Inferno Squad

The Inferno Squad was a four person special operations unit of Imperial Special Forces troopers. They were trained for clandestine top secret operations, including infiltration, sabotage and assassination. Its members fell under the Imperial Special Forces branch of the Imperial Navy and reported directly to Admiral Garrick Versio, although they were authorized to operate independently from the normal imperial command structure and would frequently spend lengthy periods of time without contact with him or other superior officers. Its members would often undertake solo missions, such as infiltrating rebel cruisers or performing boarding actions with minimum support from their teammates who were often reduced to extraction role. Inferno Squad thus became a unit of cruel enforcers of Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine's will.

They could also act as long term undercover agents within rebel cells such as the Dreamers with the goal of drawing out their members and exposing them. During such missions, they would often have minimum contact with each other to avoid the entire team falling into rebel hands, as the Alliance was aware of the Squad and actively on the lookout for its members. Eventually, by the time of the Battle of Endor the squad was reduced to an elite operative status, frequently fighting alongside standard Imperial forces and the stormtrooper corps. Their excessive training made each and every agent in the team able to hold his or her own in a battle as the equivalent of a standard Imperial fighting unit, a "microcosm of four" as Admiral Versio would call them. Despite their long and dangerous operational history, they suffered only a single casualty, Seyn Marana, who killed herself to avoid exposing Iden's cover during the infiltration of the Dreamers.

The rest of the agents would eventually follow drastically different careers, as their fanaticism wasn't enough to keep Versio and Meeko in the team following the atrocities of Operation: Cinder and they instead chose to defect to the Alliance. Agent Hask however followed the reborn Empire to Jakku and eventually joined the First Order, continuing to serve the Emperor until his death at the hands of his old teammates.

Inferno Squad, also known as Inferno Squadron, was commissioned after the Alliance to Restore the Republic scored its first major victory when they stole the plans to the Death Star during the Battle of Scarif, and ultimately destroyed the battle station during the Battle of Yavin in 0 BBY. Inferno Squad, consisting of Captain Iden Versio and agents Gideon Hask, Seyn Marana and Del Meeko, were tasked with infiltrating and ultimately destroying the Partisans, an extremist group that was led by resistance fighter Saw Gerrera before his death.

After Gerrera's death on Jedha during the destruction of Jedha City, the remaining Partisans scattered, and whilst some handed themselves in or were killed, the remainder formed a group living off Gerrera's dream by calling themselves the "Dreamers," and with knowledge provided to them were somehow dealing severe blows into the Galactic Empire. Admiral Garrick Versio set out a plan to help get each of the four members to the Dreamer base. Meeko and Hask would pose as brothers within the Nebula cell, where they would infiltrate a pirate ship and ally with the Dreamers, Marana would pose as a slave to later be rescued by them, and Iden would be portrayed as a traitor to the Empire by pretending to somewhat sympathize with the rebels, and then be detained by the Empire and then rescued by the Dreamers.

Marana, Meeko and Hask each arrived on the Dreamer base, found on the dark side of the planet Jeosyn within a couple of weeks. Iden, accompanied by Azen Novaren who had rescued her from homeworld of Vardos, arrived over a month after her "act of treason." Knowing full well who Iden was, one of the high authority figures of the Dreamers and the one with the inside knowledge, known only as "The Mentor," aimed to use Iden as a "voice" of the Dreamers to try and strike blows at the Empire. At first, the squad could not be seen talking to each other as it would have given their identities away, but instead had to blend in with other Dreamers, helping where needed on missions and tasks throughout the base, using their skills to their advantage. Whilst Iden would learn to become the voice of the Dreamers, Marana would listen in to conversations throughout the base; whilst she only posed as knowing Basic and Huttese, she was fluent in numerous languages; Hask, whilst not being given his chance to fly ships, would help on supply runs and fix a destroyed TIE fighter and Meeko would help Piikow with his investigations on mysterious crystals found in strange statues.

As the weeks passed, whilst still committed to the mission, Inferno Squad were starting to see the human side to the group. Iden was slowly becoming good friends with the Mentor, Hask, whilst it was his task, was spending a lot of his time with the other high authority of the Dreamers Staven to see what he knew, Meeko's friendship was growing with Piikow, and Marana was helping to blossom a romantic relationship with another Dreamer member, Sadori Vushan, though she stated to have no actual romantic feelings for him.

