A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away. . .
The Third Battle of Kalee - 3 BBC (3 years before the battle of Coruscant)
"The Republic, their dogs, and their slaves believe they can do no wrong both morally or strategically, this is their biggest weakness and we have exploited this weakness, and we have won." Khan Bentilais san Sk'ar, member of the Izvoshra, shortly after the third Republic invasion of Kalee.
The Republic had enough of Kaleesh's success and was determined to end the upstart species' victory spree, no matter the cost. So the 77th and 78th legions would continue their assault on Kalee after three months of rearmament and replenishment. Replacing the 85th Blitz Battalion and 1st Siege Battalion would be the 317th Pathfinder Division, the 508th Scout Battalion, and the 886th Attack Battalion. Once again, the ground forces would be commanded by Commander 'Bait' of the 77th Legion, with each clone commander acting as a sub-commander and advisor to 'Bait.' The equipment of the ground forces remained largely the same, but the ineffective HAVw A5 Juggernaut tanks were replaced with a large amount of AV-7 Antivehicle Cannons to serve as artillery support, and replacing many TX-130 Saber Tanks with HAVw A2 Bantha IFVs, a republic prototype design meant to act as transport for clone squads and act as fire support.
As for the squadron of ships guiding the clones, led by Commodore Lovinn Brafe, an aggressive Coruscanti who had been rapidly rising the ranks the last few months. The flotilla was made up of six Acclamator-class assault ships, two Venator-class Star Destroyers, and more than twenty smaller frigates and support vessels. Both Venators were packed to overcapacity of munitions and ships, mainly BTL-B Y-wing bombers with only a token force of ARC-170 starfighters due to the lack of Kaleesh air capabilities. The operations began smoothly when it was revealed that Commodore Lovinn and Commander 'Bait' were a match made in heaven, wholeheartedly agreeing that Kalee would be won with a show of overwhelming firepower and force.
This invasion would also mark a major change in doctrine in the Republic's war effort as instead of entrenching in a few cities and being bogged down in sieges and ambushes; instead, they would take the fight to the Kaleesh countryside, capture as many areas of interest as possible and bomber the ones they could not take with conventional means. They would capture any major settlements as they marched and eventually start spreading out throughout the planet, covering as much ground as possible and sending small reconnaissance forces to search and destroy enemy positions they found. The support ships and Acclamators would hold the supplies they would need for the operation, mainly weapons, ammunition, and extra vehicles, with other supplies such as food and water being scavenged from any settlements they could find. With this strategy, the clones intended to rush through the planet and capitulate as soon as possible; even if they did find and destroy the main Kaleesh army, planting flags on some random areas with a bunch of dead Kaleesh would be considered a victory.
Meanwhile on Kalee the Kaleesh had initially expected and prepared for the Republic to stick with the same strategy they had used for the last two invasions, but they had prepared multiple contingencies incase of the clones utilizing an alternate strategy. One of them was Izigukinte, or burning world, a scorched-earth and defense-in-depth campaign to starve the clones if they attempted a major offensive and eventually hit them with a massive counter-offensive when they were at their weakest. This invasion would be only the first of many times that Izigukinte would be used on Kalee.
Republic forces began their landing to the southeast of Urukishnugal, at the ruins of the Yam'rii main colony on Kalee, during their war with the natives, where they found little resistance from the local nomads and tribes. The plan then was to march northwest to Urukishnugal, then further north to Shrupak Temple, the second holiest place to Kaleesh culture, and lastly, move west and spread out to secure the vast Ausez Steppes as a landing and supply point for anticipated further reinforcements. The clones would march as a set of massive convoys covering each others' flanks, with from the left to the right of the line consisting of the 77th Legion, 317th Pathfinder Division, 508th Scout Battalion, 886th Attack Battalion, and 78th Legion. The Kaleesh main forces quickly learned about the Republic landing from local nomads and traders who had escaped Republic custody and had made their way north to warn their people. The various leaders of the Kaleesh, while marching south with their armies through the tunnels, quickly agreed on the Izigukinte strategy upon it being recommended by Khan Bentilais san Sk'ar of the Izvoshra.
