Captain Kalen Baathor, Executive Officer of the newly reactivated Rogue Squadron, switched his IF/F transponder over from the neutral signal his fighter had been using to a Red Squadron designation as he cleared the hanger bay of the Imperator-class Star Destroyer "War's Beauty", home of Rogue Squadron. The Captain was taking the first batch of recruits to pass the simulator trials out on astrogation testing. Eleven other X-wings followed, exiting in wing pairs and forming up behind him. Once the squadron was in formation Kalen lead them for the first jump point.

As he did so they passed his old smuggling vessel, a YV-666 named the "Justice Lost". It would be coming along behind them, in case the factory X-wings the recruits were flying had any problems. If so pilot and fighter would ride home aboard the ship.

Baathor shuddered, fighting off the creepy feeling he kept getting since he'd returned to the Rogues, a product of his holographic memory and his time in the squadron during Gavin Darklighter's command. He'd lost many friends during that period, as they fell to all manner of enemies. That was why he had left, thier memories haunted him, he could never forget thier deaths.

Kalen had gone on for years after leading the squadron, merely surviving day to day while his smuggling experience grew, eventually guiding him to leadership of a small band. One run though brought all his old memories back to the surface, and the next day Kalen tried to kill himself, an attempt to crash his X-wing into the wilderness of some dustball Outer Rim world. There, as his ship spun in a self-induced spin, he had an epiphany. Baathor realized that the destructive path he'd taken was doing nothing to honor all of those fallen friends. His death would not release him from the pain of those memories, only make sure that his lost comrades would be forgotten.

Thus, the former Rogue had made a decision, one to return to duty to serve as a good example to younger pilots as those lost had done for him. At the first opportunity Kalen had gotten in contact with the current commander of Rogue Squadron, Commander Trevelan. He'd joined back up just before the unit was deactivated. But now that they were returning to duty, he'd been asked by Daren to serve as his executive officer. Hesitantly he'd agreed, and now was heavily involved in training a new generation of Rogues.

The Captain's memories were interrupted as his R2 unit beeped at him to let him know they'd reached the jump point. Kalen straightened up and sent out a squadron message. "All right recruits, we're set to make the jump. Double check the coordinates in your nav computers, make sure they're the same as I'm transmitting now. We jump in 30 seconds."

All squadron members came back with affirmatives, and away they jumped, with the smuggler ship following behind.

Daren had learned to walk lightly through the passageways of battleships in his time as a major, mainly because of the great disturbances he would cause the others nearby grief in their assignments, the quarters in naval battleships were often so small that the tiniest of sounds more often than not reverberated and echoed into the most annoying of raps to those nearby.

But his light walking had become second nature to him, and he did not even have to exhert effort to do so. Even if he did, he was not paying attention, he was so drowned in the reports of the new recruits to Rogue Squadron that he could have walked right into a lightfight without even knowing it.

Every now and again he stared upward, just to make sure he was still on course, or to make sure he would not hit his head on a bulkhead or anything of that sort.

The pilots seemed to be in good working order, and for the remnants of the New Republic they would serve as a very...very good front line defense, or at least he hoped. Apparently one of the only ones who had any real flight experience, in combat at least, was the Sullustan of the squadron, Sin Veub.

After the Dark Jedi attacks on the planet, he had been forced to take an old, beat up R-41 Starchaser to try to hold off the hordes of TIE starfighters the madmen had sent down. He and just a handful of others managed to hold the planet until Republic forces arrived to chase the forces off.

He had forty five kills to his name, and that was in two months of fighting, it was unbelieveable. But it was not like he did not have competition. The lieutenant was being followed quickly by the pilot from Sernpidal, Jarex Cark, one of the few imports during the "Sernpidal Repopulace Act". He had fought extensively in the Yuuzhan Vong War, at several of the decisive battles. He had been at Dustrillian, Helska, Sernpidal, and even tried to help peel the clutches of the Vong off of Coruscant. He had been a hard fighter, and refused to give up hope.

That had won him quite the prestige in Rogue Squadron. He was most efficient at targetting and hitting precise parts on a ship, a hard and difficult trait that would be helpful when engaging Star Destroyers and the like. He had developed this trait when he was unable to get a stutter fire placed on his X-Wing's laser cannons. He needed a way to get past the dovin basals, and his precision had gotten him that ability.

He had twenty seven Coral Skipper kills, plus three battleship kills.

He had put them in charge of flights two and three, they would work perfectly as squad leaders, in his personal opinion, or so he hoped at least.

Serving in One Flight was, of course, himself, Major Trevelan, and his XO, Captain Kelan Baathor - though he would have done excellent as a flight leader he preferred his XO to be Rogue Two, incase he bit the dust, then Kelan could takeover - and the two Corellian pilots, Ensign Mark Vyn and Ensign Cris Rysen.

He didn't like the idea of putting totally untrained, Corellian hot heads in Rogue Squadron, but high command had ordered it, though Admiral Mnar had seemed as displeased as Daren had. It was one of those stupid politcal things, they needed to show that this was a Republic unit first and foremost, and to show pilots from the capital was an excellent way to do so.

Whatever, I'll just have to work them double hard.

That made up the total of One Flight, Second Flight was a bit more to his liking though. First up was Lieutenant Veub, with Rogue Six being taken by a Selonian ace who had flown like lightning in the simulators, but his nerves had yet to be ironed into steel. Rogue Seven's slot was filled by the strange Kel Dor Vor Daron, followed by the Kuati Vandrixx Karr.

Nine was the obvious Sernpidalan, followed by the ex-Imperial Storr Willers, who had been abandoned after the development of the TIE devil. He refused to fly a TIE Bomber or a shuttle, so the Empire simply expelled him, and was picked up later by New Republic forces.

Riadi Corvoan was the eleventh pilot of Rogue Squadron, a kid at best, young even to Major Trevelan who brandished no more than twenty six years. The kid, an eighteen year old from Coruscant, was a rich little one but never let it get to his head. His piloting and his friends came first.

The last pilot of the squadron was a Gand, much to Major Trevelan's pleasure. He had seen their effectiveness in the Jutraalian Empire and in the original Rogue Squadron during the Ysanne Isard crises. Kazarus Qgar never spoke much of his past and when he did it was usually a riddle that require more solving and headache than it was worth, but in a gunfight he was the one to have at your side.

He stopped and looked up from the flimsiplast in his hand as the durasteel doors to the bridge open wide, and the major stepped in. He'd have liked to hear attention on deck yelled, but he knew full well there was the captain of the ship already here, so he'd probably have to pay his respect to him.

Daren turned to the aging captain, a man who had been in the navy too long for his own good, had survived the Battle of Dantooine, and wanted more and more.

"I am ready sir," Daren stated matter-of-factly, and the captain, under strict orders from Admiral Mnar to adhere to the squad leader's commands, nodded and turned to the helm.

"Alright then, take us out."

Seconds later, the starship skipped off into hyperspace.