Massacre of Aquilaris

"Burn it all! This place is useless to the Sith! These Republic cowards come here to forget their hard lives. So do them a service now."

- Odion

The Massacre of Aquilaris was an attack by the Chagras Hegemony on the Galactic Republic planet of Aquilaris Minor in 1,042 BBY during the Republic Dark Age. The Chagras Hegemony was a splinter state of the New Sith Empire which had fought a protracted war with the Republic and the Jedi Order for nearly a millennia since 2,000 BBY. Chagras forces under the Sith Lord Odion wiped out much of the defenses, killed many civilians and destroyed much of the cityscape. Two survivors of the battle were the Jedi Knight Vannar Treece and the human girl Kerra Holt. Due to her experiences, Kerra Holt joined the Jedi Order in an effort to avenge the destruction of her homeworld at the hands of Odion.

Background
Aquilaris Minor had formerly been a resort world in the Grumani Sector. During the Republic Dark Age, it accepted refugees from Sith-occupied Space until it drew the attention of the Chagras Hegemony, a splinter state of the New Sith Empire ruled by Sith Lord Chagras. During a raid on the University of Sanbra, the Sith Lord Odion learnt that a team of academic researchers were cooperating with the Jedi Order on a research project on the Helm of Ieldis, an ancient Sith artifact created by Lord Ieldis prior to the Great Hyperspace War. Following the invasion, the university researchers had scattered with both the Jedi and Sith looking for them. Odion regarded the Helm as a potential game changer in the internecine Sith family feud which had destabilized much of the Grumani Sector.

Odion also obtained intelligence that some Jedi were planning to meet twelve of these researchers on Aquilaris Minor. Since Odion was still a junior Sith Lord within the Chagras Hegemony, he needed to get authorization from his superiors to launch the attack on Aquilaris. Odion was able to gain authorization from his grandmother Vilia Calimondra, by claiming that the purpose of the raid was to capture the Jedi Knight Vannar Treece, whose hit-and-run raids on Sith Space was undermining Sith rule. However, Odion's true ultterior motive was to gain control of the Helm for himself. He did not inform his fellow Sith family about the Helm since he wanted to gain an advantage in any future conflict.

Details
A Chagras military fleet led by Odion invaded Aquilaris. The Galactic Republic defence of the planet was led by Vannar Treece himself and included a fleet of Hammerhead-class cruisers. While little details are known about the battle, what is known is that the Republic forces were overwhelmed by the invading Chagras forces led by Lord Odion. Sith forces led by a lightsaber-wielding Odion landed at the port city of Capital Cay and procceeded to slaughter the civilians including throwing them into the water. However, he ordered his troops to avoid the block where the researchers were located since he intended to capture them alive.

Future Jedi Knight Kerra Holt's parents Aron and Mercia Holt told her to flee for he life from the marauding Sith. She fled to the docks where she met met up with her friend Joad Kreel, a young teenaged boy whose father was a member of the Seacroppers' Guild and operated a submersible. Joad told Kerra that he would wait for her while she brought her family back so that they could escape underwater into the oceans of Aquilaris. However, he got frightened and he left without her and his father who disappearred during the fighting. He managed to escape the harbour prior to a bombarded by Odion's forces. Joad subsequently returned to Capital Cay due to a lack of supplies and endured the Sith occupation. He remained with the Seacroppers' Guild but experience poverty and starvation due to economic hardship and the Sith occupiers seizing the supplies of the local people.

Meanwhile, the Holts and the other researchers were captured by Odion's troops and forcibly enlisted in Project Pandemonium, to locate the Sith artefact the Helm of Ieldis. To cover up his secret mission, Odion ordered his forces to obliterate the residential block, destroying much evidence. Kerra made her way back to her home where she encountered Vannar whom she initially mistook for an intruder. However, she quickly recognized him as a Jedi and related to him how her family had to her to flee but she went because she did not known where else to go. Taking pity on here, Vannar informed Kerra that he had a starfighter hidden nearby and offered to help escape offworld. He promised Kerra that they would return to Aquilaris when it was safe and that they would make it safe as Jedi.

