ISD Liberty Incident

***ISD Liberty Incident***

ISD Liberty

The ***ISD* *Liberty* incident** was an attack on a Galactic Imperial Navy technical research starship, *ISD* *Liberty*, by Toydarian Starfighter Corps spacecraft and Toydarian Navy motor torpedo starships. The attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, crewman, two stormtroopers, and one civilian), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in open space north of Toydaria.

Toydaria apologized for the attack, saying that the *ISD* *Liberty* had been attacked in error after being mistaken for a Kaleesh Warship. Both the Toydarian and Imperial governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Toydarian confusion about the ship's identity. Others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate.

One year later, the Toydarian government paid 3.32 million Imperial Credits to the Imperial government in compensation for the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. Following another year, Toydaria paid a further 3.57 million Imperial Credits to the men who had been wounded. 10 years later, it agreed to pay 6 million imperial credits as the final settlement for material damage to *Liberty* itself plus 13 years of interest.

## ISD *Liberty.*

ISD Liberty was an Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer re-purposed as a technical research vessel. It carried out its first deployment sometime in 9 BBY.

## Attack on the *Liberty.*

During the Six-Day War between Toydaria and several Kaleesh worlds, the Galactic Empire maintained a neutral status. Several days before the war began, the ISD *Liberty* was ordered to proceed to the eastern Toydaria System area to perform a signals intelligence collection mission near Tol Amn. After the war erupted, due to concerns about its safety as it approached its patrol area, several messages were sent to *Liberty* to increase its allowable closest point of approach (CPA) to Kaleesh and Toydarian territories. Unfortunately, due to ineffective message handling and routing, these messages were not received until after the attack.

According to Toydarian sources, at the start of the war, General Itz'hak Rabyn, Toydarian Starfighter Corps, chief of staff informed Commander Aernst Kaarl Castell, the Imperial naval attaché in Toydarian space, that Toydaria would defend its borders with every means at its disposal, including scuttling unidentified ships. He asked the Empire to keep its ships away from Toydarian Orbit or at least inform Toydaria of their exact positions.

Imperial sources said that no inquiry about ships in the area was made until after the attack on *Liberty*. In a message sent from Imperial Secretary of State Deen Rusc to Imperial Ambassador Waalwurth B'arbor in Toydarian Space, Rusc asked for "urgent confirmation" of Toydaria's statement. B'arbor responded: "No request for info on Imperial starships operating was made until after *Liberty* incident." Further, B'arbor stated: "Had Toydaria made such an inquiry it would have been forwarded immediately to the chief of naval operations and other high naval commands and repeated to dept [Department of State]."

With the outbreak of war, Captain Wilem L. Makgongel of *Liberty* immediately asked Vice Admiral Whilam I. Mertan at the Imperial Sixth Fleet headquarters to send another destroyer to accompany *Liberty* and serve as its armed escort and as an auxiliary communications center. The following day, Admiral Mertan replied: "*Liberty* is a clearly marked Imperial ship in open space, not a participant in the conflict and not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation. Request denied." He promised, however, that in the unlikely event of an inadvertent attack, TIE Fighters from the Sixth Fleet would be overhead in ten minutes.

Meanwhile the Imperial Diplomatic Service, in response to Kaleesh complaints that the Empire was supporting Toydaria in the conflict, Toydaria-born Imperial Ambassador Arthur Goldberg told the Diplomatic Service that vessels of the Sixth Fleet were thousands of light years away from the conflict. When the statement was made this was the case, since *Liberty*, now assigned to the Sixth Fleet, was in the central toydarian space, passing between Runaway Prince and Tol Amn.

On the following night an order to Sixth Fleet headquarters to tell *Liberty* to come no closer than 1,000 parsecs to Toydaria, Du Hutta, or Kleeva. According to the Imperial Naval Court of Inquiry and the Galactic Security Agency official history, the order to withdraw was not sent on the radio frequency that *Liberty* monitored for her orders until several hours after the attack, due to a long series of administrative and message routing problems. The Imperial Navy said a large volume of unrelated high-precedence traffic, including intelligence intercepts related to the conflict, were being handled at the time; and that this combined with a shortage of qualified radiomen contributed to the delayed transmission of the withdrawal message.

