Chapter 537: Chapter 537 Assault on the Odium Syndicate (3)
"How did they get behind us?! What are we dealing with here?"
Avery was momentarily shocked before regaining his cool and asking for more information on the incoming enemies.
They had been fairly careful while preparing for this operation, and there had not been any signs of so many enemies anywhere nearby. If there had been, they never would have so brazenly attacked.
"It looks like they’re assault drones that were disguised as small asteroids. They have a rock shell around them with their mechanical components hidden inside." One of the bridge crew said, answering Avery’s questions.
The Odium Syndicate had done something similar to how Dr. Raiti had designed her previous lab, albeit several hundreds of times on a much smaller scale.
When checking the area around the station with Victoria’s stealth corvette, they had naturally discovered some pockets of asteroids floating around, but that was hardly anything to be concerned about.
There were plenty of completely uninteresting rocks all over the vast expanse of space.
Only a very thorough scan would have revealed that a pocket of these asteroids had drones hidden and lying in wait. Something that no one was going to dedicate the time to in all honesty.
’Sh*t, they got us. I guess were not the only ones that can come up with crafty strategies. The drones must still be inside the ring of our isolation beacons, otherwise signals wouldn’t have been able to reach them. Talk about unlucky.’
At the very least, Avery’s fears that they were up against a swarm of armed warships had been assuaged.
The drones posed some danger, but they could be dealt with.
Each of them only had light shielding meant to protect them from impacts from small pieces of space debris, and their armor was lackluster.
It would not take more than one or two solid hits from any of the weapons equipped to the vessels in Avery’s company to destroy the drones.
Individually they were weak and hardly something worth taking note of. Only taken as a massive swarm did they become dangerous.
"Liesel, Olivia. It’s time for both of you to deploy. Head out and intercept the drones with your squad. Prioritize safety and distribution over destroying them. Even if some of them reach the Intrepid, we can handle them."
The two of them received Avery’s orders and replied in affirmation.
A few dozen seconds later, their ships along with twelve more accompanying them flew out of the Intrepid’s hangers.
Avery had been keeping them in reserve to deal with more fighters as they launched from the station, but he could not ignore the unexpected hordes of drones closing in on them.
They were small and maneuverable enough to potentially slip past the Intrepid’s projected hexanal plate shields and start attacking the craft’s main shield.
While Avery had made sure that his carrier ship had exceptional defenses, being swarmed in mass by a group of smaller enemies was still a weakness for it.
There was only so much the Intrepid could handle at once, and when threats like assault drones or small ships got too close, it became very difficult to hit them. Avery knew that well from experience. He had employed the same strategy many times while piloting the Dauntless to take down far larger foes.
’Fortunately, the Intrepid is not just a large lumbering battleship. We’ve got enough other vessels in its hangars to compensate for its vulnerabilities.’ Avery thought as he kept a close eye on how the battle was unfolding.
He had been forced to deploy Liesel and Olivia earlier than he expected, so he now only had Kaiden’s corvette and Burke’s squad held left in reserve.
There was also technically still Victoria and her stealth ship, but unless absolutely necessary, he did not plan on calling her in. Avery had her patrolling the perimeter of the isolation beacon network to make sure that nobody managed to slip away.
’I suppose that the Dauntless is also ready and waiting. I hadn’t planned on joining the battle directly so I could stay here and continue issuing commands. If I need to, I can leave Jasmine to take charge though.’
As Avery was contemplating whether to head to the hangar and prepare to sortie himself, a call came in from Grito.
"Oh, that’s an interesting idea. You have my approval to go ahead with it." Avery replied to his chief engineer’s request.
As it turned out, he was familiar with the assault drones the Odium Syndicate was using.
He had not ever seen or heard about them being disguised as small asteroids before, but he had worked with the base models before and understood them fairly well.
With the instruments aboard the Intrepid and his knowledge of the drones, he was fairly confident that within just a few minutes, he would be able to get into their systems and take control of them.
