Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 44 - Disturbance in the Prazan System (2)

Despite wanting to know exactly what was going on, Avery headed Kasandra's words and immediately input the coordinates to reenter hyperspace and head back to the Yuson System.

He trusted her instincts and experience as a mercenary, and knew that if she was this panicked, whatever had occurred here was undoubtedly serious.

However, it was already too late. From the moment that the Dauntless had exited hyperspace, the entities that had destroyed the monitor station and the crew sent to fix it had already set their sights on them.

Before Avery could finish preparing the jump into hyperspace, several dozens of signatures were picked up by the ship's sensors.

These were not other spacecraft though, as they were far too small, and the readings displayed a level of heat that would be impossible for any vessel unless it was on fire and moments away from exploding.

"What the hell are those things?!" Avery shouted, naturally flustered by what he saw approaching.

Flying at them from every direction were what looked like brightly glowing orange spheres.

Each one was only around a meter to a meter and a half in diameter, but the sensors showed that they each contained about as much power as a blast from one of Avery's heavy laser cannons.

"They're energy lifeforms. The small ones that are coming at us will try to ram the ship. Once they've broken through our shields, I don't think I need to explain what will happen."

Kasandra pointed towards the floating wreckage only a couple kilometers away and Avery got the idea. These energy lifeforms were the ones that had torn the station and repair crew's ship apart.

At the very least, learning what they were called helped to jog Avery's memory.

Urs had taught him about some of the most common threats out in space, and these creatures that were technically classified as a type of space monster were among them.

Not much was known about their origins as they did not seem to appear from any one part of space, and they could suddenly show up in places where they had not been before.

Currently, researchers best guess was that energy lifeforms normally lived in a completely separate dimension.

Unfortunately, no way to communicate with them had been discovered, and without exception, they were instantly hostile to all other life forms.

Avery was forced to cancel entering hyperspace as the calculations had not been finished and he needed to take control to initiate evasive maneuvers.

The energy lifeforms may have been packing a lot of power in their small bodies, but they could still only fly so fast.

"I've never fought these things before, but from what I've heard, they are practically immune to physical projectiles and heavily resistant to lasers. Powerful explosives and electromagnetic pulse weapons are about they only things that are really effective against them." Kasandra said, pulling out what knowledge she had about the monsters chasing after them.

Sadly, it was of little help at this moment. The only explosives the Dauntless had were its merger supply of phasic torpedoes, and it lacked any electromagnetic pulse weapons since those were usually only effective for disabling ships. They were not the kind of thing most mercenaries used since they lacked firepower.

With limited ways to fight back, Avery sent full power to the thrusters and executed a series of quick moves to just barely escape the encirclement.

Even with the impeccable inertial dampeners onboard, the rapid acceleration and turns put a heavy burden on Avery and Kasandra's bodies.

Still, they were professional mercenaries and refused to allow a bit of discomfort to affect their performance.

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"I can't send out a hyperspace message. Those things are putting out too much interference. The information decays before it can get past them."

Avery clicked his tongue in frustration when he heard this. He had been hoping to call for backup from the Alliance Police or even other mercenaries better equipped to handle energy life forms.

Of course, that would have meant playing this game of tag for likely over two hours at the shortest, but even that would have at least been some relief.

Now, their only real chance of survival was to take out or escape from their pursers somehow. With either option being easier said than done.

Having evaded being caught, Avery now had a trail of energy lifeforms chasing him.

A couple of times he had attempted to fire his rear scatterguns at them, but to no avail. Even when the projectiles hit something, the immense heat being given off by the energy lifeforms vaporized the shrapnel. Just as Kasandra had told him, physical projectiles were practically useless.

"Wait, one of them just disappeared." Avery said, noticing a reading on his shortrange sensors vanishing.

"Must have gotten lucky shot. Those things have small crystalline cores that from what I've heard are less than a centimeter in diameter. If you damage them enough, then they die apparently."

Thanks to this new bit of knowledge, Avery felt more confident and aimed his scatterguns bullets to burst right before reaching the energy life forms.

This proved to be more effective than trying to fire on them like he would a large group of ships, but he still only eliminated one every four or five shots this way.

Having a limited supply of ammunition, Avery was going to run out long before he eliminated all of the energy lifeforms coming at him.

'Hitting their cores with the auto turret would take a miracle. That pretty much only leaves the laser cannons and plasma launchers. Neither will be all that effective, but it's the only thing I can do.'

After warning Kasarda that the ride was about to get rougher, Avery swiftly activated manual control over the attitude adjustment thrusters to pull off some tricks that Urs had shown him.

Without much warning, the Dauntless spun all the way around so that its front was facing the energy lifeforms that had been chasing them.

Though the quick maneuver left him feeling a bit nauseous, Avery pressed down on the trigger and fired his forward heavy laser cannons at their maximum rate of fire.