Approximately six years earlier, hyperspace, Outer-Rim territories
Garin's eyes flicked open as the chime from his com board went off; he stretched and adjusted his flight suit, shifting in the sealed helmet. It was something they never taught in training: sleep whenever you get the chance, especially in hyperspace. After all it was one of the few times when you could rest without fear of missing something important, and if something important did happen, like running into an unexpected gravity well for instance, the computer would give you a few seconds of warning before it hit and that was all the time you really needed to prepare for what might be coming up. He waited as the tunnel of light collapsed into the vast, black starscape of space and swore.
"Oh stang, Shadow lead this is Shadow two, we've got Rebel fighters all over the place and what looks like an assault ship docked with the station. Those weird fighters are mixed in there two."
Garin could already see what Toth had described, Rebel craft darted this way and that, engaging the strange TIEs around the station, he counted about two-dozen Rebels and roughly double that in TIEs.
"Orders Shadow lead?" Vic'que asked forcefully.
Garin snapped into action, "Wyvern and Shadow squadrons throw up a screen, keep the Rebels and TIEs off Raptor element. Raptor I want you to jump back to the Knight, escape pattern sigma."
Sissir's voice came back, her annoyance evident. "Negative sir, my men and I can still make that station."
"Negative Major, I am not going to risk your men in a three way fight and especially not with a Rebel team already aboard the station. Jump to the Knight and keep your engines hot, we'll call you in once the area is clear."
There was a long pause and he could imagine the vexation Sissir would be feeling and could even visualize her grinding her teeth, then blessedly she responded.
"Copy that sir, Raptor returning home, pattern sigma."
"We have incoming A-wings," someone called out.
"All fighters engage, keep them off the shuttles."
He rammed his throttle to full and juiced up his shields and weapons, taking a bead on the oncoming fighters. A lock warning caused him to spin and the warning died away, brining his fighter back up, he had a clear shot at the underside of the nearest A-wing and let loose with a burst of cannon fire. The shields buckled after the first impact and the lasers tore a hole through the rear of the fighter, sending the engine-less craft spiraling into space. He rolled as laser fire grazed his shields and smiled tightly, thanking the fact that his craft actually had shields worth mentioning, unlike the A-wing's paltry defense. Another A-wing rocketed past him, he didn't try to catch it, nothing he had, Defender, Avenger, missile boat, or Starwing could catch an A-wing, but the Defender and Avenger could out maneuver it easily enough. So he focused on the next A-wing and paired off with another Defender, they both fired linked ion and laser cannons and he watched with a smile as the fighter disintegrated.
"Sir we have more Rebels and those TIEs coming in to play." One of his squad mates called out.
"Someone try and hail that station, if we can confirm them as friendly we might get those TIEs to leave us alone."
"This is Wyvern leader; I've had one of my pilots on it, no response."
Garin swore, though not because Vic'que had been ahead of him, because now they still had a three way fight on their hands.
"Alright, everyone stay close to your wing mates and stay alive, let's get this over with."
The battle that ensued was hectic at best, with Rebels, Imperials, and unknowns exchanging cannon fire. There were no sides to be taken really, with any of the three sides taking any shots they could to lower the odds stacked against them. After the first three minutes of fighting, Hades took its first casualties, losing three pilots in the space of thirty seconds, predominantly to the fact that it was such a furball, to Hades' credit, there wasn't a single fratricide, the same couldn't be said of the unknowns, they fired with ruthless abandon even if it meant blowing their own allies apart to get their target. Garin had very little time to dwell on the loses though as he was too busy fighting for his own life, then the TIEs broke away from the fight suddenly, pulling away into empty space as one.
"Hades break it off, let's see what's going on."
His fighters pulled away from the melee, and thankfully the Rebels seemed to have the same thought as they pulled away as well and headed back towards the station and their assault ship. Garin killed his engine and rotated his fighter to watch as the TIEs continued their dash to space, then a ship dropped into realspace, hanging in the blackness like some giant sea creature. He swore as dozens of the TIEs poured out from its hangars, and the ship had eight massive hangars.
"Oh spit me," Garin murmured as he watched the swarm of yellow gold blips appear on his sensors. Quickly he did a frequency scan until he found an active band that wasn't one of his and began transmitting.
"Attention Rebel craft, this is Hades Leader, it seems that we're here for the same thing and neither of us has the numbers to deal with it on our own. I have another squadron on standby. If you'll agree to a truce we can help each other."
"Sir, are you insane?" Vic'que's voice cut in across the channel.
