The Siege of Inyusu Tor, also known as the Battle of Sullust, was a battle that occurred during the Galactic Civil War between the Alliance to Restore the Republic's 61st Mobile Infantry, better known as Twilight Company, and the Galactic Empire on the volcanic planet Sullust. The planet, specifically the Inyusu Tor mineral processing facility, was targeted in 3 ABY as a part of Operation Ringbreaker, a campaign that targeted Imperial installments along the Rimma Trade Route to divert forces of the Galactic Empire from the Kuat Drive Yards, leaving it less prepared for a projected attack by the company.
Twilight Company, aboard the CR90 corvette Thunderstrike and the Braha'tok-class gunship Apailana's Promise, arrived at Sullust just half a million kilometers from the world, deploying the company swiftly via dropships. Twilight Company then attacked the Inyusu Tor facilitys entrance before later using hijacked vehicles to burrow into the complex, overwhelming its security squads.
With the facility captured, the Twilight Company's engineers rigged it to flood with magma. When the Thunderstrike and Apailana's Promise returned to extract the troops, however, the Empire's Vixus Squadron ambushed the starships and shot down the Thunderstrike. With the Apailana's Promise having fled Sullust, Twilight Company was forced to set up defense at the Inyusu Tor facility, conducting a rescue mission for survivors aboard the crashed Thunderstrike.
Hazram Namir, the assumed captain of the company, led a mission to Sullusts capital city Pinyumb to locate the local rebel cell, the Sullustan resistance. During the search, though, Namir and his team were attacked by stormtroopers in the city. Being separated from his remaining troops, Namir was rescued by the Sullustan resistance fighter Nien Nunb, who led the captain back to the rest of his cell.
Realizing that the Sullustan resistance was not equipped to assist Twilight Company, Namir devised a new plan for his company to defend the Inyusu Tor facility while the resistance and the local protest union liberate Pinyumb. The captain returned to the processing facility and prepared Twilight Company for the inevitable assault from the Empire's forces on Sullust.
The eventual attack was kick-started by the arrival of the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Herald at the planet. Forming three rough lines of defense, Twilight Company fended off the Imperial ground forces. Although the Herald was able to incinerate a number of outer defenses, the Apailana's Promise and its two T-65B X-wing starfighters returned and distracted the Star Destroyer.
Using excavating machines, a number of the company's personnel dug ports for lava to flow and strand the attacking ground forces, as well as flow down to Pinyumb's Imperial security posts. Late into the battle, the former Imperial governor Everi Chalis attempted to escape Sullust on a stolen shuttle but was caught by the Herald, which pulled her in on a tractor beam.
After leaving her shuttle aboard the Herald, Chalis greeted her Imperial captors, Prelate Verge and Captain Tabor Seitaron, before setting off twenty ion bombs that she had brought on the shuttle. This cause a power surge in the Star Destroyer. Verge and Chalis then wrestled before Seitaron broke it up with his blaster, killing Verge. The captain then ordered the Herald to withdraw from Sullust to save it from crashing, with Chalis escaping.
Shortly after the Battle of Hoth in 3 ABY, the Rebel Alliance's 61st Mobile Infantry, better known as Twilight Company, initiated Operation Ringbreaker. Devised by the former Imperial governor turned rebel asset Everi Chalis the operation sought to force Imperial redeployments from the shipyards at the planet Kuat by attacking Imperial installations along the Rimma Trade Route, thus making a projected attack on the shipyards more winnable for the company. Although the individual battles cost numerous casualties, Twilight Company won at each world, leaving only the planets Sullust and Malastare before Kuat.
Meanwhile, Prelate Verge and Captain Tabor Seitaron, who sought to bring justice to Chalis for defecting to Alliance, were attempting to predict Twilight Company's next move. Operating aboard the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer, the pair whittled down possible targets to a handful of worlds, including Sullust, and prepared each for an anticipated attack. Verge positioned multiple TIE/IN interceptor squadrons near the worlds, including Vixus Squadron near Sullust.
The CR90 corvette Thunderstrike and its escort, the Braha'tok-class gunship Apailana's Promise, above Sullust.
Twilight Company jumped out of hyperspace aboard their starships, the CR90 corvette Thunderstrike and its escort the Braha'tok-class gunship Apailana's Promise, a mere half million kilometers from the planet in an effort to rapidly deploy dropships to attack the Inyusu Tor mineral processing facility before Imperial orbital defenses could scramble a defense in time. The attack on the facility began with the assault on the Inyusu Tor mountain. News of Twilight Company's arrival at Sullust reached the Herald, and Verge and Seitaron contacted Vixus Squadron to travel for Sullust.
