Strategic Warfare

Zaarin's forces attacked the TIE Avenger plants in the Omar system. The Imperial Navy managed to stand their ground for quite some time, and managed to destroy a large portion of Zaarin's forces. However, all plants were eventually destroyed, making this campaign a great success for Zaarin.

Prior to the attacks on Omar, Imperial Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin, former head of research and development for the Galactic Empire, sought to seize power from Emperor Palpatine in an attempt to install himself as the Galactic Emperor. Zaarin launched a coup d'etat against the Emperor that saw the capture of Palpatine and his near execution at the hands of Zaarin. However, the kidnapping attempt failed after a decisive intervention by Darth Vader and Vice Admiral Thrawn. The initial failure of the coup forced Zaarin's loyal forces to flee to the Outer Rim Territories in order to evade their destruction at the hands of the Empire. However, Zaarin still desired to take control of the galaxy, so he launched a campaign of terror against the Empire's various starfighter and warship production centers, hoping to wear down the Emperor's forces to the point where the Emperor would no longer be able to resist. Zaarin decided to begin by stripping the Empire of its ability to manufacture the TIE/ad starfighters, a fighter he himself designed. This attack would start with the destruction of the TIE Advanced facilities at Omar, where the vast majority of the Empire's TIE Advanced starfighters were produced.

Zaarin launched the frigate Raptor to attack the lightly-defended TIE Advanced plants at Omar, with a full load of TIE Bombers and Delta-class DX-9 stormtrooper transports to aid in the assault. The bombers were launched in groups of five and targeted the facilities Omar 1, Omar 2, and Omar 3, launching a vicious barrage of heavy rockets. The Imperial personnel aboard the three stations had no means to defend themselves, and immediately called for reinforcement. The Imperial fleet sent in a force of TIE Defenders, led by Emperor's Hand Maarek Stele, to defend the facilities while various transports proceeded to evacuate the personnel. These ships came in the form of bulk freighters, Container Transports, and YT-1300 light freighters.

By the time Stele and his squadron arrived at Omar, Omar 3 was totally evacuated, but Omars 1 and 2 had yet to be vacated. Stele and his wingmen proceeded to destroy the various TIE Bomber squadrons destroying the facilities. Zaarin's forces destroyed Omar 3 before it could be saved, so Stele's squadron focused on defending Omars 1 and 2. While they did this, several Imperial freighters and transports arrived sequentially to evacuate the station personnel. After the bombers were eliminated, Stele's squadron attacked the Raptor, eventually destroying the frigate under concentrated heavy fire. Despite this, several waves of Delta-class DX-9 stormtrooper transports arrived to launch their own attack on the Omar facilities, forcing Stele's squadron to break up and attack different squadrons. After Omar 2 was abandoned, evacuations were solely focused on Omar 1. However, an Imperial officer soon radioed an SOS, stating that he and some of his comrades had been left behind on Omar 2. But the station was soon destroyed despite Stele's best efforts to defend it.

Stele finished off the remaining transports and assisted the evac ships at Omar 1. His squadron held off several counterattacks while Omar 1 was finally evacuated. With the success of the operation, the Imperials abandoned the area, and Omar 1 would later be destroyed by Zaarin.

Although the Imperials were successful in saving countless lives during the battle, the loss of all three Omar facilities severely impaired the Empire's ability to produce the TIE Advanced. Zaarin then focused his efforts on the remaining stations spread across Omar. Eventually, only one plant, ZA-13, was left in operation, forcing the Empire to defend this station in an effort to continue the production of the TIE Advanced.

The First Battle of ZA-13 was a battle fought during the Zaarin insurrection at the Imperial Facilty known as ZA-13.

ZA-13 was at the time manufacturing Hyperdrive units for Demetrius Zaarin's rogue Imperial forces. Then, Vice Admiral Thrawn was instructed to capture the facility, as Zaarin's forces had destroyed a lot of the Empire's own manufacturing facilities.

The attack was led by Maarek Stele, who took 3 TIE/D Defender starfighters to sweep the area of enemy forces. The factory was fairly lightly defended, mostly by TIE Avengers, which Stele and his wingmen cut through easily. The factory itself remained neutral during the battle, due to the fact that the station's personnel were not all loyal to either Zaarin or the Empire.

Stele also disabled the various freighters and transports that were attempting to make off with the equipment. Imperial forces came in to take possession of the stolen goods, leaving the ships themselves to be finished off by Stele.

Stele was soon to return, leading the attack force in the Second Battle of ZA-13, which would result in the capture of the station itself.

The attack was an immediate follow up on the First Battle of ZA-13. The Imperial attack was again led by Maarek Stele, who again led a group of 3 TIE/D Defenders into the area. Due to the fact that ZA-13 was not entirely loyal to Zaarin, the factory did not need to be disabled. There were also no craft defending the station. Once the capture operation began, however, some Alpha-class Xg-1 Star Wings arrived, and began harassing Stele and his wingmen. Soon after the arrival of the Gunboats, CR90 corvettes from Caplure group arrived, to provide heavy fire support. As Stele's flight group had been armed with proton rockets, however, they proved no threat.

Once the Corvettes were dispatched, the Carrack-class light cruiser Jumimi entered the battle zone. This was again not much of a threat to Stele and his colleagues, who were able to use their remaining rockets to lower its shields, before disabling it and finishing it off with lasers.

During the battle, several Delta-class DX-9 stormtrooper transports arrived and fired rockets at ZA-13. They were supported by a small number of TIE Avengers, making it tricky for the loyalists to destroy them without being eliminated themselves.

Throughout the battle, craft were docking with the factory to re-staff it, to supplement the staff on board that had remained loyal to Palpatine. Zaarin's forces harassed a number of the shuttles, meaning Stele had to keep an eye on both them and the capital ships attacking the factory.

After all of Zaarin's forces had been destroyed, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Render arrived to relieve the Defenders.

The final stage of ZA-13 was to retrofit and upgrade the factory to enable it to manufacture TIE Advanced as Palpatine declared that continued production of TIE Advanced fighters as a top priority. To that end, a Convoy called Rope 17 was assigned to deliver the supplies and materials needed. However, the convoy soon came under attack from Rebel raiders taking advantage of the situation.

Stele, once again, led a grout of 3 TIE/D Defenders to escort and protect the convoy as it delivered cargo to ZA-13. When Stele arrived Rope 17 fended of two Y-wings. Then B-wings, more Y-wings and Z-95 Headhunters, shortly afterwards 4 Corellian corvettes from Cobra escorted by Z-95s arrived. Despite the escort and the corvettes armed with a missile launcher, they were all destroyed by Maarek Stele. Finally a final wave of fighters consisting of Y-wings, A-wings and X-wings arrived to attack ZA-13 only to be destroyed by Maarek Stele. Imperial High Command noticed that some of the fighters were equipped with Mag Pulse Warheads and wanted to acquire the technology to get an edge over Zaarin.

With the factory receiving the supplies. Two Nebulon-B escort frigates were assigned to guard the factory from future attacks.

Tracking the Rebel attack to a space platform called RS-32. The Empire sent a strike force lead by Thrawn in the Victory I-class Star Destroyer Sceltor. Starting with Maarek Stele and his wingmen destroying Escort shuttle TT-109 and the Z-95 Headhunters. Stele then launched a proton rocket barrage at the station which overwhelmed the station's shields. The station called for reinforcements and launched T-Wings that the Alliance recently acquired to see if it can be a successful replacement to their A-wings. These proved to be not the case as they were easily destroyed by Stele, even then there were multiple flaws then that forced the Alliance to abandon them. The station's call was answered with multiple fighters and two CR92a Assassin-class corvettes called Rampart. The station also launched a transport called Blue carrying officers and technicians. However, the reinforcements weren't enough; The transport and the Station were disabled and reinforcements were defeated. The Imperials captured the station and acquired the Mag Pulse technology.

However, before they could celebrate, Zaarin had struck. Not only did he take advantage of both Stele's and Thrawn's focus of ZA-13 so that he could send an assault force to successfully destroy ZA-13. He sent three ships, Nebulon-B2 frigate Shadow, Strike-class medium cruiser Serpent and Immobilizer 418 cruiser Grappler to trap Thrawn's ship. Stele in his TIE Defender, armed with the Mag Pulse Warheads, attacked with few friendly starfighters all of Zaarin's starfighters and used the Mag Pulse warheads to help destroy the Serpent, by using the warhead to disable Serpents weapons and allow the Sceltor to destroy it. Then hit the Grappler with a warhead to allow the Sceltor to launch 3 TIE/sa bombers to destroy the ship and finally the Shadow with the help of the bombers.

The campaign was a victory to Zaarin. With the destruction of all the factories in the Omar system, the TIE Advanced production line was seriously compromised. He ordered commander Raveen to move his forces to the Outer Rim to launch new attacks from there.

After this campaign, Maarek Stele was awarded the Medal of Dignity for successfully holding off Zaarin's attacks against the Empire's TIE Avenger production facilities.

• TIE Fighter: Defender of the Empire: Official Secrets & Solutions
• TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM: The Official Strategy Guide
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. II