’It would definitely be funny to turn their secret weapon against them, and it would save us a lot of trouble.’ Avery thought amused as he imagined the surprise on the Odium Syndicate members’ faces when their owns drones started attacking them.
Of course, Grito still had to take control of the autonomous weapons first, and in the meantime, Avery needed to focus on the battle raging around them.
More fighters had just launched from the station, and this time they had not come out alone.
A few medium sized warships sporting heavy armor and weaponry had arrived on the battlefield as well.
They were not fast vessels by any means considering how bulky each of them was, but speed did not matter as much when their goal was to defend a station. Being able to take hits and fire back was more important.
’Not that it’ll help them much against the Intrepid. They’ll need far better ships than those to fight us.’
Fourteen of the Intrepid’s heavy laser cannons changed their target from the production faciality to the incoming ships.
Flashes of red lit up the space between them and the enemy combatants scrambled to get out of the way.
Unfortunately for them, a lack of maneuverability and skilled pilots meant that they were barely able to avoid any of the incoming blasts.
Lasers traveled at the speed of light, so they were nearly impossible to dodge without some sort of cover to hide behind or the ability to read and anticipate trajectories at a high level.
Even Avery could not dodge every hit while flying the Dauntless and utilizing his extrasensory perception ability. So, their slower, less skilled adversaries, really did not have much of a chance.
The heavy laser cannon fire was eating into the new defender’s shields and rapidly depleting them.
In an open field of battle, they really just did not stand a chance against a far larger and heavily armed vessel.
Still, the Odium Syndicate’s new combatants were far from the main threat. That spot was still held by the station itself.
Despite parts of it being disabled, it possessed a great number of defense turrets that were all locked onto the Intrepid.
’We’re taking a bit more damage than expected. Having Olivia and Liesel’s squads tied up dealing with those drones gives us less manpower to deal with other threats. I think I’d better deploy Kaiden and Burke.’
Avery had wanted to keep some of his forces in reserve for any other unanticipated complications, but he did not like how quickly the Intrepid’s shields were being drained.
Being in enemy territory meant that there was no telling what might occur, and he wanted to a solid margin of safety at all times.
He did not doubt that his company would win as things stood, but they would exhaust themselves more than he would like.
So long as something truly catastrophic did not happen, he concluded that deploying everyone into the field and holding nothing back would be for the best.
Once he had given the order, he could tell that Kaiden was ecstatic to get out and fight.
It had been a while since their last good battle, and he was not the type that liked to sit around for too long.
Avery certainly understood his brother-in-law’s feelings.
He was also itching to get into the Dauntless and get out there personally.
Sitting in the captain’s chair and commanding a ship as powerful as the Intrepid certainly had its appeal, but it lacked the excitement of being in complete control of a vessel and using skill and wits to beat an opponent.
"Go ahead. I can take over here just fine." Jasmine said, having read Avery’s intentions from the look on his face.
"Thanks. I’m glad I have someone so reliable to command the Intrepid in my absence."
"Yes, well, I expect you to properly reward me later. Now you’d better hurry, or all of the fun will be over before you can get out there." Jasmine replied, wearing a teasing grin.
Avery calmly exited the bridge, but the moment he was out of sight he began running through the Intrepid’s corridors towards the nearest entrance to the Internal transport system.
It took him a few minutes to arrive and get ready, but he was sitting in the Dauntless’ pilot chair and ready to launch.
A quick look around revealed the normally filled hangar to be completely empty.
For a moment, Avery’s eyes lingered on where Kasandra’s vessel was normally stationed.
She was the only one not participating in this battle. Avery had given her another assignment to complete that he could only trust her with.
’I’m sure that she’s fine. There shouldn’t be much danger involved with what she’s doing.’
Bringing his thoughts back to the situation at hand, Avery took ahold of the Dauntless’ controls and made his way out of the hangar to join the battle.
