Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 51 - Monster Hunting (3)

The horrid screams of the mercenaries whose ships had been ensnared resounded across the comms channels.

Try as they might to escape, the queen energy lifeform mercilessly dragged their ships into herself.

As soon as the last vessel was engulfed, the cries of terror ceased. Sixteen mercenaries had just met a very gruesome end at the hands of the powerful monstrosity.

"What... what the hell was that?!" Kasandra shouted, losing her composure after witnessing something so horrific.

She had naturally looked up information pertaining to energy lifeforms during their brief stay at Yuson II.

However, she never saw any mention of past queen energy lifeforms deploying such a brutal attack. From what she had found, they typically focused on protecting themselves while their pawns attacked. And when they did go on the offensive, it was supposed to simply be by firing off parts of themselves, just the same as any medium and larger energy lifeforms.

"We're going in. Cover the survivors' escape and watch out for that monster's attacks." Captain Ais said, refocusing everyone's attention to the matter at hand.

What they had seen was shocking for sure, but it did not change their objective. They needed to eliminate the queen with as few losses as possible. And right now, that meant covering for the remains of squad four that were being overrun by the energy lifeforms they had been fighting.

"Kasandra, focus on studying the sensor readings from right before the queen attacked. I want you to figure out how to predict when it's going to use that move again."

Her face still a bit pale, Kasandra nodded her head and got to work on what Avery wanted to know. If they could gain even a few seconds of foresight on their most dangerous enemies aberrant strike, it would allow them to stay ahead of the monstrosity and avoid ending up like the mercenaries it had just killed.

Firing all of his weapon systems in quick succession, Avery dove into the thickest part of the energy lifeform swarm to save the members of squad four.

As the chaotic fight continued, he felt like a permeant orange glow was going to be left in his vison even after everything had concluded.

Over and over again, he aimed and took out more energy lifeforms with what seemed to be no end in sight.

"Avery, I think it's about to do it again." Kasandra warned.

She was not completely certain that she had figured out the signs displayed on the sensors. Nevertheless, she still sent out a transmission to everyone to warn them.

Fortunately, her intuition had been correct, and thanks to the early notice, everyone was able to move far enough away to be out of range as the queen energy lifeform tried to spear and reel them in.

"Has it gotten smaller?"

When he stole a glance at the mother of all of the energy lifeforms in the system, Avery would swear that her form seemed to have shrunk yet again.

Only a few seconds later, Kasandra confirmed that this was indeed the case. The queen energy lifeform was around four percent smaller.

"That move must take a lot out of it. I'm guessing last time it was able to partially replenish itself with the energy stores among the ships it consumed, but this time it didn't get anything and exerted itself for nothing."

While it was impossible to fully confirm in the heat of battle, Kasandra's hypothesis was indeed correct. The queen energy lifeform was desperate and launching strikes that heavily ate away at its stores of power.

Fierce though its assault was, using such a move would quickly deplete its life-force and leave it at death's door without even taking a single hit.

Still, the queen could not simply sit back and let its spawn do all the fighting for it. Not when so many powerful enemies had appeared to kill it not long after it arrived in this system.

"It's released some sort of low frequency wave. Whoa! All of the energy lifeforms are converging towards it.

The usually mindless swarm that simply sought out the nearest energy source heeded their leader's call to return. Likely they could not receive detailed orders, but moving to protect their queen was something that was only natural for such creatures.

Naturally, the other squads that had been fighting the now fleeing energy lifeforms were in pursuit of their quarry, but squad one and the remains of squad four were about to be caught in a pincer attack. With the queen and her protectors in front of them, and the rest of the swarm coming in from every other direction.

"It's tough fighting against opponents willing to sacrifice themselves." Avery groaned as he weaved through energy lifeforms trying to ram him and fired a volley of blasts in return.

So long as the queen survived, it did not matter how many of her spawn were lost. If it took even a hundred of them to bring down a single spacecraft, that was enough to make their sacrifices worth it.

"Specter, I want you to make a path to escape. Dauntless cover our rear." Captain Ais said, trying to get squad one and four out of the encirclement closing in on them.

A few of their ranks were unable to join the formation in time and were torn apart by the energy lifeforms.

It was a disheartening and stomach-churning sight, but this too was part of being a mercenary.

Firing missiles with abandon, Avery kept the small and medium energy lifeforms from closing in while his squad tried to escape and regroup with the other members of their strike force.

"Avery, we're going to run out of ammunition at this rate!"

"I know. But the EMP blaster's rate of fire isn't fast enough to handle this many, and the laser cannons don't do enough damage."

Protecting the others as they retreated turned out to be a more difficult task than anticipated. Being the nearest energy source, every single one of the energy lifeforms chasing after squad one and four targeted the Dauntless.

Of course, they were the only ones with the necessary firepower to have any hope of holding off so many enemies.

At the very least, the four star mercenary Ezra was doing his part just as well and leading the charge through the energy lifeforms returning to their queen. If either side were to falter, they would start to be picked off one by one.

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Except, the small and medium energy lifeforms were not the only threat that Avery and Kasandra had to deal with.

The proactive queen was closing in on them, and the readings from the Dauntless' sensors showed that she was about to deploy her energy spike attack again.