- "You may win the occasional battle against us, Vorrik, but the Empire will always strike back."
- ―Gilad Pellaeon
The Battle of Borosk was a major battle fought in 28 ABY during the Yuuzhan Vong War. After the disastrous Imperial rout at the Battle of Bastion, the Imperial Starfleet regrouped at Yaga Minor before it fell back to Borosk, the temporary Imperial capital. After a hard-fought battle, the Remnant forced the Yuuzhan Vong to retreat.[2]
Prelude to the Battle[]
- "Anyone with half a brain should have seen the flaw in the reasoning that, if we hadn't been attacked yet, we were unlikely to be attacked at all."
- ―Captain Arien Yage
In the aftermath of the disaster at Ebaq 9, the Yuuzhan Vong launched a campaign of lightning strikes aimed at enemies they had originally bypassed, including the Imperial Remnant. Using what forces they could spare, the Vong intended not only to remove these foes from the strategic picture before they could become a greater threat, but to harvest slave soldiers to supplement their depleted forces. The attack against the Remnant succeeded spectacularly at Bastion and Muunilinst, from which the the Imperial Navy was forced to retreat.[2]
The survivors from the falls of Bastion and Muunilinst regrouped at the Yaga Minor shipyards. Shaken but determined to fight back, they offloaded their wounded and docked with the slipways to make what repairs they could. With the chain of command uncertain, there was a growing danger that the Remnant would break apart into the individual sectors controlled by each Moff, as power plays began even as the Vong prepared for their next attack. However, the revival and sudden reappearance of Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, who had been presumed killed at Bastion, firmed up the morale of the fleet and restored the chain of command. Under Pellaeon's direct order, Moff Kurlen Flennic organized the Imperial fall back from Yaga Minor to the more heavily fortified planet of Borosk.[2]
Informed by their spies of the Imperial withdrawal, the Vong fleet under B'shith Vorrik followed. However, the help of several Galactic Alliance Jedi allowed the Remnant to be fully prepared for the upcoming showdown. Jacen Solo used YVH-M Mouse Droids to locate and dismantle a network of spies within the Imperial fleet, and personally dispatched several Yuuzhan Vong infiltrators, thereby denying to the enemy a vital source of information on the true status of the fleet and Borosk's defenses.[2]
The Battle[]
- "Enemy fleet concentrated in sectors three through eight."
- ―Widowmaker's duty officer
Pellaeon divided his fleet into four distinct battle groups, designated by their command vessel names and made up of numerous capital ships and support craft. Fleet Group Stalwart led the vanguard, Fleet Group Protector and Group Relentless each guarded one of the flanks, and Fleet Group Right to Rule maintained the rear.[2]
Pellaeon's strategy was elegantly simple. The fleet would orbit the planet, protected by ample minefields and surface to space turbolaser systems. They would engage the enemy in a defensive battle, forcing the time-constrained Vorrik to either break off the attack or attempt an overwhelming frontal attack against the heavy defenses.[2]
When the Yuuzhan Vong arrived in-system, Fleet Group Stalwart sent four TIE Fighter squadrons led by Luke Skywalker in his XJ3 X-wing to attack before the Vong ships could recover from their hyperspace emergence. Caught off guard, the Yuuzhan Vong initially fell into disarray before their yammosks re-coordinated their forces. The Imperial task forces steadily withdrew into their defensive orbits, settling in for what was expected to be a long wait.[2]
The battle took an unexpected twist when a massive Yuuzhan Vong slaveship arrived at the rear of the Vong formation. Saba Sebatyne proposed that they attack the ship, full of captives from the Battle of Bastion, and allow themselves to be captured in order to rescue the prisoners. Pellaeon agreed to the plan and provided the automated Katana fleet dreadnaught Braxant Bonecrusher for the mission. Formerly the Braxant Brave, but renamed in honor of Sebatyne's plan, it was designed to 'fake' a death and thereafter look like a harmless drifting wreck. Its mission would be to jump out of hyperspace near the slaveship and attack it, then allow itself to be 'destroyed' by the Vong. The slaveship then would be expected to harvest any live prisoners from the ship. Should all go to plan, the Jade Shadow, concealed within the Bonecrusher, would use its tractor beam to recover the liberated prisoners and then the Dreadnaught would jump out.[2]
Staffed by Sebatyne, Danni Quee, Mara Jade Skywalker and Solo, the Bonecrusher deployed a dozen automated TIE Fighters and engaged the enemy rear before it faked its demise. The slaveship then sucked both Sebatyne and Quee aboard. Eliminating the crew, the two Jedi cut the ship's hull open and the prisoners were tractored into the Dreadnaught's hangar bay. Once recovery was completed, the Bonecrusher jumped out.[2]
As the Bonecrusher raided the enemy rear, a gravitic amplitude modulator had been brought in from a nearby Imperial system and installed on the Imperial Star Destroyer Defiant, calibrated to the specifications of the yammosk jammer technology developed by Jedi in the final days of the New Republic. Accompanied by a swarm of TIE Fighters and blastboats, the Defiant broke orbit and dove into the Yuuzhan Vong fleet. Once it was in range, the jammer was activated. The enemy fleet's sudden loss of cohesion enabled the Defiant's task force to inflict heavy casualties as it pushed toward the yammosk.[2]
Aware its defeat was inevitable, the yammosk attempted to divert the attack, but the Imperial forces refused to be distracted. The self-destruction of two of the yammosk's sister vessels temporarily stalled the Defiant's attack, but a TIE Fighter pilot who had recovered quicker than his or her peers landed the shot that killed the yammosk.[2]
With the lead yammosk dead, the slaveship lost, the Defiant wreaking havoc in the midst of Vorrik's fleet as it hunted the back-up yammosk, and the Yuuzhan Vong already far too weak due to their losses to at Ebaq-9, Vorrik had no choice but to withdraw in humiliation, having been bested by a critically-injured Grand Admiral still recuperating within a bacta tank on an Imperial frigate.[2]
Aftermath[]
- "If Shimrra didn't consider the Empire a threat before, he will now. How long he considers a threat, however, is entirely up to us."
- ―Gilad Pellaeon
The Remnant's ruling Council of Moffs was shaken by both the Vong attack on Imperial Space and the devastation of their capital world. Pellaeon argued forcefully that the Remnant needed to go on the offensive against the Vong and help the Galactic Alliance win the war, since if they simply waited for the Vong to return, they would be destroyed.[2]
Several of the Moffs, most notably Moff Flennic, were aghast at the idea of allying the Imperial Remnant with the successor state of the New Republic that had defeated the Galactic Empire, which at its height would have easily destroyed the Vong. Although the rest of the Council came around to Pellaeon's logic relatively quickly, Flennic, unable to control himself, pulled a blaster pistol and pointed it at Pellaeon. Jade Skywalker intervened before Flennic could kill the Grand Admiral, and while Pellaeon promised not to take any retribution against the Moff, he did warn Flennic that if he ever stepped out of line again, Pellaeon would not be so forgiving.[2]
Ultimately, this battle marked the second entrance of the Remnant into the Yuuzhan Vong War, which culminated with Imperial forces under the Grand Admiral fighting in the final battle at Coruscant.[3]
Appearances[]
- The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic I: Remnant (First appearance)
Sources[]
- The New Essential Chronology (First identified as Battle of Borosk)
- The Essential Atlas