Bacta War
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| The Bacta War | |||||||||
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| Date | 7 ABY | ||||||||
| Place | Thyferra, Yag'dhul(among other places) | ||||||||
| Result | Rogue victory; Thyferra freed, Ysanne Isard defeated | ||||||||
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- For the novel by Michael A. Stackpole, see The Bacta War.
The Bacta War (7 ABY) is a small, albeit important, fictional conflict in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, described in Michael Stackpole's X-Wing series of Star Wars novels, most notably The Bacta War. The Bacta War resulted in the capture of the bacta-producing planet of Thyferra, and its subsequent liberation by elements of the former Rogue Squadron, including Wedge Antilles and Corran Horn.
The Bacta War began after Coruscant's fall to the Rebel Alliance, and the flight of the Empire's leader, Ysanne Isard, from the planet in her Super Star Destroyer Lusankya. Isard had intentionally released a crippling virus, the Krytos virus, that only attacked non-human species. She knew that conquering Thyferra would allow her to control the galaxy's supply of life-saving bacta. She took a fleet, with the Lusankya as the flagship, to Thyferra, where (not coincidentally) the Xucphra corporation had just initiated a planetwide coup, leaving them in control, with competing corporation Zaltin in disarray. Isard was quickly installed as Xucphra's Chief Operating Officer, placing her in ultimate control of the Galaxy's bacta supply, despite being—technically—nothing more than a new employee of the company. Former Moff Fliry Vorru was also hired as Chief Financial Officer, with Rogue Squadron mole Erisi Dlarit taking a leadership position in the newly-formed Thyferran Home Defense Corps.
Rogue Squadron saw the necessity of freeing Thyferra from Isard's clutches. Corran Horn also had a more personal mission: while imprisoned on the Lusankya, he had promised a fellow prisoner, the famous Rebel general Jan Dodonna, that he would free Jan and the other prisoners. Seeing as how the Lusankya now orbited Thyferra, it seemed only natural to kill two birds with one stone: free the prisoners and Thyferra from the Empire.
Unfortunately, the New Republic refused to authorize such a mission, believing Warlord Zsinj to be a greater threat. They were also unable to countenance military action against a planet that had suffered nothing more offensive than a shuffling of one corporation's upper management. As a result, Corran Horn resigned his commission; the rest of the squadron, including leader Wedge Antilles, followed suit. The only exception was Pash Cracken, who returned to his old A-wing unit as a captain. While Cracken wanted to join the Rogues, Wedge asked Cracken to remain where he was (Cracken's father was the head of New Republic Intelligence, and Wedge knew no one would believe the Rogues had truly gone rogue had Pash gone with them).
After resigning from the New Republic, the Rogues were required to leave their headquarters facilities. A number of private citizens offered them offices and places to live, but the Rogues began searching for their own base for security reasons. Meanwhile, Captain Cracken had been ordered to destroy a space station orbiting Yag'Dhul, which was once controlled by Warlord Zsinj. Ironically, the Rogues had attacked the station in an earlier mission in order to steal badly needed bacta from Zsinj. Cracken offered the station to the Rogues, who accepted, and forged reports indicating the station had been destroyed.
Since the New Republic relied on Rogue Squadron as a symbol of their military might, it quickly formed a new, official, Rogue Squadron of their own. This new squadron was outfitted with new equipment, and all of the Rogues' X-wings and other equipment were declared broken surplus and offered for sale ("broken" because they were all missing PL-1s, the New Republic military designation for "pilot"). Tycho managed to scoop them up, and the Rogues' technical staff, catching wind of the transaction, resigned and came with the equipment. While this was going on, Wedge Antilles, Corran Horn, Mirax Terrik, and Ooryl Qrygg located several caches of X-wing parts and weapons across the galaxy. As a result, the squadron had all their fighters and plenty of parts as well. For funds, Tycho Celchu donated his ample bank accounts to the efforts, which had been used in an attempt to frame him as an Imperial spy. They also sold the remaining Z-95 Headhunters used to liberate Coruscant, now historical treasures due to their part in galactic history. Through Mirax Terrik's father, the infamous smuggler Booster Terrik, and Talon Karrde, the squadron was able to purchase the rest of the equipment needed to attack Thyferra. Finally, they were augmented by a full squadron of Twi'lek pilots and their custom-made Chir'daki fighters (a TIE Fighter cockpit supplemented by X-Wing S-foils, engines and laser cannons).
