Operation Ringbreaker

Operation Ringbreaker was a campaign devised by Everi Chalis, a former governor in the Galactic Empire who had defected to the Rebel Alliance. The campaign targeted the Kuat Drive Yards, the Empire's manufacturing hub at the Core Worlds planet Kuat and the primary source of the Imperial Navy's Star Destroyers. The name Ringbreaker was a reference to the orbital ring structure that formed the Kuat Drive Yards. Operation Ringbreaker involved a succession of attacks on soft Imperial targets by the Alliance's 61st Mobile Infantry, better known as Twilight Company, in order to force Imperial Military redeployments from the Drive Yards, weakening its security enough that the 61st could make an attack that would sabotage and cripple the Empire's main source of Star Destroyer production and repair. Chalis also projected that the operation's completion would restrain the faction's ability for fast deployment of ground forces.

Alliance General Crix Madine listed the process of Operation Ringbreaker in two phases. The first phase involved the succession of attacks before Kuat, which involved nine targets. The second phase was the final attack and sabotage of the Kuat Drive Yards. The first nine target locations were all chosen by Chalis, as they were locations that she had helped develop under the Empire. Each supplied resources for the Empire's war effort and consecutively formed an indirect path to Kuat. The locations and regions were as follows:

• Mardona III—Inner Rim
• Najan-Rovi—Outer Rim
• Obumubo—Core Worlds
• Nakadia—Expansion Region
• Naator—Mid Rim
• Xagobah—Outer Rim
• Kuliquo belt—Inner Rim
• Sullust—Outer Rim
• Malastare—Mid Rim

Most of the locations were located on or around the Rimma Trade Route, while the Inner Rim planet Mardona III and the Mid Rim world Malastare were instead along the Hydian Way.

Around 1 ABY, during the Galactic Civil War, the Alliance launched a campaign into the Mid Rim Territories, bolstered by its victory at the Battle of Yavin in 0 BBY, where the DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station was destroyed. The campaign came to a halt in 2 ABY, after going on for nine months, and a retreat began soon after. In 3 ABY, nine months into the Alliance's withdrawal from the Mid Rim, Twilight Company attacked the planet Haidoral Prime, where Governor Everi Chalis chose to defect to the company. Chalis offered her knowledge of the Empire's industrial infrastructure to the Alliance and made a schematic of everything that she knew about it.

The Alliance High Command invited Chalis and Twilight Company's Captain Micha Evon to a grand strategy conference at Echo Base, the High Command's secret base on the ice planet Hoth. However, shortly after the conference, the Empire invaded Hoth, scattering High Command and resulting in the death of Evon. Around the same time, the Imperial Prelate Verge and Captain Tabor Seitaron, who were tasked with hunting Chalis, sent a team of spies to infiltrate Twilight Company's CR90 corvette, the Thunderstrike, while it was separately in the Elochar sector, leading to the deaths of more of the company's command structure.

Twilight Company retreated to the pirate backwater planet Ankhural where they were reunited with Chalis and the only survivor of her escort to Hoth, First Sergeant Hazram Namir. The late Evon received a funeral, and the Thunderstrike and its escort, the Braha'tok-class gunship Apailana's Promise, received repairs. Meanwhile, Chalis observed the state of the war through unsecured broadcasts that made it to Ankhural, with Imperial forces chasing the Alliance deep into the Outer Rim Territories, including a widescale manhunt for the rebel hero Princess Leia Organa. The ex-governor deduced that Imperial forces were being pulled from the Core Worlds for the war effort, enervating the Imperial security in that region.

Taking advantage of the Empire's new weak spot, Chalis formulated Operation Ringbreaker and went on to propose it in the next meeting held between Twilight Company's senior members. She outlined her proposed campaign and the impact of sabotaging the Kuat Drive Yards to the other attendees in the meeting, answering concerns from those who were skeptical of whether the plan could be successful. The senior members argued, some debating tactics of a shipyard invasion. Namir then chimed in, asking the meeting whether anyone had any alternative plans for Twilight Company. After Chalis was made to leave the meeting, the rest of the attendees discussed how they might agree on Chalis's plan, which ultimately came to a voice vote. The vote came in favor of Operation Ringbreaker.

Details of Operation Ringbreaker managed to reach the attention of the Rebel Alliance Intelligence Service, which vetted the campaign. Afterward, Admiral Gial Ackbar sent across a formal proposal for Operation Ringbreaker to Mon Mothma, leader of the Alliance, which summarized the campaign and its goal, along with giving details about the Kuat Drive Yards and its thinly-stretched security. General Crix Madine additionally sent his own report to Ackbar, which gave an overview of Operation Ringbreaker's two phases. Despite their analysis of the campaign, the two High Command figures did not have direct contact with Twilight Company, which had been unable to reach any members of the High Command after the Battle of Hoth.

