For some time now, Commander Altsain has been the (somewhat) proud owner of a Type-10 Defender. For most of this time, it has been used as an armed freighter but, a little disappointed in its capabilities in that role, she renamed it the Auricwing and has been gradually turning it into a dedicated Thargoid Hunter.

Not that she actually went Thargoid hunting, of course. She really did not feel up to that. But it felt good, having the Auricwing in the hangar, as she went about her business among the core systems. If the Thargoids ever came to Rhea, she had something to face them with.

You don’t just risk a half billion credit ship on a whim, after all.

Her bluff was called when she got chatting to another pilot from the Federal Liberal Command, one Commander Rabidbadger. He also had a Type-10, and had been using it to fight Thargoids around the Pleiades. A time and place was set (Blackmount Habitat, on a Saturday evening) and, on the appointed hour, the two Type-10s launched into space to find Thargoids.

It did not take long.

The commander does apologise for the quality of the photography of these encounters – as it turns out, when fighting Thargoids you are likely to have a few other things in mind over composition and lighting…

There were a couple of false starts, and both Commander Altsain and Rabidbadger ended up ramming a Thargoid ship as they tried to scan it. This, it turns out, really upsets Thargoids and, on both occasions, the Type-10s had to retreat.

However, it did not take long for them to get their acts into gear and, within the next few minutes, the first Thargoid Interceptor fell. A couple of skirmishes with Thargoid Scouts followed (the second of which felt like they were fighting an armada of them – Commander Altsain had never seen so many red blips on the sensors!), and then the Type-10s were back on the Interceptors.

It is possible that, after the third large Thargoid fell, both commanders were feeling a bit cocky, so when a really big Thargoid ship appeared, they jumped in with both feet. Less than a minute later, they were heading back to Blackmount Orbital with heavy damage that needed repairing…

At the end of the evening, five large Thargoid ships had been accounted for, along with a multitude of scouts. Commander Altsain now feels a lot better about battling the aliens.

She still does not want to face one alone though…