Capture of Even Piell/Legends

"So you have the coordinates for the Nexus Route?''" "''I got them all right&hellip;half of them, anyway. My captain's got the other half. I erased the computers when we were boarded and had both of us memorize part of the intel. That way, if somehow I cracked, the information would be useless to them without the other half."

- Anakin Skywalker and Even Piell

Around the second year of the Clone Wars, Jedi Master Even Piell and the crew of his Star Destroyer were captured by the Confederacy of Independent Systems. After discovering the coordinates of the strategic hyperlane known as the Nexus Route, Piell's forces were returning from the Outer Rim Territories when they came under attack by a fleet from the Confederate Navy. With their heavily damaged cruiser boarded by Separatist battle droids, Piell, Republic Navy Captain Wilhuff Tarkin, and their clone trooper personnel were taken into custody by the Separatists, who sought to pilfer Piell's findings on the Nexus Route. Unwilling to let Piell's Nexus Route intelligence fall into enemy hands, the Jedi Order subsequently launched a mission to rescue Piell from imprisonment in the highly secured Citadel prison before the Separatists could extract the valuable information from him.

Prelude
"He obtained the coordinates of a secret hyperspace lane known as the Nexus Route, which travels into the heart of both the Republic and Separatist homeworlds."

- Plo Koon, on Even Piell

As the Clone Wars raged across the galaxy between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, scouts and spies on both sides of the conflict worked to find new hyperspace navigation routes that would give their respective military an advantage in the war. Such was the case around 21 BBY, the second year of the war, when Jedi Master Even Piell of the Jedi High Council took a detachment of the Grand Army of the Republic's clone troopers on a perilous assignment in the Outer Rim Territories. There, Piell and his Republic Navy captain, Wilhuff Tarkin, obtained the coordinates of the Nexus Route, a strategic hyperlane that connected the Republic and Confederate homeworlds and was thus of immense value to both galactic powers. However, the Confederacy caught wind of Piell's discovery and launched a campaign to capture him and extract his findings on the Nexus Route.

The capture
While returning from the Outer Rim aboard their Venator-class Star Destroyer, General Piell's forces were assaulted by a Confederate Navy fleet comprising a Providence-class carrier/destroyer and a pair of Munificent-class star frigates. Directing turbolaser fire at Piell's Star Destroyer, the Confederate flotilla launched Hyena-class bombers and Vulture droid starfighters to assail the cruiser. Piell's crew returned laser cannon fire at one of the Separatist frigates, but the enemy warships deployed battle droids to board the embattled Republic Star Destroyer before Piell and Tarkin even had time to launch starfighter squadrons to counter the enemy droid starfighters. As the Separatist boarding party infiltrated the Republic cruiser, Piell erased his vessel's computer records to safeguard the Nexus Route intelligence, and he and Tarkin each memorized half of the information so that it would be harder for the Separatists to secure the data.

Shortly thereafter, B2 super battle droids&mdash;which had cut a path through the Star Destroyer's clone trooper defenses&mdash;arrived on the cruiser's command bridge, where Piell and several of his clone naval officers were monitoring the battle. Although Piell swiftly decimated the incoming droids with a Force-push, the arrival of shielded droidekas forced him and his crew to stand down to the Confederate forces.

Aftermath
Captured alive, Piell, Tarkin, and five of their clone trooper crew were incarcerated in the Citadel, a deadly detention center that had originally been designed for the confinement of fallen Jedi and had since been put to use by the Separatists. The Citadel's warden, Commander Osi Sobeck, tortured Piell in an effort to force him into surrendering the Nexus Route intelligence. After learning of Piell's incarceration, the Jedi Order commissioned a team to free Piell from the Citadel, with Jedi Generals Plo Koon, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker devising a strategy to infiltrate the fortress's stringent outer security. Once a plan had been agreed upon, Kenobi and Skywalker&mdash;with the unauthorized addition of the latter's Padawan, Ahsoka Tano&mdash;led an elite team of clone troopers to break into the Separatist prison and save Piell.

Behind the scenes
"Returning from a perilous assignment in the Outer Rim, Jedi Master Even Piell's cruiser has fallen under attack and been boarded. Seeking vital information he carries about secret hyperspace lanes called the Nexus Route, Separatist forces have taken him alive."

- The Newsreel for "The Citadel" introduces the battle

The space engagement featuring the capture of Even Piell was developed as a lead-in to "The Citadel," the eighteenth episode of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series' third season. "The Citadel" premiered on February 18, 2011 and featured the series' debut of Jedi Master Even Piell, a character first created for the 1999 Prequel trilogy film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Beyond being featured in the episode's brief "Newsreel" opening, the battle did not receive any further appearances beyond mentions in various source material that accompanied the episode. Because of a lack of information presented in the episode, a specific location for the battle cannot be determined.