Approximately five years earlier, aboard the cruiser Black Knight, Imperial Center
"I don't recall there being any unit wide assemblies today." Stele said stoically, standing across the lift from Garin.
"Something came up sir."
"I'm sure it did, this wouldn't have anything to do with those skeletons we turned over to the supply cruiser would it?"
Garin blinked and shrugged calmly; "I honestly have no idea, the Chief just said she wanted to show us something."
Stele's eyes narrowed as the lift came to a half and they stepped off and moved out into the hall. "Do not kark around with me Lieutenant-Commander, Thrawn might have tolerated your antics but this is a different unit now. Hades is under my command."
Garin nodded obediently, "yes sir."
Stele continued to glower at him until they reached the hangar deck, Daru had requested all pilots and officers be present and if Stele was anything he was a performer and never showed the other side of his command. He and Garin hardly saw eye to eye on most things, and when Daru had issued this summons his first reaction was to call Garin to his cabin and accuse him of circumventing the chain of command in acquiring new weaponry. Garin took his lessons from Matrin and Kalan and simply played innocent. Not that Stele believed him, but it didn't really matter. Both of them knew that ninety percent of the unit was behind Garin and there was little Stele could do to him if wanted to keep unit cohesion. The Emperor had specifically forbidden the disbandment of the unit because he didn't want to lose it unique skill-set for unconventional warfare should the need for it arise, even if he'd allowed Lord Vader to supplant the commanding officer. Garin didn't care if Stele had more medals and flight time, he was a grunt; the only tactic he knew was to throw his pilots at the enemy until one side ran out of pilots. It wasn't an endearing trait.
The hangar lighting was extinguished except for the entrance areas, beyond that the rest of the hangar was dark; Daru and her team of technicians, mechanics and what have you stood in front of the assembled crowd of pilots and officers.
Toth came to stand next to Garin, "sorry for not seeing you earlier sir."
"How was the Major?"
"She's still under the weather; doctors aren't sure what she contracted. They think its some kind of flu."
Garin glanced over at Stele who was watching Daru expectantly; ever since Stele had come aboard as the commander, relationships aboard ship had evaporated. Sissir and Toth now did everything secretly and anyone that so much as looked at the opposite sex got work detail and a dressing down at best. Granted, those who paid attention realized that he and Vic'que had been seeing each other behind closed doors. She seemed to delight in the relationship from what Garin had learned that Stele, according to ship wide rumor, was a cold fish but entertained her attentions. Whatever Vic'que had done, it had worked and Stele had allowed the missile boat turn over to be delayed for a month. Daru, true to form, had them stripped inside of three weeks and then had simply disappeared; that wasn't to say that her people hadn't been doing their jobs, no they'd been doing them, in fact they'd been doing them at a greater level of proficiency than they'd ever done under combat conditions.
Garin had come to suspect this was Daru's way of keeping attention off of her other work, and personally he had no complaints. He knew that if she said she had an idea, to let her run with it; and even if he wasn't in command, he could still make use of his people; even the ones that were normally his worst enemies, Vic'que case in point.
"Thank you everyone for coming on such short notice," Daru began, drawing everyone's attention forwards, "I want especially to thank Commander Stele for allowing my people to have the time necessary to do what was needed."
Garin smiled, she was good; by making it sound like it had been Stele's idea in the first place it both prevented her from looking like she'd gone behind his back, which was the case, and also gave him credit for whatever she'd created even if he'd had nothing to do with it.
"As everyone is aware, we've had to turn over our missile boats which meant that Diamond needed a replacement. However, none of the current mass production models for strike or bomber craft were found acceptable for the role. So we decided to take matters into our own hands and with Captain Arusi's assistance we created this."
She gestured behind her, and on cue the lights went up, revealing twelve factory new fighters, they looked like someone had gotten the work orders for a missile boat and a TIE Advanced Mark One confused, but even if they weren't pretty, Garin had to admit that they looked lethal.
Daru stepped off the ladder she'd been standing on as a holoprojector cast an image of the fighter above the lined up squadron.
"We call the project Diamond Blue," she said, sounding just a bit embarrassed, Garin looked over at Matrin and Kalan and found what he suspected, broad grins. Stele had yet to stifle their…creative method of work theory.
"We took the basic frame of the Mark One Advanced and reworked the power plant and engines with parts from the Mark Two Advanced, giving the Diamond Blue a speed slightly faster than the Mark One, but slower than the Mark Two, though it is less maneuverable than the Avenger for obvious reasons." She motioned at the holo and parts began to highlight as she described them.
