Battle of Byllura

The clash known as the Battle of Byllura transpired in 1032 BBY. During this time, Rusher's Brigade, a group transporting numerous student refugees fleeing the Battle of Gazzari, made landfall on the planet Byllura, situated within the Dyarchy. Jedi Knight Kerra Holt and Brigadier Jarrow Rusher were both aware that Byllura was governed by children, but they were unaware that these children, named Quillan and Dromika, were in fact Sith Lords. Upon their arrival near Hestobyll, Holt's objective was to reach the Loft to confirm the planet's safety. However, she soon discovered that the entire population was being manipulated through Force persuasion exerted by the twins, Quillan and Dromika, and transmitted across the planet by Celegians. Holt initiated combat with the Unifiers within the city, eventually facing the Krevaaki Saaj Calician in a duel. Calician guided Holt to the Loft, where the twins nearly succeeded in breaking her mind. Nevertheless, Holt managed to resist their mental influence long enough to be rescued by Rusher and the Diligence. As they escaped the planet with Quillan as their captive, the Diligence encountered the Dyarchy Fleet, which was preparing to attack the Daimanate. Before the assault could commence, however, the forces of the Arkadianate, led by the Sith Lord Arkadia Calimondra, arrived and opened fire on the Dyarchy Fleet. The planet quickly fell under the control of the Arkadianate, and the Diligence and its passengers, including Quillan, were taken to Syned, the Arkadianate capital. During this battle, Seese served as a tactical officer on the New Crucible. ## Prelude ### Sith Domination During the era of the Republic Dark Age, the world of Byllura was among the many territories under the rule of the human Sith Lord Chagras, who governed an empire in the Grumani sector known as the Chagras Hegemony. Chagras belonged to a large Sith family known as the Calimondra family, led by the matriarch Vilia Calimondra. Sometime before his death in 1040 BBY, Chagras fathered twin children: a son named Quillan and a daughter named Dromika. In 1041 BBY, Chagras appointed the Krevaaki Sith Lord Saaj Calician as regent to the twins, who were five years old at the time. As Force-sensitive Sith offspring, the twins possessed significant powers, with Quillan having the ability to predict the future and Dromika being able to use the Force to hypnotize others. After Chagras' death in 1040 BBY, Calician became the guardian of the twins, and they established a Sith principality based on Byllura, called the Dyarchy, with Calician serving as their "regent-aspect" and primary connection to the outside world. Throughout their childhood, the twins remained within The Loft, their private residence in the city of Hestobyll, perceiving the wider universe solely through the Force and referring to external individuals and objects as "aspects." Quillan lived entirely within his own mind and used his Force abilities to control every aspect of the lives of Byllura's inhabitants, including daily activities such as eating, working, and sleeping. The Sith twins established a highly centralized system of governance on Byllura, using mental suggestions to enthrall the entire population into operating as a single organism. These mental suggestions were transmitted across the planet by a network of enslaved Celegians, effectively creating a non-electronic network centered around the will of Quillan. As a result of this Force network, Quillan and Dromika were aware of every activity occurring on Byllura. Their regent, Calician, also employed a force of red-clad Force-sensitive darksiders known as Unifiers to enforce compliance among the population using Force persuasion. Due to Quillan integrating all visitors to Byllura into his mind control network, the planet's population, manufacturing output, and military strength had grown steadily over an eight-year period leading up to its collapse in 1032 BBY. All sentient beings visiting the Dyarchy stayed, regardless of their intentions. Calician likened this period in Byllura's history to a planetary version of a Whinndorian gorsk-plant, a flower with a paralyzing sting. After Chagras' death left the twin's grandmother, Vilia Calimondra, without an heir to her extensive holdings, she initiated a second competition among her grandchildren to find a worthy successor, which quickly escalated into an all-out conflict between her descendants. The Dyarchy was pitted against competing Sith states, and Calician planned to strengthen the twins' empire to make it powerful enough to wage war against their rivals. Calician also contacted the Sith Lord Daiman, the ruler of the Sith state known as the Daimanate, via hologram in the hope of forming a military alliance. However, the narcissistic Daiman was not interested in allying with or invading the Dyarchy. For years, the Dyarchy remained isolated from the galaxy. In 1037 BBY, Calician commissioned the creation of a fleet of fourteen large battlecruisers, each with a single Force-sensitive Celegian onboard to receive orders directly from Byllura. These battleships