Wingnuts Ring Up Freedom

After I land, Captain Eisen comes on the comm and confirms my fears. Admiral Tolwyn has given us the slip and is on his way to the Senate's Grand Assembly. Our only hope now is for me to follow after him as quickly as possible and explain what I've seen of his operations to the Senate first-hand. To get there, though, I'll have to punch a hole through Earth's defenses, though the cloaking device will help me with that.

The first round of these defenses is a fight that I've been looking forward to. Seether challenges me to a one on one battle, using his usual mine track to get the drop on my rear. He's good, much better than the other Black Lance pilots, but still easily goaded into an attack. I simply have to give him a shot and he'll decloak and take it, no matter how easily I can counter. I ding up his nose with my guns using this tactic until he makes a mistake and decloacks too close. He fires a missile to try to force me away but I drop a decoy and afterburn over the top if it's sensor, locking on two IR missiles. He manages to decoy the first one out of the way and is in the middle of cloaking when the second missile impacts on his rear and tears the superman apart. The fight over earth is anti-climatic with only a few Arrows with uprated sensors challenging my cloaked approach towards earth.

I manage to make it on the Assembly floor just as Tolwyn concludes his speech urging war with the Border Worlds. If I'm to change their minds I need to act now. I quickly intervene and shout out that Tolwyn is the guilty party. Tolwyn has me seized by the guards but Paladin at least grants me a chance to speak. Tolwyn lays a trap for me, asking if I really think the senate is ignorant so I decide to go on the offensive and state they've been duped by a charade perpetrated by Tolwyn. The strong lanaguage should get them out of their naps.

I follow that up with a direct confrontation with Tolwyn on his involvement with our current state of affairs. He maintains that he is only attempting to maintain law and order, so I ask him what cost the control has. He insults my integrity and I can feel the Senators slipping away so I get straight to the cut of the attack and ask Tolwyn about the Black Lance forces. I nail down some of the details about the Black Lance forces before Tolwyn slips up and gives me an opportunity.

Seizing the moment, I instantly ask Tolwyn if the Gen-Select bioweapon was part of the equipment used by the Black Lance. The Senate has never approved of bioweapons and the accusation gets their attention, particularly when I detail the particular effects of this weapon. Now that I've got some traction, it's time to keep it going by telling the senate about Seether's heritage from the G.E program. Not only does it reveal more of Tolwyn's motives but the news that Seether is dead clearly knocks the Admiral a bit.

With this momentum going I decide to reveal all I know of Tolwyn's plans to the Assembly, including the ghastly plot to eliminate the undesirable elements of society with bioweapons. The attack combined with Seether's death has left Tolwyn off-guard and he tries to defend himself but trips up and starts to fall into talk of how to improve our methods of killing. It's only when Paladin rests his hand on Tolwyn's shoulder and says they've heard enough that Tolwyn seems to realise what he's done. Paladin calls for a vote and I stand there and watch the No's tally up. I'm still completely out of it when Paladin declares that there will be no war with the Border Worlds and several senators approach to congratulate me. It's been a hell of a day.

Making the Games: The Shadow Force - Confederation

This is the twelfth set of Feng Zhu concept artwork pieces. Unlike the previous sets, the origin of these is clear: they are the characters developed for Wing Commander: Shadow Force, an aborted follow-up to Secret Ops. The first half of the cast are Confederation officers -- note the dynamic new uniforms, which give the old converted garbage-man outfits a run for their money.

Thanks to Captain Johnny for both archiving and providing this material!