User:Master Jonathan/Wedge Antilles/3

Rebuilding the Rogues
"After seven years of nonstop fighting, the leadership of the New Republic decided to rebuild and revitalize this unit. This was a wise choice because all of us&mdash;those who had survived&mdash;had seen a lot of new pilots come into Rogue Squadron and get killed in Rogue Squadron. [&hellip;] Rogue Squadron had become a symbol for the Alliance. It needed to live up to its legend and become once again an elite group of pilots who could be called upon to do the sort of impossible jobs Rogue Squadron has always managed to complete."

- Wedge Antilles, to the new Rogue Squadron pilots

Sometime after the Battle of Mindor, Celchu was sent on a spy mission to Coruscant. There, he was captured, removing Antilles's valued executive officer and best friend from the unit. Antilles was heartbroken at the capture of a man who had become like a brother to him. Later in 5 ABY, Rogue Squadron was officially disbanded, as its heavy losses had persuaded New Republic High Command that the squadron needed to be rebuilt with a fresh roster of heavily trained pilots who could survive the squadron's taxing missions. Klivian and Janson were assigned as training officers, while Antilles's celebrity status was put to use on a publicity and diplomatic tour celebrating the New Republic's victories. Antilles found the circuit of state dinners, public events, and receptions astounding, especially the gifts and opportunities that came with it.

Celchu then returned to the New Republic after escaping from prison on the planet Akrit'tar. He immediately came under suspicion, though, as before being transferred to Akrit'tar, he had been housed in Lusankya. Lusankya was Ysanne Isard's personal prison, known to turn out brainwashed double agents who were undetectable until they turned against Isard's enemies. Captain Celchu was therefore kept from regular duties and the victim of constant scrutiny and mistrust. Antilles was among the few who earnestly protested his innocence, believing that Celchu had not been turned by Isard and that his harsh treatment by his own government was disgraceful.

In 6 ABY, as the New Republic began pressing for control of Coruscant, Antilles was summoned from his propaganda tour to implement the plan to rebuild Rogue Squadron. Overseen by Ackbar and General Horton Salm, Antilles recruited, trained, and tested a slate of pilots. Beginning with over one thousand, he slowly whittled them down to a roster of eleven, with the addition of an experienced executive officer to the squad of relatively green pilots. He had wanted to include Klivian and Janson in the unit, but they could not be transferred from their training duties. At Folor Base, he trained his pilots relentlessly, seeking to find the best of the New Republic's flight officers and incorporate skills outside the cockpit suitable for the Rogues' variegated mission profile, and often clashed with Salm, who commanded the facility and preferred stricter discipline than did Antilles. Political considerations played a part in the unit's formation, with representatives from both the Zaltin and Xucphra halves of the vital Bacta Cartel of Thyferra: Bror Jace and Erisi Dlarit, respectively. Antilles had no real say in the appointment of half his squadron, as higher powers insisted that the Thyferrans, Bothan Peshk Vri'syk, and others join the squadron.

Jace and Corran Horn were the top pilots of the group. As a result, Antilles wanted to keep them from getting too cocky, and for one of the last simulations before he declared the final eleven, Antilles engaged Celchu to shoot up Horn in simulator exercises. Antilles saw leadership potential in Horn if only the reserved man, a former Corellian Security officer who had lost all his family and friends, could come out of his shell. Antilles intended the outgoing Lujayne Forge to help bond the unit together socially and integrate Horn; as she did so, Antilles added her to the final roster despite her piloting skills being among the weakest of the accepted pilots. Gavin Darklighter, the sixteen-year-old cousin of Biggs Darklighter, was also in contention after approaching Antilles and requesting a place in the squadron. Antilles felt an obligation to the young cousin of his deceased friend and saw great potential in Darklighter, adding him to the final group.

When Antilles sent in his final roster, his superiors made changes. Antilles reported to Ackbar and Salm in order to argue for two reversions to his original choices. His first was a desire to place Darklighter, who had been replaced with Deegan, in the squadron. Despite Salm's protestations that Darklighter was too young for the elite unit, Antilles successfully argued that his youth was no obstacle and played the political card that Deegan would be the squadron's third Corellian, besides himself and Horn, over-representing the planet. Salm acceded but fully opposed Antilles on his original pick for executive officer, Celchu. Salm's pick, Captain Aril Nunb, was a talented officer and politically valuable, but Antilles knew that it would be difficult for her to help teach his pilots the skills that came to her instinctively as a Sullustan. Antilles presented a list of concessions he had negotiated with Celchu, including keeping him out of combat, installing a self-destruct in his training Headhunter, the imposition of house arrest, and constant surveillance. Astounded by Celchu's drive to contribute to the New Republic in any capacity, Ackbar agreed.

With Celchu as his executive officer, the Verpine Zraii as his crew chief, and the droid M-3PO assigned as his administrative assistant, Antilles welcomed the eleven pilots who now made up Rogue Squadron with him. Former lawyer Nawara Ven, Gand Findsman Ooryl Qrygg, Rhysati Ynr, Riv Shiel, and Rodian hunter Andoorni Hui rounded out the group. After the selection, the training regimen only intensified as Antilles and Celchu whipped the recruits into fighting shape. Antilles kept Celchu's restrictions from his pilots, seeking for the executive officer to have his squadron's trust and considering the matter Celchu's business to disclose. The commander appreciated having assistance with administrative matters, but loathed interacting with the fussy, literal-minded military protocol droid M-3PO, which he considered obnoxious and tiresome. For the exercises, Zraii fully refurbished Antilles's longtime fighter, and the Rogue commander was issued a new astromech, R5-D2, nicknamed "Mynock" for its tendency to screech in battle.

For the first exercise, Antilles sent the pilots through a ground shooting range in the canyon designated the Trench. He sent Horn and his wingmate Qrygg first and was inspired to send Horn's telemetry back to the other fighters, allowing them to surpass his scores in their later runs. For the others, it was training in using others' telemetry to set up attack runs; for Horn, it was a lesson in cooperation and an attempt to blunt his ego and competitive streak. After the exercise, an indignant Horn confronted Antilles, accusing the commander of making him a laughingstock and treating him unfairly. Antilles sharply rebuked him for egotism and insisted that Horn would accept the lessons that he needed to be a Rogue pilot, or he could leave the squadron. Chastened, Horn admitted his error. Further exercises included a staged attack on Salm's training wing of Warden, Champion, and Guardian Squadrons, in which the Rogues did incredibly well. Though Salm continued to be annoyed by the Rogues' favored treatment, Ackbar was impressed with the squadron, which was performing as well as some field squadrons. Under pressure from the New Republic Provisional Council, he activated it within a month of the finalization of its roster, months fewer than was standard.

Trial by fire
"Someone in the Empire struck at one of my forward bases. If we don't strike back, and strike back hard, they might feel emboldened to continue such activity. I don't want this to happen. General Salm's bomber wing should be sufficient for exacting retribution.''" "If you want Rogue Squadron to fly cover for such a mission, you have us." "''That was the reaction I expected from you, Commander."

