Approximately four years earlier, hyperspace, aboard the cruiser Black Knight

"Did you see them panic," Matrin laughed merrily. "I swear they had no idea what they were doing!"

"That poor herd of nerfs had no idea what hit them, I can't believe Isard sent them against us." Kalan agreed, taking another bite out of his food.

The pilots were taking it easy and laughing about what they'd just escaped from, thought the laughter was more accurately directed at their would be capturers and their rather incompetent performance than the fact that they had escaped.

"Can you believe we used to be part of the same Navy?" Someone remarked, "too right!" Another called out, "bunch of yahoos wouldn't no which end of a missile was which!"

And those were the sentiments expressed by everyone, save Vic'que who was sitting quietly poking at her meal while everyone else laughed around her.

Garin took the seat besides her, "I didn't kill him you know."

She jumped, as if lost in her own world and gave him a halfhearted glare, "what are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry you didn't get the chance to talk to him, I imagine you were hoping for that chance given what you told me before."

She looked at the others around them, no one was paying them any mind, "I still want to know if I was nothing more than an idle passing for him."

"He said he was sorry, for what that's worth."

She snorted and Garin watched as she crushed the fort she was holding; he took a long draw on his glass, hopefully Stele was more durable than a plasteel utensil otherwise Garin would have been doing him a favor by killing him.

"Did he say anything else?" She finally asked.

"He said to keep you alive, and not get you killed by my fool's ideals."

Now she laughed, but it wasn't the kind of laugh that anyone would want directed at them. "Bastard, I'm here because I choose to be, because I have no where else to go, and because this is the damned closest thing I've had to a home and family in my entire life. What's that say about me, that you nerf herders are the best thing I have?"

Garin pondered what Daru had told him in the past, though he tactfully decided to not mention Daru at the moment, since Vic'que had discovered their relationship she'd been ever pricklier about the matter. He wondered if more people thought of the squadron as their family, besides himself that was. He already knew that he considered these people an extension to his tiny family back on Coruscant. It hadn't occurred to him that the notion of kinship could extend to others besides himself and Daru.

Finally he answered, "you're probably not as singular as you'd like to think."

"You honestly think anyone else would have such a pitiful thought?"

Now it was his turn to snort, "we've got to talk to your parents about raising children."

"I doubt they'd listen to someone from the military caste."

"You act like I'd give them a choice," Garin said with a smile.

She shrugged, a smile playing its way across her face. "Yes, you do tend to create your own rules."

Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards

"Wait, you went up against the 181st without a single loss?"

"Elements," I corrected off handedly "a later check of the flight data showed that there were at most eight of them there."

"I'm surprised you survived that ambush," she said in disbelief.

"Oh it was amateurish at best, they expected us to rejoin the fold after all, not attack them. Especially not in the manner in which we did; not a lot of pilots would drop their shields and weapons to pump their engines to max during a capital ship assault."

"Under any other circumstances it would have been suicide." She stated flatly.

I nodded, "yes if we hadn't had the element of surprise that we did Diamond wouldn't have been able to drive off the Victory so early in the fighting and the Knight would have had a much harder time of it."

"You seem to live on insane risks."

Somewhat ironically I was taking one right now, or at least Hades was which in the end was what she meant.

"From what I've heard, your Rogue squadron does much the same thing and with similar results."

"Not exactly modest are you Commander, comparing yourself to our best." She said with a skeptical eye, though she did smile slightly.

"Did Isard continue to hound your unit after that?"

"Of course, we'd hurt her pride, there was no way she'd let us off the hook. Fortunately she had other more pressing issues than some random fighter wing so she couldn't dedicate more than a few ships to chase us around the galaxy which let us continue to do what we'd assumed as our job…."

Approximately four years earlier, deep space, aboard the cruiser Black Knight

"We need a new paint job," Kalan declared.

"Huh," Matrin responded, putting down the holobook he'd been reading, "we need a what now?"

"A paint job, you know the kind of thing they used to do back in the Old Republic days."

"I'm going to go with no," Matrin said, eying his friend like he'd gone mad.

"Aw, come on its not like we're Empire anymore, why not get colorful? We're anti-pirates now, why not have something that strikes fear into our enemy's hearts?"

"Is anyone else listening to this?" Matrin asked of the others sitting around the rec room.

"I like it," Toth said with a smile, "he has a point, why not make a name for ourselves with something flashy?"

"I thought the idea was to stay hidden," Matrin reminded him, "and besides, you're a drunk."

