Not every battle of the Clone Wars was as massive
as the ones fought over Geonosis and Coruscant. On any given day during the conflict, a
hundred battles were happening at once, but most of them were fairly small in scale,
fought between local factions or individual vessels. But just because these battles were
small didn’t make them inconsequential. Sometimes, small skirmishes made more of a difference than
even the largest ground battles. The mission we’ll be discussing today was one of those highly
important small-scale battles - and it was also a thoroughly creepy one. In this video, we’re
going to be talking about the creepiest mission a clone commando squad was ever sent on: Delta
Squad’s investigation of the RAS Prosecutor. If you’ve watched out two recent videos
about Delta Squad, you’re likely already familiar with this elite, four-man team of
clone commandos. They were led by Delta-38, known as Boss, and included the sniper Delta-07,
or Sev, the slicer Delta-40, or Fixer, and the demolitions expert Delta-62, or Scorch. They were
the Republic’s most skilled squad of commandos, having proven themselves in the First Battle
of Geonosis and in many engagements since. Their skill led to them being chosen
to investigate the reappearance of a missing warship in 21 BBY, 367
days after the first battle of the war. The Republic Assault Ship Prosecutor was one of
the very first Acclamator-class Assault Ships to have seen action in the Clone Wars. It had
participated in the assault on Geonosis and in many battles thereafter, under the command of
Captain Martz. It appeared to have been heavily modified from the stock Acclamator-class model
since the outbreak of the Clone Wars. It had more torpedo bays and a different hangar configuration
than most warships of its class, and, as a result, it packed a far harder punch. This may or may
not have been relevant to the vessel’s fate. In 21 BBY, the Prosecutor was on patrol in the
Corellian Sector when it vanished without a trace. Two weeks later, it suddenly
reappeared in the Chaykin Cluster, near the Corbantis System. The Chaykin Cluster
was a long way from Corellia - and in Separatist territory. The ship didn’t respond to any attempts
at making contact, and appeared to be adrift. The Republic feared at first that the ship had
gone rogue, but there was no way of knowing for sure without a proper investigation. This,
naturally, was where Delta Squad came in. Delta Squad was familiar with the Prosecutor;
as it had pretty much been their home between missions in the first months of Clone Wars. Now,
their mission was to board it and determine why it had disappeared and then reappeared in Separatist
space. Each was assigned to retrieve one of the ship’s four data cores. After being transported
to the system by a small troop carrier, the four clone commandos split up and boarded
the Prosecutor through its torpedo bays, and began their explorations. Contact
was lost with their strategic advisor shortly after deployment, and as far as the four
commandos knew, they were alone on a ghost ship. Right away, the clones knew something was wrong.
At first, the Prosecutor seemed totally abandoned, but it quickly became apparent that that wasn’t
the case. Scattered groups of clone troopers were still alive, but as the commandos watched
from the ventilation shafts, the troopers were being picked off but unseen assailants. Scorch
reported that some sort of strange static was interfering with his heads-up display, and
soon afterwards, he dropped out of contact. Delta Squad wasn’t alone aboard the
Prosecutor, and their company wasn’t friendly. Soon enough, Boss began experiencing visor
static as well, and discovered its source. It was caused by scavenger droids that were
roaming the Prosecutor’s maintenance corridors, using drills and energy beams to butcher
clones and drag their bodies away. After fighting off several of these droids,
Boss made it out of the maintenance sections and headed to the aft data core. On the way,
Sev arrived at the starboard data core and began slicing into it - only to be ambushed and knocked
unconscious by a Trandoshan assailant. Boss was attacked by several of these Trandoshans shortly
afterwards, who he identified as being slavers. With Sev captured by the Trandoshans, Boss changed
course and retrieved the starboard data core, fighting slavers as he went. He then proceeded
to the aft data core, his original assignment. On the way, he encountered a few
small pockets of clone resistance. A few clone troopers were still alive, and had
managed to activate some of the Prosecutor’s defensive turrets, which proved useful in
fending off the Trandoshans. Unfortunately, this just gave the Trandoshans the idea to slice
into the defense systems and use the turrets against Delta Squad, causing Boss even more
problems. Despite these obstacles, however, Boss made it to the aft data core,
which he successfully retrieved. Miraculously, the Prosecutor’s flight recorder
data was intact, and it confirmed what Boss, by that point, suspected well enough. The
ship had been attacked by Trandoshan slavers, though exactly why was still a mystery.