With the help of Elscol Loro and Sixtus Quin, Rogue Squadron managed to form an alliance with the Ashern, a Vratix resistance group, and the remanants of the Zaltin corporation. These groups performed many terrorist and insurgent attacks, including sneaking into the Dlarit family's estate and Erisi's father's clothes off in front of a camera. Meanwhile, in space, Rogue squadron performed numerous hit-and-run attacks against Thyferran bacta convoys and refineries. They used the stolen bacta to finance their war, as well as donating much of it to the New Republic to help fight the Krytos virus. Isard, meanwhile, struck back by attempting to ambush Rogue Squadron twice and completely annihilating a colony on Halanit, which had accepted stolen bacta from Rogue Squadron. Though horrific, the slaughter of innocents accomplished nothing but a furthering of the Rogues' resolve.
Through "hit-and-hype" raids, attrition and careful planning, the Rogues were able to whittle down down Isard's fleet of Star Destroyers. Her smaller Victory-class ship, the Corruptor, was destroyed in a botched ambush at Alderaan, in which Captain Ait Convarion's TIE squadrons (piloted solely by members of the fledgling Thyferran military) and then his ship were overwhelmed by the Rogues' superior piloting, coordination and salvos of proton torpedoes. Next, Antilles bribed Captain Sair Yonka of the Imperator-class Avarice to defect. Finally, the Lusankya herself was drawn out, with Isard's remaining Imperator-class, the Virulence, as bodyguard, when Antilles arranged for the location of their Yag'Dhul space station to be leaked to Thyferra. There, Booster bluffed Lusankya captain Joak Drysso into abandoning the Virulence and returning to Thyferra, where Antilles, the Rogues, a small fleet of freighters, and Yonka's newly renamed Freedom were waiting.
The Corruptor was destroyed by having a single X-Wing fighter (Wedge's, Tycho's, Corran's) pass missile telemetry to the other two squadrons, whose torpedoes and missiles were thus co-ordinated into a deadly, shield-overwhelming barrage. (This was facilitated by the fact that Isard's entire fighter-pilot pool were, with very few exceptions, barely out of training.) To augment this action against the Lusankya, Wedge and Booster fitted their freighter fleet with missile launchers, resulting in a peak salvo of eighty rounds hitting the Super Star Destroyer at once. (The launchers' aiming sensors, no longer needed, were eventually incorporated into Booster's bluff at Yag'Dhul.) In a bit of luck, Pash Cracken's entire A-Wing unit, three squadrons, stumbled upon Booster's standoff with the Virulence; commanding officer Varscha surrendered her ship, and Terrik and Cracken immediately set out to join the brawl at Thyferra. Between these forces and Captain Drysso's budding megalomania, the Lusankya was eventually overwhelmed and surrendered to Wedge Antilles.
On the ground, Quin, Loro and Iella Wesiri led an attack force consisting of Vratix rebels and security forces from the Zaltin Corporation on Xucphra corporate headquarters. Though their forces succeeded in apprehending Vorru, Isard escaped the planet in an upgraded Lambda-class shuttle, with Dlarit's Elite Squadron escorting. Elements of Rogue Squadron, specifically Corran Horn, Tycho Celchu and their wingmen (Gand Ooryl Qyrgg and Twi'lek Nawara Ven, respectively) were detailed to intercept it. Horn personally dealt with Dlarit, and (with a contribution of proton torpedoes from Celchu) successfully destroyed Isard's shuttle as well. (It would be some years before anyone discovered that Isard had not in fact been aboard the shuttle at all.)
After the battle, the Rogues discovered that their resignations had been "accidentally" misfiled, making their work an official New Republic fait accompli mission. The Rogues were then given the option to rejoin the New Republic as an official unit again, an offer they all accepted. Their first mission would be to work up leads regarding the Lusankya prisoners, who, as it turned out, had been transferred to other locations some months ago. (This turned out to be a blessing in disguise: the prison section of the ship suffered a hull breach during the fighting.) Booster Terrik, who refused to surrender ownership of the Virulence to Airen Cracken and the New Republic, was helped to a compromise by Corran and Talon Karrde: he was allowed to keep the Virulence, renamed the Errant Venture, and turn it into a mobile trading post, but it was stripped of most of its weapons. Finally, Wedge, in his capacity as the Lusankya's acting captain (a position that would eventually become permanent), married Corran and Mirax.
