Coruscant, turning Rogue Squadron over to Celchu once more. Celchu retired shortly thereafter as well. With most of the long-term Rogues, including Janson, Klivian, and Horn, retired, Antilles and Celchu agreed that Gavin Darklighter was the appropriate choice as the next Rogue Leader. Confident he would make an excellent leader, they had a ring set with the Rogue Squadron crest, which Darklighter had designed, and the insignia of a colonel, the rank to which he was promoted. The pair of commanders took Darklighter out to a high-class restaurant to celebrate, where they presented him with the ring and discussed his new role and their pride in him as they welcomed him into the elite club of Rogue Leaders.

In the years afterward, Antilles remained ready to offer Darklighter advice and aid, helping guide him through the early transition as a friend and mentor. Though he was retired, Antilles maintained a wide network of friends within the military who kept him informed of most major developments. He turned his main attention to his private life, however, devoting himself to the family that he so loved. With Iella, he raised his daughters to think logically and express themselves clearly and maturely. In 24 ABY, Luke Skywalker recovered a Sith tome from Mount Tantiss and New Republic Intelligence subsequently expressed interest in the text. As a favor to Wedge and Iella, Skywalker agreed to allow NRI to review the book.