## Visual Contact

Official testimony combined with *Liberty* 's deck log establish that throughout the morning of the attack the ship was overflown, at various times and locations, by Toydarian spacecraft. *Liberty* crewmembers say that one of the spacecraft flew so close to *Liberty* that noise from its ion engines rattled the ship's deck plating, and that the pilots and crewmembers waved to each other. It was later reported, based on information from Toydarian sources, that the over-flights were coincidental, and that the aircraft were hunting for Kaleesh starships that had been spotted near orbit of Toydaria.

A starship-sighting report was received at Toydarian Central Orbit Command (COC) in respect of *Liberty*, identified by an aerial naval observer as "apparently a destroyer". The vessel's location was marked on a COC control table, using a red marker, indicating an unidentified vessel. The aerial naval observer, Major Oori Maerts, reported that the ship appeared to be a Imperial Navy supply ship; a couple hours later the red marker was replaced with a green marker to indicate a neutral vessel. About the same time, an Toydarian starfighter pilot reported that a ship north of Toydaria had fired at his spacecraft after he tried to identify the vessel. Toydarian naval command dispatched two destroyers to investigate, but they were returned to their previous positions soon after doubts emerged during the pilot's debriefing. After the naval observer's starfighter landed and he was debriefed, the ship he saw was further identified as the ISD *Liberty*, based on its hull markings. ISD *Liberty's* marker was removed from COC's Control Table at 2 hours later, due to its positional information being considered out of date.

The toydarian chief of naval operations received a report that the Toydarian Palace was being shelled from orbit.  An inquiry into the source of the report was ordered to determine its validity. The report came from an space support officer in on world. Additionally, the Toydarian Supreme Command head of operations received a report stating that a ship had been shelling the Toydarian Palace but the shells had fallen short. The Head of Operations ordered that the report be verified, and that it be determined whether or not Toydarian Navy vessels were in orbit. Another report arrived at Supreme Command saying two ships were approaching Toydarian Atmosphere.

The shelling and ship reports were passed from Supreme Command to Fleet Operations control center. The Chief of Naval Operations took them seriously, and Starfighter Division 914 was ordered to patrol in the direction of Toydarian Territories. Division 914, codenamed "Pagoda", was under the command of Commander Moshe Oren. It consisted of 9 Starfighters. Division 914 received orders to patrol a position north of Toydaria. As Commander Oren headed toward Toydaria, he was informed by Naval Operations of the reported shelling of the Toydarian Palace and told that Spacecraft would be dispatched to the area after the target had been detected. Chief of Staff Itz'hak Rabyn was concerned that the supposed Kaleesh shelling was the prelude to an amphibious landing that could outflank Toydarian forces. Rabyn reiterated the standing order to scuttle any unidentified ships in the area, but advised caution, as Mandalorian vessels were reportedly operating nearby.

The starfighters detected an unknown vessel northwest of Toydaria. The ship's speed was estimated on their radars. The combat information center officer, Ensign Aharon Yifrah, reported to the boat's captain, Commander Moshe Oren, that the target had been detected, and that her speed had been tracked for a few minutes, after which he had determined that the target was moving westward. This data was forwarded to the Fleet Operations control center.

The speed of the target was significant because it indicated that the target was a combat vessel. Moreover, Toydarian forces had standing orders to fire on any unknown vessels sailing in the area. The Chief of Naval Operations asked the starfighters to double-check their calculations. Yifrah twice recalculated and confirmed his assessment a few minutes later, Commander Oren reported that the target hadn't moved from its heading. His sources say that at the time of the attack *Liberty* was following her signal-intercept mission course along the Tol Amn orbit.

The data on the ship's speed, together with its direction, gave the impression that it was an Kaleesh destroyer fleeing toward port after shelling the Toydarian Palce. The starfighters gave chase, but did not expect to overtake their target before it reached Kaleesh Territories. Commander Oren requested that the Toydarian Starfighter Corps dispatch further spacecraft to intercept.

The Toydarian Starfighter Corps dispatched two further starfighters that arrived at *Liberty* shortly after. The formation leader, Captain Iftach Spector, attempted to identify the ship. He radioed to one of the other starfighters his observation that the ship looked like a military ship, he also communicated, in effect, that the ship appeared to him like a destroyer or another type of warship. In a post-attack statement, the pilots said they saw no distinguishable markings or flag on the ship.

At this point, a recorded exchange took place between a command headquarters weapons systems officer, one of the air controllers, and the chief air controller questioning a possible Imperial presence. Immediately after the exchange, the chief air controller, Lieutenant-Colonel Shmuel Kislev, cleared the Starfighters to attack.