Battle for the Katana fleet

"I have a real bad feeling about this, Han." "Yeah. Join the club."

- Luke Skywalker and Han Solo

The Battle for the Katana fleet was a significant event in the Thrawn campaign.

Racing To Find A Ghost
With both the forces of the Empire and New Republic depleted during the Thrawn campaign, the need for new ships soon became apparent to both sides. Following the disastrous attempt by Imperial forces to secure New Republic ships from the Sluis Van shipyards, the need became even more critical, with over forty New Republic warships disabled following that conflict.

Known to only a few, the location of the Katana fleet would dramatically tip the balance of power. Among those few were smuggler kingpin Talon Karrde, who had been brought into the conflict despite his best interests to remain neutral.

Having an opportunity to meet with Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade agreed to get the location of the Katana fleet from Karrde in exchange for having the death warrants put on him and his employees cancelled. Unfortunately, Thrawn tracked Mara back to Karrde's new base and captured him. Before Thrawn could get the location of the fleet from him, however, Mara and Luke Skywalker infiltrated Chimaera and rescued him. Grateful, Karrde agreed to provide the New Republic with the location, insisting that a salvage operation begin as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, Thrawn was not undaunted by the loss of Karrde, and took Chimaera to Pantolomin, assaulting the luxury casino Coral Vanda in an attempt to kidnap another person who knew the location of the fleet: Captain Hoffner.

Finding the Dark Force
Arriving at the location of the fleet with Rogue Squadron and a small team of technicians, Luke, Han Solo, Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian boarded one of the Dreadnaughts and attempted to begin the work of bringing the fleet back to New Republic space. The Dreadnaught they chose, based on Luke's Force-attuned hunch, turned out to be the Katana herself. However, their efforts were stalled by the arrival of Borsk Fey'lya onboard the Nebulon-B Escort Frigate Quenfis, who immediately demanded that Han and the others turn themselves over to them. The situation was further disrupted by the arrival of the Star Destroyer Judicator, whose TIE fighter squadrons moved to attack Rogue Squadron. A dozen dropships were also dispatched from the Judicator to board the Katana. The team aboard the Katana managed to restore power to the ship's turbolaser batteries, and managed to destroy five of the dropships with their opening salvo, along with a few TIE fighters, and damaged most of the other dropships. Unfortunately for them, the Katana ' s first salvo was also its last, as the turbolaser capacitor was destroyed by an overload.

Instead of assisting, however, Fey'lya demanded that Captain Sarin Virgilio take the ship and retreat. Appaled by Fey'lya's lack of concern for his comrade's well being, Karrde and Leia tricked Fey'lya into admitting this over an open communications frequency. Fey'lya's forces immediately went to Rogue Squadron's assistance and Fey'lya himself was placed under arrest. Two X-wing squadrons from the Quenfis joined up with Rogue Squadron, and they began to take the upper hand over the Imperial TIEs. They managed to destroy the opening wave, as well as six of the seven dropships which survived the Katana ' s turbolaser attack.



Receiving word of the unexpected level of resistance, Thrawn decided to personally intervene with his flagship Chimaera. However, this plan was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Joruus C'baoth, in a hijacked Lancer-class frigate. Realizing that delaying his ship's departure to take on Master C'baoth might cause him to arrive too late to affect the battle, Thrawn instead dispatched the Peremptory in his place. Aboard the Judicator, Captain Brandei launched one of his reserve squadrons to reinforce the remaining two TIE squadrons, and brought his Star Destroyer forward to engage the New Republic forces directly.

At that moment, eighteen freighters and starfighters from Karrde's smuggling fleet emerged from hyperspace behind the Judicator and began attacking. Mara Jade, taking advantage of her extensive knowledge of Imperial Star Destroyer design, attacked a little-known weak spot in the lower-aft sensor grid with her Z-95 Headhunter, effectively blinding the Judicator to attacks from below. Brandei responded by launching his TIE Bomber squadron to attack the smugglers, but then Garm Bel Iblis arrived with his fleet of six Katana Dreadnaughts, having been provided the location of the Katana fleet by Han Solo. Bel Iblis's Dreadnaughts began a heavy ion cannon bombardment of the Judicator, but the battle quickly turned in favor of the Empire with the arrival of the Peremptory. Three of Bel Iblis's cruisers broke off to engage the undamaged Star Destroyer, while Karrde's ships desperately scrambled to escape. Mara Jade's Headhunter was crippled by a stray laser shot, and she managed to set it on a collision course with the Judicator ' s hangar bay before ejecting. Unfortunately, this put her directly in the path of the Dreadnaughts' ion cannon barrage, which disabled the locator beacon in her ejection seat.

Meanwhile, onboard the Katana, Luke, Han, Chewbacca and Lando attempted to deal with the Imperial forces that had boarded the ship, at one point making use of an All Terrain Personal Transport walker that had been force into one of the cruiser's corridors decades earlier by a crewer afflicted by the Hive Virus. Finding themselves backed to the bridge and outnumbered, Luke caused an explosive decompression in the corridor leading to the bridge, which caused the remaining troops to be vented into space. Luke then used the ships' slave circuit systems to maneuver one of the other Dreadnaughts, which unlike the Katana still had functional sublight engines, into the path of the Peremptory. The Star Destroyer was unable to avoid the collision, which destroyed both warships instantly. One of Bel Iblis's Dreadnaughts was damaged in the blast, but the other two quickly joined the rest of his fleet in bombarding the Judicator. Realizing that he was now outnumbered and outgunned, Brandei quickly ordered his ship to recover its remaining TIEs and retreat, bringing an end to the battle.

Aftermath
"It's not going to take them years to find and train crews for their new Dreadnaughts. Maybe only a few months. Maybe not even that long."

- Han Solo

The New Republic's victory, however, was a hollow one. It was discovered during the battle that only fifteen of the Katana fleet's two hundred Dreadnaughts were still left. Worse was the knowledge that the stormtroopers that made up the boarding party were clones, leading many to fear that a new wave of Clone Wars was coming...and that this time Coruscant would be on the losing side. Finding the location of Thrawn's cloning storehouse became a top priority for New Republic Intelligence.

As soon as the Katana ' s hull breach was patched and a ship was available, Luke Skywalker left the Dreadnaught and used his Jedi skills to locate Mara Jade's disabled ejection seat.

Appearances

 * Dark Force Rising