‘Imminent Detonation’

'Old man' - Well it's a descriptive name if nothing else

The preceding story mission was: ‘Operation Liberation’

The following story mission is: ‘To the Mizar System’

These are the orphans of story missions, the ugly child ‘Imminent Detonation’ gripping the hand of its unattractive older sister ‘To the Mizar System’. They stand unnoticed as pirates surround the younger ‘Operation Liberation’, shaking their heads in frustrated affection. Others fawn over the older and glamorous ‘Explosive Information’ as they compete for attention in Pirate Galaxy’s fourth system. The orphans are the missions that no body bothers with.

Once you’ve blasted Lord Fam Doom (LFD) in ‘Operation Liberation’ you get the astrogation chip that takes you to Mizar. Once you’ve done that why bother with ‘Imminent Detonation’ when you can jump straight to 'Explosive Information'? Okay there’s Cryonite to win, but there’s more over the rainbow. Why hang about in boring old Gemini now you’ve got Mizar to raid? It doesn’t help that this one can be a bit of a challenge. Well it is, until you realise there’s an easier route through the mission.

You learn that LFD, the Balrog of the Gemini system, is planning to cleanse the remains of Technatoria. Your task is to get down there and rescue those that have been left behind. On the surface Isaac advises you to look in the core. As you travel you come across some un-scannable pods. Presumably they are LFD’s cleansing bombs. In my first attempt I blew them all up but there didn’t seem to be any benefit in doing so. Looking on the wiki there is an explanation that these will emit Gamma rays on detonation that will kill humans but not Mantis. You’re advised to destroy all you can but concentrate on getting the slaves to orbit. This information didn’t show when I played this mission so not sure what’s happened there, but you can complete without blasting them.

You go through the core without finding any survivors, but try all the nooks and crannies and you’ll find what you’re looking for. You’ll come across a freighter being attacked by Mantis. Go to their rescue but don’t select the freighter straight away, because as soon as you do the Mantis weapons start to cause damage. The freighter is effectively invulnerable until you select it. Shhhhh! Don’t tell Split Screen.

The freighter is piloted by an old man, presumably with a cargo of other refugees. The old coot in the freighter is wittering on about something being transferred to the Mizar system before Technatoria was destroyed. The task is to escort them to an area free of Technatoria’s gravitational pull so they can get to orbit. Now the mission gets tasty, you have 7 minutes to get there.

The freighter is tough and has shields, and may be more durable than you are. Just like with the Vendetta, keep yourself alive, and the freighter will probably stay in one piece too. I tried and failed this mission 8 times, trying my engineer and my storm. At first it’s easy enough, but when you get near the centre of the core you are ambushed by a large squad of Mantis. You can Afterburn through and hope the freighter keeps up with you, but as you leave the core you are jumped again. I failed to fight them all off in the storm and the engineer had no chance. When podded I did manage to get back to Technatoria from the hangar and to the surface but only just, failing to reach the take-off point.

After 8 failures I was thinking of asking for help but no one is interested in this mission, as I said at the start. Then I tried something different. Once I had the freighter I took it the back way around the core, so that you approach the take-off zone through the

Hidden Route

and get much closer. When I reached the main channel I was ambushed by both Mantis squadrons at once. I was immediately podded, but thanks to the new higher Energy cap I still had enough power to resurrect and make a dash for the take-off zone. The freighter was still intact and it followed me into the zone just as I was down to my last bar of hull integrity. The mission was complete and the Mantis flew off in a sulk, even though a slight nudge would have been enough to pod me again.

So there we are. You may not bother trying this mission but you should. You can get through it with care and lateral thinking, and you’ll be a better pirate for it. Besides, spare a thought for the orphans.