"Only occasionally," Toth pointed out lucidly, "I also outrank you, so quiet."

Matrin frowned, "Harth, Garin, any help here?"

Harth and Garin exchanged glances before the former shrugged, "do what you want."

"Oh come on Gar," Toth said merrily, "it isn't like Insane Iceheart* doesn't already know we're out here and she hasn't been able to do anything about it yet."

"Yeah, and what was that last group doing, bringing us gift baskets?" Matrin retorted.

"They didn't even scratch us and you know it, we haven't lost a single pilot to those raids, and the 181st hasn't been sent after us either since that first thrashing we gave them so I say we get the paint job." Toth said, as if he'd just given an Imperial Ordnance.

Harth blinked and went back to his datapad without giving the conversation anymore thought, leaving Garin on his own to deal with three pairs of eyes.

"What are you, a bunch of children?"

Garin breathed a sigh of relief as Sissir walked into the room, though for the life of him he had the unnerving feeling she'd been there longer than just a few seconds.

"Why in space do we need to paint the ship anything?"

"Not just the ship Sissir," Toth said with a smirk as she leaned on the back of his chair and ran a hand through his hair; "the entire unit."

She blinked and shook her head, "why do I fall for the child?"

"Well it was actually my idea," Kalan volunteered.

She shot him an amused smirk, "so you're the one encouraging him, I'll remind Arusi to give you extra work on your time off."

Kalan mocked a wince, "you're cruel, Toth a little help?"

"Hey don't look at him; I just sleep with he—ow!"

"You deserved that," she said flexing her hand, "so Commander, what do you think about all this?"

Garin sighed, so she wasn't here to save him just to add kindling to the fire, "Kalan does have a point, we aren't with the Empire anymore, there's no need for use to bear its colors. After all, most people scare when they see us jump in. It'd be nice to have something that would identify us as something other as Empire when we first arrive."

"And scare our enemies," Toth supplied.

"And scare our enemies, yes;" Garin said, giving his friend an annoyed glare.

"Okay," Matrin said with an exasperated sigh. "Where do we get enough paint? We can't just show up at an Imperial base and ask for a few thousand cans of paint."

Garin thought for a moment before he shook his head disbelievingly of all things to need to use that offer for, this took the cake.

"I've got to say; when I got your message I didn't really know what to think;" he smirked, "granted that didn't stop me from meeting you here." Ace said as he and Garin looked out at the Black Knight. The repair yard's massive arms were applying the hyper-adhesive paint to the hull of the cruiser and Garin had to say he liked what he was seeing. The hull was being repainted with a single large black line down its centerline on both ventral and dorsal hulls with two smaller black lines flanking it. Outboard of the trio of lines were two blood red ovals lined with deep blue, these too were both on the dorsal and ventral hulls. The Knight was beginning to look like one of the old Venator-class Star Destroyers from the Clone Wars with their colorful pageantry that gave their unit information as it gave the ship a showy appearance.

"Do I want to know what inspired this idea of yours?" Ace asked idly as they turned away from the viewport and began walking.

"My Chief Deck Officer and her crew designed some patterns and passed them through the crew, this was what won out." Garin responded with a smile.

Ace nodded, leading the way into a small lounge and taking a seat as Garin did the same.

"You've got to be the strangest Imp unit I've ever dealt with."

"Well we're not technically Imperial anymore," Garin said, and briefly described what the unit had been doing the past several months since Endor. Ace listened quietly, pouring them both drinks and nodding every now or smiling when something amused him.

When Garin finished he shook his head, "you've got Isard in a fit over your unit, and if you'd like to know, Republic Intelligence doesn't know what to make of you either. Since you've got what amounts to no record; all they've got are a bunch of planetary and sector governments and a scattering of civilians that talk about a military outfit using Imperial equipment to deal with local crime lords and the occasional Moff gone rogue."

"What do you think would happen if we approached the Republic with our services?"

"At this point," Ace said, studying Garin carefully for a moment before continuing. "They'd probably hire you are you actually considering that?"

Garin shook his head, "just curious to know where your camp sits on our activities," he took a sip of his drink; it wasn't the best quality he'd ever had, Toth would have turned up his nose. "That reminds me, what are you doing here? I was expecting to speak with a member of your staff, not you. I'd have thought with all the activity lately that you'd be with your unit."

Ace shrugged, "I got time off for good behavior," he smiled at the dubious look Garin gave him. "No, I've been on leave since just after Bakura; I assume you heard about that?"

Garin nodded, "some unknown alien civilization tried to take over the galaxy starting out in the middle of nowhere."