Twilight Company's lack of equipment prevented them from being able to attempt a breach of the facility, so Hazram Namir, the tentative captain of the company, sent a group of scouts, engineers, and sentries to assault the main entrance. Imperial Navy Troopers and stormtroopers lined up along the walls of the main entrance. Imperial airspeeders were additionally deployed from the garrison nearby at Sullust's capital city Pinyumb, but were unable to use their sweep bombs in fear of damaging the facility. Namir took a PLX-1 portable missile launcher and shot one of them down. In the second phase of the attack, rebel squads used hijacked mining vehicles burrowed their way into the mine. The facilitys security squads were ultimately overwhelmed by the rebels on the inside and outside.
The planet Sullust, site of the battle
Twilight Company was victorious, with only four fatalities and sixteen injuries. Meanwhile, Vixus Squadron made its way to Sullust and hid behind the planet's in preparation to ambush the Thunderstrike upon the corvette's return. After the Sullustan workers fled the Inyusu Tor facility, the company prepared for their pick up, rigging the facility to flood with magma and seizing any supplies worth taking. Stormtroopers patrolled the mountain during the night.
When the Thunderstrike and Apailana's Promise returned to pick up Twilight Company the next day local Imperial TIE/ln space superiority starfighters attacked the vessels. Commander Tohna, the Thunderstrikes captain, had the corvette fly in low with the Promise and its two X-wing starfighters covering the flank. As numerous TIEs were destroyed, Vixus Squadron sprung from behind Sullust's moon once Twilight Company's vessels reached the planet's atmosphere. As Namir heard reports of this ambush, he ordered the Thunderstrike and Apailana's Promise to pull back. The Thunderstrike, however, had been damaged heavily and crashed onto Sullust's surface. The Promise, meanwhile, chose to retreat with the X-wings, stranding Twilight Company on the planet.
Namir sent half a dozen search and rescue squads to the wreckage of the Thunderstrike, with scouts reporting that Imperial airspeeders were enroute to the site. A survivors and fallen were accounted for, and bacta and other medical supplies were salvaged. Eventually, bombers arrived and began hitting the field. Imperial ground troops arrived and their scouting parties began to open fire. Namir blew more holes in the Thunderstrikes wreckage. Twilight Company worked throughout the night to fortify the Inyusu facility. The engineers, led by the new chief of engineering Vifra, reversed the magma flooding plan in the facility. Namir and the head engineer discussed using these magma extractors to prevent the Imperial forces from burrowing through the mountain like Twilight Company had done.
Meanwhile, the Empire bombed the outskirts of the mountain to contain the company at the Inyusu Tor facility. Namir held meetings to plan the defense of the facility, summarizing the situation and capabilities of Twilight Company. Chalis, having studied records from the facility administrator, soon proposed to Namir that they reached out to the Sullustan resistance, a rebel cell active in Pinyumb, Sullust's capital city located at the bottom of Inyusu Tor, for whatever help could be provided. After proposing this to Namir, the tentative captain agreed and told Chalis to pick a squad.
Namir, Chalis, the soldier Twitch, and her remaining two soldiers prepared to travel towards Pinyumb on a vehicle from the Inyusu Tor facility. Roach joined them shortly before their departure and they abandoned at the bottom of the mountain. The group of six then changed into civilian clothing, taking with them concealable weapons, and they sneaked past the Imperial patrols and reached the capital city, which had been on lock down since Twilight Company had arrived at Sullust. After traversing the alleys of Pinyumb, the group arrived at an old Sullustan resistance safehouse which had been mentioned in the files of the company's old captain, Micha Evon.
As they searched around, Twitch's soldiers went down to the nearby spaceport but they were soon met by a squad of stormtroopers who chased them out. Twitch left them to find her squad and Namir was captured by the stormtrooper SP-475. The Sullustan resistance leader Nien Nunb then arrived and rescued Namir from SP-475 and her squad. Numb took him to help feed hiding Sullustans and they soon got to the Sullustan resistance safe house where the other resistance members were.
Namir realized that the group of four freedom fighters would be of no help but devised a plan: it would have the Sixty-First face the inevitable Imperial attack on Inyusu Tor and have the Sullustan resistance and willing members of the Cobalt Laborers' Reformation Front take Pinyumb. Namir went back to Inyusu Tor and saw that Chalis wanted to have the Sixty-First evacuate and continue Operation Ringbreaker and had already begun her plan. Namir insisted on his plan and the Besalisk Gadren captured Chalis, thwarting hers. Namir therefore prepared the Sixty-First for the coming attack.