As Boss went to rendezvous with Fixer, the only other member of the Squad he
still had contact with, it became apparent how the slavers had managed to take
the ship, however. The slavers had elite Trandoshan warriors with them,
as well as Separatist battle droids. After meeting up, Boss and Fixer went
to rescue their captured squadmates. They stumbled upon Sev first, who the Trandoshans
were busy interrogating. The two commandos interrupted the interrogation and rescued their
captive brother, who informed them that Scorch had also been captured, and guessed that he
was being held in the ship’s detention block. Sev’s guess ended up being right on the money,
and after a quick trip to the detention level, the three commandos found and rescued Scorch. Scorch had managed to keep his data core safe from
the Trandoshans by hiding it in his prison wallet, meaning that Delta Squad had what they'd come
for, and could move on to other objectives. From the detention level, Delta Squad headed
up to the bridge, where they encountered fierce droid resistance. They also discovered
the Trandoshans’ signal jammer, which had been responsible for their loss of contact with
command. The commandos destroyed the signal jammer and restored contact with the advisor, to
whom they transmitted the data they'd retrieved. After a quick analysis, the advisor at last
determined what had happened to the Prosecutor. The Trandoshans had stolen the
ship to sell to the Confederacy, from whom they wanted to buy battle droids
for use in their slaving raids on Kashyyyk. The advisor was also able to do a quick scan of
the Prosecutor, informing Delta Squad that the Trandoshans had a dropship in one of the ship’s
hangars. The commandos set out to eliminate it, but they were attacked by well-armed Trandoshan
mercenaries along the way. The mercenaries had booby-trapped one of the ship’s elevators, causing
Delta Squad to end up back in the detention level, which was now crawling with Trandoshan mercs.
A fierce firefight ensued, but Delta Squad was ultimately able to emerge victorious from
the chaos by activating the detention level’s automated lockdown systems. This flooded the
whole level with poison gas, something the commandos were able to survive due to their armor.
The Trandoshans, of course, weren’t so lucky. By that point, all the other clones on the
Prosecutor had been killed by the mercs, and so Delta Squad was forced to attack their
dropship alone. After a lengthy firefight, the commandos were able to commandeer two of
the Trandoshan’s own rocket turrets and turn them on the dropship, blowing up the mercs’
base of operations on the Prosecutor. Their victory was short-lived, however. Delta Squad
had successfully cleared out the Trandoshans, but their Separatist allies had become aware of
what was happening on the ghost ship. They sent a Lucrehulk-class Battleship to the Corbantis
System, laden with hordes of battle droids. Knowing that Delta Squad alone wouldn’t be able to
hold off the Seps, the advisor contacted Captain Talbot of the RAS Arrestor, the nearest Republic
warship, and requested assistance. While Talbot changed course and headed for the Corbantis
System, Delta Squad scrambled to seal off the Prosecutor’s hangars so the droids couldn’t
deploy in force. In the next two hangars over, the commandos managed to fend off the droids’
first wave and seal the hangar force fields, but the droids were able to deploy fully
in the fourth and final hangar before Delta Squad could arrive. From there,
the droids spread throughout the ship. Nonetheless, Delta Squad was able to make it over
to this final hangar and commandeer an AT-TE. With it, they destroyed the droids’ landing
craft and sealed off the hangar, preventing the Confederacy from sending reinforcements. After
this, the commander of the Separatist battleship correctly determined that it just wasn’t worth
the effort to take the Prosecutor, and so he decided to scuttle the ghost ship instead.
With the Arrestor still a few minutes away, the battleship opened fire on the Prosecutor,
rapidly wearing down the ship’s shields. Knowing that the Prosecutor wouldn’t last long
against the battleship, Delta Squad made their way to the ship’s turbolaser control room. After
cutting their way through hordes of battle droids, the commandos reached the control room and began
reactivating the Prosecutor’s turbolaser grid. Around the same time, the Arrestor finally arrived
in-system and opened fire on the Separatist battleship, which seemed determined to stand its
ground. But as the Prosecutor’s shields failed, Delta Squad was able to join the battle,
reactivating the assault ship’s turbolasers and turning them on the battleship.
Under fire from both the Prosecutor and the Arrestor, the Lucrehulk’s shields buckled, and the battleship was destroyed. With
their control ship out of the picture, the battle droids stationed aboard the Prosecutor
shut down, and Delta Squad was victorious. For what started as such a small mission,
the battle for the Prosecutor ended up having major ramifications on the Clone Wars as a
whole. The data retrieved from the vessel gave the Republic detailed intelligence about
the Trandoshans' alliance with the Confederacy, and about the tactics employed by both
parties. It also enabled the Republic to lend a hand to the Wookiees, who faced
constant raids at the hands of the Trandoshans, improving relations between
Kashyyyk and Coruscant. As we’ve discussed in the past, Kashyyyk was
a vitally important world for the Republic, so Delta Squad’s work aboard the Prosecutor
may well have saved the Republic war effort. So, that’s the story of Delta Squad’s creepiest
mission, and the best mission from Star Wars: Republic Commando. But what do you think?
Would you like to hear more about small stories like this? Feel free to post
your thoughts in the comments below.
