Battle of Telerath

The Battle of Telerath was a military engagement during the Yuuzhan Vong War, fought between Vong forces under Supreme Commander Airo Kal`yek and Galactic Alliance forces under Alliance Admiral Traest Kre'fey and Sith Lord Tak Sakaros. The result was a crushing defeat for the Vong and Alliance recovery of Telerath and its Harrin Sector.

Prelude
Telerath was a major banking center of the galaxy since the days of the Old Republic, and had remained so over every change of government since. As the Inner Rim was swept up by the Yuuzhan Vong after the fall of Coruscant, the Telerath attempted in vain to fortify their system. By 28 ABY, most of the surrounding system had been conquered, and the Vong initiated a siege of Telerath. The banking world fell in less than a standard day.

However, eight days later, an Alliance fleet under the joint command of Bothan Admiral Traest Kre'fey and the Sith Lord Tak Sakaros arrived at Telerath. The Alliance had been liberating systems along the Harrin Trade Corridor, and Telerath was the final lynchpin of Vong control over the sector. Since most of the Vong forces had been devoted to conquering Telerath, Harrin itself was lightly guarded.

Melee
The Sith Lords led the ground combat, landing in three waves of Alliance soldiers and Massassi warriors. Tariun Sakaros took the vanguard, driving toward Tel City from the southeast. Kartok led the second assault, attacking with a predominantly Massassi, Mon Calamari, and Quarren force from the western swamps. After the initial defenders had been drawn away, Tak Sakaros landed his strike team in Tel City Spaceport and attacked from the inside.

The Vong warriors, ever eager for battle, had been deployed in large numbers by Supreme Commander Airo Kal`yek against the first wave, leaving comparatively smaller numbers to attack Kartok's aquatic force. This second counterattack was led by Vong Commander Skurro Avash. After taking the spaceport and detonating a series of explosives to kill the Vong craft which remained there, Tak Sakaros led his force to pinion Supreme Commander Kal`yek's troops between his own and Tariun's.

Kartok and his men encountered Avash and a force of Chazrach before they had left the swamps, and the battle which took place was largely amphibian. This impatience cost the Vong the battle, as they were grossly outmatched by the Mon Calamari and Quarren in their native element. Of the nearly two thousand Chazrach deployed to the western front, over eighty percent of the casualties were drownings. Commander Avash himself struck a Mon Calamari lieutenant with the poisonous spit from his amphistaff, but in his death throes the Mon Calamari tackled Avash and dragged him down to a watery grave in the Telerath swamp.

The Back-to-Back Battle
Tariun's forces met Supreme Commander Kal`yek's head on, and the clash was terrible. Alliance blasts and explosives and Massassi vibropikes met Chazrach coufee and Vong flaming projectiles and amphistaves. The contest seemed evenly matched with high casualties until Tak's force hit from behind.

Kal`yek was hidden in the thickest midst of his troops, surrounded by Vong Hunters, and Tak realized that he would escape by the time either side of the pincer could close in. Leaving his troops to push against the Vong rear, he commandeered a speeder bike and zoomed over the lines. Leaping off seconds before Vong firejelly destroyed his bike, Sakaros landed beside his son, each man with two lightsabers drawn.

What ensued went down in both Telerathi and Alliance legend and came to be known as the "Back-to-Back Battle". Standing back to back, Tak and Tariun began a slow, spinning tornado of lightsaber blades into the Vong lines. Faced with four rapidly whirling lightsabers, no Chazrach could come close, and all those who tried were massacred. Vong warriors fared little better, as the Sith were able to deal a dozen blows to a single amphistaff in a matter of seconds, breaking the weapons and leaving the Vong unarmed.

So well did the father and son know one another, and so deeply immersed were both in the cold power of the dark side of the Force, that they moved as a single unit. Using the Force to pick up shields, stones, and other objects to deflect projectile attacks, the Sith carved a path toward the Supreme Commander over a trail of corpses five wide. In barely ten minutes, they were upon him.

The fight was intense but short-lived. Inspired by their leaders' devastating whirlwind of death, the Massassi and Alliance soldiers alike pounded against the Vong lines. Filled with the rush of battle, the Sith Lords struck down Kal`yek's Hunter guards in a flurry of blows, then closed on the Supreme Commander himself. After his amphistaff was killed by Tariun, Kal`yek extended his fighting claws and attacked both Sith at once. Despite dealing minor injuries with his claws, he was soon overwhelmed and sliced apart.

Infiltration
The entire objective was to secure the Telerath Banking Archives in the main bank complex, and a force of strike troops attacked the now-loosely guarded Vong line around the complex. A team of Katarn commandos managed to enter the bank by stealth while the strike troops distracted the Vong. Downloading the Telerathi information took nearly half an hour, in which many strike troops were killed. However, once the archives were acquired, the commandos evacuated the bank and blew it up. The explosion killed many of the remaining Vong, and falling debris smashed the rest.

The Clustership
While the Sith and their forces were liberating Telerath and massacring Vong, the Vong conquest fleet in orbit needed to be dealt with. This task fell to Admiral Traest Kre'fey, eager as ever to deal another punitive blow to the Vong as part of the Bothan ar'kai.

The objective from the beginning of the battle was the Vong clustership; with its destruction and that of the yammosk within, Vong resistance would be negligible. Kre'fey had the unusual honor of being entrusted by Tak Sakaros with his mighty flagship, the ''Sith Star', and put it to good use. Escorted by three Devastator-class War Cruisers, the Star pushed forward into the Vong lines with all guns blazing. Impossible to miss, it drew the attention of all the Vong fleet, as Kre'fey had planned.

Also as planned, they were so focused on the Star, its complement, and the remainder of the Alliance fleet that they did not detect the eight Bothan Assault Cruisers hidden by the drive exhaust of the Star's engines. Once amongst the Vong fleet, they blossomed outwards, mowing their way through Vong coralskippers and covered by Sith and Alliance fighters.

While the two Imperial Star Destroyers engaged one Kol Chokk and the Strident-class Star Defender pummeled the other, the Ralroost and the Sith Star made for the clustership. The battle was short and decisive, and a bombing run by a wing of Ghralaz bombers left it without a vein to circulate. The final bombardment by the Ralroost destroyed it in a fiery blaze.

Mopping Up
With the clustership destroyed, the Vong defense was greatly weakened. Using all his ships, Kre'fey was able to encircle the eight remaining Vong Matalok and smash them in the crossfire. Following this blow, along with the destruction of one Kol Chokk, the remaining Vong made for the safety of hyperspace. Many coralskippers were killed attempting to flee, and the second Kol Chokk was damaged so badly it could barely jump to lightspeed.

A very small number of Vong and Chazrach had abandoned the planet, attempting to return to the fleet, but they ran directly into a wing of Sith Hadragos and were vaporized.

Aftermath
Those few Vong on Telerath who had not been directly killed by the Alliance forces committed suicide after the death of Supreme Commander Kal`yek and the utter defeat of the counterattacks. Telerath was returned to the control of its natives, and though the main banking complex in Tel City needed to be rebuilt, the Katarn commandos ensured that the financial information was kept safely by the Alliance.

Following their victory on Telerath, it was a matter of little consequence for the Alliance task force to wipe out the unsupported Vong on Harrin. The Harrin Trade Corridor was liberated with this last victory and a way cleared through the Inner Rim.