[center][h2]Foundation One, Asteroid Belt[/h2][/center]

The sound of hissing air and weapons fire rang out in the station's atrium as civilians and soldiers alike ran for cover. The calm, recorded voice of a woman traveled through what air remained. Degraded over years of tape storage, her voice reminded everyone of the pressurized safe zones and breathing masks that were readily available throughout the station. The message was intended for an asteroid collision, but that was before the shielding had been added. Now the station orbited in the asteroid field with a giant, two-layered metal shield facing forwards into incoming objects. Giant shock absorbers prevented large objects from causing even more damage.

This was no asteroid impact.

Robots swarmed the room, taking the plants, animals, and people. They ignored the soldiers and technology, apparently just trying to steal as many organisms as possible. The sheer size of the room was the only thing that prevented the air from being sucked out in seconds, but even so, the Rissan could feel the pressure on their skin decrease as the robots created more and more holes in the station's hull. The soldiers forced the civilians to evacuate, staying behind to cover their escape. They naively thought that the onslaught would eventually stop, but it never did. The robots moved too fast for that, with almost every shot fired being a miss. The ranks of soldiers broke, running for the blast doors as others continued to be taken.

Safely sealed behind the blast doors, the remaining soldiers began to plan a counterattack. However, they found their plans to be in vain. As quickly as the attack had begun, it had just then ended.  

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"Of fucking [i]course[/i] there's a mothership. As if the damn robots weren't bad enough."

The command crew of the Foundation looked on in disbelief. The Commander barely ever cursed, and got angry even less. He had always promised that no family of a soldier under his command would have to go without a body to put in the coffin. Quite an ambitious promise for someone commanding forces in space. For the first time, his crew saw proof that it was a promise he had never intended to break.

"Do we have enough power for the NEDD?" He continued, desperately trying to come up with solutions. "How far is it from here?"

"The NEDD has never been tested! You saw what they did to our hull, if it fails, eight million people die! We should launch a nuke, take the thing out in a single blast and be done with it." Said the station's tactical officer.

"There are civilians on that ship! In Litvan, we don't leave our damn people to die!"

"Are you suggesting we capture the ship?"

"Yes! We take a goddamned fleet out there, cripple its defenses, board the ship, and get our people back!"

"What about its crew? What do we do with them?"

"Kill them, capture them, make them design weapons for us, that doesn't matter right now! What matters is that we get our people back! How many ships do we have in the area?"

"Sir! This is too risky-"

"I am Commander of Foundation 1! This station commands the furthest-flung ships we have. I'm here because the Council chose me with First Contact situations in mind. In the event of contact with a hostile alien intelligence, I have the authority to take control of the Starfleet! How many fucking ships do we have in the area?!"

The tactical officer was visibly scared of the Commander, he'd never raised his voice to anyone on his crew before.

"W-we have two heavies, a carrier-specialized heavy, five skirmishers, and their respective tugs and strike craft. The mothership is a day out a 1g, given the distance from the furthest ship."

"Bring the acceleration up to 2g, match arrival time of the furthest ship. I'm going out on the carrier."

"Sir-"

The Commander glared at the officer, removing any thoughts of more objections from his mind. 

"Understood. Dispatching now, a courier ship will take you to the carrier."