Born and raised in a mining system named BRANI, Hans v. Martell spent a happy childhood and youth in a mildly well situated middle class family. In his early twenties he began to feel the predestined middle management career was not what he wanted to spend his life with, and in those years he was often seen aimlessly sniffing around in the rings of Brani's planets in the Sidewinder he had been given for his 18th birthday, looking for adventure.

It was during one of these trips that he found a wrecked and abandoned Federal Assault Ship drifting among the rocks, left from a long forgotten fight of good vs. evil. Or maybe vice versa. He was immediately struck by an inexplicable fascination for this dark, dead wreck, and ventured on board. To his relief, there was no dead crew at home, and after a tedious struggle involving a ton of high risk makeshift fixes he managed to awaken the tiny spark of life that was still left in her. After refueling her using cans strictly illegal for flammable liquids, he flew his baby home and parked her in a somewhat dodgy DIY starport garage to begin repairs.

Years later, as an adult, Hans at last succeeded in an exhausting bureaucratic struggle to gain legal ownership of his find, and took the meanwhile lovingly restored and shiny FAS to frequent joyrides in and around his home system, finding recreation from his office job and making a moderate side income from occasional low risk data runs. First and foremost however, he simply enjoyed flying his beautiful classic.

It was on such a casual flight that an exceptionally ragged pirate's poorly pieced together manifest scanner mistook a family pack of Earl Grey tea Hans was taking home for his grandma for cargo. In the seconds following the first laser beams raking the hull, all that Hans felt was an outraging fury over his beautiful hand crafted candy apple red paintjob getting ruined. Not before he had whirled his ship around to stare the scumbag in the face, and the beams were joined by a hail of bullets, he realised that alongside the paint, his life was at stake.

Now his ship seemed to have served her former owners for some shady operations, and was blessed with an exceptionally strong hull for shieldless flying. It held up nicely to the attack while Hans panically punched buttons, and at last hit "Deploy Weapons". To his amazement, Hans found that the ship's ancient guns which he had only polished up for the looks actually still worked. And were pretty powerful even - they sealed the poor pirate's fate quickly despite of Hans' total ineptitude at combat.

This moment changed Hans' life forever. First and foremost, by not losing it of course, but he also got insta addicted to the adrenaline rush.

And he was craving revenge for his ruined paint.

He quit his job, and after honing his skills working as a freelancer, siding with whoever had the deepest pockets, in 3304 he gained the attention of the Alliance Rapid-Reaction Corps (ARRC), joined without hesitation and has at last found his home in this rotten galaxy.

To this day, his beloved FAS, now restored to her former glory as a battle ship, is his daily driver and has never failed him.
Her Candy Apple Red paint has never been repaired.

Edit:
After many years of wearing an austere Midnight Black paint, Hans has at last found a small body shop in some little known backwater system that were up to the task of creating a suitable replacement for her former Candy Apple Red: