Thyferran Home Defense Force

"Do you feel, as I do, that Madam Director Isard is not viewing the same reality as we are?" "Do I think she is insane?" "Yes." "Quite."

- Fliry Vorru and Erisi Dlarit discussing Ysanne Isard

When Isard learned that Horn had in fact escaped, she was forced to act quickly. The secret of the Lusankya's location had been compromised, so she had to leave Coruscant with it&mdash;far earlier than she had planned. The Lusankya burst through tons of ferrocrete, and left Coruscant, killing thousands. Erisi Dlarit returned to Isard, also, in a faked tractor beam pickup, though her fellow Rogues were quick to notice the con. Horn's escape had affected Isard greatly, and although it would take her years to realize it, she was not thinking straight in the months that followed. To Isard, Horn's escape made the Lusankya unclean, and she no longer loved and cherished it as she had before. Isard consolidated her forces and took the Lusankya to Thyferra, where she supported a political coup by the Xucphra faction, which put them in charge of the bacta cartel, and Isard became the Chief Operating Officer and Head of State of the planet&mdash;she effectively controlled the entire bacta output in the galaxy. As she was a legitimate ruler, the New Republic would not go after her.

Although they were forbidden to go after Isard by the New Republic government, the Rogues were still desperate for their revenge on Isard. They resigned their commissions and effectively formed a band of pirates determined to kill her, though this was of little concern to Isard. Despite the constant warnings from Fliry Vorru&mdash;who was now acting in a role similar to Kirtan Loor's&mdash;Isard found their attempts laughable, and paid them little heed. Something that did worry her, though, was the fact that hordes of her operatives on Coruscant had been captured by the New Republic in the aftermath of her flight to Thyferra. Though he had been killed, Kirtan Loor had managed to provide the New Republic with much sensitive information, dealing Isard a crippling blow. Isard had Erisi Dlarit lead a newly-formed Thyferran Home Defense Force, which would deal with the threat of Ashern terrorists, as Isard's forces were not what they once were. While she had much support when she held Coruscant, many ships had left her service after the Battle of Coruscant, and she relied on only a few loyal ships and vessels borrowed from other warlords. The Lusankya&mdash;which Isard wanted nothing to do with&mdash;Avarice, Virulence, and Corrupter, respectively, were all she had left from her once-glorious armada.



Although Isard had dismissed them altogether, Wedge Antilles's band of former Rogues was doing a good job in harassing Isard's bacta shipments, hijacking several of them and handing their cargo over to needy planets before returning the freighters back to Thyferra&mdash;so they could be stocked up and raided again. While Vorru assured her they were losing little financially, Isard's pride was on the line, and with every successful raid mounted by Antilles, she lost more respect and prestige. Before long, Isard feared, she would be the laughing stock of the Empire for allowing a dozen aged starfighters to repeatedly steal from her. Vorru, though, had come up with a plan to counter and isolate the Rogues: any world that had accepted stolen bacta from Antilles would have to pay Isard for it, and shipments to random worlds would be cut. This would cause great anger and animosity towards Rogue Squadron, and, Vorru hoped, would play with their conscience. Isard, her judgment clouded by a lust for revenge, wished for a more direct approach, but Vorru managed to persuade her to have the customers of the bacta shipments provide their own protection, with their Star Destroyers only escorting them some of the way.

Isard gained her first victory in the Bacta War in the weeks that followed, though it was not one she had actually sanctioned. Captain Ait Convarion of Corrupter had left an entire convoy unguarded to follow several freighters which had left of their own accord. Following the ship through hyperspace, Corrupter found the last of the freighters ready to jump to hyperspace, with Rogue Squadron and their Twi'lek allies also present. Corrupter destroyed much of the Twi'lek Chir'daki squadron, and took one of the Rogues, Riv Shiel, down, too. Isard, with Vorru, traveled to the bridge of Corrupter to personally congratulate Convarion and also reprimand him for disobeying orders. She recognized that he showed considerable initiative, though Isard was angry that Convarion had lied in his report of events. As a means of testing his mettle, she asked if he would be willing to execute the families of the crews of the freighters which had defected. He reluctantly agreed, though Isard informed him that she had already dealt with the crew's families. She also ordered Convarion to deal with those planets who were too poor to afford the bacta that Antilles had presented to them.