We’re coming down to the end of this expansion pack. There are only three missions left after this, but none of them are going to be easy. We start this segment back in a Dralthi Mk. II for some inexplicable reason.
First, a note: after the previous mission, I noticed that a couple of my wingmen were dead. This was odd, given my preference for restarting a mission if I lose a wingman, and doubly odd because one of the dead pilots was Angel, whom I hadn’t even flown with yet. This ended up being the same buffer overflow issue from Secret Missions 1, but I really needed Angel to draw some fire in this next mission. Thus, after some careful edits to resurrect my wrongfully dead wingmen, I was ready to play.
Bar chatter before the mission is all over the place. Hunter is still understandably upset about losing his brother, meanwhile Angel is getting promotion and taking over command of the fighter wing on the TCS Austin once this whole Firekka business is finally over. However, she’s still on the flight roster until then, and will be flying on our wing for the next couple of missions.
Why are we in a Dralthi for this mission? I have no idea. We’re not trying to hide our presence from the Kilrathi, and given the enthusiastic response from the first cats we encounter, it would seem that our IFF spoofing is broken again. Normally, four Gratha wouldn’t be too much of a challenge. 2v4 in the Flying Bullseye is a different matter. Angel is a pretty good distractor though.
The transport is already under attack when we hit Nav 1. This is what we wanted to save our heaters for, because the Krants need to die ASAP. Maybe save one heater for the Salthi that are waiting on the way to the Claw too. Sure, Salthi don’t pose much of a threat, but a quick kill will help even the odds and keep the banged up Drayman a little more intact.