Located in the Yag'Dhul system, a prudent distance away from that unforgiving world and its three large moons, the space platform Os'ma was constantly surrounded by ships coming and going. It was one of several stations that served traffic passing through the junction of the Corellian Trade Spine and the Rimma Route. In the distance, one could see other stations, a few Golan defense platforms, and the great shipyards that put Yag'Dhul on the trade routes in the first place.

Os'ma mostly handled civilian traffic, though that included armed freighters and convoy escorts. So when a Nebulon-B and a Corellian corvette dropped out of hyperspace nearby, the controller on duty was not alarmed or even particularly surprised.

Supervising-Controller Yak'Zorn'at was a Givin, like the rest of his staff. This made the large holodisplay in the center of the room practically unnecessary. Any one of that race of skull-faced mathematical savants could call up a mental picture of the spacelanes as clear as any hologram, requiring only regular and accurate updates on new arrivals, departures, and any changes in course and speed. As the latest of these scrolled across his flatscreen, he fixed it in his memory and hailed the newcomer.

"Frigate Red Moon, this is Os'ma Station. Welcome to the pattern. Squawk 455.2 for further instructions." Once both he and they had switched to the new frequency, he gave Red Moon clearance along its current vector for another dozen kilometers, warned it of nearby ships, and concluded by asking, "Are you here to pick up some freighters?"

"That's a negative, Os'ma," the frigate's comm officer replied. "Just passing through this time."

"That's well. You have priority clearance for Buoy OS-3C2. Advise at your next waypoint."

"Copy that. Red Moon out."

On the bridge of the Regis, Kristy McCall sat back with a relieved sigh. When she turned to report to the captain, it was in her normal voice rather than the crisp Core accent she had just imitated. "We have clearance to the outer marker, sir."

"Waypoints locked in," the astrogator confirmed from his station. "Summer is staying with us."

"Good," Daly acknowledged. "Helm, ahead two-thirds; we don't want to draw attention to ourselves." He sat back and allowed himself to relax a bit. It seemed that their faked Imperial transponder code was working perfectly.

Yak'Zorn'at had already handed the escort frigate and its corvette companion off to one of the other controllers, but kept it in his mind's eye, directing other ships out of its path where necessary. Over the next few minutes, he dealt with a mixed group of freighters and cargo ferries, gave clearance to a YT-1300 to dock on one of the platform's landing pads, and averted a potential collision between a container transport and an outbound shuttle two minutes before it happened. All of this was fairly routine.

The arrival of a second Nebulon-B within minutes of the first did pique his curiousity, however. And what made him stop, blink and ask his terminal for confirmation was the frigate's transponder signal. The computer came back with the same impossible answer. Perplexed, Yak'Zorn'at opened a channel to the newcomer.

"Escort frigate, this is Os'ma Station. We have you on sensors, but there seems to be a problem with our system. Please confirm your IFF."

There was a pause, and then a male voice came on the line whose boredom and annoyance verged on insolence. "Yag'Dhul station, this is the Imperial Navy frigate Red Moon, under Captain Shastar. Do you read us now?"

"B-but that's impossible," Yak'Zorn'at sputtered, doing the unthinkable – abandoning controller protocol – in his confusion. "We already have an Imperial frigate Red Moon in the system. There can't be two of you." His eyes darted between the readouts on both ships, unable to tell them apart.

A tense silence reigned on the Regis' bridge as the two Rebel vessels threaded their way through the heavy space traffic. It seemed that everyone, Daly included, was determined to hold their breath until they reached the outer nav buoy. Lights flickered on and off in ever-changing patterns on the consoles, watched closely by the bridge officers.

Time seemed to crawl. The captain glanced at the chronometer, watching the seconds tick off one by one. The main tactical display updated with equal slowness. Daly was tempted to order full speed, but that would raise the risk of detection, to say nothing of collision. Instead, he pulled a datapad from its slot in the left arm of his command chair and began to review the next leg of their journey: straight up the Corellian Run, through the Colonies to the Core Worlds, where their real mission would begin.

In the near-silence, the latest chime from the sensor station sounded as loud as thunder. Several people jumped. Lt. Eran, a skittish young man made more nervous than usual by all the blips on his scope, examined the new contact. The color drained from his face. "Sir... it's the Red Moon."

Daly let the datapad slip back into its holder, wondering if he'd heard right. "What?"

Eran spun around in his chair. "It's the Red Moon, the real one! It's here! Now! It just popped in on the other side of the station."

"What are the odds?" Daly grumbled to no one in particular. "Of all the Nebulon-Bs in service, we have to run into the one whose ID we stole." In the background, McCall was feigning polite misunderstanding at the station's increasingly agitated challenges.

"TIEs launching from the Red Moon, sir! And the platform, too." After taking a moment to check their bearings, Eran added what everyone had already guessed. "Heading this way."

"Right, that's done it. Battle stations." Alarms began to sound as Daly continued giving orders. "Helm, bring us up to flank speed. We're going to make a run for our hyper point. Advise the Summer, and tell Red Squadron to launch their sprint flight to cover us."

