Asteroid Blues

Captain Wu would ensure that the engineers responsible for this debacle would be made into Kuang Shi. Routine maintenance had gone wrong and caused a tear in the roof of the operations centre, exposing the main deck to the cold expanse of space. To top things off, the artificial gravity unit had been switched off during the duration of the repairs. The extreme cold of space quickly froze the panels of the deck in a white, icy film. What a disaster, this would set us back days, Captain Wu was too busy thinking of cruel and unusual punishments for the technicians to notice the Combined Army strikeforce descending from the breach. In an absence of atmosphere, there were no particles to carry sound, it wasn't until he heard the dying screams of one of the tetechnicians over his comms feed that he knew they were under attack.

The operations centre of the Jiyuan open pit site is dominated by two central storage silos and the ruins of an engineering building, the site of the accident which ripped open a breach in the hull and knocked out gravity generators on the main deck.

A cruel, calculating alien intelligence gave a single, non-verbal command. Hide. The Avatar and its troops would bide their time, the combined experience of countless EI aspects granting the construct patience that mankind can only dream of.

Patience was not something the two commanders shared however, unaware of the nature of the enemy threat, fed up with the delays to his operation and determined to make a show of force for anyone foolhardy enough to attack the State Empire's assets on Novvy Bangkok, Captain Wu barked orders through his comms to the troops stationed on the deck to form up and start the attack immediately. If the enemy has chosen not to reveal themselves, he would take the fight to them.

On the right flank, two panggulings, a Kuang Shi and a Su JIan took up positions behind some buildings, preparing to push up the right flank and assault the enemy positions.

The centre was anchored down by the grizzled Hsien, Captain Wu putting himself at the forefront of the sectors defence, with him was his zhanying agent retinue, this time one of them had brought a Missile launcher.

On the left flank, a celestial guard and her team of four Kuang Shi took up positions ready to rush forward.

Two Kanrens deployed agressively, bolstering a flank each and desperate to stem the tide

The grim defenders of the operations centre were ready to face their unseen foes.

One by one, enemies revealed themselves from hiding in the shadows. An Ikadron and R Drone took up positions on each flank, on the right flank, opposite the Su Jian, A med-tech and his servants appeared.

The centre of the board was locked down by Bitt and Kiss, hiding prone behind some vehicles, whilst Victor Messer sat prone hidden on a building, the master hacker not needing to see his enemies to spread discord throughout their ranks.

It was the left flank that gave Captain Wu pause, a large shimmering shape, impossibly large caused his blood to run cold. The form, at least 12 foot tall was nearly impossible to make out, bar for two, cold and hateful eyes glowing at the Hsien from across the table. He calibrated his visor and discovered that he was staring across the battlefield at a walking god, the EI had sent its most powerful agent, the Avatar.

Distracted by the horrific realisation, he almost missed the lone rodok deployed forward on the left flank.

Captain Wu wasted no time, he knew that if they were going to have any chance of stopping the Avatar, they would need to reduce the amount of computing power the EI aspect had available to it locally by reaching out and smashing its support network, He moved up into cover behind a low barrier and opened fire, killing a Q drone before spinning to engage the other Q drone on the opposite flank. Captain Wu gave the order to blanket the battlefield in smoke before the Yu Jing force pushed forward, taking up forward positions from which to defend the operation centre's silos.

On the left flank, a Kanren rushed forwards, an explosive round from the Avatar passing harmlessly through one of its hollowechos as it flickered out. The counter insurgency unit flung itself around the corner and cut the Rodok down in a tempest of shrapnel launched from its boarding shotgun.

The Su Jian sprung into action and ran forward to move into a better defensive position as a shimmering form was revealed across the AO on top of a building, the noctifier launched a missile at the Su Jian, which used its unnatural agility to dodge the incoming warhead.

Captain Wu slid across the barrier and sent the Shasvastii back to meet its maker in an accurate burst of HMG fire. The soldiers of the state empire nervously awaited the storm that was to come.

The battlefield fell silent as the Imperial Service troops awaited the Combined counter attack. It started when Captain Wu's vigilant watch of the Avatar was interrupted by a rapidly expanding white noise zone. The Yu Jing Lieutenant yelled a warning, too late for one of the Kuang Shi, who was torn apart by a burst of HMG fire from the EI Aspect. It strode forward, its heavy steps shaking the plates of the deck as it blasted its Sepsitor at the Kanren and its holo-echoes. The two echos disappeared in a flash of light, revealing the Kanren who was just out of range. There was nowhere to hide now however, and the Avatar ended the Kanren with ease.

The EI, acutely aware the enemy leader could see the Avatar despite its optical disruption device, turned and fired a burst of fire towards the veteran Hsien, Blinded by the white noise zone, the Hsien attempted to drop to the deck to avoid the barrage, however the Avatar scored a lucky shot, a HMG round penetrating his helmet, the critical hit proving no match for his armour, a second HMG round penetrated the Hsiens left shoulder, the act of dodging caused the rest of the shots to miss and the act of throwing himself onto the deck hid the fact that the grizzled Lieutenant was unconscious, that was, until he stopped barking orders over the comms feed.

