SW: Hades Wing Chp. 13

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

Garin looked over the latest reports and groaned at what he was reading, not only had Zaarin managed to hit the Empire’s forces hard, he’d hit them in the wake of another rogue Imperial flag officer. Some admiral named Harkov had apparently been keeping Lord Vader busy while he tried to defect to the Rebellion. From the reports Harkov hadn’t been doing it for any sort of morality issues, he’d been doing it for cold hard cash and that alone made Garin despise him. He had his doubts about the Empire’s methods at times and some of the things that his crew muttered, for he seemed to have acquired a crew of people willing to question everything, made him question the people he served further. The Death Star rumors were bad enough, but if even Admirals and Grand Admirals were revolting or defecting, what did that say about a newly promoted Lieutenant Commander?
Granted he had little reason to doubt Thrawn; as far as he’d seen Thrawn was the model officer and leader and his concerns over the other leaders of the Fleet were quieted whenever he met with the Admiral. If not for Thrawn’s calm, considered, composure Garin might have seriously begun harboring his own ideas of defection. Some of the commanders assigned to Thrawn’s unit were downright homicidal in their execution of their orders and that bothered him to a great degree. While he agreed that force was the best way to answer force, there was such a thing as excessive force and some of these captains and commanders seemed to have no idea what that phrase even meant. The most recent engagement between Zaarin and Thrawn’s forces had ended in a massacre of a civilian luxury liner that got in the way of the fighting when it was pulled from hyperspace by an artificially generated gravity well.
Thrawn had executed the offending captain that had ordered the civilian ship destroyed, and Garin was glad to be rid of the man. In his opinion, if the Empire could so easily throw away the lives of the people it claimed to protect, then what good was it? Increasingly however he had the feeling that his opinions were among the minority. He shook his head, clearing it of the potentially traitorous thoughts and continued going over the data before him. The primary Avenger production lines had been hit and annihilated, and the primary Defender production facilities had faired little better, though they were still intact albeit damaged. Already this campaign was souring as far as he was concerned.
Hades Wing had proven indispensable against Zaarin, Thrawn frequently deployed the wing as a heavy skirmish unit, deploying them to the rear of Zaarin’s forces where they could wreck havoc on the rogue Grand Admiral’s support ships. Garin had to admit though that it was no easy task.
Zaarin’s fighter force was arguably better than anything, barring Hades Wing, that Thrawn could field. Not only were his standard TIEs equipped with extra weapons, his fighters carried missile packs similar to what Garin had used at Rusanni, the bombers carried the extra pair of wing mounted lasers, and both Zaarin’s interceptors and bombers made use of jettisonable wing mounted munitions pods similar to the kind found on one of the Experimental types; add to that the shielded hull plating and his fighters outclassed the standard Imperial fighters in everything but speed and maneuverability, and they made up for that easily. He also had a sizeable force of the TIE Experimental series which had started this whole mess, Garin had identified three of the massive command carriers that controlled the wings of remote TIEs. Thus far, neither Hades nor any of Thrawn’s bomber or strike squadrons had been unable to destroy any of the big ships which would cripple the Experimentals' command structure if accomplished. Zaarin had apparently upgraded the Experimentals too, they now flew in flights of three that supported and interacted with each other flawlessly; Garin suspected the reason was because two ships in these flights were being slaved to a leader and they followed and supported that lead ship which was the only one that actually required a controller. It was allowing Zaarin to field an insane number of Experimentals and that alone was taking its toll, the only saving grace being the delay in reaction time between the controller and the fighter.
To add further injury, Zaarin, being head of Imperial Fighter Development, had access to some of the most advanced fighters in the Empire, he made use of the Avenger and Defender in numbers that turned Garin’s insides into jelly, in addition there were a handful of less common designs being used, including two models of  heavy TIE bombers and two heavier models of TIE fighters that were very capable though not without their weaknesses. Thrawn had a few of the heavy bombers at his disposal, and fewer numbers of the two specialized TIE designs, the Oppressor and Aggressor though unlike Zaarin he also made limited use of the Mark One Advanced which was quite capable against the modified standard TIE designs that Zaarin fielded even if the TIE Avenger and Defender outclassed it; the one thing Thrawn possessed that Zaarin did not, were the gun- and missile boats that his fleet made good use of to provide munitions support, but neither was as good a dogfighter as any of the TIE models. Garin’s unit thankfully had yet to suffer any losses, primarily he suspected, because most of his pilots had logged hundreds of hours on their fighters, much of that in actual combat, and even the newest members of his team who had joined for this campaign were no exception to this. The general quality of Zaarin’s pilots was mediocre at best and that gave Garin and the rest of Hades the edge they needed to stay alive if not fulfill their assigned tasks. He closed down his terminal and stared at the ceiling, considering what to do about the fighter superiority Zaarin possessed.
