Battle of Sundari

In the year 20 BBY, New Mandalorian territory throughout the deserts of Mandalore, in which the pacifistic people made their home, was overrun by the criminal assembly known as the Shadow Collective. Across the New Mandalorians' capital city, Sundari, gangsters from Black Sun, the spice-dealing Pyke Syndicate, and the Hutt Cartels gunned down police officers and civilians alike in order to cause panic. At the height of the people's desperation, the renegade Mandalorian group known as the Death Watch came forward to defend the New Mandalorians against the offworld crime lords; unknown to the public, Death Watch was secretly in league with the criminals besieging Sundari, having forged an alliance with their leader, the Sith Lord Darth Maul, in order to topple the New Mandalorian government.

Throughout the city, Death Watch systematically defeated and arrested the aggressors, winning the favor of the New Mandalorian populous. With the will of the people on their side, Death Watch marched into the Sundari Royal Palace and there, the group's leader Pre Vizsla deposed the ruler of the New Mandalorians, Duchess Satine Kryze. Kryze, Prime Minister Armatan, and the other New Mandalorian leaders were imprisoned, while Vizsla replaced the former duchess as Mand'alor, the traditional ruler of the Mandalorians.

Vizsla's reign proved short, however. With his own goals met, Death Watch's commander turned upon his Sith ally, and had both Darth Maul and his Sith apprentice Savage Opress jailed. Maul had foreseen Vizsla's betrayal, and planned for it: easily freeing themselves from their cell, within the prison's walls the two Sith came across the former New Mandalorian Prime Minister, Almec, who had been arrested on charges of corruption. Selecting Almec as a suitable replacement for Vizsla in his schemes, Maul broke free of the prison and stormed the Royal Palace, where he challenged Vizsla to a duel for the right to lead. Honor-bound by the ancient codes Death Watch and Vizsla venerated, the Mandalorian leader engaged the Sith Lord in a furious battle throughout the throne room, though he ultimately could not match Darth Maul's prowess. Vizsla was slain, and Maul proclaimed himself to be the Mand'alor and leader of Death Watch, yet he was not met with unanimous approval: Vizsla's lieutenant, Bo-Katan Kryze, refused to follow a non-Mandalorian, and she fled the palace with a squad of other like-minded soldiers amidst a hail of blasterfire. Almec was instituted as the new Prime Minister, a puppet ruler to who would publicly lead in the place of Darth Maul, while the Sith Lord remained in the shadows, unknown to the populous.

Weeks after Darth Maul's rise to power, Bo-Katan was able to infiltrate the prison where Satine—her estranged sister—was being held. Together with her nephew Korkie Kryze and a group of his close friends, Bo-Katan freed Satine and rushed her to a waiting Buirk'alor-class airspeeder, intending to flee the city escorted by a cadre of Death Watch soldiers still loyal to Bo-Katan. Not far from the prison complex, however, the airspeeder was spotted by one of the Mandalorian super commandos loyal to Maul and quickly came under attack. A brief shootout ensued between the two groups of Mandalorian warriors, with Bo-Katan staying behind to stave off the attackers while Korkie continued onward toward Sundari's outer docks. Despite the efforts of Death Watch to stall the Maul loyalists, the speeder shuttling the former Duchess Kryze was struck and damaged by blasterfire, necessitating a crash landing at the docks. In the midst of a firefight between her nephew's friends and the super commandos that had pursued her to the docks, Kryze transmitted a request for aid to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in the hope that it might reach her friend and one-time lover, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kryze was shortly surrounded and recaptured, taken back to her cell at the prison, though her message would indeed find its way to the intended recipient.

With word of the criminal takeover on Mandalore, Obi-Wan Kenobi set out for Mandalore; alone and acting without support from the Galactic Republic due to Mandalore's status as a neutral system, Kenobi arrived at Sundari aboard an old freighter borrowed from his former Padawan, Anakin Skywalker. Stealing a suit of Mandalorian armor from one of Maul's soldiers, Kenobi sneaked into the city and infiltrated the prison where Satine Kryze was being held, freeing the deposed leader from her cell and stealing a Balutar-class swoop bike on which the two then made their escape. Pursued by a Maul-loyalist commandos, as Kenobi and Kryze reached the docks they hastily boarded Kenobi's waiting starship, and made use of its onboard laser cannons to defend against the Mandalorian attackers as they lifted off. Once in the air, however, the ship was struck by a pair of missiles fired by the enemy soldiers, causing it to crash and both Kryze and Kenobi to be violently ejected onto the docks while attempting to jump clear of the wreckage. Subdued by the arrival of Darth Maul at the docks, Kenobi and Kryze were taken back into custody and delivered to the Royal Palace. There, intent to make Kenobi suffer for the wounds he had sustained at the Jedi's hands nearly a decade prior, Maul murdered Kenobi's former lover before his eyes and left the Jedi Master to mourn Kryze's death on his way to prison, preferring to let Kenobi live with his pain than kill him outright.

