Awesome recollection, Woodrow. That was worded so well, it was inspiring. I could hear John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra in my head. lol Do you write any novels on the side?

Not that we were doing so well ourselves.  Several volleys of torpedoes found their mark and-combined with a couple successful bombing runs and a few broadsides from their surviving lancer- we were reduced to only 32% hitpoints left.  To make matters worse, though our gallofree was still alive the remaining lancer and bulk freighter now firmly seperated the two of us.  As we sat there, helpless, enemy bombers decimated our gallofree.  It had drifted too far to the imperial side of the map and close to where their bombers came in. Soon the ship fell, leaving our nebulon alone.

The alarms were really going off now.  Our engines were drained, our maneuvering had us now heading towards the enemy fleet, and even a few good blaster shots could knock us out.  It was then that we saw the first explosion.  Ahead of us the lancer, panicked by the assault from our fighters, had apparently hit its boost engine and moved away from the bulk freighter.  Taking that opportunity our ships tore into it with torpedoes, cutting it down.

Well, Im proud to say that I was leading the squadron that took down the gallofree, and one of our guys (Pyrate) saved one of our lancers from death. Plus, we were those bombers who kept tryin to nail your behind in the Neb. B!

For a bit though, I was in a gunner seat of the lancer that was half-chasing you, before we got swarmed by fighters. Durin that time, I got a those in fighters in my squad to try to get the fighters off of the lancer, which was sorta during the time you were alone in space. Other than that, it was a great encounter, and our guys were pissed as hell to learn we lost by one single percent...

My squad and I assembled waiting for our comrade to arrive, then we would move out into battle and catch them with their pants down, in the stone streets of china we waited, suddenly a little bird appeared  zooming down the street, readying for lift off we split down the middle for his landing, but I then heard a high pitched 'swish' as then a cracking explosion as the rock-

Oh yea I was playing PR...

^_^

So the battle continued, with a couple attack runs on their ships, until we lost both of our corvettes and the enemy ships without any losses. The Imperial fleet began to organize, and I sized up the battle situation. Our frigate was on the west side of the map, alone and under attack, while our transport was moving up the opposite side of the Imperial fleet, garnering comparatively less attention. As important as a transport is in a battle situation, I knew that if it tried to rendezvous with the frigate, it would be cut down. Priority one was getting the frigate in a safe zone. After leading the attack one of the lancers that the Nebulon B frigate was firing on (and destroying it), we started pecking at the Carrack cruiser. I queried the Nebulon B for a health update, and knew that we had to hurry, the ship's torpedo batteries had already begun eating up its engines. Once the frigate broke away from the Carrack's firing arc, we were able to finish off the Carrack at last, leaving the Imperials with their Lancer and Freighter, and us with our wounded Nebulon B and our isolated transport.

It was at this point that I issued orders to the whole team. I told the Nebulon captain to get clear of the battle and head south, toward the southwest map corner and away from the Imperial fleet. The job of anyone flying A-wing craft was to protect the Nebulon B frigate at all costs from enemy fighter attack, which would be most dangerous to the ailing vessel. I ordered the B-wings to engage the Lancer frigate, and anyone flying X-wings to back up the B-wings and offer fire support with their own torpedo complements. This seemed a workable strategy, and people more or less followed my orders.

Once I knew just how little health our frigate had left, it was time to hurry. I remember ordering fighter cover for the frigate at Woodrow's all-caps silent exclamation of "BOMBER INCOMING!", but we were soon able to finish off the Lancer frigate, once it broke away from the freighter trying to get the finishing salvo in on the frigate. The battle was coming even more down to the wire, as Woodrow reported less than 10% health on the frigate. I asked all attack pilots to take X-wings; they were spawned closer to our target and could still damage the freighter. After a harrowing series of fighter attacks on the Nebulon B frigate, we brought the freighter down to zero health, and as I watched it explode into a orange fireball, containers flying out in flames, I could not help but unleash a whoop of joy. We had won. Barely.

I'd like to thank everyone involved in that round for an INCREDIBLE time. It reinforces JUST how much we need to have a organized, massive Taloraan round series, for some good times. Kampher, any stories from you?

