Space Battle at Kuat

"This is the Kuat shipyard. We have come under Rebel attack. Requesting assistance.''" "This is the Tyranny''. Your satellite defenses should be adequate to deal with any rebel fleet. Activate them!"

- An Imperial shipyard officer being refused assistance from the captain of the Tyranny

The Space Battle at Kuat was an operation performed in 0 BBY by Captain Raymus Antilles to lure the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Tyranny away from the planet Fresia, where four prototype T-65 X-wing starfighters were being stored. During the battle, five CR90 corvettes, including the Sundered Heart commanded by Antilles, raided the Imperial shipyards orbiting Kuat, destroying multiple unfinished ships while the Imperials scrambled to rally reinforcements. The mission was a success for the Rebels, who withdrew into hyperspace soon after the Tyranny arrived.

Prelude
During the early days of the Galactic Civil War, the Galactic Empire decided to nationalize the independent Incom Corporation, as it had already done with other organizations before. However, much of the design and research teams of Incom strongly disagreed with this decision, to the point where many of them decided to defect to the Rebel Alliance in 0 BBY. It was through these defectors that the Rebellion learned of a facility on the planet Fresia holding the four prototypes of Incom's newest starfighter design: the T-65 starfighter, later known more commonly as the "X-wing" fighter.

In 0 BBY, the Rebel Alliance, in dire need of a new starfighter design to replace the aging Z-95 Headhunters that were in common use throughout the Rebellion at the time, dispatched a force led by Captain Raymus Antilles to secure the prototype X-wings from the Empire. However, when Antilles and his task force entered into the Fre'ji system, they dected the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Tyranny in orbit around Fresia. This caused a serious complication: with the Tyranny in orbit, the task force was unable to approach the planet.

The battle
"There's no way we're getting past that Star Destroyer. You'd think the Fresians would have warned us!''" "It's not their fault. The nationalization wasn't announced. The Emperor likes his surprises." "So what now?" "If the Tyranny is here, it's not at it's normal station&hellip; and the Tyranny is normally stationed at&hellip;" "Kuat! The Imperial shipyards?" "''Yes! I think we can get their attention&hellip;"

- The pilot of the Sundered Heart, speaking with Captain Raymus Antilles

Antilles, in his modified CR90 corvette, the Sundered Heart, led four flanking corvettes to perform a hit-and-run raid on the orbital shipyards of the planet of Kuat in order to lure the Tyranny from its new station at Fresia back to its usual station above Kuat. Many orbital resource containers were strewn around the half-constructed ships; they were easily destroyed and many of the shipyards were destroyed in the resulting explosions. During the battle, the Sundered Heart was able to weaken the attacking fighters, causing their weapons to become less effective.

The Tyranny belatedly returned to the area after much damage had already been done, originally refusing several times to respond to distress calls from the shipyard communications officer. When the last shipyard was destroyed, the officer activated Emergency Code Zero, which resulted in the Tyranny's return to Kuat. The small Rebel raiding force was able to escape, but not before causing damage to the Tyranny, whose commander had allowed the ship to come out of hyperspace with the shields down.

Aftermath
With the devastation of the Kuat shipyards and the damaging of the Tyranny, the Rebels believed that Fresia would be left unprotected, allowing them to raid the Incom facility. However, before the Tyranny had returned to Kuat, it had deployed numerous sentry drones to lock down the Fre'ji system in its absence. When the Rebels detected this, it seemed certain that the mission to retrieve the prototype X-wings would have to be canceled.

Fortunately for the Alliance, the protocol droid C-3PO was able to devise a plan that would allow the Rebels to slip past the Imperial defenses undetected. C-3PO proposed that they use his companion, the astromech droid R2-D2, to slice into an Imperial uplink station on the planet Wayland to register the Rebel ships into the log of participants in the Incom nationalization ceremony, so that when the Rebels arrived, they would be cleared to the surface of Fresia and not have to fight through the Imperial sentries stationed in orbit. Antilles agreed to this plan and immediately dispatched both C-3PO and R2-D2 to Wayland with a large ground force to escort them.

Behind the scenes
The Space Battle at Kuat is the first mission of the Rebel campaign in Star Wars: Empire at War, a PC video game developed by Petroglyph and published by LucasArts in 2006. The mission is the first in a series of three missions that lead to the acquisition of T-65 X-wing starfighters for use by the Rebellion. The battle was first identified as the "Space Battle at Kuat" in the game's official guide published by Prima Games.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Empire at War

Notes and references
Schlacht von Kuat (0 VSY) Primera Batalla de Kuat