Chapter 85 Competition Finale

Avery hastily began plotting a course to avoid the incoming projectile coming his way.

While railguns did launch their attacks at a high speed, it was nothing compared to lasers that traveled at the speed of light.

With the distance between them, Avery still had enough time to dodge.

Yet, Ezra obviously knew the weaknesses of his own weapons best and his set up was meant to work together to cover for this.

"We’ve got seeker missiles incoming!"

From multiple angles, missiles that Ezra had fired off and set on a delay suddenly turned and started heading towards the Dauntless. Effectively closing off any path of escape from the railgun’s attack.

There were only a mere couple of seconds before Avery was saturated by deadly attacks that even his ship would not be able to take unscathed.

This combination showed just how skilled his opponent was. He could force people to move the way he wanted with his seeker missiles, multicannons, and laser blasters, and then finish them off with his railgun once he had them cornered.

Still, Avery had been in tougher spots before.

Getting eaten by the queen energy lifeform was far more harrowing, and some of the programs that Urs had forced him to fight saw him going up against entire fleets he never had any chance of winning against.

Knowing that there was only one way out, Avery charged forward. Directly in the path of the speeding piece of metal coming his way.

For all their power, railguns had several weaknesses to exploit. One being how easy it was for the trajectory of the projectile to be changed.

Avery aimed all three of his heavy laser cannons at the projectile and blasted it out of the way.

He only shifted its path a little, but this allowed him to slip by as it flew past him.

Of course, the seeker missiles were still on his tail, but after escaping the encirclement, they were all lined up behind him as they gave chase.

With a couple shots from the stern scatterguns all of the missiles were torn to shreds and exploded harmlessly.

"Here he comes." Avery muttered seeing the Specter approaching from above.

Ezra was not going to be deterred simply because his finishing move had been broken through.

He immediately came after Avery again, with his multicannons and laser blasters firing at their maximum rate.

Avery initiated evasive maneuvers, but it was impossible to completely dodge the spray of bullets and lasers coming his way.

"Don’t think I’m not going to fight back."

His heavy laser cannons locked on target, Avery pressed down on the trigger and three powerful balls of light shot through space towards the Specter.

The two of them continued to trade blows with each other and slowly wore down each other’s shields.

Neither of them allowed the other to land a decisive blow agist the other. Whenever they were taking too much fire, they would use the abundance of asteroids as bulwarks to protect themselves.

"He’s certainly wary of us getting close. I guess he must have looked up the records from the pirate raid and learned about the Dauntless’ plasma launchers."

So far, Ezra had been doing his best to keep the battle at midrange where most of his weapons were most impactful.

If he got closer, he would be more likely to score a hit with his railgun, but that would also put him in range of Avery’s plasma launchers. A single direct hit from one would burn right through his shields.

"Our laser cannons have a great range than any of his weapons. If we want, we can keep our distance we might be able to eventually bring him down." Kasandra suggested.

However, Avery was not partial to this plan. It might work, but it was more likely that Ezra would just use the asteroids to block any of the long-range attacks and slowly close in.

Avery could probably put them in a sort of stalemate that would only end when one of their ships ran out of power, but that was something that would probably never occur in a real battle. Which was what this duel was supposed to represent.

"I suppose it’s time to break out our secret weapon. Bet he was expecting that our usual auto turret was reinstalled."

Flying out from behind the asteroid he had been using to take cover, Avery charged directly for the Specter.

Seeing this, Ezra piloted his ship in reverse to keep some distance and opened fire with his four primary weapons.

Atop the Dauntless, the compartment where the auto turret would normally be housed opened.

Immediately Ezra deployed more chaffs and decoy beacons to nullify the weapons threat.

However, he was surprised when it was not an auto turret that popped out, but the Aida EMP MK VII.

Since it had been damaged to the point of needing extensive repairs, the Alliance police had instead sold the weapon to Avery. It was something they rarely needed, and a new one could be procured for only slightly more than the cost of the necessary repairs. When Avery had expressed interest in acquiring one, they had been more than happy to leave it with him for the right price.

Firing his heavy laser cannons in a wide spread, Avery limited Ezra’s moments. Much in the same way his opponent had done earlier with seeker missiles.

Then when he had a shot lined up, he fired his EMP blaster and sent a glowing white ring of energy flying towards Ezra.

