Part 48: Mission #44: 24 July 2654, Firekka system

Mission #44: 24 July 2654, Firekka system

Previously on Wing Commander: We are so fearsome that all enemies are running away from us... I wish. Also Doomsday is cool. Oh and there is a transport that's gone missing somehow!


Oh, it's one of those! Let's find out what the emergency is about, but at a guess I'm going to say it's that missing transport.




I was right.





Mission Time!

No chit-chat today I guess then.




General Powell? They can't mean THAT General Powell, can they? As a side note, it took THAT General Powell 12 YEARS to go from 2nd Lt. to Lt. Col. rank! We did it in more like 12 missions! But anyway, moving swiftly onwards.





"This is Major Kristi Marks of Company Zebra. The Kilrathi captured the Powell eight hours ago. We've broken out of the cargo hold and are attempting to retake the ship. We've sustained heavy casualties and need immediate assistance. These are our current co-ordinates: 160123, 153763, 898324, Terran Standard. Please send help ASAP. Repeat, please send--"

Kristi Marks? That name... rings a bell!











Whatever you do, do not attack the Drayman. We can't risk losing that ship. But if there are any Kilrathi fighters escorting her… don't let any of them escape, pilots. Wing assignments:

[The Commander lists the other wing teams, then addresses you.]











So, another sneaking mission. There are really two things that you should take away from that briefing that will help you in doing this mission, but you are likely to miss at least one of them (probably both) and potentially get yourself into trouble during the mission. I'll explain in a moment.

• Mission Video (Youtube)
  

Well, at least this time the codes worked and we were not recognised until we decided to do away with our cover!

So what's the deal here? First of all, you are actually told in the briefing that the transport may mini-jump from one Nav point to the next; and of course that's what ends up happening. But since it's buried in the middle of the briefing it's one thing you are sure to miss and may end up confused as to what is going on when the transport jumps from Nav 2 to Nav 3 initially.

This then ties in with the second important thing, which is: do not attack the enemy until you are sure they will be able to attack the transport. Not observing this rule is likely to land you in a battle with all those Hhriss at Nav point 2; this will have only one outcome, your funeral.

And finally the Jalthi squadron (I'm not even going to mention the final set of Krants as they are largely a non-issue in this mission). Since these guys WILL attack the transport, you'll have to fight them; but you have the element of surprise on your side and you can easily disrupt their attack by a couple of well placed missiles. After that just keep them away from the transport and you'll be fine. Dralthi is much faster than them and Jalthi are flown by ordinary pilots so you should be able to keep up.

That bit with getting a transport to follow you can be annoying though. In some missions you will actually fail if you don't get the transport to follow you before auto-piloting. However, turns out that's not the case here, you can simply go on your way and transport will catch up eventually.

For a Dralthi mission, this one was not too bad though. Wish I could say that this is the last Dralthi mission, but I can't. As I mentioned already, there is one more later, with Angel.

As an overall comment, the missions in SM2 feel a lot less random than before; this one certainly a good example where a lot more care went into putting it together than may seem at first.

Missions of late don't seem to have that many kills possible. Not to worry. Next mission is back to "normal" on that subject. Well, should be expected since we are flying a Raptor again (albeit with Hunter).





Next time on Wing Commander
A Jerry Bruckheimer production of a Michael Bay movie, part the fifth: The final Chapter: A new beginning!