- Ackbar and Wedge Antilles

Though Antilles objected to the activation, not even having begun hyperspace jump training, Ackbar posted the Rogues to the planet Talasea. There they would help cover the New Republic's push toward Coruscant. Antilles promoted Horn to lieutenant and gave him command of Three Flight and Rhysati Ynr command of Two Flight as he prepared to activate the squadron. For security reasons, the move to Talasea was presented as a navigation drill and the final destination kept secret. During a jump through the Chorax system, an interdictor unexpectedly pulled the squadron from hyperspace. Its original target had been smugglers, and it had managed to catch Mirax Terrik's Pulsar Skate. Antilles commanded the squadron to aid her and led a missile barrage that drove off the interdictor Black Asp.

The Pulsar Skate conveyed Horn's fighter, disabled in the battle, to Talasea. When Terrik and Horn met each other on the ground, they began to fight, as Horn's father had been the Corellian Security agent who had caught and imprisoned Booster Terrik on Kessel. Antilles told them both to set aside their fathers' rivalry and praised each to the other. After arranging for M-3PO to see about retaining many of the supplies Terrik was carrying, Antilles had to deal with Horn's suspicious inquiries as to why Celchu's shuttle, the Forbidden, was unarmed and Celchu seemed to be subject to security restrictions. The commander specified that the matter was for Horn to take up with Celchu, but counseled him to leave it and warned him against sharing his misgivings with the rest of the squadron. Privately, he also counseled Horn that he thought he and Terrik would get along well together and encouraged them to develop a friendship.

When New Republic operative Dirk Harkness's frigate Battle of Yavin grounded itself on the planet Hensara III to escape the Strike Cruiser Havoc, the Havoc deployed ground forces to search for the ship, but left the system. In response, the Rogues were sent to drive off the Imperial troops and protect the Pulsar Skate and CR90 corvette Eridain as they extracted Harkness's crew and ship. Antilles left only Horn's flight in orbit to cover them, but had to rush the Rogues into space when the Havoc returned to the system mid-operation. They trounced the Havoc thirty-six TIEs and prompted the cruiser to flee, taking no casualties.

In the celebration on Talasea afterward, Antilles, Celchu, and Captain Afyon of the Eridain were called on to adjudicate a good-natured dispute among the pilots as to what punishment to give Darklighter, judged the worst pilot of the unit because he had not gotten any kills in the engagement. Horn stood up to Jace's teasing of Darklighter and made clear his confidence in the young pilot, engineering a compromise that saved face for Darklighter. Antilles was pleased to see that Horn was taking a leadership role and bonding with his fellow pilots, none of whom liked Jace.

One night, Imperial stormtroopers executed a commando mission against the Talasea base. Having discovered the location, they began rigging thermal detonators to destroy the barracks and flight center. Horn and Qrygg detected the intruders first and woke the others. Antilles organized the pilots&mdash;the only line of defense with their guards dead&mdash;while Horn pressed to the hangar where most of the stormtroopers were placing charges. Horn was shot, but Antilles killed the stormtrooper about to execute the flight leader. They killed or captured the platoon of Imperials and disarmed the charges, then evacuated to the fleet. Antilles organized the withdrawal to the Nebulon-B frigate, Reprieve, setting up booby traps in the base, and oversaw the imprisonment and interrogation of the captives. Horn, Darklighter, and Andoorni Hui were all wounded and had to spend time in bacta, but the well-liked Lujayne Forge became the new squadron's first casualty, killed in her bed. The squadron was deeply demoralized by the loss.

Antilles met with Ackbar and Salm about a retaliatory strike. The autopsy of the killed stormtroopers revealed that the forces had originated on the planet Vladet, and Ackbar planned a strike on the base. The Rogues were assigned to cover Salm's Defender Wing as the Y-wings leveled the Vladet base on Grand Isle. Antilles held a memorial service for Forge with a squadron suffering from its first grief, then moved to take revenge. Antilles provided escort for Champion and Guardian Squadrons, leaving Horn's half-strength Three Flight in reserve with Warden Squadron, as they blew their way through the edge of the volcanic crater in which the base was situated. Antilles was first into the base's airspace, under its shield, and with his pilots downed the TIE defenses. The Y-wings then entered and began bombarding the base, but as they did so a Lancer-class frigate and Carrack-class cruiser arrived. The Lancer-class, designed to take on starfighters, presented a daunting threat, while the Carrack outclassed the Eridain and led the Republic ship to withdraw. Salm intended to cover the fighters' withdrawal by attacking the Lancer with Champion Squadron, but Antilles knew the Y-wings could never survive and insisted the Rogues tackle the frigate. Horn devised a tactic in which Warden Squadron would target his X-wing with proton torpedoes while Horn interposed the Lancer between himself and the Y-wings, allowing the fighter-bombers to stand off and still destroy the frigate. Antilles was set on performing the deed himself, but Horn, already nearest, insisted on doing it and took off without authorization. Antilles accepted it and prepared to make his own run with the Champions if Horn failed, but the hot-shot pilot succeeded, destroying the frigate Ravager.

The door to Coruscant
"This isn't a Death Star we're going after, and this mission doesn't have that sense of urgency. That's because back then we were fighting for the very survival of the Rebellion. The fact is, though, this mission is just as important as either of the Death Star runs. This time we're fighting for the future of the Rebellion and all the people who want freedom from the Empire. That's a lot less immediate than what we fought for in the old days, but in many ways it's far more noble a goal. This mission isn't going to be easy, but I know we can do it."

- Wedge Antilles, to his pilots

In the aftermath of the battle, Horn was confined to quarters for disobeying orders, and Salm was considering initiating a court-martial against him. Antilles hoped to persuade the general to let the matter go, and when Terrik arrived, he urged her to visit Horn and make up for their argument with a package of Corellian goods. Summoned to a briefing that included Ackbar and Salm, Antilles intended to argue for Horn, but received no chance before the briefing began. In it, General Laryn Kre'fey explained his plan to take a planet codenamed Blackmoon, which would give the New Republic a route to Coruscant. The Rogues were assigned to screen Defender Wing from TIEs while it bombed the Imperial base after the captured Star Destroyer Emancipator brought down the shields. Antilles was uncomfortable with the mission, believing Kre'fey had not fully thought it through or done enough intelligence work. Ackbar had similar doubts about the plan, and ordered Kre'fey to put additional work into it. Salm agreed to drop charges against Horn after the meeting, feeling Horn would be needed in the assault.

The Rogues were transferred to the planet Noquivzor, where they spent two weeks preparing for the attack with Defender Wing. When the time came for the attack, Antilles jumped into the system and waited for the Emancipator to overwhelm the base's shields. When it did so, Kre'fey called off Defender Wing's run, believing there to be no resistance, and ordered Rogue Squadron to escort the landing craft to the surface. Before they got there, the base's ion cannon began firing, the shield was brought back online, and two squadrons of TIEs launched, displaying resources Kre'fey had not observed. Antilles lost his wingman, Peshk Vri'syk, to ion cannon fire, and the battle turned into a disaster from there, as Hui was killed; Ven, Qrygg, and Erisi Dlarit had their fighters shot from beneath them; and Riv Shiel was wounded. Antilles ordered the Rogues to stay and protect the extra-vehicular pilots while Celchu flew the unarmed shuttle Forbidden into the area and retrieved them. With the aid of Salm's pilots, they successfully covered the rescue and were able to retreat, among the last forces to leave the battlefield.

Back on Noquivzor, Antilles was going over the mission's failure with Salm when Horn and Lieutenant Judder Page of the Katarn Commandos interrupted. Horn's astromech, Whistler, had used its data-collection abilities to learn Blackmoon's identity&mdash;Borleias&mdash;and discover the source of the extra power and extra TIEs that had turned the mission into a rout. The Imperial base's commanding officer, General Evir Derricote, had used the abandoned Alderaan Biotics facility on the planet in a private black-market operation, and from it the extra interceptor squadrons were based and the power was routed. Antilles worked with Horn, Salm, Page, and Whistler over the next week to devise a plan for a second strike at Borleias. They were able to find a weak point in the power transmission system, a conduit through a rift valley where the line was exposed to attack. Antilles and Salm proposed a plan to Ackbar in which the Rogues would strike at the conduit, Page's commandos would slip in through the exposed tunnel to capture the bases, and the Emancipator would be used in a plot to draw away the Star Destroyer Eviscerator, which they had learned was in position to move on Borleias and disrupt the attack. Ackbar agreed to the plan, with some modifications.

With only six working fighters and an escape window that would be very limited, Antilles called for volunteers from his pilots. Horn agreed, but insisted on being Antilles's wingman for the first run. Antilles's flight-mates Ven and Jace filled out the rest of the group with Ynr and Darklighter. After intense practice for the attack, Antilles was seen off by Terrik, who had developed a budding friendship with Horn. The Rogues entered the Pyria system, using Borleias's moon and a meteor shower for cover as they approached the planet. Antilles and Horn began their run through the rift valley while the other X-wings covered them from Borleias's TIEs. They were pursued by two TIEs; Antilles shot one down, while Horn destroyed the other by jettisoning his faulty, punctured auxiliary fuel pod, which put Horn dangerously low on fuel. They missed their first run against the conduit, leading Antilles to order Horn to return to base. With the other fighters too busy dogfighting to make their own passes, the commander made another try. He destroyed the Juggernaut assault vehicle guarding the line, then destroyed the connection.

While leaving, however, Horn had detected and destroyed two interceptors making a pass against one of Page's shuttles. Horn was without enough fuel to make it back to Noquivzor, so Antilles ordered the lieutenant to hide on the dark side of the moon while the Rogues decoyed the Borleias TIEs across the bright side, returned to Noquivzor, and came back with aid. They fled, thinning the ranks of interceptors by ten in the process, but found no need to return. On emerging from hyperspace, Antilles received a message from Horn purporting to be an in-case-of-death recording. It soon became clear that it was a prank; Horn was already on Noquivzor thanks to the speedier hyperdrive of the Pulsar Skate. Terrik had identified a possible security leak from M-3PO's trade lists, which projected the availability of Alderaan Biotics products, and left with Celchu to make sure there was no trap. There they had been in position to rescue Horn. Instead of urgently preparing to return to Borleias, Antilles instead celebrated with his comrades.

After the battle, Jace departed for Thyferra, sent to visit his dying great-uncle. He was reported dead after an ambush on his route home by the Black Asp. The loss of yet another talented pilot burdened the longtime Rogue Leader. The Rogues spent a month stationed on Borleias before Antilles gained replacements for his diminished squadron. Captain Aril Nunb, the prior executive officer candidate, transferred into the unit as a flight leader and Antilles's second-in-command among the active pilots. Captain Pash Cracken, a noted A-wing group leader, accepted a demotion to lieutenant to join the squadron, explaining to Antilles that his men had constructed a myth of invincibility around him and he needed to get out of that environment and into a unit in which he could fully evaluate his skills.

The conquest of Coruscant
"Corran, you did it.''" "I just aimed, Wedge, you sliced the victory together." "''We can argue who gets stuck with credit later."

- Wedge Antilles and Corran Horn

Ackbar ordered Antilles to sit in on Provisional Council planning sessions for the operation to take Coruscant. Antilles attended the deliberations on Noquivzor, where Ackbar's plan of a blockade was dismissed as too costly to civilians and too lengthy in execution. After a break in which Antilles visited with his close friend Leia Organa and with Airen Cracken, head of New Republic Intelligence and Pash Cracken's father, Antilles returned to consulting with Ackbar and Salm. As Ackbar wished, they conceded the blockade and proposed Ackbar's real plan the next day, having gained political capital by demonstrating a willingness to compromise in the face of heavy opposition from Ackbar's opponent and the Council's greatest political intriguer, Councilor Borsk Fey'lya. Ackbar proposed infiltrating the Rogues onto Coruscant. As military experts, they could collect data on the planet's defenses and devise a scheme to sabotage the planetary shields that made an assault so difficult. Fey'lya agreed to it, but appended his own plan to remove convicts from the prisons of Kessel and insert Black Sun operatives on Coruscant to disrupt the Empire's operations. Neither Antilles nor Ackbar cared for the proposal, but the Provisional Council agreed to it.

Rogue Squadron was assigned to handle the mission to Kessel, taking the dangerous Black Sun prisoners off the warden's hands in exchange for the release of political prisoners. Antilles had the Rogues and Katarn Commandos capture Kessel's Garrison Moon, then secured a landing zone where he, Horn, and Ven handled the transfers and from which freed prisoners were shuttled to the Garrison Moon. Before Antilles fully entered negotiations with Moruth Doole, a paranoid, high-strung Rybet in command of the prison system and its attendant spice-mining operation, Lujayne Forge's parents arrived. Antilles offered Kassar and Myda Forge transport from the world, but they refused, preferring to remain on the world educating prisoners as they had for much of their lives. They did, however, agree to help Ven point out additional political prisoners whom the Rogues should attempt to free in exchange for taking the dangerous Black Sun kingpins offplanet. The first prisoner freed was Zekka Thyne, a half-Human Corellian crime lord Horn had himself captured. Horn despised Thyne, and Antilles had no great desire to set him free, but agreed to the deal. Kassar Forge, however, informed Antilles that his daughter, Inyri Forge, was Thyne's girlfriend, released with him. Antilles offered to separate her from the criminal, but Kassar, as much as it pained him, refused to prevent Inyri from making her own choices in life. Antilles freed fifteen more Black Sun operatives in exchange for one hundred fifty political prisoners before making an additional ransom: getting Doole to relinquish ex-Moff Fliry Vorru, a noted player in late Republic and early Imperial politics who Horn thought could keep Thyne and the others under control.

