On the Night of Comets, over 90% of the satellites, stations, and ships visible form the polar regions of Xiandao were destroyed. Nothing was too small or innocuous to be spared the attention of the rebels who had taken over the planetary defense facilities, nor did they scruple over targeting civilians or even their own kinsmen. Anyone in space was an acceptable sacrifice. It is likely that over 100,000 perished. The few that escaped were either exceptionally fortunate, alert, or already en route to the ground in interface landers. Among those were some of the 5,000 military reinforcements landing for the planned, but too-late preemptive raids on the Blessed Concordance bases in the Leng Highlands. Against Xiandao’s perilous air defense environment, the dropships and shuttles had to land as quickly as possible, wherever feasible, and so few of the surviving vessels landed anywhere near their intended terminals.

The largest concentration of landers in the Interzolia region were the starport facilities on Fire Island. These huge facilities were meant to accommodate the oceanic landings of huge interface ships and quickly transfer their cargoes out by sea to the coastal zone, particularly Stellamaris and Ghostlight Harbor. Instead, they found their landing pads and tarmacs were crowded with a torrent of smaller vessels. The traffic volume was so large that the ground crews were forced to dump dropships into the sea as soon as the passengers were disembarked. Often, there was no time to offloads cargo. Soldiers usually escaped only with what they were wearing and could carry.

Amid this chaos, gunfire and explosions erupted across the northernmost of the island’s sea-and-air terminal at False Hope. Freighters and barges disgorged landing craft, whaleboats, and rafts overfilled with poorly-equipped, but fanatical members of the Northern Federation of Miners, and the surprise raid quickly seized the docks and beaches. Simultaneously, cargo landers claiming to be orbital refugees broke landing sequence and crashed into the tarmac, disgorging crack Xia warriors in full panoply. These were the Lustrous Sons of Peace, noble warriors sworn to the Inscrutable Many Handed Master, the mandarin of Ghostlight Harbor.

To say that the loyalties of the Xia nobility were doubted by the colonial powers risks understatement, but few expected open alliance between the Xia and low-born frontier rabble, to say nothing of their perfect coordination. Fire Island’s defenses were crumbling and their defenders in disarray. If the island fell, it would be a crippling blow to the foreign powers in Interzolia, for they would not only lose a huge store of weapons and fuel, but lose their naval superiority. There would be no swift redeployments by sea between the coastal cities, only long overland marches, fraught with the peril of ambushes.

But as a colonial disaster seemed foredoomed, two towering figures strode into the flames to wrestle victory from the jaws of defeat. These were the Void Knights Robrecht-Franz Cinnéidigh the Younger and Mykael Telvector, respectively commanders of the Battle Masters and Shadow Serpents expeditions on Xiandao.

Scenario

• Rules: Stargrunt II (Jon Tuffley, Ground Zero Games)
• Scale: 28mm, Company level
• Objectives: Landing Pads (x2), Fuel Depot (x2), Spacecraft Maintenance Facility
• Special Rules: Randomized unit quality/leadership. Each player starts with 2 units on the table, additional reinforcements must be called in by successful Communications/Activation roll.
• Time Limit: 5 turns

The Battlefield

Before the battle (beach side)

Before the battle (runway side)

Belligerents

• Shadow Serpents Scouts (2x squads)
• Battle Masters marines (2x squads)
• Deimos-pattern Vindicator
• Base Security (2x half-squads)

• Arqualan Naval Infantry squad
• Arqualan Intavari (Stormtroopers) squad
• Arqualan Heavy Weapons Team (Infantry Missile)
• Conestanz Strato-Hussars squad
• Conestanz Strato-Hussars Stormtrooper squad + Commissar
• Conestanz Strato-Hussars Heavy Weapons Team (Gauss machine gun)
• Sneakfeet (Halfling) snipers

vs.

• Broadside Battlesuit w/ Heavy Railgun, Hunter Killer missile, and Plasma gun
• Fire Warriors squad
• Stealth Squad

• Hybrid Brute squad
• Goliath Rockgrinders (x2)
• Achilles Ridgerunner (with mortar)
• Hardbass Vox Man
• Hybrid weapons squad
• Bike squad (4x bikes, 1x quad)

(Note: the forces above represent only the units that actually made it onto the table. Other units were attempted to be deployed, but the communication rolls failed).

Outcome

DRAW. After five turns, the colonial defenders held the fuel stores in tact, but the native attackers captured a landing pad and the spacecraft maintenance center. Another landing pad was still contested at the end of the game. The battle for Fire Island will grind on.

Scenes of Slaughter

Brutal fighting for the landing pads.

Robrect-Franz defies the Xia battlesuits.

Miner landing forces come ashore.

Arqi and Conestanz reinforcements arrive.

Mutant miners assault the Void Knights

Converted mining vehicles advance under cover of Xia battlesuits.

Battle Masters and base security hold the tarmac.

Reinforcements are on the way!

Shadow Serpents scouts withdraw in the face of crazed mutant bikers.

The lead mining vehicle was destroyed by an infantry missile

Hybrid warriors overwhelm security at the maintenance building.

Trapped by burning vehicles, the Xia shock troops fight on.

The missile hits home.

An Arqi missile team sights its target.

Strato-Hussars defend the tarmac

Strato-Hussar weapons team sights the enemy.

Conestanz Strato-Hussars defend one of the starport’s weather dominators.

The Battle Masters battle with Xia warriors for the landing pad