Excerpt from the introduction to The Unseen Freedom, by Eichann Rush.
I was born a regular Molly, and had it not been for fate, i would still be just a regular Molly.
When i was six, both of my parents died. I don't know how, or why, but they did, and the only family i had left was an aunt on Trafalgar.
Thus, being born a Molly, and instilled with the values of a Molly, i was given chance to experience the outside world, see things most Molllies never see.
I was educated at Cambridge, and learned much knowledge.
I was educated further in the gold fields of Omega Seven, and learned how to fight.
I was educated even more, on the surface of Canaria, where i learned much whissdom.
And now i have returned, a philosopher, a warrior, and a Molly.
I have returned to bring to Dublin my whissdom, and knowledge, and the truth that i possess.
But now that i gaze around this sacred space, and peer deep into the fiery sun that gives warmth and life to us, i doubt.
This dream, this dream of a Free Dublin, created by the Republic, and abandoned by Breen in the final stage of his madness, this dream shattered upon the ground....
Can it be repaired?
Can one man believing in it bring new life to this dream?
Perhaps.
Only time will tell.
Rush gazed out the viewport, his eyes sweeping across the rocks as he waited for something, anything to pop up.
He took a sip of his coffee and hitched his legs up on the console, reading from a ancient book on politics.
Before he had time to get through a paragraph, klaxons blared and an eerie red light bathed the bridge.
Rush straightened and silenced the alarm, shouting to his first mate, "Shamus, contact id?", even as he booted up his console.
The screen flickered on unwillingly, displaying the scanners readings.
BAF vessel, gunboat class, coming in with weapons hot.
Rush manipulated the controls, shouting orders to his officers and readying his ship for battle.
Today they would strike yet another blow at the Bretonian tyranny.
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~The Unseen Freedom, chapter five, page 15.
"When we say that we desire freedom, we do not mean rights. Freedom is not being told what you can do, it's not words on a page guranteeeing things to you. All these are simply another form of slavery, the slavery of the mind. True freedom is noone being able to tell you what to think or believe. For this reason, and this reason alone, any form of compromise with the BAF that does not remove the hated Essex is unacceptable. There can be peace in Dublin, for sure. But only when every trace of the Crown's tyranny has been erased and purged from our fair homeland."
Rush worked late into the night, not that day and night had any meaning in space, where the fiery sun always burned just as bright.
He drew, and drafted, wrote and recorded, planned and plotted, referenced and cross-referenced, and by the end of his work, he had come up with a plan.
It was complicated, regretabbly so, but the loftiness of his goal combined with the sparseness of his resources neccessetated complication.
He had only one Scylla at his command, and precious few fighters and bombers, but he had two things his enemies did not: surprise, and a burning faith fit to make him a martyr.
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~The Unseen Freedom, chapter twelve, page 237.
"The Baffers are not our most powerful enemy. True, they have mighty battleships, and many pilots, and whole planetfuls of recruits, but all they can do is kill or imprision us.
Neither are the Kusari our most powerful enemy, with their fleets upon fleets of amorphous globulated ships, nor the Corsairs, who fight with the ferocity of madmen.
We are our most powerful enemy, for only we can allow ourselves to falter, can make ourselves feel fear, can betray The Cause to its enemies, can turn from the true path.
Only we can allow us to lose, and only we can take our freedom from us.
So i tell you, watch for fear! Watch for cowardice, and ill thoughts, for insanity and betrayal. But above all, watch for doubt.
Its a small thing, to doubt, but like the seed of a tree, it grows, and grows, and grows until it can collapse under its own weight, until it blocks out the sun and chokes other plants.
With the smallest amount of faith you can destroy your enemies, but it takes only the smallest amount of doubt to destroy yourself."
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He looked out the windscreen of his bomber, surveying the mining field, looking for-there.
An ungainly shape, designed for volume and not escape.
Some called it a Hegemon.
He called it a target.
The engines of his ship warmed as he veered away from his flagship, beginning the first attack run of the day.
He was not stealthy, or subtle. He came in screaming over the comms, firing his cannons at maximum range and not letting up.
The goal was not to get away unnoticed, but to give his enemy that final rush of fear, before he would be able to fear no more.
The orders went out that night, transmitted across half of Sirius in order to reach their recipients.
They reached an intelligence officer hiding in the Badlands, a weapons dealer out of Newark, a Junker aboard Trafalgar, and a dozen Molly ships in the field.
It would take painstaking translation on a one-time pad, but when decrypted, they would all have a time and location.
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~The Unseen Freedom, chapter seven, page 121.
"The difference between a friend and an enemy is The Cause. Anyone who supports The Cause is a friend, and anyone who opposes it is an enemy. There are no other distinctions, and there are no innocents. Evil prevails when good men fail to act, making any man who does not act an agent of the enemy, and any man who does act a ally, regardless of his background. This is something so many of my compatriots do not understand. We are not xenophobists. We do not hate Bretonians. We hate their tyranny, their greed, their corporate enterprises and their exploitation of the worker. We cannot strike at the bosses on London, so our only recourse is to strike at their tools. The Hydra can always grow a new head, but can it grow a new heart?"