were constructed within hidden hangars beneath the capital's large reflection pools. By 1032 BBY, this fleet was ready for battle operations, and Calician intended to use them to invade the Daimanate's rearward systems as his first step towards galactic domination. Using Dromika and Quillan, Calician also planned to rule the Galaxy by mentally bonding all inhabitants to the Sith twins. ### The Jedi's Arrival Following the Battle of Gazzari, the Jedi Knight Kerra Holt escaped Gazzari with a thousand students she had rescued from the war arxeum, a mobile university created by Industrial Heuristics to study war sciences. In 1032 BBY, the Quermian Sith Lord Ayanos Bactra had planned to sell one such arxeum to Lord Daiman near Gazzari. However, the facility was attacked and destroyed by the Sith Lord Odion. The battle concluded when Daiman and Odion joined forces under orders from the family matriarch Vilia Calimondra and then turned on Bactra's forces. Kerra managed to evacuate these students aboard the mercenary Jarrow Rusher's troop transport, the Diligence. Rusher was the commander of a mercenary group known as Rusher's Brigade, which had worked for various factions, including different Sith warlords. Forced to take the children with them, Rusher and his crew flew their ship to Byllura, hoping to drop the children off there. While there were rumors that Byllura had fallen under the control of two Sith children, there was little concrete evidence to confirm any changes in the planet's political situation. Rusher was also unwilling to risk making a jump into hyperspace due to the lack of reliable information about safe hyperspace routes into Republic space. Compared to the highly industrialized and polluted subject worlds of the Daimanate like Chelloa, Byllura had a reputation for its natural beauty and idyllic tropical landscapes, at least by the standards of Sith space. Since the refugees created a strain on supplies and space aboard the Diligence, Rusher was eager to drop the passengers on Byllura. However, Kerra was still uneasy about the plan and made Rusher promise to give her an hour to check the place out before allowing the refugees to disembark. Quillan and Dromika sensed the vessel's approach through the Force and summoned Calician to them, ordering him to contact Byllura's defensive stations and inform them of any reports of foreign vessels in the vicinity of the world. A short time later, Diligence arrived in the system, and Calician permitted the vessel to land and allowed its occupants to disembark at the capital city Hestobyll. The Regent himself was excited by the ship's arrival and viewed the vessel as an omen that to time was right to strike against Daiman, because the Daimanite forces would not have permitted a ship to leave their domain if they had had sufficient military forces in the vicinity of their border. With approval from Dromika and Quillan, Calician ordered the Dyarchy Fleet to launch into space for an invasion of the Daimanate's rear systems. ### The Arkadianate's Threat Unknown to the other two parties, the Sith Lord Arkadia Calimondra planned to invade and annex the Dyarchy. Arkadia was the elder sister of Dromika and Quillan and regarded Regent Calician as an outsider and rival to her own ambitions. As part of her invasion plan, she contracted the services of the Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane, an independent operator who worked for several different Sith employers including the Calimondra family matriarch Vilia Calimondra, the twins' grandmother. Narsk had recently been hired by the Sith Lord Odion to gather intelligence and destroy a Daimanate military project. After being captured by the Daimanate authorities, Narsk had narrowly escaped captivity with the assistance of his nominal enemy Kerra Holt. Prior to the battle, the Bothan spy infiltrated Byllura in a specially modified stealth starfighter and attached a transmitter device onto the Loft's video surveillance system. This allowed Arkadia to spy on the Dyarchy's rulers who resided in a penthouse at the top of the Loft, a massive seaside palace on top of a rock overlooking Hestobyll's harbor. Narsk then retreated to a cave in higher ground which he would use to observe developments on Byllura. Since Kerra had acquired Narsk's stolen Cyricept Mark VI stealth suit on Darkknell, Vilia was able to use its electronic systems to spy on the Jedi woman and learnt that the Diligence was heading to Byllura. She subsequently informed her granddaughter Arkadia about the Jedi woman's presence. ## The Battle ### The Quiet Before The Storm As the Diligence descended through Hestobyll's atmosphere, Kerra and Jarrow felt relieved to encounter no resistance. Jarrow received landing permission via commset from an unidentified individual known as "Deep Voice," who was actually the Celegian "One." Upon reaching their designated hangar platform, they were surprised to find no welcoming party. Jarrow, optimistically believing Byllura to be safe and free of any Sith presence, ordered the crew to deploy the cargo ramps to allow the refugees to disembark. Jarrow