Battle of Sundari

"Maul must really want you dead." "You have no idea."

- Bo-Katan Kryze and Obi-Wan Kenobi

In the wake of the Shadow Collective's coup against the New Mandalorians, a battle was fought in the city of Sundari, the capital of the New Mandalorian faction on the planet Mandalore. Early fighting broke out as members of the Death Watch who had turned against Darth Maul—leader of the Shadow Collective—attempted to free the deposed former leader of the New Mandalorians, Duchess Satine Kryze from her captivity. Kryze was able to make it outside of the domed city and send a request for aid to her one time lover, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, before being recaptured and returned to prison.

With word of the recent events on Mandalore, Kenobi journeyed to Mandalore to assist Kryze, leading to further fighting as he attempted to evacuate the jailed duchess from Sundari. The Jedi's starship was destroyed over Sundari's docks, and he was captured alongside Kryze by Darth Maul and a cadre of his loyal Mandalorian super commandos. Kryze was subsequently murdered by Maul as part of his vengeance against Kenobi for the Jedi nearly killing him ten years prior, and Kenobi was delivered to Sundari's prison in order to live with the emotional pain from his former lover's death. Before he could ever reach the cell intended for him, Kenobi was rescued by Bo-Katan Kryze, Satine Kryze's estranged sister and the leader of the faction of Death Watch that refused to serve Darth Maul. Kenobi and Bo-Katan moved to flee from Sundari, battling Maul's pursuing super commandos all the way out of the city, before navigating the chaos of a larger conflict that had taken shape at Sundari's docks. Bo-Katan's loyal soldiers clashed with Maul's troops in a heated battle, holding back the Sith's forces in order to allow Kenobi to hurry aboard a Kom'rk-class transport and get off planet.

At the same time Kenobi was attempting to get off of Mandalore, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious had arrived on the planet, seeking to confront his former apprentice Darth Maul. Sidious came face to face with Maul in the throne room of the Sundari Royal Palace, engaging Maul and his brother Savage Opress in a lightsaber duel that ended with Opress dead at the hands of Sidious, while Maul was subdued by his former master but spared for Darth Sidious' future purposes.

Prelude
"I claim this sword, and my rightful place as leader of Death Watch!" "Never! No outsider will ever rule Mandalore!" "If you will not join me, you will all die." "You're all traitors!" "Unfortunately for you, history will not see it that way. ''Execute them!"

- Darth Maul and Bo-Katan Kryze

In the year 20 BBY, New Mandalorian territory throughout the deserts of Mandalore, in which the pacifistic people made their home, was overrun by the criminal assembly known as the Shadow Collective. Across the New Mandalorians' capital city, Sundari, gangsters from Black Sun, the spice-dealing Pyke Syndicate, and the Hutt Cartels gunned down police officers and civilians alike in order to cause panic. At the height of the people's desperation, the renegade Mandalorian group known as the Death Watch came forward to defend the New Mandalorians against the offworld crime lords; unknown to the public, Death Watch was secretly in league with the criminals besieging Sundari, having forged an alliance with their leader, the Sith Lord Darth Maul, in order to topple the New Mandalorian government.

Throughout the city, Death Watch systematically defeated and arrested the aggressors, winning the favor of the New Mandalorian populous. With the will of the people on their side, Death Watch marched into the Sundari Royal Palace and there, the group's leader Pre Vizsla deposed the ruler of the New Mandalorians, Duchess Satine Kryze. Kryze, Prime Minister Armatan, and the other New Mandalorian leaders were imprisoned, while Vizsla replaced the former duchess as Mand'alor, the traditional ruler of the Mandalorians.

Vizsla's reign proved short, however. With his own goals met, Death Watch's commander turned upon his Sith ally, and had both Darth Maul and his Sith apprentice Savage Opress jailed. Maul had foreseen Vizsla's betrayal, and planned for it: easily freeing themselves from their cell, within the prison's walls the two Sith came across the former New Mandalorian Prime Minister, Almec, who had been arrested on charges of corruption. Selecting Almec as a suitable replacement for Vizsla in his schemes, Maul broke free of the prison and stormed the Royal Palace, where he challenged Vizsla to a duel for the right to lead. Honor-bound by the ancient codes Death Watch and Vizsla venerated, the Mandalorian leader engaged the Sith Lord in a furious battle throughout the throne room, though he ultimately could not match Darth Maul's prowess. Vizsla was slain, and Maul proclaimed himself to be the Mand'alor and leader of Death Watch, yet he was not met with unanimous approval: Vizsla's lieutenant, Bo-Katan Kryze, refused to follow a non-Mandalorian, and she fled the palace with a squad of other like-minded soldiers amidst a hail of blasterfire. Almec was instituted as the new Prime Minister, a puppet ruler to who would publicly lead in the place of Darth Maul, while the Sith Lord remained in the shadows, unknown to the populous.

