Defense of Maridun

Aayla Secura, a Jedi Master, and Clone Marshal Commander Bly's fleet were attacked by a Separatist fleet at Quell, which prompted Secura to request assistance from the nearest Galactic Republic forces. Jedi General Anakin Skywalker's flagship, the Resolute, responded. Admiral Wullf Yularen remained on board the Venator-class Star Destroyer, while Skywalker's forces, including his Padawan Ahsoka Tano and Clone Captain Rex, boarded Secura's damaged Jedi Cruiser. Skywalker also dispatched a Consular-class cruiser to dock with Secura's flagship's lower hangar for evacuation purposes. The three Jedi, Bly, Rex, and a small number of clone troopers successfully boarded the cruiser just before Secura's flagship disintegrated. Skywalker sustained serious injuries while containing an explosion.

Secura attempted to dock the frigate with the Resolute, despite Yularen's concerns about the feasibility of doing so during the ongoing battle. However, Separatist fire damaged the starship, triggering its hyperdrive and disabling its long-range communications. As Yularen ordered the Resolute to perform evasive actions, the frigate was propelled into hyperspace along an unpredictable course. Yularen instructed his officers to calculate the vessel's last known trajectory to facilitate its location after the battle. Ultimately, the Separatists emerged victorious.

During the frigate's erratic hyperspace journey, Bly discovered that the damaged navicomputer had placed the ship on a collision course with a star. To avert a crash, the Jedi were compelled to cut off all power, forcing the ship out of hyperspace. However, when Secura attempted to restore power, she lost her grip on the switch when Rex's handhold failed, causing him to collide with her in zero gravity. Secura used the Force to activate the switch, enabling Tano and Bly to slingshot the ship around the star. However, the damage caused the starship to crash-land on the nearby planet of Maridun.

Following the crash, everyone quickly evacuated the ship before it exploded, with Secura and Tano carrying Skywalker. Secura decided that she, Tano, Bly, and three troopers would search for help, while Rex guarded the injured Skywalker at the crash site, although Tano was hesitant to leave her master. Bly discovered a piece of carved wood, leading Tano to believe that the planet's inhabitants might live near giant trees, and the group set out. Upon reaching the trees, they found no signs of life, but they did find tracks indicating that the giant pods that regularly fell from the trees had been dragged away. While Secura's group followed the tracks, they were attacked by predatory mastiff phalones, resulting in the deaths of troopers Cameron, Lucky, and Flash. Secura, Tano, and Bly continued their journey. Back at the crash site, Skywalker and Rex were also attacked by a mastiff phalone, which Rex managed to drive off.

Secura, Tano, and Bly arrived at a village inhabited by Lurmen colonists. The village's leader, the staunch pacifist Tee Watt Kaa, reluctantly agreed to send his son and village healer Wag Too to assist Skywalker, but only if Secura remained behind as "insurance." Tano, Bly, and Wag Too returned to the crash site just as more mastiff phalones were attacking. They managed to tie up one of the creatures after Rex killed the other, sustaining a minor arm injury in the process. Tano and Bly carried Skywalker to the village on a stretcher, accompanied by Rex and Wag Too. Under the healer's care, Skywalker began to recover from his injuries.

General Lok Durd, a Separatist weapons designer, had created a new weapon known as the Defoliator, which was designed to destroy organic material while leaving machines like the Separatists' battle droids unharmed. To test the weapon, Durd needed test subjects and chose Maridun and the Lurmen colonists' village because of its remote and undefended location, establishing a small fort some distance from the settlement.

Some time after the Jedi and clones' arrival, while Skywalker was still recovering from his injuries, Durd's forces arrived at the village in a C-9979 landing craft. Captain Rex, who was keeping watch just outside the village, spotted the approaching vessel and, after confirming it was a Separatist ship using macrobinoculars, informed Commander Bly, who in turn alerted the Jedi. Tee Watt Kaa suggested that the Republic group leave immediately, and Secura agreed, pointing out to Tano that the Lurmen would be slaughtered if they were discovered.

With Rex and Bly helping Skywalker walk, the five slipped into the tall grass on the far side of the village as the droids ransacked the place. Tee Watt Kaa told Durd that the villagers, as pacifists, would offer no resistance, but Durd ordered a sweep for "weapons and Republic contraband" anyway, which yielded nothing. After their search, Durd informed Tee Watt Kaa that more searches would be conducted periodically. Meanwhile, Wag Too sent his friend Tub to track the Jedi and ensure they left the planet.

In the tall grass, the Jedi and clones paused to rest. Tano and Rex found it hard to believe that the villagers were unwilling to fight to defend themselves. Secura reminded the Padawan that standing up for one's beliefs was noble. Skywalker reminded everyone that they needed a ship to leave Maridun and suggested that the only starship around likely belonged to the Separatists. Rex approved of the idea of stealing from the enemy, but no one knew where to find the Separatists' base. At that moment, Tano noticed that they had been discovered by an enemy probe droid, which prompted a chase through the tall grass, with its signal jammed by Bly. Skywalker, who was still recuperating and unable to run quickly, told everyone to go ahead. Tano and the clones chased after the droid while Secura looped around, eventually cutting it off and destroying it with her lightsaber. Secura suggested climbing a nearby tree to see where the droid had come from.

