Operation Strongbox - 0 ABY

"Dee." Colonel Rexler poked his head through the door into Numarkos's office. "Can you come to Ops?"

"Sure, Rex. What's up?"

"Comms intercept. I think you're going to want to see this."

She entered the Olminar's operations center to find most of the bridge crew at the briefing table. Dee raised her eyebrows and took a seat, surprised to see Major Naveen in attendance. The CO for Razorclaw's Ballista commandos didn't show for run-of-the-mill ops briefings. "Did the Empire surrender or something? Did we?"

Rexler nodded at the imbish sitting at the table's holo controls. "Play back the intercept, Officer Jaruknik."

"Yes sir," she acknowledged, queueing the transmission. The holoprojector above the oval table displayed a blue signal trace with frequency, transmission strength and other data listed below it. The audio started, a series of beeps, chirps and other meaningless sounds over a high pitched carrier. "Decoding and transcribing," said the Olminar's junior comms officer. The projection changed to a scroll of aurebesh characters. Numarkos read the words moving across the display, her eyes growing wider as the transcription ended.

"You verified this?" She aimed the question at Avery and Jaruknik.

"Yes, Colonel Numarkos."

"The Empire's sending a convoy to Borga, which is pretty much the middle of nowhere," deadpanned Norissian.

"What's at Borga?"

"Nothing as far as we know," Officer Jaruknik added. Her fingers slid over her console. "The last publicly available survey is from… forty-eight standard years ago." A planet's image appeared on the holo, shrouded in heavy clouds. "Largely sub-tropical, four major landmasses, four saline oceans. Primary habitat is swamp and marsh. No indigenous sentient life."

"Hyperspace routes?" asked Rexler.

The XO spoke up. "Closest known jump route is Triellus where it passes by Lyran in the Quiberon sector. Borga's down at the end of Yminis sector, hundreds of light-years off Triellus, and three thousand parsecs from here. Like I said, middle of nowhere."

"Maybe a good place for an off-grid Imperial base. Weapons research?" Rexler suggested out loud.

"They could be pathfinding, placing markers or S-threads for a new hyperspace comms array. Nothing in the intercept about the cargo being transported?" Dee asked.

"No, ma'am. Only an ident code, scheduled arrival time, and coordinates that are a few hundred thousand klicks beyond Borga's mass shadow limit," responded the Filvian.

"And no indication of the convoy's size or composition." Numarkos turned to Avery. "What do you think?"

Rexler tapped the table. "I think if it was something innocuous like a new hyperspace route, they wouldn't have used quad-epsilon encryption. That protocol is reserved for gold-priority operations and above."

"They used an ultra-tight subspace beam to send it," offered the comms officer. "We'd never have picked it up if not for some gravitational lensing from a rogue neutron star."

"It was one in a million that we intercepted the transmission. Add all of that up, and I think we're looking at something important," Rexler stated. "Where are we with Kolanda?"

"On schedule," Dee replied. "The station is a few days from getting back to operational status, assuming Alliance High Command has their act together." She did some math in her head. "Sixteen hours to get from here to Borga — under ideal conditions," she added quickly, forestalling the objection Joniah was about to raise.

Stolen story; please report.

Norissian smirked at her. "Junior staff to duty stations," ordered the XO. The bridge crew exited, leaving the Olminar's four senior officers.

Jereeda Naveen was the first to speak. "Are you actually considering raiding that convoy, Numarkos?" She drained the mug of khaff in front of her.

"Hmm. Not sure yet, Major. It's a big gamble. We've no idea what we'll find. Could be a couple of ships. Or it could be a full task force. We've one ship and the sloops."

"We'll need the interceptors at a minimum," Rexler determined. "Some frigates would be good too. Even better if they're carrying starfighters and marines."

"If you decide to do this," Naveen began, "I'm not saying I'm in favor, but if we're going to raid a convoy, we'll need time to prep the sloops for boarding, run the platoon through some drills, get everyone sharp. We still have a few days of work getting Kolanda Station resupplied. Doesn't feel like we'll be able to make it."