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His commanders had assembled, and the situation room aboard The Final Rush was lush with cigar smoke and idle talk.
The double doors slid open, and they all snapt to attention as Rush strode in, flanked by his second and a bodyguard.
He smiled as he sat, and everyone in the room relaxed.
"Morn tae ye all, gentlemen. Ai've brought ye here tae discuss a potential operation, one the loikes of which ha'nnet been done since Founder's Day."
Rush slid back into his chair and fingered the viewscreen's remote.
"Fer all the bombahs and fightahs the Baffers ha'e, an' fer all their gunboats and destroyers, the only true obstacle tae our victory in Dooblin is the Essex."
He clicked the remote, and various shots of the hated battleship appeared.
"This....armistice........it has quited Dooblin down a bit, aye? Well, ai reject it, an' so dae all o ye, else ye would no' be 'ere. We are goin' tae end it, an' wee'l do it wit' a bang."
He gestured, and his second brought forth a briefcase. He opened it and passed out a set of documents to each commander.
"These are yer standin' orders. Firs' wee'l hae tae get together all tha' we need, an' then intelligence. Seamus, Finnegan, Ryan, ai need ye an' yers patrollin' the north an' south fields fer now. Be discreet, an' try an' figure out the Baffer's patrol patterns. Go."
The Mollys present rose and left, leaving only the three foreigners.
"Francesca, ye an' ai hae done business in the past. Now ai need something....special. A bioweapon or chemical weapon, somethin' potent an' very very nasty, in addition to as much high-grade explosives as ye can get. Go."
The weapons dealer rose and left.
"Ian, ai worked wit' yer father, an' ai know of yer talents. Ai need full schematics of the Essex, an' shippin' manifests, dockin' codes, anything ye can get. Go."
The intelligence officer rose and left.
"Johannsen, ai need a transport, fully specced an' idented, somethin the baffers cannae deny dockin' tae. Go."
And with that, the conference was over.
"Will it work, Saint-Clair?"
For the first time his second spoke.
"Only a traitor could stop it."
The Colonel's eyes glittered as he smiled a very evil smile, cloaked in the shadows.
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~The Unseen Freedom, chapter seven, page 104.
We will not fight fair. Fair is for those who can afford it, and we cannot. We shall use every advantage, every tactic, every method, to win. There are only two ways to Free Dublin. One is to decimate the BAF to the point where they simply cannot hold the system effectively. The second is to reduce support for the BAF's efforts to the point where the Crown must pull them out.
Both of these will be difficult, but they are not impossible. The use of mines has already proven highly effective in preventing the BAF from taking what we already hold, but their superior numbers mean that any straight offensive is repelled.
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His Barghest dipped in under the stream of fire from the Essex's port turrets. Turning hard right, he loosed a SNAC at the assembly and immediately flipped around, thrust out of range. In his rearview panel he saw the brilliant jeweled flash of the impact and cheered to himself. Once the blue particulate smoke dissapated he groaned as four of the five turrets sent green plasma flashing at him. He flipped his Barghest around again for another run and began to barrel ro-an emerald flash enveloped his sight and then all went dark.
A red light lit on his dash, and Rush groaned.
Gorramit, there's just no way past the Essex's defenses!
He climbed out of the simulator, slamming the pods hatch open to show his displeasure.
He had been running the same scenario over and over again, and every time the Essex slaughtered everything he threw at it.
Not that it really mattered. He didn't even have anything that could take down the Essex anyways, but those gorram miners hiding there, and their escorts and freelancers and mercenaries....
Rush stopped cold.
No way it's that simple. It can't be.
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~The Unseen Freedom, chapter twenty, page 513.
"The most effective way to fight a superior enemy is to split his forces without splitting yours. In order to do this, you must convince him that splitting his forces will in fact give him the advantage, when it will most certainly not.
To do this, you must give him the illusion of multiple enemy forces. Surround him with your picket screens, show his recon fighters the occassional tasty morsel, and then go into retreat. He will panick, thinking his prey will escape, and send forces after all available targets to ensure none do.
Once his forces are seperated and chasing your ghosts, you must find the enemy commander and eliminate him. Deny your enemy coordination or command while giving them a target, and they will follow it to the end of Sirius.
But you cannot lead them to the end of Sirius. To this, your targets escape route must be well planned, in order to give your main force a chance to intercept the enemies seperate components. But the physical restrictions on this make it all but impossible, so you must also make your enemys parts come to you.
When you do attack, do not hold back. Strike with everything you have, no matter the odds or numbers, for remember, more of them are coming, and if you do not end the engagement quickly, you will find yourself fighting a battle of attrittion.
In actual battle, tactics are hard to communicate, but there are two forms of strategy that allow navies to win over others. First, the classic concentration. For this, you need a strong leader, who's orders are well followed. You must first determine the biggest threat, and the easiest target to kill. Send all of your bombers after the gunboats first, one at a time, and send all of your fighters against the ones attacking your bombers.
Gunboats should concentrate on enemy capitals, using their superior mobility to stay out of range and confuse the tracking.
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