Approximately two years earlier, Mid Rim Territories, aboard the cruiser Black Knight

"Are you sure about this," Harth asked as he handed Garin the vacsuit helmet.

"I'm open to suggestions," Garin said fitting the helmet and switching over to comlink.

"Kindran should have a route in a few hours, then he can get past her locks and we can go in and take her down."

Garin paused, turning to look at Harth dubiously, "two things: first, she isn't an enemy to be eliminated; second, we don't have the time to spare for Orlis though I don't doubt he and the techs are working to override the hard lines as we speak."

"She's locked down our ability to fight," Harth said with a stern face, "that sounds like an enemy to me."

"And to think, if anything happens to me the unit is in your hands," Garin said with a shake of his head as he fitted the booster harness to his back. "I'm showing green."

Harth patted his back, "all green."

"Clea—"

"Hang on Gar," Garin turned to find Toth standing next to Sissir.

"If you're going to tell me I deserve this save it Toth, I know I've karked this thing into the Unknown Regions."

"That's not what I'm here for; I just wanted to wish you good luck. Get our Chief back."

Garin paused and sighed. "My terminal password is Diamond Blue. If I get myself killed you'll need access to it."

"You won't sir," Sissir said simply. "You've got a lot to make up for."

Garin didn't say anything to that, "clear."

"Clear," Harth echoed, closing the airlock to the hatch.

The booster pack was essentially a miniaturized engine; he keyed the control stick and jetted out into the space around the Knight rotating until he was even with her deck before he fired the engines again and turned to face the hangar bay. Daru was on the primary flight deck where the wing's fighters were berthed, a human—even one wearing a vacsuit—would have a hard time going through the MAGCON* field that kept the hangar's atmosphere and pressure stable but that was about the only way in at this point. Unless he wanted to call it quits and wait for Orlis to find a way past the locks Daru had activated. He'd have to ask her just how she'd figured out how to lock down the entire hangar and its flight decks. He hadn't realized it was doable from anywhere but engineering or the bridge.

"Sir I have you on external cams," came Sissir's voice.

"Good to know I have an audience," he responded with equal dryness as he positioned himself in front of the MAGCON field and hit his thrusters. "How are our friends across the way?"

"The Severance is maintaining position; our hull is currently shielding your activity from them."

"Good, last thing we need is for them to think there's something wrong," Garin didn't want to think what the rather gung-ho Freille would do if he thought Hades was vulnerable. Zsinj's watchdog had never really forgiven Hades for hacking his ships command routines to pieces and took whatever chance he could to cause trouble. Garin reached the MAGCON and propelled himself through, he immediately felt his weight shift as the heavy gravity in the field grabbed and slowed him. He licked his lips nervously, hoping that his suite would hold if it was breached he'd be in big trouble. The tense seconds of slowly drifting through the meter thick field felt like an eternity as his suit adjusted its pressure settings to compensate for the forces acting on it. Then he was through and under normal gravity again, his boots hit the deck with a jarring impact that jarred his teeth.

"I'm in, anything you can tell me?"

"No sir," now it was Kindran's voice instead of Sissir. "The Chief has done an excellent job of locking us out of all that area's systems."

Garin removed the helmet and heavy boosters, "copy, guess I'm alone then."

"Good luck sir."

Garin made his way towards the berthings for the fighters; he had no idea where Daru would be, but if he was going to start looking somewhere, that seemed like a good place. He looked around at the Defenders, Avengers, Star Wings, and Diamond Blues quietly wondering what Daru had been thinking when she'd pulled this stunt. Was she just so far gone that she'd thought she had nothing other than the fighters for comfort? Considering how much love she'd put into their maintenance before all this, that wouldn't surprise him much. Hell, the DBs were her brainchildren. He passed the ships that had been laid out on the deck for maintenance and frowned. There would have been several dozen crew members her doing routine work. Where had they scurried off to? He sincerely doubted, it was more of a hope, that Daru wouldn't hurt anyone other than herself. In all the rush to get here, he hadn't asked about the deck crews that must have been working throughout the hangar and its flight decks.

