Description
The GTVA attacks the Deneb-system. You (a young NTF pilot) are stationed on the NTD Repulse. The Repulse and a cruiser have been assigned to cover the retreat operation. You and the cruiser are in the system and protect all NTF ships that want to retreat to Sirius.

Storyline:
The storyline to this mission ties in, to some extent with that of the main FreeSpace 2 campaign. The GTVA are planning strikes to recapture NTF-held system of Deneb. The command briefing is well written and includes appropriate command animations. It’s also voiced (in fact, none other than Wedge supplies one of the voices). The quality of the recordings is a bit spotty in some cases but generally good. In the briefing, the icons all match their respective ships. I was a bit disappointed with the length of the briefing, which could’ve gone into a lot more detail about each of its three stages. The storyline also clashes a bit with the FS2 campaign – the Belisarius was destroyed, and didn’t escape, but that’s not a major thing.<p><i>The recordings have been redone in some cases and are of better quality now, though there’s occasional fuzziness. Apart from that, there are no changes to the mission here, save for a message to inform you of the new bombers.</i>

Balance:
The mission isn’t particularly difficult, to be honest. You may have a little trouble with the Vasudan Thoths at the start, but not really any other forces. The main reason for this is that the capital ships in the mission are very effective at destroying the Vasudan fighters, which are fast but weak. There are too few bombers to do any damage to the Belisarius, and a Mentu is no match for an Aeolus (damn those small firing cones). That said, you would lose a few vessels if you don’t contribute to the mission, so it’s not like it can be played without you.<p><i>Now the mission is somewhat more difficult – but it still doesn’t go far enough for my liking. There are more bombers, but the slow Sekhmet is destroyed too easily. I’m not sure how a Bakha would fare in the same situation. The Mentu survived longer this time, but it would be nice to see it rearmed with some more deadly beam weapons. Finally, at the end of the mission, there are more fighters to, well, fight, and this makes survival harder. I’d rather have seen more bombers, but that’s me.</i>

Design:
The use of Alt-names on the NTF capital ships is a nice touch, which distinguishes them a little more. There are also lots of waypoints which work well and are nicely laid-out. The directives in the mission all work well, as do goals. The ships always have good AI orders. The Y-axis is also used, which is good, and there's a background too. This is something that's becoming more common but it still left out by some. The author has even put in a s-exp to grant a medal to the player. This doesn't work in single missions but will in the campaign. The only area this mission falls down on in design is in the message layout, as so many others do. Once again they're laid out in unnecessarily complex fashion. It's not a major problem, though.<p><i>The one glaring error in this mission has been fixed with the inclusion of send-message-lists, and the author also included a s-exp to help Alpha 1 out when he's down on his luck.</i>

Gameplay:
This mission has a feel not unlike some of the earlier missions in the FS2 campaign that it clashes with, which is no bad thing. The mission's atmosphere is also increased by all the comings and goings of various transports and freighters. Protecting some of these is probably where the fastest part of the gameplay lies. Defending the rest of the ships in the mission, such as the Belisarius is fairly easy by comparison and not as exciting as I would’ve liked – how about having the corvette's beam cannons offline to make things a bit more challenging?<p><i>Oops, I am rather stupid – the Belisarius had its beams offline all the time. Silly me. Anyway, the mission is a little more exciting now, but in correspondence with the balance, not as much as I'd have liked. Still, this is the first mission in the campaign, so I wouldn’t expect it to be out-and-out action.</i>

Other Thoughts:
I've overlooked the missing apostrophes, as it's a problem with the game, not the author's spelling.<p><i>I'm tempted to give the mission 4.5, which it very almost deserves, but in the interests of having it improved further, I think 4 stars will be it for now. Consider it about 4.4Â </i>