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A blackened asteroid drifted through space spiraling out of control. A debris field was slowly expanding around it as it passed though space. Remains of dropships, gunboats, and fighters either crumpled into the asteroid or cracked added to what was slowly pouring out of breaches in the surface. Equipment, liquids, gasses, slagged metals and men all equally lifeless made up the debris. In the tunnels of the asteroid walls were blackened with plasma scorches, fragmented with disk explosions. Without artificial gravity everything was in motion. Papers, furniture, crates, limbs, armor, weaponary, and ammo danced around in the interior showing signs of the battle that had only ended hours before. Most of the decompression doors had been blown in the attack devistating the unprotected research personel only the handful of warriors who had self-containing armor survived to strike back. Unfortunatley they were too few. Though they fought bravely and had the advantage of a massive amount of automated defensived and knowledge of the territory most died. The B.E.s had paid the price also, not one survived.<br>The Asteroid had been home to a number of recruits undergoing testing of a new interface that they were to use in a strike against a Blood Eagle manufacturing planet. Using the asteroid as a disguise they were to sneak into the system and launch for the planet in a stealth dropship and simply take out a plasma reactor on the surface. The resultant destruction would have turned the planet into a mini sun for several days that would have utterly destroyed the factories and shipyards in orbit. However a turncoat in the Diamond Sword's military structure had given the plans away and the resultant destruction of the entire operation. <br>Eight hours ago three dropships eight gunboats and a small carrier had jumped into close proximity of the asteroid expecting easy pickings because of their surprise attack. However just because the plan relied on stealth didn't mean that they were ill prepared. The dropships moved in to board, the gunships started to randomly rake the surface targeting craters and the carrier deployed its fighters in a screen to prevent any small pods or ships from escaping. That is when the asteroid's defenses opened up. Hidden missle batteriedcame to the surface and started to launch against the aggressors. A large plasma emplacement shot slow moving plasma balls at the closest dropship. Lasers started to pick at the shields of the carrier before it could launch any more fighters.<br>All hell broke loose.<br>Under a combination of plasma and missle fire a dropship exploded hammering the other two and driving several gunships into the surface of the asteroid. To their benefit one gunship pilot saw the plama battery and seconds before impact he drove his ship down the barrel and blew the battery apart.<br>Fighters and gunships swooped in working to clear the area of missle turrents and laser batteries. Enough so that one dropship was able to reach the surface and initiate a drive burn that punched a hole fourty feet int the moblie base. Decks were now open to vacume and decompressing atmosphere poured out into space. The second dropship had its engines knocked out only a few hundred meters above the surface so it hit the asteroid at an alarming speed. It crushed in a good six levels of the base but did not succeed in breaking through the surface. The rogue dropship rebounded off the asteroid with metal shrieking and atmosphere venting from every compartment. Main power failed and those that hadn't been killed either by the impact or the decompression rushed to their assigned exit points and poured out of the dropship using their own suit jets to jump the distance to the surface.<br>The gunships and fighters now over their initial shock had started working in tandem to punch holes in the surface to create more entryways for their brothers even as they were picked off by surface batteries that were ignored.<br>The carrier was now out of range but limping. It was a support carrier and had never been intended to get close enough to be fired upon. They jumped out-system to get back to home base to report that there was fierce oposition and backup may be needed.<br>With that the few ships and fighters remaining worked to clear the AA batteries and the battle moved into the interior of the asteroid.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>