Battle of Bosthirda
| Date: | 5 ABY |
|---|---|
| Location: | Bosthirda |
| Outcome: | Complete eradication of the Prophets of the Dark Side |
| Ysanne Isard's faction: | Prophets of the Dark Side: |
|---|---|
| Commanders: | Commanders: |
| Grand Admiral Afsheen Makati, Captain Pivoluk Lumiya, Captain Valek | Supreme Prophet Kadann |
| Strength: | Strength: |
|
|
| Casualties: | Casualties: |
| 1 Torpedo Sphere and crew, including Captain Pivoluk | All Prophets of the Dark Side |
The battle of Bosthirda is an extension of an existing event from Legends.[1]
Background
Grand Admiral Makati had been wanting to exact revenge on the Supreme Prophet Kadann since the latter humiliated him. With Ysanne Isard's blessing, and with the unwelcome assistance of the Dark Jedi Azrakel, he had tracked the individual he thought was Kadann to Space Station Scardia. After bombarding the station, Makati let Azrakel kill Kadann; however, the apparent Supreme Prophet was in fact an impostor named Rajah Ubooki. In the station, Azrakel encountered the boy Ken and, sensing the boy's dark side potential, brought him aboard Makati's Star Destroyer Steadfast.
The former Emperor's Hand Sarcev Quest and the Force-sensitive Royal Guardsman Carnor Jax, plotting their own rise to power within the fragmenting Empire, had independently decided that the Prophets of the Dark Side needed to be removed, as their powers of precognition would hinder their plans. Carnor Jax was secretly receiving training in the dark side of the Force from Lumiya, the Dark Lady of the Sith. Jax enlisted Lumiya's help in tracking down the Prophets, and together they tracked down various presumed enemies of the real Kadann. One of them, King Nefta, told them the Prophets were hiding on the planet Bosthirda. Lumiya passed that information on to Makati, and both of them set a course for the Bosthirda system.
The Prophets were staying in a temple on Bosthirda's main continent, having formed an alliance with the sentient Dreaming Vineyard that covered most of the continent. The vine's psychoactive grapes enhanced the Prophets' visions and allowed them to communicate telepathically with the plant itself. Just before the first enemy ships arrived in the system, the Prophets of the Dark Side were momentarily distracted by Cronal's apparent death at Mindor.[2]
The battle
When the Prophets learned that Star Destroyers had entered the system, Kadann gave the order to blow up Bosthirda's moon, despite a plea to the contrary from the vine. Makati had arrived aboard the ISD Steadfast, accompanied by a Victory-class Star Destroyer. Lumiya and Carnor Jax arrived aboard Revenant soon after, followed by two Pursuit-class light cruisers, one Gozanti-class Assault Carrier, and a Torpedo Sphere, which formed up with the Star Destroyers to form a full bombardment line. Before they could fire, however, the moon exploded, disintegrating into a cloud of shards between the fleet and the planet.
Despite the danger, Azrakel made an approach to Bosthirda aboard a Scimitar assault bomber, on which Ken Palpatine had stowed away without his knowledge. Thinking Azrakel dead, Makati ordered the Torpedo Sphere to fire its full complement at the planet. Roughly half the torpedos detonated against moon shards, while the rest were turned back by the Dreaming Vineyard, which grabbed the torpedos in midflight and threw them back at the Torpedo Sphere, destroying it. In response, Makati ordered the remains of his fleet to fall back before the plant could start flinging moon shards at them.
On Bosthirda, Azrakel's bomber was caught by vines and delivered to the Prophets at the temple. When Azrakel leaped from the ship to strike at Kadann, he was caught by vines too and immobilized on the ground before his former master. However, Ken, remaining in the ship, managed to convince the Dreaming Vineyard that the Prophets had betrayed it by blowing up the moon, and asked the plant to let Azrakel kill the Prophets. The vine holding Azrakel's lightsaber slackened, and Azrakel sent the lightsaber against the Prophet Jedgar, severing his arm. Kadann caught the lightsaber and held it against Azrakel's throat; but when he was distracted by the sight of Ken emerging from the ship, the vines holding Azrakel slackened and he gripped his lightsaber by the blade using the Glove of Darth Vader. Wresting it from Kadann's grip, he beheaded the Supreme Prophet, who burst Azrakel's heart using the Force before he died.
Lumiya and Carnor Jax approached the planet in a Pacifier-class assault boat, passing through the moon shards in the wake of a volley of concussion missiles fired from Revenant. Once in the atmosphere, they released tanks full of defoliant, which liquefied the vines around the temple. Upon landing, Carnor Jax cut off Azrakel's hand to retrieve the Glove of Darth Vader. Lumiya told Jax to spare Ken and offered the boy a role in the Empire before leaving him with the dying Azrakel while she joined Jax in killing the rest of the Prophets. With his last breath, Azrakel told Ken his true name, Qaga Lok. When Lumiya and Jax returned, Ken had stolen their ship, and they called Captain Valek aboard the Revenant for extraction.[2]
Sources
- ↑ Wookieepedia, assuming that only Lumiya, Carnor Jax, and Azrakel participated in the attack, lists it as the "Mission to Bosthirda": https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mission_to_Bosthirda_(Galactic_Civil_War)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Empire of Ashes: Fear