Approximately six years earlier, aboard the cruiser Black Knight, Outer Rim Territories

Garin scowled at the trio as he entered his cabin. It had to be who he'd suspected, just his luck. Now he had to deal with the added problem of partiality.

"I don't really want to ask why you pulled this stunt, especially now with all the new transfers and replacements. I can only assume that you weren't thinking straight."

Kalan and Matrin exchanged glances briefly before looking back at Harth stranding behind them, and then to Garin in front of them as he took a seat at his desk.

"Sorry sir." Matrin said tightly.

"Sorry doesn't help; you do realize that you've basically made Sajuuk look like an idiot in front of all the new members of the unit?"

"Not our fault that she is an idiot." Muttered Kalan, Harth rapped him on the back of the head, Kalan glared at him, "well she is."

"The damage is done, and we're trying to repair it. I'm going to let Harth deal with the pair of yo—"

He was interrupted by a buzzing and he punched his desk terminal in annoyance, Thrawn's face appeared on the screen, Garin saluted hastily.

"Admiral, what can I do for you?"

"Is your ship fully ready?"

"Yes sir, we have a little mess in the hangar deck, but we're able to launch and retrieve fighters."

"Good, I'm sending you coordinates, I need you to assist part of our task force, they are being attacked by what we assume are Zaarin's forces, all ships are docked with the station and it will take at least twenty minutes before any of them are ready to jump."

Zaarin was already moving? That wasn't good.

"We'll launch at once Admiral."

"Good, we need those ships Captain, I trust you to bring them to us."

Thrawn's tone said that failure would not be an option here, roughly a third of the task force had arrived, the other two thirds still in transit. That Zaarin was already attacking these incoming ships was not good. If he was able to pick off their units before they could meet up then there would be hell to pay.

He looked up at his three friends, his expression annoyed. "You two get a stay of execution, get to your ships."

They left in a hurry; Harth glanced at Garin for a moment. "I assume you'll let me take care of the rest?"

Garin nodded as he pulled up his comlink, "Irianna?"

"Here sir," came Captain Chapela's voice.

"I've sent coordinates to your terminal; the Black Knight will jump immediately and engage all targets in the area. Shadwo, Wyvern, Diamond, Gorgon, and Mantis units will provide support."

"Understood sir, sounding general quarters," before she even finished, the battle alert began to sound throughout the ship.

Garin killed the comlink and dashed out of the room, heading for the pilot dressing room. When he arrived others were already there, he pulled on his jumpsuit and fitted his life support system to his chest, clipping his helmet to his waist.

Vic'que joined him, casting him a baleful glance. "You found them I heard?"

"Word travels fast," Garin said, finishing securing his suit and heading for the door.

She followed after him, matching his jog with her own stride. "And what are you doing about them?"

"They're being taken care of."

"That's not good enough sir, I demand that my honor be restored."

They reached the turbolift that allowed the pilots access to the launch racks, Garin turned to glare at Vic'que.

"We are jumping into a combat zone, your honor can, and will, wait Lieutenant. Their squadron commander will deal with them and you will like the results or I'll break both legs this time."

Her lips formed a thin, white line but she nodded tersely, pushing past him as the doors opened, heading for her squadron's berths. Garin ran to his own fighter, dropping down the ladder into the open cockpit and checking over his systems. His sensors told him that the ship was already in hyperspace and that they'd be arriving in three minutes, Zaarin had certainly hit the incoming group close to the rest of the force. It was a gamble he'd played masterfully. Garin hoped that there was still time to save the incoming ships; his hands paused in their furious movement as he noticed the small holopad sitting on the console. He tapped it, and the message Good Luck Sir. Appeared in shimmering letters, he tapped it again, switching the pad off before anything else manifested, tucking it into a utility pocket on his suite.

"All pilots, the Knight will be exiting hyperspace in one minute, thirty seconds, prepare to launch."

Kindran's voice brought his heart rate up, and Garin smiled in anticipation, the prospect of a battle had relieved the annoyance that Vic'que, Kalan, and Matrin had caused and he felt ready for anything that Zaarin threw at them.

"Fighters, launch." Kindran said tonelessly, Garin noted that it was a minute too soon for them to have dropped, Zaarin must have an Interdictor in the region.

The bay doors opened, and his Defender dropped into space, all around him, other fighters from Hades dropped as well, the squadrons formed up and moved away from the Knight. The scene that greeted Garin caused him to curse, this was no raiding party it was a full blown battle fleet. There were three Star Destroyers, one of which was an Interdictor, the other two were Mark Two Imperials, and those alone were better armed than anything Thrawn had in his task force currently. There were some smaller craft, corvettes, frigates and cruisers, he counted seven in total but they weren't the ones he was worried about.

