Battle of Tirahnn (Clone Wars)

The Battle of Tirahnn was a battle that was fought on the planet Tirahnn during the Clone Wars.

Prelude
During the Clone Wars, the Confederacy of Independent Systems captured Tirahnn, a planet that was located on the Perlemian Trade Route. Over the next few months, the CIS used their control of Tirahnn to disrupt Republic trade and supply routes in the region. The Jedi Council decided to retake the planet, so they sent a taskforce under the command of Jedi Master Ezar Elasra to retake the world. The Separatists had sent a fleet to defend the planet, so Elasra realized that a direct attack would cost a lot lives. He instead came up with an alternative plan, to send a strike team to reactivate a planetary ion cannon that was located on Tirahnn and then launch a surprise attack on the Separatist fleet. With a large proportion of the fleet disabled, Elasra's fleet would then enter the system and engage the surviving CIS ships, before launching a ground assault to retake the planet.

Elasra summoned a group of Republic agents to his Venator-class Star Destroyer, the Solidarity, and assigned them the task of reactivating the ion cannon. The agents were to be transported to Tirahnn in a LAAT/s, along with 6 clone troopers and 4 clone commandos. While the agents were reactivating the cannon, which was located in the planets capital city, Tirahnn; the troopers were to guard the transport; while the commandos infiltrated and sabotaged the main Separatist base on the planet.

Mission to Tirhann
The troopers, commandos and agents left the rest of the taskforce in the LAAT/s and traveled to Tirahnn. The ship passed through the CIS blockade without detection, but due to unforeseen weather patterns, was forced the crash land on the planet. An escaped roggwart, a dangerous creature from the planet Vendaxa, attacked the crash survivors, as it was looking for something to eat. The troopers killed the creature and then hauled i's body away and set about disguising the area of the battle and the trail left by the LAAT/s when it crashed.

The troops then began preparing themselves for their assignments. The commandos unloaded and assembled their BARC speeder bikes and Commander Husk, the leader of the commandos, gave the agents a holoprojector which contained a map of the surrounding area. He also told the agents that if the set out straight away, they would arrive at the city just before dawn, making it easier for them to avoid the sentries that the CIS had posted there. The clone troopers unloaded as much equipment as they could carry and set off to establish an encampment nearby, where they could remain until the Republic began it’s ground assault on Tirahnn. As a final act, one of the commandos rigged the dropship with explosives and blew it up, to prevent the CIS from learning any sensitive information from it.

After making their way to the capital city, the agents began to try and located Commander Zolghast, the commander of the Separatist forces on Tihrann, as he was the only person who had access to the ion cannon's firing codes. They learned the location of the bunker where he was staying and after assaulting the facility, they captured Zolghast and obtained a code cylinder that contained the firing codes. The agents also discovered a secret tunnel that connected the bunker to a secret entrance to the ion cannon. They traveled to the entrance and once inside, attacked a number of battle droids that were defending the facility. Eventually, they found the control center, entered the firing codes and activated the cannon, which started firing on the Separatist fleet, beginning the battle.

While the agents had been activating the ion cannon, the commandos had also been largely successful in their mission and had sabotage the Confederacy's vehicle depot.

The battle
As soon as the ion cannon began firing, Master Elasra's fleet emerged from hyperspace near to the planet, to begin attacking the Separatist fleet. The Confederacy responded by dispatching a team of droids to place explosives on the roof of the ion cannon and destroy it, so the agents went to try and stop them.

Republic forces began to land on Tirhann and encountered light resistance, due the commandos' sabotage. However, a small force of Separatist tanks had survived and began to make their way through Tirhann city towards the Republic troops. About 30 minutes after the battle had began, the crew of the Solidarity contacted the agents and ordered them to connect the cannon's main computer to the Solidarity, so that the weapon could be controlled from the ship. Elasra then spoke to the agents via a hologram and told them that the Separatist tanks were probably going to reach the Republic troops before artillery could be deployed to counter them. He then tasked the agents with placing homing beacons on each tank, so that the Republic fleet could fire on them from space. Elasra also sent a group of clone troopers to collect Zolghast from the agents and transport the commander to the Solidarity.

The agents ambushed the group of tanks, which was made up of four Ground Armored Tanks, that were defended by battle droids on Single Trooper Aerial Platforms. The attack was a success and the Solidarity opened fire on the tanks, destroying them all. The battle began to turn in the favor of the Republic and the clone commandos succeeded in cutting off one of the Separatists' main lines of retreat. Husk then contacted the agents via comlink and asked them to cut off the Confederacy's secondary path, by destroying a bridge.

Up on the Solidarity, Elasra left the ship in an Delta-7 Aethersprite-class light interceptor, to lead a squadron of V-19 Torrent starfighters in the space battle. However, at the same time, the Confederacy sent the Clawdite spy Braxus Lyn to rescue Zolghast before he could be transported to the Solidarity, and then bring him out of the warzone. Lyn disguised herself as Elasra and freed Zolghast, then began to prepare her shuttle so that they could depart the planet. One of the clone commanders began to grow suspicious, as he had participated in the Battle of Brentaal IV, where Jedi Master Quinlan Vos had defected to the Confederacy, so he suspected that Elasra was doing the same thing and sent the agents to stop Zolghast from escaping.

Aftermath
The Republic liberated Tirhann and although they incurred some losses, the battle was largely a success. Elasra thanked the agents for their assistance during the battle.

Behind the scenes
The Battle of Tirahnn was created for the Wizards of the Coast source book Galaxy at War, where it was the subject of a role-playing scenario titled Operation First Breach.