The LT bought it on an Outer Rim supply station manned by COMPFORCE fanatics; well-armed and thoroughly indoctrinated in the stern joys of the New Order. Joys, that was, if you were a virgin with a lot of angst; those COMPNOR  scout camps were places were sex was punished way harder than brawling, which sent, in Palp's eyes, the right message to the lads they were training to carry rifles for him. That stuff happened after marriage. And boy, those marriages were sure to be great too, right? I mean, look at all the preparation they had for it -- all the empathy and fun beaten right out of them in assault training.

If that sort of pissed off denial was the Imperial vision, it wasn't surprising that the Rebellion was a thing.

Beskad gave the kids one good grade though; they went down well equipped with the latest. The Alliance didn't care about that gear for salvage, cost more to move it where it was needed than it was worth. The Alliance cut orders for the Intruder to raid because they wanted the food to relieve a siege in some neighboring system. 

So they sent the Intruder. The Intruder deployed an assault shuttle, a real nice rocket ride with mostly engine, designed, shockingly, for piracy. Out of the shuttle came the Liberators, rolling grenades, laying down withering fire and hitting fast and hard; they'd learned tight corridor fighting the hard way, and this was the platoon's kind of job. 

Tally? One dead lieutenant. Kelborn was a good guy, a survivor of Uslam. But he was zapped.

"Fierfek," grunted Besk.

"That little Core World snot got lucky with a grenade throw," growled another trooper, "coulda been any of us."

"Zip him up; Slooga won't want the dead weight, but we have the guns." 

Just because the loot of the station wasn't valuable to the Alliance, surplus to the needs, didn't mean that the stuff wasn't valuable; those COMPFORCErs came with deluxe kit. It would fetch a price, but only after the platoon took the spoils they fancied.

That was the deal. Shockingly, the Intruder's crew, literally pirates turned Navy rather than Navy, but suspiciously free-wheeling, kept their word.

--

Vanguard station was carved into a large asteroid, it reminded Besk of times past in that way. It was also a major resupply and refit point for the Alliance's diverse naval operations.

It was also a repple depple; cherries of all species, from factory fresh buck troopers barely out of a short "point it this way" training to Alderaanian university students converted into a semblance of an officer by dint of a diploma mill officer training.

And of course, for its successes, 1st platoon reaped its punishment. 

The replacements were already lined up in the bay, fresh and totally at contrast to the ragged killers that just came off ship for a fast liberty-- say what one wanted for the Alliance, the base general, Salvathi, some alien, knew what made a fighting man tick. He has a slice of Nar Shaddaa set up, free of charge. Sure, the alcohol wasn't the finest-- processed right there-- but it was the right price. Free to anyone returning from a hostile contact with the enemy. 

Two days went fast, then they were back in the troop hold of the Intruder, nursing hangovers, to meet the new guys.