Battle of Mustafar (Imperial Period)

"By the time we'd made our way to the molten surface of Mustafar, it was apparent that Dellso had been a busy little bug. All by his lonesome self he'd found a previously hidden droid factory. Fired it up and cranked out his own private army of battle droids. Needless to say this got the men of the 501st a little hot under the helmet, and not just because of all that lava. Truth be told, we'd all had our fill of those gear-heads during the war, and we couldn't stomach the thought of going through another one. So we blew them up, blew up the droids, blew up the factory, damn near blew up the planet."

- Unidentified 501st stormtrooper

The Battle of Mustafar was an isolated battle on Mustafar that took place between 18 and 12 BBY. The engagement was fought by the Imperial 501st Legion under the command of Darth Vader, against a secret droid army controlled by Gizor Dellso. The battle resulted in the death of Dellso and the destruction of both his ground and space forces.

Prelude
"Although the Clone Wars were over, some people never seem to get the message. The worst case of denial was Gizor Delso, a Geonosian Separatist who'd somehow escaped Lord Vader's efforts to wipe out the remnants of the CIS. Lord Vader tracked him to Mustafar, and brought us in to finish the job."

- Unidentified 501st stormtrooper

A Geonosian engineer, Gizor Dellso was a committed member of the CIS during the Clone War, and since the deaths of its leader at the hands of Darth Vader years before, had still been looking for ways to revive the CIS. Later, in possession of stolen Imperial starfighter plans, Dellso fled to Mustafar, where by all luck he stumbled upon a hidden and long forgotten droid factory. For someone as obsessed with reviving the CIS movement as Gizor, he had just hit the jackpot. He instantly fired up the factory, and in the short time it took the Empire to find him he had built his own droid army and fleet, which did not respond to Darth Vader's deactivation of the droids. Dellso also planned to use the hidden droid factory on the planet to create a new type of superior battle droid.

Space battle
"It seemed like a simple enough mission, but when we saw the fleet of droid ships, hovering over the planet, we suddenly realized that Delso's denial mechanisms were more dangerous than we'd imagined"

- Unidentified 501st stormtrooper

The members of the 501st Legion, under command of Vader, were transported to Mustafar by an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer to crush Gizor Dellso's uprising. However, the ship's hangar was immediately invaded by one of the HMPs from Gizor Dellso's navy, which dispatched OOM pilot battle droids and Droid marines onto the ship. Although one of the pilots panicked when the Empire failed to launch starfighters, the Imperial Officer sent troops out, which held the droids back. The Imperial Marines used their rocket launchers and thermal detonators on the gunship, while the TIE pilots used time bombs. After the gunship was destroyed, the marines and pilots then used their blasters to eliminate the remaining invaders.

501st pilots manned their starfighters, and after destroying a small number of Dellso's fighters, successfully knocked out the shields on the Providence-class destroyer. The vulnerable vessel was then pounded by turbolaser blasts from the nearby Star Destroyer, inflicting massive damage to all critical systems.

Dellso's space blockade had been demolished, however, his ground forces were still ready for attack.

Unusually, Darth Vader sent a personal request to his stormtroopers, ordering them to retrieve a Belbullab-22 starfighter and return it to the Star Destroyer's hangar.

Siege of the mining facility
"Any droid we don't destroy today will come back to haunt us tomorrow."

- Unidentified Imperial officer, during the battle

501st troopers were deployed on a platform outside the droid facility on Mustafar. Many had just stepped foot on the platform when droids shot them dead from the open windows of the entrance corridor. As B-2 battle droids scurried out onto the landing platform, the 501st was able to repel them. They managed to secure their landing zone, then flooded the corridors and stormed the lava observatory room, which gave them access to an outside walkway. With even remnants of the feared IG-100 MagnaGuards striking at their ranks, the 501st Legion managed to take command over an overlook station from the droid forces. Then, the regrouped stormtroopers rushed into the factory control center, where they were able to destroy both of the droid prototype schematics of a new, unfinished battle droid prototype, ruining Dellso's plans of gaining the upper hand in possible future battles.

Ending the battle
"The destruction of the mining facility put an end to any thought of a second droid rebellion. For the first time in years the men of the 501st could relax and get about the business of maintaining an Empire rather then building one."

- Unidentified 501st Stormtrooper after the battle

A stormtrooper carrying an orbital strike beacon had been shot, and once retrieved, the beacon was set on the overlook to signal for the orbiting Star Destroyer to bombard the base.

However, Gizor Dellso and his Geonosian bodyguards appeared, in a last ditch effort to win the battle. They fired with sonic blasters, but were wiped out in short order.

The troopers had just enough time to depart when their overhead forces executed an orbital bombardment command on the Mustafar complex, completely demolishing the facility and the droid factory.

Aftermath
In the years following, the ruined complex would be replaced by the Mensix Mining Facility in operation during the Galactic Civil War. This new facility would be the site of a battle between the Imperial Remnant and New Republic forces.

Behind the scenes
The space battle and the surface battle are two campaign missions in Star Wars: Battlefront II. The first mission, the space battle, is optional, like the other space levels in the game's campaign, whereas the battle on the planet's surface is required to advance to the next level.

An exact date for the battle has not been given; however, it is known to have occurred before or during 12 BBY, as the Battle of Kamino, the next campaign mission in the game, was stated by The Essential Atlas to have happened in that year.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Battlefront II