Part 30: Mission #26: 8 June 2654, Jotunheim System

Mission #26: 8 June 2654, Jotunheim System

Previously on Wing Commander: Following the Kilrathi fleet deep into the enemy space; they changed the course towards an asteroid field. Also, we rescued a marine transport ship.


My favourite combination, Paladin and Angel. At least those two are still keeping it together... or seem to be, in any case.



I haven't heard anything, either. We've been sitting here for hours an' hours... Just waiting. It's starting to make me a little crazy. Some of the pilots, too.









There's nothing we can do to deflect that damned energy blaster once they've aimed it at a planet-based colony, but at least we'll nae have to worry about them using it against our ships.







Those lads in Tactical are impressive, wi' how they figure these things out on their comp-sims. Of course, their guesses aren't always correct... Like that time they told us the new Dralthi ships wouldn't have enough range to attack--the Epsilon Prima system. We lost five pilots because of that mistake. Tactical's usually very accurate... but I'd nae wager your life on that, laddie.




Seriously! I guess this is how she distracts herself from going crazy in this situation, ok.



















Mission Time!

Well, that was a bit better than usual at least. Let's see the mission for today.
















This bit remains to be seen...

We're going to launch all fighter wings on different routes through the asteroid fields.



The wings will travel via Nav 1 through the asteroids at Nav 2... and ambush the ambush at Nav 3. Destroy them, and return. Wing assignments. Same as last time...














Really? You're just going to let him fly because he says so? At least we're not flying with him, but I'm sorry for whoever has to...

So I guess we are expecting a major battle then at Nav 3 with probably more enemies scattered about other points. Let's see how it goes.

• Mission Video (Youtube)
  

Well... there WAS a somewhat big battle at Nav 3, but not really what I was expecting. I'm having this gnawing feeling in my head that there is more to this than we've seen in this mission. Only one wave of fighters? True, it was 5 Grathas, so not exactly easy, but still... wouldn't you want to send something more, to ensure victory? But enough of that, we'll find out soon enough either way.

As far as technicalities go, there is not a whole lot to be said about encounters at Nav 1 and 2, but Nav 3 can be a bit tricky, depending how you approach it. If you come from direction of Nav 2, then autopilot will drop you off a bit far from the Fralthi carrier, and in the course of battle you may be distracted further away by the Grathas--if this happens, you'll find at some point that the carries has managed to slip away when you weren't looking and is no longer there. This will definitely earn you a scolding during debriefing (although you can still win this series without that Fralthi if you do everything else). One option to solve this problem is to immediately afterburn towards the Fralthi and engage the enemy there--as long as you stay near, it won't escape. The other option, that we employed in the video, is to approach Nav 3 from the direction of Tiger's Claw: in this case you'll come from the opposite side, and autopilot will drop you off right behind the carrier. This actually gives you a bit of breathing room as some of the Grathas are waiting for you on the far side and will take a few moments to reach you, thus disrupting their 'ambush' configuration. In any case, you are free to use all your missiles on Grathas as you won't need them for anything else in the mission.

The killboard:






Next time on Wing Commander
King Arthur's marital problems and what it all has to do with enemy ambush!