Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 28 - Large-Scale Raid (4)

Having received instructions to regroup outside the confines of the moons, Avery and the other mercenaries pulled out and waited within the vicinity of the nearest Alliance Police ship.

With the pirate's base in shambles and an estimated fifty-five percent of their vessels destroyed, those in charge were planning the optimal strategy to hunt down the remaining outlaws hiding out within the confines of the over a thousand moons.

Of course, Avery did not have any input into this decision. He was simply a hired gun after all. So long as he was not told to do anything obviously suicidal, he was fine taking orders from the Alliance Police.

After around a half hour, new orders arrived for the mercenaries. All of them were going to be split up into smaller hunting squads that had assigned routes through the moons.

"Looks like this will take several hours, but they calculated a tight net. So long as everyone follows directions, we should be able to find nearly all of the pirates and take them out." Avery said as he analyzed the data that had been sent to him.

He had been given a fairly long path that snaked through some of the most dangerous and easiest to hide in areas.

There were likely to be a lot of pirates hiding along his route. Something he was more than happy for since he wanted to pad out his payday a bit more. He had earned quite a bit already, but it fell short of what he needed.

"Looks like Kaiden and Kasandra are in the same group as me again. And other three star mercs that performed well. I wonder if the alliance police made this squad out of those that took out the most pirates in the opening attack."

While he had no way to prove it, Avery's musings were indeed correct. He, along with the other top mercenaries had been put together to search through the areas that required the most skill to navigate, and where desperate pirates were likely to be hiding for their lives.

There were fifteen of them in total. A decent strike force for taking down pirates, though, if they came across a particularly large band, it could spell trouble even for them.

"Well, it should probably be fine. I'm going in with the best the Yuson System has to offer." Avery said, keeping calm and collected.

He was the only two star among the bunch. The spot he had been given was simply because of his earlier display of power and skill.

Within around twenty mintues, all of the hunting squads had assembled and set out on the courses they had been given. They could systematically search out the pirates and give them practically no room to escape.

"Having such powerful sensors really is coming in handy."

Before setting out, Avery and the other mercenaries in his squad had held a quick meeting to discuss the broad abilities of each of their vessels. Some focused on power, others speed, and a couple were bulky enough to be considered flying fortresses.

However, among all of them, Avery had the most advanced and far-reaching sensors. This allowed him to score a spot at the front of the formation despite having the least amount of experience among all of the mercenaries. They were counting on him to sniff out their quarry.

"There's eleven up ahead trying to hide in a crater." Avery said, picking up a few minuscule signatures coming from the other side of the moon they were searching.

The pirates hiding there had undoubtedly lowered the output of their generators to make it difficult to find them, but they had lacked the resolve to fully turn off their ships' power and forgo life-support.

Had they been able to do so, even Avery's Dauntless would have been unable to notice them.

When the fifteen of them came around the moon, they opened fire on the pirates and bombarded them from above.

It was a massacre. Before they could even react, all of the vessels had been destroyed and their occupants eliminated.

"I'm glad that we collectively decided to share the rewards and bounties this time. Fighting amongst each other would have been counterproductive."

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Now that the large free-for-all in the opening battle was over, it didn't make much sense to continue competing with each other. Their prey now was more often than not going to be composed of small to medium sized groups that lacked the spine to fight back.

Should all of them end up rushing to get kills, it would harm their coordination and leave them open to counterattacks. Something all of the experienced mercenaries Avery was flying with recognized.

Of course, this lowered the chance for personal gain through extraordinary merits, but it was a small price to pay to not be at each other's throats.

For several more minutes, the squad Avery was a part of wiped out any pirates that they came across. Slowly tightening the noose around the necks of those that remained.

Except, when they were only around a fourth finished with their route, Avery's long-range sensors picked up several signatures approaching at lightspeed.

At first, he wondered if they were more Alliance Police that had come to reinforce the blockade.

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that these newcomers were far from friendly.

Ten large transport and twenty-five medium transport spacecraft dropped out of lightspeed near the weakest part of the Alliance Police's blockade.

All of these formerly civilian ships had been outfitted with as many weapons as they could hold, along with decent armor and shields.

Individually, they palled in comparison to the military grade vessel the Alliance Police possessed, but as a group, they had enough firepower to even bring down the heavy cruiser flagship leading the mission.

Immediately these powerful reinforcements for the pirates opened fire upon the destroyers and frigates blockading the area they had appeared in.

Try as they might, the seven Alliance Police warships found themselves outnumbered and outgunned despite their superior weapons and defenses.

To avoid being taken out, they were forced to retreat, and the previously flawless blockade had been broken.