Despite this, the squad had begun to see irregularities within the Dreamers. The Mentor and Staven had a somewhat rivalry, and after hearing about Novaren's background the squad realized he could become a liability. Communication between the squad was still an issue, however Meeko had engineered a droid that, when the time was right, would visit each squad member, who would then place their single-button communications device inside it. Their device would then receive a second button only for the members of Inferno Squad to talk on. Once all four members were in communication, they discussed on whether Novaren might be working as a double agent, so hatched a plan so that, should the situation arise, would dispatch of him.

The Mentor soon had a way to strike another blow at the Empire. With Iden now trained to speak publicly, the Dreamers infiltrated Ephor Emoch Akagarti's family home on Affadar, where Iden, Staven, Nadrine and Kaev took him and his family hostage. Iden, Staven, Nadrine and Akagarti traveled to the water purification plant, where they staged a recording showing how the plant wasn't purifying the water it sold to many consumers. Whilst Akagarti refuted the claims and stated he would happily drink it to prove it was drinkable, Iden played against him by claiming that whilst the water was not deadly to a grown adult, unless vast quantities were drank at once, to a child the water was considered lethal. She told Kaev, back at the Akagarti family home with his wife and children, to give one of the children a bottle to drink, where Akagarti admitted the claims were true. Akagarti was thrown in the water, Nadrine stayed for a little longer to get some shots of the plant. Stormtroopers however had been led to the plant, and in the escape Nadrine perished.

Back on Jeosyn, looking for someone to blame on how they were found out, Staven was told about information found in his ships databanks, making claims that Novaren was actually working as a double agent, claims which Marana had planted. Knowing his death was imminent, Novaren made idle threats to the Dreamers, where, after seven hours of torture, he died.

Things were starting to fall in to place with Inferno Squad as the tensions were beginning to rise within the Dreamers. Hask was becoming ever more closer to Staven, which helped hugely if Iden needed Hask to plant ideas into his mind. Meeko was beginning to see Piikow as somebody whom he might be able to switch to the side of the Empire, upon sharing similar ideals. Marana's relationship with Sadori would also help, due to the fact that she was also becoming friendly with his parents, Ru and Halia Vushan. Their relationship would also benefit in the next mission for the Dreamers.

The next mission would be to infiltrate a munitions factory on Anukara, with Marana and Sadori portraying themselves as school children. The school they would be with would receive a tour of the factory and their task was be to plant bombs which would ultimately eliminate Moff Rys Deksha and General Ivel Toshan. Still raw from the death of Nadrine, Staven found this as a great opportunity to also kill the four hundred school children that studied under the eye of the Empire. Whilst many objected, including the members of Inferno Squad, Staven had the last word on it.

When the mission began, posing as a couple, Marana and Sadori (who wore make up to cover his alien look) successfully infiltrated the factory with the school, with Marana claiming she had a disability that required Meeko's ID10 seeker droid, which ultimately carried parts of her bomb, whilst she attached most of it to her chest. Meeko's role was to act as Marana's father, where she would call him and relay information to him as if it was a regular conversation. When the time came to plant the bombs, the plan was to set them to blow in five minutes once activated. However Marana was against killing the other children, so she planted her bomb in the way that once it activated, it would detonate after fifteen minutes, which would kill the moff and general, but would give the children enough time to leave the area. Once five minutes had passed, Sadori realized the bombs hadn't gone off. Whilst Marana tried to hint what she had done, Sadori realized the mission couldn't be accomplished unless the bombs detonated. He kissed Marana, where he then entered the factory again to see what went wrong. Realizing he would learn the truth, Marana activated the bomb, killing him, the Moff and General in the blast, though the children remained unharmed.

Marana met with Iden soon after, where Marana consoled her on how she would never forget Sadori running back into the factory. With Ru and Halia seeing her as a friend of the family, they invited Marana to share in the shun-rai, a somewhat funeral meal for Sadori.

