1617   Battle   X-210000-0     Ba, Lo, Ni                   024       Na     M5V, M0D

Little more than a crater strewn ball with a halo of blue icy atmosphere and thousands of purple shadows, Battle figures very little in anyone's plans. Named for a spectacular rout of an Imperial squadron in this system during the Third Frontier War in 984, Battle is still listed by both the Zhodani Consulate and the Imperium as a war memorial, despite being in neutral space, and after almost a century of salvage expeditions.

The Imperial force was apparently quite extensive, containing close to two dozen capital vessels and nearly a hundred escorts and support ships, and intended to make Battle a forward base from which to raid commerce within the Consulate. Zhodani Intel got wind of the nature and destination of the force and ambushed it within hours of the Imperial arrival out of jumpspace. The Imperial forces were trapped insystem, but fought ferociously to the last ship under the command of Admiral Uluush Viguudilsham. Losses on the Zhodani side were appalling, and some contend that this distant battle precipitated the series of eventsthat eventually led to the armistice. This battle, and others like it, only added to the evidence of mismanagement of the war, and, though hundreds of lightyears away from the operational planning of this particular expedition, the eventual abdication of the Imperial Emperor Styryx.

The asteroid belts of Battle have only been cursorily examined to date, and of the four gas giants, only Prafrenzh is named or has any history, being the primary staging ground of Battle's bloody namesake. Battle, on the whole, is a cold, bleak, lonely system, fostering a healthy amount of superstitious lore among some of the sector's tramp trader crews.

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