Siege of Coruscant

The Third Battle of Coruscant, also known as the Siege of Coruscant, was a major space battle in 9 ABY during the Thrawn Crisis. Since his forces were outnumbered by the New Republic defenses of Coruscant, Grand Admiral Thrawn used cloaking technology to create an effective siege weapon. To do this, he fitted 22 asteroids with cloaking devices and placed them onboard several of his Star Destroyers.

The battle began with ten Interdictor cruisers and eight Katana Dreadnaughts dropping out of hyperspace near Coruscant, quickly followed by six Imperial-class Star Destroyers. The Imperial ships were engaged by Coruscant's defense fleet and a pair of Golan III platforms, but Admiral Hiram Drayson was thoroughly outmatched by Thrawn's tactical skill. General Garm Bel Iblis, observing the battle, recognized the Grand Admiral's favored tactic of using Interdictors to aid in precision microjumps during battle. However, he was unable to warn Drayson before two Victory-class Star Destroyers jumped in to ambush one of the Golan platforms at close range. Shortly afterward, Bel Iblis took command of Coruscant's forces at the urging of Mon Mothma.

Near the end of the battle, Thrawn placed the asteroids in low orbit, then retreated into hyperspace, creating an invisible hazard field around the galactic capital. In addition to the 22 actual asteroids, Thrawn also staged 265 false launches. As the cloaked asteroids were undetectable to Coruscant's sensors, it was impossible to distinquish an actual asteroid launch from a false one. The first asteroid launched collided with the escort frigate Evanrue. General Bel Iblis, correctly guessing the nature of the cloaked object, ordered the Dreadnaught Harrier to fire at the asteroid's calculated position with its ion cannons. Thrawn allowed the asteroid's cloak to be disabled, revealing that it was indeed an asteroid, before destroying it with turbolaser fire so that it could not be subjected to closer study. Following the successful launch of the cloaked asteroids, the Imperial forces withdrew.

Though Imperial forces had retreated, the New Republic was now faced with two major problems: they couldn't drop the energy shield around the planet in the event an asteroid might hit the heavily populated cityscape nor could they allow space traffic near the planet in case of collisions. Although Republic ships successfully destroyed all of the asteroids by firing blindly into space, they had no way of knowing how many asteroids were originally launched and how many remained floating in orbit. As a result, the Galactic capital world was effectively blockaded off until a method could be devised to detect and eliminate the phantom asteroids.

This series of events lead to the Battle of Bilbringi, in which the New Republic attempted to steal a crystal gravfield trap to locate any remaining asteroids in orbit around Coruscant. When Thrawn was assassinated during the battle, the New Republic successfully acquired the gravield trap and was finally able to lift the quarantine.

Shortly after the siege, Coruscant erupted into civil war between two factions of Imperials, those loyal to the Emperor's inner circle, and those loyal to warloards.

Appearances

 * The Last Command