Battle of the Rishi moon

In 22 BBY, during the Clone Wars, the Galactic Republic began to utilize listening posts in the Outer Rim Territories to monitor Confederate activity. Due to the high amount of casualties suffered by the Grand Army of the Republic, new clone troopers were assigned to these stations without undergoing the customary intensive training most clones experienced before beginning duty. A number of these rookie clones, nicknamed "shinies"—a derogatory term referring to the troopers' spotless armor that had not yet seen action in battle—were assigned to Rishi Station, a crucial listening post located near the Wild Space planet Kamino on the moon of Rishi, under the command of Clone Sergeant O'Niner.

Seeking to end the production of the Republic's clone troopers on Kamino, the Confederate General Grievous planned to invade Kamino with the Dark Acolyte Asajj Ventress and a fleet of Munificent-class star frigates and Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ships. However, Rishi Station played a key role in the protection of the area of space around Rishi and Kamino, and as long as the station was active, the Republic fleet would be warned of any Confederate activity in the area. In order to overcome this obstacle, Grievous decided to capture the station before continuing with his plan to invade Kamino.

Grievous deployed a squad of elite BX-series droid commandos in a Droch-class boarding ship to the Rishi moon to capture the base there. While the incoming pod hid within a meteor shower, the clone troopers inside the listening post raised the outpost's shields to avoid meteor damage. After landing with the meteors, the droid commandos emerged from their pods and stealthily made their way to the base, killing CT-327, a clone deck officer who was keeping watch outside the station, along the way. When the clones in the base lost contact with CT-327, Sergeant O'Niner sent clone troopers Nub and Droidbait to search for him, but the two clones were quickly killed by the attacking droids. O'Niner left the command center of the base to repel the invading droids and ordered trooper< Hevy to sound the alarm and alert the Republic fleet. The rookie clone trooper found that the signal was being jammed, however, and O'Niner was soon killed by the battle droids.

After witnessing O'Niner's death, troopers Hevy, Echo, Fives, and Cutup fled from the base through a ventilation shaft inside the command center. Meanwhile, the leader of the commando droids contacted Grievous via hologram and informed him of their success. The cyborg general ordered the droids to leave the station's all-clear signal on, which, if turned off, would alert the nearby Republic fleet to the Separatist presence in the system. This kept the Republic oblivious to the attack and unaware of the incoming Confederate fleet's continued journey toward Kamino. Through a hologram transmission, Ventress reported to Grievous that she had infiltrated Kamino and that everything was ready for the invasion. Meanwhile, the rookie clone troopers emerged from the other side of the ventilation shaft and became situated underneath the listening post's landing pad. However, a Rishi eel appeared and grabbed Cutup before departing the area, further depleting the clones' numbers.

Rishi Station, however, was due for a routine inspection, with Clone Marshal Commander Cody and Clone Captain Rex being sent to inspect the base. After Cody contacted the base, a commando droid, disguised in clone trooper armor, answered the transmission. The commando droid told the clone officers that the base didn't need an inspection, but the clones were unconvinced, and continued to fly toward the listening post. They landed their Nu-class attack shuttle, the Obex, near the base's entrance, and were greeted by a commando droid disguised in clone armor. After the rookie clone troopers launched a droid attack flare, Rex noticed the flare in the distance and promptly shot the droid in the head.

As Rex took off the clone's helmet, revealing that the clone was a droid, commando droids stationed behind the crates surrounding the clone officers emerged from their hiding spots and began to shoot at them. During the crossfire, the droids tossed thermal detonators at the clones' shuttle, destroying the craft. However, the clones escaped the area by jumping off the landing pad. Cody and Rex found the surviving rookie clone troopers—Echo, Fives, and Hevy—and ordered them to take off their helmets, believing that they were droids in disguise. After the clones complied with the order, Rex began to address them with the derogatory "shinie" slang. When a Rishi eel again appeared, Rex quickly dispatched the creature with a single blaster shot to the eye. As the rookie troops seemed impressed with Rex's marksmanship, both clone officers took interest in the group and gave the rookies their DC-15S carbine blasters.