"She's right boss, these are Rebels you're talking about dealing with." Toth said.
"Shut up both of you," Garin snarled, "I say again, Rebel fighters, do you wish to call a truce and deal with this threat together?"
There was no answer and Garin was resigning himself to dealing with a three way fight that had just gotten one sided when the com crackled.
"Hades Leader this is Flight Lieutenant Azzameen, callsign Red Seven, are you serious?"
Garin began transmitting again, "do you have dust in your ears Azzameen? I have enough problems at the moment without worrying about another team. I'm offering a truce, are you going to take the offer?"
There was silence again and Garin imagined that Azzameen conferring with his fellow pilots and possibly his chain of command. Garin hoped that the Rebel wouldn't deviate from standard procedures and avoid drawing his capital ship out in the open. If that happened, Hades wing would have to withdraw. He wasn't going to risk his people in a full on fleet engagement.
"Alright Hades Lead, we'll play ball. What do you want in exchange?"
"Same thing you do, we want to know more about these TIEs."
"They aren't Imperial?" A new voice cut in.
Garin scowled, "identify yourself if you're going to join in."
"2nd Lieutenant Olin Garn, callsign Red Three."
"Why aren't you in command*?"
"Because Ace decided to talk to you Imp," Garn replied snippily.
Garin didn't question further, "we don't know what they are. They have not responded to hails and have attacked Imperial and Civilian convoys. We consider them hostiles at this time."
"Copy that Hades Lead," Azzameen replied. "Our task force has the same objective, investigate and destroy. Looks like we're on the same side for the time being, call in your boys."
"Happy hunting Lieutenant," Garin sent a data burst to the Rebel fighter, "sending you a new frequency for joint operations."
"Received, lets finish this."
Garin switched back over to his wing channel and sent the same frequency to his pilots, then called in support from Diamond.
"Sir, I want it noted that I do not agree with this." Vic'que said dangerously.
"I understand Lieutenant, Toth I assume you feel the same?"
"Roger that Gar, I don't trust them."
"Neither do I but for now let's play nice."
"Hey, you've gotten us through alive before, I'm behind you."
There were no further protests and his fighters moved to join with the Rebel unit surrounding the station, the joint group was a strange thing to look at, comprised of TIE Avengers and Defenders, A, B, Y, and X –wings. Garin couldn't think of a much more dangerous group to go up against, and that was fine by him, they needed every bit of power he could get, he counted over eighty of the strange TIEs on his sensors. The two forces drew near, the first sign of their engagement were the missile and torpedo attacks as both sides launched their munitions from extreme range, the combined Rebel and Imperial force took no loses, between their shields, the jamming from the Rebel A-wings, and the copious amounts of flare and chaff discharges the TIEs missiles found no targets. They did not fair nearly as well, the missiles and torpedoes tore into their ranks, destroying a dozen craft outright and shattering their formation. Then the two sides clashed and another full on dogfight ensued.
This time Hades lost no one, the Rebels weren't best trained pilots ever it was true, but they were more dangerous than the remote controlled TIEs. Garin had noticed it before and again now that there was a delay in their reaction to any given tactic and he assumed that was due to the time it took for the order to transmit from the controller to the fighter. That delay was all the time his pilots needed to get an unfair edge on their target. The Rebels didn't fair as well, but they gave as good, if not better, than they got.
"Shadow Lead, this is Diamond Lead, we are in the combat zone, awaiting target confirmation."
"Glad you could make it Harth, Rebel craft are currently friendly; concentrate your munitions strikes on the capital ship. See if you can drive it off and maybe we can disable all these fighters in the process."
"Friendly Rebels," Matrin said in bewilderment, "I didn't know this was All Fools Day."
"Must have come early this year," Kalan supplied.
"I assume you both want to spend time in the duty crew back on the ship?" Harth said quietly.
"No sir," they said in chorus.
"Good, kill that cap."
"Lieutenant Azzameen, our bombers have joined the party, do your B and Y boys want to join in their assault?"
Azzameen's voice crackled over the com, "don't mind if they do, our pilots are moving to join yours. Thanks for the heads up Imp."
"Pleasure is mine Reb Sev, Wyvern, Shadow, shield Diamond and Rebel bombers, they're going to crack us a cap ship."
