"At our current pace and with how fast that thing is moving, we’re not going to be able to get everyone in time. From my estimates, we’ve only got about seven minutes left until that thing reaches our position. And there is no way we will be able to handle it."

Avery updated Zefield on the less than stellar situation they found themselves in.

The horrific entity that defied compression was now making its way towards them. And there was no doubt in everyone’s minds that its intentions towards them would be anything good.

All they were was prey for it to feast on just as it had done with the space monsters that had tried and failed to contain the creature.

"Your team and Nali are still the only ones that can move about normally. The captains capable of remote controlling their vessels now are helping to speed things up, but at this rate, we’ll have to abandon around twenty-three percent." Zefield said, using more words than he normally would and speaking faster due to the pressure of the circumstances they had found themselves in.

While he was perfectly capable of making callous decisions when necessary, there was no doubt that he felt responsible for the catastrophe approaching them.

This was his mission and he was the one that had brought everyone to this hellhole of a system.

Obviously, he felt responsible for everyone’s safety as the one in charge, and he was the type of leader that would do everything he could to keep those under him alive.

Regrettably, things were not looking good, and it looked like it would be necessary to leave some people behind.

"We’ll keep going for another five minutes and hit what ship’s we can, but after that we need to enter the hyperlane and get the hell out of here. There’s just nothing more that we can do." Avery said, making his position clear to Zefield.

Though he also wanted to save as many as he could, he was not willing to do so to the detriment of his people.

Ultimately, his priorities were the people that worked under him. At the end of the day, he was not going to put their lives in jeopardy to try and save a few more mercenaries that he hardly knew.

Naturally, Zefield understood his intentions, but he was not yet ready to give up on saving everyone.

"It will require some sacrifices. Still, I think that I can buy us a bit more time. Keep going. We’re not leaving anyone behind if we can help it."

Zefield’s response made Avery grit his teeth and almost go against the man’s orders.

They were dealing with a monstrosity that was truly beyond anything they could even hope to contend with.

Pushing any further could easily lead to the worst possible scenario where all of them ended up dying.

Nevertheless, Avery listened to what Zefield’s plan was and considered it.

"Fine we’ll keep going. Just keep us apprised of what’s going on. If I deem that things have become too dangerous, I’m going to pull out and leave without you if I have to." Avery said, making his stance clear.

Hearing this, Zefield frowned but there was not really anything he could do.

It was not like he could force Avery to do anything he did not want to do currently. And without his cooperation, it would be impossible to move people from their ships over to the Intrepid.

Without any other words between them, Zefield cut the connection and began getting to work.

To stall the entity coming for them, they needed some vessels that could go and intercept the thing.

Fortunately, there were currently a number of ships that were completely empty and had their captains remotely controlling them right now.

Of course, telling them to sacrifice their vessel did not go over very well for most of them.

When it came to mercenaries, their ships were basically their entire lives.

The spacecraft were their homes and the means with which they made their money.

Asking them to willing give them up was far from easy even during a time of crisis.

It was not until Zefield told them that he would use his own personal wealth and connection to purchase them equal or better ships that the captains agreed to send out their vessels to fight for a little more time to save everyone.

Zefield knew that this was going to cost him a lot down the line.

The payment he had already received for this job was not going to be able to pay for everything and seeing as they were certainly going to fail in their mission to clear out the system, his employer almost certainly was not going to cough up the rest of the money Zefield had been promised.

Sometimes that was just the way that mercenary work went though.

Most jobs never went completely perfectly, and Zefield already knew that this one had turned into the greatest sh*tshow of his career.

Sadly, that was inevitable consider just how much more danger this system turned out to be than from initial assessments.

How was anyone supposed to know that the strange asteroid the space monsters in the system tried to avoid actually had some sort of unfathomable entity sealed with in it.

"Head out to intercept. Don’t try to beat the thing. Just keep it locked down for as long as possible." Zefield said to the captains that had prepared their vessels for their final voyage.

With only about three minutes left until the creature reached them, two dozen corvette class ships jumped to light speed.

Now all they could do was hope that their technology was at least effective enough to slow the monstrosity down.

Otherwise, they really were going to have to cut and run and leave a few hundred people behind to an unquestionably horrible fate.

During all of this, Avery felt the pressure mounting, and the presence of the creature was becoming more oppressive as it got closer.

To him, the worst part was that he could sense some of the intentions in its warped mind.

It was entirely alien, but some things were clear. One of which was its elation at being able to kill and consume Avery himself.

He could tell that its attention was not really on the others.

For some reason it wanted him above the rest of the people. At least that’s what he believed since he could somehow feel its intent directed at him.

The only reason he could think of was his special lineage that had recently been awakened.

"Avery, are you doing okay?" Liesel asked, noticing his increasingly distressed state.

"Yeah, I’ll be fine. Let’s wrap up here quickly and prepare to head to the next ship. But be ready to turn around if Zefield’s plan doesn’t work out."

Once they had evacuated everyone onboard the current craft they had been in, Avery checked up on the interception squad to see how they were doing.

The small fleet had just reached the vicinity of the entity and were preparing to engage. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

From a shared feed that was being transmitted, Avery watched with baited breathes as the multitude of corvettes spread out and opened fire.

They held nothing back, launching high yield torpedoes and firing their weapons at higher rates and greater intensities than normal. Having disengaged the normal limiters that kept the weapon systems from damaging themselves.

In this situation, there was no point in worrying about the damage the ships would take from fighting in such a reckless manner. Their destruction was already guaranteed at this point.

Massive explosions and flashes of light colored the space in front of the vessels, and even the massive entity they were attacking became completely covered.

For a moment, there was some hope that they had managed to do damage to the thing, but that was utterly dashed when the line of sight cleared.

Its body did not look like it had even been scratched by the heavy bombardment.

The corvettes continued to launch volley after volley of attacks, but it became increasingly apparent that their weapons were ineffective against the creature.

Space seemed to warp around the thing with lasers and projectiles bending around its mass or sometimes even completely vanishing right before hitting it.

Explosives did not seem to do any better as the blasts seemed unable to reach the horrific being.

It did not help that the captains controlling their ships could not even properly look at the entity.

While Zefield’s equipment may have been shielding them, just looking at the thing chipped away at anyone’s sanity.

Only Avery could actually observer it for more than a fraction of a second without incurring serve physic damage.

Thankfully, the vessels were still able to attack, and for a while, they did their job at stalling the creature.

Still, there was only so much they could do and the monstrosity soon went on the offensive.

Its tendrils lashed out at unprecedented speed and ten vessels were obliterated before their sensors could discern what had happened.

What little time they were able to gain from sacrificing several powerful mercenary ships was not going to last much longer.