Caregg Oldathan was a male pilot from the planet Commenor who was called out of retirement in 40 ABY to fly a BTL-S8 K-wing assault starfighter against the forces of the Galactic Alliance in the Second Galactic Civil War. One day, while leading Grayfeather Squadron in sweeping a quadrant of space above Commenor, Oldathan discovered a massive cloaked asteroid headed for his homeworld. With there being nothing that Oldathan's K-wing could do to stop the asteroid, which had broken into multiple chunks of rock, from colliding with Commenor, Oldathan chose to pursue fleeing Galactic Alliance starships that had cloaked the asteroid to prevent them from using the trick again.
Caregg Oldathan was called out of retirement to protect his homeworld of Commenor.
Caregg Oldathan was a male BTL-S8 K-wing assault starfighter pilot who was honorably retired by 40 ABY. That year, the Second Galactic Civil War broke out between the Galactic Alliance and the Confederation, with which Oldathan's homeworld of Commenor sided. In response, the Commenorian Navy called Oldathan out of retirement, and he held the rank of lieutenant in command of the K-wing Grayfeather Squadron. The Galactic Alliance began dispatching a constant stream of units to engage Commenor's planetary defenses to prevent them from lending their strength to the Confederate war effort. Due to the persistent attacks, Oldathan and his K-wing were unable to get their respective valuable rest and maintenance, and Grayfeather Squadron was reduced to a total of five K-wings.
With another day yielding another attack upon Commenor, Oldathan led Grayfeather Squadron as Grayfeather One against the Galactic Alliance Third Fleet. Lieutenant Danen served as his bombardier-gunner for the mission, and his K-wing was armed with concussion missiles instead of proton torpedos, as the latter were in short supply for Commenor. However, at about one minute to contact with the opposing forces, Oldathan and Grayfeather Squadron were diverted to investigate a potential unidentified vehicle on the night side of Commenor, a couple of thousand kilometers away from their current location. When Grayfeather Squadron made it to the target area, all it found was a Commenori courier shuttle trying to escape past Galactic Alliance forces. Though there was no apparent Galactic Alliance threat in the area, Oldathan had the squadron search the surrounding space using spiraling patterns, with Oldathan and Danen searching alone while the remaining four K-wings broke into wing pairs.
Caregg Oldathan flew a BTL-S8 K-wing assault starfighter.
While searching, Danen reported seeing a star disappear momentarily from the Jeweled Lizard constellation, and when Oldathan also saw it and then observed another star in the Jeweled Lizard disappear and reappear, he suspected that they were seeing a cloaked capital ship blocking their view of the stars as it moved. He reported the anomaly to Starfighter Control, and Grayfeather Squadron was promised reinforcements to deal with the new threat, though any that came would be aging reserve squadrons. Using the other Grayfeather Squadron K-wings' reports of the anomaly to triangulate and locate its position, Oldathan took his starfighter near to the cloaked object, and the crew of Grayfeather One approximated a diameter of at least thirty-to-forty-thousand kilometers. Oldathan relayed to Starfighter Control that the cloaked object heading for Commenor was meteor-sized, and he was cleared to fire upon it.
Oldathan had Danen launch two concussion missiles, and the cloak was lifted from the object shortly after the warheads impacted, revealing a nickel-iron asteroid with a mass of millions of tons. Just then, a frigate with a cloaking device on its nose departed the asteroid, followed by a host of smaller starships. Before Grayfeather One could do anything, the asteroid broke into dozens of smaller pieces, all headed for Commenor. Realizing that his K-wing was incapable of stopping the asteroid chunks aimed at his homeworld, Oldathan informed Starfighter Control of the impending danger. He and Danen then went to engage the frigate with the cloaking device alone, hoping to delay the enemy vessels' exit so that the rest of Grayfeather Squadron could arrive to destroy the frigate and prevent the cloaking technique from being used again. In the end, Commenori forces failed to stop the asteroid shards, which impacted the planet's population centers with the force of city-buster bombs.
Caregg Oldathan understood that the Galactic Alliance's attacks upon Commenor were meant to wear down Commenori forces to prevent them from aiding the Confederation, and he had a good enough understanding of cloaking devices to recognize the use of one when he saw the signs. When Grayfeather Squadron was diverted from the fighting above Commenor to look for a starship, Oldathan was impatient to get back, as leaving the battle zone made him feel like he was running away. Oldathan was disturbed by signs that both sides of the Second Galactic Civil War were ignoring some parts of the interplanetary rules of war, and rumors of Commenori entertaining themselves with bloodsports bothered him.
When the asteroid headed for Commenor revealed itself and broke into smaller fragments, Oldathan realized that there was nothing he or even Commenor itself could do to stop it from impacting with the planet. Instead of firing fruitlessly on the massive chunks of asteroid, he chose instead to engage the fleeing frigate to buy the rest of his squadron enough time to reach the enemy ship and destroy it, knowing that he and Danen would most likely die in the attempt.
Caregg Oldathan first appeared in Legacy of the Force: Fury, a 2007 novel by Aaron Allston.
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. I