The combined bomber force closed on the enemy ship, the fighters did their job and kept the enemy off of them. Then Garin's sensors went crazy as hundreds of munitions appeared on the sensor and rocketed towards the capital ship. Laserfire lit up space around the ship as its point defenses came online and it tried to swat the incoming ordnance away. Some of the weapons were destroyed, but there were too many and the first began to impact on the shields, after the first two dozen or so odd impacts the shields collapsed and the hull began to take a pummeling. Then the ship blurred with pseudo motion and leapt to hyperspace before the remaining munitions could impact, as soon as it left the combat zone, over two thirds of the remaining TIEs went dead. The resulting minefield of dead ships killed about a third of the rest. The remaining handful of fighters that were still operative were quickly mopped up by the Rebels and Hades.
"You're not that bad for an Imperial." Garn said.
"And for a Rebel you've actually got some sense," Toth returned.
Garin ignored the chit-chat between the two sides and hailed Azzameen, "so what now Lieutenant?"
"Our commando team has finished their data dump and are set to go; are you going to stop us?"
Garin shrugged, even though he knew Azzameen couldn't see it, "you're free to go, we'll forget we saw each other."
"Copy that," there was a pause, and then Azzameen continued. "Stay off the station, I saw your shuttles from before, our boys rigged it to blow."
Garin swore, he'd wanted that data as well, "you wouldn't care to disarm the charges I assume?"
"Nothing doing Hades Lead, and you aren't getting the data either. Still going to let us go?"
Garin considered for a moment, with the addition of Diamond, his wing outnumbered and outgunned the Rebel forces easily, but they had agreed to a truce and had been vital in breaking the TIE attack. He sighed, letting his breath out slowly as he fumed silently.
"Get out of here before I change my mind."
"Copy that, good to work with you Hades."
The Rebel fighters formed up with the assault ship as it pulled away from the station, Garin watched as they jumped out, a moment later the station erupted.
"You getting soft Gar?" Toth said over their private channel.
"It was a good call sir." Harth said stoically, "though perhaps not the easiest one."
"Yeah, they did help us after all, and we got to slag those fighters in any case." Kalan said.
"Sure, but they really slimed us on that bomb gig, they could've at least given us the data in exchange," muttered Matrin.
"Aww, poor baby, did the mean old Rebel break your toy?" Kalan chided.
"Kal, Mat that work detail is in your future."
Both shut up at Harth's words, causing Garin to smile despite his sour mood; thankfully Vic'que didn't broadcast over the wing or officer channels though he didn't doubt that she had a lot that she wanted to say. He'd never given her the private channel he shared with his four friends.
He keyed his communications, "Iriana do you copy?"
"Black Knight here, reading you loud and clear Captain."
"Retrieve Raptor and jump to our coordinates," he looked out his viewscreen at the debris of the factory, the dead fighters, and the remaining storage and hangar facilities. "We have some salvage operations to run."
Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal Cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards
"I believe that was your first official and confirmed encounter with Hades wasn't it?"
She eyed me from across the table and didn't say anything, looking back down at her datapad.
"What made you decide to work with our forces?"
"Prudence," I said simply. "We might have been able to kill all of your forces and the TIEs and take down or capture your commandos, but how many of my people would I have lost in the process? It made sense to work together, granted if I had known that Azzameen was going to blow the station I might have had other ideas."
"Would it interest you to know what happened to him?"
"Azzameen?" I asked curiously, recalling the last time we'd seen each other, he'd shot me.
"Yes, he's here actually, so is Garn."
"Oh? Well I'm glad they're both still alive and well, they're good pilots; gives me the chance to shoot them still."
She looked at me strangely for a moment before continuing.
"You won't be shooting anyone again for a long time Commander, shall we continue."
I held up my cuffed hands, forestalling her, "two things: firstly my water is gone, secondly, I want these wrist cuffs off."
The look she gave me told me what she thought of that idea, but after a moment she reached for her comlink and spoke briefly; the orderly from before entered with another glass of water, and then drew a blaster, aiming it at my head.
I frowned, "what am I going to do?"
"I don't know that's why he's pointing the blaster at you."
She stood and walked around the table, reaching her hand down and keying the restraints on my wrists, they popped off and she put them on the table. I ran my fingers over my sore wrists with a smile. It felt so good to get those damned things off.
"Thank you very much." I said courteously.
The orderly waited until she was seated, and then left the room again, holstering his blaster.
"He'll be right outside that door if you do something stupid." She said coolly.
"I'll keep it in mind, shall we continue then?"
She nodded, I took a sip of water and went on.
*The reason Garin questions the chain of command is because Alliance Lieutenant Grades are thus from lowest to highest: Flight Lieutenant, 2nd Lieutenant, and 1st Lieutenant. So when a Flight is speaking for the Rebel forces instead of a 2nd it seems unusual.