After approving Operation Ringbreaker, the senior Twilight Company members made Namir the acting leader of the company. The Thunderstrike and Apailana's Promise departed Ankhural shortly after and headed for their first target, the planet Mardona III. At Mardona, which served as a warehouse hub for the Empire, the vessels deployed Twilight soldiers to descend into the underground systems of the planet's mega-spaceport where the storage facilities were kept, harrying the security and sabotaging the tramways. Twilight squads also planted many ion mines in the tramlines and junctions as well as underground warehouse entrances.

When Imperial armored worm vehicles began sweeping the underground sectors, Twilight Company occupied a housing block as a fallback point and continued its operations. One worm vehicle nearly obliterated a Twilight squad, leaving one survivor, the soldier Corbo. Subsequently, other members of the company hunted down the vehicle, destroying it and its crew, before fighting stormtroopers and further reinforcements. The company departed Mardona III shortly after. As a result of the attack on Mardona, Imperial forces were pulled over to the Outer Rim volcanic planet Sullust as labor oversight in order to make up for the hindrance in production.

Twilight continued to its next target, the dockyards of the Outer Rim gas giant Najan-Rovi, which was defended only by Imperial Navy troopers and TIE/ln space superiority starfighters. The company laid waste to the many Imperial luxury transports that were serviced there in order to force the Corellian Engineering Corporation to increase its production efforts and force a transfer of security from Kuat. Twilight then moved to the Core Worlds moon Obumubo, where it obliterated the local Imperial garrison. Chalis believed that the death of an Imperial Military figure on Obumubo would cause someone to be promoted from Kuat and bring their security with them.

Meanwhile, Prelate Verge and Captain Seitaron had noticed Twilight Company's attacks around the Rimma Trade Route and begun narrowing down possible targets of the company. The company's next attack was on the plastoid factories of the agricultural world Nakadia. The company was ultimately successful but suffered unprecedented casualties when the local security deployed its stockpile of bioweapons on Twilight troops. Twilight Company then moved to the Mid Rim planet Naator and the Outer Rim astronomical object Xagobah, securing victory at both locations in spite of the casualties taken.

Afterward, Twilight Company put in for repairs at the junker world Heap Nine for a night. Once finished, the company moved to the Inner Rim asteroid field Kuliquo belt, where twenty soldiers were sent to sabotage machinery. Chalis then learned that three battalions of the Empire's One-Oh-Seventh Stormtrooper Legion had been pulled from Kuat and reassigned elsewhere as a result of Twilight Company's attacks. In the meantime, Verge and Seitaron, who had been too late to intercept the company at Nakadia and the Kuliquo belt, narrowed down the next possible targets of Twilight Company to three locations, Sullust, Tshindral, and Malastare. Verge secreted TIE/IN interceptor squadrons near each location.

Madine, inspired by Operation Ringbreaker's early success, made another report for Mothma in which he listed other Imperial shipyards, drydocks, and mining centers which could be targeted if Twilight Company was successful in sabotaging the Kuat Drive Yards. The industrial sites—including Allanteen VI, Balmorra (marked alongside Kuat), Belderone, Champat, the Corellian Industrial Cluster, Gyndine, Karavis, Lothal, Metalorn, Rothana, the Ubrikkian enclave, and Xa Fel—were listed on a map with color-coding for the production and security levels in each.

Twilight Company traveled to Sullust to capture and sabotage the Inyusu Tor mineral processing facility, located up the Inyusu Tor volcanic mountain near the Sullustan capital Pinyumb. Prior to the deployment, Namir attempted to make contact with the Alliance High Command as a last chance to receive new orders from his superiors, only to be informed by a rebel relay station that there were none.

Twilight Company successfully captured the facility, but as the Thunderstrike came to pick them up, it was ambushed and shot down by the TIE interceptors of Vixus Squadron, which had positioned itself behind Sullust's moon while the corvette and its escorts had been on standby away from Sullust. The Apailana's Promise retreated with its two X-wing starfighters, leaving the ground forces stranded on the planet's surface. Rescuing survivors from the crashed Thunderstrike, Namir and his forces dug in at the Inyusu Tor facility, preparing it for defense. The unit commander also led a mission, including himself and Chalis, down to the city of Pinyumb to make contact with the local Sullustan resistance rebel cell. Namir's group found the city in lockdown from their attack on the facility.