He looked up above him at the fighters sitting in their cradles, moving over to a utility lift, riding it up to the row of Defenders and walking along them quietly, he was going to search the entire kriffed hangar if he had to, but he was hoping that Daru was going to make this easy on him as he reached his fighter and sighed heavily at what he saw inside. Daru was curled up in a fetal position in his seat, her eyes clamped shut, her arms and legs tucked beneath her body. He climbed up the ladder to the open hatch, carefully letting himself onto the seat. Her eyes shot open and she backed away, slamming against the transparasteel screen behind her.

"Get away," she cried.

He didn't make any abrupt movements, smiling as best he could. "It's okay Daru, no one is going to hurt you."

She winced at his tone, closing her eyes, her hands clutching her head. "You aren't Garin, he wouldn't do this he wouldn't use me like that."

"I know he wouldn't," Garin said gently, she was practically hysterical, "I know he didn't mean to hurt you. It was all an accident and entirely his fault. He didn't take your feelings into account."

"I love him," she whispered sounding like a little child.

"He knows, and he loves you too."

Slowly, he reached out a hand for her, palm upwards; her eyes flicked open and she shrank from the hand.

"No, please don't hurt me, not again."

"I'm not going to hurt you; I'm going to get all of us out of here. Remember the shuttle?"

She nodded recalling the memory with a hesitant smile as he continued, "this is just like the shuttle, trust me, and we'll get everyone out safely. Everyone is worried about you Chief; they want to know you're safe."

He touched her, at first she didn't do anything, but then she jumped at him with an anguished cry, tears pouring from her eyes as she tried to scramble past him and out of the hatch. Out of desperation he grabbed for the nearest hold he could get on her, a braintail. She let out another shriek as his grip locked on and she went limp, falling into his arms.

He tapped his com, "I've got her."

"Do you see a datapad on her," Kindran asked.

He leaned Daru back against the chair and searched her jumpsuit, finding a datapad in her thigh pocket.

"Got it, any ideas?"

"I'll walk you through it sir, I should be able to undue what she's done."

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

"What did you do to her?"

I shrugged, "Twi'lek's braintails are very sensitive. I learned that during our relationship, I didn't even mean to grab hers they just happened to be in my reach."

"Again, what did you do to her; I don't see how your grip made her pass out."

"Grabbing the tail like I did was a sensory overload, they're that sensitive, and she passed out from the shock."

Deana nodded, "so your crew had voted to keep you as its commander, you'd gotten your hangar back, what about your Chief?"

"She was comatose for several hours; we didn't wait for her to wake up though. Everyone wanted to leave Zsinj's employ as quickly as possible. So we made ready and prepared for a jump to hyperspace."

She looked at my expression, her eyes narrowing. "Something went wrong."

"Doesn't it always?"

"The Severance and Freille," she said decisively.

"For a change, we weren't as good as we thought we were…."

Approximately two years earlier, Mid Rim Territories, aboard the cruiser Black Knight

Garin looked around the bridge; everyone had the same expression, what had just happened?

Kindran looked up sharply, "our engines are offline, sublight and hyperdrive. Engineering is trying to get it working now, but they don't know what the problem is yet."

Iriana opened her mouth, then paused as the communications board lit up, Captain Freille's smiling face appeared in the bridge.

"Going somewhere Commander?"

Garin smiled, "the thought had occurred to me."

Freille's eyes narrowed, though his smile remained, "that would be impossible. Since I now have control of your engines."

Iriana ground her teeth, "what did you do to my ship?"

"After our first meeting, I sent a request to Warlord Zsinj for some technical assistance, and while his technicians were not able to break into your mainframe, I'm afraid your engineering systems aren't nearly as well protected. I took the liberty of planting a new control circuit in your engine routines, now if you'll excuse me, I'll be over there shortly to take command and see to your confinement."

Freille's voice was smug as he signed off, Garin scowled, "we've just been hijacked by raw sewage;" he turned to Iriana, "are our weapons still functional?"

She did a quick check from her chair, and then nodded, "yes, he wasn't kidding about our mainframe being well protected."

"Give that slime something to think about, I'm taking our fighters out."

"Orders sir," Kindran asked quietly.

"Figure out what you need to do to fix this, and then fix it, once that's done jump. The fighters will follow the beacon."

"You realize, that we just got taken by a bunch of academy rejects right?"

"Can it Kalan," Harth chided.

"No seriously, we didn't think they could hurt us, and now look where we landed!"

"We get the point," Matrin said, "we got cocky; now let's finish this before they call for help!"

