Horizon of the Sunrise
an excerpt

Two weeks through the corridor had seen the 7th Confederate fleet patch up their battle damage and reorganize their structure. Matthew had personally breifed every captain in the fleet of what to expect. They had all crowded in the Ironsides’ hanger deck while he explained to them, “We’ve been cut off from our home territory by the deployment of enemy forces. Short of trying to go across one of the gulfs into null space, we have no other option but to push into Imperial Territory. In a way, this is a good thing, since we’ll draw attention to ourselves and force the Imperials to divert forces from wherever they’re needed to deal with us.

“Of course, for us, it means we’ll be under a lot of stress. We’re sifting through the gear we pillaged from Kassala before we burned it to atoms,” The crowd cheered at that, and Matt conitnued once it died, “and some of you will be getting new gear, but for the most part we’ll have to operate as part scavengers, part pirates, and still part Confederates. Everyone here has to remember the reason why we’re fighting: to keep the Imperials from gaining back the territory we want to rule independently from them. As long as that’s the message we’re trying to spread here, we might want to keep an open mind as to how we deal with the Imperials. Some of you have families and ties in here, and they might come into handy if we’re looking for charity to grab. Keep an ear open for oppertunities- as we might just find some allies in here.”

Some of the officers, Captains, and Commanders exchanged glances with one another, and Matthew explained, “The Imperium is almost like the Confederacy in that there are lots of noble houses and independent interests out here. If we can find one or two houses that’ll be sympathetic to our cause, we just might find a way to get supplies and possibly even a way back to the homeland… maybe regrouping with another fleet.

“But remember surrender is not an option. The Imperium is not likely going to take kindly to us setting fire to their fortress, and for suceeding from their control.”

Under this guideline the fleet had restructured. The Command phalanxes shrank, donating some of their cruisers to a pure cruiser formation. The Light cruiser phalanx was dissolved and their ships designated leaders for raiding squadrons of destroyers. Their two transports were converted into makeshift supply carriers while the troops were moved to the raiding parties.

Fortunate, Matthrew realized in heindsight, was the tranferrence of two raiding parties to his command before Kassala. He had already dispatched those ahead of the formation to do some scouting.

At the end of the second week they were approaching what was on Imperial charts the system called Backgammon. It was one of the building blocks of the Central Corridor route which trading ships and cargo ferries from the outer reaches had used as a check-in point to stopover and refuel before pushing in to the Imperial reaches.

This was the first obstacle to overcome, and the admirals had to plan for it. The planning table was set up accordingly in the bridge of the Ironsides, and the group commanders (with the exception of the two Raiding captains) were present.

Matthew tapped the icon representing their captured transport, ‘0441728’ (nicknamed the Bounty by the marines commanding her. “We could use this guy as the rabbit to go in.”

“No military escort is going to draw attention.” Commander Lauren Hallen, of her newly formed 26th Destroyer Raiders, pointed out.

“We could say they were drawn away by pirate action,” Suggested Kyle Lelk, of the 27th.

Matthew looked to Canton, who shrugged and said, “Just tell me what you need me to do to it.”

Matthew shook his head and said as he rubbed his nose, “I don’t know if Battle damaging our prize is a good idea. Maik, thoughts?”

Maik had had some time to recover from the shock he received at Kassala. Embittered, he was back in action now… if only loosing some of his charm. “Sounds like a welcome wagon to get Konrad back into the game. Neutralize port authorities from the inside.”

Matthew tapped the planning table and said aloud, “Shut them down permanently or allow us passage? Do you think we could pass as a commercial freighter group?”

That brought some laughter, but Captain Warren Chess, formerly the leader of the CL phalanx, winced and spoke, “Depends on how stupid their command is.”

“Yeah,” Commander Hallen said, “And I wouldn’t be surprised if they shot at anything looking like a colonial freighter.”

“Me neither.” Matthew replied, continually tapping the icon. He shrugged and said, “Ok, the only thing on the game plan now is to put Konrad and his happy fellows into the transport, dupe them into accepting it, then shut down port authorities. At least we’d get in.”

“It has to be all port authorities,” Maik pointed out, “Else they’d get IFF tags on us.”

Canton looked up from his cross-legged seat on the floor with the papers scattered before him, “What’s station security like?”

