Asteroid Blues

Evening fell on the spaceport. A distant star barely the size of pea dipped below the horizon. Much of the station went dark as the "night" time cycle began. The PanOceanian patrol monitored the tightly packed buildings of the shipping offices. Adriana the kamau sniper led her team of fusiliers to the roof and to get a vantage point over the tangled maze. Her fellow kamau was watching her flank, scanning the horizon with his machine gun. Between them, silent as a cat, was a towering bulk of machinery, nearly invisible to the naked eye.

Suddenly, a low roar ripped through the sky, the various elements of the patroll dropped down instictively. A modified freighter roared overhead. It came in low and fast. The auto defense was beginning to train on it as it disgorged some shadowy figures onto a roof top and shot out in a corkscrew maneuver. Adriana took point to act as eyes and ears as the rest of Varuna prepared themselves for what was just another day on the job.

Whirring of gears and a loud full throated scream of a motorbike filled the air. A zondnautica eager for a quick kill shot out along the flank spying Adriana. He raised his spitfire and collapsed as a shot ripped his lung apart and another blew out his cranial cavity. His corpse rag dolled around the bike as it flipped and smashed itself and its rider into a nearby wall.

Colossal hulks moved forward. A lone helot, blending in with the buildings saw them. Several kriza borac and a hollow man rushing forward. The helot does his duty and let's a rocket rip but it splashes harmlessly off the heavy armor he is facing. In return the Kriza unloads an unnecessary amount of ammo tearing the helot to shreds from his machine gun.

The nomads move up and took position in the middle of the complex. They took point covering possible routes of advance for the Varnunan forces. But Varuna was not passive. A silent terror began to creep out of the shadows. The hollow man managed to dodge some of the incoming fire and his armor shrugged off the rest. A cutter had revealed itself unleashing its first fusillade upon the unsuspecting hollowman who ducked behind the barricade. The cutter advanced laying down fire while the kriza managed to land two excellent shots damaging the machinery of the TAG. The mechanistic scrambled up behind it and rerouted around the damaged systems. The TAG stormed the Kriza with renewed vigor completely obliterating the massive bulk of armor and its operator. It continued pressing forward spying the second Kriza and annihilated it as well, but errantly forsook the grenzer with the shotgun in the distance considering it a minimal threat. Once again the TAG was severely crippled.

The Kamau with the machine gun heard his commander's cursing over the comms about lucky shots ruining a prefectly.good tag, so he stood up and hosed down a securite that he could see in the narrow alleyways. He the moved onto the bridge and saw the hollow man cowering below and managed to punch through its armor, but failed to put it down permanently.

The Nomads suddenly realized how precarious their position was. Their advance had been bold. Very bold. But it was unraveling fast. Worse yet, they had lost their lieutenant to the Kamau ripping him apart. Their rapid offense had crashed into the stalwart Varunan troops.

They had to act with what little they had left. The Grenzer took a few more pot shots at the TAG, shutting it down. The hollowman boldly stood up and began laying down fire even as the Kamau took pot shots at the husk.

Time was getting tight. O-12 sirens were on the horizon to stop the fight. Worse yet, with the cutter down, the lieutenant was knocked out of the comms. The zulu cobra stood up and sprayed down the grenzer, getting rid of the nuisance. The engineer ran his palbot up to the hulk and quickly slammed a new control board back into place while fire tore it to shreds. The kamau tried to put the hollowman down but a lucky shot from the hail of bullets connected The cutter sprang back from its stupor and laid low the hollowman in retaliation while driving up the field. The remaining helot moved up and tried to remove the last two securite, but the first rocket proved ineffective. The securitate scrambled trying to in a last chance desperate push forward shooting at the Zulu cobra, but the combined fire from the mechanistic, zulu and helot finished off the last two nomads remaining.

PanOceania had secured its assets against the sudden intrusion. Their enemies laid low at their feet while they stood proudly.