Habbel

In the course of the Galactic Civil War, a war that pitted the Galactic Empire against the Alliance to Restore the Republic, Habbel served the Empire as a lieutenant within the Imperial Navy. Approximately four years following the Battle of Yavin, he found himself assigned to the Vigilance, an Imperial-class Star Destroyer under the leadership of Admiral Rae Sloane. This vessel was part of the Imperial forces that engaged the Alliance Fleet during their attack on the DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station superweapon positioned above the moon of Endor. During this conflict, Habbel was on the Star Destroyer's bridge, and he informed Sloane when the Alliance starship began increasing their speed in preparation for an attack. In response, the admiral instructed the lieutenant to get in touch with Maus Monare, the leader of Sapphire Squadron, and instruct him to reposition his TIE/ln space superiority starfighter to establish a defensive perimeter. Following this, she directed him to transmit targeting data to the Vigilance's turbolaser teams.

When Sloane noticed three Alliance CR90 corvettes moving towards the Vigilance, she once more instructed Habbel to contact Monare. She told him to relay the message that his pilots should prepare to intercept and await her order to engage. The TIE fighters could not comply with the order because they were fighting bandits in sector 8; however, the admiral's focus quickly shifted to the Death Star's shield generator, which was providing the deflector shield for the Death Star and had previously reported an assault by Alliance ground troops. She asked Habbel for the most recent information from the base, and after locating a communications officer, the lieutenant informed her that the bunker was no longer answering calls. She instructed him to keep trying to contact the garrison via priority channels and to provide an update as soon as one was available.

The lieutenant soon came back with a pair of reports on the garrison's situation. The first, from the Death Star, stated that new fighting had started on the moon involving the native Ewok species. The second, which was more recent and came from the garrison itself, asserted that the Rebel attack had failed and that their forces were running away. Sloane, dissatisfied with the conflicting information, instructed Habbel to personally contact the garrison to obtain a situation report. The lieutenant then went down into the bridge's crew pits to Communications Officer Ives and instructed her to contact the garrison, standing impatiently behind her as she spoke into her headset. While he waited, Sloane ordered him to prepare navigation and firing solutions for two possible scenarios: either cleaning up any remaining Rebel ships or pursuing the Rebel ships that were attempting to flee.

While Habbel was following these instructions, the crew of the Vigilance learned that the bunker on Endor had been destroyed by the Alliance, leaving the Death Star without a shield. Sloane directed the Vigilance to move into formation with the Executor, the Imperial fleet's flagship, but it was destroyed before they could reach it. Sloane, now the highest-ranking officer in the fleet, quickly noticed that the Alliance had started to distance themselves from the Death Star as quickly as they could. Realizing what was about to happen, Sloane shot Emarr Ottkreg—an Imperial Loyalty officer stationed on the Vigilance—and then asked Habbel about the second of the two scenarios she had had him prepare for, in which the most likely outcome had been calculated to be an Alliance retreat to the Annaj system. The admiral instructed the lieutenant to transmit the jump coordinates for the star system to all other Imperial ships still in operation and to have them prepare to jump. The Death Star exploded before the Vigilance could leave the Endor system.

By the time of the Battle of Endor, Habbel was a seasoned naval officer who had memorized the Imperial naval regulations and tactical manuals. Despite his extensive knowledge, he lacked the interpersonal skills and innate understanding of starships necessary for a [commander](/article/commander], which led Sloane to believe he would never advance beyond the rank of lieutenant. When reporting to the admiral on the Vigilance, he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as he awaited a response. He, like many Imperial Navy officers, believed that events occurring on a planet's surface during battle were unimportant, and he was taken aback when Sloane requested reports from the surface of Endor during the battle above the moon. Habbel disliked the Death Star II because he thought that the trillions of credits spent on it would have been better used to build more Star Destroyers. He was a male with pale blue eyes that were set in a doughy, reddish face with gray hair.

Habbel's initial appearance was in the short story "The Levers of Power," which was penned by Jason Fry and included in the The Rise of the Empire compilation, released in 2015.