"We kept the two under slung lasers, but stripped away the port and starboard concussion missile launchers, replacing them with the heavy laser and beam weapon mounts from the missile boat on port and starboard respectfully, the power routings have been changed accordingly to manage for the additional power required for these weapons and there is no loss of overall performance."
The four bulbous missile housings mounted to the left and right, above and below the cockpit highlighted next.
"We transferred the missile launchers and ordnance pods from the missile boat to these ventral and dorsal positions. They can carry the same magazine of forty concussion missiles in the missile pods; the ordnance pods are also unchanged from their previous configuration and can either carry the same forty missiles, or a mixture of other armaments."
She went on to describe the upgraded avionics and targeting systems, the upgraded shields, new hull plating and armor to make the ordnance and missile pods flush with the hull and a myriad of other tweaks that had been made to make the TIE/DB a viable fighting platform. By the time she'd finished her description of the new fighter, even Stele looked impressed, and he was the first to start applauding her work. Garin took note that most of the Shrike's did not follow their leader's example and remained silent, a few of them eying Daru with the same hatred that Vic'que often graced the twi'lek with, though even Lieutenant Sajuuk was looking at Daru with that strange kind of pride that comes from serving together at the moment. He made note of the ones with that hateful expression; if anything happened to Daru he'd know who to go to with a few commandos as back up.
Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards
"She created an entirely new design from scratch?" Deanna said in shock.
"Well we had the spare parts, all she needed was the stripped components from the missile boats and some TIE Advanced frames which she requisitioned as a priority using the unit's logistics code."
"I assume your unit had a special code for that sort of thing?"
I nodded, taking a sip of water before stretching. "How much longer do we have to do this exactly?"
"Until I have everything I need Commander, we're still three years back I believe." She examined her notes, "your work under Vader's command, what was it?"
"Nothing pleasant, we were usually ordered to suppress uprisings, in many cases we were ordered to destroy entire communities."
"And you did?" Her voice was accusatory.
"We didn't have much choice really, Vader kept us on a tight leash, and with Stele's men aboard we had even less maneuvering room."
"I don't understand, they were just normal people weren't they? Aside from their standing with Vader and the Emperor I mean."
"That's what we all thought, until one of them slammed one of our troopers into a wall without even touching him."
Her eyes widened as she absorbed what I had just said, "they were force sensitive?"
"Oh they were more than sensitive; they were trained and knew how to use it to beat the drives out of anyone that misbehaved. When we realized what we were dealing with it became rather obvious that they weren't just there to give Vader and the Emperor more control over us," I took a long draw on the water, emptying my glass and eying it dubiously.
"More?" She asked.
"Could I have something heavier? If I keep drinking all this water I'm going to need a bathroom."
"Then you can use the bathroom, I can't give you alcohol and you know it."
I snorted and shook my head, "oh well, can't blame a guy for trying."
"What were Stele and his men Commander?"
"They were executioners put there to make sure we stayed in line, and to eliminate us if necessary; we were just glad that they didn't carry lightsabers. Our particular skill-set, while useful to the Empire, also made us seem like a likely candidate for defection." I smiled ironically, "if any of them, Vader, Palpatine, or Stele, realized how close we came to defecting just before the Zaarin campaign they would have had us killed immediately."
"How many members of the crew came to this realization?"
"Oh quite a few, as a matter of fact, once the officers figured it out, it seemed like most of the enlisted men had already realized it."
My expression must have betrayed something because she frowned, "something special happened I assume that makes this standout?"
"Remember when I told you I'd give you details about my personal relationships when they were chronologically relevant?"
She nodded, looking at me a little suspiciously as I smiled fondly at the memory surfacing in my mind of one night just after we'd pounded some half-starved town into the dust as an example to the rest of the planet….
Approximately five years earlier, aboard the cruiser Black Knight, deep space
Garin rolled over in his bed, glaring at the chrono on his desk, he'd barely lain down, why was someone bothering him now? If it was so damned important they should go wake up Stele. The knock came again, and why in space weren't they using the karking door chime? He stood and walked over to his refresher, leaning against the sink and splashing water on his face, he contemplated putting something other than his undershorts on, but then decided to hell with it, they wanted to wake him up they could deal with the consequences. The knock came a third time, more urgently now and he scowled at the offending door as he left the refresher station and headed towards the door, this had better be important or he was going to skin someone.
He palmed the door and nearly had a heart attack as Sissir stood up, scowling as she replaced the command splicer to her belt.
"About time you answered," she said in annoyance, "I was about to breach the door."
