Battle of Imperial Center

Shortly after the Galactic Empire's victory over the Rebel Alliance at the Battle of Hoth in 3 ABY, Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin, head of the Empire's TIE starfighter series research and development, plotted to kill Emperor Palpatine and assume the Imperial throne. Around the same time, Imperial Admiral Harkov defected to the Rebellion along with his fleet. The Empire began a campaign to capture the rogue admiral, led by the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader, who was also engaged in a personal vendetta against Prince Xizor, head of the Black Sun crime syndicate.

With Vader preoccupied, Zaaring finalized his own plans. While openly supporting the hunt for Harkov, the Grand Admiral sought to draw like-minded personnel within the Imperial Navy to his personal command, and recruited the services Arden Lyn as his agent on Imperial Center, the Imperial capital world. Lyn, an ancient practitioner of the martial art teräs käsi, and a member of the Emperor's elite cadre of Force users known as the Emperor's Hands, had herself decided to turn against Palpatine shortly after the Battle of Yavin three years earlier, after the Emperor failed to deliver on his promise to resurrect her deceased lover, Xendor.

Immediately after Xizor was killed in battle against Vader around 3.5 ABY, the Dark Lord discovered that the remnants of Harkov's fleet had fled to the Ottega system in the Mid Rim and traveled there aboard the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Garrett to oversee its destruction. Seeing his opportunity, Zaarin began to move his own fleet to Imperial Center. Meanwhile, the Grand Admiral dispatched several Assassin-class corvettes to the Ottega system, ostensibly to reinforce Vader's own forces, but with orders to attack the Garrett upon arrival. Though the Garrett survived the attack, it suffered critical damage. With the Garrett unable to return to Imperial Center in time to stop Zaarin's coup, Vader selected Colonel Maarek Stele to lead a group of prototype TIE Defenders on a mission to stop any attack on the Emperor, taking one of the starfighters for himself. Despite an ambush by Zaarin's forces in the Parmel system the TIE Defender group was able to rendezvous with the Nebulon-B2 frigate Osprey, before proceeding on to the Coruscant system.

Bringing his flagship, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Glory, to the Coruscant system, Zaarin caught the Emperor in his private ship, the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Majestic. With Lyn's assistance, Zaarin was able to catch Palpatine unaware and his forces disabled and boarded the Star Destroyer. With the help of her students, the Gamorrean Thok and the stormtrooper 17786, Lyn used her Force powers to nullify the Emperor's own powers and he was taken into custody.

Vader and Stele soon entered the system with their TIE Defender group and promptly received a distress signal from the Majestic. Moving toward the ship, the group detected the launch of six Delta-class JV-7 escort shuttles from Haven and Hellcat groups, carrying the troopers from Zaarin's boarding party, along with the captive Palpatine. As they moved to intercept, Vader instructed Stele to identify the shuttle carrying the Emperor. After determining that Palpatine was aboard Haven 3, Stele joined his wingmates in engaging the other shuttles, choosing to leave Palpatine's shuttle until it could be disabled without fear of damage. Once they were destroyed, Stele dispatched his group toward the waiting Glory while he used his ion cannons to disable Haven 3.

With Palpatine's shuttle disabled, the loyal Imperial Assassin-class corvette Mescue arrived in the area to board the vessel and rescue the Emperor. At around the same time, the badly damaged Majestic was able to escape into hyperspace. With the situation turning against him, Zaarin responded by launching TIE Avengers to assist, but Stele's group moved to engage them. The TIE Defenders eliminated the attacking TIEs, losing all but Stele and Vader in the process. Around the same time, Vice Admiral Thrawn arrived in the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Vanguard to assist the Imperial forces and began launching TIE bombers to attack the Glory. Around ten minutes after Vader's group arrived, Palpatine was safely aboard the Mescue and Stele joined the TIE bomber attack on the Glory. Seeing that his coup had failed, Zaarin fled into hyperspace. Palpatine was taken to a secret location while Imperial forces planned their pursuit of Zaarin.

The Emperor had been rescued but both Zaarin and Lyn had escaped. Stele was rewarded for his part in rescuing the Emperor in a ceremony attended by the cream of Coruscant society at the Imperial Palace. As the Emperor watched from high above, Stele was presented with the Emperor's Will medal by Lord Vader. The Emperor continued to take great interest in Stele, instructing the Secret Order of the Emperor to train Stele in the Force, and the pilot went on to become an Emperor's Hand.

Thrawn pursued Zaarin into hyperspace and began a long campaign to defeat the rogue Imperial, who focused on gaining technological superiority with starfighters, first by attacking TIE Avenger manufacturing facilities in the Omar system, before Thrawn drove him to the Outer Rim Territories and eventually the Unknown Regions. Zaarin later made a second unsuccessful attempt on Palpatine's life, before he was ultimately defeated by Thrawn. Thrawn was promoted to the rank of Grand Admiral, taking Zaarin's place in the circle of twelve.

The task of hunting Lyn was given to High Inquisitor Antinnis Tremayne. With the failure of the coup, Lyn released Thok from her service and began searching for the Kashi Mer talisman, a relic which she believed could assist her in her continuing attempts to bring Xendor back to life. She was eventually killed by Palpatine in 10 ABY.

The battle was included in a chronicle of galactic history by the New Republic Historical Council in 25 ABY and its updated edition in 36 ABY.

The battle was first featured in the 1994 LucasArts video game Star Wars: TIE Fighter, in which players fly as Maarek Stele. The battle is depicted in the mission "Save the Emperor," the fifth and final mission of the game's seventh tour of duty, "Treachery at Ottega." In TIE Fighter, which of the three shuttles in Haven group carries the Emperor is randomized. TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide established that Palpatine was canonically aboard Haven 3 in its mission walk-through, which is presented as Stele's after-action report.

Arden Lyn's involvement in the battle was first mentioned in the Star Wars Gamer 5 article "The Emperor's Pawns" by Abel G. Peña, Juan Schwartz and Pablo Hidalgo, which also elaborated on Stele's fate following the battle.

Abel G. Peña and Daniel Wallace wrote an article entitled "Dirty Dozen: The Imperial Grand Admirals" for Star Wars Gamer magazine. After Star Wars Gamer was cancelled before the article was published, Peña and Wallace reused much of the information in the Star Wars Insider 66 article "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals." The original article includes information about the battle which was ultimately cut, indicating that Zaarin's timing was motivated partially by a desire to strike before Grand Admiral Martio Batch's TIE Phantom project took away his technological advantage, and that Lyn was not alone in pacifying the Emperor but was aided by her pupils. Lyn's pupils, Thok and 17786, were later confirmed to have assisted her in Peña and Rich Handley's 2013 article Barely Tolerable: Alien Henchmen of the Empire.

• TIE Fighter: The Official Strategy Guide
• TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM: The Official Strategy Guide
• The Essential Chronology
• "The Emperor's Pawns" — Star Wars Gamer 5
• The New Essential Guide to Characters
• "Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals" — Star Wars Insider 66
• The New Essential Chronology
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
• Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 67
• Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 67
• Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 67