In Galactic Standard Year 4, although the Galactic Republic was already rotten to the core, its shaky rule was still—barely—holding together.
Right now, legally owning a single starfighter was far harder than legally owning a space corvette, or even a cruiser. The reason was simple: a starfighter was about as textbook "military hardware" as it got.
You could heavily up-arm a freighter and use it as a warship. You could even be stubborn and insist that a corvette—or even a cruiser—was "just a heavily armed freighter." But a starfighter looked like a starfighter. It was difficult to call it anything else.7
A heavily armed freighter—fine. Even a "warship that you swear is a heavily armed freighter"—fine. They could plausibly be used for hauling cargo. But a starfighter? Outside of military use, it was hard to justify doing anything with it. You weren't exactly going to use it to deliver takeout.6
Owning a heavily armed convoy could still be explained away as "we run remote routes and need extra firepower to deter pirates." Owning a starfighter squadron was not so easy to explain.1
To legally own a starfighter squadron, the qualifications and paperwork were endless. Even if approved, you'd still be likely to land on the Republic Judicial Forces' "special attention" list—exactly what Max wanted to avoid.2
So when Beskar Steel Security was registered on Corellia, Max had all eleven Kom'rk-class fighter/transports declared as armed freighters. The Kom'rk did have passenger/cargo space, and with a tiny bit of Lord Fieg's influence on Corellia, he successfully registered fighters as freighters.
As for War Falcon Squadron's twelve Fang-class starfighters, their status in the Republic was… still "complicated and unclear."
But no matter what, maintaining—and expanding—the starfighter fleet was the most urgent priority for the Bespin Mandalorian Armed Forces, especially the Navy.
The Mandalorians didn't have large capital warships, and the warriors in the armed forces had no real experience operating them.
Yes, Max had already ordered four heavily armed, reinforced MPO-1400 "Purrgil"–class hulls and sixteen Gozanti-class ships from the Corellian Engineering Corporation, and naval personnel had begun apprenticing aboard Cloud City transport runs, learning how to handle large starships.
But building new ships took time. And once they were built, integrating them with the Navy's "fresh recruits" would take more time. Even under the most optimistic estimates, it would still be two to three years before the fleet developed real combat effectiveness.
In those two to three years, Bespin's defensive burden—aside from Cloud City's shields and defensive emplacements—would rest almost entirely on the starfighter force.
Unlike the awkward reality of "even if we had new warships, nobody could crew them properly," Mandalorian fighters were elite across the board—almost all of them could fly. Bring in new starfighters or fighter-bombers, and within a month you could already have a workable fighting force.
Max planned to slip back to Mandalore and talk to the boss of MandalMotors, pushing to relocate the production lines for Fang-class starfighters, Kom'rk-class fighters, and the Lancer-class pursuit craft to Bespin.3
Because the ruling New Mandalorians were enforcing demilitarization, MandalMotors' military production lines had either been shut down or converted to civilian output.
However, because the New Mandalorians had done a remarkably good job with economic reconstruction—on a Mandalore that had once been blasted into a white wasteland by Jedi and Republic forces, modern cities now stood that could rival Coruscant—civilian ship orders had surged. MandalMotors was doing extremely well, and their resentment over shuttered military lines wasn't actually that severe.3
Still, if they could move military lines off Mandalore, keep producing starfighters and military craft elsewhere, and earn additional profit in the arms market, the MandalMotors CEO would probably be happy to take the deal.
And if Max's name didn't carry enough weight to close the negotiation, he'd just pay. Worst case, it simply meant selling more tibanna gas.
"Letting the production lines rot in the ground can't be better than selling them to me for a profit," Max thought. "Damn. Too bad I don't know Jedi mind tricks yet…"4
Whether he freeloaded or bought them outright, relocating MandalMotors' military production lines to Bespin would be no small undertaking—and it would take time.
With a shortage of maintenance personnel, equipment, and spare parts, by the time Bespin's starfighter production and repair base was fully established, Shriek Hawk and War Falcon's starfighters might already be dropping out of service. The resulting defensive decline could be fatal for Cloud City.
To solve the immediate crisis, Max had no choice but to pull the New Cloud City Plan forward—something he'd originally intended to execute in the second five-year plan.
Four hundred years before the Battle of Yavin, the company that built Cloud City on Bespin—Torranix Inertial Compensator Corporation—was the predecessor of Incom Corporation, the most famous starfighter manufacturer in the galaxy today.
Max's idea was to use the massive profits of the "New Cloud City Plan" as bait, plus Lord Fieg's influence as leverage, to entice Incom into quietly selling starfighters under the table to the Mandalorian Armed Forces—bridging the gap until Bespin's own starfighter production and maintenance base came online and preventing a dangerous shortfall in starfighter strength.
Incom's legendary X-wing was still only a set of drawings at this point. So for now, he'd make do with ARC-170s and Z-95 "Headhunters" as an emergency stopgap. Max thought.18
…
Bzzz—bzzz—bzzz. His helmet vibrated. Max accepted the call. "This is Max. Go ahead."
"Chief, this is the armory. We've finished tracing the source of those canisters of Mandalorian refined tibanna gas—it was produced by the tibanna refining plant under Concordian Crescent Technologies."
"Copy. Good work. Send me the detailed test and analysis reports."
"This is the Way. Transmitting now. Transmission complete."
"This is the Way."
After ending the call, Max unconsciously clenched his fists.
Mandalore… I'm coming back.
…
PS: The protagonist currently commands two starfighter squadrons. One is the fully staffed War Falcon Squadron, equipped with twelve Fang-class starfighters. The other is the understrength Shriek Hawk Squadron, equipped with two Kom'rk-class Mark I fighter/transports (originally three, but Max reassigned one to the Assault Team), four Kom'rk-class Mark II, and four Kom'rk-class Mark III.
PPS: In Legends, after the Ruusan Reformation the Galactic Republic abolished its standing army, but the Mandalorians maintained their forces. Because the Republic and the Jedi Temple didn't trust the Mandalorians, 738 years before the Battle of Yavin, Republic forces and a Jedi task force conducted the "Mandalorian Excision," using orbital bombardment to turn Mandalore's surface into a white desert. Canon has not yet confirmed or denied the event's existence.