Battle of Vagar Praxut

The Battle of Vagar Praxut was an engagement toward the end of the Vagaari War. It saw the death of  Gohsh and the decimation of all life on the  homeworld,.

Battle
Having reunited his fleet with that of Sorrik following the Ssi-ruuvi Incursion, Prime Legate Tariun Sakaros led a concerted drive deep into Vagaari territory, liberating slave worlds and destroying Vagaari picket forces and defensive fleets. Information gathered by Royal Intelligence and the insurgents supported by Aria Nikina had provided clues to Vagar Praxut's protected location; databases from captured Vagaari ships and bases were mined for more information. Eventually the location was discovered, and Tariun led an attack in force.

Vagar Praxut was defended by Supreme Commander Gohsh and as much of his fleet as he had been able to mass in one location, although other divisions remained at large or with Cravsh. Despite the attempt, the Vagaari force was woefully underequipped to face the Royal Navy, and the battle quickly became a rout. Gohsh attempted to surrender, but Tariun refused and blew up the Supreme Commander's flagship with Gohsh still aboard. In the ensuing chaos—the next two highest-ranking officers had been killed before Gohsh—most of the rest of the Vagaari fleet was destroyed before a few ships managed to flee.

Genocide
With Vagar Praxut surrounded, the Empire refused to even receive communications from the surface. Teams of Assault Commandos and Centurions were sent to the surface on raids to rescue slaves from compounds and camps. The Vagaari attempted to defend themselves by hiding slaves amidst themselves, thinking to stave off the Empire's attacks. When the Empire had extracted what it estimated to be eighty percent of the planet's slave population, however, Queen Rin Sakaros ordered the Armada to cut its losses and eliminate the Vagaari, rather than carrying on a protracted siege which would be costly to the Royal Army. Vagar Praxut was shelled from orbit, with every city leveled and every living thing on the surface killed. Within a standard day of the first shot being fired, all life on Vagar Praxut was extinct.

Aftermath
Tariun Sakaros ordered a very few Vagaari ships to be allowed to escape the blockade and spread word to the rest of the Vagaari Empire. The obliteration of their ancestral homeworld, while angering many Vagaari, also served Tariun's purpose in terrifying them. In subsequent engagements, the Vagaari fought with reckless abandon, knowing their choices were victory or death.

Many Royal commanders had feared this would actually make them more dangerous, but Tariun correctly deduced that, with most of their best tacticians already dead, what it actually did was make the Vagaari sloppy. The haphazard attacks by second- and third-string Vagaari commanders were easily countered and exploited by Sakaros and his foremost commanders, Salome Hrek and Tarse Medrego.