The is a fairly straightforward mission that teaches you how to intercept and inspect spacecraft. IIRC those Lambda shuttles actually have rear gunners in the TIE Fighter version of this mission.

When a target is some distance away, you can get there much faster by setting your laser recharge rate to none, diverting more power to your engines (that kind of slipped my mind until near the end). The downside to this of course is that your capacitors bleed out laser power, so you'll need to revert to increased or full laser recharge rate before you reach your target if you expect there to be combat (and you should).