THE JUMPGATE DEFINITIVE GUIDE - Tripod

frustrated at the stalemate situation that had developed as seemed par
for course these days. Both sides had grown so adept at utilizing the
strengths of their crafts that an almost unnatural balance had been
achieved. The brutish firepower of the Octavian craft, combined with
their heavy armor compensated for the lack of speed and in flight
trajectory modification ability. The hard to hit Solrain bombers with
their agility and speed suffered from their own deficiencies. Captain
McInnus was responsible for the innovative and rather brave concept of
the sphere turret defense formation with the PWD tows. Ikeprof
suspected it actually evolved from an attempt at salvaging a losing
battle, but regardless, it had become standard practice when
outnumbered in battle as seemed to be the case the majority of the
time. Prior to the development of that formation, Octavian forces had
been taking a beating by the Solrain craft who could hit and fade
easily at will while the Octavian craft never had that option.
Ikeprof’s continued to issue commands in an almost automatic fashion
while pondering the situation. The Solrain bombers flew lazy 8 patterns
to exhaust the missiles fired routinely by the fade side of his sphere
group. As the missiles disappeared from his scope, the solrain bombers
formed up for another pass with each side having inflicted minimal
damage. A quick scan of remaining ammunition quantities showed that at
least an hour or more of battle at this rate remained before
replacement craft would be necessary. One of the Condor’s was almost
out of PWD’s but had 4 morning stars equipped. Ikeprof tapped out a
quick command instructing that pilot to maneuver to the side of the
sphere opposite of the bombers and launch 2 MS’s on a single bomber
after they had passed.
The 4 bombers began yet another run, appearing to try a split fork
approach this time against the sphere. Two Solrain Intensities appeared
in the Greater Locks gate and began an approach approximately 90
degrees from the bombers in an attempt to confuse his forces. Ikeprof
assigned two of the bombers to target one of the heavies, while
ignoring the other.
As the bombers and fighters arrived at the sphere at almost the same
time Ikeprof was pleased to see one of the Intensities blink out of
existence. Apparently the heavy had gotten a tad too close to the
firepower of his bombers. The remaining intensity afterburned away as
the condors PWD’d the incoming missiles. The almost empty Condor
assigned to launch his missiles at the departing solrain bomber group
did so perfectly as they passed by.
Suddenly at 12K from the sphere the enemy bomber group flipped and
flashfired backwards towards the sphere while unloading a missile each.
Caught unawares, Ikeprof had only time to issue an alert order and
hoped his pilots were awake and sharp. The enemy bombers again vectored
in an expanding V to pass on both sides of the sphere. Missiles
disappeared as the condors did their job perfectly. Ikeprof relaxed as
the surprise tactic by the enemy failed to achieve any measure of
success. The enemy bomber group sharply vectored in a mirroring closure
to their approach pattern flying again as one group. Rotating the
display casually to get a clear view Ikeprof sat up on horror as he
realized why the bombers had vectored so harshly to close their V
pattern. The two morning star clusters launched by his Condor were
attempting to track the original targeted enemy bomber. By flashfiring
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