Raid on Oranessan

The Raid on Oranessan was the first stage of Operation Influx—a Jedi hit–and–run operation against the Sith in 1032 BBY during the Republic Dark Age, the last century of the New Sith Wars. Operation Influx was a three-stage operation that aimed to disrupt the Sith warlord Daiman's extraction and export of baradium on Chelloa. The Chelloan resistance led by the undercover former Knight Gorlan Palladane had supplied the Jedi with intelligence about Daiman's baradium mining operations. Baradium was a volatile compound used in the manufacture of munitions including thermal detonators. Chelloa was exporting baradium to Daimanite war forges near the front lines. Since the Jedi feared that the baradium lode would provide Daiman with a tactical advantage that would allow him to end the stalemated civil infighting in the Grumani sector, Jedi Master Vannar Treece advocated knocking a portion of the Chelloan export offline.
Since Operation Influx was an unconventional "knight errant operation", Treece recruited a volunteer force of several Jedi including his former apprentice Kerra Holt, who had recently passed the trials to become a Jedi Knight. The operation involved the Jedi strike team inserting themselves into the Daimanate transport hub at the planet Oranessan and then stealing a Daimanate Heavy-Lift Starcrosser. During the second stage of the operation, the Jedi would infiltrate Chelloa and then knock a portion of the baradium shippings operations. The third stage involved returning back to the Galactic Republic via a direct hyperspace lane leading to neutral space.
As planned, the Jedi traveled to Oranessan on one of their own starships. While descending into the planet's atmosphere, they shot down a small Daimanate personnel shuttle. Master Treece, the Jedi Knight Kerra Holt and two other Jedi including the Celegian Dorvin Eltrom then went to the wreckage and retrieved several cloaks and identification badges from the dead flight crew. Posing as pilots, the Jedi advance team killed a party of Daimanate sentries after their leader—a female ground crew chief attempted to execute them for being late to a flight preparation meeting that had been held twenty minutes earlier. They then commandeered an empty Daimanate Heavy-Lift Starcrosser from the Sith transport landing zone. After giving the signal for the other Jedi to enter the transport, the Jedi planned to use the transport to take them to Chelloa, but discovered that the transport's navigation computer was missing its activation cylinder. Holt stole a replacement cylinder from a nearby hangar, and after fitting the device, the Jedi departed Oranessan and proceeded with the second stage of Operation Influx: a hit–and–run raid on Chelloa.
==History==
===Background===
Oranessan was a rain-drenched planet in the Outer Rim's Grumani sector which was located on a key hyperlane within that sector. The Raid on Oranessan occurred during the Republic Dark Age, the last century of the New Sith Wars. During that period, the Galactic Republic lost control of large areas of the galaxy to the various Sith warlords. By 1032 BBY, Oranessan had become a key transport hub within the Daimanate, a Sith princedom ruled by the Sith Lord Daiman who believed that he was the Creator of the Universe. While the Republic military had abandoned much of the Outer Rim, several maverick Jedi like Master Vannar Treece and his followers launched several knight errant operations to harass the Sith and to support the occupied populations in Sith space.
In 1032 BBY, Master Treece received intelligence from the undercover former Jedi and Chelloan resistance leader Gorlan Palladane that the Sith Lord Daiman had discovered the mother lode for baradium on the planet Chelloa. Baradium was a volatile compound used in the production of a wide variety of explosive devices. Daiman had begun shipping substantial amounts of baradium to his war forges near the front line. This development vexed Master Treece who feared that Daiman's new discovery would alter the balance of power in the Grumani sector in Daiman's favor. In response, Treece and his young aide Kerra Holt, a former Aquilaris Minor refugee who had become a Jedi Knight, proposed a hit–and–run raid called Operation Influx to knock out a portion of the baradium production on Chelloa. Operation Influx consisted of three stages: insertion into Daimanite space via Oranessan, a key regional transport hub; the raid on Chelloa itself; and extraction via a direct hyperspace line to neutral space.
===Infiltration===
Oranessan was a regular disembarking point for Daimanite pilots who were then dispatched to various parts of the Daimanate. After exiting hyperspace, the Jedi's starship shot down a Daimanite personnel shuttle, which crashed in the mudflats near a local spaceport. The shuttle was delivering pilots who would be used to crew the Daimanate's Heavy-Lift Starcrosser transports, which were preparing for a delivery run to pick up baradium from Chelloa. After recovering the fallen crew's identity badges and cloaks, Vannar, Kerra and two other Jedi including the Cerean Dorvin Eltrom made their way to a nearby transport landing zone. On the way, the Jedi infiltrators encountered a female ground crew chief and four Daimanite Sith troopers. After the flight crew ordered their execution for being late to a pre-flight briefing, Vannar and his Jedi team killed them to avoid discovery.