"Diamond Lead engage at your discretion, but try to knock out those Star Destroyers if you're able. Concentrate on the Interdictor; we need to be able to run if it comes down to it. Black Knight engage those capital ships, but recommend that you stay clear of those Destroyers. Mantis, concentrate your attacks on the smaller capital ships, see if you can loosen their control of the area, all other units engage the enemy fighters."

"Black Knight acknowledges, you have incoming fighters, good luck and happy hunting Hades."

The inter-squadron chatter began then, and Garin switched to his squadron channel to concentrate on its operations, Vic'que, Harth, and Toth could handle their own units, and if anything required his attention the Knight would route it over his com board for him. He targeted the nearest of the oncoming TIEs, he didn't think that he'd have much trouble considering that these all seemed to be standard fighters, they were no match for any of the craft his unit fielded. He fired dual linked lasers and watched in surprise as the oncoming Interceptor kept coming and then fired a burst of its own before breaking contact. He checked his boards briefly as he rolled in pursuit and followed after the craft. The Interceptor was highly maneuverable, however the Defender was more and just as fast, the match should have been one sided.

His sensors reported no shields on the craft and he fired again and watched as his shots splashed off the shields that should not have been there. He swore and broke contact, peeling away as the Interceptor's wingmen began firing into his aft.

"All craft, enemy is equipped with shields, I repeat they are using some kind of shield that does not show up on sensors, watch yourselves."

"Shadow leader this is Wyvern leader, the shields have already been noted. They do not extend beyond the hull. It appears to be some kind of reflective magnetic hull plating; missiles will penetrate easily though energy weapons are absorbed until the shield is penetrated. Try and keep up sir."

Garin shook his head at Vic'que's holier than thou tone but acknowledged nonetheless, "copy that Wyvern lead, thanks for the heads up."

He switched to missiles and swung his craft around in a narrow arc that put him on the tail of the nearest Interceptor, he squeezed the firing studs as his tone went solid, the concussion missile streaked out and the Interceptor fired flares and chaff, but the distance was so close that they had little effect. The missile hit dead center and the Interceptor disintegrated in the brief explosion. Laserfire lanced passed him, some of it splashed on his shields as he sped through the debris that had been his opponent, his own wingman shot by on a head-to-head pass, all six cannons firing rapidly, the fire from behind Garin ceased and his sensors showed two kills had been made. He turned his craft back to the dogfight, watching as the Knight closed with two frigates and a light cruiser, the trio opened fire but the heavy cruiser simply shrugged it off, opening up with its turbolasers, one frigate was blown in half under the concentrated barrage, the other's shields folded and holes began appearing on its hull.

The light cruiser tried to move to the opposite side of the Knight in an attempt to tax her weapons crews but the heavy cruiser merely rolled and concentrated its firepower on the undamaged cruiser, Garin saw Mantis move in and pick the remaining frigate apart and smiled as the ship began to break apart under the concentrated torpedo attack from the blastboats. The only comparable ship in the current engagement that could pose a serious threat to the Knight were the two Strike-classes he'd noticed in Zaarin's force but they were engaging the ships of the task force at the moment, giving the Knight free reign amongst the enemy's smaller vessels. Garin found another target and formed with the rest of his flight, the two other Defenders followed in his wake as the trio opened fire on the swarm of TIEs that came towards them, thanks to their hull plating the seven fighters came through with only two losses, but Garin wasn't concerned as he and his wingmen split and went after their individual targets.

"All units, brace for shockwave, Interdictor reactor critical." Harth called over the general channel.

Garin pushed all his power into his shields, draining his cannons for the boost as his sensors registered the explosion and warnings blared in his helmet. The shockwave sent his craft reeling but he quickly regained control, re-aligning his power grid and continuing his pursuit of the fighters.

"All craft, this is group commander Tartiv, we can't continue to engage the enemy, we are withdrawing; all fighter craft begin recovery and prepare for jump."

The group's fighters began their withdrawal, but Garin ordered Hades to press their attacks despite being even more outnumbered with the withdrawal of the task group's fighters. Diamond began their assault on the next of the Star Destroyers though there was little chance that they'd be able to do significant damage. Unlike the Interdictor which had to divvy its power between weapons, shields, gravity well generators, and all its other systems including life support and internal power, the Mark Twos didn't have to worry about the high energy costs of the gravity wells; it made their weapons and shields that much more potent. Garin scored a hit on a bomber making a run on one of the capital ships in the task group as his wingmates made passes of their own. The bomber formation scattered against the concentrated attack and Garin got a nasty surprise as one of them opened fire with four lasers instead of the normal two, just like Garin had done back in Russani; Zaarin really had been busy upgrading his fleet, how had he managed to do all of this in secrecy?

