“Hey, flyboy.  What you thinking about.  We still haven’t jumped to hyperspace yet.  Coming up on gravity cones' edge in three seconds.  Coordinates locked.”

 “The day we met,” I said as I flipped the comm. Channel to the gun wells on The Monkey’s Tail.  “Garrik, Trapps, prepare for light speed in 3,2,1.”  I saw we were half a kilometer outside the Interdictor Cruisers artificial gravity well cone.  “Jump, Chief.  Nice job getting rid of those TIEs after they ID’d us guys.  We’re clear, so stand down.  Tell us where we’re headed, Chief.”

 “It’s going to be our future home.  We need to trade our cargo for it at Coruscant,” she said.  I looked at her very uneasy.  She flipped the comm. “You’ll be fine.  I won’t risk losing you recklessly.  Not ever again.”

 “That’s good to know.  How do you propose that you, Trapps and I get on planet?  Our ID’s are pretty much a red flag for detention.  I’d love to have to go an interrogation about why I’m trading illegally with the Remenant right now.”

 “With these,” as she held up some fake but very authentic looking identity cards.

 “Have I told you I loved you today yet?”

 “Hmmm.  Not really.  But I bet you’ll love me more once you see what I have lined up for us.”

 “Now I’m really curious.  You know I hate surprises,” I said as I turned in my seat and rose to walk back by her navigator’s seat.  I offered her my hands.  She took them, and I helped her out of her seat.  Pulled her right into my arms and kissed her for the first time that day.  “Well, do Trapps and Garrik know yet?”

 “Nope.  It’s my surprise.  Maybe marrying you on that forsaken mission was the best thing I did.”

 “Had to get something out of that assignment beyond grief,” I smiled as her lips and mine touched again.

 For the first four months the Guardian Wing routine was one week of court cases defending Drunk and Disorderly conducts.  Then, followed by two weeks out on patrol.  I was in Adm. Azzameen’s personal squadron, Defender.  Fal, his cousin, was my flight leader.  In my flight was Andy Whiteway and Zaron Farwalker.  We’d fly through and get reports of local enforcers who made a patrol circuit.  The Admiral assumed it was Omega.  Fal tried not to get his hopes up, saying it was some local group that wanted to get in good with Omega if they could hold on.  We always seemed to be one step behind the pirates.  Just missing the system on our patrol route they roughed up by a day, or a few hours to far away to help some supply convoy they raided.  The frustration was mounting with Fal during all briefings.  There was some tension between him and the Admiral.  The crew of the Sentinel sensed it too.  After we returned from our patrol route, JC would have us train with weapons of all sorts planet side after we moved onto the platform.  That’s were I met Garrik Lorrain.  The Chief and Trapps moved with us, as did their crews.  JC had us running joint training missions with General Dellis Tantor and his attaché Beri Tulon.  We’d also be running joint missions with Strike B-Wing squadron, Strom A-Wing squadron, and Talon X-Wing squadron.  Along with us in Defender Squadron, we were Guardian Wing.

 Fal did approach me about at this time about going undercover into an Imperial organization.  Adm. Drayson’s task force was going to be hunting something called the Empire’s Hammer.  They controlled a small sector of space just on the outskirts of the Mid Rim.  They weren’t affiliated with the main part of the Imperial fleet under then Yssane Issard.  Still, they boasted giving refuge to several admirals who immediately promoted themselves to Grand Admiral and other ridiculous sounding self-absorbed titles.  They were warlords who had seized a shipyard capable of producing Super Class Star Destroyers.

 I left one of my subordinates in charge of JAG while I left to take this assignment.  Fal and the Admiral basically told the squad I was being sent to the Home One Task Force to help in the matter of the possible case of Capt. Tycho Celchu who had returned from the infamous Imperial prison of Dircetor Issard’s, Lusakanya.  I was being sent to infiltrate the Empire’s Hammer TIE Corps.  My background story was so similar to my life that I had no problem clearing.  I tried not to perform to Republic standards, but to Imperial.  That earned me a fairly quick promotion to full Lieutenant in the their fleet command.  It was here, that my current Executive Officer, a Chiss, by the name Liatthur’thrawn’undo and I became close.  He didn’t exactly hold to the Hammer’s ideals, so I arranged on our next shore leave a meeting with my first contact from Guardian Wing.