Rex devised a plan to infiltrate the base by pretending to be commando droid Unit 26. While Cody, Echo, Fives, and Hevy waited on both sides of the listening post's entrance, Rex walked up to the blast doors' surveillance systems. Commando droid units 07, 08, and 09 noticed that there was something different with Rex's vocabulator and ordered him to take off his helmet for identification. Rex took of his helmet but propped up a droid head in front himself to trick the droids into opening the door. When the commando droids opened the blast doors, the clones ambushed the droids and destroyed them, continuing on to ambush the other droids stationed inside the listening post's main control room. After retaking the listening post, the clones found that the commando droids had hardwired the station's all-clear signal. Meanwhile, Grievous noticed the commando droids were not responding to his transmissions. Suspecting that something was wrong, Grievous dispatched a group of B1 and B2 battle droids to investigate the listening post.

When the Confederate reinforcements arrived on the moon in a C-9979 landing craft, Rex noticed that the new arrivals outnumbered the clone troopers and ordered the listening post to be destroyed, an order that surprised the rookie troops. After Echo recalled to the clone captain that their duty was to protect and defend the base, Rex dismissed his concerns, stating that if the base was destroyed, it would deactivate the signal and alert the nearby Republic fleet of the impending Separatist invasion. To destroy the base, Echo offered the use of highly explosive liquid Tibanna, which was used as a fuel source at the station when the Rishi moon entered its freezing cycle. While Rex and Echo went to retrieve the base's plunk droids that stored the liquid Tibanna, Cody, Hevy, and Fives grabbed weaponry from the listening post's supply room.

Outside, Cody, Hevy, and Fives began to fire at the approaching droids. The clones tried to hold off the droids before they could enter the base, but the droids' fire overwhelmed the clones and forced them to retreat back into the listening post. When the clones attempted to detonate the Tibanna inside the plunk droids, they found that the remote activator did not function properly. Hevy offered to stay behind and correct the problem before joining the other clones as they fled the listening post through a nearby ventilation shaft. After hearing the invading droids, Hevy left the control room and hid in an adjacent hallway to avoid detection. Meanwhile, outside the base, Rex found that Hevy hadn't yet evacuated the listening post. He contacted Hevy via comlink, but Hevy refused to evacuate the listening post until he was able to repair the detonator. Unwilling to accept Hevy's decision, the clones ran to aid the rookie trooper. Hevy, who had been hiding from the droids, utilized his Z-6 rotary blaster cannon to fire at the battle droids. However, the droids managed to shoot Hevy in the leg, incapacitating him.

Though Rex, Cody, Echo, and Fives attempted to contact Hevy via comlink while they ran toward the listening post, the trooper did not respond. Before they could reenter the facility, however, Hevy sacrificed himself by manually detonating the explosives. The listening post exploded, killing Hevy and destroying all of the droid forces inside. As the all-clear signal was cut off from the listening post, the nearby Republic fleet—under the command of Admiral Wullf Yularen and Jedi Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker—was alerted to the danger. The Republic armada cut off the incoming Confederate ships over the Rishi moon, and Grievous, realizing that his fleet was outgunned, ordered a full-scale retreat before the Republic could cause major damage to his ships.

Shortly after the battle, a number of Low Altitude Assault Transport/infantry gunships were sent down from the Republic fleet to search for survivors of the engagement. On the moon's surface, the ships found the four surviving clones and returned them to the fleet, where Echo and Fives received medals for their bravery; Hevy's sacrifice was also honored by the Republic. Rex then appointed the two rookies to the 501st Legion for their distinguished service in the battle. Rishi Station was reconfigured and replaced with a near-identical structure within a matter of days.

Following the battle, the Galactic Senate issued a dead-or-alive warrant on Grievous, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he again targeted Kamino. Such was the case several months after the destruction of Rishi Station, when the Confederacy orchestrated another plan to invade Kamino; both Grievous and Ventress were chosen to led the attack. However, due to Republic resistance, their attempt to destroy the cloning facilities and take control of the planet failed.

The battle of the Rishi moon first appeared in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series episode "Rookies," the fifth episode of the series' first season, which aired on Cartoon Network on October 24, 2008. The Clone Wars Director Dave Filoni used the battle to show that although commando droids were more useful than the basic B1 battle droids, a large force of B1s was still a threat.

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