Aftermath
Following the events on Aquilaris, Holt subsequently became a Padawan under Treece's tutelage. By 1,032 BBY, she had passed her Jedi Trials and become a novice Jedi Knight. She subsequently served with distinction during the Chelloan campaign where she helped fellow Jedi Gorlan Palladane evacuated around sixty thousand civilians from Chelloa prior to the destruction of its surface. Due to his experiences on Aquilaris and other worlds, Vannar also authored the holotract Those Who Drown which highlighted the plight of civilians in Sith-occupied Space. He also decried the general tendency within the Republic to blame the victims of Sith domination for not rising up to challenge their oppressors, citing they lacked the will and the strength to defend and free themselves from the Sith warlords. However, he still argued that they could be led to overcome their condition if the "way was lit by those who fight for good."

Kerra would subsequently return to Aquilaris Minor during the Aquilaris campaign following a distress call from the Seacroppers' Guild. In reality, this was a coded signal requesting more Deluge spice which had inundated the Grumani Sector due to Operation Deluge, a black operation run by Grace Command. Following the death of Lord Chagras and the collapse of his empire, the planet had come under the Sith Lord Daiman, Odion's estranged younger brother and had declined economically due to the collapse of trade and the dictatorial tendencies of Daiman. Aquilaris attracted the attention of three rival parties with vested interests during a three campaign involving Daiman's princedom, Hutt crimelord Zodoh's empire, and the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order represented by Grace Command's Captain Jenn Devaad and Kerra Holt respectively.

Sith Lord Daiman had recently acquired the planet in the ensuing power vacuum following the collapse of the Chagras Hegemony. Zodoh had wanted to expand into traditional Sith Space by using his new Stormdriver superweapons to intimidate his Sith rivals. First, he intended to test them on Aquilaris Minor by using their weaponized vaporators to submerge the planet in water. Meanwhile, Grace Command had intended to drive out the Sith while secretly inundating the population with the narcotic spice Deluge as a means of undermining the Sith war effort under Operation Deluge. Their cover as a paramilitary relief organization concealed the unethical agenda of Baron Lemayne. In contrast, the Kerra Holt had planned to liberate the planet from Sith occupation and rescue the Aquilarians from the machinations of both Zodoh and the Sith.

Zodoh and Grace Command wiped out Daiman's meager garrison, with the latter taking control of the planet. Zodoh's forces retreated into the far reaches of the Aquilaris system but lured Devil Squadron into a trap. The entire squadron with the exception of Captain Jenn were killed. Zodoh then proceeded to test his fleet of Stormdrivers on Aquilaris, creating a global flood which inundated much of the surface in water. Subsequently, Jenn managed to escape and disrupted the coordination of the Stromdrivers in the process. Despite this minor setback and the destruction of stocks of Deluge spice during the escape, Zodoh regarded this as a victory since it had proven the effectiveness of his superweapons. He then dispatched his fleet to Darkknell, capital of Daiman's princedom. Ultimately, he was defeated during the Battle of Darkknell.

Meanwhile, thousands of lives on Aquilaris were saved through the efforts of Kerra with the assistance of local Seacroppers Joad and Padgett who managed to evacuate many civilians in submersibles to underwater harvester stations. After the events of the Aquilaris campaign, Devaad and Holt came up with a strategy to sabotage Operation Deluge. Devaad would return to Grace Command and claim that she had gotten a contract for distributing the Deluge on Aquilaris. This ensured that Grace Command would continue to send transport ships which Devaad would personally fly to and from Sith occupied words. Enroute, she would get rid of the Deluge while returning to the Republic with civilian refugees. With the hidden undersea facilities on Aquilaris, the world could even become a important hub for ferrying refugees from Sith occupied space to safety in the Republic.

Behind the Scenes
The Massacre of Aquilaris first appeared as a plot device in Star Wars: Knight Errant 2: Aflame, Part 2 which debuted on November 10, 2010. Its main function was to explain the motives and sentiments influencing the main protagonist Kerra Holt. It also introduced the planet Aquilaris Minor whose backstory was expanded in the second comic arc Star Wars: Knight Errant: Deluge which debuted on August 17, 2011.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 2: Aflame, Part 2
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 5: Aflame, Part 5
 * Knight Errant novel
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 8: Deluge, Part 3
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 12: Escape, Part 2
 * Star Wars: Knight Errant 14: Escape, Part 4