Tales of a Renegade

[JonasHudson]

Part III:
Resistance

Like a tiny black arrowhead, Jonas Hudson's Havoc sat motionless in low orbit over Planet Leeds. At close range you'd notice red, white and blue lights dotting the craft in a symmetrical order. The engine itself was red, which trailed off to a beautiful purple and blue. Hudson himself was strapped up inside as usual and was lurking. The last few weeks had been busy. Things kept escalating with the war, and it seemed like chaos was breaking out around Bretonia.

He'd been observing a man made satellite in the distance, as he'd done before. The suspicious objects appeared in orbit months ago, and he'd been on the lookout for signs of any activity that might indicate what they are. As a general precaution, he'd sent out a warning to Resistance Forces on the ground to be on alert for anything strange, and avoid unnessary travel.

Hudson was sipping his flask's cup of hot tea and just closed down a miniature holographic news broadcast he'd been running there in the cockpit. News had come back that Aland Shipyard was taken by surprise. No one seemed to know what was really going on. Either way there was bad blood between the IMG and Bretonia now. The IMG of all parties. They seemed the irrational ones to him at first. Not long after it started to seem the other way around.

Hudson himself had always rued that the IMG never came out against Gallia. Sadly they now have better relations with everybody compared to Bretonia these days. Omega-3 and Omega-49 showed that Bretonia was getting desparate. Who knew if these gambles would pay off...or if these gains would hold.

But to him, the Admiralty seemed to have a little disconnect. It seemed Bretonia pays a price for everything these days, and they have no problem writing cheques. He hoped they could afford to pay it. The entire fiasco caused Hudson to think it all over.

The answer was Leeds. He'd made his nest there already. As the enemy advances farther into New London, and the BAF reshuffles, Hudson wanted to avoid getting too entangled in the Admiralty's back yard adventures, and put his resources into the same place he'd always preferred...behind the lines. He believed that holding in Leeds would be the key to stopping Gallia.

So, with a few civy ships and a few good pilots, he'd get his own operation up and running out there. It seemed that if someone didn't take the intiative to do it soon, the cause in Leeds, and the plight of its billions of occuped citizens, would be forgotten. He'd touched base with a local blockade runner and began setting up a framework for a private local Resistance. He'd had plenty of credits, equipment, ships, cargo of all kinds stockpiled for months. The secret intelligence project he'd been working on was now the lynchpin. That was its original purpose in the first place.

He put the word out to trade captains of every kind about supplying the Resistance. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Waiting and watching, hedging their bets to see what becomes of Bretonia, and what might become of Leeds in the end. A few had expressed interest, and it seemed likely they'd be able to maintain regular shipments of arms in, and refugees/casualties out.

Hudson had tried to push for more, but something always got in the way. The Service was too scattered to make a difference, and there was nothing he could do about it on his own. The Gauls kept coming, stride after stride. He'd made his choice. He'd go underground and melt into the population if he had to. Use the locals to form a secret network, establish its own supply lines, and begin to furbish its own small fleet for guerrilla attacks. They'd at least be able to stage small raids on the trade lanes, occupation forces, and nearby enemy bases, like the shipyard in Edinburgh.

As his patrol time began to wrap up he descended back to the surface. He had a Bactrian waiting an adjacent pad to launch and take up for short range cargo runs. He'd had the infrastructure in place for some time, but now he'd set up the vestiges of a supply depot for larger ships inside Leeds. If all goes well, their new hidden base would be an ideal cargo transit point for freighters, and fallback HQ.

Traversing the pedway between the landing pads, he thought to himself about the future of the fight. Was Bretonia going to stick it out? Were they on their own? At this point, it was a matter of principle. He was in for a penny, in for a pound, as the old saying goes. Even if they failed, they'd go down proudly fighting....

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Leeds Resistance Forces | Tales of a Renegade |The Freelancer

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