attempted to lead the refugees out, but Kerra stopped him, insisting that she needed to scout the area first, emphasizing the need for a thorough reconnaissance of the surrounding city rather than a simple observation of the platform area. This sparked an argument between the young Jedi Knight and the mercenary leader. Referencing a datapad entry on Byllura, Jarrow argued that there was adequate shelter for the refugees in Hestobyll and no sign of danger. Kerra countered by pointing out that they had little information about who actually controlled Byllura, and angrily accused Jarrow of not caring for the refugees. In response, Jarrow argued that the refugees were an inconvenient burden. Eventually, they reached a compromise: Kerra would have one hour to conduct a proper recon probe of Hestobyll in exchange for returning the refugees to the Diligence. However, the enslaved Celegian "One" sensed these developments and transmitted the information back to Calician. While Calician was aware that the ship's captain had indicated a readiness to unload his passengers on Byllura, he grew suspicious of a potential threat to the Dyarchy when an unidentified person (later revealed to be Kerra) had the student refugees reboard the ship. Calician suspected a Daimanate trick and quickly dispatched a contingent of Unifiers to investigate the Diligence under direct orders from Dromika, who was in turn being telepathically controlled by her twin brother Quillan. During her reconnaissance of Hestobyll, Kerra encountered individuals of various species, including Duros, Caamasi, Ithorians, and Sullustans, all of whom ignored her. When Kerra tried to contact an Ithorian man and an elderly Duros couple, they only responded with mute indifference. At that point, Jarrow contacted her via comlink to inform her that they had received another transmission from "Deep Voice" on the commset, stating that the Byllurans had seen the refugees on the platform and were sending people to help with their situation, supposedly "directing them to a center for assigning quarters." Aware of Sith relocation practices, Kerra expressed surprise that the local authorities had gotten wind of their predicament and warned Jarrow to be careful, as they were in an unfamiliar place. Kerra's situation was further complicated when she discovered that she was being followed by the teenaged Sullustan refugee Tan Tengo, who in turn was being followed by the Duros soldier Beadle Lubboon. Tan had broken out of the Diligence to follow her mentor and "big sister" Kerra, while Beadle had been dispatched by Jarrow to find Tan. The three then headed towards a nearby crowd moving towards a massive hexagonal silo. Kerra encountered a Duros man and quickly discerned that Byllura was being controlled by Sith who were directly imposing their will on its inhabitants. Before she could contact Rusher by comlink, she sensed an alien entity ordering the crowd of Dyarchy Fleet workers to commence loading operations and deliver the Celegians to their assigned vessels. Immediately, Kerra witnessed the crowd surging towards the hexagonal complex. In the unfolding confusion, Tan and Beadle became separated from her within the crowd. At that moment, several red-clad Force-sensitive enforcers known as Unifiers, whom she dubbed "Scarlet Riders," arrived at the scene. When Kerra witnessed the same Ithorian she had encountered earlier echoing the same commandments uttered by the Unifiers, she quickly realized that the planet was being controlled through mental manipulations by unidentified Force-users. The Celegians formed a mental telepathic network that relayed these commands, while the scarlet Unifiers enforced their rules using Force persuasion. Meanwhile, Beadle and Tan were quickly captured by the Unifiers, who proceeded to load them onto one of their airspeeders. ### Resisting the Assimilation Attempting to rescue her charges from Sith captivity, Kerra ignited her lightsaber and fought the Unifiers, killing several in the ensuing melee. She then pursued the scarlet Unifiers through the streets of Hestobyll, commandeering an airspeeder. Kerra also managed to warn Rusher in time to bring most of the refugees back aboard the Diligence, minutes before the arrival of another party of Unifiers dispatched to the spaceport. These Unifiers were led by a Trandoshan who ordered Jarrow to open the vessel and report for assignment. They had captured several of the crew, including shipmaster Ryland Dackett and Prenda Novallo, who had been outside on the landing platform making repairs to the Diligence. Rejecting the Dyarchy's demands that they submit, Jarrow dropped an anchor on the Trandoshan, sparking a vicious battle in the spaceport. When Rusher tried to have the Diligence lift off, the Unifiers attacked by trying to jump onto the vessel and slash at its hull with their lightsaber-batons. In response, Rusher ordered his Khil helmswoman Zussh to lift the ship into the air and give it a spin to shake off the Sith climbers. Rusher then ordered Zussh to switch off the thrusters, causing the ship to slam into the platform, before