A bridge too far

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MISSION 7

Description: In which things take a turn for the worse.

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Background

After numerous skirmishes, the Core has assessed the Shivan threat. They determined that the Shivans are devilish, brutal in nature, and their weaponry and fighter shielding are regarded as formidable. While they inflicted little damage to Ancient assets thus far, the Core fears that with more hostiles flowing into Verbex, the Shivans may potentially become a viable threat. The Sopul fleet is ordered to drive the Shivans back into their territory.

To the Fleetmaster's great surprise, the Shivans entered Verbek through a previously uncharted jump node and established a cargo depot there, defended by a Shivan corvette and a Lilith cruiser. The Apesokari will be deployed to assist the fighters against these warships and blockade the unexplored jump node.

The destruction of the Shivan warships and cargo depot makes Aleph 2 grow supremely confident in the Apesokari's invincibility, but the destroyer's captain declares that he became overconfident, and the Empire will never be truly unstoppable.

Unexpectedly, the Samael, the second Vassago-class destroyer arrives from the node and engages the Ancient task force. In the ensuing battle, the Ancient destroyer suffers heavy damage, but manages to emerge victorious from this engagement, too. The Koumasa is promised to relieve the badly damaged Apesokari, but it never arrives. A new class of destroyer, the SD Demon, jumps in through the node and finishes off the Apesokari, forcing its fighter wings to retreat. The Demon was clearly superior to the Empire's Achladia-class.

Following the battle, Fleetmaster Im'Halus steps down as Fleetmaster, directing all responsibility for himself for not calling the Apesokari back when he had the chance. He hopes that his replacement will achieve greater successes than him.

Notes

• This is the only ASW mission that uses sentence capitalization in its title.
• The mission in the first Ancient-Shivan War release was buggy. There was a chance that the Demon would not be able to destroy the Apesokari, breaking the mission. This mission quirk was fixed in the second release.