(RP) Ghosts of Helia: The Winterblossom

Many ships and their crews of the Old Federation, still loyal to the legendary Ronin Kociero, disappeared during the Aquarian Civil War; some of them fled towards the Angel Reach and eventually formed part of the Eridonia Free Peoples' Fleet before its crushing defeat at Bastion in 4462 A.D. As the Legend flickered out into the void, heroes became ghosts, doomed to haunt the derelicts of the civilisation they had sworn to protect.

One such vessel, Winter Blossom; an old pre-fall Federal Navy Farlease-class Light Patrol Cruiser, had earned a name for herself during Captain Kociero's exploits and narrowly escaped total destruction during a daring rescue operation after the bombing of the Bastion Colony by Imperial Forces. Her captain, Ashlin Syna, had followed Ronin's orders to the last; trapped in orbit over Helia-1 during an EFPF recon operation to make contact with local informants, the Blossom was ambushed by Imperial Navy bombers. Her Jump Drive Array was damaged in the attack and she was forced to ditch into the desert world's thick, inhospitable atmosphere.

Winter Blossom crash landed on the surface of Helia-1 some time in 4463 A.D, presumably with all hands lost. Due to Helia-1's extreme weather conditions and loose, particulate sand 'oceans', the wreckage was never found.

|| OPENING DATA FILE...[CLASSIFIED_FWB_CAP_LOG_18/18/4463#]

|| DATA CORRUPTION DETECTED.

|| ATTEMPTING DATA RECONSTRUCTION...

|| PARTIAL RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETE.

|| TRANSCRIBING.

This will be my final Log Entry as captain of the Blossom, and, well, as Captain at all. We arrived over Helia-1 on the 18th Cycle just as planned, sent a message back to Bastion confirming our arrival and got the green light from Admiral Kociero. Everything was going as planned until a flight of Imperial Navy bombers jumped us on short-range proximity scanners, probably an atmospheric patrol. Managed to fight off the bombers with our PDS, they got spooked and routed back to whatever carrier they came from, but not before releasing their payloads. We didn't catch them early enough and took and absolute beating. Lost our JDA in the tussle, Blossom barely managed to haul it out of there.

We've been drifting in orbit over this god-forbidding desert world for about half a cycle. Lost the bombers on scanners about hundred clicks into Helia's terminal zone, come to think of it, they probably routed knowing Blossom was done for anyway.

We're in retrograde orbit, decaying about two, maybe three hundred meters an hour, at this rate we will begin atmospheric entry in about five days. I'm going to brief the crew and prepare for an emergency landing but it's a long shot. Our pods won't escape Helia's gravity well so this looks like the end for us.

I'm encoding our last-known orbital co-ordinates into this data packet, if anyone finds this, you'll have a good place to start searching for the wreckage. Ronin, if you read this, sorry I couldn't buy you that drink, old friend. See you on the other side.

|| TRANSCRIPTION END.