I told those who followed me that Rheinland was the best chance we had at victory. Not just for our homes but for Sirius. I asked Jake about attacking Liberty ships and I agreed that we wouldn't fire on any of them openly. That all changed when Owens was attacked by one in Frankfurt and I thought that was a rouge incident that would never happen again. Well I was wrong.
I was tracking down two ships that came up read for a second while I was in New Berlin. Luck had it that nearly everyone was running into Hamburg and with an LN tag it was a given. I caught the Cruise Liner class ship Alice's.Restaurant with a Liberty Rouge IFF carrying a shipment of Blood Diamonds and LR-Possibility.Legal , a Liberty Rouge also carrying Blood Diamonds. When I set my scanners to the Cruise liner, it picked up something much bigger.
A Liberty Dreadnaught!
I didn't even think about all the talks the other Freelancers and I had, not even to the consequences of what was to come. I hit the cruise engines and gave a system wide distress call. The LNS-Antarctica was loaded for bare, and was traveling on a course through the Northern rock fields in Hamburg. The Gunboat on patrol in Hamburg heard my communication and system alarms went off. It was too late to back down now. Grouping up with the pursuit lance, we went after to hunt down the Antarctica.
I paired up with the Cruiser as the bomber and Gunboat pair tracked the Liberty invader through Bering as it jumped into Hudson. I held position at the Jump hole in the system and we waited. Sure enough, the LNS-Antarctica headed straight for the gate to Huston I believe, but turned about and opened fire on the cruiser. After some time to close in, I targeted its massive engines to give the Cruiser some time to reform with the Gunboat and bomber that had made it into the system. It was already on top of the cruiser. I took my fighter along side the Dreadnaught's thruster control manifolds and rammed my ship into it, jamming it into an open position. The open directional thruster knocked the massive ship off course and gave the cruiser enough time to get at range. It wasn't long before the Dreadnaught Captain saw me as something more than an annoyance. Their entire anti fighter guns fired off and the first volley tore through my shields and hit the FireHawk's dorsal hull. I thrusted away, swerving behind the Antarctica's. engines, blocking most of their guns and giving the bots times to repair the hull. I spun around and opened fire on the only part of that massive ship my guns would have any effect on.
The gunboat and cruiser were taking hits from the local fighter patrols so I veered off to thin the numbers. Firing my cruise disrupters right at the engines to keep the Antarctica's movements as low as possible. The Cruiser attacked at range while the Gunboat came in close when the bomber and I took its attention off them. The Antarctica finally headed to the Texas system, Kent's home system. The Rheinland Cruiser Captain gave the Dreadnaught commander one last chance to surrender and he flat out rejected it. My scanners picked up a defensive patrol of a siege cruiser, two gun boats and their escorts heading towards us. I decided the battle would not be won with me attacking the Antarctica and flew straight at the patrol. I was able to distract the patrol long enough for our pursuit lance to down the Antarctica. In an aggressive falling back to Rheinland, the defensive patrol was taken down and we passed through back to Hamburg where we landed and had a small celebration.
I did the right thing, we did the right thing. Showing Liberty that even one citizen of Rheinalnd can make some difference in an otherwise on going war. From a distance I received a notification that myself and all my freelancers with an [FL] Tag are now enemies of Liberty. We'll see.
Transmission timed out
When a person trades freedom for stability, in the end they will loose them both.
Sometimes, when all you want is to gain your freedom, you must be willing to risk it all.
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