A week later, Marana was listening in to conversations from all manners of languages. She listened into a conversation between Piikow and Dahna, who were questioning Ru and Halia's parenting. Marana exclaimed back at them, only to remember that the pair were speaking in Chadra-Fan. Dahna picked up on this, as she recalled that Marana said she could only speak and understand Basic and Huttese. Believing Marana to be a traitor, Dahna dragged her to Staven. Things became heated as Staven began accusing Marana of being an Imperial agent. Marana struggled to talk her way out of the situation, and the Dreamers questioned what to do with her. Some Dreamers demanded her death, so Staven, who had not trusted Iden since day one, handed her the vibroblade and demanded she question Marana. In the heat of the moment, and upon seeing several Dreamers rush Marana, Iden turned to face Marana, and with immense shock, quickly found her blade thrusted into the young soldier's chest, resulting in her death soon after, the body later being dumped in the wilds.

Staven then demanded Iden follow him, where in private, he gave her a chance to prove she was not also a traitor. With her feelings towards her father, she managed to convince him. With this, it was time for Inferno Squad to actually get what they came for and find out where the Mentor got his information from. A plan was created that whilst Staven and some Dreamers would go out to get some more Dahna fruit, Meeko and Piikow would show the statues to the Mentor, hoping he might be able to help figure out what the crystals were for. Iden's plan was, while everyone was distracted, to infiltrate the Mentor's quarters to find out where he might be obtaining the information, whilst Hask kept a look out. When she entered his quarters, she found a datapad, which turned out to be the Mentor's journal, that she was easily able to access. Whilst reading, Iden made it look like somebody had been searching his room, and then portrayed the facade of going for a run.

When the Mentor returned to his quarters, he had noticed his room had been searched and his journal read. He instantly blamed Staven. After fighting, the Mentor stormed off. Staven demanded Hask to go with him as well, where they spoke in private. Staven then asked Hask to kill the Mentor, which Hask agreed was for the best. Meanwhile, Hask let Iden know of this, who had followed the Mentor to the amphitheater where they had trained on Iden's public speaking. With a gun trained on him, the Mentor revealed exactly how he was obtaining the information for strikes against the Empire. The Mentor revealed himself to be Lux Bonteri and also revealed he had in fact been given the information by his stepdaughter, who had now changed her name. Loyal to the Empire, she had given him eleven potential chances for Bonteri to hand himself in. Instead, he used this to strike blows against the Empire. After obtaining the information she needed, Iden fired at Bonteri and obtained the datachip he held with the information provided to him.

Hask then communicated with Iden, telling her that he had a surprise for her. Upon returning to the encampment, she found that Hask and Meeko had succeeding in killing all the Dreamers. This made Iden furious due to Bonteri's words. Tensions rose between Iden and Hask, but were interrupted when the statues Meeko and Piikow had researched came to life and took the bodies of the Dreamers to take care of and handle with care.

Iden, Hask and Meeko returned to the Empire, where they were debriefed by Garrick. Whilst stating things could have gone better, he commended their work. Whilst Iden was away, her mother, Zeehay Versio, had passed away. Not believing Iden was the traitor, she thought she was after Garrick and, showing compassion, revealed the top secret details of Iden's mission to her before she passed. Inferno Squad's next mission was to neutralize individuals who were blackmailing a Moff. They all arrived on the Corvus where they remembered Marana, who would always be known as a hero to the Empire.

Following the defection of Crix Madine to the Rebel Alliance, Inferno Squad locked down all information that Madine had access to before his defection in order to get a better understanding of what possible Imperial secrets would be in the hands of the rebels.

Inferno Squad were deployed as one of Palpatine's answers to the Crimson Dawn agents hidden throughout the Empire. On one occasion, the three members of the squad gunned down two agents who were undercover as Imperial officers.

Following Darth Vader and Lieutenant Jyala Haydenn's mission on Bestine IV, Inferno Squad was requested by Vader to undertake a mission to track the rogue the bounty hunter Beilert Valance and wipe his memory of classified information he may have witnessed.

Shortly before the battle of Endor, the rebels intercepted a transmission sent by Moff Derrek Raythe to imperial forces that would give away the trap if the rebels decoded it. To prevent this Iden purposely got captured to get aboard the Invincible Faith where the message was being decoded. She then declined the ship's captains offer to join the rebellion and escaped. She kept it quiet until she reached the communications center where she deleted the message. This triggered the rebel alarm leading tons of troops to try and prevent her escape. She stole a A280C rifle and ordered Hask, who was commanding the Corvus, to begin to move in for extraction. Meanwhile she fought her way to the airlock, meeting heavy resistance on the way. Eventually, she reached the airlock and ejected herself into space as Hask counted down. Seconds after the Corvus came out of hyperspace and she landed in the hangar bay. It jumped away just as the rebel cruiser opened fire. On the bridge Iden congratulated them on their success.