After their return to Noquivzor, where the unit was once more based, Antilles handed out the assignments for the infiltration of Coruscant. The pilots were set to land on the world piecemeal, with the largest group smuggled onto the capital by Terrik. None of them, except Antilles, knew that there were more pilots being inserted, and even he did not know the others' covers. Suspecting that it was all too easy for operational security to be compromised, he believed he needed a personal backup. Despite the security concerns surrounding his executive officer, Antilles risked much in arranging for Celchu and M-3PO to find their way onto Coruscant secretly, reporting only to him while the droid Whistler maintained the fiction that they remained on Noquivzor. Antilles himself was disguised as Colonel Antar Roat, purportedly a TIE pilot disfigured and forced to accept cybernetics, bound for reconstructive surgery on Coruscant aboard the liner Jewel of Churba. With him was Pash Cracken in the guise of Prefect Parin Dodt. The pair met up on landing, where they were picked up by New Republic Intelligence agent Iella Wessiri, whom Antilles recognized as Horn's former Corellian Security partner.

Antilles, Cracken, and Wessiri began their mission of assessing the population's loyalty to the Empire. Antilles decided that the best way would be to tour the public facilities of the Empire, so they spent a week in halls, landmarks, and museums. Antilles determined that loyalty to the Empire was not flagging, but neither was it overwhelming; he thought that if the New Republic were to seize the planet, its citizens would support the new government. While leaving the Galactic Museum, Antilles was approached by Terrik, whose departure had been compromised. Wessiri guided them to a safehouse, where Winter, also on Coruscant, was summoned to debrief them. They were speaking when Antilles noticed a firefight outside the window, and shoved their sofa over backward just in time to save them from a speeder bike that crashed into the room.

Antilles moved out of that safehouse and into another. While there, he received a message from Ackbar stating that the Warlord Zsinj had bombarded the base on Noquivzor, killing many of the unit's support staff. Celchu was thought among the dead. Ackbar also issued orders that the Rogues were to find a way to sabotage the planet's shields to allow a swift New Republic attack. A few days later, he met with Horn, who had been working with Winter and who had actually been the one to send the speeder bike veering into the safehouse while fleeing Thyne's men. Horn had insisted that he had vital news Antilles needed to hear; he explained that he had seen Tycho Celchu meeting with Imperial Intelligence agent Kirtan Loor, Horn's personal nemesis from his Corellian Security days, in the Headquarters bar. Antilles told Horn that Celchu had been killed in the Noquivzor attack, putting his fears aside. When Antilles asked Celchu about it, the captain reported that it had been a Duros smuggler, Lai Nootka, with whom he had met, and Antilles believed him. The commander moved to briefing the entire squadron, short of the missing Aril Nunb, assembled along with support from the Black Sun faction and the anti-Imperial Alien Combine, about the new assignment to prepare to take Coruscant. They brainstormed ideas to bring the shields down, focusing on access to the planet's main computer, from which the shielding system was controlled. They hit upon a scheme to use the Alien Combine's access to the manufacturing facility for memory cores to slice the programming of some of the cores to give the New Republic access.

Antilles set up a compartmentalized program to put the plan in motion and keep Imperial Intelligence from detecting the true plan. Among the pieces in his plan were Celchu and M-3PO, who secretly arranged for the purchase of a flight of Headhunters and other supplies. Some two weeks later, Antilles led Cracken, Darklighter, and a Trandoshan Alien Combine member named Portha in delivering the rigged cores to a technician who picked them up from the warehouse. When Portha dropped and damaged the one sliced core that technician had selected, Antilles used an old smuggler's trick to force the choice of a replacement core that was likewise sliced. The deception came to naught, however, when the Imperials launched an ambush. Antilles had set up defenses in the warehouse, but they were insufficient to defend against the large body of stormtroopers; their lookouts, controlled by Thyne, had sold them out. In desperation, the commander called in Celchu and fled with his team through Coruscant's cityscape, under constant Imperial pursuit. Celchu, in one of the Headhunters, arrived just in time to kill the opposition, and the Rogues made their escape in a repulsorcraft piloted by M-3PO.

Horn and Terrik had escaped separately, connecting with Inyri Forge. On returning to Thyne, they had discovered his treachery and, betrayed, Forge shot him dead. Regretting her affiliation with the criminal, she turned her attention to Antilles's New Republic team. Antilles needed all the aid he could find, as during his escape Ackbar had issued orders for the Rogues to have the shields down in two days. Antilles moved to planning a new strategy, despite Horn's agitation once he discovered that it had been possible Celchu had been meeting with Loor. Darklighter proposed that they stir up a large storm, easily done in Coruscant's agitated, complex atmosphere, to weaken the shields and knock out power stations. Asyr Sei'lar, a Bothan agent and leader in the Alien Combine, suggested redirecting one of the Orbital Solar Energy Transfer Satellites to vaporize a water reservoir. Horn further refined the plan by advocating they hijack a nearby construction droid and point it at Subsidiary Computer Center Number Four, causing its evacuation and allowing them access to the controls for the orbital mirrors without interference. Antilles approved the plan. As he had broken his ribs in the escape from the warehouse, Antilles was not fit to fly and assigned himself to the construction droid capture team with Wessiri, Terrik, and M-3PO. Winter, Celchu, Darklighter, Qrygg, and Forge he assigned to seize the subsidiary computer center; the rest of the Rogues, minus the ill Shiel and Ven and with the addition of Sei'lar, were to fly cover for the mission in the Headhunters Celchu had bought.

They soon moved out, Antilles and the pair of women disguising themselves as Imperial officers. In the guise of Colonel Antar Roat, Antilles arrived on the massive construction droid, insisting to the droid's crew that he was performing a security inspection. They quickly took control of the droid, reorienting it and causing the whole area to be evacuated. Celchu summoned the group to the computer center, where they needed the droid to enter the control room, which had been flooded with poisonous Fex-M3d gas. Antilles's crew was pinned down by an E-Web heavy repeating blaster, though, and could not get to them. As it turned out, the Gand Qrygg did not need to breathe, and as the gas was not a contact poison, he entered the room and retrieved breath masks that allowed the others to pull off the mission. Horn eliminated the gun in his Headhunter, allowing Antilles's group to escape the droid and rendezvous with the computer center detachment.

The plan went off as the enormous storm overtaxed the power system, but on the collapse of the inner of Coruscant's two rings of shields a new power grid activated, reinforcing the outer shields. They were able to map one of the newly active substations, which Antilles tasked Horn to destroy. When an initial concussion missile strike did not penetrate, Antilles devised the idea to use his computer control to slave the TIE Interceptor pursuing Horn to his final missile launch. The combined strike of the missiles and the fighter destroyed the substation and deactivated the shields mere seconds before the New Republic fleet's arrival. Antilles turned his attention to the greater battle. Seeing a Golan III defense platform taking a toll on the fleet, he was struck with the idea to focus the power of the mirror he controlled against the Golan, burning through and disabling it. When Horn investigated an anomaly no one else detected, his controls froze, and Antilles watched in horror as the fighter plummeted, striking a deserted building. Furious at losing a pilot and friend, he rushed the Rogues to the scene, but could not find Horn's body, even after the New Republic took full control of Coruscant.