"Aye, sir."

The main hangar was lit in flashing crimson and echoed with a strident klaxon as pilots raced to their fighters. They had been kept grounded to maintain the masquerade; an Imperial frigate with an X-wing escort would have been hard to explain. Now canopies closed, engines howled, and four men took off to defend their ship. Ranger and Wire were first out the door in their A-wings, followed closely by Zoom and Nash in X-wings. None were broadcasting IFF signals.

McCall's voice crackled in their headsets. "Blank Flight, this is the Red Moon. We're seven minutes from our jump point. Buy us some time."

"You heard the lady," Zoom said, banking toward the largest concentration of red blips. "Pick your targets and go."

"Copy that, Lead," Ranger acknowledged, lining up on a trio of TIE fighters just entering range and getting green sights almost immediately. He triggered his lasers and blew the lead TIE into glittering particles. The other two returned fire, seeking vengeance for their flight leader. Ranger broke right and low, wondering if they were both mad (and stupid) enough to pursue him and give Wire an easy shot.

They were.

"Jo, find me those bombers." A double-hulled shape appeared almost instantly on Zoom's CMD. He smiled. "Good girl." The bombers were still several klicks off, nearly invisible against the starfield. The Imperial frigate just beyond was much easier to see. Flipping over to missiles, Zoom waited for the sweet tone of a solid lock. He didn't get it before lasers from the second flight of TIEs began chewing into his shields. Jinking failed to dislodge the eyeball from his tail; more emerald lines streaked past his canopy, and finally Zoom had to break off and deal with his attacker.

"Whoever you imposters are, you're going to pay!"

Ranger snorted at the unknown Imperial's bravado as he clipped the hexagonal wing of a TIE, only to have Wire finish it off a moment later. The next closest target was a squint, Sword 1. The flight of Interceptors was approaching head-on from the direction of the real Red Moon. As Ranger turned to engage, he noted that his missile-lock warning had begun to pulse. "Hey, these squints have missiles," he announced just as the light went red. Targeting the incoming warhead, he coolly held his fire for a full second and then blew it out of the stars before doing the same to Sword 3. He reefed his nimble A-wing up into a climbing roll, avoiding the worst of the squints' lasers, and then dove in on them again. One of his own shots sheared off Sword 1's starboard wing strut, sending the squint into a sparking tumble. Sword 2 managed to dodge the severed wing, but his evasive maneuver carried him right into the path of Wire's lasers. The Interceptor's load of missiles added slightly to the force of its detonation.

"C'mon, Nash, get these guys off me," Zoom ordered, pulling his stick from side to side. The younger pilot's fire wasn't doing much to discourage the two T/Fs that were still on his commander's six. Finally, in desperation, Zoom popped off one of his anti-missile flares. The nearer TIE pilot had no time to react before the flare smacked into his viewport, starring it with cracks and literally knocking his craft for a loop. Even Nash couldn't miss such a target, and a moment later there was one less TIE in the sky.

Leaving Nash to deal with the second eyeball, Zoom scanned the heavens again. He cursed as he saw the bright blue streaks of torpedoes already heading for the Regis. He looked for their source, found the bomber group he'd originally targeted, and headed in that direction. Perhaps he could at least keep them from launching any more. The bombers seemed oblivious to his approach, going evasive only when a missile blew one of them apart. Zoom's second missile pursued and shredded another dupe. He dropped in behind the third one and finished it with lasers; the explosion cleared just in time for him to see the torpedoes start hitting the Regis' shields. Zoom cursed again and told Jo to start looking for the inevitable second wave.

Orange lasers converged on a T/F's central ball, instantly converting it to a cloud of light and vapor. Wire banked away from his latest kill... right into the path of an oncoming cargo ferry. He was close enough to see the bridge crew dive for cover as he yanked back on his stick, barely clearing the top-mounted container in his frantic climb. The moment of terror passed and he sighed in relief at his narrow escape. He was still thinking how lucky he'd been when one of the station's turbolasers clipped his fighter.

There was a bright flash and a shower of sparks as everything in Wire's cockpit shorted out at once. He screamed, expecting to be dead before he ran out of breath. But fickle Fate decided to spare him; there was no second and final hit as his A-wing hurtled on with shields down, an unguided missile, in the general direction of the Regis. Daring to hope, Wire tested his controls and found them inert. Smoke from fried electronics stung his eyes.

"Red Seven to anyone, I'm in trouble," he called, forgetting their alias for this mission. "Red Seven needs assistance. My controls are out." Only the crackle of circuitry and the thrum of his engines, still at full throttle, answered him. Wire began to worry. He was getting very close to the Regis. "Ah, Red Moon, Seven is declaring an emergency. Controls still won't respond. I'm punching out." Taking a deep breath of the foul-tasting air, he pulled the eject handle. Nothing. And his radio was dead too. He gritted his teeth and braced himself as the frigate filled his view.

The A-wing slipped under the Regis's boom, just aft of the forward hull, with about thirty meters to spare.

