Description
The Vasudan destroyer Marathon is en route to Aldebaran. However, a recently discovered Shivan cargo depot blocks the way. The GTA dispatches Alpha and Beta Wings to destroy the depot and then escort the Marathon to the Aldebaran Jump Node.

Storyline:
In a briefing whose presentation is equaled only by Volition in its professionalism, the player is informed that there are yet more spiffy alien archives back at Aldebaran. Since the loss of the transporting Typhon (one of the last, a status I can belive easily) would provide the HoL with a great excuse to say that the Alliance is bad for Vasudans, the destroyer must survive this voyage. The player is then ordered to knock out the offending depot and baby-sit the Marathon as it moves on. Plenty of in-game messages support this, and as I said, the briefings and debrief are amazingly well-done.

Balance:
The only imaginable low point in Marathon is this: it's hard. Yes, the readme does inform the player of this, and yes, it's fully possible on Medium. And yes, most players of FreeSpace are veterans at this point. But still, this was a rather difficult and sometimes (briefly) frustrating mission, including so many fighters that it sometimes begs the question, "why didn't this attack force just smash the entire Alliance fleet?". Okay, so it's not that big. But it's still a massive force, and the player isn't given very many ships to fight them off with. Anyone who isn't prepared to blast Tsunamis out of space in-flight should shy away from Marathon. Those who are can load up their first two wings any way they like and have a ball.

Design:
Now this is more like it! While the mission is rather hard, it is kept within limits and sense by setting up most of the ships in waves, and a player with a good tactical mind will know what targets need to be wiped out now and which can be left until the UnkownMegaBombs have stopped flying. At first, all the Kamikaze ships seemed extremely excessive until I realized that my wingmen had taken care of them largely on their own. Wow. Likewise, the final waves of fighters appeared to be too large to even deal with... until I suddenly was informed that the Marathon was jumping out and they were no threat at all. Except to me. Alt-J, quick!

Gameplay:
At this point, Gameplay can serve only as a summary: this is one of the best FreeSpace missions I've ever played. A bit harder than most, perhaps, but overall extremely well balanced and a barrelfull of fun.

Other Thoughts:
This is Blade's first mission in a long while... nice to see the ol' master's still got it in him.