Assault on Kamino

The assault on Kamino was fought in 1 BBY during the Galactic Civil War. In a desperate move to galvanize their fledgling rebellion, the Alliance to Restore the Republic launched a full-scale attack against a key target in the Galactic Empire—the cloning facilities on the Wild Space planet Kamino. Aided by Starkiller, a renegade clone of the late Galen Marek, the Alliance forces secured their first major victory under the leadership of Jedi Master Rahm Kota, a rebel general and one of the few surviving Jedi veterans of the Clone Wars. In the aftermath of the fighting, the Timira City was in ruins and the Imperial forces' Supreme Commander, Darth Vader, was taken prisoner by the Alliance, an accomplishment which Princess Leia Organa regarded as a turning point in the civil war.

After Marek's death aboard the Death Star in 2 BBY, the surviving founders of the Rebel Alliance—fugitive senators Bail Prestor Organa, Garm Bel Iblis and Mon Mothma—committed themselves to open rebellion against Emperor Palpatine and intended to fully restore the Old Republic that had been overthrown by the Empire's New Order. However, the Alliance leadership remained deadlocked in circular debates over what courses of action to take. While Bel Iblis advocated for bold but risky strikes against major Imperial targets, Mothma remained hesitant to engage the Empire in open battle due to the Alliance's limited resources. Organa's moderate stance on direct conflict and guerrilla warfare rendered him unable to completely support either side presented by his two colleagues, and so the Alliance remained relegated to small scale hit-and-run attacks.

At the same time, Darth Vader was determined to create a stronger and more obedient version of Marek, who had been secretly apprenticed for years to the Dark Lord of the Sith until his redemption as a Jedi and subsequent demise. As such, Marek's body was moved to Timira City where it was preserved as a source for cloning purposes. Although the creation of a perfect clone, based on the genetic code of a Force-sensitive template, had been considered impossible to achieve at the time, Vader proceeded to create a new acolyte via a new "accelerated cloning process". This refined version of the Kaminoan method enabled clones to complete their growth process in just under a few weeks rather than a full decade. Unfortunately, the procedure was far from flawless, and it resulted in numerous failed subjects—all of whom were undermined by genetic defects and residual memories that they inherited from their progenitor, and ultimately driven to madness. Though the Sith Lord eventually achieved his goal with the creation of a fully stable clone, who he trained as his new secret apprentice, he was also confronted with the dilemma of hunting down "Starkiller," the rogue clone who had escaped from Kamino shortly after Vader judged him to be another failure.

Due to his inability to overcome the memory imprints, Starkiller became obsessed with locating Captain Juno Eclipse, the human woman whom Marek developed feelings for toward the end of his life. This soon led him to make contact with General Kota in the hope of finding Eclipse. However, Lord Vader anticipated this and tasked the bounty hunter Boba Fett with abducting the Rebel officer, knowing that the clone would follow Captain Eclipse back to Kamino. Starkiller responded as expected, but brought with him the entire Rebel fleet. The Imperial Star Destroyers were initially able to hold the Rebels at bay until Starkiller crashed the Rebel flagship, Salvation through Kamino's planetary shield, allowing Rebel troopers and commandos to attack Timira City. Huge numbers of casualties resulted on both sides, particularly for the rebels as Starkiller only killed the Imperial soldiers directly in his way; focused solely on rescuing Eclipse, he ignored Kota's pleas to rejoin the battle proper.

Despite significant losses, Kota's troops held their ground against the Imperials while Starkiller fought Vader in a lightsaber duel at the top of the city spire. Enraged by Vader's attack on Eclipse, the clone managed to trick Vader into lowering his guard and defeated him, but reluctantly spared Vader's life when Kota urged him to consider how valuable the Empire's Supreme Commander could be to the Rebellion as a prisoner of war. With the Dark Lord captured and the Imperial garrison defeated, the Rebels sought to capitalize on their first major victory by transporting Vader to the Alliance hidden base on Dantooine. They also intended to crash a Star Destroyer into Kamino's ocean-covered surface so that the resulting tsunami would destroy Timira City. Soon afterward, the Alliance fleet left the system, unaware that they were being tracked by Vader's Mandalorian mercenary, Boba Fett.

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