For a good long while, Commander Altsain had parked her Thargoid-fighting ship, the Type-10 Auricwing, at Blackmount Habitation in HIP 17692. She had once joined Commander Rabidbadger for a brief campaign against Thargoid interceptors in that system but had since retreated back to civilisation to attend to her growing businesses.

The Auricwing received a bit of attention when the ship kit was released for the Type-10. Always keen to give her ships that unique touch, the commander eagerly perused the various options – and then stopped short.

“They did it… the crazy sons-of-bitches, they did it…” she said in quite some awe.

Not only could the Type-10 now be fitted with more spoilers, the commander was able to fit spoilers on top of its existing spoiler. She was sold, and instantly ordered the parts before flying out to Blackmount Habitation to have them fitted.

The commander was most pleased.

However, despite this distraction, she felt she was still doing her bit – when the Thargoids played their hands (tentacles, pseudopods… whatever), the Auricwing was already in position to take the fight to them, and a quick trip to the Pleiades would see her back in action.

A good plan, but the Thargoids increased their pace and their ships could be found within the Bubble. A public service announcement from the Cannon Research group made it clear that the Thargoids were gearing up to attack stations in the LTT 8517 and Dalfur systems – such incursions could not be tolerated and Commander Altsain resolved to draw a line in space that the filthy xenos would not cross!

Flying the Auricwing back to civilised space, the commander stopped only to refuel the ship at Dalfur and then blasted off to look for alien invaders.

She did not have to spend much time looking, and it rapidly became clear that Dalfur was positively infested with Thargoids. Dropping out of supercruise into a detected anomaly, the Auricwing surprised four Thargoid Marauder Scouts, and immediately opened fire with all nine hardpoints.

The scouts were capable of running rings around the great hulking Type-10 but, living up to its name of Defender, the ship’s arsenal of pulse lasers and multicannon began picking the invaders off while the specialised AX multicannon just blew them out of space.

Commander Altsain discovered she had a great talent for flying through the debris clouds of exploded Thargoids, which caused acidic wreckage to cling to her hull and dealt ever increasing amounts of damage. It soon became apparent that this was the limiting factor to her expeditions, not ammunition, and regular returns to stations were required for repairs.

However, she was not to be daunted by this, and repeated runs were made. The Thargoids seemed to sense the Auricwing was a threat and began to close in on the stations in the Dalfur system, meaning the commander had to travel for but a few seconds before contact was made. This, unfortunately, began to have an effect on shipping in the area, and the Auricwing responded to many distress calls from traders who found themselves under attack as they approached the station. Commander Altsain was only too willing to help and, together, she and the traders began amassing a heavy toll on the Thargoids.

Perhaps inevitably, the commander began to consider her options for bypassing the swarms of scouts to target a much larger interceptor – the first she would be fighting solo.

This took some time, as there were many, many scout swarms to fight through but, eventually, her persistence paid off and an interceptor was found. Unfortunately, it was surrounded by a scout escort. Commander Altsain took one look at that many ships and thought nope! Deciding discretion was the far better part of valour, she boosted away under heavy fire, and then jumped back into supercruise to find more suitable prey.

While she never found a lone interceptor to try her mettle against, the commander did account for more than a hundred Thargoid scouts, and the Auricwing remains stationed in Dalfur, ready to take up the cause again as a Defender of Mankind!