Early skirmishes
"Get the Duchess clear!"

- Bo-Katan Kryze, while under fire from Darth Maul loyalists

Weeks after Darth Maul's rise to power, Bo-Katan was able to infiltrate the prison where Satine—her estranged sister—was being held. Together with her nephew Korkie Kryze and a group of his close friends, Bo-Katan freed Satine and rushed her to a waiting Buirk'alor-class airspeeder, intending to flee the city escorted by a cadre of Death Watch soldiers still loyal to Bo-Katan. Not far from the prison complex, however, the airspeeder was spotted by one of the Mandalorian super commandos loyal to Maul and quickly came under attack. A brief shootout ensued between the two groups of Mandalorian warriors, with Bo-Katan staying behind to stave off the attackers while Korkie continued onward toward Sundari's outer docks. Despite the efforts of Death Watch to stall the Maul loyalists, the speeder shuttling the former Duchess Kryze was struck and damaged by blasterfire, necessitating a crash landing at the docks. In the midst of a firefight between her nephew's friends and the super commandos that had pursued her to the docks, Kryze transmitted a request for aid to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in the hope that it might reach her friend and one-time lover, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kryze was shortly surrounded and recaptured, taken back to her cell at the prison, though her message would indeed find its way to the intended recipient.

With word of the criminal takeover on Mandalore, Obi-Wan Kenobi set out for Mandalore; alone and acting without support from the Galactic Republic due to Mandalore's status as a neutral system, Kenobi arrived at Sundari aboard an old freighter borrowed from his former Padawan, Anakin Skywalker. Stealing a suit of Mandalorian armor from one of Maul's soldiers, Kenobi sneaked into the city and infiltrated the prison where Satine Kryze was being held, freeing the deposed leader from her cell and stealing a Balutar-class swoop bike on which the two then made their escape. Pursued by a Maul-loyalist commandos, as Kenobi and Kryze reached the docks they hastily boarded Kenobi's waiting starship, and made use of its onboard laser cannons to defend against the Mandalorian attackers as they lifted off. Once in the air, however, the ship was struck by a pair of missiles fired by the enemy soldiers, causing it to crash and both Kryze and Kenobi to be violently ejected onto the docks while attempting to jump clear of the wreckage. Subdued by the arrival of Darth Maul at the docks, Kenobi and Kryze were taken back into custody and delivered to the Royal Palace. There, intent to make Kenobi suffer for the wounds he had sustained at the Jedi's hands nearly a decade prior, Maul murdered Kenobi's former lover before his eyes and left the Jedi Master to mourn Kryze's death on his way to prison, preferring to let Kenobi live with his pain than kill him outright.

Conflict escalates
"Sorry, I don't believe we've met. You are&hellip;?" "Bo-Katan. I'm here to rescue you. That's all you need to know."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bo-Katan Kryze

As Obi-Wan Kenobi was being transported to Sundari's prison, his team of guards came under attack by Bo-Katan Kryze and a unit of the faction of Death Watch that refused to surrender to Darth Maul's authority. One by one, the Sith loyalists were killed in a brief skirmish, and Kryze freed Kenobi, offering him a jetpack to make use of in order to escape Sundari. Shortly after taking off from the prison, Kenobi's escort were assaulted by a pursuing unit of Maul's soldiers; Kryze's troops formed a rear guard, firing backward onto the attackers as the in-flight battle reached an egress to Sundari's outer docks. There, Kenobi, Kryze, and her soldiers elected to make a stand, landing and opening fire on the super commandos from solid ground. Several members of Kryze's Nite Owls—a unit of soldiers handpicked by the Death Watch lieutenant —primed gauntlet-mounted portable energy shields to defend themselves, while another struck at their foes with a jetpack-launched missile. Suffering losses as quickly as they were inflicting them, Maul's warriors moved to close the gap between themselves and Kryze's troops, and the fight quickly turned to a close-quarters melee from which Kryze's soldiers emerged victorious.

