Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary - Chapter 355

Chapter 355: Chapter 355 Losses and Fury
Avery put all of his skills to the test as he flew into a hail of weapons fire.

His unexplainable power to see the flow of energy had first appeared during the heat of an intense battle, and Avery was hoping to force it out of himself again.

Yet, while the ability had been showing itself more recently as of late, it remained absent no matter how hard Avery tried to control it.

‘I still can’t just stop. I’ve fought my way through plenty of hard battles even without that extrasensory sight, and I can do it again this time.’ Avery thought, steeling himself for what was ahead.

With expert precision, he dodged explosive blasts and weaved between asteroids to absorb laser and multicannon fire aimed at him.

At long range, he was at a severe disadvantage, but if he could get close, then his high-powered plasma launchers and scatterguns could do some serious damage even to far larger ships.

“They’ve wizened up to what your capable of. They aren’t making it easy to reach them.” Jasmine said, gritting her teeth as she frantically supported Avery with everything she had.

Though the destroyers, frigates, and corvettes were all of a greater size than the Dauntless and possessed far more weapons, they were carefully keeping their distance and maneuvering expertly together to keep him away.

Previously they had mostly remained still and relied on their immense firepower since most small vessels were not much of a threat to them.

It took a lot of skill to maneuver under a larger craft and match its movements to use it as a shield, and then the small ship needed to have weapons that could severely threaten the larger one.

Meeting both of these criteria was rare, but it just so happened that Avery did, and the renegade Alliance Police were now paying heed to the danger he presented instead of confidently believing in their offensive and defensive capabilities to see them through.

Of course, Avery’s goal was not to destroy his enemies right now, but to draw attention to himself to lessen the attacks heading for his team. And while he was certainly doing this successfully, he really did want to take some of them down if he could.

It took longer than he would have liked, and he had needed to resort to some sharp and dangerous maneuvers that would leave most people sick from how extreme they were, but Avery did finally manage to position himself where he wanted.

‘Looks like they’re at least still hesitant to fire on one of their own with any powerful weapons.’ Avery thought, ginning manically as he hugged the bottom of one of the Alliance Police frigates.

Having marked Avery as a priority threat to eliminate, every one of the enemy vessels were using their point defense weapons to fire on him even if they also hit the frigate that he was hiding under.

Fortunately, Avery was still able to use the frigate to absorb most of the hits, and with deft piloting ability, he shifted around to avoid most of the rest.

Had he been using a weaker ship, it likely would have already been destroyed even by just the few stray shots that had connected. Thankfully, the Dauntless was meant to be a high-end military vessel designed for the best pilots in the Alliance Police and was tough enough to take somewhat of a beating.

Eventually, one of the destroyers moved in closer to try and take Avery out with a concentrated blast at close range, but this was what he was waiting for.

‘You should have kept your distance better, now you’re going to become my new shield.’

With a new target locked in his sights, Avery unleashed the full brunt of his plasma launchers and scatterguns on the frigate he was hiding under.

He carefully targeted certain thrusters to cause it to go flying off in the direction of the majority of the rest of the enemy vessels and to block most of the incoming fire while he headed towards the destroyer.

The crew of the destroyer reacted quickly to Avery’s approach, locking all of their weapons on to him and attempting to back away to prevent him from getting closer.

Nevertheless, a ship of that size needed too long to change its momentum, and Avery already knew what they were capable of and slipped past their barrage.

“I’ve just used our second shield cell. We’re only down to one left, so after this can you try and bring an end to this recklessness.” Jasmine said pleadingly.

“Okay, I’ll take this destroyer out and join back up with the rest of the team. I think I’ve bought enough time and eliminated enough of the enemy forces.”

However, not long after he said this, Avery felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a feeling of dread washed over him.

A second later, the Dauntless’ alarm blared with an alert that a nearby craft was building up a massive amount of energy.

The most troublesome enemy had finally arrived on the battlefield and was preparing to launch a massive opening attack.

At first Avery expected the blast to be aimed at him again.

Commander Triswei had already proven herself bloodthirsty enough to fire on her own allies if it gave her a higher chance of taking out key targets. So, Avery would not have been surprised if she aimed to obliterate the destroyer he was hiding under if it meant eliminating him as well.

Yet her sights were not set on Avery this time.

Having been backed into a corner, she was feeling both vicious and vindictive.

This time she was just aiming to take out as many people as she could rather than attempting to eliminate the biggest threats.

“Get out of the way!” Avery shouted over his team’s comms when he realized what was happening.

Swiftly, everyone scattered to avoid being hit, but in doing so they left themselves open to attack from the other rogue Alliance Police ships.

When the spinal mounted laser cannon fired, Avery watched in horror as even the beam of light seemed to slow to a crawl.

There was nothing he could do as three of the small ships under his command were consumed by the enormous blast.

Each of them were vaporized instantly without a trace being left behind.

Seeing this, Avery felt something inside of him snap.

He had fought so hard to keep everyone alive, and just now three people that had put their trust and faith in him had just been killed.

Pulling back on the Dauntless’ controls, Avery flew along the bottom of the destroyer until he was directly under a certain area.

“Avery, what are you doing?!”

Jasmine was frantic, perhaps understanding what he was about to do.

Except, he had no intention of stopping now.

With its shields already weakened from having bashed through asteroids to get into this area quickly, the destroyer’s defenses were far from in peak condition.

Firing his plasma launchers a few times, Avery sent the blazing hot material burning through the shields and then into the hull. Directly where the vessel’s main generator was located.

Up until now he had only been aiming to disable the ships since they did belong to the Alliance Police still even if right now corrupt officers were commanding them.

There were also perfectly innocent crew members onboard that were merely following orders.

This had kept Avery and his team from going for the kill against their opponents. Essentially keeping one hand tied behind their backs.

But Avery was not going to hold back any longer.

He could feel an unbridled rage greater than anything else he had felt in a long time rising up inside of him. All of his thoughts had now turned towards annihilating the adversaries in front of him.

Jasmine was trying to say something to him, but her words did not reach Avery.

Now that he had taken out the destroyer, he had set his full focus on his next target. Commander Triswei’s heavy cruiser. He would not allow her to get away with killing his subordinates.

‘Now it’s showing itself, when it’s already too late.’ Avery thought as the flow of energy became visible to him again.

This time it felt different though. More all-encompassing than before.

It was not just what he could see on the viewscreen in front of him anymore, it was as if he could somehow perceive everything around him as well.

Displaying a level of insight and precision in his flying that made it look like attacks were bending around him, Avery fearlessly shot towards the enemy flagship.

Heavy laser batteries fired at him in rapid succession with each boasting enough fire power to destroy even the Dauntless in just a few direct hits.

Yet not a single attack could reach the ship that Avery was piloting. So long as he was not barraged with a mass of strikes that left no room to dodge, nothing could touch him right now.