Commander Altsain had done her bit fighting Thargoids, having teamed up before to fight the big Interceptors, and there were countless Scouts plastered all over her cockpit screen. However, she had never fought one of the larger variants of Thargoid ships. Until now…

She received a call from a commander she knew but had never flown with, Commander Orangey Crow. He had been out in the Pleiades, blasting apart the smaller Cyclops variant of Interceptor, but was hankering after bigger game. He and another commander had tried fighting a Basilisk, but had found their firepower wanting – now Commander Orangey Crow made the offer to wing up and tackle a big Thargoid ship.

Commander Altsain was up for it. Just returning from a Fuel Rat rescue, she flew to Shinrarta to pick up her Thargoid-hunting ship, the Type-10 Auricwing, and blasted off for the Pleiades.

Twenty jumps. With nothing but a 4A fuel scoop to refuel with.

It took time. Commander Altsain could be heard to mutter in her cockpit ‘kill me now…’

Finally, however, the Auricwing arrived in the Pleiades, and winged up with Commanders Orangey Crow and Glynnford, both in anti-xenos Anacondas. Commander Altsain decided she would demonstrate to both of them the superiority of the Type-10 over the Anaconda, and AX-Multicannon over the new-fangled Guardian technology.

Flying out into the Pleiades as a wing, it did not take the intrepid trio long to find a non-human signal source that suggested the presence of a Basilisk. Dropping out of supercruise, they located the target and immediately began to attack…

It was a long and bitter fight.

The Basilisk’s first heart was destroyed relatively quickly, but its crushing attacks and multiple swarms of Thargons sent all three commanders reeling. Many times, one commander sustained too much damage to continue, and was forced to retreat back to a nearby station, leaving the other two purely on the defensive as they desperately tried to stay on the Basilisk’s tail while maintaining a healthy distance from it – not easy, considering its sheer speed compared to the Anaconda and Type-10.

On more than one occasion, two commanders had to retreat at the same time, leaving just a lone ship and its fighter to fend off the Basilisk. Fortunately (for the ships), it seemed very keen on vaporising fighters.

Commander Altsain flew her ship way too close to the Basilisk several times, but soon got into a rhythm of circling the massive Interceptor, pouring in fire from the Auricwing’s turreted Multicannon as she flew around it, her fighter leading the Thargon swarms on a merry chase in an attempt to keep them off her back.

Then she made a mistake.

The Auricwing was heavily damaged and had lost its shields, but she continued to push her luck just a little too far – when she decided that enough was enough and tried to jump back into supercruise, her attention was not completely focussed on where she was going, and the Auricwing flew straight into Commander Glynnford’s fully shielded Anaconda.

It was with some chagrin that Commander Altsain flew her escape pod back to the station but, fortunately, she had foreseen the danger in this operation and had already arranged for a duplicate Type-10 to be waiting for her. Grabbing the nearest cross-eyed fighter pilot she could find, she jumped into its cockpit and headed back into the fray.

By now, the Basilisk had been reduced to just two operational hearts, but the Thargon swarms were thicker than ever, and they kept pouring out of the Interceptor.

A little more wary now, Commander Altsain aided the two Anacondas as they continually poured fire into the Basilisk, then backed off to allow another ship to take the brunt of its attacks. Many fighters were destroyed in the assault, and the commander was thankful that she had had the wisdom to give the Auricwing an expanded fighter bay – even so, it could not keep up with the turnover of fighters being destroyed and there were many times when the wing had no fighter support.

However, the Basilisk continued to be whittled down and, finally, the last heart expired and exploded. All three ships dove towards the Thargoid, weapons on full chat as they hammered away the last of its armour plating. With a mighty explosion of green gas, the Basilisk finally gasped its last and the three commanders were all six million credits richer!

They decided to have a little rest after that – but they are already planning a fight against the even larger Medusa. They may need to find some more friends for that…