That brought a collective groan from the commanders. Backgammon had one of the best security details for one big reason: Drug trafficing. Illegals from the colonies had been stamped out by an imperial Decree some decades ago, which put lynchpins into the commercial system to stop trafficing at important commercial centers. Backgammon was one of them, as one of the large ports that dealt with traffic from the colonies.

“Space commandoes?” Canton asked aloud.

That made Lelk and Hallen mutter aloud in thoughtful approval, while the new Cruiser Squadron commander finally piped up and said, “How is that supposed to work?”

“Simple really,” Canton said and held up a hand to represent the ship and put another on it to represent the commandoes, “Before getting in sight range of the station, you put your commandos on the exterior part of the hull while you fly the ship in. When you’re in dock, break cover and move on the hull.”

“What about the seismic sensors?” Asked Chess. More groans from the table, with Commander Lelk saying, “Can you stop putting restrictions in our plan?”

“No,” Matthew said, “We’re ironing out errors here. We need to get around Backgammon somehow, and the current thinking is to shut it down. Anyone have any alternatives to this?”

Heads dipped in thought, while Canton said aloud, “They know we’re a Confederate naval force, since we’re operating bulk transports….”

“And with no ahead-say from the Imperial garrison,” said Lelk, “They’ll raise suspicions.”

Maik raised his head and asked, “Canton, how easy can we modify transponder signals?”

“Visual.” Shrugged Canton.

“They can’t be that good.” Maik countered.

Matthew looked around, then at Chess. “Chess, you know, don’t you?”

Chess made a crooked grin and pulled his hands together to cross his arms, “I wondered how long it would take for you to guess,” He turned his head and explained to the rest, “I have family based on Backgammon. We worked with the port authorities there. In my early teenage years I got to look around and tour Backgammon’s defenses.”

Lelk spoke from his seated position against the railing of the planning part of the bridge, “How is it that we end up with all the imperial defectors?”

Warren shrugge dand answered flatly, “I suspect my parents aren’t happy that I dissapeared by jumping on the next tramp freighter out to the colonies. Especially my dad, since he was likley invesitgated.”

“Oh? Why?” Asked Hallen.

Warren shrugged and said, “Some several worlds in imperial space, ones named after games, were explored by my ancient ancestors. Having relations defect means looking at the reasons behind them, and what they know.”

Kyle Lelk spoke up again, “I just want to say sir that I love being part of this fleet. Seriously, how come we get the advantage?”

Matthew smiled, then said, “Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.” He looked at Warren, “Captain Chess, any secrets to entail to us?”

Warren approached the table and grabbed a compass from the surface. He adjusted it as he said aloud, “The detection systems at Backgammon, at least to my latest knoweldge, are mostly directed for disaster detection and response. Like Marathon, the station wasn’t constructed as a military outpost. It doesn’t even have an artimis defense system about it- just orbital defense sattelites and the station itself. It might have a small garrison of destroyers, though.

“What this means is visual detection won’t be a problem until…” He set the compass down and moved it, “Here. This is the maximum resolution range of their casual equipment. Everything else is in stellar cartography- and I can tell you there’s been no need of that for ages. I won’t discount the possibility of it’s use, however, since Backgammon may be alerted to our presence. If they are,” He tapped the drawing of the station on the map, “That’s where they’d be. I can show Surguard where the astronav tower is, if you wanted to perform a strike on it.”

Maik asked, “What does the station have in terms of stellar defenses?”

“Last I heard,” Chess said, “They had a trio of X-ray laser sats in orbit. The rest are laser canon.”

Maik looked up at met Matthew’s gaze, then reasoned, “automated suicide craft.”

“Ah,” Matthew said, nodding with several other heads.

“Mmm…” Canton thought, “could work…” he mused aloud.

Maik raised a hand, saying, “Pack the thing’s outsides with diffusion packs, detonate them on entry and have the thing ram the telescopes.” He looked to Chess, “They don’t have backups do they?”

“No high-resolution telescopes, no.” Answered Chess.

Matthew continued, “We spread the fleet, mirroring the transponder signals from Imperial freighters and commercial ships. Make it look like we’re the engineering fleet returning from the fortress- or at least most of them.”

With the formation of the plan finished, only the details needed to be ironed out. By the end of the hour, the Confederates had a plan.