Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 246 Opening Ceremony

Avery sat in the cockpit of the Dauntless tapping his finger on the console in front of him repeatedly.

His ship was currently locked in the hangar of an extravagant looking carrier vessel.

"There's no need to be so impatient. This is just part of the process."

With an exasperated look on his face, Avery turned towards Kasandra and saw that she currently had her terminal out and was watching something.

Today was the official start of the competition between the top ten shipbuilding companies in the Dramid Alliance. Though it was technically only nine now since Snyder Heavy Industries had been forced to drop out.

Avery had already known that the event was going to be broadcast by a number of popular networks, but he had not expected there to be this much fanfare.

For the opening day, to introduce each ship, the nine participating corporations had arranged their own carriers that would bring their entry to the designated location of the competition.

Then once they had arrived, the small craft would be launched out and expected to do some fancy flying to put on a show for the crowds of people watching.

Personally, Avery thought that it was all a waste of time. He just wanted to get into the real coemption rather than make a huge spectacle out of it.

"Just think of this as extra publicity. Our team needs more recruits considering you just put in an order for that massive vessel. We'll soon be known throughout the entire Alliance because of this." Kasandra said, flashing Avery and impish smile.

"Yes, I know. I just thought that this was going to focus more on the actual competition. Instead, it's been made into a huge spectacle. Why are there so many unrelated events that we're going to have to attend?"

The opening ceremony was just one of the many extra performances to build up a greater audience.

Considering that an occurrence like this was rare, those in power within the Dramid Alliance had decided that it would be a great opportunity for entertaining the masses, and pushing a bit of propaganda for the Alliance Police to drum up recruitment.

Of course, the participating corporations were also going to be receiving plenty of advertising from everything.

Even if they did not win the competition, the ships that were being displayed would reach trillions of people that would be watching from all over the Alliance.

There were bound to be a few upper ranking mercenaries, wealthy businesses with their own private security forces, and rich hobbyists that took a liking to the designs and wanted to purchase some of their own.

Avery was not ecstatic about the prospect of hundreds of more versions of his ship being out there, but there was nothing he could do about it at this point.

Back when Ardesen and Dorris had approached him, he could have kept them from analyzing the Dauntless if he really wanted to. Though that would have only served to make the entirety of Storren Corp. hostile towards him.

"Number four just launched. We're up after the next one." Kasandra said.

What she had been watching this entire time was the broadcast of the opening ceremony.

While Avery had been told to be ready to go at any moment, there was no need for Kasandra to do anything today.

The little show that Storren Corp. was forcing them to put on was hardly anywhere as intensive as combat. There was no need for using any subsystems, mostly Avery just needed to fly around in a designated path and fire off some special effects ammunition that had been loaded into the ship's weapons.

After another forty minutes of waiting, Avery received a two-minute warning before launch. It was finally his turn to introduce the SCXD-011 as Storren Corp.'s entry into the coemption.

"Standby for electromagnetic launch. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…"

An automated message resounded through the Dauntless' hangar, and Avery gripped his ship's controls tightly as he waited to be flung out into space from the hangar he was currently in.

When the countdown reached zero, the force of sudden acceleration pushed Avery back into his chair.

Going from completely still to being fired out of a hangar at high-speed was a bit much even for the Dauntless inertial dampening systems, but it was still within the tolerable limits.

Immediately upon exiting the carrier, Avery glanced around the viewscreen and noticed hundreds of autonomous recording drones with their cameras locked directly on him.

Not but a couple seconds after returning to open space did the display in front of him start to change as the program Ardesen had recently loaded onto the main computer became active.

"This must be the path I need to follow." Avery said as he shot the Dauntless forward.

All he needed to do was follow the instructions being displayed, but that was easier said than done.

Storren Corp. wanted to show off the capabilities of their entry, so there were a number of fast-moving maneuvers that Avery going to need to be able to perform.

The average pilot probably would not be able to be absolutely successful on the first try and would have needed to practice the routine multiple times beforehand.

However, Avery had been taught by one of the best.

While Urs may have stopped advancing once he reached the rank of five star, that was mostly because he was a solo mercenary.

His individual skills as a pilot and fighter were amazing to say the least.

'I also need to give some credit to my augmentations. I'm not sure if my hands could have kept up with all of the necessary inputs otherwise.'

As Avery followed the course laid out for him, he was also constantly firing off special projectiles from his plasma launcher.

Some were glowing different colors while others currently remained invisible to the naked eye of most species.

And while Avery was not certain of exactly how the science of it all worked, Storren Corp. had supplied him with different agents that somehow either attracted or repelled each other to create different figures that were in motion and ultimately heading towards their designated places for the finale.

"Don't let this distract you, but it seems that you're a big hit right now. There are a flood comments coming in praising the show you're putting on right now. Though, a bunch of nasty ones from what I'm pretty sure are bot accounts of Snyder Heavy Industries started complaining during the part with the dancing strexnoid." Kasandra said, watching the broadcast of the Dauntless live while being a part of it.

Avery chuckled when he heard this, but he never stopped moving his hands to control the ship as needed.

It was not long before it was time for the big end of his performance, and Avery did some quick loops before shooting away from the area he had been flying in.

All of the particles he had previously launched were now just a glowing mess, but that was going to change soon.

Once he had reached the designated position, Avery fired off a series of bursts from his stern scatterguns.

These were not his usual saturation type projectiles, but instead specially design fireworks meant for use in space.

When they exploded, they left a dazzling display in their wake.

Except, this was only the prelude to the main part of the finale Storren Corp. had come up with.

Along the route he had flown, Avery had left currently invisible plasma that had now been ignited.

After everything had been lit up, every display Avery had created up to this point now merged together to create the Storren Corp. logo.

It was glowing brightly throughout the entire space designated for the opening event and was undoubtably eye-catching.

For a moment, even Avery was mesmerized as he stared back at what he had just created.

"We don't have to much time to linger here. We've still got one last thing we've got to do." Kasandra said, noticing that Avery had stopped moving.

Glancing at the corner of his screen, Avery noticed a new countdown getting very close to the end. There was still the finishing touch to the finale left to complete, and he was close to missing the timing.

Sending full power to the thrusted, he swiftly spun around and flew towards the logo.

He then maneuvered in a spiral pattern around it while releasing a stream of glowing plasma that shifted colors as he moved from the bottom to the top.

After finally ascending above the entire logo, he used the maneuvering and attitude adjustment thrusters to quickly whip back around and dove through the logo. Scattering the radiant display like the seeds of certain flowers when caught on the wind.

With that, Avery had finished his part in the opening ceremony and had successfully introduced Storren Corp.'s entry into the competition to the public.

The display on his viewscreen was now leading him to the designated waiting area where each corporations' ships were to go after their performance was over.

"Looks like someone had fun back that. I guess it was enjoyable to fly around as fast as you can without worrying about lasers, bullets, or missiles hitting us. Perhaps if you ever want to retire from mercenary work, you could become a performance pilot." Kasandra said teasingly.

"Yeah, sure. I'll keep that in mind." Avery replied sarcastically.

Still, it had been a truly grand display. And while Avery had been complaining at first, now that it was over, his lips had turned up into a bright smile. Truthfully, he had thoroughly enjoyed himself.

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