The mont the three pirate-affiliated expert chs moved into action, the rest of their ilk regained their courage. Unless an ace or god pilot ca along, expert ch pilots enjoyed an unparallelled amount of regard. Their presence alone lifted up the pirates and depressed their opponents.
Ghanso Larkinson shivered as his mories cast back at the ti when he almost died to an expert ch. Of the three incoming chs, he recognized one of them as the foreign-owned swordsman ch.
As a light ch, the sophisticated swordsman ch excelled in both speed and offense. It was a one-trick pony that relied on its devastating speed to slice apart any ch in its way and avoid anything that posed a threat.
Right now, that light ch took a backseat to the rifleman ch at the center of their formation. The expert rifleman pilot had already begun to shoot at the ch Corps with his precision focused laser rifle.
Even at such a ludicrous distance, the expert marksman never failed to miss a target. To consistently hit chs after chs when it moved so fast was a testant to the pilot’s skill and the ch’s advanced targeting technologies.
"Get your heads back together, n!" One of their commanding officer spoke over the channel. "Expert chs aren’t invincible. They can be damaged, hindered and deterred just like any other ch! Pirate experts are the lowest of the low. They have forsaken all of their honor and dignity to pursue scraps of wealth. They are nothing compared to our conviction! We are the Volari Starhawks! We are the spaceborn might of the Republic!"
"For the Republic!"
"For the Starhawks!"
"Down with the pirate experts!"
Sohow, Ghanso got caught up in the excitent. His fears faded away once he realized he had thousands of brothers and sisters at his side. "Experts can go toe-to-toe against a hundred chs, but fighting thousands at once is a tall order even for them. We have our own experts as well!"
Half of the Starhawks split up to deter the other pirates with long-ranged fire, while the remaining half tried to stall the approaching experts. Ghanso tried to recall his anti-expert training.
"Spaceborn expert chs are fast and durable no matter their weight-class. As wasteful as it sounds like, the best way to prevent them from acting with impunity is to throw as much firepower in their direction as possible."
Many squads already started spraying their rifles and cannons in the direction of the experts. Unfortunately, the trio’s space knight flew forward and deployed a rectangular tower shield that extended into a half-do after deploying extendable side plates. The entire shield also started glowing as so kind of energy screen set in.
"Flank the experts but watch your firing lines! Follow your assigned plots!"
More than a thousand chs dispersed into a sphere that tried to envelop the incoming expert chs. Despite the naked challenge, the pirate experts refused to be cowed by such tricks. They slamd head-long into the sphere. Dozens of chs blew up to accurate high-powered laser fire and thunderous sword strokes.
"Open fire according to your sequence!"
The chs that made up the sphere fired their weapons as soon as they received a special signal. Enough chs fired at the sa ti to pressure the enveloped experts from each direction. They only stopped firing when the signal went out, which usually happened if they risked hitting a friendly ch on the other side of the sphere.
Though accidents occasionally happened, the tactic produced solid results. The expert space knight tried and failed to cover the expert rifleman ch. As one of the more fragile expert chs, the rifleman ch started to sustain significant damage to its rear armor.
However, its rear armor’s toughness still surpassed the frontal armor of a regular heavy ch. The rifleman ch didn’t go down that easily.
In the anti, the swordsman ch diverged from its comrades and started to assail the sphere with constant high-speed passes. Each ti the expert light ch passed a ch, its swords managed to bisect them in two.
Many of the chs that tried to target the light ch failed to land a hit. The ch was so remarkably fast and agile that even a hundred chs failed to land a blow through saturation fire. The expert pilot skillfully moved his finely-tuned machine like an acrobat that always managed to find the tiniest gap in the volleys thrown in his way.
"This slippery bastard!" Ghanso cursed at Old Man Alex’s killer. He had no idea why this foreign expert sided with the pirates, but he promised to himself that he wouldn’t let this expert get away with his slaughtering this ti. "Die!"
His Vhedra took up a stationary position in space, which turned him into a sitting duck. However, only by reducing all of his fra’s movent-related vibrations to a minimum could he ensure the highest accuracy.
"I can do this. I hit him once, I can hit him again."
The last ti he scored a hit, the light ch charged at him head-on. It didn’t require too much technique to land a lucky hit.
This ti was different because the expert flew back and forth throughout the sphere formation. Ghanso had to tilt his rifle in much greater angles in order draw a bead on the light ch.
As he tried to gain a feel for the light ch’s dodging patterns, he dialed up his laser rifle’s power to the maximum. A regular dium-powered laser beam didn’t cut it against this opponent. Even an expert light ch boasted enough armor to put an advanced dium knight to sha.
Once his ch received permission to fire, Ghanso pulled the trigger.
The laser beam went wide! It missed the light ch by more than ten ters due to the expert pilot’s abrupt maneuvers. The beam instantly travelled onwards into deep space for many light-seconds, growing ever wider until it scattered out of focus.
"Damn it!"
The previous ti he hit the light ch turned out to be a fluke. Still, Ghanso tried to regain his calm and returned to his sniper state.
By now, the light ch destroyed seventeen chs in a row. Fortunately, the expert pilot never deviated from his targets once he began his approach, so many of unlucky ch pilots ejected early.
Nevertheless, the Volari Starhawks kept getting chewed with hardly any results in return. The laser rifleman covered by the space knight continued to disable ch after ch with his lance-like laser beams that burned straight through compressed armor with each shot.
Ghanso took a deep breath and focused on landing his second shot. Once he pulled the trigger, his beam missed again, but only by five ters this ti.
