+- Discovery Gaming Community (https://discoverygc.com/forums)
+-- Forum: Role-Playing (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Forum: Stories and Biographies (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=56)
+--- Thread: A Desperate Departure (/showthread.php?tid=172956)
A Desperate Departure - Jonathan Seabourne - 08-22-2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PLANET ANAHEIM (CALIFORNIA MINOR), CALIFORNIA SYSTEM, LIBERTY SPACE
The pyramidal terraforming platforms of Anaheim saw some improvised additions in the receding snow. Snow soaked cigars, cracked hypnotainment bands, flickering holosculptures, all of it drenched in gallons of various alcohols leaking from smashed bottles. This is the remains of the luxurious accomodations of OSC Breezewood.
In their place? One thousand extra berths for the refugees of Leeds.
Leeds, suffering from a scorched earth bombardment at the hands of retreating Gallic forces, sent out a general distress call to any and all available ships. Captain Jonathan Seabourne heeded the call and proceeded to purge his ship of anything beyond the essentials of fuel and atmosphere. "We dismissed the crew, disembarked the dancing girls, and even gave away the Gaian wildlife to collectors on the planet," said the captain. "We're running a skeleton of a skeleton crew with only five of us aboard. But it means carrying 33% more people, so of course we do it."
The dismissed crew members and last batch of passengers from Kusari were encourage to take anything not bolted down with them. Once that was taken care of, the crew started distributing wrenches for the rest.
Breezewood met up with a impromptu fleet of puddle jumpers, the local name for small craft capable of atmospheric landing. With the Leeds Resistance Forces finally broken, a rat tag group of corporate, military, and freelance ships have filled the void. Seabourne observed, "We flew alongside the Fidelity, a merchant navy trader with BAF, an IC trader called the Freedom.Liner, an OSC wingman named Bob.Johnson, and a freelancer called Illegal.Grow. All of them got us in and out far more quickly than we could have alone, which means saving more people with the limited time we have left."
The evacuations were far more dangerous than Breezewood's prior heroics. While previously the ship only had to dock with the Resistance's base deep in the smog clouds of Leeds, without the LRF pipeline of refugees Seabourne had to head straight to the source. This mean dodging Gallic efforts at interfering with the evacuation.
"Several gunboat patrols opened fire on us. Breezewood's shields went down but our nanobots were able to keep the hull from breaching. We had to pull some fancy flying to stay in the area, but I wasn't going to break orbit with an empty vessel. Still, we had the option of ripping out our hull reinforcements on Anaheim when we offloaded the cargo. I'm glad we didn't."
The 20,000 refugees rescued by Breezewood are a small part of Leeds's estimated 7 billion residents, but every soul matters to a battle weary Bretonia. The rebuilding effort will take decades if not centuries, and Bretonia will need strong backs to reforge her empire. In any event, Seabourne says he is honored to be here in Bretonia's hour of need. "This goes beyond house and company. This is an act of humanity, and if we who are capable of saving thousands stand idle, then we have just as much blood on our hands as the Gallic Navy."
Breezewood's commercial runs are suspended for the duration of the evacuation crisis.
![[Image: avatar_41752.png]](https://discoverygc.com/forums/uploads/avatars/avatar_41752.png){kind=avatar}
Orbital Spa and Cruise
Planet Curacao, Cortez System