The first real fighting of the battle would begin four days after the landing, with the 78th Legion encountering stiff Kaleesh resistance led by a particularly brutal local warlord named Xoramorrgh tir Bemgir, who during the battle, personally killed the 78th's commanding officer with two-handed lig sword and many other unfortunate troopers that happened to be in his way. The next day the battle continued with both sides taking heavy losses until the acting clone commander, CT-2202 'Jarhead,' personally rushed the Kaleesh lines with his vibrosword, causing the Kaleesh forces to route and over the battlefield; Xoramorrgh swore that he would duel 'Jarhead' personally the next time they met, which, after being translated from Kaleesh, the acting commander readily accepted.
CT-2202 had always been known as an 'interesting clone' when he joined the 78th just before the second battle of Kalee, an eccentric soldier who wanted to be a bounty hunter once the war was over. Despite this, he was a hardworking and loyal clone who quickly was named 'Jarhead,' and would make a name for himself during his baptism of fire on Kalee. Throughout the battle, he was one of the few clones known to engage in hand-to-hand combat with a Kaleesh on multiple occasions and not only survive but enjoy the experience. Later, when meeting members of the 85th Blitz Battalion, he would lead a group of 78th troopers to save an encircle company of the 85th, which earned him the respect of the entire unit and a vibrosword the company commander had stolen off of a BX Commando droid during another campaign, saying "If your going to rush into battle like an idiot, you might as well look like a Jedi while doing it!" By the time of the third battle of Kalee 'Jarhead' was a regimental commander and right-hand man of the previous commander of the 78th and veteran of the first and second battles CC-1112 'D-FENS' who had fallen in the battle to Xoramorrgh and his tribe and after defeating the tribe was immediately officially promoted for his bravery.
As the push towards Urukishnugal continued, the 317th, 508th, and 886th started to take notice of the strange habits of their brothers in the 77th and 78th. Firstly their armor, while having the normal clone patterns with their color schemes, a dirty brownish yellow and dark gray, respectively, they also wrote text and symbols on their armor. The text consisted of slogans such as "Born to fight," "Make love not war," or "Rest in Pieces" and symbols such as tally marks, skulls, or the red sigil of medics with "Aim here" written above it. They also were extremely desensitized to violence and killing; while the non-Kalee acquainted units experienced the horrors of war, Kalee was something else with frequent displays of brutality, causing the 77th and 78th clones to seem especially cold and grim to their brothers, especially when telling jokes and dealing with the natives of the planet. The other units were also horrified to see how the 77th and 78th dealt with Kaleesh civilians and prisoners, often massacring or executing every single one they found. While the other three units were most certainly not innocent of their crimes, the 77th and 78th were on a different level in their cruelty compared to the other units.
Regardless though the five columns continued to march until they reached Urukishnugal, with little issue, once again long abandoned, wartorn, and filled with mines that took many clone lives. For three days, the clones rested and were resupplied from above, with many of the 317th, 508th, and 886th celebrating their victory; meanwhile, the 77th and 78th did not celebrate, cheer, or even relax; many went out on guarding missions capturing local Kaleesh civilians or scouts, interrogating, torturing, and killing them. One of the Kaleesh killed during this time was a scout and sniper, unknown to the clones; the sister of this Kaleesh sniper had escaped with nothing but her brother's gun, her black globe and war garb, and her soon-to-be black and red painted bone mask of a karabbac.
During the next two days at Urukishnugal, 59 clone soldiers from all three units would be found dead in a trail through the city; some had cuts, some blaster bolts, and some cracks in their armor from a Kaleesh slugthrower. One clone claimed he survived and saw what had happened to the others by hiding from something that he only called 'the Ghost,' a Kaleesh warrior clad in black with red markings on their face. He described it as a shorter Kaleesh that rushed through the clones, hopping from building to building and killing any trooper it spotted with the weapons it had, a slugthrower, a lig sword, and a clone blaster pistol. Thus would begin wild rumors from both the clone and later Kaleesh's legend of a demon clad in black who haunted the invaders and killed them in the dozens and disappeared as quickly as they arrived, to the clones they were the Ghost of Kalee, to the Kaleesh they were Gissudimlal, the demon wreathed in shadow. But in reality, they were a girl that was considered the small, delicate flower of her family, both beautiful and frail, but inside her burned a fire of rage and contempt inherited from her father, only amplified by the death of her beloved older brother; she was Londunu jai Gurim, the daughter of the lord of war.