They needed a way to not only level the playing field, but tip it in Hades’ favor if they were to operate effectively and he was strapped for ideas on how to accomplish that. He sighed and leaned back, currently the Knight was undergoing repairs, she’d been struck during the last battle by a wave of the kamikaze experimental types, what the pilots had dubbed Kami-TIEs, or Comedies though there was nothing comedic about a lightening fast piloted missile whose only purpose was to kill itself and its target. Thankfully the Knight had suffered minimal damage, but it was enough to warrant new hull plating in the areas where the Comedies had gotten through the point defense lasers and ion cannons. Thrawn had been generous enough to order a new toy for the Black Knight; the same energized plating that Zaarin was using for his TIEs was now being applied to the entire hull of the heavy cruiser, part of the reason that the repairs were taking longer than they should. The Knight was being field stripped of her outer hull and refitted with the new plating. It wouldn’t protect her against attacks like the one the Comedies had conducted, but against energy based weapons, such as lasers or ion cannons it would provide an extra layer of defense if the shields collapsed during the fleet engagements she was increasingly being called to take part in.
While Garin was grateful for the modification, it took Hades out of the combat and though his team needed its rest, his was one of the few units that Thrawn had that could face Zaarin’s fighters on equal footing. Part of the reason the Admiral had ordered the additional protection for the Knight was actually based on that very fact, he didn’t want to risk losing one of his greatest combat assets. So in an annoyingly ironic twist, the value of Hades Wing was keeping them out of the battle for the time being.
Garin’s door chimed and his gaze lowered, “come in.”
Daru stepped through the door, Garin leaned forwards. “What is it Chief, nothing wrong with the refitting I hope?”
“No sir,” she said, a mischievous smile on her face as her lekku twitched excitedly. “I may have found something that can help against Zaarin’s forces; I’d like to submit it to Admiral Thrawn.”
Garin had to constantly remind himself that he was one of the few people to know about Thrawn’s actual rank, he assumed that there would be an official ceremony once Zaarin was dealt with, to publicly promote Thrawn now would be an admittance that there was a missing Grand Admiral and people would wonder what that Grand Admiral was up to.
“What did you have in mind?” Garin asked, his mind changing gears at the prospect of the very thing he’d been hoping for falling into his lap.
“A tractor beam,” Daru said simply.
He blinked, “excuse me?”
She handed him a datapad and he looked at what appeared to be a miniaturized version of a tractor beam. He clicked through the images and a smile spread across his face as he saw what she had in mind.
“Have you built any of these things?” He asked excitedly.
“Since my boys and I haven’t had anything to do for the last week and a half I had us working double time, we have enough to equip all four squadrons now, including the Blastboats.”
Garin looked up at her with newfound respect adding itself to the already substantial amount he lauded on her, “your crew built fifty-three miniaturized tractor beam projectors in a week and a half?”
She looked embarrassed, “yes sir, I didn’t want to mount them though without your permission.”
Garin pulled his comlink off his belt, “Commander Kindran?”
“Here sir, what did you require?”
“I need a shuttlecraft with escort prepared for myself and Chief Kerrila, we’re going to meet with the Admiral.”
“Can I ask what is going on sir?”
Garin looked up at Daru with a smile, “we might have just found a solution to Zaarin’s fighters.”
Kindran’s response was as crisp as ever, though the surprise in his tone was evident for once. “That shuttle will be ready ten minutes ago sir.”

“Do you mind explaining what you’re doing?” Harth growled as they stood on the hangar deck.
“Simple, we’re taking a gift to the Admiral.” Garin said.
“This isn’t exactly a good time to be delivering gift baskets,” Toth said dubiously, looking at the shuttle distastefully. “Besides, you’re going into a combat zone in that flying death trap?”
“Thrawn needs to see this,” Daru said forcefully.
Harth and Toth exchanged skeptical glances but didn’t say anything despite the looks of concern; Vic’que was far less tactful.
“You should know your place alien, and it isn’t with Thrawn.”
There was a cold silence as Daru’s blue skin darkened and her lekku, wrapped around her neck, rippled, though whether in anger or shame Garin wasn’t certain. Before he could say anything though, Harth turned around in a rare show of anger.
“You will show proper respect to the Chief, Lieutenant or I will personally throw you into space.”
Vic’que stood shorter than Harth, who was taller than Garin by several centimeters, but she did not back down. “She’s a tail-head who thinks she’s our equal, she needs to learn her place and it isn’t among humans or Admirals.”
