Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 251 Something Fishy

When Avery’s attacks landed on the weaponized drones, they momentarily assessed the damage that they would have taken had he been using normal ammunition rather than training rounds.

Since all of his weapon systems were at the highest grade that were currently in production, it only took a single hit for the drones to determine that they had been destroyed.

This caused them to shut down and cease firing their own attacks at the Dauntless.

Once he had cleared the way enough, Avery shot forward and raced towards the end of the course.

Despite his best efforts, he took a couple of hits, but he got through without his shields having depleted too much.

As he finally exited the field of drones simulating a chaotic asteroid field, he watched the timer displayed in the corner of the main viewscreen stop.

’Thirteen minutes and fifty-seven seconds. I’d been hoping for a bit better, but it’s still within the acceptable range.’ Avery thought, satisfied with his results.

He could not say that he did not try his best.

With his right hand, he wiped away some sweat on his brow and realized how worn-out he was.

Now that the first event of the competition was over, the extreme tension he had been under disappeared all at once.

"Good work out there. I think that you sufficiently showed off your skills and the capabilities of the Dauntless. Everyone should know now that you’re a real contender to win." Kasandra said while handing over a bottle of water to Avery.

Seeing the clear liquid sloshing around inside of the container, Avery noticed that his throat felt parched.

Hastily he drained the bottle’s contents before tossing it into the recycling compartment, where it would be cleaned and refilled for later use.

"Thanks, I needed that. Also, you can’t undersell your own work. I wouldn’t have been able to get through nearly as fast without you figuring out the pattern that the drones were moving in. That really helped me out."

"Oh, that was nothing. Just doing what I could to help out my captain. I wouldn’t have felt right just sitting around when you were giving it your all." Kasandra replied, a pleased look on her face to receive the complement.

The two of them continued to banter with each other as they followed the directions to the waiting area for those that had already completed the first event.

With the restriction of not being allowed to view the competition lifted now, Avery pulled up the leaderboard where the scores were being displayed.

Currently he was in first place, but his time was not the same as what his timer had indicated.

Instead, it said that he had finished at seventeen minutes and nine seconds.

Fortunately, the amended score displayed the reasoning so that he did not start freaking out and needed to call the organizers about this inconsistency.

"Looks like there was a penalty applied for every hit we took. They even added a few seconds for that time I scraped against one of the drones." Avery said with a resigned sigh.

Though this was a race, just getting through quickly with no regard for the environment or the ship would have made for a poor showing.

Out in the field, impacting asteroids and getting hit by weapons fire were things to avoid if possible since they drained shield capacity and could eventually lead to a vessel’s destruction. Ignoring that simply because this was a competition was clearly not going to fly.

Obviously, the quickest way to finish would just be to plow through the drones, but even if someone finished within a minute by doing so, the pentiles they would incur would put them far behind.

"I mean, this doesn’t really change much. Everyone else is going to be held to the same criteria, so I think you finished pretty quickly. Our opponent that went first initially completed his course at sixteen minutes and forty seconds, but thanks to the penalties, his time was pushed all the way back to twenty-five minutes and thirty-one seconds." Kasandra pointed out.

Seeing as how Avery had only received an increase in time a little over three minutes, while the first participant was penalized nearly nine minutes, he had clearly gotten through with far fewer errors.

"Let’s not start getting full of ourselves yet. We’re only the second to go, so being in first place now doesn’t mean too much. Everyone going after us could do even better and we might get knocked down to eighth place."

Of course, Avery did not believe that this worst-case scenario he had just presented would occur. If at the very least, he did not think that Stifur’s incredibly bulky ship was going to be able to clear faster than he did no matter how hard the pilot and crew tried.

Taking his designated spot within the hangar, Avery allowed the autodocking program to bring the Dauntless in.

The moment that it touched down and the engines powered down, he pulled up the live broadcast of the competition so that he could watch the other contestants’ attempts.

"It definitely feels good to have gone earlier. Less time for nerves to build up." Avery said, wearing a relived expression.

He had not had much time to think about what might be waiting for him and had been fully focused on his preparations. Allowing him not to have enough time for his mind to wander.

"Gemiddeld Industries went first, and up now is the entry from De Vlak. It’s hard to say how they’ll do just from what little we know about them." Kasandra said, a pensive look in her eyes.

They had watched the opening ceremony display of each of the other competitors and found what public data there was, but each vessel in the competition still held plenty of secrets.

With their full attention, they watched the third round of the first event.

Nothing particularly interesting happened this time.

They got to see De Vlak’s vessel deploy some of its weapon systems and got a better read on how well it could maneuver, but that was about it.

Their initial clear time was fifteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds, but with penalties added, they were pushed back to nineteen minutes forty-three seconds.

A pretty good showing, but a bit over two minutes and thirty seconds more than Avery’s time. Leaving him still comfortably in the lead.

Next up was the bulky ship designed by Stifur.

Considering that they had created a vessel heavily skewed towards defensive ability, this was likely to not be a particularly great event for them. There was a good chance that they would soon be taking last place.

Yet, as Stifur’s entry flew through the course, something astounding happened.

’How are they doing that?’ Avery thought, his surprise and disbelief clear to see on his face.

As if they could see the future, the heavily armored ship was flying through the fast-moving drones with hardly any resistance. freeweɓnøvel~com

At some points they would miss an opening or nearly crash into a drone, but with his keen eyesight and experience piloting, Avery almost felt that these were deliberate acts. Like the pilot was trying to perform worse on purpose.

Still, their time moving through the course was impeccable for such a heavy ship that was not particularly fast.

’It’s like they’ve already figured out the drone’s movement patterns, but that shouldn’t be possible so quickly. Even Kasandra, using the Dauntless top-of-the-line systems, needed several minutes to do so. And that was only possible because of the bionic augmentations Dr. Raiti had given her that increased cognitive ability.’

When the Stifur ship reached the point where the drones deployed their weapon systems, there was only a moment of hesitation before they deployed their own.

Four laser blasters and two missile pods started firing and carved a path ahead with near perfect accuracy.

Considering how big of a target the ship was, it still took a few hits, but not as many as one might have expected.

’Other than the few times that the pilot seemed to make mistakes on purpose; they got through practically perfectly. This was an event that by all accounts they should have done poorly in, but right now they’re in second place.’ Avery thought as he watched the Stifur emblem being displayed on the leaderboard.

Their initial clear time had been fourteen minutes and twenty-six seconds. Not far away from Avery’s own

After the penalties from being hit by a few of the weaponized drone attacks were added, the Stifur ship’s final time was eighteen minutes and seventeen seconds. That was just shy of being within a minute of the time Avery finished with.

"Looks like the crowds are going wild for an underdog performing so well. I doubt anyone would have believed a vessel like Stifur’s entry could achieve such a score in an event like this one." Kasandra said, having pulled up multiple sites where people were discussing the competition.

Avery had to agree that it was impressive. Almost downright unbelievable.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