The Mission to Bilbringi took place in 9 ABY, at the end of the Hegemony theater. While the New Republic was occupied in toppling Delak Krennel, Ysanne Isard of the Xucphra Corporation attempted to infiltrate the Bilbringi Shipyards in an attempt to recapture her old ship, Lusankya.
Planning to retake the Lusankya[]
Ysanne Isard had kept a low profile after faking her death at Thyferra, spending the time going over her decisions and coming to the conclusion that she had been acting irrationally since the escape of Corran Horn from her private prison and the loss of Coruscant. Striving to put the past behind her, Isard had sought to bide her time for her next move and start to once again gather what resources she could—starting by deposing one General Arnothian, a minor warlord who held a facility capable of constructing TIE/D Defender starfighters and taking the facility for herself as the beginnings of a new power base.
Whatever her plans may have been at the time, they were put on hold when she was contacted by none other than Palpatine himself, returned now in a clone body in the Deep Core and preparing a campaign against the New Republic. The Emperor demanded her fealty - and she in turn promised to return the Lusankya to him as proof of her loyalty, manipulating the events of the New Republic Campaign against Prince-Admiral Delak Krennel to both eliminate her clone now helping the Prince-Admiral, and retake the Star Dreadnaught that the Emperor had entrusted to her.
Security Breach[]
As part of her typically involved planning, Ysanne saved Rogue Squadron from certain death in an ambush by sending her own two Tie Defender squadrons to assist them and bring the unit back to her, forging a grudging alliance with Wedge Antilles to take down the Hegemony, eliminate her clone and free the Lusankya Prisoners being held inside the Hegemony - apparently in exchange for a guarantee of a quiet retirement in peace.
In reality however, her goal was simply to dictate the New Republic timetable for the attack on the Hegemony; so when the heavy fleet units committed to the campaign launched from their staging ground at the Bilbringi Shipyards, she could in turn slip in and retake her Star Dreadnaught which had been moved there for its final rebuilding and shakedown work prior to being put into fleet service. In order to accomplish this deception, she kept her own presence in events hidden from the New Republic, allowing the messages General Antilles needed to send to Ackbar to coordinate the supposed plan to attack Ciutric IV to only identify her as an ex-Imperial ally and nothing more - knowing full well that her presence becoming known would raise all manner of alarm bells and quite possibly ruin her true plan.
Unfortunately for the former Director of Intelligence, she had missed one trick in her otherwise careful planning. All of the Rogues' astromech droids had been fitted with restraining bolts, shut down and stored away—nominally for safekeeping while the Rogues were on their mission but essentially as hostages—upon arriving at Isards base. But what Isard did not and could not know was that Whistler, Corrans R2 unit, had been extensively reworked to make restraining bolts ineffective. The R2 unit remained active and worked to monitor all local signal traffic as well as infrequent intelligence delivered to it by Horn until eventually the order was passed down to escape the base and report in. Freeing Gate, the two astromechs vanished without being noticed from their storeroom and with a great deal of ingenuity and cunning, they were able to make their way off-world and to a meeting with Talon Karrde - who in turn took them to the Errant Venture, and onward to Coruscant with the news that Isard was behind the entire situation.
Foiling Isard[]
Given that they were already 'in the know' of the situation, Isards old foil and now head of New Republic Intelligence Airen Cracken gave the job of finding out what Isards endgame was and stopping her to Booster Terrik, Mirax Terrik and Iella Wessiri. Along with the daunting task, the General gave them the highest level clearance codes and full authority to do whatever it took - the General unwilling to risk a larger operation that might generate a leak back to Isard that the New Republic was on to her, trusting instead that the somewhat eclectic group with the tools to figure out Isards endgame and counter it in their own way.
Ultimately, it was Booster who eventually cracked Isards plan by determining that if she was going to try and act on the Galactic stage again, her immediate goal would have to be gaining as much power as possible as quickly as possible. Eventually, he concluded that her old command ship would be the perfect tool for her purposes, serving as both a symbol of her recovered power to the various Imperial factions in the Galaxy and a powerful weapon in of itself. Hurrying to the Bilbringi Shipyards, the group used their authority to take control of the Star Dreadnaught, and settled in to wait.
Sure enough, eventually the light freighter Swift arrived and docks using access codes stolen by Isards agents in the New Republic to drop off a skeleton bridge crew and a commando team. Isard herself headed alone through her ship to the personal command room the Emperor had turned over the ship to her in -expressing her distaste for the New Republics redecorating efforts in passing, only moments away from regaining her prized possession and fulfilling her promise to the Resurrected Emperor to regain what he had once given her.
It was at this point however that things started to rapidly come undone for the former Director of Intelligence.
As expected, her boarding party under Captain Wintle had secured the empty bridge without resistance, the only personnel on board apparently many kilometers away in the ship's bow. Yet on arrival, they had found that all the controls were locked down, with all command functions currently being run from the ships Auxiliary Bridge. Unconcerned, she instructed her team to meet her there and moved to leave her room, only to find herself unexpectedly being held at blasterpoint by NRI Agent Iella Wessiri, who explained to her that the astromechs had gotten the word out and she had just fallen into a trap. Isard attempted to bribe her way out of the situation, communicating to the auxiliary bridge that she would pay them each twenty-five million Imperial credits to turn the ship over to her people - an offer that was promptly rejected by a somewhat irritated 'Acting Captain' Booster Terrik, who asked Wessiri to just shoot her and be done with it.
Wessiri however had little interest in killing Isard in cold blood nor humoring her attempts at manipulation. Instead she threatened to simply imprison her on her own Super Star Destroyer, locked away in some part of the ship serviced and manned only by droids; an anonymous prisoner who would never again have contact with anyone she could manipulate for the rest of her natural life. Confronted with such a fate, the former Director of Imperial Intelligence panicked. She attempted to kill Wessiri with a holdout blaster. Wessiri was shot in the shoulder, and retaliated by shooting Isard in the stomach. As Isard lay dying, she realized that she had failed the Emperor, and resigned herself to her fate.
Appearances[]
- X-Wing: Isard's Revenge (First appearance)
Sources[]
- The Essential Chronology
- The New Essential Guide to Characters
- The Official Star Wars Fact File 110 (ISA 1-4: Ysanne Isard)
- The New Essential Chronology
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. II, p. 117 ("Isard, Ysanne")
- Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 25 (Star Wars A–Z: I) (Indirect mention only)
- The Essential Guide to Warfare
- The Essential Reader's Companion