 It was Fal.  I couldn’t believe it.  He accepted Thrawn’s (what he wanted to be called) as genuine.  That was the last I saw of him for a long time.  His operatives brought with a plan that would separate Thrawn and me.  It worked flawlessly.  We staged a falling out during a simulator exercise and acted it up to the point in patrol missions we could not trust the other when they flew on each other's six.  I earned a reputation as a trouble maker and I got bounced from squadron to squadron for the next couple of months.  Beyond that, it wasn’t that bad.  Ok, it was.  It was terrible.  Clean cold sterile hallways greeted me every morning.  Being a practical squadron pariah meant I got my own private quarters.  The discipline was harsh and cruel.  There was no compromising of anything.  Then I got transferred to Echo Squadron.  The commander of the squadron promoted me to Lieutenant Commander.  He also helped me in training on non-shielded craft, which was always my week point.

 My next contact with the Intel one was memorable.  Fal either knew, or perhaps Chief told him.  It wasn’t an obvious secret that the Chief and I were interested in each other.  Fal sent her under the guise of some girl that I had met and had fallen for me while I was on leave with Thrawn once.  I’d kept her a secret to protect her from other TIE Corps members whose suspicions of me were lessening.  My jaw dropped as I met her in the cantina.  The eyes that hypnotized me nearly a year ago on The Sentinel had my full attention again.

 “Hi.  Surprised to see me again so soon?” she giggled.  She threw her arms around what she could of me.  I could feel her toned body from the hours of work next to me.

 “Very,” I said as I pulled her closer to me.

 “Aren’t you going to kiss me, or are you TIE Corps boys so stupid you don’t know what to do with a real woman?” she kept on giggling.

 “Don’t know yet.  Of all the dives and times you could walk in on me, things have started to settle down here,” I said.

 “Good.  I got us about midway between the market and the spaceport.  You can tell me all about your adventures there, if I let you.”

 “I’m already there,” I managed to smile.  I hailed us a cab.  She gave the cabbie the directions.  This was fairly typical amongst the crewers in the Hammer's Task force stationed here.  Just another soldier on leave who found a prostitute and now we were headed to her hotel room.  So it was not unusual that we began to make out in the back seat of the cab.  I think we actually enjoyed that part.  I paid for the cab ride even though; everyone in the cab knew she was the one with the credits.  She took my hand and led me up a flight of stairs to her room.  She slid her key card in and the door opened.

 “Follow me, and don’t stop sucking on my neck either,” she said as she positioned me directly behind her.  She walked to her travel case, and removed the blatantly obvious false bottom.  She took out a device and began waving it all over the room.  Occasionally, she would sigh and moan, obviously enjoying sweeping for any bugs as I enjoyed playing the role of the horny Imperial with a hooker.  “We’re clean.  Now, you can stop.”

 “Do I have to?  Gabi, why did Fal send you?” I asked as I turned her around to face me.

 “No one else knows you as well as I do.  You’re the only one still undercover.  The rest of operations are withdrawn by the NRI.  We took Coruscant.  Issard fled and Thyferria is soon to be liberated.  The focus has switched to Han Solo’s Task Force.  I’m here to make sure you’re still you and not some Imperial stooge,” she said.

“Besides, Fal said we played good for so long that you and I deserve some time away from the rules and regulations of Fleet Command.”

 “What?!?!” I was shocked.  This was too much information to be processed at once.

 “You heard right.  All those training missions JC had you doing with Tantor and Tulon were for good reason.  That’s who High Command signaled to lead the pacification of Coruscant.  Rogue Squadron was planet side and Guardian Wing flew cover for our attack tanks that drove right up to the Imperial Palace and smashed the last symbols of the Empire there.

 “I’m out of it for a little while and everyone has delusions of grandeur.  How’s Garrik doing?” I still said, half shocked, half turned on by the woman I was holding in my arms.

 “Shhhhh,” she scolded as we kissed again.  “We can talk about that tomorrow.  I have some fly boy dumb ass officer I need to train on how to shut up and realize he’s got a woman and a hotel room for the next four days.”

"Officers," I smirked.  "Can't have a military without us.  But can't get us to do a damn thing right in it."