Asteroid Blues

Prologue-

Mr. Feng is an honorable and dutiful citizen of Yu Jing, aged 50 he is the living image of Tradition, an old man always dressed in long robes of vibrant colors, he goes to work with a top of the line Suit along with brown shaded sunglasses, he´s also married to his childhood sweetheart Mrs.Feng, who happened to meet him while she was working, there isn´t a better example of the calm and prosperous lives the citizens in the State Empire enjoy. -Excerpt from the University of Yen Tang's Sociological Records.

Feng reclined softly in his chair, eyes closed towards the ceiling and a steamy cup of tea in his right hand, the casual robes he wore were made of silk and exquisitely embroidered with tiger, dragon, and pheasant motiffs, the dragon was a bright Jade color rising all along his back under the black and blue night sky surrounded by clouds, the tiger was yellow with red stripes prowling on a moonlit forest on his chest, and a couple of pheasants calmly roosted on their nest in the tree that extended from beneath the tiger to his right arm, just beside his tea.

"This is what I work for..." he sighed softly, opened his eyes and took a sip from his cup, only the breezing of the wind could be heard as it flowed through the dimly-lit wooden hallways of his mansion.

His peace was abruptly ended when his personal comlog, resting on the table besides his bronze Kettle, sparked to life with dense feedback along with pings from notifications.

He gestured with his left hand, and the comlog's hologram rised in a circular shape like an ancient computer monitor, on the virtual screen he saw a message "Sea Lions in Novvy Cimmeria are migrating from the north to the south, a very interesting happening for distinguished oceanographers such as yourself, enclosed you´ll find your ticket and invitation to this event..." stamped with a Crane and Dragon instead of a signature, he zoomed in to the Crane and Dragon till he could see the fine lines that constituted the stamp, virtually chiselled he recognized the authenticity of the print.

And so he stood up, and went to his room to start packing...

A Hsien Warrior, first grade imperial agent, stood before a holodisplay pointing and gesturing at the blueprints of each area in the facility, his Black Leather cloak with gold trims concealed part of his power armour, his helmet however rested on a podium nearby, his face was like chiseled stone, furrowed and coarse with strong features, his jaw was square and his hair was neatly combed backwards, his slanted eyes shone green and blue and his skin was pale like the Nobility of ancient China.

"As you can see..." he pointed at the holodisplay and zoomed in once again at the multi layered blueprint, "...the facilities here are not quite state of the art there's many deposits that are already filled to the brim and the debris lies scattered pretty much in every part of the quarry, you must be careful whenever you're patrolling, this many tight and enclosed spaces represent the biggest security vulnerability the facility has"

On the briefing room table a group of celestial guards, zhanshi, Bao Troopers, Shaolin Monks, Tiger Soldiers, Zuyongs agents and even some kuang shi were listening intently.

"As soldiers of the state empire we protect the security of any facility for Ji Yuan Unlimited that's the duty the princess of Scrap and the State rests upon our shoulders"

"Next up I'm going to show you the lower sections of the quarry, all this prints you're seeing are actually X Ray live feed from our cameras, you can always check this information periodically when your shifts begin and end, in any other case this information will be dispatched on a need to know basis..." he said casually and shifted the display to the second lowest level, as you can expect this part is really cold, actually it can kill you to stay there without heavy duty protective gear for long periods of time, he laughed and his audience looked quizzically at his darkened attempt at humour, except the kuang shi that joined him in laughter ever loyal to the emperor.

A Tiger interceded at the moment, "so if we need protective gear where is it issued for us?"

The Inmortal shifted to another feed and said, "in these rooms", he pointed at the print, "and this one in particular, notice the airtight vaults, that's where the gloves, armor and other things is stored, each is of course tagged with your name, or number to accelerate the process don't take anything out of the facilties is that clear?"

"It is clear as day..." a Monk acknowledged,"...but there shouldn't be any ariadnans forcing the equipment in the room right?"

"Of course not", rebuked the Immortal and to his dismay he saw the feed, an undercover group of ariadnans were actually looting the lockers and fiddling with all the cameras and microphones.

"Meeting adjourned!" he said and rapidly donned his helmet and trotted through the door, he made a call on his comlog and contacted security "ok Lee we have a situation, we need an immediate reaction unit dispatched for the sector 2967"

"Acknowledged, step into the nearest cargo elevator and descend, your troops shall meet you at the perimeter, be safe Agent!"

"They better be there when I arrive agent Lee, or else this will go on your personal record..."

The Inmortal loaded his HMG, as the cargo elevator descended, his comlog received a transmission before the elevator came to a halt.

