Battle of Dorian IV

"Rally to me! Stand fast! And may the Jedi rue the day they dared to cross blades with the Lords of the Sith!"

- Khrado Sakaros

The Battle of Dorian IV was a climactic confrontation between Sith forces under Tak Sakaros and the New Republic. Conducted on the fourth moon of the planet Dorian, it consisted of a Republic assault and siege of the Sith fortress. Many Jedi Knights, who had encouraged and sponsored the attack, were killed in the engagement, as were two Sith Lords and countless Republic troops and Massassi warriors.

Lead-up
Having gobbled up a variety of systems in the Outer Rim, Sith Lord Tak Sakaros made his first venture into the Core and Colonies against Cato Neimoidia. At the time, the Neimoidians were petitioning the New Republic for membership but had not yet been received by the New Republic Senate. Terrified, the Neimoidians petitioned the New Republic for help, though Sakaros warned them to stay out of the affair, since Cato Neimoidia was not yet one of their member worlds.

Pressured by the Jedi leadership, the Republic opted to intervene anyway. However, the Republic Chief of State starwars:Ponc Gavrisom made widely known his intention to attack the Sith forces, hoping Sakaros would withdraw and the conflict could end peacefully. However, the Sith general had decided to make a stand against the Jedi, realizing they would hound him until defeated. Encouraged by several of his commanders, including his own son Khrado, to mount a defense on the Sith homeworld of Ziost, Tak refused to take the fight to what he considered sacred ground, and set up defenses at the less-defensible fourth moon of the planet Dorian.

The Assassination Attempt
Still trying to avoid bloodshed, the Gavrisom approved a plan to send fifty Republic Special Forces operatives in on a mission to kill Tak Sakaros and his sons, against the advice of Luke Skywalker. The team made a stealth insertion successfully, but, as Skywalker predicted, were anticipated by Sakaros's legendary danger sense. The operatives were ambushed by the Sakaros brothers and slaughtered; three were allowed to escape to chide the Republic for their presumptuousness.

The Ground Battle
Commanded by several Jedi Masters, the Republic forces landed under heavy bombardment on the plains of Dorian IV. Tak Sakaros and his bodyguards had fortified an abandoned citadel unused since the Clone Wars; though he had wanted to lead the vanguard against the Jedi personally, Sakaros was persuaded to give the honor to his eldest son, Khrado, and his ally Darth Maim. The youngest brother, Tariun, commanded the rear guard with Gav Daragon, leaving Tak and his remaining son, Marquand, to hold the fortress itself. Though more than a match for a single Republic commando, the Massassi warriors the Sith commanded were unprepared to match more than twice their numbers; Tak knew from the beginning he was commanding a losing battle.

The Sith did not lose for lack of trying. The powerful Khrado led so ferocious a charge, hacking into the Republic front ranks with his double-bladed lightsaber, that soldiers and Jedi alike fell back from his wrath. The Sith Lord personally killed a Jedi Master, six Jedi Knights, and eight apprentices. However, eventually the Jedi ganged up on him, and five of them cut the Sith Lord apart.

Enraged at the loss of his brother, which he sensed through the Force, Tariun led the rearguard into action, plowing into the Republic forces anew. In time, however, the tide of battle became overwhelming, and Tariun retreated to escape ships in the fortress. When the Jedi pierced the fortress, four more fell to Marquand Sakaros before the Sith Lord himself was killed. Tak Sakaros, by now driven into madness by the loss of two of his sons, obliterated a half-dozen Jedi who had encountered him first, and had to be dragged out of the fortress by his Massassi bodyguards.

The Space Battle
With all participating Sith Lords on the ground, the space battle was almost a forgone conclusion. Republic naval forces under Sarin Virgilio engaged and decimated the Sith fleet orbiting Dorian IV. The Republic fleet was injured, but the Sith forces were shattered. When Tak Sakaros finally reached his fleet, he ordered a retreat immediately before more losses were sustained.

Aftermath
Twenty-nine Jedi were killed in the battle, along with thousands of Republic troops and ship crewers. However, these losses do not begin to compare to the totality of defeat for the Sith. Not only were their grounds forces all but exterminated and their navy crippled, the Sith lost their most powerful Lord, Khrado Sakaros, who had been slated to inherit the long-vacant throne of the Dark Lord of the Sith and to restore the Sith Empire. Tak Sakaros was dealt a personal blow it took him years to recover from.

Republic forces, unable to account for either Sakaros himself or his son Tariun, labeled Tariun "Killed in Action" and Tak ambiguously "Unaccounted For, Presumed Killed". In reality, both Sith Lords had escaped the planet and fled with their fleet to the Denarii Nova, where they would remain in hiding for a decade. When Tak Sakaros next emerged to the knowledge of the galaxy again, he would be a very different man.