Skywalker eventually caught up with the others at the top of a tree, which provided an excellent vantage point of the Separatist base, where Durd was preparing the Defoliator Deployment Tank for a test firing of his new weapon. Scanning the base with macrobinoculars, Skywalker noted the unusual tank and realized the Separatists had a new weapon. He sent Rex and Bly down to scout a closer look at it.

Durd contacted Count Dooku via hologram and informed him of the imminent test before ordering two battle droids to stand a short distance from the base. The two droids came close to where Rex and Bly were sneaking around in the grass, but the clones avoided being seen. When the Defoliator was fired, Rex and Bly ran from the blast zone, and the shell landed near the two battle droids. Running for the tree where the Jedi were watching, both clones fired ascension cables, but Bly tripped on a stick just as he fired his line, so Secura swung out of the tree on a vine to rescue him from the advancing wall of flame. Once everyone was back in the tree, they could see the extent of the burned area.

As Durd had planned, the two droids used in the test were undamaged. The weapons designer informed Dooku of this, before telling him of his plans to use the Lurmen village as the site of his next test firing to examine whether the Defoliator would also destroy more than just plant life. After the impressed Count signed off, Durd and his forces set out for the village again, this time on foot. Tub, who had been watching from another tree, sent his carrier butterfly ahead to alert Wag Too that the Separatists were returning to the village. The Republic group also realized the Separatists' likely destination and purpose. Tano was unsure if they should defend the village, as Tee Watt Kaa had refused the Jedi's help earlier, but Skywalker reminded her that there was a difference between letting innocents die and accidentally dragging them into a war.

After nightfall, the Jedi and clones prepared to raid the Separatist base, which had been left with only a few guards. Outside, Skywalker used telekinesis to move a rock around and lure the guards on foot into the tall grass, where he, Rex, and Bly quickly eliminated them. Meanwhile, Secura and Tano ascended the wall, Secura taking out the droids on the wall while Tano opened the door, allowing Skywalker and the clones to enter. Sneaking into the base's command post, Skywalker, Rex, and Bly each took out one of the three droids manning it, with only the last droid even seeing any of the attackers. Taking the base's two deflector shield generators, they departed in a waiting Sheathipede-class transport shuttle.

The Jedi and clones arrived at the village in the stolen shuttle before Durd and his forces. Having been alerted to the Separatists' return the night before, Wag Too had tried to convince his father that they had no choice but to defend themselves, as there were few reasons for the Separatists to return to their village other than destruction. However, Tee Watt Kaa stubbornly insisted that doing so would destroy their way of life. As a result, he was not pleased to see the Jedi again. In response to his protests, Skywalker simply told him that he could stand by his beliefs, but the Jedi would stand by theirs.

When Durd and his forces came within sight of the village, Tano and Secura were building a makeshift wall of seed pods in front of it. Rex, noting the approaching droids, told Skywalker that he estimated the enemy forces' arrival time at no more than eight minutes. Durd decided to survey the village with his macrobinoculars on approach. He saw Tano and Secura using telekinesis and, alarmed, immediately ordered his forces to halt. Unsure where the Jedi had come from, Durd decided to order the Defoliator to fire immediately. Skywalker waited until shortly before the cannon's shell impacted in front of the village to activate the shield generators, which protected the village from the weapon's destruction but alarmed its residents.

Realizing that the attack had been ineffective due to the deflector shield, Durd ordered a first wave of droids to prepare to attack the village. The five defenders exited the shield to meet the approaching droids. The first wave was quickly routed, prompting Durd to send a larger force of droids. As the second wave attacked, Skywalker decided to head for the Defoliator and destroy it, while Tano, Secura, and the clones continued to defend the village. The droids eventually breached the shield, smashing their way through the wall, and destroyed the first shield generator. As a vicious fight went on in the village's central area, the other shield generator was destroyed, causing many villagers to panic.

Durd was preparing to fire the Defoliator again when he was informed of Skywalker's approach. The tanks fired at the approaching Jedi, but he easily evaded the shots. Skywalker quickly defeated the droids guarding Durd before cutting off the Defoliator's end, causing the most recently loaded shell to fall to the ground. Durd attempted to flee in a panic, but Skywalker raised him from the ground using telekinesis before contacting Rex to tell him that the weapon had been destroyed.

While Secura, Tano, Rex, and Bly fought the remaining droid forces in the village, Wag Too and his friends moved to assist them, despite Tee Watt Kaa's disapproval. Using farming implements and rope, the young Lurmen tied up the droids' feet before knocking them to the ground. Tano finished off the line of droids with her lightsaber. After the remaining droids had been destroyed, many of the Lurmen cheered.

Lok Durd and his Aqualish engineer Pune Zignat were arrested and escorted aboard the captured Sheathipede-class shuttle. Skywalker thanked Wag Too for his assistance. Tee Watt Kaa reluctantly thanked the Jedi, but wondered at what cost, a worry strengthened by the arrival of the Resolute and two other Jedi Cruisers.

Although Durd's attempt to use the Defoliator on the Lurmen on Maridun was thwarted, the weapon was salvaged, repaired, and later used during the Battle of Dathomir, when General Grievous was dispatched to eliminate the Nightsisters.