Wire let out his breath again, then realized he still had a problem. Now he was headed away from the battle, into open space... where he would eventually run out of air, or be picked up by the local authorities. Neither was a particularly attractive option. Groaning, he began to bang his helmet against the bubble canopy. This comforting activity was interrupted by a sharp jolt that threw him forward against the burned-out console. The snubfighter shuddered and strained in the grip of a giant hand before its abused engines finally shut down. Wire blinked, then whooped as he observed he was sliding backward: the Regis had managed to put a tractor beam on him.

Meanwhile, Zoom and Nash were tangling with the Red Moon's squints and bombers. A few more torpedoes had gotten past them, but so far the Regis' shields were holding. Ranger continued to play tag with the platform's fighters, leading them on a merry chase around the slower freighters. In all this confusion, the arrival of a flight of assault gunboats from the local patrol squadron went unnoticed for several seconds - long enough for them to get torpedo locks on the fleeing frigate.

"Blank Flight, we have gunboats and torpedoes inbound," McCall announced over the squadron tac frequency. "We need you back here now."

"We're tied up here," Zoom replied tightly, watching his own missile warning flicker on and off as the squint behind him tried to light him up. "Can you launch more fighters?"

"Negative, we're in the middle of a recovery operation. Brace for impact!" McCall added for the benefit of her fellow bridge crew. The transmission cut off as nearly a dozen torpedoes caught up with the Regis, most of them slamming into her engine cluster. When McCall spoke again, it was over the sound of alarms. "Shields down! Minor damage to engines!"

Zoom had managed to get behind Sword 8; he fired and missed, fired again and vaped the Interceptor with his portside lasers. "Four, Sixteen, get over there. I'll stop the rest of these guys myself."

"On it, Lead," Ranger confirmed, ducking away from his playmates and heading for the Regis. His sensors showed the gunboats on the far side of the frigate; they hadn't fired any more torpedoes, and appeared to be setting up for a strafing run. Nash also complied, reluctantly abandoning the squint he'd winged.

The bold gunboat pilots ran right into the Regis's concentrated lasers. One exploded and another lost its shields before they veered off and split up, forcing the frigate's gunners to divide their fire. The Summer took a few shots as well, but they were at extreme range and all clean misses. By the time the gunboats came around for another pass, Ranger had arrived on the scene and quickly destroyed the damaged gunboat. Painting the last one with a missile lock made it break off again and go evasive. Ranger easily matched the heavy Imperial fighter's maneuvers, however, and sent two concussion missiles into its engines.

As soon as Wire's crippled A-wing had been drawn into the Regis' hangar, Leo (also in an A-wing) launched to join the fray. He looped up over the top of the frigate, avoiding its forest of comm and sensor antennae, and made to form on Ranger's wing as a second group of gunboats appeared out of hyperspace. These scattered like a flock of birds as they were met by laser fire, and the incognito Reds kept up the pressure to make sure none of them had attention to spare for the Regis.

Zoom spent his last missile on a T/B in a risky, almost point-blank shot; his forward shields dimmed and his X-wing rocked as he flew right through the spectacular explosion. Jo let out a high-pitched squeal behind him. He immediately banked starboard to avoid both the former bomber's wingman and the lasers of the last squint. He thought, as he flashed by, that he saw one emerald bolt hit the dupe; he tsked under his breath, mentally lecturing the Interceptor pilot as he might one of his own cadets. Watch your target, mister. You won't make any friends by shooting them in the back, even by accident. Having wrestled the squint into his sights, he made finer adjustments to his stick until they lit up green. One squeeze of the trigger later, any further advice to Sword 11 was moot.

The corvette's engines flared as it shot ahead into infinity. McCall broadcast a final message as the Regis neared the same point in space: "We're out of here, Blanks. See you on the other side. Red Moon out." The frigate slowed, as if gathering its remaining energy, then leapt forward and vanished.

"Let's not overstay our welcome," Zoom suggested. He knew that more Imperials, perhaps even a Star Destroyer or two, would be on the way. "Break off and jump to hyperspace as soon as you can." Taking his own advice, he turned away from the TIE fighter he'd been chasing and quickly scanned surrounding space to be sure he was in the clear, then aimed his X-wing's nose outsystem and pulled the hyperdrive lever. Seeing his strike foils close, the TIE turned to attack, but it was too late: Zoom was already gone.

"We're not done yet," Zoom warned as soon as all of his pilots had appeared at the rendezvous point, a few light-years from Yag'Dhul. "S-foils to attack position. They may have tracked our vector, which means those gunboats... heads up!"

Red Leader's hunch was right: a pair of gunboats had just dropped out of hyperspace in their midst. Outnumbered two to one, they were quickly dispatched - before they had a chance to get a message off, according to Jo.

"Good work. Now, second set of coordinates, go!"

Once again the four snubfighters leapt into hyperspace, at an angle to their previous course, hopefully throwing off Imperial pursuit. This time they emerged on the edge of an uninhabited binary system, where Regis and Summer were waiting for them.