Independent Operation Sebaddon

In the expanse of Wild Space, smuggler Jet Nebula, aboard the Auriga Fire, intercepted the Cinzia. Shortly after declaring his intention to pilfer its cargo, the Cinzia self-destructed. Despite the apparent lack of value, he managed to salvage the Cinzia's nav computer and delivered it to Hutt matriarch Tassaa Bareesh, who announced her plans to auction it off to the highest bidder. Sith apprentice Eldon Ax returned to her Master, Darth Chratis, to deliver news of her failed mission, as well as the humiliation of her defeat and interrogation at the hands of the Mandalorian Dao Stryver. Despite his fury, Chratis spared his apprentice's life due to his interest in the questions posed during the Mandalorian's interrogation, specifically regarding information about Ax's mother, Lema Xandret, and the location of the Cinzia. Darth Chratis then revealed to his apprentice that Lema Xandret was her mother, who had refused to surrender her daughter to the Sith for training. Consequently, she fled and successfully concealed herself beyond the reach of the Empire.

Both the Empire and the Republic dispatched diplomatic delegations to Tassaa Bareesh's court with the aim of acquiring the contents of the Cinzia. While both Eldon Ax and a Jedi Padawan named Shigar Konshi, who had arrived under the orders of Satele Shan, attempted to infiltrate the vault to steal the Navicomputer and the strange device, they were confronted by Dao Stryver. During their three-way engagement, the vault door was melted open, and several advanced hexagonal droids emerged, having been created by the device the Cinzia was transporting. Following a prolonged battle against four of the droids, Dao Stryver seized the Navicomputer, while Eldon Ax inferred that the droids were attempting to return to their point of origin and, therefore, must have its coordinates stored in their memory banks. Eldon returned to the Keizar-Volvec bulk cruiser Paramount, where she had a droid technician extract the coordinates. Simultaneously, Shigar Konshi employed his psychometric abilities to discern the location from a fragment of the artifact. As a result, all three parties made their way to the world of Sebaddon, which orbited a black hole situated far above the galactic plane, in the Mid Rim.

The Auriga Fire freighter was the first to arrive, followed shortly by a battlegroup of fifteen Republic vessels. However, approaching the planet required ships to slingshot around its central black hole, resulting in the loss of one Republic warship when it failed to execute the maneuver correctly. After an attempt to negotiate with the inhabitants of Sebaddon through Cinzia Xandret, a clone whom they believed to be Lema Xandret, large heat signatures appeared on the surface. Larin Moxla initially mistook these for volcanoes, but they were actually the launch sites for numerous ground-to-space missiles.

The inhabitants launched eight ground-to-space missiles at the Republic fleet, with four being destroyed by defensive fire and another three by the Republic's starfighter screen. One missile managed to strike the ventral side of the Corellia just before its engines, embedding itself in the ship. The debris from the other missiles was quickly revealed to be Fastbreeder battle droids, which began boarding the Republic ships. After Jet Nebula sent out an alarm to the Republic fleet, the droids quickly gained control of the Corellia as the Imperial navy arrived. The ships took a great deal of time to reach the battle due to their chosen course of heading straight to the planet rather than slingshotting around the black hole. As they observed the battle, one small Republic cruiser rammed itself into another warship, having been commandeered by the Fastbreeders. The Empire proceeded to launch their fighters once out of the Black Hole's influence, and engaged the Republic navy. After destroying one small ship, Eldon Ax quickly realized their mistake when they entered the cloud of Fastbreeders, and ordered the fighters to be recalled. However, Chratis and Colonel Kalisch ignored her recommendations and ordered the battle to continue. At that moment four additional missiles launched from the surface and the commandeered Republic ships turned to ram the Imperial navy. The fighters took to strafing dense concentrations of the Fastbreeders while the Imperial warships continued on their course. The large missiles separated into sixteen smaller missiles, eleven of which were destroyed by the defensive fire. Five missiles struck the Imperial fleet, damaging four large support vessels escorting the Paramount. In retaliation the Paramount launched retaliatory strikes on the missile launch sites, while the fighters attempted to intercept and destroy the drive systems of the commandeered Republic warships. The Paramount heeded Eldon's warning and moved out of the Imperial formation as Sebaddon launched two additional missiles and the first Imperial ship exploded, spreading the droids throughout the rest of the fleet. Multiple Imperial ships then proceeded to copy the Republic's tactic, and separate their uninfected vessels from the commandeered ships.