"The perimeter is already set Warrior" explained agent Lee "to your left there should be a celestial guard with her Kuang shi and a Su Jian, this unit has been deployed as a hit and run assailant, he's in charge of monitoring sensitive data..."
"That sounds good, but what about the rest of the force?"
"To your right there's a couple of Zhanying Agents waiting for you to lead them, a Sophotect is prone on top of the building where they have taken cover, and on the right corner is Gui Feng Xi Zhuang his madtraps should protect you from an initial assault, the ariadnans are on the move take your position and go!"
"Acknowledged agent, from this point onwards the Operations lies on my hands rest easy"

The Doors of the elevator opened and a gust of cold stagnant air flowed within the elevator clouding his helmet, his visor however allowed him to move, avoid the debris and take position beside the Zhanying Agents.

As soon as the comms channel was established, an Ariadnan commando broke through the glass on the left side, a Kuang Shi immediately opened fire with his Pistol, wounded him in mid-air, the commando fell beside a cargo container, the sickening crunch of broken bone announced his fall had been grievous.

From the shadows of the container an obscured silhoutte moved from that position, on the double it reached the corner from the Kuang Shi's position, the madtraps sounded uneasy as their XIFF protocol could not distinguish obscured enemy from clear enemy and thus idled.

Roger Van Zant in charge of this ambush, advanced furtively through our left flank till he pulled the dot on one of the Kuang shi, who turned around and shot a couple of rounds with his pistol, Van zant could not reach cover as the bullet caught him in the stomach, sliding to cover he clutched his wound while gritting his teeth.

The Obscured silhouette moved rapidly from her position and threw herself with abandon at the Su-Jian Demolition Charge in hand, it was none other than Uxia McNeill, the Madtraps responded as soon as her cloak was off impacting her face which lead her to drop the Demolition charge, the Kuang Shi, Su Jian and the Celestial guard, opened fire upon her leaving her 3 bullet holes worth of overkill.

As the ambush was stopped a Chasseur moved to one of the consoles, and activated the console seizing control of it, lighting up the heating unit for the ariadnans.

"Now's our time exclaimed the Immortal, push them back!" he exclaimed through the comms channel.

As the warrior gave the order, two of the kuang shi launched themselves into a race on the left flank until the Celestial guard controller could stop them from jeopardizing our position.

"Controller I need smoke cover up ahead it's time to light these ruffians up" said the Immortal pointing forward with two fingers designating the area where two smoke cannisters impacted spreading the dusky vapour, then the Immortal prowled like a bloodthirsty tiger opening fire with his Heavy Machine Gun upon a Grunt perched on the position the ariadnans were holding.

The grunt reaching for his trigger was pierced through the face by a hail of bullets, his brain matter drizzled through his nose, and the ariadnan held it in his fingers and beheld it with blodshot eyes before dropping to the ground with a loud thud and started convulsing.

"You're up next Su Jian! I want their bodies piled and bagged before my next meeting" ordered the Warrior as the two Zhanying Agents took position beside him.

The machine wirred heavily for an instant as the Su Jian morphed into a tiger aspect, it then proceeded to accelerarte on our left flank towards a building, however The Chasseur at the console shot him with blinding flash rounds, which pierced his "head"...

"I'm gonna need some time to get the systems under control, the sensor circuits are going haywire" The Su Jian Operator said, the tiger aspect shifted and took cover on a building, "heh, I could park one of these babies in reverse with my eyes closed" he boasted while laughing.

"Glory for whom brings me the head of that Man" said the Immortal gesturing and pointing towards the chasseur, and of course it was the Kuang Shi who launched themselves through a debris covered hallway, a door opened before him and his feet seemed to stop touching the ground for a second before his the magnetized sole of his boot touched it, in his impetuous stride the kuang shi cut the corner to his left and in front of him he visualized his target, he charged screaming pulling the chain belt mechanism of his chain rifle with his right hand as he pointed it to the Ariadnan with his left hand.

A hail of white hot shrapnel and red hot plumes converged as the chasseur turned to let loose his napalm upon the kuang shi, the chasseur was biten all through his torso and body armor by sharpnel and the kuang shi now a charred husk of a man dropped besides him...

The Ariadnan were pretty demoralized at this point, nonetheless they still had cards to play...

A shadowy figure emerged from a corner pulling a high caliber rifle on the Warrior and the Zhanying agents, caught unaware the warrior and the Immortal reacted on instinct ducking behind the cover of a building and a container where the bullets of the Strelok impacted.

The sound was thunderous and the walls trembled a bit while newly cut debris dropped to the floor beside the agents...

