Tour of Duty 9: Payment Due

Mission 2: "Into the Lion's Den"

Location: Unknown
Special: No jump until 15:00
Objectives: Reconnoiter the Knossos 2 portal

Ship setup: Terran modified SF Mara
Primary: 2xGTW UD-8 Kayser
Secondary: 420x2 Tempest

In Game:

• Dive immediately to avoid being crushed by a SJ Sathanas exiting the system.
• 3rd Knossos portal is discovered
• Multiple Sathanas juggernauts in system
• Head to device labeled SC1 and destroy it.
• Move away from device when it drops below 50%. Stay 1-1.5KM away.
• Destroy SC2
• Destroy SC3
• Head for Jump Node
• Destroy Shivan fighters in vicinity
• Avoid Rakshasa class cruiser.
• Jump out between 15:00 and 15:15

Perhaps the most compelling mission in the game. Along with two top ace pilots - Xinny and Zero - and of course, Commander Snipes, you get to fly terran modified Shivan fighters into the second Knossos portal in a reckon mission.

Ignore the targeting signals and head toward SC 1 - a Shivan communications node. They seem to be necessary for Shivans to communicate using quantum pulses. By the time you get close to it, your signals are revealed to be of terran origin to the Shivan fleet, and suddenly everybody turns hostile.

Luckily, the fighters are generally inept, and since there are no ships to destroy, the mission becomes a large free-for-all. You can score some serious points with your superiors by destroying the three comm nodes - aim at the red core for double damage. Once they drop below 50%, however, they begin a rapid countdown to 0%, at which point they explode with a damage radius of more than 1KM. Getting hit by it with full shields tends to reduce your hull strength by 40-50%.

When the comm nodes are destroyed, focus your attention slowly leaving the system. Take the time to destroy enemy fighters using your high-powered primary weapons, but make sure to be around the node at the 10-minute mark. This way, the fighters will come to you, and you can easily engage them while waiting out the final five minutes.

In the last minute (14) before you need to jump out, a Shivan cruiser will jump into the node. Keep your distance and don't stop moving. You'll still be easily able to jump out of the system and return to the Aquitane, where leadership of the 70th Blue Lions awaits.

Briefing: Petrarch

• Given command of elite 70th Blue Lions.
• Preferential selection of weapons and ships.
• Nine Sathanas juggernauts detected, but they are ignoring engagements in order to approach the Capella star.
• Erinyes fighter released.
• GTW UD-08 Kayser gun released.
• GTM-11 Infyrno missile released.

Tour of Duty Nine:
Mission 1 | Mission 2 

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