This attack did not move quite as fast as a laser, nor did it do any actual damage, but it would disrupt the electronic systems within the Specter. And with enough hits, he would even be able to fully disable the ship.

With his four weapons firing, Avery forced Ezra to pick and chose which hits to take. No matter how skilled a pilot he was, there were going to be times he was unable to evade.

Of course, the same held true for Avery. His own shields were starting to reach their limits, and as per their agreement, neither side was allowed to use shield cells during this battle. That would have unnecessarily prolonged things.

"That’s the seventh time we’ve hit him with the Aida. I’m finally picking up some noticeable instability in his systems." Kasandra said, having been carefully monitoring the battle.

"Got it. I guess it’s all or nothing time."

Zipping around the asteroid field, Avery made it seem that he was trying to create some distance between him and Ezra.

He wanted his opponent to believe that he was afraid of his weakening shields and was going to attack from long-range with his heavy laser cannons.

Naturally, since this was a strategy that both Avery and Kasandra had thought up, Ezra had considered it as well.

"As expected, he’s coming after us." Avery commented, seeing the Specter approaching on the radar.

In the current climate of the battle, a drawn-out fight was not in Ezra’s favor. His ship was beginning to react more slowly than usual thanks to Avery’s EMP attacks, and if he took too many more, he would be unable to fight any longer.

Due to prioritizing his shields, though, Ezra was confident that he could take a few more strikes from Avery’s heavy laser cannons. Now was the time for him to finish this battle before his foe could reposition.

"Just a little closer… And now!"

Once Ezra had closed in on them, Avery turned the Dauntless around and made a beeline for his opponent.

Having already been lured in by Avery once before during their mock fight, Ezra had been on guard against such a tactic again and was quick to respond.

Except, while he was ready, his vessel was not. The disruption to its systems by the EMP blasts slowed it down ever so slightly. And in this moment, that proved to be fatal.

As a last-ditch effort, Ezra opened fire with all of his weapons other than his railgun. Avery had gotten too close for him to flee now without being shot down from behind, so his only option was to take out his adversary first.


"Kasandra, I’m giving you control of the laser cannons. Focus on shooting down the seeker missiles." Avery said, devoting his entire focus to piloting the Dauntless.

With crazy maneuvers that caused intense g-force that exceed even what the ship’s inertial dampeners could handle, Avery dodged what fire he could and closed in on the Specter.

An alarm soon went off to signal that their shields had dropped below ten percent, but Avery did not stop. Now was his only chance to win.

"Got you."

As he flew by, Avery shifted his ship so that the top of it was facing the Specter and fired two white hot balls of plasma.

Ezra hit his thrusters to try and dart ahead of the attacks, but he was slightly too slow.

The forward plasma caught the rear of his ship and burst through his shields with ease.

A bright glow consumed the Specter for a moment, and then the spacecraft ceased moving entirely.

The program calculating damage had determined that Ezra’s vessel had been destroyed and momentarily shut him down.

"We were using training rounds, but it seems that the plasma still did some damage to his hull and thrusters." Kasandra said, pulling up the sensor reading on the Specter.

Their weapons had all been weakened for this duel, but they still packed enough power to cause some damage. Had an unprotected person been hit by any of them, they still would have been instantly vaporized or torn apart.

"Well, there’s no way for me to dispute it, so its your win. You bested me in two out of three of the challenges I set. From now on I’ll be following you, leader."

Even though he had lost, the was not a hint of disappointment in Ezra’s voice. In fact, his tone honestly seemed a bit joyful. After all, what he was really after was peers that he could consider companions. Whether he was in charge or not was hardly important to him. As long as the best was leading, that was all that mattered.

"I’ll be glad to have you joining my squad. That’ll make you the fourth and give us our third ship. We’ll be a true mercenary group now. Albeit a small one." Every responded, a bright smile on his face due to his victory.

Ezra was skilled and experienced. As an aspiring mercenary that wanted to grow his force, there was no better member to join him.

"Ah, and if you wouldn’t mind helping your new subordinate out, I might need a tow back to the station. My vessels thrusters don’t seem to be working properly right now and I’m afraid that I might further damage things if I push them."

"Sure, but it will cost you. When we get back, we’re going to throw a party to celebrate my win. And you’ll be covering the bill."