"These bastards are bringing in Theseum coated bullets" exclaimed the Zhanying behind cover
"The caliber doesn't matter if it doesn't strike you!" rebuked the Immortal chastisingly.

The strelok ejected a first theseum coated bullet by hand, and proceeded to shoot another burst, the bullet caught the zhanying but the Warrior's draw was too fast and his shots cleaved through the rifle and into the throat of the Strelok who died clutching his insignia with his cold dead hands...

And finally the Blackjack their Ace under their slevee, joined the action, moving heavily and stoically, his Bandolier chained to the box of ammunition on his HMG, he took position beside the dead Strelok and took the insignia while checking his vitals with a gloved hand "I'll make sure your honor is restored, little one" his voice was raspy and also had a twinge of sadness.

He took cover and opened fire on the Immortal, who responded, the warrior avoided the first burst which continued to wreak the wall of the building he was using as cover, and the bullets he shot only bounced from the imposing hunk of metal armor the Blackjack was surrounded with.

"You won't get lucky a second time" he said unloading even more bullets this time, the warrior tried to duck behind cover but the bullets caught his torso, burning through his jacket and deeply puncturing his armor.

Coughing the Warrior rolled on the ground and hid on the other side of the building.
"That was the sound of ribs breaking, don't exert yourself agent your armor should hold your vitals in place if you stay still"- Sophie´s voice emerged in the channel like a song, she had been silent until now "I'll be there in a second".

The Jack continued his advance unimpeded first at a trot and then in a full sprint, until he saw the Su Jian, clutching the underbarrel of his HMG he shot the disposable missile at the Robot who was unable to avoid the blast that sent him flying against a container he crashed with a the sound of metal crushing beneath metal,his armor shattered and most of the internal mechanisms were visible and some of them broken.

A subtle plume of electric blue emerged from the agent's position speeding like an owl it nested on the crevices of the BlackJack´s Armor, a subtle crack was heard and the black jack cowered in fright for a second..."You're no warrior, you're nothing but an assassin" he shouted at the Immortal who had let loose the pulse of nanomachines which had dented his armor.

The jack sprinted once again to the robot's position and this time he let loose another full burst, seemingly broken as the robot was, it sidesteped against a wall while shooting back with his spitfire, and the whistling of hateful death filled the crevices of the Jack once again.

The bullets impacted the floor and walls as the nanomachines devoured his flesh underneath his armor at high speed, along with the impact of bullets on his torso, that was enough damage to send him into shock...The Gentle Giant was dying and the Robot hissed like a snake taunting him...

A second Chasseur operative cursed and ran towards the robot screaming, and covered him in napalm.

The Robot however reached for his back and pulled an emergency wire which spread a cold white dust over him, instead of fire his armor was covered by a chunky film of ice...

"We take them down now..." said the Immortal in a low raspy voice sitted back against the wall with his HMG held across his torso, ready to strike at any moment.

"acknowledged!" a chorus of Kuang shi and their controller erupted into joy, as the Controller laid down cover of smoke on the Su Jian and on the road towards the chasseur.

They charged at him like rabid wolves shooting their chain rifles, the chasseur outnumbered and outgunned, fell quickly...

"and now no more surprises..." said the Warrior as he gestured to the Zhanying agent to move forwards.

She moved silently, like a cat prowling, till she came to a weird outline besides a wall, touching her helmet she could see a Tankhunter looking at her while pulling his weapon, she was expecting this however and before the ariadnan could point the gun at her she had opened fire with her breaker rifle the shots shred his grip arm and bit his throat. "Sit down asshole, never pull a gun on me, I have a twitchy trigger finger, not that it matters anymore..." she said reloading her rifle as a matter of fact.

"Xi Zhuang get an ID going on the Warcor, and bring her into custody" she said and the specialist operative moved along with his goats, he saw the warcor curled up into a ball pointing at her with his tracker device he punched the coordinates of her location and all possible information he had of her, cross referenced it while the goat ran towards her.

When the Goat reached the warcor it erupted covering her underneath the adhesive material.

"Now we better extract our people before the cold strikes" he said.

The Su Jian climbed upon a high structure and confirmed the ariadnans were retreating.

"let them run they won't find shelter inside the facility they'll freeze to death soon enough" Said the Immortal walking back to the elevator that brought him down he disengaged the security lock and the celestial guard, kuang shis, zhanying agent, xi zhuang along with his glued hostage and Sophie boarded the elevator.

However the heating units malfunctioned as a demolition charge went off near the elevator, shutting down the entrance, the Immortal and the Su Jian had no way of extraction...

Van Zant had mined the elevator shaft before he attacked them...