A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away. . .

The First Battle of Kalee - 4 BBC (4 years before the battle of Coruscant)

Kalee, for most of its history, had been widely ignored by the Galactic Republic, and the native Kaleesh were content to ignore the Republic. This arrangement lasted until 14 BBC, when the Jedi and Republic decided the Kaleesh were the aggressors in their war against the Yam'rii, despite the fact the insectoid race had instigated the war to enslave the populace of Kalee. This short-sighted decision by the Jedi would create their greatest enemy and result in some of the bloodiest battles of the clone wars.

When the Clone Wars officially began in 4 BBC, Kalee would attempt to remain neutral during the conflict, and due to its position in wild space, far from the frontline, this worked for a time. However, this would not last as the Republic would send a small detachment of clones in two Acclamator-class assault ships to occupy the planet to be used as a supply hub for the Republic. The two legions occupying the ships would be the freshly formed 77th & 78th Legions, who were to continue their training on the planet due to little or no resistance being suspected from the 'neutral Kaleesh.' And even if the Kaleesh did resist, they had most of their space fleet confiscated from them during the Yam'rii war, had few blasters or heavy weapons, and had no transport or heavy vehicles to speak of, making a victory on the planet a foregone conclusion, or so the Republic thought.

When the clones landed on the planet, they had occupied the two largest urban centers, Kaleela and Urukishnugal; however, most of the Kaleesh population lived in smaller towns, villages, or nomadic tribes. Regardless, the clones began to dig into their new homes, much to the chagrin of the natives of the planet, who viewed clones with hidden contempt and hatred. However, the start of the occupation was generally peaceful, with only minor skirmishes between Kaleesh nomads and clone patrols. This peace would not last as the rulers of the two cities began negotiating with the clone commanders and the leader of the Republic flotilla. Eighteen days after the occupation began, the Kaleesh rulers began getting more threatening and aggressive with their negotiation demanding all clones leave the planet while the Republic admiral, a Twi'lek named Asruddana, tried to mediate the clone commanders had enough of the Kaleesh's disloyalty to the Republic and arrested them on charges of 'treason.' This would be the beginning of the end for Republic forces on Kalee.

While the clones were mostly lazily building emplacements, the Kaleesh were preparing for war, the Izvoshra, the greatest warlords in Kalee's history, went into hiding and began building an army to destroy the clone army, recruiting warriors from all over the planet, eager to get revenge on the Republic for the previous humiliation of their homeworld. And after the arrest of the Kaleesh leaders, the streets of Kaleela and Urukishnugal began to be flooded with Kaleesh rioters. The war truly began on the 39th day of the occupation when clones of the 77th legion, attempting to quell a riot in Kaleela, opened fire into a crowd of Kaleesh, killing 408 and wounding hundreds more; the next day, nearly the entire population of both Kaleela and Urukishnugal had vanished leaving behind everything apart from the clothes on their backs and their weapons.

It was small at first, with clone patrols getting into more and more skirmishes with the Kaleesh, a random trooper would go missing, or a piece of clone equipment would mysteriously disappear. This would quickly escalate until by day 50 of the invasion, constant blaster and slugthrower fire could be heard all around the two occupied cities. Entire clone patrols would go missing, only to have their severed heads and helmets turn up in front of the gates of Kaleela or Urukishnugal, dead clone bodies would be found impaled with stakes with poor Galactic Basic Standard written on them, stating slogans such as "Rupublik goo hume" or "Slafe ov te Rupublik," eventually, clones would wake up in their barracks to find the clone next to them dead due to being hacked to shreds by Kaleesh lig swords in the night.

Despite their lackluster technological development, the Kaleesh understood one thing extremely well due to centuries of study and practice, war. For example, while they learned that clone armor was resistant to non-blaster fire, it was not invincible; a shot from a Kaleesh slug thrower to a clone's helmet would at least cause a concussion, and if it landed within their visor, the clone would most certainly be dead. Kaleesh also, contrary to Republic intelligence, had a large number of heavy weapons such as rocket and grenade launchers left over from the Yam'rii war, while the clones had brought relatively few larger vehicles such as AT-TEs, instead relying on LAATs, AT-RTs, and TX-130 Saber Tanks. The clones would lose most of their lighter vehicles due to Kaleesh's ambush of their patrols, while clone pilots would be grounded for most of the battle due to the Kaleesh's proficiency with rocket launchers being so great that the clone commanders thought the Kaleesh had surrounded the two occupied cities with Anti-Aircraft positions.