After their short break, Republic forces began their march north; they noticed the lands they entered were more barren than anything they had seen on Kalee, with villages, farms, and whole towns burned not by themselves, but by the Kaleesh. The march north was much worse for the clone army, not only in distance but also in constant shortages, due to being unable to scavenge anything from the land and relying on their overstretched supply lines from space or Urukishnugal, which were frequently ambushed. Adding on the torture were the frequent night raids, both from the Ghost and normal Kaleesh raiders, that kept the army exhausted as they marched north to Shrupak Temple.
The most major engagement during this march came on the 25th day of the invasion from the battle with the 886th Attack Battalion, who engaged a large Kaleesh force near an extensive forest they needed to go through in their march. They had been long frustrated with the Kaleesh hit-and-run tactics, so upon finally seeing an entrenched position that dared them to charge, they immediately took the bait. They charged towards the tree line with reckless abandon as the Kaleesh attempted to return fire but were suppressed by the clones' artillery and heavy fire. As soon as they were less than 50 meters away from the tree line, mines, and Kaleesh ambushes sprung from tunnels and foxholes dug in front of the tree line; meanwhile, the clone artillery positions were assaulted by Kaleesh forces racing out of nearby hidden tunnels, throwing satchel charges on the cannons and nearly destroying the entire 886th artillery contingent. It was only an hour later, due to the timely intervention of the 78th Legion, that the 886th was saved from near-total destruction, with the clones falling back and calling in orbital bombardments and Y-Wing airstrikes on the tree line. While the 886th took heavy casualties, the Kaleesh were believed to have taken numerically more losses due to the orbital and bomber attacks.
About nine days later, the siege of Shrupak Temple began with the clones heavily bombing the site with land, air, and orbital bombardment that destroyed most of the complexes around the pyramid and the statue in front of it. The statue itself was of a Kaleesh warrior in a white and red Mumuu mask holding a rocket launcher and aiming it toward the summit of the pyramid, under it an inscription in Kaleesh read; "To the hero Qymaen jai Sheelal, who led and defended his people and this holy place from the Huk and their machines of evil using the arms of the Ancestors." Many of the clones later noticed the statue's position when the poor soul holding the rocket launcher was about to destroy his back due to the backblast from the weapon. Regardless the battle of Shrupak was a brutal two-week-long bloodbath that saw both sides take heavy casualties, as despite the clones' extensive bombing campaign, many Kaleesh simply hid under the temple in the tunnels or in the pyramid, which the clones didn't bomb out of fear for the Kaleesh reprisals.
Soon as the weeks wore on in the siege Commander 'Bait' held a meeting with all the leaders of the invasion force on how to proceed with the campaign the 78th commander 'Jarhead' immediately stated the meeting was pointless and that they should continue the siege. Commodore Lovinn, meanwhile, recommended that they continue the bombing campaign and focus it on the pyramid itself to break their enemies' morale; this was seconded by the 886th's Commander 'Enola.' Meanwhile, the 317th's commander, 'Hacksaw,' and the 508th's commander, 'Rimsoo,' both believed they should fall back and regroup. Commander 'Bait' weighed his options until eventually, after a total of fifteen days of siege, to fall back to the Ausez Steppes to rearm and resupply and later come back to the siege at a later date. Thus the long march through the Steppes would begin, and to the clones, it would be known as the 'Death March.'
