The Galaxy was now in a deadlock. After the New Republic narrowly stopped the
new Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn at Sluis Van, the stalemate seemed to continue. Yet,
as the Republic became paralyzed in its own internal turmoil, the Grand Admiral
immediately took the initiative. Welcome to the Wizards and Warriors channel, we are glad
to have you with us on this next episode set in the Star Wars universe. As is our custom,
we invite you to get comfortable, maybe invite your fellow intergalactic buddies as we tell the
next tale of Thrawn, his hunt for the lost Katana fleet, and his campaign against the New Republic.
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Though his planned capture of the Republic’s ships had been a failure, Thrawn knew that the
Republic would not be able to counter. Not only had the ships been disabled in the encounter,
but the Grand Admiral had another plan playing out at the same time. The Republic was still
searching for the information leak that Thrawn had made apparent to them. Soon, they came to the
conclusion that the culprit must not be a spy, but a traitor, putting anyone and everyone in Republic
command under suspicion, just as Thrawn intended. Having created an atmosphere of paranoia in his
enemy’s ranks, Thrawn sent Imperial intelligence to break into the central bank on Coruscant
and move some of the funds to the account of the Supreme Commander of the Republic Fleet,
Admiral Gial Ackbar. This had its desired effect, for Ackbar was now put under suspicion,
leading his political rival, Councilor Borsk Fey’la, to convince the government to remove him
and place him under house arrest. Fey’la replaced Ackbar would replace Ackbar as Supreme Commander,
causing a great divide in the New Republic defence fleet. With the Republic fleet deprived
of their most formidable commander, who had been replaced by someone interested only in acquiring
political capital, Thrawn once more had free reign to do as he pleased without reprisal.
Thrawn had his fleet continue the fade and attack strategy to further solidify his advantage,
forcing the remaining Republic border fleets to add more ships to escort convoys travelling
through the region, unable to afford to lose the already wavering loyalty of the systems
lest they lose face. Thrawn’s strategy to place Fey'lya in power bore fruit when a recent raid
on Sarka demonstrated that the Republic was now using its ships in an ineffective manner.
With the front under his control, Thrawn departed to deal with internal issues, namely the smugglers
under Talon Karrde, who by now it was apparent had withheld Skywalker from the Grand Admiral, and
even helped him and his friends escape from Myrkr. Thrawn was unable to get his hands on Karrde,
who escaped through the intervention of his ally Mara Jade. Having failed to catch the smuggler,
Thrawn placed a bounty on his head before moving to his next issue: the loyalty of the Noghri.
The Noghri had repeatedly failed to apprehend Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker, and following
yet another failed mission on Kashyyyk just prior to Sluis Van, Thrawns patience with them had been
expended. Nevertheless, he gave them one final chance. Meanwhile, Pellaeon had the Imperial
Council offer a buyout of any ship brought to him over 100 '000 tons at over 20% of the buy price,
which started to yield ships for Thrawn’s fleet, albeit none greater than a Star Galleon.
The Rebels, meanwhile, were still impotent in their response to Thrawn’s attacks, for
they were still reeling from the arrest of Admiral Ackbar and the virulent infighting between his and
Fey’la’s factions, who deadlocked each other on every issue. All the while, the unofficial elites
of the Republic, Skywalker, Solo, Calrissian, and Leia, were left to deal with their own issues.
The first three were tasked with locating Delta source so as to clear Ackbar’s name, whilst Leia
herself decided to deal with the Noghri problem that had continued to plague her every move.
Things took an unexpected turn when one of the Noghri assassins, Khabarakh, recognized her
blood scent and proclaimed her “Mal’ary’ush'' or “Daughter of the Savior'' as he knew she was the
daughter of Lord Vader whom the Noghri worshiped as their master prior to his successor, Thrawn.
Armed with this, she and Chewbacca left with the Noghri to his home planet of Honoghr,
on an unexpected collision course with Thrawn himself. Though Thrawn had chastised the Noghri
and launched an investigation on the newly returned Khabarakh whom he thought dead,
his stay was soon cut short by other matters, for the Millenium Falcon had been spotted at Endor,
leading him to believe that the Rebels were seeking the Emperor’s storehouse.