That was too much for any of the others, Garin would have struck Vic’que had he been close enough, but surprisingly it wasn’t Harth, or even Toth that struck her, it was Daru who crossed the distance with an eerie grace before Harth had even raised his hand and struck Vic’que across the face with a crack that sounded throughout the hangar like a grenade. The world seemed to pause and silence as the three men watched the women face off. Garin half expected Vic’que to draw her weapon and shoot Daru but Toth’s pistol was already drawn and ready, Garin noted that it was blessedly set to stun. No one outside of the commandos could outshoot Toth and everyone knew it, a borderline drunk he might be, but give him a pistol and the only thing more dangerous was him behind the controls of a fighter. Vic’que had noticed the drawn blaster as well and her hand, halfway to her own sidearm clenched in a fist.
“You just struck a superior officer Chief, I don’t think you’re going anywhere with the Commander, especially not to see the Admiral.”
There was prolonged silence once again, and Daru’s expression showed that the full gravity of what she’d just done had hit her, any military tribunal, given the prejudice in the Navy not only against women but especially against non-humans would probably have her shot and everyone standing there, including Daru herself, knew it. Despite this, she remained standing defiantly before Vic’que despite the risk to her own life that continued defiance implied.
“I didn’t see anything, the Chief slipped.” Harth said quietly, his eyes focusing pointedly on Vic’que as his voice broke the silence.
“Captain,” she protested angrily, “you can’t be—“
“The Chief slipped,” Toth agreed, holstering his blaster, though his hand remained resting on the pommel.
Vic’que’s face contorted with rage as she looked at Garin viciously, waiting for his say on the incident. Daru too had turned to look at him, he’d expected her to be pleading, but she wasn’t. Instead she was just as defiant in her expression as she’d been when she’d been staring at Vic’que.
Garin took a deep breath before speaking, “the Chief slipped, nothing happened.”
Vic’que’s face, already warped in fury turned livid and she opened and closed her mouth furiously eying all three of them, but she knew just as well as any of them that two Captains and a Lieutenant Commander against a First Lieutenant was a fool’s fight.  She ground her teeth for a moment before turning and leaving the foursome as she stalked towards the exit with a backwards glance at them, and pointedly at Garin.
“I am not going to let this go sir.”
As she walked away, the heavy mood remained in place.
“We need to do something about her.” Toth said, his hand finally moving away from his sidearm.
“Agreed,” Harth said, and for once his voice contained real emotion.
“She’s been worse ever since Mat and Kal pulled that stunt with her refresher,” Toth said, looking at Garin pointedly.
Garin didn’t answer, instead looking at Daru, “get on the shuttle Chief, make sure you have everything you’ll need for the Admiral.”
“But Sir I—“
“Now,” Garin growled.
She nodded and skirted past him, Garin was furious though he was doing his best to contain it. He didn’t need to alienate Vic’que more than she already was, but he’d be damned if he was going to lose the best mechanic he’d ever met just because Vic’que’s ego and pride could disrupt the galaxy’s gravity and throw the planets and stars in every direction. The continued silence was broken by the hum of the engines of the shuttle as it prepared for launch.
Garin turned to face Harth, “if anything happens to me, you are in command. Make sure that is understood by everyone, especially Vic’que. Toth will be your XO understood?”
Both of his friends nodded though neither looked happy about the fact that Garin was taking this risk just to show off whatever it was Daru had for Thrawn.
“This had better be some kind of super weapon if it’s worth risking your life for,” Toth said in annoyance.
“It could tip the scales in our favor against Zaarin’s fighters,” Garin said, “if the Chief and I don’t make it back, talk to her Crew Commander, he’ll know what to do. I recommend that you install the equipment she’s developed regardless of what Thrawn says.”
Harth put a hand on Garin’s shoulder, preventing him from heading towards the shuttle.
His eyes were cold, “you had better make it back Sir, or I will find you.”
Garin snorted, patting Harth on the shoulder, “don’t worry, I don’t need you hunting me in the afterlife.” He glanced at Toth with a smirk, “I’d rather have him come along with some of his store.”
Toth raised an eyebrow and raised his hands defensively, “don’t expect me to come with anything other than a blaster if you get yourself killed.”
“Your support is so reassuring,” Garin said with a forced grin.
He turned and headed up the ramp, at the top Daru stood, looking ashamed.
“Sir I—“
He held up his hand to silence her, “I don’t want to hear it Chief, its done, we’ll deal with it.”
Without another word he headed around to the cockpit and leaned over the pilot, patting him on the shoulder.
“Alright, let’s get out of here.”
The pilot nodded and keyed the com board as the shuttle lifted off from the deck and turned towards space.
“Mantis lead this is shuttle Orlicon, we are departing now over.”