Horizon Sky

Chapter 4: Homecoming

The main reason the Federation was losing for the first half of the war was that many of their ships were over 200 years old at the time, last major upgrades would have been around 150 years ago, it wasn't until Rift did any Federation leader realized that was one of the major flaws. The man who lead the Federation to victory was Jack Gooseberry, he knew how to fight and that was to "upgrade" the rules of space warfare. under him he stopped using massive fleets, instead of fleets numbering into 150+ ships he made them into 30-50 fleet ships even 10 ships fleets were used at times, part of the new technology were pulse cannons, capable of ripping Super Dreadnoughts without proper shields or armor in half in one shot, and for the first time in over 500 years saw the return of Carriers for combat, with all the new ships it would only be a matter of time before the Federation would be ready to pust Fargo back.

Two years after the first wave of fleets were ready the Federation started the first stage of Operation Homecoming. So the result was the royal 'eff up at the 2nt battle of Moorhead, it was a bad start that got worst. Fargo had a prototype electromagnetic net around the system, trapped the 11th fleet before they knew what happened, ambushed the 44th fleet nearly destroyed them and left the 67th behind to become POWs.

So it was 30 years into the war and the year was 1984, The Federation retook Jarmo Station just outside of Grand Folks giving them a beachhead for the Invasion of the Folks Colonies, a three month attack where the Federation paid for every centimeter of Folks space in blood and Napalm.

After Folks the Federation needed a new food supply line. The Government in exile sent an ambassador to the People's Republic of New Omaha to make a trade agreement and a possible Alliance against Fargo. At the time Fargo was otherwise occupied by an uprising on the other side of their space, leaving the war with the Federation all but abandoned. For almost ten years the war was pused, however Moorhead was still heavily guarded by almost ten fargo fleets basicly triple the size of the Fargo Homefleet.

In the ten years of cease-fire (with minor skirmish) Moorhead forge alliances with New Omaha and The Union of the People's Republic of Tal Shale.

The Federation made the Folks system a major military HQ and research base, it was infamous for the Project Werewolf a nerve gas that was to be a crowd control weapon, it worked too well, it would destroy a persons mind and turn them into an animal. After being used in a skirmish with a Fargo Battleship were a black ops team bordered the ship and release the gas into the life support system. The Research Team that Bordered the ship after the gas dissolved all committed suicide the next day, as for the black ops team it was said to have taken out four Special ops teams and a fifth team to corner them into the reactor room were they set off a reactor exposition that destroyed the ship. Afterwards Project Werewolf was destroyed and all notes burned.

October 25th 1994 AE, Year Forty of the Fargo war and year 28 of the Fargo Occupation Fargo returned to the war in full strength adding ten more fleets to Moorhead and sent down three entire legions dirtside in fear of an uprising. The Federation knew it would be hard to retake Moorhead, but after the new fleets arrived, many wanted to surrender to Fargo. Gooseberry said no and took five Dreadnoughts (they were all about to be decommissiond anyway) to Moorhead on an all volunteer suicide mission. He took out almost 7/10th of Occupation fleet before personally ramming his Dreadnought and flagship of sixteen years The FSS Victory into the Fargo Occupation Headquarters on Moorhead taking out the entire Occupation Government and 5/8th of all the Fargo Troops in the system, because Fargo built the Headquarters on a dessert. no Moorhead civilians were killed.

Part two of Operation Homecoming was to replace the Governor with a Federation spy. They did this by Ambushing the Convoy that was transporting a new Governor to Moorhead and replaced him.

As well it didn't take long for the new ships to arrive with the replacements for those lost in Gooseberry's Attack along with four more fleets making the Occupation Fleet nineteen fleets strong. The new Governor ordered the fleet to spread out towards the outer system, seventeen of the fleets did leaving two of them in orbit of Moorhead. The next step was to make sure the fleets in orbit had commanders that were loyal to Moorhead and the Federation, after almost thirty, many Moorhead people were severing in the Fargo Government Militia, at first many thought that by joining the FGM you would become a collaborator, many who did join saw it as a way to help the Federation retake the planet. Being in the FGM meant you were part of the Fargo Military so many became captains and Admirals. Three of the most famous were the Larson Siblings, Michael, Kevin and Chris.

Eight months after Gooseberry's Attack, Homecoming was finally put in motion and a year and a half siege. The Federation moved fast cutting off the last supply line, placing the Ten Siege fleets outside of the system and activating the carefully placed Jammers placing Moorhead in a Blackout.

December 24th 1996 Christmas Eve year 30 of the Fargo Occupation, The Federation sent the attack codes and orders to the FGM two hours before moving in with the Eighteen assault Fleets on the outer Occupation Fleet and broke though in less the five minutes of battle. Thirty minutes before the Federation Fleets reached firing range of the Two fleets in orbit the FGM fleet opened fired on the Fargo fleet destroying 7/8th of the fleet in seconds. Dirtside FGM troops ambushed Fargo troops in their sleep, the Governor made a live broadcast, at 0:01 Christmas day, revealing himself to actually be Hugo Andrew the President of the Moorhead Federation made whole after Thirty years.

For 11 year old Mark Karro it was the day he knew he was going to join the Navy like his father before him.

Thirty of Occupation was over but many knew the end of the war was closing in and nobody wanted to see it.