Part 44: Mission #40: 11 July 2654, Firekka system

Mission #40: 11 July 2654, Firekka system

Previously on Wing Commander: We managed to bring in a defecting Kilrathi Fralthi carrier and its commander, Captain Ralgha. In other news, after ignoring it for a long time, Angel is having a somewhat violent collision with reality.


Of all the things Angel should be doing right now, spending time with Maniac is probably NOT what the doctor ordered!





I think they're right... tanglin' with an entire battle fleet would be tough, even for the Tiger's Claw. And those officers were also talking 'bout who'll be transferred off the Claw, and who'll be stayin' here.








Heh, well, looks like the old gang might start to disperse soon...


Oh, joy.




Oh, good.

But I'm sure they'll send me back to active duty soon, and we'll fly a mission together then, right? I know how much you always want to be my wingman, Maverick, and I know that we're going to do something important. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm sure we'll wipe out a lot of the furballs before they kill us. Won't that be great?

DO. NOT. WANT.


Yeah, you do that and I'll find out how Angel is doing.























Mission Time!

I would say she's definitely improving, so let's fly a mission!






Wait, what?









"Warriors of the Human ships, hear me now. You are trespassing on the holy ground of Lord Sivar. If you remain, the Sons of Kilrah will destroy you. We must prepare the Way of Lord Sivar, and no unbelievers may remain here alive. But because you are brave warriors, I shall grant you this: You have one planetary rotation to leave this system. Leave here now, and no harm will come to you...











Well, we COULD ask that Kilrathi defector to explain it to us, hm?

Pilots, we're going to stay here, even though it's obvious that there's not much we can do against a massed enemy fleet of this size. Our first step will be to 'retreat' to a nearby star system. With luck, the Kilrathi will believe that we've left the Antares sector. And then we'll wait for new orders from Confed HQ. Your mission is to clear our flight path. I don't want any heroics out there. Just good, competent flying. Odds are good that you'll encounter the first Kilrathi strike fleet moving into this system. If you do, then engage and destroy. The Austin is already leaving this area. We'll rendezvous with her later.



















And then patrol the rest of your Nav points for enemy ships. We don't know what Kilrathi ships are out there, pilots, so be careful.



Ok, first of all, despite being seriously wordy, the briefing did not explain the objectives properly at all. First of all, we will be meeting the transport at Nav 2 and escorting it to Nav 3, where it will then make the jump. Also, and this wasn't even mentioned, TCS Austin (an Exeter class destroyer) is also preparing to jump at Nav 4, and once we are done with the transport we should head there and also make sure it gets out safely. Now, don't you think it would have been helpful to have had this explained more clearly in the briefing?

• Mission Video (Youtube)
  

So, this mission is a little harder than the previous, but still quite a bit of fun to do and not very frustrating in any case. However, it contains two slightly deceptive moments.

First is actually with the two Jalthi. Your natural instinct might possibly be to go after the Drakhai first, but that's a bad idea, because they are flying in a formation in such a way that the other guy is a little bit behind and positioned in such a way that if you target the imperial guard directly, he (the other guy) will completely tear you apart in just a few seconds. You need to let the Drakhai pass and allow Spirit to engage him while you attack the normal Jalthi at least to start with.

There is a similar situation with the Krants where two are going straight at you and if you engage them, your transport will be dead in a few seconds because there is a third one farther away shooting at the transport itself. The four Dralthis that come after can be a minor issue, but feel free to use your missiles on them as you won't need them for anything else in this mission.

The final attack on transport by the four Salthi isn't really worth talking about too much, and the transport will jump out pretty quickly at that point anyway.

As far as the Austin is concerned, it's the same situation as what we had a couple of missions ago, basically it will jump out more or less as soon as you arrive, after which you are left to mop up the four Grathas any way you like.

Once again, Spirit proves to be one of the best wingpeople--she doesn't really score kills, but is very good at keeping the enemies distracted without getting killed. And I think it should be pretty obvious that the wingman AI really did receive an upgrade in SM2.

So, next time it's an undercover mission and also a new wingman, this time it will be somebody who we haven't yet met, one of the 'loans' from TCS Austin that have been mentioned a few times.

And here is the killboard--no you are not seeing things, apparently it's already been updated.






Next time on Wing Commander
These are not the ships you are looking for...