Plague and prosecution
"This is wrong, and you know it. After all we've fought for, to get to this point and arrest someone who's risked his life time and again for the Rebellion on evidence that's circumstantial at best is a crime itself. A crime worthy of the Empire.''" "No, Commander Antilles, you're wrong. The Empire would have snatched Celchu, broken him down until he confessed, then they would have killed him. He would have disappeared and no one would have dared ask about him. That's how the Empire would have handled it. The way we will handle it is to have a trial and assess innocence or guilt publicly, openly, aboveboard, so there is no question about justice being done or not. That, sir, is exactly what we fought for. You know it, and you know there's no other way to handle this situation." "''You're correct, of course, General. We did fight for justice. The pity is, even in victory, justice still eludes those who deserve it the most."

- Wedge Antilles and Airen Cracken

One bright spot emerged when the New Republic forces found Nunb, alive but suffering from the emerging plague of the Krytos virus, which targeted various nonhuman species. Ysanne Isard had escaped Coruscant, leaving the New Republic a world wracked with disease. Antilles was additionally mortified when Airen Cracken informed him that Celchu had been arrested on charges of treason and the murder of Horn. Though Antilles was hailed as the great hero of Coruscant's liberation, he gained no pleasure from the adulation. In the midst of this bad news, Sei'lar and Inyri Forge joined the squadron, having proved their piloting skills in the battle for Coruscant, but Antilles resented the fact that they had been selected from above for political reasons, as had the assignation of Portha to a new position as squadron security guard. He likewise despised the politicization of Horn's death; the Rogue pilot had been made a New Republic icon, taken from those who knew him and transformed into a victim of the Empire, while Celchu was vilified as his killer. New uniforms for the squadron were designed in his honor, while a monument was erected at the site of the crash. The private memorial ceremony Antilles had hoped for became an extravaganza of mourning, attended by thousands and broadcast for all to see. Antilles rose to the occasion, delivering a eulogy calling for the continuation of the fight against the Empire, warning against contentment and complacency with the seizure of the galactic capital, and calling for patience as the New Republic constructed a galactic government. After the service was complete, a bomb from the Palpatine Counter-Insurgency Front, a newly emerged Imperial terrorist organization, destroyed much of the stands&mdash;mostly empty by then&mdash;to make a point.

Antilles had petitioned the Provisional Council for a chance to speak against Celchu's prosecution, and even after a private warning from Councilors Fey'lya, Ackbar, and Organa that he had no chance, Antilles passionately argued to the Council that the evidence against Celchu was weak and that it should prevent the trial from going forward to avoid doing a great injustice to the Alderaanian captain. At the same meeting, Airen Cracken presented the case, including new evidence that Celchu had been bribed by Imperial Intelligence and had been involved in the death of Jace, whose route home he had plotted. Antilles urged that the Council at least delay the trial, as the case was being rushed to court and he was sure Celchu could not get a fair defense unless more sifting of the evidence&mdash;which pointed equally well to Celchu's guilt or to an Imperial Intelligence frame&mdash;was completed. He threatened to go public with his dissatisfaction at Celchu's treatment and even resign his commission in protest, an action that would attract great attention from the public at large. Organa asked for a recess and spoke to Antilles privately, telling him the Provisional Council would not exercise authority over the military tribunal trying Celchu. Moreover, the trial of the Human Celchu was seen as politically necessary in a time when nonhumans were increasingly hostile to the New Republic's Krytos-immune Humans. She also informed him that he was needed for an upcoming strike to capture a shipment of bacta stolen by Warlord Zsinj, and Antilles finally accepted that he would not resign and could not prevent the trial.

Antilles visited Celchu with Ven, the former lawyer, who had agreed to serve as Celchu's counsel, before briefing the squadron on the strike to retrieve the stolen bacta Zsinj had stored at the Yag-prime space station over the planet Yag'Dhul. After the briefing, he took Sei'lar aside and spoke to her about her developing romantic relationship with Gavin Darklighter. He warned her not to string along the infatuated youth if she was not serious and was relieved to hear that she fully reciprocated his feelings. He then turned to the more important point of her double loyalty to the Bothan Martial Intelligence Division and to Rogue Squadron. He did not insist she throw off her loyalty to the Bothan establishment but warned her that, though he trusted her, at some point she would have to make a choice between the two, and he hoped it would be in the squadron's favor.

Twelve hours later, within a week of Coruscant's conquest, he set off on the mission. The Rogues struck at the station in coordination with Defender Wing, drawing off the TIEs into an ambush by Guardian Squadron. Antilles engaged the patrol flight of TIEs with his own One Flight, having reorganized it to include Ynr and Dlarit and assigned Sei'lar as his wingmate. They defeated the fighters, then joined the main battle, where the station's TIE complement was handily defeated. Antilles offered surrender to the outnumbered survivors; both the fighters' leader and the station commander, Valsil Torr, accepted. The captain of the pilots, a mercenary, did not want to lose his ship and thus his livelihood, though, and Antilles arranged for the four TIEs' hire as guards to the Pulsar Skate in the convoy picking up the bacta after they promised to no longer fight against the New Republic.

On his return to Coruscant, Antilles decided to ask out Iella Wessiri, though he told himself he was only being a friend in her grief over Horn's death. He was attracted to her strong personality, so much so that he was driven to nervousness as he asked her to a friendly dinner. To his great shock, she ushered him into her apartment to reveal that her husband, Diric Wessiri, had been found as an Imperial captive recently, long after she had given him up for dead. The commander graciously dropped any thoughts of romance and spoke with Diric, who was intrigued by the Celchu case, in which Iella was working with the prosecution's investigation. Their conversation was interrupted by a comm call from Terrik, who summoned Antilles to the Pulsar Skate to deal with an emergency of unspecified nature but great import. Worried, Antilles rushed to her hangar, where he found that she had been contacted by Qlaern Hirf, a member of the Vratix Ashern rebellion against the Bacta Cartel and the tipster who had let the New Republic know about the captured convoy. Hirf revealed that the Ashern had intended to make a gift of the shipment of bacta to Antilles specifically, whom they trusted and wanted to represent them before the Provisional Council in a request for membership. Hirf also volunteered his skills as a verachen, or bacta manufacturer, in the fight against the Krytos virus. Both Antilles and the Vratix knew they could not promote their cause to the Council right away, as they needed the support of the Bacta Cartel to cure Krytos, so Antilles approached General Cracken with their offer of aid, which was eagerly but covertly accepted.

Antilles was eventually called as a witness in the Celchu trial, which he had been attending in his free time. He was deeply uncomfortable, knowing prosecutor Commander Halla Ettyk could use his testimony against his friend, but answered truthfully. Harassed by the press after his testimony, Antilles was unexpectedly swept away by Diric Wessiri, who deflected the reporters. Antilles went out for dinner with the Wessiris that night, as, though the commander and Iella were on opposite sides of the Celchu issue, they remained good friends and Antilles got on well with Diric, who maintained a belief in Celchu's innocence.