Quite literally flipping our nebulon upside down we returned fire whilst boosting out of the firing arc of the carrack's torpedo launchers.  As our big guns focused their final in-range shots on its bridge section a squadron of xwings and bwings swept in to shatter the imperial cruiser.  Far seperated from the rest of the imperial fleet the carrack died alone in space behind us.

Not that we were doing so well ourselves.  Several volleys of torpedoes found their mark and-combined with a couple successful bombing runs and a few broadsides from their surviving lancer- we were reduced to only 32% hitpoints left.  To make matters worse, though our gallofree was still alive the remaining lancer and bulk freighter now firmly seperated the two of us.  As we sat there, helpless, enemy bombers decimated our gallofree.  It had drifted too far to the imperial side of the map and close to where their bombers came in.  Soon the ship fell, leaving our nebulon alone.

Not wanting to risk the ship further we quickly righted ourselves and changed course again; this time away from the repaired surviving imperial fleet.  We started to flee back towards our fighter cover, shouting for the a-wings to cut down the bombers as they approached.  While they were able to intercept many of them, two of them were able to cut our health down to only 8%.

At this point we were desperate.  Our bombers were trying their hardest to bring down the imperial ships but enemy fighters were intercepting them.  Our awings broke off to cover those ships, leaving us silently alone.  For a while a deathly calm came over our stricken nebulon B.  No enemy blips were on our radar but we knew that if even one bomber got through we wouldn't survive.  And so we waited.  I dared not cut the throttle in case we needed the engines, so we circled.  Waiting.  Watching

And then a blip appeared on the radar.  A TIE bomber had gotten through the cloud of fighters between us and the enemy fleet and was now heading straight towards us.  We started screaming for the a-wings to get back but they were too far out and hadn't seen the bomber.  Quickly I rolled our craft and brought it about broadside so that our capship gun turret and anti-fighter turret would both have clear shots on the craft.  As it got within torpedo range I immediately hit the boost engine and engaged emergency maneuvers.  The shots passed silently behind our engines just as our turret opened up on him.

The TIE Bomber pilot, now realising that he was suddenly flying straight towards our blasters, immediately turned towards the front of our Nebulon to try and dodge the flak.  It was in that moment our capship turret fired, with one of its shots ripping through the bomber's hull.  In flames, the TIE bomber seemed to lose control.  In that instant it stopped maneuvering and a split second burst from our AF turret finished it off.

Not that we had time to breathe a sigh of relief.  Immediately a second bomber appeared on our radar, already close.  I started maneuvering our ship to try and point our turrets towards the new threat, but our boost engine was expended.  Unable to maneuver fast enough, a series of torpedoes tore into our engine section and knocked us down to 4% health.  Just as we expected the ship to blow, the TIE bomber came under fire from a couple of fighters which had returned.  Them, combined with our AF turret were able to stop it before it could launch another torpedo.

The alarms were really going off now.  Our engines were drained, our maneuvering had us now heading towards the enemy fleet, and even a few good blaster shots could knock us out.  It was then that we saw the first explosion.  Ahead of us the lancer, panicked by the assault from our fighters, had apparently hit its boost engine and moved away from the bulk freighter.  Taking that opportunity our ships tore into it with torpedoes, cutting it down. 

At that moment the radar registered several new blips: two interceptors and a fighter.  As soon as they got within range they opened up on us with their blasters.  Dispite having a-wings trying to engage them our hull started taking hits from the green tracers.  We were screaming over the radio to hurry, and we heard on the voice comms for everyone to focus on the final bulk freighter.  Our turret operators were returning fire but nothing seemed to be stopping these fighters as they pressed this final assault.  And as if in slow motion we watched, feeling helpless dispite the sheer hailstorm of fire that was flying around us.  We put our all into it but seemed to be able to do nothing as our health slowly dropped.  4.... 3..... 2.... and just as we hit 1% health left and I turned away, hope lost, there was a mighty cheer over the radio.  I opened my eyes from the grimmace I had pulled and looked.  Unbelievably, the imperial total had dropped to zero.  The blaster fire stopped and the map ended, with us hanging there at 1% health left on the ship.

All in all not a bad match.  It was long, and arduous, but seriously the closest space battle I've ever seen.