The Red Sabres

The Red Sabres were a group of mercenaries operating in the outer rim, and occassionally, the mid rim. They specialised in seige breaking, urban warfare, and retrieval and rescue missions. They were lead by the Catshubanni woman, Yil'tar'ia, and the Barabel Garza. They were based on the temperate world of Corstris. The Red Sabres wore red durasteel armour, with a pair of black, crossed sabres, usually on the mercenaries shoulder bells or helmets. Unlike most mercenary outfits, they had a small fleet, made up of several medium to heavy battle cruisers, and assault gunships. They wore red durasteel armour, with a single black tinted transparisteel visor, about three inches wide.

Organization
The Red Sabres were made up of between eight and ten thousand mercenaries, not including another four thousand support staff. Training, conducted in Corstris' forests, was often harsh and unforgiving, with only about ten percent of potential recruits being accepted into the organization. The most common rank among the group was the rank of 'sabre', a standard foor soldier. The next rank, was sergeant, responsible for leading a squad, usually made up of nine men and women.

The next rank was lieutenant, responsible for leading platoon of Sabres, and a pair of sergeants. The final rank was captain, who lead a company of Red Sabres, made up of around a hundred and fifty beings. It was uncommon for more than one company to operate on a mission, although several battles, such as the battle of Tangrene and the battle of Naboo included up to as many as four companies of Red Sabres, six hundred mercenaries, in all.

The Red Sabres were very welcoming to both humans and aliens, rather than some groups that focused on one species or the other. The sabres, for the most part, remained neutral in major conflicts, and were more than willing to offer their services to the highest bidder.

History
The Red Sabres were founded by the Catshubanni mercenary Yil'Tar'Ria, in 16 ADK, shortly after the start of the Imperial-GIA war. She met the Barabel bounty hunter Garza, and together drew in a small group of unaligned fellow mercenaries and bounty hunters. Together, they formed the first group of sabres, and worked in the corporate sector, doing odd jobs for wealthy clients, such as Muun bankers. However, the sabres were contracted by an Imperial admiral, in order to retrieve an Imperial tactician that had been captured by a group of GIA operatives. They were offered a small fortune in credits if they succesfully returned with the tactician.

Accepting the job, the group was given co-ordinates for Commenor, which had recently been taken Alliance forces, where the tactician was held in a detention center. Aboard a stolen frieghter, the mercenaries told the center guards that they were carrying supplies for the prison, and were permitted to land inside the prison walls. Once inside, the mercenaries attacked and overwhelmed the guards meager defences, fighting their way to the VIP cells, where the tactician, Tosh Rommel, was held. There, they managed to free him, while fighting off waves off guard droids and security personnell, back to the freighter, and evaded several GIA frigates that had been stationed over the planet.

Arriving back in Imperial space, they handed Rommel over, to a suitably impressed admiral. After having pulled off such a risky mission, the sabres reputation spread throughout the sector like wildfire, and the organization quickly grew into the hundreds. Encouraged, the mercenaries continued to work for both factions, despite the fact that the repurcussions were less than beneficial. After a particular perilous job, in which lead to heavy casualties while fighting in the battle of Vjun, Yil'Tar'Ria decided to move the organizations base of operations to the sparcely populated world of Corstris.

They began recruiting until there numbers were well into the thousands, well trained and well armed. Deciding they needed a way of deploying troops quickly, Garza lead a raid on the Kuat shipyards, and ended up capturing several Reaver class heavy battle cruisers. This lead to many of the groups mercenaries having bounties placed on their heads by the Kuati ruling families.

Mission to the Glory of Aldemer
Warning: Spoilers for Among The Stars follow

In 19 ADK, the Red Sabres were contacted by the council of the planet Aldemer, to search for a crew of Aldemerian star destroyer, which they'd lost contact with on the edge of the sector. The Aldemarian ruling council had recently come into conflict with the Galactic Empire, and were unable to send ships of their own to investigate. They offered a generous reward of twenty thousand credits, to the leader of the Red Sabres, who had taken a task force of Sabres, along with Garza and her sister, to Starflare Station, an agreed meeting place.

While stopping at the Imperial controlled world of Theren, they brought aboard a bounty hunter and his young prisoner turned student, who offered his services to the mercenaries, in return for a slice of the reward.

The Sabres assembled aboard one of their battlecruisers, the Dragons' Talon and set out for the edge of the system. Unfortunately, their engines suffered a critical malfunction, as soon as they came out of hyperspace where the Glory of Aldemer was located. Yil'Tar'Ria decided to lead groups of engineers and scout parties to the destroyer, and found the ship ominously deserted. Unknown to the mercenaries, the crew of the star destroyer had been infected by a modified version of the Blackwing virus. An entire squad of mercenaries disappeared while searching for information on what had happened, probably attacked and devoured by the infected crew.

Several more mercenaries disappeared, but the engineers among the group, managed to recover enough parts from the destroyers engines to repair their own ship. They returned to an assault gunship that had delivered them to the destroyer, and initiated repairs on the ''Dragons Talon. ''However, one of the crew became suspiciously ill, and was sent to the medical bay. Unknown to the rest of the crew, he'd been infected with the modified Blackwing virus, which had a much longer incubation period of two to three days, rather than hours. Unknown to the rest of the team that had left the destroyer, one of the men that had been listed as missing in action, Miruvor Janx, had also been infected, though he managed to evade detection, and launched the ships entire complement of escape pods.

The rest of the injured and sick in the medical bay were quickly infected, and the main medic, Mila, barely escaped with her life, leaving her friend, the 2-B Medical droid, 'Doc' to die. She met up with a squad of mercenaries that were later killed, despite their best efforts. Strangely, this modified Blackwing virus had a much lower infection rate than previous incarnations. Where before it had infected almost one hundred percent, only about half of the mercenaries were infected, most of them through direct contact with the dead.

After heavy fighting which ended up forcing the surviving crew onto the destroyer, they managed to escape, opening the ships airlocks to suck the reanimated crew members out into space. After this mission, the Red Sabres returned to Corstris, and concentrated on building up their numbers.

Conflict with the Empire
Eight years after the mission, the Galactic Empire engaged the Aldemarians in a conflict, attempting to punish the Aldemerians for their role in the disaster aboard the star destroyer eight years prior. The planetary council hired the Red Sabres once again, to assist against the Imperial assault. Although the Aldemarians were quickly defeated, the Imperials suffered losses at the hands of the Sabre forces. An Imperial strike force arrived in orbit over Corstris, and engaged the Dragons' Talon, along with several other mercenary vessels orbiting the planet.