A cute little thing I had in mind for a while.

Year 14 of the Empire: Garm Bel Iblis looks for warships

When it came to spaceships, senator Garm Bel Iblis preferred Corellian Engineering Corporation products, as expected from a Corellian and political representative of the Five Worlds in front of the galaxy. But when it came to set up a pan-galactic Rebellion he couldn't afford to be picky, especially when it came to cruisers - Rendili Stardrive's dominance of that segment of the security force market meant there was never a large production, and most of what CEC had made had ended up in either the Grand Army of the Republic, and thus the Imperial Navy, or the heavily scrutinized Corellian Defense Fleet. Thus he was willing to buy, steal and procure anything that could fly and fight if it could serve the Rebellion, especially when it was cruisers. And this Hoffner that had come to him said he had cruisers for him - hundreds of them.

"What kind of cruisers are we talking about?" Bel Iblis asked, hoping it wouldn't be another bust.

"Dreadnought-class." Hoffner replied, getting Bel Iblis' hopes a bit up: given their immense production run it was perfectly possible that the Republic, the Separatists, or someone else just lost such a large number of those ships somewhere, and even if they had suffered great damage they could still be turned into assault frigates. Then Hoffner announced the precise model: "Katana subtype."

"Wait, all Katanas were quickly upgraded to the Beskad subtype after the disappearance of..."

"Exactly: I've found the Katana Fleet." Hoffner announced, knowing that those ships' symbolic value made them more valuable than the normal market price of even the Spadroon subtype. Then he noticed that the senator was holding his face with his hand. "Senator, this is not a scam-it was the result of a hyperspace accident, but I did indeed find the Dark Force, and none of my crew recognized it."

"Is the name Talon Karrde familiar to you?"

"Yes, he was my old navigator, who quit right af... THAT BASTARD!"

Garm Bel Iblis sighed in resignation and relief: it had been another bust, but at least this time they hadn't tried to scam him. Plus, he hadn't needed to tell Hoffner that his old navigator sold him the location of the Katana Fleet almost a year ago.

note

Directly from the original Thrawn Trilogy, the legendary Katana Fleet, the last attempt of the Judicials' more honest leaders to turn their service in what it was supposed to be. 200 Dreadnought-class cruisers of the (then) newest model, crewed by the Judicials' finest and equipped with complex slave circuits to reduce the crew complement-and then lost to an insanity-inducing virus of possible artificial origin. And now the Rebellion has them. And won't turn them into assault frigates-it's the Katana Fleet, too important for that.