Fighter Squadron ONE FIVE FOUR (VF-154)
Insignia of the Black Knights.
Like so many other fighter squadrons, VF-154 was created during the Cylon War, cobbled together on Sagittaron from a combination of rooks, has-beens, never-weres, and never-should-have-beens. The men and women of the Black Knights drew particular derision: nicknamed the "Black Sheep" because of their unimpressive (or nonexistent) service records and their uniformly rural origins, their most qualified pilot had spent most of her career flying crop dusters for a little town on the southern continent, and she was killed in a magnificent car accident just days after volunteering for duty.
So poor was VF-154's combat performance that the manpower-strapped Colonial Fleet employed it as a reserve squadron during the breakout to Scorpia, deciding that it'd be more of a liability than an asset. The Black Knights would not see combat until the initial assault on Leonis in 1993 AE, during which action they managed to lower the Fleet's opinion of their skills even further. After their well-meaning CO was killed in the first seconds of battle, the Black Knights broke formation and scattered, rendering them easy prey for the Raiders in pursuit.
And that was the best thing that could have happened to VF-154.
More than one squadron was routed that day, and the Fleet didn't have enough trained personnel to fill all the holes. VF-154 was therefore stitched together with the remnants of several other squadrons, the most experienced of whom became the Black Knights' new commander. Captain Roxie "Beer" Battersby was a veteran from Gemenon who'd taken to Vipers like a bull to red, and more importantly, she had experienced and overcome exactly the sort of overt contempt her new charges had faced since the beginning of their military careers. Under her patient tutelage, the Black Knights gradually won back their confidence — and just as gradually, the victories denied them for so very, very long.
After the War, now-Major Battersby and VF-154 were posted to battlestar groups patrolling the Armistice Line. Beer's retirement from the Fleet some six years later coincided with the Black Knights' deployment to the newly-formed Tau Garrison, where the mere threat of their taking wing helped keep the peace. Their next assignment returned them to the Armistice Line as part of the air wing of Battlestar Solaria (BS-125), and there they would remain until yet another round of Fleet-wide reshuffling led to their transfer to CVW-14 and the Battlestar Cerberus (BS-132).
The motto of the Black Knights is Audax at fidelis: "Bold but faithful."
On 22 JUL 2041 AE, VSP-101 "Snow Petrels" were folded into the "Black Knights".
Deployments
TO BE FILLED IN