Namir's group was then attacked by stormtroopers from the 97th Legion, which dispersed the rebel team. Although initially captured, Namir was rescued by the Sullustan resistance leader Nien Nunb, who led the man on a relief mission for the Pinyumb residents affected by the Imperial lockdown and raids in the capital. Witnessing how Twilight Company's attack had affected the civilians, Namir had a change of heart and formulated a new plan for Twilight Company with the rest of the Sullustan resistance at their hideout. The unit commander believed that Operation Ringbreaker would leave his company broken if it survived to complete it and felt that fighting for the people of Pinyumb was a more worthy goal for his troops.

Once he had coordinated a battle plan with the Sullustan resistance, Namir returned to Twilight Company at the Inyusu Tor facility. Chalis, who had returned the night before, had already organized her own plan for the company which involved stealing ships from the Pinyumb spaceport and escaping under the cover of the Apailana's Promise to continue Operation Ringbreaker. After discussing his new intentions with his old squad, Namir confronted Chalis, attempting to talk her out of her plans and Operation Ringbreaker. Chalis dismissed his arguments and pointed a snub pistol at Namir in an assertion of control. For Namir's fortune, the Besalisk soldier Gadren grappled and immobilized Chalis, allowing Namir to go forth with his plans as the governor was taken away.

With Operation Ringbreaker abandoned, Twilight Company mounted a defense of the Inyusu Tor mineral processing facility. The local Imperial forces, which had been harrying the rebels beforehand, begun their assault on the facility when Verge and Seitaron arrived aboard the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Herald to apprehend Chalis. While Twilight Company fended off waves of Imperial troops and vehicles, the Apailana's Promise and its X-wings returned and distracted the Herald. In addition, engineers in the company used the facility's magma extractors to channel lava against the Imperials, with the Sullustan resistance using their digging vehicles to channel the lava down to flood the Imperial garrison at Pinyumb and spark a Sullustan uprising there.

Observing Twilight Company's situation on Sullust from reports of the battle, Madine informed Mothma of the situation in another report, explaining that the setback would allow Kuat to resupply, breaking the momentum for Operation Ringbreaker's second phase. Without knowledge of Namir's decision to divert efforts to fighting for Pinyumb, the general concluded that the campaign could not go on. Madine also believed that he could help evacuate Twilight Company if necessary.

In the meantime, Chalis escaped from the facility with Twilight Company's remaining ion bombs and made her way to an Imperial transport station by speeder. Stealing a shuttle, she allowed herself to be captured by the Herald and set off the ion bombs when Verge and Seitaron went to confront her. The resulting power surge meant the Herald was forced to withdraw from Sullust in order to survive the fight. Verge was also killed by Seitaron when the captain used his B22 sidearm to break up a fight between the prelate and Chalis. With the Imperial forces defeated, Twilight Company was victorious over Inyusu Tor and Pinyumb, and further uprisings reportedly took place on Sullust.

Having fled Sullust, Chalis sent a final message to Namir, believing that the rebels had ultimately judged her the way the Empire had when she chose to defect. She affirmed in her message that she could have won at Kuat if Namir had trusted her. Mothma wrote a journal entry reflecting on Operation Ringbreaker, considering the campaign to be a defeat despite the final battle not taking place. Mentioning the campaign as if it was her own, she blamed lack of intelligence for the stalling at Sullust and claimed that the Alliance forces would not launch another campaign against Kuat on incomplete data. In her conclusion, Mothma pledged to widen the Alliance's intelligence reach with new assets, including Bothan and Obroan information brokers.

Although Twilight Company was driven from Sullust by the Empire, the planet was used as the Alliance Fleet's staging ground when it launched an assault on the Empire's DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station in 4 ABY. The battle saw the death of Emperor Palpatine and the Empire's military splintered afterward. The Alliance became the New Republic, which continued to wage war on the Empire's scattered forces and launched its own assault on the Kuat Drive Yards in 5 ABY. The New Republic successfully took over the shipyards and defeated the Empire at the Battle of Jakku that same year.

The reports by Ackbar and Madine, as well as Mothma's journal entry, on Operation Ringbreaker were eventually acquired by archivist Hendri Underholt, who included them in an archive of non-electric documents known as The Rebel Files. The archive was buried during the Imperial bombardment of the Mid Rim planet Durkteel in 4 ABY; however, The Rebel Files was eventually recovered during an excavation in 34 ABY and reached the hands of Leia Organa. During that time, Organa led the Resistance, a private military that had roots with the Rebel Alliance and support from members of the New Republic, in a Cold War against the First Order, the successor to the Empire. Organa and Ackbar made annotations to the documents regarding Operation Ringbreaker, as did Caluan Ematt, an ex-rebel who had traveled to Sullust during Twilight Company's defense there, and the Resistance officers Ushos O. Statura and Amilyn Holdo.

Operation Ringbreaker first appeared in Alexander Freed's 2015 novel Battlefront: Twilight Company.

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