Attack on Sentinel Base In 14 BBY , Berch Teller ' s rebel cell launched an attack against the Galactic Empire ' s Sentinel Base . Using communications equipment supplied by Vice Admiral Dodd Rancit , the rebels sent a fake holotransmission claiming that Rampart Station was under attack . Tarkin detected that the message was a fraud and sent his Venator - class Star Destroyer , " Electrum " on a microjump to the edge of the system . Shortly after , a modified " Providence " - class dreadnought entered the system . Tarkin then deployed the Venator and ordered it to ambush the intruders . The Providence cruiser retreated to hyperspace shorty afterward . Prelude . By 14 BBY , Moff Wilhuff Tarkin was in charge of the secret Death Star battle station project . At the time , the project involved several different locations including Geonosis , Desolation Station , and Sentinel Base . Sentinel Base was an outpost used to relay supplies along a supply route that ended at Geonosis . Tarkin ' s appointment came at the expense of Vice Admiral Dodd Rancit , who was reassigned as Director of the Naval Intelligence Agency , a branch of Imperial Intelligence . Resenting Tarkin ' s position , Rancit conspired with the former Republic Intelligence officer Berch Teller , another enemy of Tarkin who hated the Moff for his role in the Antar Atrocity , which saw the mass murder of many Gotal and Koorivar civilians on Antar 4 including loyalist s . Teller became the leader of a group of dissidents who opposed the Empire . Using his position and connections , Rancit supplied the dissidents with proscribed armaments , communications equipment , and confiscated Separatist war materiel including a " Providence " - class dreadnought , Vulture droids , and droid tri - fighter s . The modified Separatist warship was assembled by the Tenloss Syndicate and members of the Crymorah syndicate at shipyards in the Bajic sector . Teller also had a network of helpers in the form of workers , salvagers , and scientists who supplied materials and intelligence to his cell . The raid . While trying an Imperial officer ' s uniform , Moff Tarkin received word of a priority dispatch from Rampart Station , claiming that the station was under attack . Posing as Lieutenant Thon , Teller ' s rebels had created a fake holotransmission to lure Sentinel Station ' s garrison away from the base . While examining the footage , Tarkin suspected that the transmission was a fake but kept the matter to himself . After checking the base ' s inventory , Tarkin ordered the " Venator " - class Star Destroyer " Electrum " to do a microjump to the Rimward edge of Sentinel Base ' s system . He ordered Captain Burque to remain there until further orders . Shortly later , Teller ' s warship exited hyperspace and disgorged several droid starfighters . Tarkin ordered Commander Cassel to sound general quarters , boost power to the base ' s deflector shield s , and to initiate counter - measures . Under Tarkin ' s orders , Sentinel Base ' s artillery bombarded the unidentified warship and its droid starfighters . Due to the strident defense , the intruders began to retreat . After the " Electrum " reverted to realspace , Tarkin instructed Captain Burque to deploy his starfighters to harry the enemy droid starfighters and to incapacitate the carrier . Amidst the battle , Tarkin was contacted by Rampart Station ' s Commander Jae , who informed him that their base ' s HoloNet relay had been down . Despite the " Electrum " efforts , the enemy carrier managed to escape into hyperspace . The remaining droid starfighters were wiped out by Imperial TIE fighters . Tarkin instructed Commander Cassel to dispatch a forensic team to examine the enemy droid starfighters . While chatting with a specialist , Tarkin revealed that he knew that the holotransmission from Rampart Station was a counterfet due to the interval noise in the replay . They deduced that someone had managed to introduce a false real - time feed into the local HoloNet relay . Aftermath . Following the failed attack on Sentinel Base , Moff Tarkin attended a meeting of the Ruling Council on Coruscant . He and Darth Vader were dispatched by Emperor Palpatine to investigate a communications cache on Murkhana . However , the communications cache was a ruse set up by Vice Admiral Rancit to enable Teller and his cell to steal Tarkin ' s personal starship " Carrion Spike " , which was equipped with an advanced hyperdrive and prototype stealth technology . Teller planned to use the " Carrion Spike " to attack several Imperial facilities along the Perlemian Trade Route as part of his campaign against the Empire . Behind the scenes . The attack on Sentinel Base serves as the exposition of James Luceno ' s 2014 novel " Tarkin " , the second in a line of new Canon adult novels published by Del Rey . The battle is told from the point of view of the titular character Tarkin .