On the Third Day of the Siege, the Imperial counterattack began. Stormtroopers and Navy Troopers climbed the mountain as air speeders took shots at Twilight scouts. The rebel defense consisted of three lines. The outer line only held a few dozen troopers hidden behind boulders and other cover. They couldn't last long, but they could ambush Imperial troops and catch them off guard. The middle line was a trench that had a third of the company. It was close enough to the facility that the Empire wouldn't bomb it. The trench also had an assortment of blaster cannons, mortars, and other light artillery The final defense line mirrored what the Empire had in the initial assault.
It worked well for the Imperials and would work well for the Rebels. A horde of white armored stormtroopers sprinkled with lightly armored navy troopers as well as a few AT-ST walkers. The first move of the battle would be a dozen airspeeders releasing bomb on the outer facility. The outer squads were well concealed and took no damage. When the Imperial infantry charged and was in close range. The outer squads opened fire. Each rebel shot felled a soldier, but they were soon overwhelmed.
They started to retreat in twos or threes. Once the Empire reached the outer line, leftover Ion mines detonated. About 50 meters to the trench, the Empire paused to allow scout walkers to pass through. Only one was downed by artillery and another by an ion mine before they reached the trench. They cut thought the rebel squads and Namir ordered the inner artillery to fire. Entire squads were annihilated either by Twilight Company's artillery or its walkers. The rest of the walkers were destroyed or retreated. Namir went down to the front lines and talked with Von Geiz. The airspeeders stopped firing as a Star Destroyer entered the atmosphere.
The Herald began to bombard the outer defensive positions, killing many Twilight snipers and scouts. Its cannon volleys closed in on the facility but were halted by the return of the Apailana's Promise which kept it distracted. As the defensive lines were pushed back, Twilight Company's chief of engineering, Vifra, and her team used machines donated by the Sullustan resistance to excavate ports for the facility's lava to flow towards the ground forces. The lava trapped the Imperial forces and killed many that couldn't advance fast enough on the facility.
During the battle, Chalis fled to the nearby city of Pinyumb, killed an Imperial officer, and attempted to escape the planet in a shuttle. Chalis' codes had been marked by the bridge crew and her ship was tractor beamed in. After being taken prisoner, Chalis revealed the shuttle had been rigged with ion charges and activated them, dealing major power loss to the Star Destroyer. Unable to power its weapons and maintain altitude, the ship began to drop towards the surface and was forced to leave the system. Even without the Star Destroyer's help, the Imperial ground forces stayed strong and stormed the facility. The fire fights led to the deaths of many on both sides including the Twilight soldier Roach. However the Imperial numbers rapidly deteriorated and they were ultimately defeated. At some point, the rebel Caluan Ematt made his way to Sullust to assist the resistance. He found upon his arrival that Twilight Company had already had the battle at under control.
Pinyumb was taken by the joint force of the Sullustan resistance and the Cobalt Laborers and in the following days more uprisings broke out all over Sullust, delaying the inevitable Imperial counterattack. An interim government was installed in Pinyumb and heavy losses sustained by the Twilight Company ultimately cancelled Operation Ringbreaker, allowing the company to act as a temporary police force for the Sullustan people.
The victory on Sullust ultimately played a key role in the outcome of the Galactic Civil War, as the planet was eventually used as the staging ground for the Alliance Fleet before the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY. After the Alliance won at this battle, it transitioned into the New Republic. During the campaign in the Cerberon system, around 5 ABY, Sergeant Zab, a veteran of the Siege of Inyusu Tor, recalled the loss of the Thunderstrike there in a conversation with some other soldiers and the New Republic pilots Nath Tensent and Wyl Lark.
After the battle the Alliance returned to liberate Sullust completely. Sometime later, the Empire returned to the planet and reactivated an abandoned weapons factory, in an effort to covertly resupply their dwindling forces. The installation was destroyed by Lando Calrissian and Shriv Suurgav, shortly before the Battle of Jakku.
The Siege of Inyusu Tor first appeared in the 2015 novel Battlefront: Twilight Company, written by Alexander Freed.
It should be noted that in the main image used on this article, Sullust is misspelled as "Sollust."
- Star Wars Helmet Collection 34
- Star Wars: The Rebel Files
- Star Wars Helmet Collection 53
- Star Wars Helmet Collection 58
- Star Wars: Battles that Changed the Galaxy
- Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire