CHAPTER 310: CHAPTER 310 ELIMINATION AND RESCUE

The moment the event officially started, several pieces of information were sent to all of the competitor’s ships.

These documents included the number of people in each of the installation orbiting and on the surface of the planet. As well as the relative level of danger they were currently in from the energy lifeforms.

"That’s neat, those things almost look like the real deal." Kasandra said, noticing thousands of lights that had just suddenly appeared on the viewscreen.

To mimic an energy lifeform for this event, the organizers had deployed spherical drones that were emitting light that gave them the characteristic glowing appearance of an energy lifeform.

Of course, they lacked any of the space monster’s real abilities and would merely be copying them in only a visual manner.

Still, for this exercise, that would be good enough.

"We’ll go with business as usual. You pick out the best targets and I’ll head directly for them."

Kasandra nodded her head in response, already having been in the process of identifying where they could pick up the best score.

While the actual scale they would be measured on had not been revealed, they did know that the assessment for this event was going focus mainly on the number of people rescued, and the number of energy lifeforms eliminated.

Since each of the competitors were only piloting small vessels, they had each been provided with three medium sized transports that they could direct as they wished to help with evacuation efforts.

Though, using them recklessly and having them end up being considered destroyed by energy lifeforms was a good way to immediately get kicked to the bottom of the rankings.

"We’ve got sixty-three energy lifeforms surrounding the station up ahead. Its defense systems are close to collapsing. If that happens the forty-one people inside will all be killed." Kasandra said, giving Avery the information on their first target as they approached.

"Got it, time to see what our new EMP blaster can do."

Activating the weapon, Avery took aim at the closest faux energy lifeform and fired.

The electromagnetic weapon that had been provided to him by Storren Corp. shot out a smaller but faster moving blast than the one that Avery was used to.

Its range was also a bit lower, but its overall power was still good enough to take out a small energy lifeform in one hit.

When the fast-moving ring of electromagnetic force hit the target Avery had aimed for, it immediately stopped moving and the light surrounding the drone dissipated. A clear indication that it had been "killed".

"As I thought this one will be better for dealing with swarms of weaker enemies." Avery said, smirking as he rapidly took out more of the energy lifeforms.

It did not take long for around half of them to disengage from the orbital station and go after the Dauntless.

They had identified Avery’s ship as a threat and strong source of energy to be consumed.

"Good of them to come to me so that I don’t have to worry about chasing them around."

Avery easily eliminated the thirty simulated energy lifeforms long before they ever reached his vessel.

Since these were only the small type, their only means of attack was by ramming into things with their bodies. So, they were simple to pick off with a fast-firing EMP blaster.

Once he had taken out the ones that came after him, Avery systematically hunted down the rest trying to get into the station.

"I’ve just called in one of the transports to come and get the ’people’ onboard. There’s another small swarm of energy lifeforms nearby, so head towards and eliminate them. I’ll keep an eye on the station and transport and tell you if anything needs your attention." Kasandra said, directing Avery flawlessly.

Working as a near perfect team, Avery left support up to Kasandra and focused fully on piloting the Dauntless and taking out enemies.

He could have accomplished everything Kasandra was doing by himself if he needed to, but it would slow him down a bit. And over the course of an event like this one that was bound to take quite some time, that would amount to a far lower overall performance.

When Avery came across the next group of imitation energy lifeforms, he started taking them down with well-practiced movements.

"Well, they did as good as a job as they could, but these things are not quite up to the real deal." Avery muttered as he shot down his targets.

These fake energy lifeforms were lacking compared to actual ones.

Their speed was a bit slower, and they did not have the same level of ferocity.

All that these drones were doing was following the programing given to them, but the energy lifeforms Avery had faced in the past were more adaptable.

They moved with the sole purpose of destroying what was in front of them and draining it of every drop of energy.

Perhaps it was this absence of their intensity, or maybe because there was no queen directing the groups of faux energy lifeforms being used in this event.

Avery had figured that since this was the final event that it would be more challenging, but truthfully, the only difficulty he had found so far was that it was going to be time consuming.

There were a large number of bases to rescue and enemies to eliminate, but there was nothing particularly dangerous about any of it. At least not for him and others at his skill level.

Still, there was a bit of a speed component to the event. They may not have been anywhere near him right now since the event had only begun a little while ago, but as things got closer to the end, he would be fighting with his other competitors to take out the imitation energy lifeforms and rescue those that were on the bases.

"Kasandra, I understand that we’ve been going at our best pace while allowing for a margin of safety, but I think we should speed things up. Deploy all three of our transports. I’ll keep them safe and wipe out any enemies around the bases they’re head to and keep them safe."

"Talk about reckless, but you’ve got it. Sending them all out. Just don’t complain to me if this comes back to bite us." Kasandra responded, wearing a smirk on her face.

Avery smiled himself since he was becoming a bit more excited.

If things were not challenging enough right now, then all he needed to do was increase the difficulty himself.

With all three of his transports out on the field even before he cleared the area that they were being directed towards, Avery had his work cut out for him.

"We’ve got a new group going after transport three. Also, the station transport one is evacuating is getting targeted by a new swarm after you eliminated the first."

Things became a lot more chaotic very quickly for Avery and Kasandra.

There was a reason that they had started out the way they had, and it was because the situation could easily snowball into something that was too difficult for one ship to feasibly handle.

Nevertheless, Avery wanted to win and push himself here. To improve his skills meant that he needed to constantly be challenging himself, and this event did present an opportunity.

He kept himself moving fast, eliminating targets with more precision, not allowing himself to waste a single move in order to keep up with needing to protect multiple objectives at the same time with only the Dauntless.

There was no time for him to worry about any small details as he had to be constantly on the move to prevent one of his transports or the bases he wanted to evacuate from being destroyed.

It was a razor thin line that he had to keep within for everything to not fall apart, but the results spoke for themselves.

Avery had rescued over six hundred "people" already and eliminated nearly three times as many faux small energy lifeforms.

Considering how long the event had been going on, these were both impeccable numbers.

However, at the pace that he was going, it did not take long for Avery to move into an area that already had another competitors hard at work.

"Looks like he’s struggling quite a bit." Avery said, carefully observing what was displayed on the view screen.

He had come across the professional test pilot who was currently in seventh place.

The man was playing things safe, even more so that Avery had at the beginning of the event. But, he was not doing particularly well.

Fighting was not his specialty, and he had even less practice going up against space monsters. He had participated in plenty of simulations and drills against other vessels before, but his profession would see him never interacting with space monsters under normal situations.

"Why don’t we go and ’help’ him out." Kasandra said with a devious expression.

Avery returned her look and nodded his head. They would make sure to provide all of the "assistance" that they could.