Tod 5 op 5  The Chance Encounter  (replaces tod1 op5, attackxy)

The renagade pirates who are now working for the Empire have stolen two or our freighters full of finished war material delivered by the Illinii.  However we were able to trace them by means of an agent who attached a sending unit to the freighters.  This led to an interesting series of events.  

The Illinii who do not take violations of their treaties lightly, traced the freighters briefly to a distant part of the asteroid belt where is seemed to stop for eight minutes and 23 seconds according to the Illinii.  This led them to send a scout, who reported that the renegades had a ground base there, dug into the side of a three kilometer asteroid.  

The people of Illini are remorseless in battle.  The attack began with two Illini frigates wheeling into position, launching space fighters all the way, covering the ground habitations and the deep shafts, waiting for something to try to leave.  Then, in what can only be described as an incredible display of various forms of solid target missilery all out of proportion to the threat, the Illinii brought up several freighters loaded with missile tubes. They fired them all... continuously, awsomely, monontonously.  The bottom of the freighters look like some beserk ad freighter, all its lights blinking, not quite giving you the picture.  First they cover an area with fragments and small bombs so anything exposed on the surface is "neutralized".  Then it was crushingly heavy explosives in quantities usually reserved for planets, mixed in with penetrators that threw up jets of flame and then heaved the ground.  It was a constant and all consuming rain that began about 30 seconds after the first ship appeared, and lasted about twelve minutes.  The whole side of what was once a nearly round asteroid of a size suitable to put down about twenty thousand men was now melted, scoured, eroded, and missing.  Nothing arose from the surface except dust.  The rest of the asteroid broke up, sliding apart like childs blocks.

We will now get our property back.  You are ordered to intercept our stolen freighters and disable them.  We will then board them and take them back.  It should be an easy operation, as they have no other pirate support, and the Empire is almost driven from the area.  