Part 126: Freya System, Vega Sector, Mission 1 (Story)

Also, 2669 isn't 2673. And there'll be plenty of time to talk about 2673 later. Had a brief look for comments about the Excalibur being the only planet-capable fighter in the manuals, couldn't find any. I'm pretty certain it's written somewhere, though.

Kilrah System, Kilrah Sector
Imperial Palace



Prince Thrakhath smoothly switches gears from Ernst Stavro Blofeld to Sir Humphrey Appelby when the Emperor starts asking awkward questions about the conduct of the war...



: I have been studying the battle reports...
: Your Majesty... you should not concern yourself with dreary, day-to-day accounting.
: I cannot understand this Terran foray into the Alcor system - the attempt to free but a few prisoners...
: If you please, your Majesty, I may be able to shed some light.
: Yes, young one.
: The apes took but one prisoner. His skills are technical - scientific in nature.
: And these skills are applied to?
: That, we did not fully explore. His range of knowledge was vast.
: We are winning the war, your majesty - and daily, we move closer to invasion of the Terran homeworld. A vast armada is being assembled. Never before has there been such a mighty force...
: Never let it be forgotten - it is when the foe is near vanquished that he is most dangerous, my Prince.
: As always, Your Majesty speaks truly and wisely.

The last two lines are something of a callback to Fleet Action/Standoff - the Emperor is approximately paraphrasing what Baron Jukaga said (to Thrakhath) about the humans during the Hakaga campaign, presumably to remind Thrakhath that the Kilrathi have been here before and he might wish to be less cocky. The rest of it is...interesting. Thrakhath by this point must know what the purpose of the raid on Alcor was, since he definitely should have recieved Hobbes's transmission (though this scene plays regardless of whether or not you go after Hobbes) by now. And he's very clearly not interested in discussing it, resorting to generalities twice rather than mentioning the Temblor Bomb.

Freya System, Vega Sector
TCS Victory

The Victory penetrates deeper into Kilrathi space, looking to carve out a path to Kilrah for later use with the Temblor bomb.



Lift



Rollins finds our fighter wing's complete inability to actually display anything vaguely resembling discipline when personal issues interfere with the conduct of the war to be rather amusing (also, after looking at that image for a while I'm beginning to realise why Courteney Gains first role was in a horror film...)

[laughing]: So we risk everything to get this one egg-head they say might win the war - although I'll believe that when I see it - and Vagabond decks the guy. I bet ole' Vagabond doesn't get out of the brig till the Kilrathi let him out.

Is Blair agreed with Rollins here, or does he think that Vagabond had good reasons (see: last story update) to do what he did?

Rec Room

The Victory's third-best pilot (I'm pretty certain that a whole bunch of people have mentioned the fact that Flint has overtake Maniac to Major Marshall by now) interrupts as Blair takes in the killboard:





: What'd I tell you about trusting a cat?
: [ignores him]
: Hey, too bad Cobra had to die to get her point across.

This is actually a dialogue choice, but a) if you choose the other option to the one I've picked here, Blair just walks off without saying anything, whereas with this choice we get more of Tom Wilson being brilliantly obnoxious, and b) I want to use this dialogue as a set-up for something I'm going to do in the video version of these, so tough shit, making my own choice. (The options are called "you're asking for it, man" and "I don't need this"; I picked the former). The resulting scene comes out *really badly* in still images even without 1994 video compression screwing it up further...basically Maniac has his hand on Blair's arm and Blair shakes him off violently. In stills, it, um, gains an entirely different sort of quality (by which I mean "is so endearingly stupid I felt I had to share it"):



: Temper, temper. You can't afford to lose any more wingmen.
: You know, for once, you're right.
: I am?
: We'll just have to settle it out there. The next time you're on my wing, I might just rotate my turret and... hey, accidents happen!
: Oh, I'm shakin'. You know, I got a turret too, pal.
: We'll see.

Indeed we shall...whenever I actually get the video version of this done.

Mission Briefing
Briefing Room



(in which Ilanin finally decides he's exhausted the number of different possibilities for an Eisen/Blair/Rollins briefing and starts reusing images).

: Let's get started, Colonel.
: Yes, sir.
: HQ's sent us here to Freya because they've located a jump point that leads straight to Kilrah. A nice little back door we can use later when Dr. Severin completes his device. One slight problem, however, is that the Kilrathi own this system. We have to clean 'em out. Go to it, Colonel.

Choose your own Blair!
Three choices; are we going to stick up for Vagabond or agree with Rollins, and then fighter (we've got every fighter available for the rest of the game, excepting those missions where the Excalibur is compulsory...which is actually five out of the nine that are left, but then in a normal run-through you'd just use the Excalibur for everything from this point so you'd quite possibly not even notice that) and wingman. We're currently running quite low on those - Cobra's dead, Hobbes has defected, and Vagabond is in the brig, so it's just Maniac, Flash, Flint and Vaquero to pick from (of those, everyone except Flint is at-risk).