And so we close out the Ghorah Khar system. Maybe Hobbes isn’t such a bad guy after all. After all, he left the Kilrathi Empire after choosing to save Downtown. He let us be the wing leader too.
This mission isn’t too difficult. Scramble, defend Olympus Station from a couple waves of cats, then it’s back to the boat. Of course, Hobbes gets the credit for saving the station. If we end up on the losing path, we get the blame for losing the station. Life’s like that sometimes.
Meanwhile, in one of the fully voice-acted cinematics, a Kilrathi upstart gets his shot at glory. Or death. Probably death.
Win or lose, we’re going to the Novaya Kiev system next, and flying some missions with Doomsday. The question is whether we’re running away from Ghorah Khar, tails tucked firmly between our legs, or rolling in with some swagger, having chased the cats out of another system.
If we’re here in Novaya Kiev Alt, it means we screwed up in Ghorah Khar. Pre-mission chat with Paladin reveals that we’ve run away with the cats hot on our trail. On the plus side, our first mission is taking four Broadswords up against a Kilrathi destroyer. We may be on the losing track, but the difficulty isn’t showing it.
On the other hand…
This time, we’re going up against a Supply Depot. Plus a few Dorkathi transports, and various escorting Drakhri and Jalkhehi fighters.
There’s the same basic pre-mission chat with Paladin, save that this time we’re complaining about not getting credit for saving Olympus Station. The mission itself is interesting for being the first time we’ve conducted an in-space refueling. Granted it’s all a pre-rendered cutscene and not something we actually do, but it’s still pretty cool to see the Broadsword slide up behind a tanker and take on some gas.
On both versions of Novaya Kiev A, we end by hearing that Stingray lost his wingman. Poor Dallas, he got even less screentime than Specialist McGuffin.