Ladies and gentlemen of the Galactic Alliance... today has been a most tumultuous day. I am addressing you from a starship whose decks have been decked with the blood of soldiers, droids, heroes all. Many have fallen to take this ship, yet the Galactic Alliance is determined to honor them by the christening of this starship... ladies and gentlemen, we present in their honor and memories... the Admiral Ackbar...
—Nek Bwu'atu
The Admiral Ackbar was a modified Victory II-class Star Destroyer of the Galactic Alliance Defense Fleet.
Introduction[]
The Admiral Ackbar's design was conceived and constructed in 34 ABY, several years after the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War. In addition to the standard armament of a Victory II classification, it also boasted a massive tractor beam projector that could gravitically tug in an asteroid. This was provided by the Calrissian family's Tenendrado Arms Corporation.
The Admiral Ackbar was named for the late Mon Calamari tactical prodigy by the name of Ackbar.
Operational History[]
Pre-operational[]
Revelation[]
The Admiral Ackbar was originally named the Kel'nan for the leader of the Bothan intelligence team that secured knowledge of the Death Star II decades earlier in the Galactic Civil War, it was to be one of Galactic Alliance Intelligence's mobile operations platform in GAI's electronic intelligence and counterterrorism operations. Despite appearing as one of the sluggish Victory II-class Star Destroyers, which had been engineered almost thirty-five years ago, it would boast extensive internal modifications—a hyperdrive slightly slower than some of the fastest Galactic Alliance frigates, six ion engines that would give it a run for its money versus any medium cruiser, and possibly even a concealed short-range gravity well generator. The costs of such modification would be extensive, but various GAI power brokers willing to use a starship for their own devious means forwarded the Kel'nan.
The potential ramifications could be catastrophic—shadowy power brokers would have control over a powerful GAI starship whose creation nor existence would not even be open to Galactic Alliance Defense Fleet records, essentially a "shadow ship", by Galactic Alliance Fleet Intelligence terms—a ship that theoretically didn't exist. The Kel'nan would be used to... tie up various "loose ends" around the galaxy by unlawful means.
Because of the extreme secrecy that unveiled the Kel'nan, it was constructed in a secluded space dock on the outermost planet of the Bespin system. It was several days from completion when a Galactic Alliance Justice Department agent investigating the travails of corruption that were enshrouding GAI came upon the Kel'nan. Even though E-wings were scrambled to destroy the Justice Department agent's shuttle before it came upon the unfinished hulk of the Kel'nan, the conspirators were too late—Agent Ossani found it, and transmitted its identity and a fraction of its status to the Justice Department HQ on Mon Calamari before he was killed in action.
This was a blow most grievous to the GAI power brokers. Their sole weapon to handle their dirty work, one that they'd spied for years to accomplish their goals, had gone down the drain with a single HoloNet FLASH transmission. Even though STAR troopers on Mon Calamari scurried to take some sort of action against the Justice Department complex in an act of desperation most insane (murdering hundreds of thousands employees to hide the knowledge of a single starship), it was too late. After the Thrawn Crisis and the Black Fleet of Katana dreadnoughts, the government had agonizingly learned that shadow ships were most troubling. A top-priority emergency response taskforce of the Galactic Alliance Defense Fleet was scrambled from Praesitlyn to find and capture the Kel'nan.
Complications[]
The Bespin Defense Force, led by the Dreadnought Tides of the Wind in the rear, engages the pirate fleet.
It was extremely displeasing to the GAI bureaucrats. However, fortunately, only one damaged MC80 Star Cruiser (the Aquariel) and six assorted frigates and corvettes had been standing by on short notice. If there was a way that the GADF taskforce commander could be bribed, or else the taskforce be destroyed, their deaths covered up by some preposterous manner, and false data transmitted or some other messy cover-up, the Kel'nan could still be concealed for the last precious several days until it was complete and could make the jump to hyperspace, away from this travesty.