The court was recessed thereafter in order for Rogue Squadron to undertake a mission to Ryloth to negotiate for the purchase of a large quantity of ryll kor. The highest grade of ryll spice, ryll kor had proved useful in Hirf's search for a more effective cure than bacta. Antilles traveled to Kala'uun Starport aboard the Pulsar Skate, while the other Rogues were carried aboard the bulk freighter assigned to haul the ryll kor back. Antilles got to spend a good deal of time with Terrik, who was broken up over Horn's death; the pair had decided just before the last battle that they would start dating afterward. Antilles and Ven handled the bargaining with Cazne'olan and the starport master Koh'shak, offering traditional gifts to open the negotiations. Ven claimed twi'janii, the traditional right of hospitality, for the group. They were entertained with the dance of Sienn'rha, a Twi'lek whom Luke Skywalker had freed from slavery. She offered herself to Antilles, whom she saw as a hero of the Rebellion to which she owed her freedom, but he declined. The celebration was interrupted by the arrival of a squadron of Twi'lek warriors led by Tal'dira. Tal'dira insisted that the dealings of warriors should be with warriors, and demanded that the Rogue commander fight to gain the ryll, giving him a vibroblade. Antilles knew he had little chance against the warrior, but agreed that if it was the only way, he would fight. The Twi'lek warrior threw the other blade to Koh'shak, however; his true feud was with the merchant. After properly shaming the starport master for his greed, violation of Twi'lek etiquette by cutting the warriors out of the talks, and unworthiness to deal with a warrior such as Antilles, Tal'dira promised that the New Republic would have the ryll kor free of charge. Antilles was happy to have established a good relationship with the honor-conscious warrior, who himself admired the New Republic commander.

They returned to Coruscant, where Ackbar tasked Antilles with a highly sensitive mission to escort a convoy of bacta from the Xucphra cartel. The Rogues traveled to the rendezvous in the Alderaan system but arrived late, just in time to see Zsinj's Star Dreadnought Iron Fist departing the system after having annihilated the entire convoy. Antilles was devastated, as Terrik's Pulsar Skate had been in the convoy and was assumed lost, but led the Rogues in an attack on Zsinj's forces remaining in the system. He coordinated a surprise proton torpedo barrage that destroyed the Strike Cruiser Termagant, then routed the remaining TIEs. Many of them fled into the Graveyard&mdash;the remnants of Alderaan. Antilles negotiated their surrender and assigned Pash Cracken's Two Flight to arrange transport from Tatooine that could carry the TIEs and pilots to Coruscant. Puzzlingly, the pilots maintained that Rogue Squadron had been at the initial battle and that they had destroyed the Rogues.

After the mission, Antilles helped prepare a report that debunked Zsinj's claim to the public that he had destroyed Rogue Squadron&mdash;it had actually been a Palpatine Counter-Insurgency Front decoy squadron sent to attack the convoy&mdash;and that the bacta had been tainted, then turned to assembling information for Ackbar as the Supreme Commander began plans to concentrate New Republic forces against the troublesome warlord. Darklighter visited him in an attempt to console him about Terrik, but Antilles declined to talk about it.

The day Celchu's defense was set to open, Antilles was awakened in the middle of the night by M-3PO and informed that the New Republic had been tipped to an impending Palpatine Counter-Insurgency Front strike on a bacta storage facility; the terrorist group had been making several such strikes lately. The Rogues were scrambled to oppose it, and just before they were to launch, Sei'lar approached the commander and told him that Fey'lya had pushed her into the choice between the Bothans and the squadron, asking her to prepare a report on the Alderaan mission that suggested a Human conspiracy to foil the convoy. She had written the report, but now gave it to Antilles to dispose of as he wished. Antilles did not forward it to the Councilor.

The Rogues covered ground forces as they raided the warehouse in which the Front was preparing its attack. Antilles destroyed three AT-STs in the warehouse as they covered the escape of an airspeeder packed with explosives. He chased the airspeeder bomb through Coruscant's cityscape, racing through its crowded and dim undercity in pursuit and, predicting the low course of the overloaded craft, shot it down before it reached the bacta stockpile. As he did so, he was called to a disturbance southwest of the Imperial Palace involving a wing of TIEs and what turned out to be the Star Dreadnought Lusankya, the secret site of Isard's prison, extracting itself from its hiding place buried beneath the cityscape. The Rogues engaged the TIEs as Ysanne Isard escaped in her private Super Star Destroyer, pursuing them when the TIEs turned to flee to their mother ship as it pounded its way out of Coruscant's shields. With it went Erisi Dlarit, who claimed to be caught in a tractor beam. Antilles called up her telemetry, which showed no such thing, and realized it was she who was Isard's spy in the unit, responsible for the leaks in which Celchu had been suspected.

He commed Ackbar to report this, but was anticipated by none other than Corran Horn, who had already deciphered the spy's identity in the course of his escape from the Lusankya prison, where he had been held. Antilles was overjoyed that not only had Horn survived, but he was able to fully exonerate Celchu of the possibility of having been brainwashed in Lusankya. General Cracken, who had known that Celchu was not the spy all along and was using the trial to draw out the true double agent, rehabilitated Celchu's image through a public ceremony in which Mon Mothma decorated all the Rogues and lied that Celchu had volunteered himself for the trial as part of Cracken's plot.

Rogue Squadron spent the next ten days assisting in cleaning up the remnants of the PCF terrorist group, which had begun striking at random after the death of their leader, Kirtan Loor. Just after defecting to the New Republic, Loor had been killed by Diric Wessiri, a Lusankya agent. Iella Wessiri, protecting Loor, had shot and killed her husband before she even realized who he was. She was heartbroken, and Antilles worked as a friend to comfort her, suffering himself from the loss of a man he had come to consider a friend. His grief was lightened by the fact that Terrik too turned out to be alive after all, having left the convoy earlier to deliver her cargo of bacta to Borleias, where Hirf was able to synthesize a highly effective treatment for Krytos called rylca.

The Bacta War
"I joined this Rebellion to fight the Empire's tyranny. Just because we have Coruscant doesn't mean it's ended. The New Republic might not be able to strike at Thyferra, but there are Rebels around who can. I quit, too."

- Wedge Antilles, to Borsk Fey'lya

Ten days after the Lusankya escaped, Mothma held the ceremony awarding Rogue Squadron a newly devised medal, the highest military decoration in existence: the Coruscant Star of Valor. During the reception after the awards, Antilles spoke with Fey'lya, who was upset that Antilles had coded Sei'lar's report as Most Secret to prevent its release, but was interrupted by Luke Skywalker's arrival. Skywalker had discovered that Horn was in fact a Force-sensitive, the hidden descendant of Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon. Horn declined to join him in Jedi training, however, insisting that he planned to strike against Isard, who had taken control of Thyferra, and free the other Lusankya prisoners, among them General Jan Dodonna, captured during the Yavin evacuation. Fey'lya, however, explained that the Rogues would be assigned to the Solo Fleet under General Han Solo, tracking down and defeating Zsinj; the New Republic would not attempt to overthrow Isard, who had been installed in a coup, due to a refusal to interfere in the internal politics of unaligned worlds. In response, Horn resigned his commission so he could take the fight to Isard himself. Deciding he had to pursue his obligation to aid the Vratix in their quest for freedom, Antilles resigned as well. With him went the entire squadron with the sole exception of Pash Cracken, whose presence in any force acting against Isard would never be accepted as officially unsanctioned due to his father's intelligence role.