Meanwhile, Skywalker, Calrissian and Solo had had no luck finding a tip on Delta source,
having believed that Fey’la or his supporters were behind its obscuring, they went to New
Cov and began investigating. There, they were attacked by Captain Dorja aboard the Relentless
but were saved by the timely arrival of rebel forces. Afterwards, they split up, with Luke
departing to Jomark to meet the mysterious Jedi Master leaving the rest in Solo’s hands. Solo soon
met up with their unexpected saviour, who turned out to be one of the founders of the rebellion,
Garm Bel Iblis. While Solo was trying to reenlist the help of Iblis, who had abandoned the cause
after a falling out with Mon Mothma, Lando identified Iblis’s capital ships to be part of the
famous lost Katana Fleet due to the Dreadnought Classes distinctive dark colour pattern that
had earned them the nickname “Dark Force.” The Katana fleet was a fleet of over 200
Dreadnought Class Heavy Cruisers built before the Clone Wars; they were revolutionary in that they
could be controlled with a minimal crew due to their mechanical circuitry dubbed “Slave rigged.”
The Fleet was lost when a hive virus spread through it that caused the crews to go insane
and die, but not before they jumped to unknown coordinates. Calrissian and Solo knew very well
the advantage these ships would give them, for although they couldn’t stand up to modern Mon
Cala cruisers or Star Destroyers, having nearly 200 sturdy heavy cruisers would be
a deadly boon to the side that had them. Farther away, things were developing in
tandem with this, for Thrawn had not only discovered and captured the Millenium Falcon
but also had captured Mara Jade, Karrde’s second in command, who intentionally came
to him demanding an audience on the basis she was previously the “Emperor's Hand.”
Thrawn’s plan of letting the bounty hunters deal with Karrde was ultimately more successful than
the bounty placed on Skywalker, as Karrde and Mara were harassed constantly, enough so that she
decided to go directly to Thrawn with an offer. He would lift the bounty on their head in exchange,
she would give him the location of the lost Katana Fleet, as Karrde knew of its location. Thrawn was
actually already in the process of locating the fleet, so this offer on his doorstep would not be
passed, and he accepted Mara’s deal, letting her depart to negotiate with Karrde. Mara soon arrived
at their new base and was about to talk to Karrde when Imperial Stormtroopers arrived on the scene,
storming the hideout and capturing Karrde and a number of other members of his ring. Thrawn had
doubted that Karrde would give him the location, and he was correct to suspect this, for Karrde had
started to show his Republican sympathies prior. Mara confronted the Grand Admiral, enraged at the
casual betrayal of his deal, but Thrawn remained calm, even offering her a role as the commander
of one of the Katana Dreadnoughts. Moreover, he released Karrde upon acquiring the fleet.
Mara agreed to Thrawn’s offer as a ruse, but soon escaped the fleet, intent on releasing Karrde.
She made her way to Jomark, hoping to enlist Skywalker’s help. Although Mara disliked the Jedi,
she knew he could be relied on due to their prior experience on Myrkr.
She found him being trained by C’baoth, his mind clouded due to the Dark Jedi’s power.
Having anticipated this, Mara brought a Ysalamiri, which broke C’baoth’s hold over Skywalker.
A brief fight with the dark Jedi ensued, after which Luke and Mara were able to escape safely.
They successfully infiltrated the Chimera and escaped with Karrde aboard the Millennium Falcon.
Meanwhile, Solo and Calrissian had found their lead. They headed to the planet of Pantolomin,
where they located Captain Hoffner aboard a luxury cruiser, the “Coral Vanda.”
Hoffner had supplied Iblis with the Katana Dreadnoughts and had also been a part of
the crew with Karrde that found the ships. But they would never meet,
as it was not only Calrissian who had identified Iblis’s cruisers correctly but Thrawn had as well,
hence why he too was searching for the fleet and had already tasked a subordinate, Niles Ferrier,
to find Iblis’s supplier and he was able to delay solo long enough for the Chimaera, who promptly
arrived at Pantolomin to capture Captain Hoffner forcing Solo to retreat. Hoffner soon relented,
and with both sides having the location, it was a matter of who would arrive first.
A conference was called about the matter with the heads of state in attendance,
including Leia Organa, who had just returned from Noghri, having convinced the assassins to
side with the Republic after exposing the damage the Empire was inflicting on their home planet.