"So close!"
He made the right prediction this ti, but his ch failed to keep its rifle steady. His nerves grew increasingly frayed as he checked the heat levels of his rifle.
He specifically applied to wield this model. It boasted a vastly higher maximum output capacity at the cost of generating an extre amount of heat. His rifle could only take three more shots before it automatically entered a forced cooldown cycle.
"I’ve got three more chances." Ghanso gritted his teeth and aid again. This ti, he didn’t take as long to draw a bead as he grew increasingly familiar with the light ch’s movent patterns.
This ti, a sharp red beam erged from his rifle and managed to score a glancing blow at the light ch’s left foot.
It barely scorched the armor. The expert pilot basically ignored Ghanso’s attack and kept focusing on decimating his nearby opponents.
"Don’t ignore !" Ghanso uttered and fired off another shot propelled by his anger.
Whether he lucked out or not, the second beam impacted the railings of the light ch’s flight systems. The ch instantly ceased its attack run and whirled away its sword into a different direction.
The sword top pointed straight at Ghanso, as if the pilot had marked him for death. With a blast, the light ch entered into its high-speed mode straight towards Ghanso’s Vhedra in a cot-like approach.
The expert ca for Ghanso’s head!
"Even as his squad leader yelled at him to eject, Ghanso kept his ch in place and aid his almost-overheated rifle at the incoming cot. His eyes twitched as he cast his mind completely into his ch.
He stroked the ntal trigger of his rifle, spitting out one, final beam.
Though the light ch barrel rolled aside at the last mont, Ghanso incredibly predicted the expert’s split-second movent and struck the light ch’s face head-on with a high-powered laser.
This ti, the expert ch suffered a substantial blow, as its head enjoyed much less armor than its other parts. Even though the damage was largely costic, Ghanso had literally slapped the expert ch’s face.
The uber-fast light ch bayed for his blood.
Ghanso knew he pissed off the light ch for sure. He switched off all of his communication channels, which stopped the incessant calls to eject. "It’s useless to eject. He’ll chase after my cockpit and slice it apart."
In effect, he cut off his own escape route. He was fine with that. As the light ch neared his position, he grew increasingly excited. His warrior’s blood called to him to et the swordsman ch in earnest.
The Vhedra ch threw away its useless overheated rifle and let it drift away in space. Instead, it pulled out one single backup knife from its sheath.
The cheap, standard-alloy knife looked pitiful compared to the majestic sword in the light ch’s hands. Ghanso’s knife incorporated just enough low-quality exotic to hold up against compressed armor, if barely.
"I’ll have to aim for its weak points. Stabbing its chest or back is useless."
Ghanso ignored the ridiculous thought of fending off an expert swordsman ch with an ordinary knife. Even as his death had beco a near-certainty, his overwhelming hatred against the foreign expert reached a blinding height.
As the light ch rapidly surged towards the Vhedra, Ghanso closed his eyes and opened them to reveal his burning conviction.
"For the Republic!"
His weak Vhedra ch surged forth. Everything about his spaceborn ch had been optimized for ranged combat. His ch’s own sluggishness provided an incredibly sharp contrast against the incoming light ch that was seconds away from slicing it in half.
"Co on! I can take you on!"
At the final second, just as Ghanso secretly resigned himself to death, a blazing hot jet of flas passed over his Vhedra’s head. The light ch had barreled straight towards Ghanso’s ch with its full montum pressing forward.
Even though it rolled aside at the very last mont, half of the ch suffered heavy burns from the extrely jet of flas.
Ghanso’s communicator suddenly surged to life. An external override had forcibly connected it to a private channel. "You did good, kid, but that’s no reason to throw away your life. Pull back and rejoin your squad. Leave the rest to ."
An orange striker ch flew past the paralyzed Vhedra’s position and began to chase the alard enemy swordsman ch.
As a bona fide soldier of the ch Corps, Ghanso knew each and every expert pilot by na and ch. He recognized the orange striker as the characteristic Fire Worm.
Venerable Stanton Drake had saved his life!
Just as Ghanso ca to terms with that fact, his attention turned to the battle at hand. Two other expert chs had joined Venerable Drake in occupying the enemy expert chs. At this stage, any help from the Volari Starhawks did more harm than good, as they could easily hit their own experts as they engaged in close-quarters combat with the enemy elites.
Therefore, Ghanso and the rest received orders to disengage from the sphere formation and rejoin the larger battle against the hordes of regular pirates.
As Ghanso unwillingly turned the Vhedra away, he kept glancing over to the duel between Venerable Drake and the enemy swordsman ch.
It was no contest, really. Striker chs always countered lee chs. This basic rule held true on land as much as in space. Every ti the expert light ch tried to approach the Fire Worm, Venerable Drake spat out another deadly jet of highly potent flas.
The light ch lacked the capacity to suffer many blows from the intense heat. Its inability to take the flas head on constrained the expert ch to such an extent it had turned into a whipped dog.
Even as the light ch tried to disengage from the striker, the Fire Worm aggressively chased after the foreign ch.
The wide area of its jets of flas gave the light ch a lot of grief. Unlike a laser beam which only required a minor bump to dodge, the wider flas forced it to go through extre lengths to escape its area of effect.
As Ghanso ca off his high, he shook his head in disappointnt. The light ch still possessed the edge in speed, so it would likely be able to shrug off the Fire Worm eventually.
Experts rarely perished in battle.
User Comments
0 comments from readers