The over forty ships that composed Avery's team zipped through the floating rocks around them as they fled from the pirate base they had temporarily taken over.

Naturally, the corrupt Alliance Police commander and the captains under her noticed their movements almost immediately with their long-range sensors.

With their goal being to eliminate the possibility of their collusion with the pirates in the system under their jurisdiction being found out, the thirteen vessels all chaged course to intercept them.

Fortunately, with the bulk of the enemy vessels being far larger than anything Avery had in his fleet composed of mostly small and medium ships; they held the overwhelming advantage in speed and maneuverability through the asteroid field.

"As expected, the two frigates closest to our escape route are closing in. We won't be able to avoid them." Jasmine said, having been intently watching the movements of their enemies while Avery focused on piloting.

This was all as expected, but there was another matter that was going on that they had only briefly touched on during the meeting to decide their plan of action.

Instead of continuing on with the group of ships blasting a path through the asteroid field, three of the destroyer class vessels had broken off and were heading towards the outskirts of the asteroid field.

No doubt their plan was to circle around to the edge where Avery's team was likely to exit in order to cut them off or at least force them to divert their path and buy more time for the rest of their forces to catch up.

It was not a bad move, especially since in terms of fire power, losing them would not slow down the cruisers and remaining two destroyers by any significant amount. They were still steadily destroying asteroids and carving a path through for themselves.

"I really didn't want to have to use these, but we're not going to be able to take our time getting past those frigates."

Avery's grumbling caught Jasmine's attention, and she noticed that the Dauntless' torpedo launcher had just been loaded.

"I'll send out a message to the others to prepare to make way. We don't want anyone getting caught up in the blast."

A smile formed on Avery's face as Jasmine anticipated what he was going to ask her to do next. She was already becoming an excellent copilot if she could figure out what he wanted without any instructions.

When the frigates finally became barely visible with the naked eye without any magnification, dozens of streaks of light began flying through the asteroid field.

The range of their main laser batteries were superior to anything that Avery's team possessed, and they were able to unilaterally open fire without threat of reprisal.

Fortunately, there was still enough distance between them that even with the blasts traveling at the speed of light, no one was having difficulty avoiding the attacks. In large part thanks to multitude of asteroid to use as cover.

"They're in my ship's pulse laser range now. Did you want me to return fire?" Olivia said a few seconds after the enemies had opened fire on them.

Out of everyone vessel under Avery's command, hers had the longest firing range and could begin a counterattack.

"No hold off for now. Their shields are too strong for you to do any meaningful damage. Focus solely on evasion and following the escape route. I'll make sure to give us the best possible opening before we fight back."

Naturally, the hot blooded mercenaries on his team did not want to remain so passive and wanted to start the attack right away.

However, their opponents this time were not the type that they could easily overwhelm with superior skills and ships. One wrong move and a lot of them could end up dead.

'Just a bit closer…'

"And now!"

At Avery's command everyone that was in front of him parted and fired their own weapons. Even if there was no chance of scoring a hit due to the distance.

These other attacks merely served to help hide the phasic torpedo that he had fired.

If he had been the only one to attack, the frigates would have responded more quickly and easily intercepted the deadly explosive device. Perhaps even causing it to detonate within the area Avery and his group were in.

Thankfully, his plan worked out fairly well.

The two frigates' sensors pinged all of the dangerous incoming attacks and the crew was forced to respond to everything.

Smaller multi-cannons and laser blasters flared to life and began shooting down the missiles, and the railgun projectile that Ezra had fired.

These weapons were far smaller in size compared to the frigates' main guns and were designed entirely for point defense.

Unlike smaller ships, they could not possibly hope to dodge every attack, and relied on these fast firing, but smaller weapons to shoot down incoming explosives, or divert high entice energy projectiles like those fired from a railgun.

As for the lasers, their shielding was tough enough to take quiet a beating. It would take far more than a single volley from the edge of most of Avery's team's range to cause any significant damage.

Still, a phasic torpedo posed a major threat to any known ship. A direct hit could cripple even the strongest capital ships and possibly destroy them in one go depending on the location that they were hit.

Of course, the powerful explosive weapon did come with several weaknesses. The first being how expensive they were to make and maintain.

Another, and something more applicable to the situation, was their relatively slow speed.

The explosives, shield generator, and shield penetration device all took up a great deal of room and only left so much for fuel to use as accelerant.

Since explosive power and breaking through shielding was a phasic torpedo's selling point, the current configuration favored power over speed.

This was just fine though, as Avery never intended to score a hit here.

All he wanted from the phasic torpedo was to serve as a good distraction. Albeit an expensive one.