The carrack cruiser Formidable occupied the berth of Golan station number three, and it was on this ship that the captain stood. He was the commander of a small taskforce that would be heading out on a reconissance mission in force. Other vessels in the task force included an older lancer class frigate and a number of Skipray blastboats. A number of neutral merchant ships had been raided recently near an Imperial hyperlane, and they were to head out on a errand to eliminate this new nest of activity before it firmly rooted it's self to the area. With all the newer and better vessels being assigned to more important missions, it was left to these older vessels to carry out this chore. Although to be reasonable, the carrack had just gone through an upgrade that converted it to mark five status.
Rounding out the taskforce were four TIE Interceptors, assigned to the wing roots below the carrack cruiser, and two Sentinel shuttles, occupying the limited hangar bay of the lancer, with a commando unit being station on board the lancer. Being beckonded by an aide that the briefing was to begin momentarily, the captian took one last look out the viewport before turning his back to it and striding out of the bridge. He made his way back to the conference room.
Stopping before the doors, he sighed, then straightened up to fine military preciseness, before proceeding through the doors. Inside the room was captain Lian Pall of the lancer frigate Lance of Light, along with the commander of the miltiary unit stationed aboard the frigate, the flight leader of the flight of Interceptors, and the major of the blastboat assault wing. Reinhard stepped straight up to the table and activated the holoprojector, which showed an image of a starfield, and a trading route was marked in red.
"Gentleman, the starfield and trade route you see before you is one that heads between the planets of Bilbringi and Coruscant. The route has been safe for a matter of years now, but recently has come into a bit of trouble. Raiders have been prying the route, and feeding off of merchant ships in the area. In the past two weeks, three attacks have been made. Two were on neutral merchant ships, traders, and the third was on a contracted merchant that was hauling refined metals from Duro to Bilbringi. Because of this theft, construction of an Imperial Thorne class dreadnought, the Reminiscent, has been delayed by a month. Any questions so far?" asked the captain.
"Yes sir. Has these raiders been identified, from types of ships or markings?" asked the captain of the lancer frigate.
"There were no markings on the raiders, so this may be a form of privateer warfare that we have on our hands, but the types were identified as one Nebulon-B frigate and two Corellian gunships. As far as we can tell, the raiders have not employed or cannot employ starfighters in their raids. Long range or short range types." replied the captain.
"So therefore, we have two mission objectives. The first is to sieze these criminals and stop their illegal activities. The second is to track them and locate their base, and also sieze it. Torwards this end, the Formidable and Lance of Light will jump directly to the trade route and being patrolling it for the raiders. The blastboats will be used as escorts for several tempting targets for the raiders which are actually decoy vessels." ordered the captain.
With that the briefing was over, and the commanders of the various units departed the room and headed back to their ships. Half an hour later, the cruisers and blastboats de-docked from the Golan station and headed on an outbound vector away from Corellia. Soon they were in hyperspace and headed for a point between the planets of Coruscant and Bilbringi.