Battle of Capital Cay

Following the Massacre of Aquilaris by elements of the Chagras Hegemony in 1042 BBY under Sith Lord Odion, Aquilaris had fallen under a succession of Sith warlords including Ayanos Bactra and Daiman. With the collapse of the Bactranate in 1032 BBY, Aquilaris fell under the control of the Daimanate. Under Daiman, Aquilaris was exploited as a source of seafood to feed the Daimanate's war effort. By 1032 BBY, the planet had attracted the attention of Jedi Knight Kerra Holt, who had fled Aquilaris as a child and wanted to liberate the planet from Sith domination. She infiltrated the planet in response to a distress call from a member of the Seacropper's Guild. However, Aquilaris also drew the attention of the Hutt crime lord Zodoh, who sought to expand his slave-trading and munitions businesses into the Grumani sector, which had become a Sith stronghold since the Republic Dark Age forced the Galactic Republic to retreat to the safety of the Core Worlds.

Zodoh's fleet got around Daiman's orbiting starfighter defenses by exiting hyperspace inside the Daimanate patrol zone, catching the Daimanate planetary defenses on Aquilaris by surprise. Leading an advance force of Intruder-class starfighters, Zodoh launched an airstrike on Capital Cay, a port city on Aquilaris. Within minutes, Zodoh's forces had wiped out the artillery defenses, forcing the Daimanate garrison into a retreat. In the midst of the chaos, Holt infiltrated Capital Cay in a food transport and slew the garrison commander. Arriving at the Seacropper Guild's dormitories, she encountered her old friend "Old" Padgett. Holt then attempted to evacuate the slaves onto her passenger transport. However, many of the slaves expressed disinterest and apathy at their liberation since they had been reduced to subsisting on Deluge, an addictive spice used as a substitute for food. Since the fishing submersibles and eel traps were damaged, the seacroppers had been unable to go fishing and many of them had consequently been reduced to a state of drug inducement. Kerra managed to meet up with a former acquaintance, a Human male named Joad Kreel. Informing Holt that she was wasting her time, he quickly revealed that the distress call was in reality a coded signal for spacers to deliver more of the addictive substance. Having wasted her efforts only to find out that the prisoners were completely apathetic to freedom, Holt was further angered by their perceived lack of fighting spirit.

While arguing with Kreed, they were interrupted by a lightning bolt unleashed by Zodoh's Stormdriver, a capital ship equipped with vaporators capable of draining all moisture from an atmospheric area and channeling them into storms and floods.Having achieved local atmospheric control over Capital Cay, the Stormdriver began releasing a deluge of flood water which swept the remnants of Daiman's garrison into the surrounding sea. Moving over the bay, the Stormdriver was attacked by Holt who fired upon the machine with her blaster pistol in a last-ditched attempt to stop it. However, Holt was saved by the arrival of Captain Jenn Devaad's squadron of Fire Lotus-class starfighters from Grace Command, an Alderaan-based pro-Republic mercy organization. Despite the withdrawal of the Republic from much of the outlying regions, Devaad's Death Squadron had continued the fight against the Sith and other threats. Unwilling to waste more firepower and having achieved the goals of his Aquilaris mission, Zodoh ordered a tactical withdrawal back to his fighter carrier Voracious which was waiting in the Aquilaris system.

Following the battle, Grace Command wiped out the remaining Daimanate forces on Aquilaris and liberated the population. Devaad promised that the Republic would send further food and medical supplies to the population. In reality, Grace Command was a black-operation established by Baron Lemayne for the sole purpose of undermining the Sith war effort. Under Operation Deluge, Grace Command conspired to destabilize Sith-held worlds by spreading the Deluge drug amongst their populations. Their tactic was to "liberate" Sith-held worlds and then retreat, allowing Sith forces to resume control. In the process, the Sith's military forces would also get addicted to Deluge, rendering them ineffective. Despite its controversial nature, Lemayne's tactic achieved some success in weakening Sith resistance to the Republic.

The Battle of Capital Cay first appeared as part of the exposition to Knight Errant: Deluge 1, which first debuted on August 17 2011. It reintroduced the main protagonist Jedi Knight Kerra Holt which serving as a mechanism for introducing new characters including the antagonistic Lord Zodoh, support characters like Joad Kreel, "Old" Padgett, and Captain Jenn Devaad. The battle also introduced new plot elements like the Hutts as an actor during the New Sith Wars while increasing the role of secular Galactic Republic actors like Grace Command and Devil Squadron. The story script was developed by John Jackson Miller, who was also responsible for introducing the Star Wars: Knight Errant comics series into the Star Wars Expanded Universe.