The Bear and the Dragon.

[mtjsmith]

[font=agency fb]Location: [color=#FFFFFF]Far side of Planet Odessa, Omega-52
Date: 14th June 819 AS

"Excellent, we're finally making progress."

[color=#FFFFFF]The Commandant looked at Doctor XiaoBei, who in returned muttered under his breath while he continued to work at the console. It had only been a couple of days since the raid on the Hegemon and Volgograd Industrial had come through for the workers and had managed to acquire a very old yet still usable Zoner Whale. Eureka moments had flashed through the control tower in the last 48hrs and now the workforce were making up for lost time. Ling looked down at a clipboard which showed the latest workers reports.

"According to this we're ready to install the magna-loaders. Next page states we're a bit behind on the main cruise drive."

[color=#FFFFFF]Again the good doctor was ignoring him, evidently far too busy in his work.

"Very well, I'll go for an inspection. I can see you have other matters to attend to."

[color=#FFFFFF]The Doctor waved and muttered something. Ling could not hear him properly but he did not care. He took a brisk walk down to the airlock and paused halfway over the bridge tethering the XR-1 to the station. On the other side of the station, he could just see the top of the XiaoSet poking out. Rather, the scaffolding around her as the ship was slowly and carefully pulled apart. Up and to the right, the sister station to this one was building the XR-2. The workers had built up morale by hosting a series of challenges to each other. Who could put in the weapons systems the fastest, who could maintain efficiency the longest and etc. Such challenges were fruitful and the work quality managers had reported rapid decreases in both accidents and compulsory redundancies. Ling did not like laying workers off if they made a mistake. In his opinion on a project as vital as this - They should be thrown out the airlock. High Command disagreed. He looked up to see the main clamps on the front of XR-2 retract.

"Surely not. Hah!"

[color=#FFFFFF]He rushed back up the stairs to the control room.

"Seems XR-2 beat us in getting the main cannon online."

[color=#FFFFFF]Ling looked over at the data. Sure enough, the cannon was finished on the soon to be CPW-Sickle.

"You don't sound to happy about it."
[color=#66FFFF]"There's something wrong in the data. It's probably all this bloody Phantom tech we've built in but this chart here.... "

Disaster struck. The entire station was rocked by a massive explosion. Alarms blared. Electric lines shorted and sparked. Monitors went dark and anything not tied down was thrown around the room. Several dark and tense moments later, Ling hazily stood.

"Doctor are you alright?!"
[color=#66FFFF]"What the bloody hell...... was..... THAT!! No no no...."

The shield generator which protected XR-1 had survived. Barely. XiaoBei tried in vain to get the computer systems back online while Ling walked to the window. One glance was all he needed.

"The Sickle's gone."

[color=#FFFFFF]He looked around in space, the station surrounding the Battleship-in-progress was utterly obliterated and there were fires all around space as different smaller bits of debris burned. The XR-1 below had taken a battering, but was still more or less intact. He bowed his head in a silent prayer and gritted his teeth. Today was a dark day indeed.

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