During the Berch Teller campaign in 14 BBY, the insurgent leader Berch Teller transmitted disinformation that the corvette Carrion Spike was traveling to the Obroa-skai system. Knotts, one of Teller's dissidents, hired the Koorivar captain of the YT-1000 freighter Reticent to travel to the Obroa-skai system as a decoy. Acting on this information, Moff Wilhuff Tarkin and Darth Vader deployed three Imperial interdictor vessels into the Obroa-skai system, hoping to recover the stolen Carrion Spike.
However, the Immobilizer 418's gravity well projector malfunctioned and yanked several civilian ships out of hyperspace, including the luxury MC80 Star Cruiser Stellar Vista, the smuggling vessel Truant, and the Reticent. The Stellar Vista collided with a Detainer CC-2200, damaging both ships and causing the deaths of 1,100 civilians. Despite failing to capture Teller's dissidents, the Imperials managed to destroy the Truant and capture the Reticent. After interrogating the captain and his crew, Vader and Tarkin learned about the identity of Teller and his dissidents.
In 14 BBY, the former Republic Intelligence Agent Berch Teller launched a campaign against the Galactic Empire. Teller led a cell consisting of survivors of the Antar Atrocity and sympathetic journalists and former Republic Intelligence operatives. Teller had a special animus for Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, the architect behind the Antar Atrocity. Teller's cell stole Tarkin's personal corvette Carrion Spike, which they intended to use as a symbol of resistance against the Empire. The dissidents were aided by Vice Admiral Dodd Rancit, the Director of the Naval Intelligence Agency and a rival of Tarkin.
Following a skirmish in the Phindar system, Berch Teller and his fellow dissidents discovered a hidden paralight tracker aboard the Carrion Spike. To mislead their Imperial pursuers, the dissidents transmitted fake coordinates indicating that the Carrion Spike was departing from the Thustra system in the Expansion Region to the Obroa-skai system in the Inner Rim. One of Teller's colleagues, the information broker Knotts, also hired a Koorivar captain and his crew to travel aboard the YT-1000 freighter Reticent to these coordinates as a decoy target for the Imperials.
Acting on this disinformation, Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader deployed several Imperial warships to the Obroa-skai system to intercept the Carrion Spike. Imperial resources included three interdictor vessels: a Detainer CC-2200, a newer model CC-7700 frigate, and a prototype Immobilizer 418 cruiser. Tarkin commanded the Imperial task force from the bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer Executrix Deployed in the middle distance between the Interdictors and the Executrix was a flotilla of frigates, pickets, and gunboats. Lord Vader and Lieutenant Crest commanded a boarding party of two dozen stormtroopers aboard the center-most picket.
While it was standard protocol to inform the local systems that Obroa-skai had been designated a no-entry zone, the Imperial Navy's Naval Command had opted against issuing the designation for fear of alerting the dissidents. Obroa-skai was known for its medcenters and libraries and contained no Imperial targets. Under Moff Tarkin's orders, the Interdictors' crew activated their ships' gravity well projectors. However, the Immobilizer's gravitic systems malfunctioned when the overcurrent resistors failed to prevent them from redlining. As a result, the Immobilizer yanked several ships out of hyperspace including the YT-1000 freighter Reticcent and multiple freighters and passenger vessels.
With the interdiction field neutralized, the ships that had been caught in the field began spinning. Two ships collided with each other. A large MC80 Star Cruiser, the luxury liner Stellar Vista of Corsin, then collided with the Detainer CC-2200. This created an explosion that killed 1,100 passengers. The remaining passengers and crew fled in lifeboats and escape pods. Tarkin ordered the frigates to render assistance and instructed the remaining interdictors to negate the interdiction field in order to facilitate rescue operations. While the Carrion Spike failed to appear, Tarkin ordered the Imperial fleet to contain all civilian and cargo vessels.
The Lux-400 yacht Truant, which was wanted for smuggling, tried to escape but was destroyed by the Executrix. After failing to receive any transmissions from the Carrion Spikes paralight tracker, Tarkin realized that the insurgents had disabled the device. Realizing that the insurgents had deliberately thrown them off-scent, Lord Vader then ordered the Imperial forces to begin searching all the interdicted ships for answers. The Imperials took a special interest in the first ship Reticent, which was towed aboard the Executrixs hangar bay.
The incident in the Obroa-skai system was widely covered on HoloNet through holovids produced by passengers aboard the luxury liner and journalists, who had received news about the Imperial operation through unidentified sources. After screening the other ships and passengers, all but the crew of the Reticent were allowed to leave. The damaged Detainer CC-2200 and Mon Calamari liner were towed to Obroa-skai for repairs. Tarkin and Lord Vader then turned their attention to interrogating the Koorivar captain of the Reticent and his crew.
The Koorivar captain claimed that he was a merchant traveling to Obroa-skai to deliver Sephi flyers to the planetary medcenter. Under further examination, the Koorivar admitted to being hired by a human information broker from Lantillies named Knotts, who had loaned him credits to buy the Reticent. The Koorivar captain acknowledged being a freelancer who worked for several brokers. He explained that he had merely responded to an advert to pick up the Sephi flyers from Thrusta. While Tarkin was satisfied, Darth Vader insisted on interrogating the captain further.
While Vader's interrogation of the Koorivar captain and crew yielded no information apart from causing the freighter's Sy Myrthian navigator heart failure, one of the Sith Lord's informants in the Crymorah Syndicate informed him that Knotts had helped broker a deal to supply the Sugi smuggler Faazah with a supply of fuel cells. These had been shipped to Murkhana shortly before the theft of the Carrion Spike. Meanwhile, Tarkin compared the insurgents' holovids with Imperial files on HoloNet and discovered that Berch Teller and the insurgents were linked by the Antar Atrocity. While the reluctant insurgent Anora Fair felt uneasy about the fate of their "stand-ins" at Obroa-skai, Teller countered that they knew the risks.
Following the events in the Obroa-skai system, Berch Teller's cell attacked an Imperial facility in the Nouane system but were rebuffed by the outpost's reinforced Imperial defenses. After deducing that Vice Admiral Rancit had betrayed them to cover his tracks, they transferred onto another vessel and set the Carrion Spike on autopilot to Carida under the pretext of attacking the Imperial Academy there. Rancit tried to destroy the Carrion Spike in order to hide his involvement in the insurgency. However, Darth Vader caught him redhanded and had him executed. Meanwhile, Tarkin defeated Teller's cell as they were ambushing an Imperial convoy transporting supplies for the classified Death Star project.
The Incident in the Obroa-skai system first appeared in James Luceno's 2014 novel Tarkin, the second in a line of new Canon adult novels published by Del Rey.