Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Rushing back into the cockpit, Avery hastily sat back down in the pilot's seat and pulled up the sensor readings.

"Looks like its other vessel incoming. All of them small crafts. Their too far away to distinguish if they're friendlies or not." Avery said while bringing the Dauntless' generator up to full power and moving himself in between the mining vessels and the fast-approaching ships.

It was a few moments after he started taking action that the other two mercenaries on patrol in the area noticed that something was up.

Like Avery both of them were two stars, though they had significantly more experience than he did.

With a few short messages the three of them coordinated themselves into the best defensive pattern they could.

After that Avery sent a transmission to the incoming vessels.

"This is the Avery Asteria, two star mercenary under contract to protect the mining ships in this area. Stop and identify yourselves. This sector is under the Jurisdiction of Dirluc Mining."

Avery waited for a response for a few seconds, but nothing came.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, it was not much longer before his sensors were able to read the signatures of the incoming crafts.

Immediately he received an alert from the system that nearly all of the ships were pirates with bounties on their heads.

Wearing a scowl on his face, Avery sent this information to the other mercenaries and the mining vessels.

"Damn, twenty-one of them. That's a lot for just three of us to deal with." One of the mercenaries said over the comms.

"We'll just have to make do until reinforcements arrive. I've already sent a transmission requesting aid." The other responded.

Avery could hear the edge in their voices.

A two star mercenary was expected to be able to handily beat four average space pirates. However, it was typically difficult for them to take on more than six at a time. The fact that their enemies had seven for each of them meant that this would be an uphill battle for most two stars.

"And these pirates are a bit better than average. Their weapons aren't too impressive, but their shielding and platting have been upgraded." Avery observed.

He still had the data from the four he had taken out a couple months ago and found that the majority of the group coming for them were slightly stronger.

It was only little things on each of the vessels that made them a bit better, but when taking into account all twenty-one of the pirates, it made quite a difference.

Having only around two minutes until intercept, Avery made a critical decision.

"We won't be able to protect everyone if we try to hold the line. There's just too many of them. So, I'm going to go and scatter them. Pick off any stragglers that get away from me and try to go after the miners."

"Wait! Are you crazy?! This isn't the time to try and be a hero! You're gonna get yourself killed!" One of the mercenaries shouted, trying to talk Avery out of his plan.

However, his mind was already set. This was the only way to protect those they had been hired to watch over.

The mining vessel had strong defenses, but no weapons. If the pirates reached them, they would be doomed.

Without waiting for a chance for the other two mercenaries to talk him down, Avery set off through the asteroid field as fast as he could. It would not be long now until he was face to face with a squadron of space pirates.

"Whoa! We got a crazy one here. Did he get so scared that he put in the wrong coordinates and came right towards us as he tried to run away."

"Well, it's definitely one of the three mercenaries guarding this section. But that ship doesn't seem to even have any weapons. Maybe mercs aren't what they used to be anymore."

"Hehe. Let's waste 'em and go crack open those little loot boxes up ahead. We got a ton of ore last time and were able to throw one hell of a party."

The pirates began jeering and sending insults towards Avery as he approached.

Nevertheless, their taunting did not last long once the first of the pirates came into weapons range.

Having locked onto three different vessels, Avery pulled the trigger on his forward heavy laser cannons.

Each of the three high-powered military grade weapons glowed brightly for just and instant, before firing off blasts of immense energy.

Naturally the pirates noticed the incoming attacks, but it was already too late for the three that had been targeted.

Two were instantly destroyed and erupted in massive fiery explosions. While the third that had a bit stronger shielding and armor just barely stayed intact. Though, it was completely disabled and the person inside likely would not last long without life-support.

All at once the raucous wideband communications went silent. In one fell swoop, Avery had proven himself a force to be reckoned with.

The remaining pirates scrambled to get into better positioning and surround the Dauntless.

"To late for that." Avery said, using the ship's controls with practiced hands to maneuver towards the weakest part of their formation.

Beams, missiles, and other projectiles came flying towards him like a deluge of heavy rain, but not a single one hit him.

Avery expertly flew through the asteroid field and deployed flares and chaffs to disrupt his opponents' aim.

Soon he had lined up another volley with his laser cannons and three more pirates met their ends.

"Trying to get behind me won't help if you're that close."

Five of the pirates had gone around to flank the Dauntless and fire at it from close range to make up for Avery's tricky maneuvers and disruptive chaffs and flares.

Except, now they were in range for his rear scatter guns which had been designed for their very purpose.

Two spherical projectiles fired out of the scatter guns and traveled for a short distance before exploding.

The fast-moving shrapnel composed of a metal meant to pierce force fields saturated the five pirate vessels and pierced straight through their defenses.

In many ways it was a far more brutal attack than laser weaponry. Leaving the damaged ships with dozens of holes bored through them.

One of the pirates even managed to survive, but from the screams coming from his comms, this was not some miraculous stroke of luck, but a horrible fate that would see him dying slowly and painfully.

"Sh*t! He's a monster!"

"Let's get out of here. This wasn't what we were told to expect."

After Avery eliminated half of their raiding party in less than a minute, the remaining ten pirates swiftly turned around and started to flee.

Technically Avery could let them go at this point since his job was only to protect the mining vessels that were in the opposite direction.

Yet, he would be remiss not to take down the rest of these pirates. Nine of them had bounties on their heads ranging from three to eighteen thousand Krenin. Taking all of them out would net him an even larger payout than what he was receiving for a week's worth of security work.