The Kaleesh, meanwhile, did not suspect the clones would fall back and were preparing for a massive counter-offensive in and around the temple to break the siege, but the clones packing up and leaving the next night was a great shock. So as the clones began marching, the harassment began once more, and the only different this time was that their was not need to implement that Izigukinte strategy as the steppes were already extremely barren, so instead, the Kaleesh focused on attacking and delaying the clones as much as possible causing the clone convoys constant delays due to the native forces hitting the legs or wheels of their vehicles and then disappearing. This got only worse when some nights, entire clone squads would be found dead in the night, courtesy of the Ghost, which added to the paranoia of the clones. Soon Commander 'Bait' was contacted by Commodore Lovinn on the status of Republic reinforcements coming, to which no reinforcements were coming to Kalee with the Republic so stretched thin against the droid army that nothing could be spared for their offensive. For the next 6 hours, Commander 'Bait' could be heard in his command AT-TE furiously ranting at both the commodore and anyone who would listen. After calming down, 'Bait' ordered a general evacuation, with the clones beginning to dig into their positions to hold out to be evacuated. But the Kaleesh were not going to sit idly by and watch the clones leave; instead, they would make them pay.
The last battle of the invasion would come on day 58, and it would also be the first time most of the clones or Kaleesh would see the Ghost of Kalee. The battle began as a routine skirmish between the 508th Scout Battalion and Kaleesh scouts, but two hours later escalated to a full-scale field battle with both sides taking heavy losses, but as the sun set and the day turned to night, reinforcements from both sides came to aid the struggle. Londunu, throughout the day stage of the battle, had taken a support role, sniping isolated clones and constantly moving positions, but when night fell, she donned her mask, took up her sword, and said a quick prayer to her ancestors. She rushed into the fray, chopping down Girpadim after Girpadim due to her short stature and dark cloak, making it nearly impossible for her to be noticed by the clones busy fighting the main Kaleesh force. Meanwhile, all the Kaleesh warriors saw was a shadow moving through the Girpadim, killing dozens as they swiftly moved through, later giving whatever it was the title of Gissudimlal. Soon the shadow had noticed an AT-TE on a hill laying down hell on whatever entered its spotlights, and she knew what to do. Rushing towards the beast, she picked up a clone rocket launcher she got as close as possible without being caught in the blast to the front window of the walker, giving the spotter and pilot only a second to see the dark-cloaked warrior and the rocket approaching their cockpit. Afterward, the shadow climbed up the collapsing walker to the mass-driver cannon operator, who, after being dazed by the explosion, had little to react to the demon grabbing him and swiftly cutting his head off their lig sword. She then stood on top of the cannon and raised the clone's head over the raging fire and smoke of the walker and let out a roar so primal and savage that every Kaleesh who heard it immediately charged and roared along with the Ghost, and the clones who heard the sound immediately breaking under the weight of their own fear. A few hours later, the line stabilized with the Kaleesh falling back; and the Ghost disappearing, and less than a day later, the clones were all off of Kalee once more, and the squadron retreating once more for Republic space.
The Senate, at this point, was incensed by the Kaleesh affair; after three attempts, the planet had still not been brought under heel. Blame had once more been on Commander 'Bait,' but his friendship with the commodore ensured that he would be saved from the wolves in the Senate. But meanwhile, the Confederacy Parliament was once more in celebration of the news as millions throughout the Confederacy began cheering for Kalee's victories, some even donating money and supplies to the planet to help their war effort. But there was one other faction paying attention to the planet in wild space, for they had intervened in Kalee before and believed it was their duty as the guardians of freedom and the Republic to save the Kaleesh from themselves. So once more, the clones will go to the green hell, but this time instead of generals and bureaucrats managing the operation, it would rather be the infinite wisdom and dogma of the Jedi.
One of the units asked to take part in the fourth invasion would be the 41st Elite Corps led CC-1004 'Gree,' as an attempt to sway at least some Kaleesh towards the Republic's side, he would refuse the post, stating that he would not be of any use on Kalee. When asked to clarify, 'Gree' stated, "Out of all the species I have researched, the Kaleesh are the most impossible to deal with when a war has started. To them, there is no compromise, surrender, or diplomacy in war, only death and destruction until everyone on one side of the conflict is dead. To them, negotiation is simply another tactic to fool your enemy, so while my men and I will fight there as any other clone would, but to this species' beliefs, I am unable to accomplish this mission in my 'standard way,' which I am sure was your intention when selecting me. The only ending I see for this campaign is either we leave the planet well alone, or every Kaleesh on the planet dies, the latter of which as a soldier of the Republic I highly oppose both morally and strategically."