Pushing out of the city and onto Sundari's docks, Kryze and Kenobi found themselves in the midst of a larger battle between the portion of the Death Watch that had sided with Bo-Katan, and the others who had pledged their service to Darth Maul. Across the docks, Mandalorians clashed with blaster rifles and fists in equal measure, as Kom'rk-class fighters battled in the skies over Sundari. One of the Kom'rk fighters slowed to a halt over the docks, decanting Death Watch soldiers equipped with jetpacksfrom the ship's ventral drop bay to aid Kryze's ground forces, only for the vessel to be shot out of the air moments later by their former comrades. While Mandalorians on both sides flew overhead, trading blaster shots and striking their enemies with their armored bodies, Kryze rushed Obi-Wan Kenobi to the docks edge and a waiting Kom'rk fighter prepared to take the Jedi Master offworld. In their final moments together, Kenobi deduced Bo-Katan's familial relationship with his deceased former lover and offered his condolences. Kryze, in turn, advised Kenobi to inform the Republic of Maul's presence on Mandalore, preferring the prospects of a Republic invasion over allowing a Sith Lord to rule the New Mandalorians. With those last words, Kenobi boarded the transport and was taken from Sundari, leaving Kryze behind to continue the fight.

Showdown in the palace
"Remember, the first and only reality of the Sith: there can only be two. And you are no longer my apprentice. You have been ''replaced."

- Darth Sidious taunting Darth Maul

At the same time Obi-Wan Kenobi was being freed from his captors by the Death Watch troops loyal to Bo-Katan Kryze, an Eta-class shuttle belonging to the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious, emerged from hyperspace over Mandalore and made its approach toward Sundari. The Dark Lord had sensed his one time apprentice and tracked his whereabouts to Mandalore, intent to confront the rogue Sith. Setting down at the docks, Sidious choked two Mandalorian guards to death as he disembarked from the shuttle and commandeered an automated to bring him to the Sundari Royal Palace. There, after violently subduing two further Mandalorian soldiers, Sidious entered the palace throne room, where he was met by a kneeling Darth Maul who proclaimed to have conquered the New Mandalorians in an effort to prove himself worthy to rejoin his former Sith master. However, with an apprentice of his own in his brother Savage Opress, and a budding criminal empire in the form of the Shadow Collective, Sidious determined that Maul had in truth positioned himself to be a rival challenging the Sith doctrine known as the Rule of Two. Sidious attacked Maul and his apprentice, Opress, with the Force, initiating a two-against-one lightsaber duel between the reigning Dark Lord and the aspiring brothers.

Wielding two lightsabers, Sidious battled Maul and Opress throughout the throne room, eventually moving down a hall and out to a balcony that overlooked the palace square below. Opress bodily tackled Sidious, knocking the Sith Lord over the railing; in midair, however, Sidious reached out with the Force and pulled his two foes off of the balcony, and all three fell to the square. On the ground the fight began anew, though Sidious was able to render Maul temporarily unconscious with a powerful Force push that slammed him in the palace's outer wall. With his master down, Opress was left to fight Sidious alone and, despite his training, Opress was run through by the Dark Lord's lightsabers. Maul had awakened a moment prior to fatal wound being dealt, and rushed to his brother's side, attempting to comfort Opress as he died all the while Sidious mocked Maul for being a failed, replaced apprentice. Drawing the Darksaber Maul had won from Pre Vizsla at the conclusion of their duel weeks earlier, Maul attacked his former master with the black-colored blade as well as his own, but he was ultimately bested by Sidious, disarmed, and beaten down with the Force. As he lay begging for his life, Maul was struck with repeated bursts of Force lightning, though Sidious assured his one time apprentice that the Dark Lord found Maul too valuable to terminate outright, intending to make use of Maul in other ways.

Aftermath
Kenobi survived his transit off-world and continued to faithfully serve the Republic throughout the remainder of the conflict, only to go into hiding following the transformation of the Republic into the Galactic Empire and the start of the Imperials' subsequent Jedi purge. With the subjugation of Darth Maul at the hands of Darth Sidious, the Sith's Rule of Two was upheld, though its usage among the Sith would later wane in favor of Sidious' Rule of One, espousing the merits of his own singular power over the Sith Order, and eventually the philosophy of Darth Krayt's One Sith Order.

The New Mandalorian government was broken, destroyed by the Mandalorian revanchists of the Death Watch. The pacifist faction's power faded in favor of the Mandalorian warrior clans and their traditional culture, while Sundari's place as an important hub of business on Mandalore declined, with most off-worlders preferring to do their business on Mandalore's moon of Concordia, or in the planet's traditional capital of Keldabe.

Behind the scenes
The battle of Sundari first appeared in Star Wars canon in Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy, a young-reader novel authored by Jason Fry and published by Scholastic on January 1, 2013. The novel adapts the events of four episodes from the fifth season of the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, including "Revival," "Eminence," "Shades of Reason," and "The Lawless." The final episode, "The Lawless," depicts the events of the Sundari battle on screen, though its ending is notably different from the one presented in the Shadow Conspiracy novel in one significant aspect: while the novel suggests Darth Sidious kills the defeated Darth Maul, the episode clearly indicates Maul is to be spared for Sidious' unknown purposes.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy
 * The Last Jedi
 * The Last Jedi