Over the course of a few weeks, the clones were forced to give up the countryside and retreat to the cities, with the 77th occupying Kaleela and the 78th, after losing their commanding officer to a Kaleesh sniper, retreated to Urukishnugal. For days 79-83 of the invasion, the clones believed they were safe within the cities, and no attacks, traps, or raids came while they bunkered within the cities, and thus began to relax after numerous weeks of constant ambushes from villages buildings, dense forest trees, or even tall savanna grass Kaleesh warriors hid within. However, this was all within the Izvoshra's plan, as underneath the cities, and most of Kalee was a massive and winding network of tunnels that was initially used to hide women and children when the 'soulless bugs' came to take slaves. Eventually, throughout the conflict, the Kaleesh had connected these tunnels creating an elaborate network of military tunnels for entire armies to appear and disappear seemingly out of thin air. Millions of Kaleesh warriors would pop out of these tunnels inside and around the capital of Kaleela on the 84th day of the invasion, ambushing, fighting, and butchering any clones they could find in the middle of the night, many troopers would be killed before the fighting started and many more wouldn't be able to put on their armor to fight in the battle. After two days and two nights of constant fighting, the 77th legion was so badly mangled from the fighting that only 15% of their soldiers could still fight and 70% of the legion was KIA or MIA and had to fall back either to Urukishnugal or off of the planet entirely.

Knowing that the invasion was doomed, Captain Asruddana, the highest-ranking officer still alive near Kalee, ordered all clones off the planet. The evacuation was considered by both sides to be the most successful Republic operation conducted during the first battle as the 78th legion and the remnants of the 77th took relatively few casualties, with the exception of a few LAATs being shot down transporting clones from the Urukishnugal, but in the end after all clones were evacuated off of the planet to two Acclamators would jump out of the system and return to Republic space to rearm and reinforce. For the Kaleesh, the battle was simply another war in their long and bloody history, the various clans and tribes would spread the clone weaponry amongst themselves, and the bodies of fallen troopers would be hung up or decapitated and their heads to display near the gates of their cities as a reminder to Republic of the cost of Kalee. Meanwhile, Republic high command and the public were shocked both at the brutality of the Kaleesh and the utter incompetence and poor conduct of the clone army during the occupation. While in terms of personnel and equipment, a minor defeat for the Republic, it galvanized many separatist worlds and even convinced some Kaleesh warriors to leave their homes and fight in Sahuldeem's crusade against the Republic. While some Republic citizens were determined to punish Kalee, most who heard about the invasion felt remorse for the planet and saw the Kaleesh as more victims of the galactic conflict. But this was simply the beginning of battles that would rage on Kalee, each more brutal and bloodier than the previous and cost the Republic more and more men and time.

While this invasion happened, the Kaleesh's old enemies, the Yam'rii, had been rebuilding their empire and after the clones retreated, were preparing to once more invade Kalee. However, an old enemy had a bone to pick and swiftly invaded and destroyed the Yam'rii rebuilding efforts and nearly wiped out the species from the galaxy with his droid armies. To the Kaleesh, it was a divine miracle, a sign that while their demigod of war was among the stars, he did not forget them, and one day the dreamer, the Khagan, the leader of the Izvoshra, Sahuldeem will return to Kalee and guide its warriors on the holiest mission to destroy the Republic, and it's defenders, the Jedi. For while it had been centuries since Kaleesh armies had left their star to fight and conquer; if anyone was to guide them in this new galaxy, it would be the one formerly known as Qymaen jai Sheelal.

When later asked by Count Dooku, shortly after the invasion and the destruction of the Yam'rii, why he did not send a single droid to aid his species in defense of their home against the Republic invasion, General Grievous responded, "I should know better than any being in the galaxy that the Kaleesh do not simply lie down and die instead they will stand their ground until either they are all dead or all of their enemies are dead. To call the Kaleesh a warrior race is an insult they are not Mandolorians who mindlessly charge into a battle, nor are they Jedi who stupidly rush into any conflict to 'protect the weak', they are not Wookie brutes or Trandoshan cowards; they are something more. They are a WAR species, not a so-called warrior species that's only goal in life is to die pathetically in battle; their existence is conflict, bloodshed, and survival. And in war, there are only two goals, kill your enemy and survive to return home. To put it simply, Kaleesh do not die that easily."