The attack on Fondor was a battle that took place between the Alliance to Restore the Republic and the Galactic Empire at one of the Fondor Shipyards' stations over the world Fondor shortly after the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY. Just before the conflict erupted, Moff Derrek Raythe's Imperial-class Star Destroyer Dauntless prepared to depart the Imperial dockyard with experimental satellites meant for Operation: Cinder in tow while the special commando unit Inferno Squad oversaw its protection, but a rebel fleet at that point attacked Fondor Station. The MC80 Star Cruiser within the fleet disabled the Dauntless with its ion cannons, leaving the Star Destroyer defenseless.
To prevent the rebels from learning about the satellites' true purpose, Inferno Squad and several TIE fighters were deployed to engage the rebel ships. Inferno Squad defended the Dauntless from U-wing transports attempting to board the Star Destroyer. The leader of Inferno Squad, Commander Iden Versio, then infiltrated the rebel Star Cruiser's weapons bay and sabotaged its ion cannons with the assistance of Agent Gideon Hask. Upon leaving the Star Cruiser, Versio continued to defend the Dauntless and freed it by destroying the docking clamps holding the ship in place. The battle ended in an Imperial victory when the Dauntless crippled the Star Cruiser with its turbolasers and departed Fondor Station with the satellites intact, where they would be deployed over Versio's homeworld of Vardos.
During the Galactic Civil War in 4 ABY, the Galactic Empire suffered a crushing defeat over the moon of Endor at the hands of the Alliance to Restore the Republic when the second Death Star superweapon was destroyed and the Emperor, Darth Sidious, was killed. On the orders of Vice Admiral Rae Sloane, the surviving Imperial forces retreated from the Endor system. Admiral Garrick Versio relayed the orders to Inferno Squad—a special commando unit that was stationed on Endor when the Death Star was destroyed. Led by the admiral's daughter, Commander Iden Versio, Inferno Squad fought through rebel forces and fled the moon in TIE fighters.
The Corvus approaches Fondor Station.
Iden was personally ordered by Garrick to meet him aboard his Imperial-class Star Destroyer, the Eviscerator, which traveled to the planet Vardos, their homeworld. Garrick informed her of the Emperor's death and showed her a message from a sentinel droid detailing Operation: Cinder—a plan to decimate several worlds using experimental satellites to impact their surfaces with extreme weather. Iden and Inferno Squad were tasked with retrieving the satellites for the Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Dauntless that had been stocked for years at the shipyards over the Imperial world of Fondor. Iden then relayed the mission to fellow Inferno Squad members Gideon Hask and Del Meeko aboard the team's Raider II-class corvette, Corvus. Hask and Iden were to establish security for Moff Derrek Raythe, the Dauntless commander, and gather the satellites for the Star Destroyer, while Meeko remained aboard the Corvus. Inferno Squad traveled to Fondor Station, where the Dauntless was docked, and successfully secured the satellites, allowing Operation: Cinder to begin as planned.
The Dauntless is disabled by the rebel Star Cruiser.
Before the Dauntless could depart the Imperial dockyard, however, a fleet of Rebel Alliance forces exited hyperspace and began attacking Fondor Station. The fleet consisted of an MC80 Star Cruiser escorted by multiple CR90 corvettes, X-wing starfighters, A-wing starfighters, and U-wing transports. The Star Cruiser fired its ion cannons at the Dauntless, which was still docked at the station, and disabled it. In order to prevent the rebels from learning about Operation: Cinder, Hask, Versio, and several other pilots manned their TIE fighters aboard the Star Destroyer and exited the vessel to engage the rebel forces, supported by TIE/IN interceptors. Versio and Hask immediately attacked one of the corvettes and destroyed it, while Meeko dealt with other rebel ships aboard the Corvus. With the Dauntless disabled, the rebels attempted to board the vessel with the U-wings but were thwarted when Inferno Squad shot down all of those transports.
As the battle progressed, Versio suggested to Raythe that the Dauntless flee the area with the satellites once the Star Destroyer's systems came back online, but the Moff refused, likening it to cowardice. Two X-wings and one A-wing began tailing Hask's TIE fighter, although Versio destroyed them using her own TIE fighter after following them throughout the station. She then entered the MC80 Star Cruiser's hangar while Hask defended the Dauntless on the commander's orders. Inside the rebel ship, Versio opened fire on the hangar, destroying multiple ships and killing numerous rebel soldiers. Once the hangar was clear, Versio landed her TIE and began infiltrating the Star Cruiser to sabotage it while the rebels attempted to defend the ship. As the Star Cruiser continued to hammer the Dauntless with ion cannon fire, Hask entered the former ship on Versio's orders and regrouped with her in its weapons bay. When Versio's ID10 seeker droid sliced into the ship's systems, rebel soldiers attempted to eliminate the two commandos but were unsuccessful.
