Part 103: Mission #98: Akko station, Canewdon system
"Hi, I'm Dr. Nick Riviera, and I will perform any major operation for just $129.95!"It's time to finish this!
As always, we'll start with a video:
It would appear that justice is about to be served, with Jazz having just been sentenced to death. Unfortunately, we seem to again be having issues with some human traitors, most likely members of the Mandarin Society. This time, they want to steal a prototype of something called "The Morningstar Project". I suppose, based on the name, you can easily guess what it is. Also, there are some test pilots arriving at the Concordia, to help with the same thing.
Meanwhile, back in 1992...
Like before, this was released a few months after the first expansion and again contained a further 16 missions (plus 4 "make-up" ones if you fail any mandatory objectives), some new ships and some new characters, while continuing the story from WC2 and SO1.
The focus of the story this time is mostly on the Mandarins, and the presentation style remains the same; you will notice even further opening of the plot and even less reliance on a fixed "core" set of characters than before (although that surprisingly gets reversed for a bit during the second half of SO2). While this is more realistic, I always felt that these games (and including WC3/4) definitely lost something when you didn't have that close knit group of pilots working together in the same way any more. Still, progress marches on, you can't turn back time and all that--Wing Commander games have certainly come far from their relatively humble (ish) beginnings in WC1, so there's that. I'll offer a few more thoughts on the subject when we are done with SO2, I guess.
In any case, this WILL be a bit more of a special operation than the first one, and so it's time to rejoin Maverick, whom we find getting into a Rapier on Akko starbase, Canewdon system just after having arrived from a bit of R&R.
Mission #98: Akko station, Canewdon system
Previously on Wing Commander: Destruction of Kilrathi strike fleet in Ghorah Khar will allow that rebellious system to keep its independence from the Empire; prince Thrakhath however does not seem to care much and has other plans...
Let's board our trusty Rapier again!
I guess, technically this Rapier shouldn't be labelled "Concordia", but maybe Maverick took it with him on holiday, and we are going to be returning there anyway after this mission so...
Escort Jazz to execution? Hell! Yes!
Ok, so, the prison ship we are escorting with Jazz in it is actually just a standard Clydesdale class military transport, so nothing much needs to be said there. It's relatively weak but we are in a fast and powerful Rapier so that should not be a problem. One of the best things about the WC2 version of Rapier is the extreme long range of all its guns.
That was a bit chaotic I would say! But anyway, what appears to have happened is that in collusion with the Kilrathi the Mandarins have created a diversion to keep us busy defending the freighters while somehow managing to take over the command of the prison ship and jumping away with Jazz on board. How massively frustrating.
The mission itself actually not so much, it's fairly easy even though all enemies are Imperial guards. As for the Jalkehi, you can start shooting from quite a distance away and that first Jalkehi is also a good candidate for a dumb-fire missile too. In any case, after you destroy one or two of them, chances are that the others would have already run away at this point, as the Kilrathi ace pilots normally tend to do. The freighters aren't really in too much of a danger and anyway it doesn't matter for win/lose what happens to them. Two things to be careful about here, though. One, the freighters have a pretty bad hitbox, you will find yourself crashing into them even when it visually seems you are still quite far away--so stay REALLY away from them and don't follow the enemy closely when they are shooting at it! Second, the nav map has a bit of a quirk so after finishing with the Jalkehis you'll usually have to reset it back to Nav1 as it will be pointing straight to the Concordia causing you to miss the second half of the mission if you don't reset it.
The second part of the mission is... two Sarthas at the location of TCS Alcatraz. And unfortunately we have nothing to deliver to the Alcatraz so... nothing to see here, move along.
Back to square one I guess, with the added complication of that "Morningstar" thing then...
Oh I bet he does! What the heck happened there!
How should I know, it was total chaos over there!
Oh, good.
So, let me repeat... Uh-oh! Although it IS kind of hard to take him seriously with those little notes on the helmet...
Current kill total: 98 missions/799 kills
Next time on Wing Commander
Letting off steam.