"Why are you trying to break into my quarters in the first place?" Garin said with a growl, feeling like a moron for coming to the door in his underwear now, especially since Sissir was dressed in full infiltration kit, "and what the hell are you doing running around the ship dressed like that?"
"Making sure Stele's men know I mean business, I don't care if they are force freaks, if they try anything I'd have broken more than a few bones;" she clenched her fist, her knuckles cracking threateningly. "They want to mess with us; I'll show them how effective their force is against a trained commando."
Garin leaned against the door jam, sighing as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Please tell me you didn't come here and try to break down my door just to tell me you were going to kill someone."
Her voice softened and she reached out past Garin's field of vision, "come on Blue, I don't want to leave you out here forever."
Garin frowned, Blue? What was Da—oh; his mind went blank as Daru stepped into his view, looking rather embarrassed, even shamed, though also terrified. She wasn't wearing her normal utility jumpsuit, she was wearing a two piece white dress, with a top that ended just above her navel and a long skirt that flowed around her legs with slits up to her thighs. Garin shook his head, staring dumbly at her, he hardly recognized her, Sissir rolled her eyes and smacked him lightly on the cheek.
"And Toth is supposed to be the unit's drunk; wake up sir."
He shook himself, casting a reproachful glare at Sissir, she returned his gaze stonily and he realized that he really didn't have anything to say; he was standing in his doorway practically naked with an armed commando and a dressed up CDO who looked like she belonged in someone's dream…for that matter was this a dream? The stinging of his cheek argued otherwise.
"Uh…" he shook his head, stepping aside. "Come in?"
Daru moved past him, she looked ashamed, just what in space was going on here? He looked at Sissir expectantly; she snorted and patted him on the shoulder like he was the town dummy.
"Sorry sir, I'm a one man kind of girl, be nice, she's having a rough time."
Garin turned away from the door as it whooshed closed and turned in the darkened room to see Daru sitting quietly on the couch against the wall. He went to his desk and produced Toth's latest gift and a glass, he lifted it up and she nodded quietly, her gaze never meeting his. He placed the glass before her and she took a long hard pull, swallowing the entire glass in one go, and then started coughing violently, which shortly turned to sobs.
"I'm sorry, I'm such an idiot, I'll go. I thought--"
She didn't finish as she stood and made for the door, he caught her arm and pulled her close, she froze like a hunted animal as he put his arms around her gently the soft silk of her dress conforming to both their bodies as they touched. She shivered as he stroked her brain tails soothingly, closing her eyes as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"I don't quite understand Chief, you're the one dressed up and I'm wearing nothing but my underwear. Shouldn't I be the one feeling like an idiot?"
She managed a laugh and put her arms around his shoulders, holding him tightly as she continued to cry fitfully. Garin did actually feel like an idiot because he really had no idea what was going on; or for that matter, if this was just some crazed dream, and he was really just laying in bed sound asleep fantasizing about his Crew Chief. Though if it were he'd have expected to be dressed a little more conspicuously considering that she was dressed for a party, for that matter, wouldn't he be fantasizing a nicer place for them to be?
Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards
Deanna stared at me dumbly, "what in space?"
I chuckled, "yes, those were my exact thoughts."
"No, I'm serious Commander, what did you just tell me?" She said, sounding as bewildered as I'd felt that night.
I looked at her plainly, smiling with a shrug. "Do you want me to tell you the rest of the story Lieutenant?"
She shook her head, leaning forwards on her elbows. "You're serious, your CDO came to your cabin in the middle of the ship's night cycle dressed like she was going to a ball and you greeted her in your underwear?"
"That's exactly what happened," when she put it like that, I really did sound like an idiot, but that was part of the fun of the incident I suppose.
"Remember when we were talking about holodramas before Commander?" I nodded, pretty sure I knew where this was going as she continued; "well this is a really sappy one."
I grinned and shrugged, "I wish I was making it up, it does sound pretty bad though, and you haven't even heard the reasons for her being there…."
Author's Note: If I have any artists in my readers and you feel like drawing the Diamond Blue, feel free to do it, I can barely sketch let alone draw a fighter. Just be sure to share your work with me, I'd love to see it. Also, for those of you that think the TIE/DB is ridiculous, sorry, I decided to take a liberal hand in this case for author created material and had a lot of fun doing it….and plus, if you've read half the Star Wars novels you'll find a whole crap load of TIE slap jobs…I mean hell, Zaarin did it didn't he? As for Daru, you are now seeing the original reason I included her character in this story, however I am happy to say that she evolved into more of a character (and a damned fine mechanic) than a plaything otherwise she'd never have been able to stay in the story…sorry if this story arc seems a bit juvenile or obvious to some people, I couldn't resist though.