Chapter 538: Chapter 538 Assault on the Odium Syndicate (4)
A chaotic mess of a battle awaited Avery as he flew out of the Intrepid’s hangar.
Everything looked vastly different from the Dauntless’ viewscreen then when he was sitting in the captain’s chair of his carrier ship.
He had gone from being in command of a behemoth of a vessel that loomed over everything else, to piloting a single small craft.
As he glanced about and approached the nearest group of enemy fighters, two of the ships peeled off and started coming towards him.
Flashes of red light burst from the laser cannons mounted on the front of the fighters, and Avery had not been prepared to get out of the way since he was distracted taking everything.
The blasts impacted against his shields and shook the Dauntless a bit but only drained his shield capacity by a couple percentage points.
Still, this was a wakeup call for him.
’I need to get my head back in the game. I’ve been sitting cozy in the Intrepid for too long. The Dauntless can’t just tank most of the hits coming its way. This will be a good chance to shake some of my rust off.’
Avery’s eyes became more focused, and his hands gripped ahold of the Dauntless’ controls a bit tighter.
He had not yet used his psionic abilities, but it was like a switch had just been flipped in him.
All the errant thoughts that had been rushing through his mind had been pushed out, and he let his training and experience fully take over.
Before the next shots came his way, he was already darting around in an unpredictable pattern and firing of blasts of his own from the Dauntless’ three laser cannons.
The two fighters that had engaged him were not able to land another hit before their ships were hit and disabled in just a few volleys.
Their shields and armor were nothing to brag about. Only speed and firepower had been prioritized in their construction, and even there they lost to the far higher quality of Avery’s craft.
These cheap, almost disposable fighters were hardly worthy of being compared to the cutting edge warship that was the Dauntless.
However, what they lacked in quality, they certainly made up for in quantity.
After Avery had taken out his first pair of opponents, a larger group of thirteen disengaged from the battle against Ezra and his squad and turned right towards him.
"I must not have impressed them enough if they’re only sending thirteen of these weaklings after me. But I suppose that this will be a good warmup." Avery said, a wide smile on his face as he shot forward to meet his next group of adversaries.
Without so much as slowing down, he plunged into their formation. Forcing a few of the fighters to erratically dodge or risk suffering a fatal crash.
Naturally, Avery had predicted their response and fired a shot each from his stern scatterguns and then expertly used the Dauntless’ thrusters to whip around.
As the scattergun projectiles burst, a spray of shrapnel pelted against the shields of the closest fighters and tore through them like paper.
Their flimsy armor did not hold up much better and three of the vessels were damaged to the point of being inoperable.
Two because their pilots were dead, and the other due to its main computer and thrusters being shredded.
’Huh, none of them blew up. I guess I got lucky there. Their laser cannons and some of the equipment will be decently valuable, so we can strip after the battle’s over.’
With how easily he was trouncing his opponents, Avery started looking at them not as worthy adversaries, but simply as flying caches of money he needed to crack open.
After just a few more exchanges of blows, the reaming ten fighters were all defeated.
Most of them had ended up exploding after being hit by the Dauntless’ laser cannons, with only another two being in salvageable condition.
This really went to show how lucky Avery had been with his opening attack.
Nevertheless, he was not going to bemoan the loss of a few pieces of equipment. There were still plenty more fighters around, and an entire station to loot once they were done.
’Almost feels like we’re the priates in this situation. Though I guess from the Odium Syndicate’s and Zatis Consortium’s perspective, we probably are.’ Avery thought, looking at his company’s actions from their enemy’s point of view.
They might have been hired by the authorities of the Dramid Alliance and acting under Cerise’s orders, but that would mean very little to the powers at be where they were now.
Avery already knew that if his team was captured or killed, that the Alliance Police would deny any involvement with them.
That was why Cerise had sought them out in the first place and was using mercenaries instead of members of the Alliance Police.
It was all to avoid the potential of starting an all-out war rather than the mere border skirmishes that were currently going on.
Of course, Avery had no intention of letting his company get caught up in a scenario where they were at risk of losing.
And Cerise had prepared some contingency plans to help them if things did spiral out of control and Avery’s company was found out.
She was not so callous as to cast them aside at the first sign of trouble.
