The Battle on Wayland was an early battle in the Galactic Civil War that was part of a greater Alliance operation to obtain four Incom T-65 X-wing starfighter prototypes guarded by Imperial forces stationed on the planet Fresia.
After a prior raid conducted to lure the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Tyranny away from Fresia, the Rebel Alliance discovered a network of sentry drones deployed in the Fre'ji system to warn the Imperial Navy in the eventuality of any attempt to disrupt the Incom Corporation nationalization ceremony.
With the aid of the protocol droid C-3PO, the Alliance was able to conceive of a plan to bypass the Imperial sentry network. The astromech droid R2-D2 would be employed to slice into an uplink station on Wayland in order to register Alliance ships into the log of attendees of the nationalization ceremony. This would allow the Rebels to reach the surface of Fresia without any interference.
A Rebel task force defends C-3PO and R2-D2 as they slice into the Imperial network.
The Alliance task force deployed in a forest clearing near the uplink station. R2, C-3PO and a small force of T2-B tanks and infantry prepared to take a path up to the uplink station. They needed to get in and out as quickly as possible. The preparation was critical to the outcome of the battle, as the Rebels could see the uplink station from their landing point. They began to map out a plan, as the Empire was alerted to their presence.
The Rebel Alliance encounters Imperial ground forces in the forest around the uplink station.
Fighting followed the Rebel advance on the facility. R2-D2 plugged into the uplink station controls and began to steal the codes which would allow the Alliance Fleet to bypass the blockade around Fresia. This took some time, however, and the Empire had the opportunity to deploy additional forces. Soon a wave of three Stormtrooper squads and four AT-ST walkers landed to quash the Rebel force.
As another wave of three Stormtrooper squads and four AT-ST walkers landed, a final wave of Imperials, consisting of three TIE Maulers and a trio of Stormtrooper squads landed as well. The Rebels, surrounded by the Empire, began a last-ditch defensive effort to stop them, allowing R2-D2 to steal the codes from the uplink station. The Rebels then disengaged and departed Wayland under fire.
The landing codes stolen from Wayland were accepted as valid by the Imperial forces in orbit around Fresia, allowing the Alliance to land a ground force on Fresia and mount an operation to liberate the X-wing prototypes. These starfighters would prove be a great boon to the Rebels that would continuously serve well throughout the rest of the Galactic Civil War.
This battle is the second mission of the Rebel campaign in the 2006 video game Star Wars: Empire at War. While players can deploy Y-wing bombing runs to assist the Rebel soldiers, this is not necessarily required for the success of the mission, and this article does not include them for the sake of factual accuracy.
Attempting to finish the last objective of the mission using the game's fast-forward feature can occasionally glitch the mission and render it impossible to finish.
A battle being waged at Wayland conflicts with canon established in The Last Command, as the New Republic did not discover the existence of Wayland until the Thrawn campaign. Holocron continuity database keeper Leland Chee did not address this issue yet.