After Maarek Stele had completed his reconnaissance mission at the Rebel Summit at the Delfii system. He had confirmed to Darth Vader that the Rebels had taken the bait to attack the Empire's new Death Star at Endor, believing it to be under construction and unguarded. In reality, the Death Star was fully operational and armed, although still under construction and that the Imperial Navy was hiding and laying in wait to destroy the Rebel Fleet. Stele was then assigned to delay the Rebels for Emperor Palpatine to prepare for the upcoming battle. To that end he was to destroy the first three starships that arrive at Nav buoy Sul-34. The Secret Order wanted Stele to destroy a large portion of starfighters so that the Alliance would have to commit all of their reinforcements and leave nothing in reserve.
Stele arrived at Sul-34 to find a Strike Cruiser Red Dog present with X-wings and A-wings after dealing with the starfighters two more medium ships arrived and launched their own fighters. After the Red Dog was destroyed by Stele, he and his wingmen destroyed multiple starfighters and the two starships, with a Stormtrooper transport Resupply to reload his fighter with more warheads should he need more bombs and missiles. With the destruction of the ships he was permitted to return or do more damage to the Rebel Convoy which included a Container transport Dakkrakk, a YT-1300 transport Asis 3 Modified corvettes Floran.
The destruction of many starships forced the Rebels to delay the attack and collect more forces for their frontline assault, allowing time for Palpatine to oversee the construction of the Death Star and ensure that the Rebels were destroyed.
Stele for his performance was awarded the Medal of Guile.
This battle appears in the 1994 PC game Star Wars: TIE Fighter as Battle 12, Mission 7: Delay Strike Force. This article assumes completion of all "Primary" and "Secondary" mission objectives as there are no "Bonus" objectives and the only reason to continue destroying the later ships is to increase the player's score.
The two capital ships that arrive depend on which fighters the player eliminates. If the Player destroys the A-wings, two Nebulon-B2 frigates Shmus and Barker arrive. If the player destroys the X-wings, a MC40a light cruiser War Pig and a Carrack-class light cruiser Lsumu arrive.