"Seems that I have some more challenges. Hopefully they’ll put up a better fight."
Three of the medium-sized warships that had been deployed by the station had set their sights on the Dauntless along with fifteen more fighters
After he had proven that he could effortlessly take out several of their fighters at once, it appeared that they were going to attempt to focus him with greater numbers and firepower to crush him quickly since he was isolated.
"I have to hand it to the Odium Syndicate; they really are nasty pieces of work." Avery muttered as he dove in to meet his next group of foes.
Using cheap fighters as their primary forces showed a lack of concern for their personnel.
It was basically letting the pilots know that they were worth almost nothing and easily replaceable.
The pilots did not even have the potential to run away when they were obviously being used as cannon fodder.
Their fighters did not have hyperdrives or light speed drives. Meaning that there was no hope of them getting away.
Trying to escape would just mean a slow death out in space. And considering the way the odium Syndicate operated, if any of the pilots tried to return to the station before the attackers were dealt with, they would likely be killed anyway.
That left them with only the option to fight to the death and hope that they survived. A prospect that did not seem too promising against Avery’s well equipped and highly trained company.
As for their medium assault craft, a thorough scan revealed that their light speed drive and hyperdrive had been removed. It was clear that none of the Odium Syndicate grunts were going to be allowed to leave without the permission of the station’s higherups.
"I do feel bad for them, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to show any mercy."
Avery finally managed to slip past the fighters that had been attacking him almost recklessly and approach the heavily armed and armored ships that had been barraging him with missiles and pulse laser blasts.
Try as they might to keep him at bay, Avery weaved through the vessel’s attacks using the Dauntless’ impressive speed and maneuverability.
Once he had gotten in range, he twisted the controls so that his ship spun around.
At the same time, he fired three shots each from both of his plasma launchers.
In what could only be considered a near impossible feat of skill, Avery managed to destroy all three of the medium assault craft almost simultaneously.
They had been at close range and were too slow to react to the balls of white-hot plasma flying towards them.
The first hit blasted through their shields and melted their armor, while the second burned its way into the interior of the ships and connected with their main generators.
Needless to say, the outcome was the same as Avery had seen hundreds of times by now.
All three of the vessels were engulfed by blinding explosions. Leaving them nothing more than scrap metal floating through space.
’Ah, I think that might have been a bit too much for them. I must have broken their spirits.’ Avery thought as he flipped the Dauntless around to face the remaining fighters.
He had expected them to be right on his tail, but instead they were keeping their distance, and from their movements Avery could tell that the pilots were unsure of what to do next.
No doubt their orders were to destroy Avery’s ship and kill him, but the eleven remaining fighters knew that they stood no chance of stopping him. To engage again was certain death.
Unfortunately, their hesitancy proved to be a fatal error.
Not because of anything Avery did, but due to their own allies.
"Oh Sh*t!"
An alert that he had just been locked onto resounded in the Dauntless’ cockpit and Avery hastily enacted evasive maneuvers.
A couple moments later, dozens of laser cannon blasts cut through the space where he had been.
The station’s turrets had targeted him after his most recent triumph.
Naturally, just because Avery got out of the way, did not mean that the lasers stopped moving.
The fighters that had been hesitating to reengage with Avery were in their paths, and the pilots inside did not have anywhere close to Avery’s reaction time.
Each of the vessels was hit and immediately destroyed by the high intensity beams. Their weak shields and armor never had any chance against the station mounted defenses.
"I already knew that they the people running the production faciality thought of their fighters as disposable, but I didn’t believe that they’d destroy their own ships just to get a hit on me." Avery said, his eyes filled with indignation as he stared back at the Odium Syndicate base.
He might not have had any mercy for his enemies, but that did not mean he would accept this level of disrespect towards them from their own allies. It left a bad taste in his mouth.
There were people that were trash, and then there were those that were utter garbage.
"I’ve made up my mind now, Bartholomew. Your next destination is definitely going to be hell. That slimly hide of yours is too good for my brig."
As Avery was contemplating just how he was going to deal with production faciality’s manager, a message bearing some good news reached him.
Grito had just managed to breach the drones’ systems and take control of them. It was now time for them to throw their opponents’ secret weapon right back at them.