reactivating them. The scarlet Unifiers then launched a second attack by ramming their airspeeders against the upper decks to rupture the windows. Though the Diligence had little operational armament to bear on these attackers, Rusher came up with the clever tactic of slamming the non-working gun emplacements on the Diligence into the swarming speeders, easily destroying their attackers. After eliminating the Sith opposition, Rusher succeeded in evacuating all the crew and passengers at the landing platform, including Dackett, Novallo, and the thirty other stranded crew who had been on the landing deck. The Trandoshan Unifier commander was also killed by Dackett, who personally beat him to death with his regenerated arm. With the Dyarchy's fleet lifting into space from their underwater hangar bays beneath Hestobyll's reflection pools, Rusher ordered the Diligence out to sea and away from the chaos. ### In the Twins' Den Meanwhile, Kerra pursued the scarlet Unifiers through the streets of Hestobyll. During an aerial dogfight, she rammed into an airspeeder piloted by a Rodian Unifier, leading to a fist-fight where the latter was thrown to his death in the streets below. During this melee, Kerra sensed that the Rodian did not actually know how to operate an airspeeder but was being directed and controlled by a higher force. Her pursuit eventually took her to The Loft, a mushroom-shaped retreat situated at the top of a mesa opposite the harbor. During the flight, Kerra noticed that a network of Celegians was situated at strategic junctures stretching from the Loft to the city, forming an unbroken telepathic communication network used to mentally subjugate the Bylluran population through Force suggestions. Meanwhile, Calician learned of Kerra's presence through his telepathic network. The twins viewed Holt as a threat and ordered the Krevaaki to protect them, then took direct control of his mind via the Force. Holt infiltrated The Loft's airspeeder hangar bay and made her way to the chamber in which One was held, where she persuaded the aged Celegian to stop sending messages on behalf of the Dyarchy, disrupting the communications network. She also ordered One to send Tan and Beadle to the hangar so that they could be picked up later. Under the influence of the twins, Calician headed to One's chamber and attacked Holt with six lightsaber-batons, which he twirled from his tentacles. He threw himself at her in a nihilistic fury, driven by the influence of the twins, and came close to rupturing One's tank, which would have released a poisonous gas and killed both him and Holt. He regained some control over his body, but Holt was able to outwit him and singe his facial tentacles, then slice off one of his limbs from his middle carapace. He felt no pain, due to the influence of the twins, and realized that Holt was too strong for him to defeat because his withered mind could not access his memories of how to fight Jedi while it was being dulled by Dromika's mental manipulations. He therefore stopped fighting and offered to take Holt to the twins, who were housed in a penthouse at the top of the Loft, and she accepted his proposal. On their arrival in the twins' quarters, several nanny droids hurled themselves at Calician and Holt in an attempt to defend the twins. However, Holt swept them away, and Calician introduced her to the twins. Using the Force, Dromika pinned Holt down and compelled Calician to bring his blade to bear against the Jedi. Calician resisted because he wanted to be given the chance to fight Holt by himself, free of the twins' mental influences, and while he and Dromika were briefly distracted, Holt broke free and severed one of Calician's leg tentacles. She then engaged the twins in a mental battle, using telepathy to hurl objects across the room. During the fighting, Kerra quickly realized that Quillan was using his sister Dromika as a puppet to carry out his bidding. The ensuing duel was interrupted by the arrival of the Diligence, which used its heavy frontal gun emplacement to breach the penthouse's windows. Rusher had already picked up Tan and Beadle, who had escaped on an airspeeder from the palace's hangar bay. In the ensuing chaos, Kerra kidnapped Quillan and brought him aboard the Diligence, fleeing an enraged Dromika, who had by then picked up one of Calician's lightsabers. Once aboard the Diligence, Quillan descended into an infantile tantrum since he was unable to sense his sister through the Force. Meanwhile, a distraught Dromika fell into a comatose state since she could not discern between a physical presence and a Force emanation. ### The Bothan's Entrance From his safe position in the mountains above Hestobyll, Narsk Ka'hane was able to monitor the fighting. He also intercepted communications signals from the Diligence and subsequently confirmed that Kerra was indeed present on Byllura. Narsk also observed Kerra's wild pursuit through the streets of Hestobyll, which ended at the Loft. After ascertaining that Kerra was within the Dyarchy's sanctum, the Bothan spy contacted his employer Arkadia and told her to be ready to strike