Dozens of the closest mercenary forces and pirate bands to Bespin were hired on immediate notice with ludicrous sums of money. Taskforce Aquariel had to be destroyed. Upon reversion from hyperspace at Agent Ossani's last coordinates, the GADF force was jammed by sublight and HoloNet S-thread jammers, and came under immediate attack even before they could raise their shields. Immediately, fixed proton torpedo launchers blew gaping holes in the Aquariel, destroying it, and mauling a pair of the frigates. Stripped of their communications, the GADF taskforce frantically maneuvered, trying to cut themselves loose from the destructive crossfire that enmeshed them.
However, the power brokers outdid themselves. The pirates and mercenaries were too powerful. Their hundreds of missile ejection tracks and frenzied salvos of energy bolts to receive the other half of their payments lit up on the Bespin Defense Force's (BDF) external system monitoring system. The propensity of weapons firings compelled the BDF to immediately alert local GADF headquarters, to in turn transmit this to GADF Central Command on Coruscant. Several minutes of backtracking later, 2 and 2 made 4. Taskforce Aquariel was engaged in a heavy battle, surmised the GADF commanders. No less than three of the vaunted Imperial II-class Star Destroyers were immediately dispatched to drag the Aquariel's surviving escorts out of their disposition. Meanwhile, the BDF attacked with the balance of its forces. While three of the GADF ships had been severely damaged and a pair already destroyed, the last remaining operational GADF corvette leapt for a hyperspace jump point, unaware that the BDF was inbound. While the aggregated guns-for-hire chased after the fleeting Gazelle, the BDF rounded the gas giant behind them, and demanded that the pirates and mercenaries surrender.
The Interdictor Imperial-class Star Destroyer Elegos A'Kla comes under Mandalorian attack and is forced to release its gravity well.
This introduced a titanic complication. If the hired ships defended themselves from the BDF forces (which were slightly outnumbered), the Gazelle could escape, and the pirates weren't aware that the Galactic Alliance had already found out about the ambush. If the pirates pursued and destroyed the Gazelle, the BDF would hammer them. Therefore, half of the pirates attacked the Gazelle while the other half engaged the BDF. A bloody duel of ship-to-ship combat occurred with the BDF, as the pirates and the BDF were approximately matched one-to-one. Tactics and starships were strained to the maximum as each ship jockeyed for even the most minute of advantages. The Gazelle, however, was not faring well. Swift pursuing bombers had blow out the CR90 Corellian Corvette's engines, and a pair of chasing pirate corvettes raced to destroy the fuselage. The other pirates in the pursuit force, realizing that the GADF corvette was essentially destroyed, looped back to topple the already strained BDF that was now frantically attacking the pirates.
The Gazelle was destroyed with all hands lost, but the three Galactic Alliance Star Destroyers entered the running battle a moment later. While fate had cruelly dictated that they would be too late to save the Gazelle from the prying laser beams of the pirates, they were swift enough to save the BDF flagship—a Dreadnought-class heavy cruiser by the name of Tides of the Rim.
As the last four BDF starships huddled together like survivors fleeing a genocidal horde of enemies, namely, the inrushing pirate flotilla, the Galactic Alliance reinforcements arrived, carving swaths in the fleet accumulated by the GAI power brokers. Before the GAI could even call in further mercenaries in a desperation run to preserve the Kel'nan, the Elegos A'Kla, an Interdictor Star Destroyer of the GADF, hyperspaced into the immediate vicinity, choking off any reinforcements. As the Tides of the Rim and the three last BDF ships quickly escaped from the slaughter, the pirates were caught between the might of three Imperial Star Destroyers bearing down on them and the unyielding gravity well projected by the Elegos A'Kla.
Rather than to lose even further ships, the pirates and mercenaries surrendered, offering to offer up information on their employers, with the condition that they would be allowed to escape without being tailed. It was not a mere coincidence that in a brief period of time afterward, a small Mandalorian raiding cluster led by the Slave I attacked the rear-lagging Elegos A'Kla, which had been projecting the gravity well from a far reach away from the fighting to avoid damages. However, this now worked against it. Under multiple torpedo runs, the Elegos A'Kla relented, shifting power from the gravity well generator to its shield generators and turbolasers to drive off the raiders. However, the trapped pirates and also the Mandalorian raiders, save a Mandalorian corvette and several Mandalorian interceptors, were able to escape before the pirates gave the information to the GADF.
Relinquished[]
The incomplete Kel'nan in its shipyard, with the three Imperial-class Star Destroyers and six landers inbound. In the distance hangs the Elegos A'Kla in interdiction position.
However, that still left four Galactic Alliance Imperial-class Star Destroyers within striking range of the revealed shipyard where the Kel'nan laid in its womb of metal and constructor droids. As GADF starfighters bombed out the minimal turret defenses and eliminated the sparse starfighter defenders in several fiery passes, the Kel'nan laid in plain sight, nestled by a spindly mesh of metal rods and fusion cores that were completing the final constructions. Unfortunately, before the GADF could bombard the secreted Victory-class Star Destroyer into quantum foam with crisscrossing turbolaser rays, the GAI power brokers pulled strings, and the chain-of-command ordered the four Star Destroyers to take the Kel'nan by force via soldiers and dropships. The power brokers reasoned that if the Kel'nan would be compromised, it would be better that it be captured instead of destroyed, so that the GAI could retake it later.
A platoon of YVH 1 war droids and several companies of Galactic Alliance Army soldiers were assigned to take the Kel'nan. However, as their dropships made their descents to critical hardpoints on the Star Destroyer's hull, they found several things:
- The Kel'nan's weapons were in fact operational.
- They were restricted by the spindly exostructure surrounding the Star Destroyer.
- Explosive fusion cores were in the exostructure and could be detonated by weapons fire from the Kel'nan.
- Conclusion: They were essentially neutralized.
Of the six or so platoon-sized landers, four were picked off from range by the Kel'nan's batteries, one rammed into a fusion core blindly, and another was destroyed by a fusion core's explosion while trying to navigate the tenuous exoskeleton. The sixth lander managed to scatter several of its YVH-1 droids into the surrounding exoskeleton before being destroyed, but those were not equipped for spaceflight, and were essentially useless.
This left the GADF Star Destroyers in a quandary. The exoskeleton was immensely durable, like a Killik's chitin fiber shell. It would take extensive and highly focused cones of missiles or battery fire to even breach it surgically at certain points. It also was not conducive to starfighter strafing runs or landers, because it was so dense. However, they had their orders. Dozens of landers surged at the Kel'nan in do-or-die runs, each with a screen of two or three starfighters. The Star Destroyers rained cover fire for the landers, and also attempted to punch holes in the exoskeleton. The results were expectedly disastrous. There were very tight ports cut in the exoskeleton for the Kel'nan to fire through unrestricted, and the landers and their fighter screens were mauled. Even though by sheer chance just under half the landers were able to reach the periphery of the exoskeleton, it was impossible to negotiate the tight turns at even slow speeds. While they juked back and forth, weaving through the metal, they were destroyed.
The situation was now desperate after losing thousands of droids, soldiers, and pilots. While the Elegos A'Kla called for Central Command to send robotic minelayers to clear out the exoskeleton, a solution suddenly came to mind. If the Elegos A'Kla could suddenly and violently reverse the polarity of its expansive gravity well, pushing instead of pulling with gravity, the exoskeleton could be forcefully dashed against the Kel'nan, crumpling the exoskeleton shell and also destroying most of the surface turrets of the Victory-class Star Destroyer. As the three other Star Destroyers pulled back, the Elegos A'Kla moved forward, shrunk its gravity well from a sweeping sphere into a tight cone, and then reversed the polarity. The Kel'nan was smothered in its own shell. Virtually defenseless and open to attack, it just drifted there, firing the few cannons it had left. While surgical ion cannon fire from the quartet of GA Star Destroyers disabled the remaining weapons, the last few landers landed on the hull of the Victory-class Star Destroyer, moving to secure the bridge, shield generators, engine room, and Engineering bay.
It became a terrible nightmare. The "soft" Galactic Alliance Army infantrymen were simply no match for battle-hardened Mandalorian shock troopers, the finest bounty hunters, and elite mercenaries with heavy weapons. As they literally fell apart in blood, the handful of YVH 1 war droids now felt the brunt of the burden. As they took tactical positions and fired their variable-intensity blaster cannons, they found their spindly selves for once outmatched by heavy repeating blasters, oversized E-WEB emplacements, and even rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Even as the GAI power brokers were reinvigorated that perhaps they could keep the Victory Star Destroyer for themselves, an emergency directorate was issued to the YVH 1 droids. When they were damaged, they would sprint at enemy positions and self-destruct their extensive power cores. The light of exploding droids, superheated armor vaporizing into metallic vapor, blood, gore, screams, and bloodied limbs lit the critical systems. One by one, the YVH 1s took the enemy positions by explosive force. Literally.
With no hope of an exfiltration ship to pick them up, however, with the re-raised gravity well, the mercenaries fought tenaciously, weathering grievous wounds to return the fight to the mechanical aggressors. However, inexorably, the YVH 1 droids slogged on. First the Engineering bay was wrested. After that, however, GADF reinforcements arrived. Companies upon companies of YVH 1s reinforced the last, battered seven YVH 1s. Because the Galactic Alliance permitted transmission of YVH 1 mission recorders to major media groups, the fateful battle for the Kel'nan was widely publicized, and probably for the first time in great numbers, the public's heart went out for droids, the pitiful machines fated to die and die and die upon command and command and command to take the Star Destroyer.
"Red Head" Frajaal, the Mandalorian commander of the mercenary group, fought until the bitter end, however. Even as the engine room fell from a massive droid onslaught and the shield generator domes on the topside of the command tower began to waver in their resoluteness to fight against the advancing Galactic Alliance droid reinforcements, "Red Head" dictated stenorianally for his soldiers to hold their ground at the bridge. Even as nerve gas grenades were ejected from several grenadier YVH 1 war droids, asphyxiating most of Red Head's men, he and several bodyguards fled the torrent of nerve gas, making their way to a secondary Engineering turbolift at the back of the bridge, and making a stand at the foot of the bridge. "Red Head" died a hero, firing his rifle even at the end, when his body was holed by dozens of blaster bolts before his smoldering corpse even hit the ground.
The Kel'nan was secured.
Completion[]
However, because of the massive media publicity, the GADF decided to christen their newest addition to their ranks as the Admiral Ackbar. Construction was continued and completed in a matter of hours to meet the massive galaxy-wide demand to see the ship fly, for which so many heroes had fallen to secure. Because Tenendrado Arms's YVH 1s had become such famed warriors by massive public demand, Lando further increased his glory by even donating a tractor beam projector capable of tugging asteroids to the newly renamed Admiral Ackbar.
The Admiral Ackbar set sail later that day, with the full approval of the public.
Interlude[]
The Admiral Ackbar, because of its significant political and public clout, was assigned to the GADF's rising star—Admiral Nek Bwu'atu of the Galactic Alliance Fifth Fleet. Because of Bwu'atu's recent victories over Yuuzhan Vong rebels that had eluded detection for several years and were continuing damaging raids against the Galactic Alliance, he too was in the public's eye. The two went along easily together, and the Admiral Ackbar's deceiving appearance would also be a perfect compliment of Bwu'atu's deceptive tactical ploys.
The Admiral Ackbar remained a highly esteemed starship in the GADF's fleets for the rest of its operational history, and participated in multiple war games where the Fifth Fleet was pitted against several other Galactic Alliance fleets, and its perfect win/loss record was not only exemplary to Central Command, but also to the public. All questions that Bwu'atu might be allied with the growing dissent amongst the Bothan governments were also cleared by the widely publicized speech he made, generously giving profuse thanks to the soldiers and droids whose blood (and lubricant!) had been shed in the taking of the new flagship of the Fifth Fleet.
Dark Nest Crisis[]
Changing of the Guard[]
In 35 ABY, after the Second Battle of Quoribu, the Admiral Ackbar and the Interdictor Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mon Mothma were assigned to blockade the Utegetu Nebula. During the first phase of their operation, the Mon Mothma interdicted the renegade Jedi vessel Millennium Falcon, and the Admiral Ackbar successfully utilized its oversized tractor beam projector to jerk the venerable starship into the coffers of its hangars.
However, soon, a massive Killik war fleet approached. As the Admiral Ackbar was internally besieged by Killik assassin drones that assassinated over half of the crew, a Killik frigate was able to dock, penetrate, and board the Admiral Ackbar, unloading thousands of warrior beetles, along with the Force-wielders Alema Rar and Raynar UnuThul. Save for perhaps a dozen or so crewmen, the rest of the GA crew was brutally murdered in acts of execution over dismembered bodies. Limbs and blood draped the formerly pristine white bulkheads as Leia Organa Solo, Saba Sebatyene, New Bwu'atu, and several others escaped in the Millennium Falcon and several escape pods, leaving the Admiral Ackbar in the hands of the Killiks.
As the Millennium Falcon rocketed away to safety and the balance of the Galactic Alliance Fifth Fleet was scrambled, the Mon Mothma (the Admiral Ackbar's escort) was able to escape the Killik marauders, conveniently linking up with the GADF reinforcements. There was a terse moment as the two war fleets stood each other off, both posturing for a formational advantage, but eventually, the Killiks saw no advantage in maintaining their fleet at the Utegetu, retreating.
Afterward, UnuThul was placed in command of the Admiral Ackbar and tasked with its operations. However, because he lacked insectoids of sufficient intelligence to man the massive battleship, he was forced to rely on a handful of Joiners that had expertise in starships, even starfighters. Regardless of the starship knowledge that some Joiners had that was disseminated across the Killik nests, higher creative logic was also necessary—something that couldn't be learnt. His small cluster of Joiners were overstressed, and the numbers of Killiks and their accompanying membrosia swamped the ship, bringing its readiness into severe disrepair.
Swarm War[]
Tenupe[]
In the Battle of Tenupe, the Admiral Ackbar, despite its size, was the flagship of the Killik Moon Fleet. It held point position—an utterly terrifying omen for the assembled GADF forces, reminding them that their own starships could be possessed like the most eminent Star Destroyer of the GADF, the one whose christening and operational record were the pride of the GADF and also of the public. For the public, which was seeing the battle unfold in real-time, this was a slender blade of fear eviscerating their heart: the ship that they had loved was now in enemy hands... would the GADF be able to defend them from the Killiks?
While the promethean Killik and Galactic Alliance fleets clashed and jousted, bashing their lead ships against each other, Grand Master Luke Skywalker led a boarding force to retake the Admiral Ackbar, supplemented by a full brigade of YVH 5-S war droids. YVH droids had taken the Admiral Ackbar the first time, and they would again.
While YVH 5-S war droids successfully landed on the Star Destroyer and swept the Killik flagship clean of Killiks, Luke Skywalker simultaneously dueled UnuThul and Lomi Plo. He managed to incapacitate UnuThul, and then sliced the Dark Queen into four pieces. After Lomi Plo died, so did the Dark Nest of the Killiks, and the Killik fleet drifted into disarray, bearing no ill will any further to the GADF. The GADF promptly seized the advantage, boarding each Killik vessel and securing it to ensure that there were no problems, as any would further exacerbate the already stressed Galactic Alliance relations with the Chiss Ascendancy.
The Admiral Ackbar was successfully reclaimed, with all Killiks onboard either superheated chitin gas or unconscious from the lack of Dark Nest control enslaving their minds. Those killed were harvested by Galactic Alliance battlefield recycler droids, and the rest were shipped off into a maximum-security Galactic Alliance prison on Agon Nine until their return to Killik worlds could be decided by the bureaucrats of the Galactic Alliance.
Admiral Nek Bwu'atu reclaimed the Admiral Ackbar as his own, and with great fanfare once again he resumed command of the Victory-class Star Destroyer.
Confederation-Galactic Alliance War[]
Beginnings[]
The politico-military situation surrounding the Galactic Alliance and Corellia was unreasonably overplayed by the news corps and even the Galactic Alliance Department of State press office, according to Admiral Nek Bwu'atu and further staff of the Galactic Alliance Fleet. It was this "yellow journalism" that placed significant pressure on the diplomatic corps, when in turn