The Dauntless crippled the Star Cruiser after being released from the station.
The droid's slicing exposed the ship's ion cannon's cooling cells. Versio destroyed the first two cells before planting an explosive on the final cell. The resulting explosion jettisoned it into space, where the cell collided with a nearby CR90 corvette and caused it to crash into the Star Cruiser, knocking Versio and Hask off-balance. The droid quickly activated the ship's shields before Versio could be sucked into space. With the ship's ion cannons successfully disabled, the two commandos returned to their TIE fighters and exited the Star Cruiser.
Moff Raythe then ordered Versio to destroy the power sources of the docking clamps on the station in order to free the trapped Star Destroyer. Versio pointed out that her orders were to protect the satellites and not to attack an Imperial station, to which Raythe responded by issuing her new orders to both protect them and attack the station. She thus destroyed Fondor Station's control tower and the docking arm holding the Dauntless in place before multiple rebel X-wings attempted to attack the Dauntless. Versio suggested that the Empire could learn about the rebels if the Star Cruiser was disabled, but Hask stated that attempting to adopt the rebels' weakness would only result in failure. Subsequently, after the rebel fighters were shot down, Versio destroyed the clamps and freed the ship. The Dauntless then moved into an attack position and fired at the Star Cruiser with its heavy turbolasers, severely damaging the rebel ship.
With the attack on Fondor thwarted, the Dauntless departed Fondor Station with the satellites and traveled to Vardos, where they would eventually be deployed. The assault on the shipyard, however, resulted in Arquitens-class command cruisers becoming a rarer sight, a fact that was later brought up by Imperial defector Ralsius Paldora upon seeing one of the cruisers in action during his extraction from the world Takodana in 5 ABY. After Hask and Versio returned from battle to the Corvus, the commander briefed Inferno Squad on the status of the satellites and their next mission; Meeko was tasked with destroying the Emperor's Observatory on the planet Pillio to prevent the Rebel Alliance from utilizing the artifacts stored within against the Empire.
The satellites that Inferno Squad helped recover were deployed over Vardos.
Following Meeko's mission, the Corvus traveled to Vardos, where Versio learned of the satellites' true purpose after seeing the Dauntless and the satellites positioned above the planet. Aboard the Eviscerator, the commander confronted her father regarding the decision to attack their home, but was forced to watch as the satellites were activated over the planet. Inferno Squad was then ordered to extract an Imperial, Protectorate Gleb, from the planet's capital city of Kestro. During the mission, Meeko and Versio deserted the Empire and escaped Vardos aboard the Corvus, where they were eventually found by the Rebel Alliance and recruited into their ranks.
Around 5 ABY, the New Republic, successor to the Rebel Alliance, attacked the Fondor Shipyards with the aim of destroying the Interdictor-class Star Destroyer Spectral. The ship had its complement of TIE fighters deployed before escaping the shipyards by jumping to hyperspace.
The attack on Fondor served as the focus of the third level, titled "The Dauntless," of the DICE video game Star Wars Battlefront II, released on November 17, 2017. Prior to the game's release, footage of the battle was first shown in a gameplay trailer released on June 10, 2017. The conflict was named in "Emperor Palpatine," an issue of the Star Wars Encyclopedia series published by De Agostini on May 25, 2021.
In the seventh level of Battlefront II, titled "General Distress," Ralsius Paldora mentions a shipyard assault that took place "a year back." Writer Mitch Dyer clarified that Paldora was in fact referencing the battle depicted in "The Dauntless."
The first objective of the mission requires the player to destroy a CR90 corvette, but the ship can be avoided completely and will eventually be destroyed by friendly AI. The next objective requires the player to destroy three U-wing transports, which in-game dialogue states would board the Dauntless if not destroyed quickly. However, there is no time limit for the objective as the U-wings never attempt to board the ship. Later on in the mission, if the player fails to destroy the two X-wing starfighters pursuing Gideon Hask, the enemy ships will instead crash into the station while the A-wing starfighter joins the pursuit immediately after. If the A-wing is not destroyed by the player after a certain amount of time, it will abandon chasing Hask and turn its sights on the player instead.
The mission also features two collectibles, both of which are located aboard the rebel cruiser. They are stored within containers that require ID10 to slice them in order to unlock them. Finding both collectibles completes a milestone that yields a reward of twenty-five crafting parts.