Byllura. Narsk also observed the movements of the Dyarchy Fleet into Byllura's upper atmosphere. At one point, Narsk contacted Kerra via comlink and demanded that the Jedi return his stolen stealth suit. Having confirmed Kerra's presence, Narsk left Byllura on his stealth fighter and headed to space, where he was picked up by Arkadia's flagship New Crucible. ## Aftermath The capture of Quillan and the incapacitation of Dromika would have enormous ramifications for the Dyarchy on Byllura. Deprived of its twin rulers, the highly centralized fiefdom rapidly disintegrated into anarchy. Meanwhile, the other Celegians on Byllura followed One's example and refused to send telepathic messages, leading to a breakdown of the entire telepathic network. Their rebellion made it impossible to coordinate the Dyarchy's manufacturing efforts and led to explosions in all of the world's major construction facilities, destroying the bulk of the Dyarchy Fleet. With the end of the Dyarchy's telepathic network, the population emerged from their mentally induced thralldom and quickly reclaimed their former cognizance and autonomy. Riots quickly broke out across Byllura's major centers, including Hestobyll, as the inhabitants vented their fury against the old order. The breakdown of the Dyarchy's telepathic network also caused a series of explosions in several shipyards and munitions factories throughout Hestobyll. Prior to the collapse, all instructions and knowledge that enabled these installations to operate were transmitted through this telepathic network. The Celegians carried these instructions to these industrial installations, which were all supervised by Unifiers. With the kidnapping of Quillan and the Celegian revolt, the Regent Calician lacked any means of communicating with his realm. Following the arrival of the Diligence, Calician had ordered his shipyards to produce more battleships. However, those workers assigned to the shipyards had no knowledge of metal casting procedures since the experts were based at the Loft's lower levels. The Dyarchy's collapse coincided at a stage in the manufacturing process when the warships' molds were being filled. Not knowing what to do next, the workers allowed the molds to overfill with molten durasteel, which unleashed a chain reaction of explosions that destroyed the shipyards and damaged large areas of Hestobyll's infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Dyarchy's orbital defense stations detected the arrival of a fleet of enemy warships from the Arkadianate, the neighboring Sith domain that was ruled by the twins' older sister and Sith Lord Arkadia Calimondra. Following the assault on the Loft's penthouse, Regent Calician had retreated to the palace's underground command center with the unconscious Dromika. Freed from the control of the Sith twins, Calician contacted his former enemies via hologram to inquire if Quillan was still alive. With

Dromika was still unconscious, so Calician attempted to persuade Kerra to avenge his enslavement by Quillan by murdering him. Kerra, in exchange, successfully negotiated with Calician for the liberation of the remaining Celegians. As the Diligence departed Byllura's upper atmosphere, the Dyarchy found itself under attack from the Arkadianate's formidable war fleet. The Arkadian warfleet swiftly incapacitated the Dyarchy's warships, carefully avoiding their destruction in order to salvage the damaged vessels. The New Crucible, Arkadia's flagship, also used its tractor beam projector to capture the Diligence. During the subsequent occupation, Arkadianate forces also freed the remaining imprisoned Celegians and dismantled the Dyarchy's mental telepathic communication system. The citizens, while freed from the Dyarchy's oppressive rule, were now under the control of yet another Sith dynasty, the Arkadianate. Calician was discovered by Arkadianite forces and executed for his central role as the architect of the Dyarchy; according to a report from Bothan spy Narsk Ka'hane, Calician faced his demise silently. With the Dyarchy's downfall and the neutralization of its military, Byllura was conquered and integrated into Arkadia's territories. Following the battle, both Quillan and Dromika were taken into the care of their elder sister, Arkadia. Kerra and Jarrow transported the captured Quillan to Syned, the Arkadianate's capital city. Throughout the journey and their audience with Arkadia, the adolescent boy remained unresponsive, trapped in an infantile and nearly catatonic state. Simultaneously, Arkadianate forces seized control of the Loft and took his twin sister, Dromika, into their custody. Due to Dromika's previous mental manipulation by her brother, Arkadia decreed that the twins must be kept apart. Dromika was to remain at her mountain top home, under the regular care and supervision of her new Arkadianate guardians. During a meeting with Kerra and Jarrow, Arkadia expressed her hope that this separation would ultimately improve Dromika's well-being, and pledged to visit her in the future. Ultimately, their grandmother, Vilia Calimondra, would gain custody of the twins.