The Battle of Duckeroid

	The object in question was comprised of two relatively large asteroids conjoined millions of years ago due to a low speed collision. The smaller lobe was ten kilometers at its widest and six hundred meters at its smallest. It was highly metallic, and most of the impact remnants more closely resembled bullet dents than craters. The bigger lobe was largely rocky, and it had a surface which more closely resembled the Moon. The asteroid looked almost like a strange sort of a duck.

	Despite the interesting conjoined nature of two lobes of differing composition, the asteroid itself was unremarkable. It had as much precious metal as any other, though it was in a very difficult to reach orbit. The Captain was scratching his head, wondering why the Space Program wanted to send them to this rock. Was this some kind of a cruel joke? He checked his orders again, making absolutely certain they had chosen the correct target. After nearly a year in space, it had better be the right one.

	The Astrogator insisted that this was the correct object, despite it following a slightly different orbit than they were first informed of, and assured the Captain that it would be nearly impossible to be at the wrong asteroid given the sparsity of the asteroid belt. The Science Officer noted that they were still about two days away.

	"There could still be some more interesting features," the Science Officer said.
	"This whole mission plan makes no sense! They send us a B-type encrypted heliomessage, no one tells us anything in person, and we're expected to just go out here with no clue what we're meant to do?" The Pilot said. "I was going to take a planetleave and visit my kids."
	"We'll just have to wait," said the Captain.

	The small interplanetary Cargo Boat continued on its trajectory. The Astrogator was making observations of the asteroid and noticed something strange on the rocky lobe.

	"Hey Captain, look at this," said the Astrogator.
	"What is it?" asked the captain.
	"We're still too far away to see any major details. But there's a little miscolored region near the north part of the rocky lobe that's jutting out from the rock, and while I don't want to jump to any conclusions, I think it *could* perhaps be a base," said the Astrogator.
	"That's quite a logical leap, but if true it could at least be some reason for this mission," the Captain said.

	When the spacecraft was closer to the asteroid, it was clear that something was placed on the surface.

	"It looks like a standard colony module with a... oh dear," said the Astrogator, looking through the telescope.
	"What is it?" asked the Captain.
	"Can you uh, hand me a ship identification chart?" asked the Astrogator. The Science Officer handed the ship identification table to the Astrogator. The Astrogator looked at the chart, through the telescope, and back at the chart again.
	"That's a *French Warship*. But it has *Spanish* markings," said the Astrogator.
	"Are you sure it's not a *Spanish* warship?" asked the pilot.
	"It's a doughnut shaped vessel. Spanish ships are shaped like bricks," said the Astrogator, pointing to a Spanish Warship on the chart.
	"Keep your eyes on that ship. We'll alter course and fly around the far side of the asteroid so they won't see us," said the Captain, turning his eyes to the pilot.

	The Cargo Boat, now at yellow emergency, approached the asteroid with caution. "I don't understand it!" said the pilot. "Why send a *cargo boat* to *spy* on enemy mining operations?"
	"Perhaps it's because a warship would be more conspicuous?"
	"Captain, look!" said the Astrogator.

	The Captain stared into the telescope. The Warship was approaching the Cargo Boat. The Captain gasped, and threw himself into his seat. The Warship fired its cannon.
	"Brace for impact," said the Captain.
	"Not if I can help it," said the Pilot. She took the controls and swiveled the rocket motors to the left, and pulled the engine regulator fully open. The rocket engine burst to life, pushing the Cargo Boat out of the way of the cannonball. The cannon was fired again towards the boat's new trajectory. "Clearly they weren't prepared to deal with a ship as maneuverable as ours!" said the Pilot.
	"Hold your cheers, they're firing their turrets now," said the Science Officer.
	"Can you do evasive maneuvers, Pilot?
	"I've got just the thing," said the Pilot. She grabbed the Reaction Control Levers and fired the thrusters in every direction, trying to make the ship's pattern as chaotic as possible. The Boat resonated with the hissing sounds of the manuevering thrusters.
	"Looks like their guns are spinning down," said the Science officer.
	"*Why?!*" said the Astrogator. The Pilot shut the regulator.
	"Their guns run too hot to keep running, I guess. They'll have to wait a couple minutes."
	"Do *we* have any weapons, Captain?" asked the Pilot.
	"Well we have handguns and a small cannon." said the Captain.
	"We also have a rocket engine." said the Science Officer.
	"What are you suggesting?"
	"We also have a detachable payload bay."
	"Are... are you suggesting--" said the Captain.
	"--That we use the cargo bay as a massive payload? Of course not, that would be impractical. So we should definitely do it."
	"I like your idea, Science Officer." said the Pilot.

	The Pilot pointed the Cargo Boat away from the Warship and opened the regulator to full. A few seconds later, the Warship lit its engines and attempted to follow, though it couldn't keep up with the Boat. The Cargo Boat flipped over and began to accelerate towards the Warship. Before the crew of the Warship knew what was happening, they were accelerating towards a spacecraft travelling at nearly a kilometer per second. The Pilot pulled the lever to release the coupling clamp on the cargo bay, and immediately pitched down ninety degrees and fired the engines again.

	The Cargo Boat missed the Warship by twenty meters, but the liberated cargo bay wasn't so lucky. The hollow cylindrical mass would have made terrible ammunition normally, but the mass spread out over a larger area only made it inflict more damage. The edge of the cargo bay hit the cannon at an angle, denting and bending it as the cargo bay tore into two pieces. The smaller piece smashed into one of the turrets, and continued to break through the crew wheel and into the large cylindrical propellant tank. The large piece shattered the engineering hull's armor, and proceeded to smash the rocket engine.

	The Cargo Boat was, for now, safe from the warship. The Pilot and Astrogator set a course back for the asteroid, this time being careful to stay out of the base's visible range. Up close the Astrogator found a possible reason for why the asteroid was slightly off course. There was a faint plume of debris and steam coming from behind the asteroid...