"Yeah, well we got there, and the local Imperials agreed to a truce. We were winning and then all hell broke loose when the Imperial flagship slagged our flagship and the other Imperial forces turned on us as well. For a while we all thought we were about to die, General Solo was even about to attempt to ram the Carrack to get the rest of us free. Luke saved us somehow, more of his Force, Jedi, stuff I suppose and managed to give us the window to run. Eventually the Imperial forces surrendered to us, believe it or not the commander had a guilty conscience for shooting us in the back, and we were to beat the invasion without killing anyone else on our own side of the fight. The Ssi-ruuvi had to withdraw after the blow to their command structure that Luke dealt when they captured him and we called it a victory."

"Sounds like fun, but that doesn't explain what you're doing here." Garin pointed out.

"Oh, well I hadn't been able to come back and sort out family matters since just before Endor, so I requested leave, and considering that I'd just had my second command ship blown out from under me in less than a week I guess they decided I was bad luck and let me go." This last part he said with a rather foolish smile, which caused Garin to snort, Ace shrugged. "I'm due back soon, I'll be reporting to the Defiance and Jade Squadron so if you run into her try not to shoot me."

"Should you be telling me that?" Garin asked cautiously, nursing his drink distractedly.

"Should I be helping you?" He responded, Garin sighed and gave a shrug with no answer for him.

Ace's comlink buzzed and he pulled it up, "Ace here," he frowned, looking up at Garin for a moment before speaking again. "You're sure?" There was a shouted response from the comlink, "okay calm down; deploy the security units. Are any of our escort ships in the area?" There was a moment of silence before the response came again, "alright, signal the Tomaas and tell them they need to abort their convoy run. Reimburse the client and explain the sitau—yes, you do need to reimburse them. Just do it now."

Ace put the comlink back on his belt and stood, walking hurriedly from the room, Garin followed after him matching his agitated stride.

"What happened?"

"Can you still launch fighters with your ship in space dock?" Was the only response he received.

"Easily, so long as the hangar isn't being obstructed."

"Good, looks like you're going to be doing me a favor now," Ace turned the corner sharply forcing Garin to fall behind him for a moment, "an Imperial task force just dropped hyper and is demanding we surrender your unit."

Garin winced, Isard had the worst timing, "can I ask another favor?" Ace cast him a dubious look but nodded, "finish the Knight's paint job while we work things out with your guests?"

Ace couldn't help it, he laughed, "oh this is going to be interesting."

"What forces can you deploy?"

"Right now only starfighters; we don't have any bigger combat ships at this station."

"What kind of fighters are we talking about," Garin asked, his voice betraying what he expected to get by way of quality.

Ace scowled, "don't sneer at my people Garin, they're well trained and we've got some nice equipment."

"What kind of fighters," Garin repeated, his tone unchanged.

"Toscan, Razor, and Supa starfighters;" Ace responded, annoyance playing through his voice.

Garin looked at him in surprise, "you've got that much hardware available?"

Ace grinned modestly, "two of our competitors had a few mishaps over the course of the war and had to sell a lot of excess equipment, we were able to acquire most of their surplus, and not just fighters, we got a few capital ships, freighters, and transports in the mix."

"What is the Tomaas?"

"A bulk cruiser modified for combat it can carry a squadron of fighters, it'll be here in about forty-minutes."

"How many fighters do you have on hand right now?"

Ace gave an apologetic smile, eight Toscans, thirteen Razors and five Supas. We had to distribute our units around quite a bit; the Tomaas is carrying seven more Razors and five more Toscans."

"Well I've got an entire fighter wing, I think that will even the odds."

"I hope," Ace responded cautiously, "let's find out what we're up against first."

He gestured down the corridor to their left, "your ship is that way, I'm going to get the Otana out there."

Garin reached for his comlink, "Iriana, I won't be rejoining the unit, launch all fighters, Harth has command."

"Where are you sir?"

"Aboard the station, oh and don't undock yet, they need to finish the painting."

"I don't think this is the time to worry about a little paint sir," Iriana said reproachfully.

"Just make sure it's done before you set out okay? I don't want us overstaying our welcome more than we have to."

He replaced the comlink, Ace was looking at him like he'd sprouted a second head, "you'd rather fly in my transport than your fighter?"

"Are you going to show me the way or not?"

"Come on then, Emkay is going to love this."

Garin groaned, "you brought the damned droid?"

*Due to her rather unique name, Ysanne Isard earned many nicknames, Insane, Iceheart, and Icehard being among them.