Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 256 Big End of the Second Event

Avery kept his eyes peeled on the console in front of him waiting for a message saying that the second event was over.

Yet, when a transmission arrived, it was far from what he had been expecting.

Rather than any good news, it was about the final twist of this event.

While they had managed to repel the main force acting as pirates, there was still one variable remaining that all nine of the competitors had disregarded.

When they had first arrived, the Alliance Police light cruiser that had brought them to this location had moved to intercept five large transports that were part of the faux pirates’ forces.

Avery had believed that this was set up to make the scenario more believable, but in truth, there were sinister motivations behind it.

Five of the nine competitors had chased after the fleeing pirates, hoping to be awarded a higher score by taking more of them out.

However, this left only four of their numbers to protect the damaged cargo ships.

"This can’t be real. How the hell do they expect us to deal with something like this?!" Kasandra shouted in frustration.

The message that had just been transmitted to everyone told them that the light cruiser had been disabled and that the enemy large vessels were heading towards their location.

It was the final challenge to face in this event, and a nasty one at that.

Obviously, the organizers that had come up with this had wanted to pull one over on the competitors and keep them on their toes.

Avery was not sure under what conditions the large pirate ships would attack, but one of them was clearly the retreat of the main force and spitting of the cargo vessels’ defenders.

"I bet that they imagined something like this would happen. Since this is a competition, once the ’pirates’ started to flee, we would give chase to improve our scores. Then, the weaponized transports we thought we just here for show would get past the light cruiser and destroy the targets we were meant to defend." Avery grumbled. Giving his insight into the plans of the people that came up with this event.

Had this not been a competition and a real-life scenario, there was absolutely no way that the nine competitors would have acted how they did.

They would have worked together more seamlessly and always prioritized the cargo ships’ safety.

Perhaps this event had been set up as a means to make them take everything seriously. That they should act optimally to the situations given without worrying about the fact that they were in a competition.

’There’s no point in ruminating on that now. We’ve got to figure out how to hold back five large vessels with only the four of us.’

Avery glanced over at the trigger to fire the Dauntless’ secret weapon.

Though they were not the real things for obvious reasons, he had a full complement of training phasic torpedoes stored onboard. Provided courtesy of Storren Corp.

If he used them, it would be possible to do heavy damage or outright destroy the five enemy spacecraft.

Yet he was hesitant to reveal the ace he had kept hidden. freёnovelkiss.com

At this point, all of his other weapon systems had been shown.

In case he needed it for a surprise attack in a later round, Avery desperately wanted to keep his most destructive weapon concealed.

’I’m currently in second place already and I don’t think it would be possible for me to get any lower than fourth considering the five that chased after the fleeing pirates and created this scenario. It’s a risk not to use the phasic torpedoes, but it’s one I’ll just have to take.’

This would not be the first time that Avery had charged into the fray against far larger ships than his own. Though, this time the Dauntless was already a bit worn down from the earlier fighting, and his backup consisted of only three other small vessels.

Still, he just needed to do what he could. If it was not enough, this was only a simulation in a competition. He would not really be losing anything. Well, nothing other than a bit of his pride.

"Kasandra, relay these orders to the other three. We’re going to stop those five weaponized transports." Avery said confidently, not letting a hint of his inner doubt seep into his tone.

Without waiting for a response from the others, Avery turned towards the approaching large vessels and powered up his thrusters.

At high speed he streaked across space towards far bigger foes.

Naturally, they did not simply wait for him to approach.

With all of their weapons, they locked on to him and started firing.

"I’ve released chaffs, flares, and decoy beacons. But there’s too many attacks coming our way. We’re not going to be able to divert them all."

"I know. I’ll just have to dodge or shot down as many as I can. We only need to avoid taking so many hits that our shields can’t hold up." Avery said, giving his all to breaking through the bombardment.

He felt his focus heightening and his body and mind started working faster.

Using his ship’s sensors, he predicted when lasers were going to be fired from the enemy vessels and if their trajectories would hit the Dauntless.

At the same time, he was monitoring any seeker missiles coming their way and prioritizing shooting them down with his three heavy laser cannons.

It was incredibly difficult work considering that he was up against five large vessels that each had dozens of weapons equipped. Even if they were not the strongest considering that they were acting as modified transports captured by pirates.

Of course, it was impossible for Avery to avoid every hit.

Lasers and multicannons rounds impacted the shields and were deflected, but each strike was taking its toll on the Dauntless’ shields.

"I’m using a shield cell." Kasandra said, hastily replenishing their defenses that were depleting rapidly.

Before Avery was able to get into range, it was necessary to use another shield cell. Nevertheless, he finally slipped into the area that he wanted to be.

"Now it’s my turn."

Having gotten under one of the weaponized transports, Avery fired both of his plasma launchers directly into it.

The shields held up for only two volleys before being overwhelmed. Plasma developed for battle against ships was unbelievably effective. Although, its low effective range did make the weapon type unpopular for most people.

"Except, I couldn’t imagine using anything else at this point." Avery said, a vicious grin forming on his lips.

Now directly under where the large transport’s main generator was located, he fired another two shots from his plasma launchers and dove away.

Just a couple of seconds later, his sensors recorded a massive explosion coming from the ship.

This was only a manufactured sensor reading of course. All the plasma he had launched did was scorch the outer hull since it was meant for training situations.

With it having been "destroyed", the vessel Avery had just hit was no longer emitted a red light and started to fly outside of the battlefield.

However, as it left, Avery lost his cover. Becoming exposed to the other four weaponized transports that were looking for revenge.

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