After securing a Daimanite cargo freighter, Vannar radioed for the other Jedi team members to rendezvous at the shuttle. Having secured their objective vessel, Operation Influx could now proceed. This Starcrosser transports would serve as the Jedi team's main transport for the remainder of the mission. Before the Jedi team could proceed to Chelloa, they encountered an unexpected problem: the freighter was missing its activation cylinder, the equivalent of a key for starships. Without an activation cylinder, the starship would be unable to fly. While rummaging through the wreckage of the fallen shuttle, Kerra had forgotten to retrieve the flight crew's dispatch case, which had been hidden under one of the shuttle's consoles. According to the Trandoshan Jedi Mrssk, Lord Daiman had not allowed his flight crews to keep dispatch cases on their ships in order to deter desertions and defections from within his forces.
===Crisis===
The missing activation cylinder threatened to jeopardize Operation Influx because they were unable to start the starship. Time was running out since they had only one hour to infiltrate Chelloa and sabotage the baradium shipping before departing for neutral space. Dorvin suggested that the Jedi mission return to their starship to continue the mission but Vannar ruled that out because the Daimanites kept a tight leash on starships traveling to Chelloa. With little options, Vannar considered falling to their fallback plan; which involved returning to the Republic and shooting down Starcrosser transports leaving Oranessan for Chelloa. This was an inferior plan since the Jedi would be able to knock out only two vessels at most. Daiman would then reroute other vessels to the mining world.
Kerra suggested hijacking another Starcrosser ore transport but Vannar opposed that idea because the transports were heavily armed. In desperation, Kerra suggested returning to the wrecked personnel shuttle to recover the dispatch case. However, Vannar ruled that out as well because he did not want to endanger the lives of the other Jedi Knights, who had been loaned to them by Supreme Chancellor Genarra, who had tacitly approved the mission on the proviso that it did not endanger the Jedi participants. Their situation was aggravated by the Sith control tower announcing over the transport's intercom that they would send men to check why they were lagging behind.
Facing the imminent danger of being discovered, Vannar ordered Dorvin to seal the ship's hatch and to "get them out of here." Since their ship was several kilometers away, Vannar decided to fly their Starcrosser transport to their parked Jedi starship; from which they would proceed to their fallback plan. However, Kerra disagreed with her master's orders and used her stolen remote control to open the transport's main cargo hatchway as it was lifting off. Donning the fallen ground crew chief's overalls, she then headed to the spaceport's hangar bay and stole an activation cylinder. After several minutes, Kerra returned to the Starcrosser transport with the priced activation cylinder, which enabled them to proceed with the second stage of their mission: the Raid on Chelloa. Despite Kerra's foolhardy act, Vannar praised her for her quick-thinking and ability to adapt to changing conditions.
===Aftermath===
Having achieved the first objective of Operation Influx, the Jedi team proceeded with their planned hit–and–run raid on Chelloa. During the second part of the operation, the Jedi strike team landed at the spaceport town of Jenith where they overwhelmed a small Daimanate security force with the assistance of Gorlan Palladane and the Chelloan resistance. Before they could destroy the Daimanite spaceport facilities and escape into neutral space, Jenith was attacked by the Sith Lord Odion, Daiman's estranged older brother who had somehow obtained intelligence on the Daimanate's baradium mining operations on Chelloa.
Lord Odion deployed a kinetic corruptor, which destroyed much of the spaceport and killed many Jedi, Daimanite guards and miners within the vicinity. Vannar's entire strike team with the exception of Kerra were killed. Kerra was taken in by Gorlan, who hid her from the Daimnaite authorities. From that point, Kerra was forced to operate undercover within Daiman's realm. This skirmish on Chelloa effectively terminated Operation Influx while giving Odion a foothold in the Chelloan system. Kerra's later operations on Chelloa were subsumed into the Chelloan affair. In the end, Kerra and Gorlan succeeded in evacuating most of Chelloa's 60,000 population on a fleet of stolen transports known as the Freedom Fleet.
==Appearances==
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*Knight Errant 0
==Sources==
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==Notes and references==
Category:Battles in the Grumani sector
Category:Battles of Operation Influx