Thanks again for yet another amazing adventure, Slug. I seem to recall I've been reading your day-to-day reports for well over six months now.
I hope you'll write another one, but like I said before, I honestly don't think you can make it any harder on yourself without it getting really ridiculous.
Did you not have time to just reverse back into the gate? I always immediately kill my forward velocity as I come out of the gate and see what's up. If it looks bad, a quick burst of reverse velocity and you're back through the gate in ~ 5 seconds or so. Of course, with those 24 guns firing at you, that might not have been enough.
I can honestly say that I've never died when flying an M2 class ship in any X game, but it just goes to show that it is possible. (Actually I'm lying, I died once when I seta'd into a gate and the game apparently decided that my Osaka hit a brick wall rather than a gate.)
Creston