Battle of Geonosis (Galactic Civil War)

"Who are you?!''" "''You know who I am. The Empire maintains order. People like you disrupt that order."

- Wedge Antilles and the defector Sarkli

This battle took place around 3 ABY on and in orbit of the planet Geonosis. The battle occurred in the wake of the abduction of a number of Rebel Alliance scientists from a prison over Bakura. General Crix Madine of the Alliance tracked the unidentified captor to Geonosis, where Rogue Squadron was deployed to secure the hostages.

As soon as the battle began, it was already a disaster for the Alliance. An ambush, led by Imperial spy Sarkli, took place on the Rebel fleet, forcing the surviving rescue transports to retreat into hyperspace. After Commander Wedge Antilles of Rogue Squadron confronted Sarkli, who was in command of an Imperial escort carrier, both Sarkli and Antilles crash landed in the canyons on the planet.

Arrival of Rogue Squadron
Upon arrival in the Geonosis asteroid field, three escort carriers performed a surprise ambush and took down one of the rescue transports. The abducter revealed himself to be Sarkli, former member of Rogue Squadron and the Rebel Alliance. Wedge managed to destroy his escort carrier, but Sarkli and a few garrisons of Stormtroopers managed to survive the blast by using the ship's escape pods, taking casualties in the process due to collisions with asteroids. Wedge's X-wing was caught in the explosion which destroyed the starboard stabilizer and sent him crashing down on the planet.

Ground operations
Numerous B1 battle droids on Geonosis had been cut off from the deactivation beacon at the end of the Clone Wars. When the survivors of the carrier blast landed on the planet, several stormtroopers were killed by "native" droids settled in the area. As Wedge crashed, they turned their blasters on him. In an attempt to flee the droids, Sarkli used a crashed, but working LAAT/i to escape the area. Wedge now had to deal with waves of battle droids, but survived. He narrowly escaped the ordeal.

When Wedge finally came out of the chaos, Sarkli's gunship attacked him. Using a dead stormtrooper's E-web heavy repeating blaster, Wedge blasted him down, but Sarkli survived the crash, and would resurface at the Battle of Endor. Wedge then found an old Jedi starfighter from the original Battle of Geonosis with good hull condition, but lacking power. Wedge's R5-series astromech transferred electricity and power from its circuits into the engine, reactivating it. Wedge and his R5 then escaped the planet.

Retreat
Crix Madine's command EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate came out of hyperspace and met up with Wedge. The remaining two escort carriers attacked and launched several TIEs, but Wedge found out the starfighter had a payload of seismic charges and repelled them. With assistance from the frigate and his wingmates, he dispatched the last two carriers, and jumped into hyperspace with an old, but still working, hyperspace ring floating nearby.

Aftermath
At the end of the battle the Rebels were forced to retreat, the Empire found out about the droid operations and put it down, thus dissolving the Separatist holdouts altogether, along with the complete demise of the Core ships.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike

Schlacht von Geonosis (3 NSY)