Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary - Chapter 349

Chapter 349: Chapter 349 A Vicious Strike
With his opponent’s shielding now down, this would normally be when Avery would target critical systems and destroy the vessel but doing so this time would only come back to bite him.

While the captain in charge was a corrupt piece of garbage, most of the crew were just regular members of the Alliance Police following orders.

Their superiors had told them that they were going to be eliminating pirates that were trying to disguise themselves as mercenaries and they had no reason to doubt this.

Killing everyone onboard certainly was not going to help Avery ingratiate himself with the Alliance Police. Plus, he doubted that they would be happy to have one of their expensive ships destroyed as well.

Since he was counting on the organization to clean this mess up once it was over, getting on their bad side was only going to cause a bigger headache for him and his team latter on.

“Target their weapon systems and thrusters. Let’s leave them dead in space without any teeth to bite back with.”

At Avery’s command, Kasandra and Liesel joined him in disarming their opponent.

Naturally, the frigate put up a fight while trying to flee, but thanks to the asteroid field there were no quick routes to escape through.

Systematically, every weapon system was destroyed, and finally the main and sub thrusters were damaged beyond the point of being operable. Leaving the vessel unable to properly attack or move.

‘Now how is Ezra doing?’ Avery thought, pulling up the battle happening a few kilometers away up on the Dauntless’ viewscreen.

Ezra, along with Olivia, Burke, and around eight of their best fighters were still engaged with the other frigate.

They had not quite broken through its shields yet and some of them had taken some heavy hits and were having to act cautiously.

Though Avery had been able to beat down his target’s shields quickly with his plasma launchers once he had gotten in close, the squad Ezra was leading was having a more difficult time landing any attacks that would rapidly deplete shield capacity.

‘That captain seems to have a better tactical mind. They’re not just rapidly firing their weapons to overpower Ezra and the others but are using them to keep them at bay. They aren’t trying to win just stall for time.’

It was clear that the other fighter was just trying to keep them here as long as possible.

Once their commander showed up with a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and two destroyers, the flow of the battle would no doubt take a turn in their favor.

While Alliance Police frigates possessed incredible firepower compared to most ships, they paled in comparison to their larger counterparts. Even just a single one of the light cruisers boasted stronger and more numerous weapons than both of the frigates Avery’s team was fighting combined.

“Kasandra, Liesel, let’s go back them up. We need to get this finished with soon.” Avery said over comms as he left behind the disabled frigate.

It did not take long for their new opponent to take notice of them.

Some of the weapons keeping the squad Ezra was leading at bay turned towards Avery, Kasandra, and Liesel’s ships and began opening fire on them.

Still, the frigate’s resources were spread too thin now.

One-on-one, it was in a higher weight class than anything Avery’s team had, but one of a larger ship’s weaknesses was being swarmed by several smaller vessels.

The frigate had no hope of outmaneuvering them considering its size and the constrained location, and it was unable to focus its greater offensive power due to how many enemies there were to fight.

‘Finally, we’ve got its shields down. Now to leave it disabled, and then we can get out of here.’

Yet, as victory was in Avery’s sight, an alarm blared in the Dauntless’ cockpit.

Its long-range sensors had just picked up a massive energy surge from a couple hundred thousand kilometers away.

Usually this would not be a cause for concern, as something from that distance should not be able to reach them.

Yet as it turned out, the enemy commander had a hidden card up their sleeve.

“Everyone, move away right now!” Avery shouted as he pulled on the Dauntless’ controls and shot up at full speed.

Following his orders, everyone engaged with the frigate moved away as quickly as they could.

Seeing this, the frigate’s weapons fired at them and scored some clean hits since everyone was running away in a straight line.

The captain onboard knew what was going on since his commander had just contacted him a few moments ago.

Yet what he had not expected was to be used as a sacrifice.

An enormous beam of green light shot through the asteroid field. Blasting through whatever got in its way.

Had the Dauntless’ sensors not detected the attack ahead of time, most of Avery’s team that had been fighting the frigate would have been caught up in the attack.

Instead, they managed to get away with barely a second to spare as the great beam of light struck the Alliance Police frigate and carved right through it.

Easily overwhelming its armor and continuing to fly through the asteroid field for several more kilometers before finally dispersing and losing its power.

“They just destroyed their own ally.” Jasmine said, her eyes wide in shock and disbelief.

To try and land a decisive blow against them, the heavy cruiser had just fired its spinal mounted laser cannon.

This was a weapon that ran through the over a kilometer length of the vessel and used nearly the entire output of the main generator for over three minutes just to fire once.

Still, the immense power of its attack had just been put on full display. Even from quite far away, the blast had possessed enough energy behind it to pierce straight through an Alliance Police frigate.

Certainly, its shields were down, but even if they had been at full capacity the outcome would not have been any different.