The news from the Goddard colony is decidedly grim. Somehow, the rumor mill hasn’t gotten the information to Shotglass in the bar before your mission starts, he’s still looking for information. Alas, you have none to give him. Colonel Halcyon breaks the news to the pilots during the mass briefing, so maybe news just hadn’t had time to get out yet.
This sets up the rest of the whole campaign: the Tiger’s Claw will be pursuing the Kilrathi fleet that destroyed Goddard, with express orders to destroy whatever new superweapon the cats used on the colony. Limited support and pushing deep into Kilrathi space makes this mission sound like it could easily turn into a one-way trip. OTOH, even trading a fleet carrier for a weapon capable of destroying a colony in one shot is likely a trade High Command would be willing to make. But we’re just pilots in this game, not big picture tacticians. Our job is just to do our best to make sure this isn’t a kamikaze run.
The mission structure itself continues to push the difficulty curve. Four separate groups of fighters, some attacking the Claw, some attacking you. Fortunately you’ve been upgraded to the faithful A-14 Raptor for this pair of missions, and Krants crumble pretty quickly against a set of full-gun bursts. In structure this is just a simple out and back single waypoint mission. In practice, the stops for dogfighting and transiting a minefield twice make the mission feel substantially longer.