With time to consider it, Antilles felt deeply uncomfortable leaving New Republic service, but was sure it was the right thing to do. He and Celchu undertook the planning of a guerrilla war against Isard, who held Thyferra with the aid of native defense forces, the Lusankya, the Imperial-class Star Destroyers Avarice and Virulence, and the Victory-class Star Destroyer Corrupter. Antilles had a squadron of twelve pilots, plus the pledged assistance of Winter and Terrik, whom Antilles was happy to see dating Horn, as he thought them a highly complementary pair. Antilles thought to ask Elscol Loro and Sixtus Quin for the assistance of the liberation organization he had helped them create, potentially giving him more personnel and expertise. Horn owned his own X-wing and astromech, which he had taken with him from Corellian Security, and Celchu had ten million credits as part of Isard's frame job as well as the Headhunters he had purchased for the Coruscant mission. They were able to sell the Headhunters, which were hotly desired for their historic role, to collectors and institutions for a good deal of money, and many citizens were happy to make donations to the cause, publicly romanticized as a righteous quest for justice. Pash Cracken approached them with a suggestion that they use the Yag-prime station, which Cracken had been assigned to deny to Zsinj after his return to Commander Varth's wing of A-wings. Cracken would report it uninhabitable, giving Antilles a relatively secret and convenient base from which to operate without exposing civilians to Isard's retaliation.

Iella Wessiri agreed to join the fight against Isard just before Antilles mustered the first meeting for all the participants in the irregular force. He presented the developments in their situation and outlined the task they faced, then assigned Horn, Terrik, and Darklighter to travel to Tatooine and obtain the remnants of the Eidolon cache from Huff Darklighter. The others would handle the move to Yag-prime. Shortly after that meeting, Winter located a cache of X-wing parts on the planet Rishi, enough to assemble fighters. Antilles rented the freighter Eclipse Rider and traveled to Rishi with Ooryl Qrygg to investigate. On landing, the freighter lost a repulsor coil, which Qrygg worked to replace while Antilles negotiated the purchase of the parts, which turned out to be fewer than he had hoped, only enough for two fighters. The strict and plentiful laws of Rishi's H'kig community frustrated both efforts and pushed their return four days behind schedule.

While trying to catch up on sleep after the stressful Rishi jaunt, Antilles was awoken by Emtrey in a surprise arranged by Celchu, who had bought the squadron's entire X-wing and droid complement after they were listed as surplus at bargain prices by sympathetic officials. Zraii and the Rogues' former maintenance staff resigned as well, giving the irregular force a full working squadron. The others had begun repainting their X-wings individually, and Antilles elected to decorate his with the black and checkered green and gold colors his father had hoped to use if he expanded his operations to a chain of refueling depots. Celchu gave him a tour of the Yag-prime station, which still housed a civilian population of traders they could not evict without drawing attention. When the Pulsar Skate returned bearing with it Booster Terrik, who had run into the others on the Darklighter estate, Antilles was overjoyed to see him. At the same time, Loro and Quin arrived with their insurgent group.

Antilles began intensive and detailed operational planning for what he dubbed the Bacta War, determined to lure Isard's capital ships out singly so the squadron could eliminate them. The best way to do so was by raiding the bacta convoys of Xucphra Corporation, which had ousted Zaltin in the coup and formed the basis of Isard's power. His first strike was at a convoy in the Chorax system. After their defenses were destroyed, the freighters agreed to let the Rogues escort them to deliveries to Coruscant and needy worlds on which the bacta was freely distributed.

After arranging for Mirax Terrik and Horn to insert Loro's resistance fighters and Wessiri on Thyferra, where they could link up with the Ashern resistance, Antilles offered a role in the mission to Booster Terrik. The elder Terrik declined, saying he had lost his taste for command of a freighter on Kessel, and needed something more stimulating to engage him; he asked to be put in charge of Yag-prime, running the station and managing its civilian population and trade to bring income and supplies to the rebels. Antilles saw merit in the idea and agreed. Terrik quickly began turning a profit from trade on the station, using the credits to secure supplies for the burgeoning resistance. They were joined by Tal'dira's squadron of Twi'lek warriors in their Chir'daki Ugly fighters after Tal'dira suggested that he would like to enter the fight during a trading visit from Koh'shak. Knowing the warrior's pride prevented him from asking directly, Antilles invited him to fight alongside the Rogues, which Tal'dira eagerly accepted. They gained one more pilot when Horn and Mirax Terrik returned from Thyferra with Bror Jace, who had faked his death in order to work underground organizing a Zaltin Corporation alliance with the Ashern. Loro now had the resources of the Ashern and Zaltin to work with, while Jace was able to liaise with the squadron on the Thyferran resistance's behalf.

Isard had begun sending Star Destroyers to escort her bacta convoys to rendezvous points where the shipments would be turned over to the care of the receiving worlds, making further raids difficult. Jace informed the squadron that the Ashern had sliced the navigation computers of three freighters to divert them, allowing the Rogues to capture the three ships without dealing with the Star Destroyer. When the Rogues and Twi'leks arrived, the freighter captains refused to surrender, having been told that Isard would kill their families on Thyferra if their ships were taken. Antilles explained that it was likely a bluff on Isard's part, and offered the help of the resistance fighters on Thyferra in extracting their families. Only one ship, the Xucphra Alazhi, remained defiant. After Darklighter and Shiel disabled the ship and Antilles bluffed that he could override their life support systems with the Ashern slicing, the captain reluctantly agreed. Just as it departed with Darklighter, Shiel, and two Chir'daki escorting it, Commander Ait Convarion's Corrupter arrived in the system after backtracking the missing freighters' route. It destroyed the Alazhi and Chir'daki and killed Shiel. Darklighter barely escaped to hyperspace; Antilles thought him dead in the barrage. With half his flight gone, Antilles scattered his forces and fled.



Darklighter returned with a report that Corrupter, working with Dlarit&mdash;now a commander in the Thyferran Home Defense Corps&mdash;had destroyed the colony on a moon known as Halanit, which Antilles's group had supplied with bacta and where Darklighter had sheltered. To counter Isard's message of intimidation, Antilles decided to destroy one of Thyferra's bacta-production colonies. He also arranged for Booster Terrik to sell future captured bacta to traders who would undersell Isard, turning a profit for the resistance and making it harder for Isard to identify worlds accepting stolen bacta. Before the retaliation mission, yet more allies joined the group. Three Gand ruetsavii arrived, all capable fighter pilots with their own modified TIE bombers, on a mission to evaluate Ooryl Qrygg's worthiness to be considered janwuine, among the highest of Gand notables. They flew in the strike at the bacta refining plant on the planet Qretu 5 as Antilles led a night raid on the plant in order to minimize civilian casualties. They destroyed the plant, then shot down the Thyferran Home Defense Corps pilots who scrambled in response. Booster Terrik led a convoy of freighters that hauled away the surviving bacta supply and, on Antilles's orders, arranged to compensate civilians who had suffered damage.