As Obi-Wan Kenobi was being transported to Sundari's prison, his team of guards came under attack by Bo-Katan Kryze and a unit of the faction of Death Watch that refused to surrender to Darth Maul's authority. One by one, the Sith loyalists were killed in a brief skirmish, and Kryze freed Kenobi, offering him a jetpack to make use of in order to escape Sundari. Shortly after taking off from the prison, Kenobi's escort were assaulted by a pursuing unit of Maul's soldiers, who had been alerted by Maul due to him sensing Kenobi's escape. Kryze's troops formed a rear guard, firing backward onto the attackers as the in-flight battle reached an egress to Sundari's outer docks. There, Kenobi, Kryze, and her soldiers elected to make a stand, landing and opening fire on the super commandos from solid ground. Several members of Kryze's Nite Owls—a unit of soldiers handpicked by the Death Watch lieutenant—primed gauntlet-mounted portable energy shields to defend themselves, while another struck at their foes with a jetpack-launched missile. Suffering losses as quickly as they were inflicting them, Maul's warriors moved to close the gap between themselves and Kryze's troops, and the fight quickly turned to a close-quarters melee from which Kryze's soldiers emerged victorious.

Pushing out of the city and onto Sundari's docks, Kryze and Kenobi found themselves in the midst of a larger battle between the portion of the Death Watch that had sided with Bo-Katan, and the others who had pledged their service to Darth Maul. Across the docks, Mandalorians clashed with blaster rifles and fists in equal measure, as Kom'rk-class fighters battled in the skies over Sundari. One of the Kom'rk fighters slowed to a halt over the docks, decanting Death Watch soldiers equipped with jetpacks from the ship's ventral drop bay to aid Kryze's ground forces, only for the vessel to be shot out of the air moments later by their former comrades. While Mandalorians on both sides flew overhead, trading blaster shots and striking their enemies with their armored bodies, Kryze rushed Obi-Wan Kenobi to the docks edge and a waiting Kom'rk fighter prepared to take the Jedi Master offworld. In their final moments together, Kenobi deduced Bo-Katan's familial relationship with his deceased former lover and offered his condolences. Kryze, in turn, advised Kenobi to inform the Republic of Maul's presence on Mandalore, preferring the prospects of a Republic invasion over allowing a Sith Lord to rule the New Mandalorians. With those last words, and his condolences for her sister's death, Kenobi boarded the transport and was taken from Sundari, leaving Kryze behind to continue the fight.

At the same time Obi-Wan Kenobi was being freed from his captors by the Death Watch troops loyal to Bo-Katan Kryze, an Eta-class shuttle belonging to the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious, emerged from hyperspace over Mandalore and made its approach toward Sundari. The Dark Lord had sensed his one time apprentice and tracked his whereabouts to Mandalore, intent to confront the rogue Sith, having deemed Maul's growing power to be too dangerous. Setting down at the docks, Sidious was confronted by two super commandos whom he immediately caught in a telekinetic choke-hold before taking a speeder to the Palace. In the throne room, Darth Maul sensed a familiar presence and was realized that it was Sidious. At that moment, the commandos flanking the door were suddenly lifted into the air and strangled as Sidious strode in. Maul knelt before him, proclaiming to have conquered the New Mandalorians in an effort to prove himself worthy to rejoin his former Sith Master. However, with an apprentice of his own in his brother Savage Opress, and a budding criminal empire in the form of the Shadow Collective, Maul was now a rival, so Sidious pushed Maul and Opress into the vaulted windows with the Force initiating a two-against-one lightsaber duel.

Sidious broke the saber lock by first attacking Maul, then Savage. The younger brother jumped back while Savage slipped trying to defend himself. After a brief pause, Maul initiated an offensive on Sidious, but the more experienced Dark Lord of the Sith merely blocked his powerful strikes and attempted a sweeping slash, but Maul jumped back to his brother. Sidious strode through the throne room quietly; as Maul and Savage attempted to attack him, Sidious telekinetically threw the brothers back to the opposite wall, then unleashed a fierce barrage of Force lightning at them. Both Maul and Savage were able to hold back the lightning blast, but Maul broke the stalemate and retaliated telekinetically, forcing Sidious to drop his weapons; Savage, however, was temporarily paralyzed from his efforts to block the assault. With Sidious pinned down against the wall, Maul slowly advancing, Sidious cackled and used the Force to drop the chandelier Maul was walking underneath. He barely rolled out of the way in time before it collapsed on him. Savage recovered, jumped and attempted the killing blow on Sidious, but Maul dropping his telekinesis allowed Sidious to drop in time. While Savage slid along the wall with his lightsaber, Sidious recovered his weapons and retreated, with Maul in close pursuit.