With the Hsien down, the Avatar gave a single order across the network. Advance. Two ikadrons moved forward to contest their half of the board.

The Avatar, driven by its cruel and alien intelligence, decided to shoot the unconcious Hsien on the ground, killing the captain once and for all and spreading panic amongst the imperial soldiers. The EI aspect slinked back into the shadows, its calculating mind waiting to see how the Yu Jing force would react.

A Su JIan, activating without command from a leader, sprinted from its starting location and bounded up the side of the smaller silo, its mechanical feet digging into the surface as it launched itself up the vertical structure. From its new vantage point, high above the silent carnage unfolding below, it could see its target. Victor Messer was engrossed in his displays and didn't notice the Su Jian until it was too late. He tried frantically to get out of the way, it was a poor attempt with the hacker only managing to roll slightly to the left, ending up on his back, but it didn't matter. The inaccurate shaped charge of the panzerfaust collided with the side of the building. The construct fired again, hitting Victor square in the chest. The operator controlling the Su Jian back at base couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that the pesky hacker survived the shot, clearly heavily wounded, the Hacker's unnatural resilience kept it in the fight, at least for now. The operator brought the Su Jian back to its original position that it had launched the assault from, resupplying its panzerfausts from the panggulings behind the wall with it.

The leaderless Yu Jing force dug in hard to cover and awaited the end that was sure to come

The Avatar strides forward, blasting the Su JIan with a burst of fire, it attempted to dodge, but was unable to do so, Two rounds punched through its armour, but its resilient collection of conduits and micro-actuators managed to continue working in spite of this, it couldn't survive another hit like that, and it dropped to prone behind the barrier.

The Avatar moved with purpose, the awkward bulk of a pangguiling now hid the Su Jian from the EI Aspect. Determined to end the threat the Su Jian posed, the Avatar engaged the remote. Its first salvo knocked the bot out, however its bulk still obscured the Su Jian. The Avatar fired again, triggering a detonation and clearing the TAG's view of its prey.

The Avatar, now on the Yu Jing side of the AO, fired a final burst of HMG fire, silencing the Su Jian.

The hulking form of the avatar lurked just on the other side of two storage units, the ragged remains of the Kuang Shi team let out a warcry and ran forwards, the first one scoring a lucky shot with its chain rifle before detonating as it was hit with an explosive HMG round, the second firing its chain rifle harmlessly as it met a similar fate. Not wanting to be shown up by her slave soldiers, the Celestial guard swung around the corner. She was greeted by the building glow of a Sepsitor powering up, she had seen such a weapon before and knew what it would do, but her devotion to the Empire was stronger than her fear of spending the rest of her existance as a slave of the EI, she fired her combi-rifle, a lucky critical shot piercing the giant's armour as she was hit, her mind rebooting as part of the EI.

The missile launcher imperial agent, taking advantage of the attack swung to the corner of the building and fired a warhead at the colossus, however it was too quick and the missile sailed harmlessly past as the Zhanying fell to the ground with a basketball sized hole in his chest.

The remaining imperial agent ran forward to the edge of the container and fired a burst of breaker rifle shots at the Avatar, its biotechnological shield flaring up like green fire and absorbing the hits. Whilst it was distracted, a Garuda Tacbot landed in the ruins of the engineering building before sneaking up on the distracted avatar and putting two boarding shotgun slugs in its back, its armour was too strong however, and the armoured beast shrugged the assault off.

The remaining troops were ready, each one would force the combined army to pay dearly for their lives, death before dishonour.

Realising how close its favoured agent was to destruction, the EI stood the Avatar down, its massive guns would go cold for the rest of the fight, unwilling to risk annihilation.

First the med-tech came running forward, engaging the remaining Kanren with its submachine gun. It was a miscalculation however, and the Kanren made short work of the specialist. Bit and Kiss moved forward this time, and the Hacker easily cut the now exposed Kanren down with her own SMG.

An Ikadron strode forward and blasted the Garuda with its flamethrower, the agile remote on loan from ALEPH easily evaded the torrent of flame, it tried again, this time the Garuda's armour carried it through. The Ikadron tried one last time, swapping to its pistol, this time, with seemingly unnatural aim, the Combined remote silenced its ALEPH counterpart.

A single Imperial agent was all that remained of the Yu Jing force, He stood his ground defiantly as the forces of the combined army approached, but slumped against the storage unit as he was shot in the back by Bit, the dishonourable hacker choosing to sneak around instead of engage in a fair fight.

Despite the devastating loss of the entire squad at the hands of the alien threat, their sacrifice meant that the combined forces would not have very long to enjoy their grip on the operations hub before a ferocious counter attack could be organised.