Meanwhile Captain Pipalidi had taken control of the Republic fleet aboard the Commenor_ _as the Auriga Fire cleared out Fastbreeders and and directed escape pods from the Corellia to the uninfected portion of the fleet. Three more missiles were launched from the surface, which the Republic initially believed to be aimed at no particular target. The Auriga Fire attempted to deal with the Fastbreeders' adaptive tactics by flooding agglomerations of them with energy from its drive systems, which destroyed them as they attempted to absorb it. The Auriga Fire then proceeded to rescue Grandmaster Satele Shan from the wreckage of the Corellia. After her rescue Dao Stryver's ship emerged from a crater on Sebaddon's moon and contacted both the Auriga Fire and the Paramount. The two parties proceeded to meet with the Mandalorian.

Following a meeting with Dao Stryver, where he informed both factions that the Fastbreeder droids possessed the capability to consume the entire galaxy within roughly a single generation, the Empire, aided by Ula Vii, an Imperial informant posing as the Republic envoy, consented to a temporary alliance with the Republic to neutralize the threat. Two strike forces were organized to eliminate the central foundry and the central intelligence operations centers, positioned at the south pole and the equator, respectively, while the combined fleet bombarded secondary targets from orbit. Ula Vii was selected as the commander of the operation by both sides and was stationed aboard the Auriga Fire to serve as a neutral party.

The invasion commenced with a joint assault by Republic and Imperial forces on the Fastbreeder droids in orbit, committing four thousand troops to the ground assault while keeping two thousand in orbit. Four squadrons of XA-8 and Mk. VI Starfighters created openings in the orbital cluster of Fastbreeders, enabling the NR2 Gully Jumper and VT-22 shuttles to pass through. Six missiles were launched in response to close the gaps in the orbital defenses, as the Republic and Imperial fleets initiated long-range bombardment of secondary targets. The dropships deployed their forces from orbit, allowing them to parachute in, indistinguishable from debris to the droids. Simultaneously, Stryver, Nebula, and Vii attempted to triangulate the source of the Fastbreeders' subspace communications.

While a downed VT-22 shuttle struck the equatorial target, Vii, Nebula, and Stryver successfully located and ordered the bombardment of three subspace communications hubs on the planet's surface, temporarily disrupting communications. However, during another wave a missile launches, the orbital crowd of fastbreeders opened up at the south pole, allowing Stryver's ship alongside a massive skyhook to emerge from the planet. Likewise, another vessel was produced at the equatorial strike site, which was the central intelligence for the fastbreeders, while the drives were produced on the moon, all three parts moving to conjoin with each other into a single vessel. Although Republic and Imperial vessels had again begun to exchange fire with each other as the alliance broke down, Jet Nebula's droid Clunker had managed to infiltrate the Republic and Imperial networks and take control of their vessels, using them to target the weak points on the skyhook with the Paramount which had been identified by Larin Moxla. However, both the central intelligence ship and skyhook had protected themselves with electromirror shields.

Meanwhile, Satele and Eldon, aboard the central intelligence component, discovered that the droids were controlled by a clone of Eldon Ax under her original moniker of Cinzia Xandret, along with the remains of the consciousness of Lema Xandret. However, during their conversation the liquified consciousness of Lema attempted to suffocate Cinzia, prompting Eldon and Satele to break the tank, killing Cinzia. Ax was able to then take control of the droids due to her genetic similarity, and used the override codes to shut them down. The old imperial vessel then emerged from the lake, and Ax and Satele emerged from the ship. Ax then turned against her master Darth Chratis and killed him using the Fastbreeders under her control. The droids then drilled down into the planet's mantle, which destroyed all of the fastbreeder technology.

In the aftermath of the battle, Tassaa Bareesh's forces, under the command of Sagrillo, arrived to claim control of the planet, but were swiftly outmatched by the arrival of Republic and Imperial reinforcements. Jet Nebula erased all records of the operation, and Dao Stryver vanished. Lieutenant Moxla received a permanent promotion to her rank and was given command of a new special forces division, which included Ses Jopp. Captain Pipalidi was also promoted to Colonel for her actions during and after the engagement. Republic forces attempted to salvage rare metals from the world but Imperial forces limited their access. A report to Supreme Commander Stantorrs indicated that all traces of the Fastbreeder technology had been destroyed, and the planet's orbit had been disrupted, placing it on a decaying trajectory toward the system's central black hole.