Antilles ramped up the Bacta War, maintaining a constant pressure of hit-and-run strikes by forces of various size against Isard's forces. Meanwhile, he had the Terriks begin seeking out a large supply of torpedoes and missile systems in preparation for his end plan against Isard, worked out with Celchu and Booster Terrik: luring at least part of her fleet to Yag-prime, where the station would trap it with a gravity well generator and tractor beams and bluff it into surrendering with hundreds of missile-lock signatures from the targeting packages of the missile systems. The actual launch systems would be fitted to the Rogue freighter fleet and fed telemetry from the starfighters, allowing them to down those ships remaining over Thyferra. They arranged to buy from smuggling chief Talon Karrde, with deliveries to take place in selected systems where the shipments would be transferred to Terrik-controlled freighters escorted by the Rogues.

One such delivery was in the Alderaan system, and it was interrupted before the transfer began by the arrival of Corrupter and the interdictor Aggregator, rented from the warlord Treuten Teradoc. Trapped by the unexpected ship, Antilles immediately moved to cover the freighters with torpedo runs against the Star Destroyer. He made the first pass, feeding his targeting data to the other fighters and maneuvering through Corrupter TIE screen. Celchu made a second pass while Antilles evaded fire, and Celchu's targeting data prompted the Thranta-class War Cruiser Valiant to attack. The Valiant, originally tasked to defend the Alderaanian armory ship Another Chance, had been lurking in the Graveyard; as Celchu was transmitting the Another Chance identity code as part of the Rogues' individualization, it responded to his commands. The Rogue commander took the opportunity to run along Corrupter hull and fire on its bridge, killing Convarion and crippling the capital ship. The other Rogues drove Aggregator off with another barrage. Antilles arranged the surrender, pickup, and capture of the remaining TIEs and escape pods.

The slave-rigged Valiant followed them back to base, adding a powerful new component to their fleet. Once M-3PO gained full control over its systems, the droid and Nunb would be assigned to command it. Antilles altered his strategy to account for the possibility of an interdictor ambush in the future, though he believed Teradoc would be loath to lend out his ships again. He also had the Terriks pursue the question of security with Karrde, believing the rendezvous had been leaked from within the other's organization. In a final move, he agreed to have the Terriks begin purchasing vital Imperial-class Star Destroyer parts and funneling poor parts to Isard, hoping to create a supply problem for her, as well as purchasing a gravity well generator for installation in the Yag-prime station. He also had his astromech's memory wiped and the unit upgraded, eliminating its annoying tendency to screech. Its designation was altered to R5-G8, prompting Antilles to give it the nickname "Gate."

Learning from his remaining sources in the New Republic that Captain Sair Yonka of the Avarice carried on an affair with Aellyn Jandi&mdash;wife of Elshandruu Pica's Moff Riit Jandi&mdash;that was facilitated by Kina Margath, a secret New Republic agent, Antilles moved to exploit the vulnerability. When Yonka traveled to Margath's 27th Hour Social Club, Margath alerted Antilles, who brought a commando team of Rogues and the Gand Vviir Wiamdi to ambush Yonka during his assignation. Rather than kill the captive, he offered Yonka the chance to defect to his insurgency with the Avarice. Between Antilles's credits and his increasing dissatisfaction with the bloodthirsty and erratic Isard, Yonka agreed.



Raging at the defection and still unable to find the Rogues' base, Isard attempted to draw Antilles out by interning Vratix and planning to execute them in one month, knowing the leaked news would force him to move against Thyferra itself. The commander sent Horn on a mission to confirm these reports, and when he did so, Antilles decided to act. He moved to complete the refitting of the station and freighters for the final conflict, and set up Karrde's final delivery directly to the base, giving its location away to Isard through her spy in Karrde's organization. Horn, not privy to the plan, questioned it and had to accept Antilles's assurances that there was in fact a working plan. He got into an argument with Booster Terrik over it, their respective moral character, and Horn's relationship with Mirax, which Antilles had to break up by telling each man that both he and Mirax respected them both, he thought Horn and Mirax an excellent match, and the pair would have to learn to respect each other and work together. The pair made up, to Antilles's pleasure.

After the delivery was made and Karrde's ships held in the station for two days to give the installation project more time to finish, they were let go and Antilles briefed his pilots to expect the arrival of Isard's remaining Star Destroyers within two days. After the briefing, to Antilles's delight, Horn and Mirax Terrik became engaged. He began an evacuation that would launch the freighters, fighters, and Valiant toward Thyferra as soon as Isard's ships arrived, tipping them off to expect the small force there. When the Lusankya and Virulence arrived, Antilles engaged his plan, jumping toward Thyferra only after rendezvousing with Yonka, who had renamed his Star Destroyer Freedom. Freedom carried the starfighters to Thyferra more slowly, but it allowed the fighter pilots to deploy fresh.

By the time they made it to Thyferra, the Lusankya had already returned, freed when the Virulence interposed itself between the station and the Star Dreadnought, but it had left its TIE complement behind. The capital ships engaged the Lusankya while the fighters handled the Thyferran TIEs, which battled the renegade force piecemeal. Between waves of TIEs, Antilles led the Rogues in making torpedo runs against the Star Dreadnought, supplemented by fire from the freighters standing off. When he detected a shuttle running from the system, presumably containing Isard, he sent Celchu, Horn, Ven, and Qrygg to shoot it down, which they did after trading barbs with the former Imperial leader and killing Dlarit. Meanwhile the Virulence arrived, having surrendered to Booster Terrik. With Commander Varth's fortuitously-arrived wing of A-wings aboard and under Terrik's command, it jumped into the fray. Antilles offered surrender to the Lusankya captain, Joak Drysso, but Drysso refused, believing his Star Dreadnought invincible. As Drysso's ranting grew increasingly deranged, he was killed by Lieutenant Waroen, his aide, who surrendered the ship.

The battle in orbit was over, while Wessiri, Loro, and the Ashern were able to take control of Thyferra on the ground. The victory, however, was marred by the fact that the Lusankya prisoners were nowhere to be found, having been hidden away months prior. The New Republic began a search for the prisoners after the new Thyferran government agreed to join them. Antilles used his role as captain of the Lusankya, the ship having been surrendered directly to him, to marry Horn and Mirax Terrik quickly, giving her father less time to stew over the engagement. Even so, the elder Terrik was left in a good mood by his acquisition of the Virulence, which had been surrendered to him. After negotiations with the New Republic, he was allowed to keep it after limiting its armament; he renamed it the Errant Venture and planned to turn it into a traveling entertainment complex and his personal information-brokering headquarters. Afterward, Antilles held a party aboard the Lusankya celebrating their victory, the Horn–Terrik wedding, and Qrygg's declaration as janwuine. He also announced that with their victory, the New Republic was willing to take credit for the operation and had supposedly misfiled their resignations. They were all technically still military personnel and the mission was retroactively sanctioned; they were free to return to duty, and all accepted. Ven would be the unit's new executive officer, having suffered a severed leg in the battle; his cybernetic replacement was not sufficiently well-fitted to allow him to pilot. Tal'dira joined the squadron, while Nunb left it to enter Fleet Command with the Valiant. Jace departed to head the Thyferran Aerospace Defense Force, which Antilles agreed to have the Rogues train for the next two months.

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.