Part 38: Flight Log 32 - Lt. Lance Casey

[Flight Log 32 - Lt. Lance Casey]



I launched right into the middle of a small force attacking the Midway. There were no bombers, which led me to believe that this was a desperate strike simply aimed at us rather than the Midway to keep us from finishing off that dreadnaught. However, that didn't make the attack any less dangerous to me, so I turned around and headed back to the Midway to use it as cover.



And this is exactly why I used the Midway for cover. While their laser batteries weren't particularly dangerous, the aliens tended to break away from their target when they started getting hit, and the constant stream of fire meant that they pretty much ignored me the whole fight.





I lost a wingman in the attack, and called them back to my wing. I wanted to keep them safe, because I knew we still had the entire mission ahead of us, and the last thing I felt like doing was going in there shorthanded and trying to deal with the dreadnaught and defending fighters with less wingmen than I could have.



As soon as the attacking fighters were wiped out, the CAG sent us a message telling us to proceed on with our mission to take out the dreadnaught. Additionally, another group of Wasps was headed out to the wormhole gate to scout its defenses for the impending attack, which explained why we were a little shorthanded on this mission.



Obviously, the bugs were pulling out all of the stops here and sent a Devil Ray to keep us from taking down the dreadnaught. As I scanned the targets once we got to the dreadnaught, I singled out the ace and put all of my wingmen on its tail, as well as firing a few missiles at it myself. I had enough ordinance to survive against the other fighters, and I wanted to take down the ace before it did major harm to our bomber group.



Unfortunately, while we were focusing on the ace, the rest of the fighters came bearing down on us, and a Moray and Manta started honing in on me. In a Vampire, I could handle this without a problem, but the Devastator was not the most maneuverable fighter in the world, so I had to rely on asking for help from our escort to get them off of me.



The Wasps who were on their recon mission successfully completed it and reported back that they were heading home. The data we gathered on the wormhole would be invaluable for taking it down, and I only hoped that it was possible. Finley was predicting that the towers were the key to finishing it off, but it was all speculation at this point, and we wouldn't know for sure until we tried.



Once the enemy fighters were thinned out a little bit, I felt like it was safe to start going after the dreadnaught. I closed in on the engines and began firing away with my plasma cannon. It worked as well against the dreadnaught as it worked against other capital ships, and before I knew it, the engines were destroyed.



I set my wingmen to take down the bridge, hoping to score a quick kill on it before the fighters broke away from our Vampires and closed in to take us out on our bombing run. So far they were being kept busy and couldn't target us, but all it took was one Manta getting behind me to turn a milk run against an undefended target into an ejection alarm.



Never underestimate your wingmen. While the alien fighters did come after me, I managed to finish off the dreadnaught before any serious damage to my ship was done, and turned back around to help finish off the fighters. I still had plenty of missiles left, so I could help out at least a little bit.



The rest of the mission was academic. Between the Vampires and the Devastators, the four or five enemy fighters left didn't stand a chance. We took them down in a matter of minutes and headed back to the Midway to get ready for the final assault on the wormhole gate.



Another successful mission, although I couldn't help but think it was slightly unfair to expect us to take down half of the enemy fighters in a bomber. But that's besides the point. As I got back, I heard talk about us making our run against the wormhole gate in the next 12 hours or so. This may be my final flight log, so if I don't make it back, tell my family that I love them. Dad, this one's for you. I'll make you proud.


Kilrah Mission 5 *** (More dreadnaught action, this time with my spirit getting unbroken the closer I get to realizing I'm actually going to finish the mission)
(Filefront)

(Due to a typical yearly "Holy shit, we don't know how to deal with people running their air conditioning!" power outage today, I had pretty much no time to work on the last mission. However, it will be up this weekend, I guarentee.)