The conspiracy theories about Raiders conducting attacks with high-tech Faction weaponry and Faction warships turn out to be true. Despite official enmity with the Raiders, the Academy, Guild and Church are sometimes willing to clandestinely hire selected groups of Raiders for especially odious or dangerous tasks. They're lent powerful equipment for the duration, and if something goes very wrong, their employers do not risk an internal crisis. Similar arrangements are sometimes made with sympathetic Govt squads, and their official superiors have little power to prevent it, with Govts being fractured as they are.