Battle of Rendili

Rumors spread that Rendili, a planet that was the headquarters of the Rendili StarDrive company, which manufactured Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers, might join the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Because of these rumors, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine along with the Galactic Senate gave the order to send a task force, led by the Jedi, to Rendili. The task force's assignment was to try and persuade the Rendili Home Defense Fleet to stay loyal to the Galactic Republic. If the fleet could not be persuaded, the task force was ordered to destroy the fleet to keep it out of the hands of Dooku. Jedi Master Plo Koon and Captain Jan Dodonna were chosen to be part of the fleet sent to negotiate with Captain Jace Dallin, who was in charge of the Rendili Fleet. Koon, Dodonna, and Dallin had previously fought together during the Stark Hyperspace War.

When the Republic group got to Rendili, they found that an Independent Provisional Government had already taken control of Rendili and joined the Separatists. Despite this, Koon and Dodonna still went to the Rendili flagship, called the Mersel Kebir, to try to talk to Dallin. Dallin was initially hesitant, but eventually agreed to order his fleet to switch sides and join the Republic. However, Lieutenant Mellor Yago, along with other lower-ranking officers like Gallan, arrested Koon, Dodonna, Dallin, and the other high-ranking officers of the Mersel Kebir, accusing them of treason against Rendili. Yago held them hostage to prevent an immediate attack, hoping that Saesee Tiin, the commander of the Republic fleet, would delay firing for at least twenty hours. This was the amount of time that General Grievous said it would take for a Confederate Navy support group to reach Rendili.

Before the negotiating team went to the Mersel Kebir, Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi on the Republic fleet, was asked by the Exploration Corps to investigate a missing ship for the Mycroft Intergalactic Zoological Society. He traveled to the given coordinates and discovered the damaged ship, Titavian IV, which was emitting an old Jedi signal. Kenobi thought he might find Zao or Jerec on board, but instead he found Quinlan Vos, a Jedi who had turned to the dark side and joined Dooku.

Vos was being pursued by seeker droids that had been released by two of Dooku's followers, Asajj Ventress and Tol Skorr. They had been ordered to punish Vos for his failure after the Battle of Honoghr, where he had realized he was on the wrong path. Vos was stranded on the Titavian IV because the two Dark Jedi had moved his ship, the Skorp-Ion, out of reach. He was nearly defeated before Kenobi arrived. Kenobi and Vos reclaimed Vos' ship, avoided the Dark Jedi's droids, and escaped a rancor that had been released by Ventress and Skorr. They also destroyed Ventress and Skorr's ship, leaving them stranded on the Titavian IV. Kenobi then flew their ship back to Rendili, knowing that Tiin would likely be unhappy about Vos' presence.

Meanwhile, Yago, anticipating the arrival of the Confederate support group, gave Tiin an ultimatum: he would begin executing his hostages, starting with Koon, in one hour. Aboard the Republic flagship, the Sundiver, Tiin and Skywalker argued about what to do. Tiin believed that the hostages could not be saved and wanted to destroy the Rendili Fleet ships. However, Skywalker was confident that he could use his starfighter, the Azure Angel II, to place charges on the back of the cruisers, exploiting a flaw in their original Mandalorian design to leave them stranded in space. Tiin refused, and Kenobi also disagreed when he arrived with Vos. Tiin ordered Vos to be locked in a prison cell. At the same time, Commander Adar Tallon, the naval commander, reported that Confederate Lucrehulk-class Core Ships had come out of hyperspace. Tiin ordered the Sundiver to begin firing on the Mersel Kebir, and the Triumph and Doneeta to fire on the Confederate ships. Tiin and the other Jedi then went to their starfighters to join the battle.

Without permission, Anakin had the charges loaded onto his fighter and prepared to carry out his plan. When the Sundiver was hit and lost power, Vos escaped from his cell and boarded a starfighter, entering the battle. He and Kenobi infiltrated the Mersel Kebir to destroy its Vulture droids from the inside, creating a distraction that allowed Skywalker to carry out his plan. Yago, preparing for a hyperspace jump, had all the Rendili ships linked to the Mersel Kebir. When sensors detected this, Tiin ordered Tallon to ram the Sundiver into the Mersel Kebir. However, this became unnecessary when Skywalker successfully disabled the astrogation of the Mersel Kebir, leaving it and the other Rendili Fleet ships stranded.

Inside the Rendili flagship, Vos and Kenobi managed to free the hostages. Dallin personally shot Yago and regained command of the Rendili Fleet. He ordered the immediate execution of all other mutineers, and he and Tiin ordered their combined fleets to focus fire on the Confederate ships, destroying one and forcing the other to retreat, ending the battle.

After the fleet surrendered, the Independent Provisional Government was likely quickly defeated, and Rendili returned to the Republic by the end of the war.

Following the battle, the Rendili Fleet was taken to Coruscant for repairs and to be used in the war. Due to their strong design, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine planned to convert them into prison ships for transporting captured Dark Jedi loyal to Dooku. These ships likely became some of the Imperial dungeon ships used during the Great Jedi Purge, along with the Lictor-class.

At Palpatine's insistence, the Senate passed a resolution requiring all defense fleets to be integrated into the Republic Navy to prevent similar situations in the future. This consolidation of power into the central military, while weakening local systems, would form the foundation of the Imperial Navy and the Imperial ability to "rule through threat of force rather than force itself."

Ventress and Skorr were rescued from the Titavian IV by General Grievous, who arrived on the surviving Core Ship. Grievous took Skorr to report the failure to Dooku, while Ventress went to Coruscant to confront Vos. However, upon seeing Skywalker, she changed her plans and followed him. She saw one of Senator Padmé Amidala's handmaidens bring him a hologram of his wife. She then revealed herself and threatened to kill the "Jedi toy" before finishing him. In a rage, Skywalker fought Ventress, receiving a permanent scar on his face before trapping her in electrical cables and throwing her off a tower into the Coruscant underworld. She was presumed dead, but was later found to be alive.

At a meeting before the Jedi High Council, Vos was cleared of all suspicion and welcomed back into the Jedi Order. However, they did not realize that he was still loyal to Dooku, who had orchestrated the entire situation to place a spy within the Jedi ranks.

The novel Yoda: Dark Rendezvous contains a scene where Whie Malreaux views a holographic representation of the "Rendili Fleet Crisis" in the Jedi Temple. However, The New Essential Chronology places the Battle of Rendili after the Mission to Vjun because Asajj Ventress is alive and well in the novel (Whie and Scout saw her, which would have been in their mission report). In Obsession, Anakin is convinced that Ventress is dead (believing he killed her at the end of the comics miniseries The Dreadnaughts of Rendili). Therefore, the "Rendili crisis" mentioned in the novel (referred to only as a 'crisis' and not a 'battle') must be the negotiations that occurred before the armed conflict in the comic. In the first issue of the The Dreadnaughts of Rendili story arc, Anakin is shown arriving during these negotiations.

Due to continuity issues introduced by the Star Wars: The Clone Wars series, much of the pre-2009 timeline of the Clone Wars was condensed into the first few weeks of the conflict. The Official Star Wars Fact File Part 23 later definitively placed the Battle of Rendili before the events of the series, moving it to 22 BBY. Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, meanwhile, was moved to 19 BBY by The Essential Reader's Companion.