He snorted at himself as he fired another stream of ion and laserfire into a TIE and watched it break apart under his concentrated attack, the shields really weren't that bad once you knew to just pepper them to pieces, of course he could do it in secrecy. After all, Thrawn had developed Hades in secrecy, this deployment was the first actual official action that Hades was taking part in; and if you were to check the records there wouldn't be a single mention of a heavy cruiser and its attached fighter wing taking part in the campaign. That thought made him wonder how many other secret projects were lying around out there. He'd been forced to memorize enough random secret command codes to confirm that there were quite a few units or operatives on the black that could interact with him if they happened to meet.

"Garin, this is Iriana, the task group is away those Destroyers are beginning to concentrate on us now so I am ordering the Knight to withdraw as well."

"Copy that, don't worry about us, we'll follow."

A moment later his sensors showed the Knight jumping to lightspeed, he sounded the withdrawal code and activated his auto-track on the Knight's course. It was an ingenious system that Daru had installed early on in their operations; rather than calculate a hyperspace course of his own, the nav computer locked onto a signal sent from the Knight via hypercom. It wasn't something he normally used, because that would mean risking being tracked. However in this case, it didn't matter since Zaarin had to already know where the rest of the task force was. His Defender jumped to lightspeed, and eight minutes later he was docking with the Black Knight and reentering the fighter racks. He waited for his ship to finish shut down before climbing out of his fighter and clipping his helmet to his waist again, Daru was below on the hangar deck, with her crew rushing about getting ready to rearm and repair the returning fighters.

He reached into his pocket and produced the holopad, smiling as he ran a gloved finger over it thoughtfully before joining the rest of his pilots in the short trek to the turborlift, fitting rooms, and finally debriefing and a shower.

Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards

"So those were the first official shots of Zaarin's campaign?"

I nodded, taking another sip of water, "granted no one outside of the campaign, High Command and the Emperor's Inner Circle actually had any clue what was going on. ISB did their usual number on the propaganda side of things. I never met anyone who wasn't deployed to that campaign or directly affected by it that actually knew what really happened and even a lot of the people deployed to the campaign frequently didn't know the whole story. Though admittedly you had to be pretty stupid not to realize we were fighting former Imperial units."

"What were some of the stories that were spread?"

I shrugged, "the forces under Zaarin had defected, granted they never, in any of the variations of the story, admitted that a Grand Admiral was involved. They made it sound like some kind of captain's uprising. That the officers of several warships decided to join the Rebellion or go rogue; it had the desired effect. It scared people, and those that supported the Empire rallied behind the Emperor as the just and rightful leader of the galaxy."

She shifted uneasily for a moment as she considered her notes again, "your Chief, did you have feelings for her?"

I chuckled and leaned forwards, "why Lieutenant, is that jealousy I detect?"

Deanna glared at me, there was of course no sign of jealousy and I knew it, I was just having some fun with her.

"No Commander, it is not. I am merely asking because…well yo—"

"I'm human and she wasn't, yet we both served the Empire where that kind of relationship would have gotten us locked up yes?"

She nodded, "did you have feelings for her?"

"Beyond friendship you mean?"

Again the silent nod, I smiled. "Yes, not initially mind you, but overtime it became clear that we had something between us, some connection."

"Did you ever take it beyond simple feelings?"

"I'd hardly call feelings simple," I raised a brow. "How does this relate to my duties to the Empire exactly?"

"We are trying to establish a psych profile for you, keep in mind that we only have records of you and your unit from rumors and brief mentions here and there. As far as your official career goes, you and your friends all ceased to exist in the Imperial Archives just after the conclusion of the Rusanni Campaign."

I chuckled and smiled, "well let's get back to more pertinent questions."

"Too personal for you Commander," she asked, I noticed the pleased smile and had to shake my head. Did she really think she'd rattled me?

"No, just chronologically out of place; I'll tell you more about my personal life when it comes up."

She sniffed in annoyance but nodded, "very well, what happened next?"

"Zaarin's opening moves got bolder, I wasn't involved but he went after Lord Vader and even the Emperor in the opening strikes of his revolt. Both attempts were foiled despite the fact that he was able to cause quite a bit of damage; after that the battles moved to a match between his forces and the forces arrayed under Thrawn in the Outer- and Mid- rims. The biggest shock to Hades Wing in particular was the loss of the main production lines for the TIE Avenger and we even had to deal with a severe shortage of TIE Defenders as well."