"How's Daru doing," Toth asked over a closed channel.

"She's still unconscious; I shouldn't have grabbed her like that," Garin said quietly.

"No," Toth said, his voice firm. "You shouldn't have let this stew so long; you had to realize how fragile she could be."

"Toth, she's a twi'lek female who served in the Imperial Fleet, how weak do you think she is?"

"She's still frail in her own way Gar. Hasn't she told you about some of the things that those bureaucratic scums did to her before?"

"Nothing, I didn't want to press her either." Garin frowned, "how do you know anything about it?"

"I'm sleeping with her shrink remember?"

"Sissir," Garin said with a snort.

"No, Darth Vader."

"Okay fine, things; like what?"

Before Toth could elaborate, flight control signaled and the fighters dropped from the flight chutes and exited into space, Kindran's voice came over the com.

"All fighters are to engage the Severance's fighter screen, they have two reinforced squadrons of TIE Raptors they shouldn't prove too troublesome. Our Skiprays will screen Rapier element as they attempt to board and disable the Severance while the Knight attempts repairs."

"Copy that control," Garin called out, swinging his Defender below the firing line of the Severance and Knight.

"Stang, the Captain wasn't kidding when she said the Gladiators were tough little ships."

Garin checked on Matrin's assertion and was surprised to see that the Severance, despite its smaller size was slugging it out with the Black Knight and moving around with relative ease under the heavy cruiser's attacks.

"This is Rapier, we're in space and heading for the Severance, our escorts are in attendance."

"Copy that Rapier, Shadow Lead moving to support."

Garin and his wingmen broke from their engagement and formed up on the assault shuttles and their Skipray escorts. Both craft types fired viciously from their turrets as they fended off the attention of the agile TIE Raptors. From what Garin could see, the Raptors, while not as powerful as his fighters, were very fast and small to boot with comparable armaments to an X-wing. It wasn't a pleasant combination.

"Incoming, Rapiers break," Garin wasn't sure who called out the warning but he broke, triggering chaff and flare charges as he rolled and hit his thrusters a shockwave hit his fighter a moment later, his inertial dampeners absorbed the impact but he felt it nonetheless.

"We just lost Rapier Two where did that come from?"

"All units be advised, the Severance has missile armament and is firing."

"Golem Three you've got a missile, missile!"

Garin filtered through the chorus of shouts and keyed Harth's com.

"Harth, knock out those launchers now before they get another shuttle."

"Already on it sir, Matrin and Kalan are leading their flights."

Garin nodded grimly as he reformed with the remaining two shuttles and the five Skiprays, they'd just lost forty-five good people; if they took Freille alive he was going to regret it.

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

"Forty-five in one shuttle," Deana said disbelievingly.

"Forty commandoes, and the crew of five," I responded quietly still wincing at the loss. "That one pack of Zsinj fanatics did more damage to us than all those years of taking on petty warlords in one engagement. We lost seventeen more people in the space fight and another twenty-three when one of the Raptor pilots rammed the Knight's hangar. When the commandos landed aboard the Severance we lost seven more commandos. It was one of our bloodier days."

"Did you take the Severance?"

"Oh we took her, Freille shot himself rather than let us have the honor, so did most of the officers. Diehard fanatics seem good at that." I leaned back and smiled coldly, "I think that was the biggest disappointment of the day."

"What did you do with the rest of the crew?"

"Most of the fighters ran after our remaining shuttles landed on the Severance's flight deck and Major Yvonne began taking the ship."

"And the crew," she persisted.

I shrugged; did she expect us to go on a slaughter because of our losses? We were hurt and angry, not to mention desperate to escape, but we weren't butchers.

"We took all the supplies and ordnance we'd need from them, spare parts, the bacta we'd been raiding, food, that sort of thing; and then sent a distress signal before setting them adrift. Beyond that I don't know or care what happened to them."

"Your unit vanished after that, Zsinj has no further reports on you, and when we took the Lusankya Isard didn't seem to have anything more on your movements either."

"That's because we disbanded shortly after breaking from Zsinj," I said deadpan.

She looked up from her datapad, her expression startled, "you disbanded the unit?"

*MAGCON—MAGnetic CONtainment field: I've seen this acronym spelled differently, with and without capitals in various Star Wars sources, I'm just doing this the way most militaries would do it to keep things simple.