Part 72: Orsini System, Epsilon Sector, Mission 4 (Story)

^^^For some reason, despite torpedo runs being a much-loved feature of WC2 gameplay, the requirement to use torpedoes to destroy capital ships was removed in WC3. They're still around and useful and I'll almost certainly fire off torpedoes whenever the thread picks a ship armed with them and there are suitable targets (ie, capital ships) present, but torpedo runs are much less a part of the gameplay than they were in either WC2 or Prophecy/Secret Ops/Standoff.

Orsini System, Epsilon Sector
Rec Room, TCS Victory



The bar is deserted. Apparently everyone's heard about Blair's "moving up the killboard" dance. And moving up we are, into equal third with Vaquero:



Just four kills off the top. Shouldn't take too long to make that up, given we closed in by three last mission. Or rather it wouldn't, if I'd remembered to save the game, which I didn't. So the kill totals might not quite line up with these next time. Or they might, who knows? Certainly not me, since all my replays of the mission so far keep getting me the wrong number of kills, and I'd at least like that to line up.

Gunnery Control

You may recall that the last time we came in here we were about to say hello to someone who was looking out at the stars when we got called in for our first mission briefing. Naturally, the correct response to attempting to introduce yourself to someone being interrupted by having to go and fight the Kilrathi is to not try and talk to that person again for a couple of days. Lieutenant Robin "Flint" Peters is worried that Blair's made some kind of judgement about her:



: Sir.
: They call you Flint, right?
: So you *have* looked at the flight roster.
: Are you making a request, Lieutenant?
: Sir, I come from a long line of fighter pilots. My brother, my father, his father before him.
: I suppose you could say it's in my blood.
: Your point being?
: I know your record. I would've at least expected you to take a look at the Victory's. We've racked up our share of kills.
: We're not scrubs out here.
: Nobody said you were.
: Suppose you're afraid I'll peel off the first time we engage?
: What about the 20th time? Or the 30th? Will you fatigue even a split second, or get a twitchy finger?
: The wingmen I fly with, I need guarantees.
Insert your own commentary on the fact that we chose Maniac last time out here.
: Respectfully, sir, if you only fly when there are guarantees, you won't be flying much.

So, there's the choice for this mission. It's pretty clear what Flint wants here, so this choice will also double as the wingman selection, more on which later. Speaking of this mission,

Mission Briefing
Briefing Room



: Let's get down to business, shall we?
: I'm ready, sir.
: A Confed civilian transport ship is moving through the Orsini area. She's going to need escort.
: Especially since Intel reports that the Kilrathi are testing a new cloaked missile.
: Confed has code-named these new weapons Skippers,
: because they apparently skip in and out of cloak every few seconds to maintain contact with their target.
: Now, you can see them one second, then they're gone the next.
: There are a lot of civilian lives at stake here, Colonel.
: I'll do my best, Captain.
: I'm sure you will.

Choose your own Blair!

The choice this time is whether or not to fly with Flint, given she more or less openly requested to fly as our wingman (WC has always used "wingman" regardless of the gender of the pilot). So if you pick Flint as wingman for this mission (we'll be in the Arrow again - the official strategy guide says to pick the Arrow when you're dealing with Skipper missiles, and it's not kidding) then I'll pick the conversation choice which agrees with her, and if you pick either Vaquero or Cobra who we've not flown with yet, I'll take the other one.