Mon Mothma assigned the duty to salvage Katana fleet to Councilor Fey’la, who was
skeptical of the information. Nevertheless, he went out to search for the fleet as ordered,
though he dragged his heels in doing so. Knowing they had little time, Solo, Skywalker, Chewbacca,
and Calrissian took Rogue Squadron and a handful of technicians and hurried to the
location, where they found several dreadnoughts. Having decided to board one of the dreadnoughts
to appraise their condition, they headed to the bridge, discovering that they had boarded
the Katana itself, the flagship of the fleet. No sooner had they done this that a Nebulon B Frigate
entered the system, Fey’la had arrived aboard the Quenfis accompanied by Karrde and Leia Organa and
sent a comm to the Katana informing them they were under arrest and demanding they surrender,
overriding Mon Mothma’s order. Solo rejected the arrest order stating that they were both trying
to accomplish the same task, but Fey’la would not relent as he suspected Solo of trying to
use the ships to make a ploy or political power on Ackbar’s half. Their near fight was only averted
with the arrival of an Imperial Star Destroyer with its TIE fighter wings approaching fast. It
was the Judicator, helmed by Captain Brandei, who immediately ordered the TIEs to engage and cover
the dropships heading for the Katana. Solo’s team prepared to fight, firing a salvo from the Katana,
which destroyed several dropships at the cost of frying the guns' capacitors.
The Quenfis was poised to join the fight, but Fey’la ordered the ship to turn about and retreat,
Leia was appalled by this order demanding he help Solo. In response, Fey’la held her at gunpoint.
Seeing that something had to be done, Karrde tricked the Bothan by turning on the ship's
coms and inciting Fey'lya to tell Leia that no cost of life was too great to
risk his political career, as the ship held some of his supporters on board as well.
With this, the crew of the Quenfis turned on Fey’la, placing Leia in command. Thus, the Quenfis
joined the fight, dispatching Gold Squadron, which helped to check the Imperial advance.
Meanwhile, on board the Katana, Solo’s team desperately hung on as waves of Stormtroopers
flooded the ship, slowly pushing them back, albeit suffering mounting losses on their own end.
This stalemate was broken with the arrival of Karrde’s smuggler fleet from behind the Judicator,
led by Mara in her Z-95 Headhunter, putting immense pressure on the Imperial flagship
enough that Captain Brandei had to dispatch all his TIE bombers to support the fighters.
Up until this point the Republic had intended to save Solo’s team and flee,
never expecting to be able to stand up to the Judicator, this changed with the arrival of
Garm Bel Iblis aboard the Peregrine accompanied by his fleet, having answered the call of Solo.
Although the rest of the Rebel force was now convinced of victory, Karrde suggested to Leia
that their priority should still be to rescue Solo’s team and leave. Leia was incredulous at
this, saying that they couldn’t just leave the Katana fleet to the Empire, but Karrde had her
turn to the recent data from the scanners, which thus far no one bothered to look at. Out of the
200 ships that made up the Katana fleet, only 15 remained, Thrawn had arrived first and already got
the majority of the fleet, as the Judicator was just acting as a screen. The Republic’s
situation worsened with the arrival of a second Star Destroyer, the Peremptory, sending the
Smuggler's ships into disarray, with Mara herself getting knocked out of the fight by a stray shot.
Solo’s team barricaded themselves in the bridge whilst Skywalker ripped a hole outside of it,
causing the chamber to decompress and killing their pursuers. Though their situation seemed
hopeless now, Solo came up with a plan, with the aid of Calrissian, he was able to get the Slave
circuitry system working and was able to take control of one of the remaining dreadnaughts,
which they steered into the path of the Peremptory causing a collision which the
Peremptory tried to avoid destroying both ships. Seeing the Battle could no longer be sustained,
Brandei ordered the remaining TIEs to the ship and departed, leaving what was left to the Rebels.
Though they won, much like at Sluis Van, this came at a reprehensible price,
Thrawn had made off with the majority of the Dreadnaughts, and worse still for the rebels,
upon gathering the bodies, they discovered that Thrawn was using clones. This boded ill for the
Republic as the Clones had demonstrated their effectiveness in the Clone Wars. This meant that
Thrawn could easily crew his newly acquired ships. The Empire they believed was at death’s door,
the foe they believed was as good as dead, was now back. The Empire was not done yet. Thrawn’s master
plan will continue to unfold in the next episode of this series. To make sure you don’t miss
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