Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 484 Zefield’s Turn

The Intrepid appeared with two other ships flanking it on both sides.

One was Zefield's destroyer, and the other was Kaiden's corvette.

Among the entire mercenary fleet, these three vessels had the most firepower which was why they had been assigned to a certain role in the operation.

The fourth craft that had just come out of light speed was a smaller one that was situated behind the Intrepid so that it was out of sight.

This was Zefield's personal ship that he normally kept docked in the single space hangar abroad his destroyer.

Normally he stayed on his main vessel and issued orders as a commander, but today his role necessitated a small and fast craft.

Momentarily, he was going to be taking the role of lure from Avery.

Before that though, Avery was still surrounded by space monsters and in a bit of a jam.

It would be difficult for him to get away on his own even if he used his new ability to its fullest.

That was why the Intrepid, Zefield's destroyer, and Kaiden's corvette had arrived.

Obviously, if people were going to be switching out being bait, they would need and opening to escape.

It was not easy getting away from a horde of vicious space monsters out for blood.

"Avery, we've received the bombardment plan from Ezra. Make sure we don't get hit by our own allies." Jasmine said, pulling up the trajectories of the incoming attacks on a map in the corner of the Dauntless' viewscreen.

Avery glanced over at it and understood what he needed to do within just a second.

He needed to make sure that he stayed out of the line of fire and was ready to slip away when an opening in the space monsters was created.

A few seconds later, a volley of lasers rained down of the horde that had been chasing after the Dauntless.

Several hundred space monsters were blown away at once by the heavy onslaught. And the barrage continued until Avery was able to get away.

Naturally, some of the space monsters split off to attack the new enemies, but they were unable to get close.

Against three powerful vessels, their numbers were not enough to get close.

Things would have turned out differently if they had stuck around for longer, though.

If a combination of the Intrepid, Zefield's destroyer, and Kaiden's corvette had enough firepower to wipe out all of the space monsters, then the entire operation would have been unnecessary.

Once a path of escape from the creatures that had surrounded Avery had been created, the three ships turned around and sped away.

The space monsters obviously gave chase, but they were unable to catch up before their new targets escaped at light speed.

Avery followed suit just a few moments later, leaving only Zefield behind to garner the horde's attention so that Victoria's stealth ship and Quokka's stealth probe could sneak up to where the commander types were holding their positions.

…

"It has been a while since I've had to do something like this. Not since we ended up having to clear out that large nest of Ranacans." Zefield muttered as he attracted the attention of the space monster by firing off a few rounds from his craft's laser blasters.

Being a mercenary that specialized in hunting space monsters, he had plenty of expeice leading swarms of hostile creatures around.

They typically were not that smart and would follow around the nearest thing that they had designated as a target.

Still, this would definitely be the greatest number of creatures he would need to lure around.

Truthfully, he had fought larger armies of space monsters a couple of times before, but those instances had always been during large joint operations with the Alliance Police and thousands of other mercenaries.

Now he had was having to deal with such a force with only the mercenaries he had brought with him and with no chance of receiving any reinforcements.

However, this was not going to make him falter in the slightest. In some way it actually fired him up.

Zefield had become a seven star mercenary and earned the nickname Fiend Hunter for a reason.

While few knew this, when he was a child, space monsters had destroyed the colony that he had lived on and killed his entire family.

That was why he had focused his activities on hunting them.

He had never actually tried to move up the ranks of the Mercenary Association; it just sort of happened as he continued to fight and like-minded people joined him in his cause.

Eventually, he had amassed a small fleet of ships behind him and been promoted to a seven star mercenary.

That really had not changed much for him though. It just gave him better access to information and more preferential treatment.

His goal still remained the same. To hunt down space monsters and help prevent other people from experiencing the tragedy that he had.

Some might have called Zefield's motivation childish, but he did not care.

It was the force that drove him, and he was certain that it would continue to do so until he was either too old to keep fighting, or he died.

"I won't be able to save the people that lived here, but I can at least avenge them and make sure that these things never harm anyone else."

Zefield knew that the intelligent species that had lived here long ago were likely the ones to have created the six types of monsters that now controlled the system.

Nevertheless, that did not diminish his sympathy for them.

Perhaps there were those that would call him strange for thinking this way. Yet, he rarely cared about others' opinions of him.

Of course, his current main objective was to make sure that as many of the people he had brought to this hellscape managed to survive.

That was why he had taken up the role of becoming bait despite how much Tuuali had pleaded for him not to.

"Come and get me you bastards." Zefield said to psych himself up.

Now that Avery was gone, he was the only one left for the space monsters to attack.

With him doing whatever he could to get their attention, it was not long before thousands of them were chasing after him.

While Zefield did not have any special abilities like Avery did to give him an advantage, he had a lot more experience.

He moved practically on reflex, identifying where the monsters' forces were weaknesses, and keeping them on his tail without ever being able to catch up.

Whenever he did get into a little trouble, he would deploy some specialized mines that would keep the ones chasing him from behind from catching up while he blasted through the ones in front of him.

Fortunately, his opponents were unable to execute complicated strategies to entrap him.

All they did was swarm around and try to overwhelm him with numbers.

Being a skilled pilot and using the right tactics, Zefield was able to keep ahead of them.

He almost made it look easy, but to anyone that was watching that had even a rudimentary understanding of how to fly a spaceship would understand just how impressive Zefield really was.

What he was up against was enemies that outnumbered him by an extraordinary amount.

Yet he had somehow escaped taking a single hit and had killed several hundreds of them.

Had he been able to keep this up indefinitely, he probably would have eventually won even on his own.

Regrettably, Zefield and his vessel had their limits.

Staying completely focused with a razor thin margin between life and death was something that drained a person's stamina quickly.

His ship's weapons and energy were a limiting factor as well.

To keep from being surrounded by the mob of space monsters trying to kill him, Zefield had needed to deploy explosive mines and fire his supply of missiles liberally.

After just twenty-five minutes, he was already about to run out.

Once he did, it would not be long before he was overtaken by the creatures all around him.

Even as good as he was, Zefield would not be able to fight back against his current enemies with just his craft's laser blasters.

"I thought I could last at least half an hour, but it seems that this is the best that I can do."

Had anyone been present in the ship with him, they would have heard the frustration in his voice.

Zefield felt it was his duty to take on this role, so he wanted to hold the burden for as long as he could.

When he left, someone else was going to have to take his place.

Nevertheless, he could not deny that he could not keep this up any longer. If he obstinately stuck around, it would only make things hard on the others and cut off his chance for escape.

With an already prepared message ready, he pressed a button on the panel in front of him and sent a transmission to the vessels that were waiting nearby.

A little over half a minute later, the three ships that had arrived to give Avery and opening for escape did the same for Zefield.

Lasers and missiles flew towards the space monsters chasing him and beat them back. Allowing Zefield to get away.

To take his place, Quokka flew alongside the nearest creatures and riddled them full of holes with her multicannons.

Just like last time, the Intrepid and the two other heavy hitters accompanying it fled just as quickly as they appeared. Leaving only a single target for the space monsters to focus their attention on.