With their success, the rebels fell into the trap at Endor, In 4 ABY, Iden, Hask and Meeko participated in the Battle of Endor. They were on the forest moon when the Rebels destroyed the second Death Star. After this, they sought to avenge Emperor Palpatine, who had perished along with the station. Inferno Squad then made their way to platform four, eliminating any rebels they encountered. After acquiring several TIE Fighters, Iden, Meeko, and Hask then made their way through the debris field formed from the ruins of the Death Star and aided the Corvus in retreating to Vardos.

Admiral Versio then assigned Inferno Squad several missions that would be crucial to Operation: Cinder. The first mission was to go to Fondor's shipyards where they would assist the Dauntless in retrieving several satellites crucial to the Operation. However, the shipyards came under attack by several rebel ships. Iden and Hask flew TIEs while Del commanded the Corvus. The rebels sent X-wings, A-wings, and U-wings. As the tie fighters fought to defend the Dauntless Iden and Hask targeted the U-wings and destroyed them so they couldn't board the Dauntless. Iden informed her squad and Moff Raythe, who was commanding the battle, that she was going to board the enemy ship to take out their ion cannons and ordered Hask to join her when she gave the order.

Upon arriving in the enemy hangar in her TIE fighter, Iden destroyed many ships and killed many personnel. The rebels panicked as she moved through the hallways taking out several rebel soldiers with the TL-50 Heavy Repeater. She order Hask to group with her in the weapons bay. She and Hask fought off waves of rebels as Iden's ID-10 seeker droid exposed the cooling cells which Iden destroyed. Following this they returned to the space battle where they learned the Dauntless had regained power but the docking clamps were locking it in place. On Raythe's orders Iden destroyed them, allowing the Dauntless to break free. The star destroyed then crippled the rebel warship with barrages of turbolaser fire.

Afterwards, they were sent down to rescue headmaster Gleb from Vardos. Iden and Meeko then went rogue after disobeying orders to extract Gleb alone, leaving Hask as the remaining member of Inferno Squad. When Iden, Meeko, and Dio joined the New Republic, they served in a new version of Inferno Squad with Danger Leader Shriv Suurgav. Years later, Zay Versio, the daughter of Iden and Meeko, was part of the squad and fought for the Resistance.

Inferno Squad used specialized and heavily modified gear alongside standard Imperial equipment to fulfill its unique mission requirements. Commander Versio used a TL-50 Heavy Repeater blaster rifle modified with an additional power cell which allowed for a secondary concussive blast power mode, while agents Hask and Meeko carried standard E-11 medium blaster rifle rifles as their personal weapons. Meeko, specialized in sniper duty, aditionally carried a DLT-19x sniper rifle. They were afforded customized armor which included a realspace-rated modified Imperial Starfighter Pilot helmet with red lenses and the Inferno Squad icon engraved on the forehead, however, Inferno Squad Helmets were also equipped with a small CGT device which allowed them to detect fluctuation in the gravity field from cloaked individuals. They also had a chest mounted life support pack and black scout trooper body armor worn over a pressurized body glove. The unique combination of parts from different Imperial Army inventories allowed the agents to operate in virtually every environment, from the vacuum of space to aboard enemy ships.

Apart from their personal equipment, the unit was given access to a modified ID10 seeker droid which Versio usually carried on her back to assist in scouting enemy territory and provide close quarters support with its electro-shock prod and a variety of technical gear such as electrobinoculars, which they carried aboard Corvus. The ship had received a variety of customizations which enabled it to be flown by a single pilot and added improved computer systems.

Inferno Squad was first revealed on the official Star Wars website on February 17, 2017, with the announcement of their feature book. On April 14, 2017, EA Star Wars posted on Twitter a video teasing the announcement trailer of Star Wars Battlefront II at Celebration Orlando the next day. The video also featured Aurebesh text, which reads "Inferno Squad" when translated. In the Celebration Orlando livestream, the group was revealed to be in the game, and the focus of the single-player campaign.