Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 485 Sneaking into Position

At the same time that Avery had first called in the relief team to bail him out, the Intrepid's hangar that was specialized to hold three corvettes opened up briefly.

To anyone watching, it would have looked as if nothing had left and that the hangar was empty to begin with. There was no reason that it should have been left open in the first place.

This was only if someone was only looking with their eyes though.

As Avery had been retreating from the monsters that had been chasing him and letting Zefield take his place, he could see the entire outline of a cloaked vessel thanks to his extrasensory perception.

Now that the army of monsters had begun to move and there were less around the commander types, it was time for the critical actor in this operation to get moving.

The stealth ship under Victoria Werta's command carefully snuck around the space monsters flying around and headed for the targets.

Ultimately, the goal was to kill at least one of the monsters leading the others. Though preferably, Victoria wanted to kill two of them and heavily injury a third.

Naturally, it was not going to be easy to even reach their targets.

While the stealth probe had been able to pass through the hordes of space monsters, it was far smaller than Victoria's corvette.

Her ship was a little over a hundred fifty meters long, around forty-eight meters wide, and thirty-three meters high.

Normally it had about forty crew members, but it could accommodate up to a hundred and fifty.

Right now, however, there were only eight people onboard and all of them were on the bridge.

Victoria was not sitting in the captain's chair where she usually would but was instead at the helm.

Back when she was part of Burke's mercenary company, she had been one of their top pilots.

Despite her position having changed now, she still kept up her skills and was adept at maneuvering the stealth ship she had taken command of a few months ago.

"Ma'am, the path we were taking has been closed off further ahead. I'm sending you the new route data now."

The crew member managing the long-range sensors was keeping track of the monsters' movements ahead of them.

It was absolutely necessary that they avoided anything bumping into them and discovering the cloaked corvette. So, Victoria had given everyone specifications that they had to follow at all times to give them the best safety margins.

Of course, the space monsters did not remain absolute still and many of them were always on the move.

This made it a strenuous effort to reach the heart of the enemy formation where the commanders were situated.

Several times, Victoria had to move the ship back to avoid space monsters flying by.

Often times this happened because more were being sent out to chase after whoever was being used as bait.

Zefield was doing an exceptional job, and the couple of times that Victoria had glanced at the small screen in her periphery displaying what was going on, she was astounded.

She knew that if she was put in the same position, it would be impossible for her to avoid being surrounded and crushed by what looked like almost a tidal wave of space monsters.

'I can really see the gulf between us. But I guess that's just how good you have to be in order to make it as a seven star mercenary.' Victoria thought as she slowly trudged forward, feeling her determination renewed.

If there were such amazing people drawing enemies away for her and buying time, she could not allow fear or hesitation to stop her.

It was beyond daunting to plunge into a swarm of deadly space monsters.

Her pride had kept her from passing the responsibility onto someone else, but being faced with it still scared her.

Logically she knew that none of the creatures could see her vessels.

Nevertheless, from the viewscreen, she could see all of them and knew just how close each one of the monsters was.

One misstep and she and everyone else onboard would be dead. That was the sort of role that she had taken.

Slowly and carefully, but without stopping, Victoria closed the gap between her and her targets.

By the time she was around a fifth of the way there, Zefield was pulling out and Quokka took his place.

Even someone as skilled as him could not lure around so many space monsters for long. Twenty-five minutes had been his limit.

Time passed slowly for Victoria and her crew as they navigated deeper into the space monsters.

The longer it went on the easier it became for them, but the harder it was for those acting as lures.

Several rotations had already gone by, but each person taking up the role was able to hold out for less and less time.

Where Avery and Zefield could hold out for more than twenty minutes before, each of them were now only lasting at most seventeen minutes.

To make matters worse, Nali's ship had gotten damaged during her third turn, and now she was out of the rotation. Leaving everything up to Avery, Zefield and Quokka.

There was still a long way for Victoria to go too.

If she fired the high-yield torpedoes from her current position, there was little chance of them reach their targets.

"I wanted to avoid risks where possible, but one of them could end up getting caught and dying at this rate. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night for a long time if our boss, Kasandra, Jasmine, and Liesel ended up dead." Victoria murmured under her breath.

She was pretty good friends with Kasandra and Jasmine, and she was in the process of getting to know Liesel better. It would hurt her a lot more to lose them than when the members of her old company that had followed Doyle had died.

They had all been perfect examples of the stereotypical brash and uncouth mercenaries. Victoria had never particularly liked any of them even though they worked together.

She much preferred the dynamics of how things currently were. Avery's mercenary company was very comfortable, and something she did not want to lose.

"Prepare to launch the stealth probe. Navigate it towards the one identified as controlling the pests. We need a distraction and something to keep their scouts from finding us once the chaos starts."

A couple members of Victoria's crew questioned her sudden orders since they were not part of the original plan.

The strike was supposed to happen simultaneously once they were in position.

However, after assessing the current situation, Victoria judged that they needed to speed things up even if it was a little risky.

"I know that this goes against the strategy we have set. But I believe that it's what needs to be done."

Victoria normally would have just told them to follow her orders, but considering what was on the line, she carefully explained her thought process to the crew members that had joined her on this dangerous mission.

Once everyone was on the same page, Victoria launched the stealth probe provided by Quokka.

Although it was risky, she sent a single quick transmission out to inform the others of the change in plan so that they were not surprised.

Fortunately, none of the space monsters noticed the outgoing signal, and Victoria directed the probe towards its target.

Each of the commander types had identifying marks that differentiated themselves which helped to distinguish which one was in control of the of each type of space monster.

While just based on positioning it was possible to make a guess about which commander was in charge of the different species, Avery had somehow identified them.

He had not divulged how to anyone other than those closest to him, but it was simply that he had followed the threads of energy connected to each type of space monster back to their source.

"The probe is in position three kilometers away from the commander type. It's ready to be detonated at any moment."

"Understood. Hold its position for now. I want us to get at least another six hundred meters closer before we begin." Victoria responded.

Usually, they could cover that distance in the blink of an eye, but right now every movement had to be careful and deliberate.

Around twelve minutes later, Victoria was able to position her stealth corvette where she wanted it.

They were now equal distance from the commander types that controlled the Volmargars and Hinvieners.

These two had been chosen since they were in charge of the largest and most numerous combat-oriented space monsters.

When they were killed and their thralls released from their control, all hell was bound to break loose within the space monsters' ranks.

"Now, crash the probe and detonate its payload."

At Victorias instruction, the crew member in charge of the probe sent out the signal for it to attack.

There would be no going back now. This would be their only chance to take out the space monster determined to kill them all.