MAYFAIR SANCTUARY, NEW LONDON SYSTEM, BRETONIA SPACE
The evacuation of Leeds continues at full speed. Massive transports like USI's Elko and IC's Escudo are becoming common sights along the dangerous evac route through New London. Absent a central coordinating group, however, the evacuation has fallen to ad hoc groups of ships that require freighters to bridge the gap between the burning surface of Leeds and the transports in orbit.
Fortunately, Breezewood's crew can fulfill both roles as needed. During a recent glut of transports, Captain Jonathan Seabourne took to the skies in one of her shuttlecraft, the Day Tripper, to ease the surface-to-orbit bottle neck. "I wanted to see how the 'other half' lives for a bit," said the smiling though visibly overworked captain. Over the course of the following hours, Seabourne shuttled passengers up to orbit alongside a motley bunch of freighters from all over Sirius. Republican Humpbacks, GC Drones, and Crayterian Celestras all wrestled with Leeds ATC for precious landing sites to get thousands of refugees off-world.
However, near tragedy struck the brave crew of the Day Tripper. A wave of Gallic patrol ships concentrated their fire on the shuttle as it was puddle-jumping refugees alongside Republican's Tsufridn.von.Shokolade up to the DHC vessel Unstrut under kapitan Hemmeler. "The downside of flying with Rheinland vessels is that they are neutral to the Gallics," explained Seabourne. "This meant that when I broke orbit, I was the only target for his majesty's fighters."
In an unfortunate confluence of patrols, the Gallic ships combined firepower quickly drained the shuttle's shields. The Day Tripper frantically made for the atmosphere, but having ditched all of its nanobots, batteries, and armor upgrades to free up cargo space for refugees, it did not outlast the barrage. "We hit the lifepods as soon as we started hearing impacts to the hull, so we managed to get out in time. Shokolade made pick-up and fortunately the navy pilots didn't give him any flack for it."
In an unusual twist, this ad-hoc group had been united by a previous lost vessel. "Hemmeler's brother was on the Steyr, a vessel we heard come under attack by the Molly Pirate Goldfang on the other side of the Leeds-[New] London jumphole right before we were jumping in" said Seabourne. "That was a few days ago, and at the time we managed to pick up their refugees but saw no traces of the ship. I relayed what info I could. I hope he also made it to a lifepod and finds his way home."
Seabourne made it back to New London, riding as a passenger rather than as crew for a change. Upon arriving back at the Breezewood, his first orders were to strip the ship's other shuttle to prepare it to assist in the evac operations. "Leeds still has refugees and I can still fly," said Seabourne. "The convoy continues."
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