The duel progressed out onto the Palace balcony, where, as Sidious and Maul crossed blades, Opress charged into the former, sending him flying. However, as Sidious fell, he Force pulled the brothers from the balcony, and together they fell to the plaza below. As they landed, Opress ignited one end of his double-bladed weapon, stabbing it into the ground in a failed strike at Sidious. Sidious re-ignited his own blades, and counter-struck, but Opress ignited his lightsaber's second blade, blocking the blow. Both brothers tried to outmaneuver Sidious by attacking from his front and flank, but Sidious merely kicked Opress away when the brothers attacked. With Savage momentarily down, Maul attempted to finish the duel with an overhead power blow, but Sidious used the Force to push Maul into a stone wall, which he struck with enough force to cause him to temporarily lose consciousness. Sidious was now free to focus on defeating the hulking Opress. Opress charged with his lightsaber, but Sidious, with lightsabers disengaged, merely toyed with the Zabrak as he dodged a few clumsy strikes. As Sidious activated his blades and locked with Savage, he struck at full velocity. As Maul awoke, Sidious paralyzed the Zabrak's arms with well-placed kicks before impaling him with both lightsabers, while sneering and cackling at a horrified Maul.

After mortally wounding Opress, Sidious threw him off the courtyard into the street below using the Force. He then allowed Maul to run past him to the fallen Opress. As the wounded Zabrak died, the enhancements provided by Mother Talzin dissipated in a green mist that swirled around the brothers. With his last breath, he communicated his regret that he was never worthy to be an apprentice to Maul, due to their differing personalities. As Maul knelt over the body of his fallen brother, Sidious spoke, reminding him of Darth Bane's millennium-old Rule of Two: there could only ever be two Sith Lords at a time. He revealed that Maul had been replaced after his defeat, before he jumped down to continue the duel.

Enraged, Maul ignited the darksaber and engaged Sidious once again. His use of Jar'Kai at first were able to rival the elder Sith until the two entered a bladelock. Sidious overpowered Maul and forced his blades down towards the hilts of Maul's sabers, before forcing them apart and away. He finished the duel by telekinetically flinging Maul against a stone mural before depositing the broken Maul at his feet. Despite Maul's pleas for mercy, he stated that among the Sith there was no mercy, then started to torture Maul with Force lightning. As Maul screamed in pain, Sidious told him that he would not be killed, as the Sith Lord had other plans for his former apprentice, while sporting a triumphant smile.

Kenobi survived his transit off-world and continued to faithfully serve the Republic throughout the remainder of the conflict, only to go into hiding following the transformation of the Republic into the Galactic Empire and the start of the Imperials' subsequent Jedi purge. With the subjugation of Darth Maul at the hands of Darth Sidious, the Sith's Rule of Two was upheld, though its usage among the Sith would later wane in favor of Sidious' Rule of One, espousing the merits of his own singular power over the Sith Order, and eventually the philosophy of Darth Krayt's One Sith Order.

The New Mandalorian government was broken, destroyed by the Mandalorian revanchists of the Death Watch. The pacifist faction's power faded as the Mandalorian warrior clans and their traditional culture returned to dominate Mandalorian society, while Sundari's place as an important hub of business on Mandalore declined, with most off-worlders preferring to do their business on Mandalore's moon of Concordia, or favoring the planet's traditional capital of Keldabe.

Into the power gap that the Collective's dissolution left, stepped the forces of the Black Sun vigo Xizor. The criminal syndicate established a presence on Mandalore as well as its moon, Concordia; these operations were overseen by Black Sun lieutenant Tyno Fabris, who worked out of an office at the Oyu'baat cantina, in Keldabe. The removal of Maul from Mandalorian politics also allowed Death Watch to make use of Almec as their own puppet in his role of Prime Minister of the New Mandalorians, though the New Mandalorians' power as a faction was in decline as the Mandalorian warrior clans returned to their former prominence under the rule of Mandalore the Resurrector and Death Watch's own presence grew.

The battle of Sundari first appeared in Star Wars canon in The Clone Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy, a young-reader novel authored by Jason Fry and published by Scholastic on January 1, 2013. The novel adapts the events of four episodes from the fifth season of the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, including "Revival," "Eminence," "Shades of Reason," and "The Lawless."

The episode "The Lawless" depicts the events of the Sundari battle on screen, though its ending is notably different from the one presented in the Shadow Conspiracy novel in one significant aspect: while the novel suggests Darth Sidious kills the defeated Darth Maul, the episode clearly indicates Maul is to be spared for Sidious' unknown purposes.

• "The Show That Changed Star Wars" — Star Wars Insider 142