Diana Qiang

Born at a deep-space mining colony, her family were from a long line of asteroid miners. While she loved family holidays to worlds where she could feel the sun, rain, snow, and breezes on her skin, among the stars was where she felt at home. After a spate of pirate raids which cost her family and the company they worked for dearly, while they redoubled there efforts to make-up the lost revenue, she decided she wanted to fight pirates and raiders, and decided to join Black Fleet.

At the age on 19 she successfully applied to join, and was inducted to the Black Fleet training craft "Black Wreath" She was a late edition to the crew, with most of her crewmates only a few months from graduating as full troopers and heading for the academy on Focus. She was fiercely competitive and worked hard to catch up to the much more advanced cadets, even though she was months behind them.

By the time they metriculated out, she was vastly ahead of most of her fellow cadets, except for Cadet Rydell, a highly ambitious and talented cadet who had joined at the same time she had.

Her new bunkmates, Grace Pirie and Nash West, quickly accepted her as a mentor and friend, which gave her a taste of how command might feel, helping her grow in confidence, and to relax after a hectic few months playing catch-up.

She gained the thousand merits required to qualify as a full Black Fleet Trooper well before her year aboard the Black Wreath was finished, soon followed by Trooper Rydell, making them both high status members of the crew.

Nash West was on security duty during the Pandale ambush, and was supposed to take the surrender of the pirate junk Flying Fish when the missile launched from the PPB frigate Savatara struck them. West, along with the rest of the security team, was killed instantly by the blast.

West was replaced as the bunkmate of Diana and Grace by new recruit, Malcolm Wrath.