Dee cocked her head. "Our work is close to done. The Olminar can drop the rest of her cargo and let the Alliance engineering team finish up. A quick trip home to embark the R-Zed-Ones, then back to Borga in time to be waiting at those coordinates and hammer the convoy when they drop out of lightspeed."

"Sure, unless the first ship out is an I-class Star Destroyer, in which case our day just got a lot shorter," the XO put in.

"I recognize the risk, but frankly we could use that cargo. Razorclaw is running on fumes right now, financially speaking. Whatever the Empire's shipping out here has to be worth at least a few million creds. Proceeds from the raid would keep the Old Ghost running without us having to go to the Alliance hat in hand. I know we signed Mon Mothma's treaty, but that Chandrilian looks down on anybody who isn't Core. And I'd just as soon not be beholden to the Alliance. That being said," she looked around the room, "I'll inform Sector Command, ask them to forward the intercept to Alliance Intelligence, and request some ships to support us. How does that sound?"

"Reasonable," Rexler answered with a nod. "Joniah, we need routes. Best speed home to pick up the interceptor squadron and resupply, and best speed back to the convoy's exit coordinates."

"There are some tricky gravitics in the southern reaches of Yminis, sir. I'll start running the numbers."

"Dee, let's offload the remaining cargo and get the holds reconfigured for the fighters. I want to onboard those A-wings as soon as we're back at Filve." He turned to the assault team commander. "Major, you and I are going to develop battle plans, with and without Alliance assistance."

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Numarkos read the transcript of the tight beam encrypted burst from Sector Command and slammed her hand on the table.

"Easy there, Dee." Standing beside the operations chief, Avery put a hand on her shoulder. "We knew getting help from the Alliance was a long shot. High Command is being hunted in every sector, just about. Their forces are scattered. Hell, I'm surprised they can manage to hold the Alliance together at all."

"Dammit Rex, it's just a couple of ships!" She reached over and gave his hand a squeeze, getting her anger under control. "I understand they're stretched thin after Yavin. But to say their confidence in the intel is low?"

"That's just General Vernan. He's a skeptic by nature."

"Damn his nature. The intel's solid."

"Major, what about the Corellians?"

Jereeda shook her head, making her tight braids oscillate. "I got in touch with Bel Iblis. He called our plan 'intriguing', but his forces are tied up near Ord Cantrel."

"Too bad. Even one of his cruisers would have helped a lot."

"So," Major Naveen opined, "if we decide to do this, we're on our own. With no idea what the convoy even looks like."

"It's a big risk, but I still think it's worth taking," Dee responded. "At best we're a few weeks from insolvency. We need that cargo."

"You think so too, Colonel Rexler?"

"I think without funds to run Razorclaw we might as well all just go back home and wait out the war. That's not really my style, to be honest."

"We could integrate with another sector force."

"None of them are in any better shape than we are," Dee remarked. "And I'm not keen on putting Aristotle Karanos's rebel cell under someone else's command." She looked at both of them. "We're at an inflection point. The decision we make here is going to determine whether Razorclaw has a future."

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"What do you think they'll decide, XO?" asked Lily Barou from her pilot station on Olminar's bridge. Beside her, D'zun's ears swiveled.

"I think, Captain, that —" Joniah stopped mid-sentence. His comm pinged and he gave the earpiece a tap. After a few seconds, he pronounced, "Got it, sir." He tapped the earpiece again. "The raid's a go." Norissian didn't look all that happy.

The bridge erupted with excited conversations. "How many ships are joining us, Major?" asked D'zun.

"Just Razorclaw, it seems."

The conversations ceased. "No support from the Alliance? Sounds like a short mission," grumbled Piotr Kryczek with his usual sarcasm, but without the bombast.

"C'mon Kryczek, if it was easy it wouldn't be any fun," Sandy Berotus quipped from the gunnery station next to his.

"Miss Barou, as soon as the shuttles are back aboard, break orbit," Joniah instructed. "I'm inputting coordinates for the jump home."

"Aye sir," answered the helm officer. She traded an uncertain look with D'zun, then got to work at her controls.

Joniah keyed the ship-wide intercom on his command panel. "Olminar all hands, this is the XO. Secure from cargo operations and prep for hyperspace transit. We're jumping in fifty. That is all."