Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Chapter 544 - 544 Assault on the Odium Syndicate (9)

Liesel did not have to wait long for the first enemy to show up.Their gender or species were unidentifiable since the person was wearing a suit of heavy power armor, but those factors hardly mattered in the face of the giant gun the individual was pointing in Liesel's direction.

She and several others had already been waiting, so they were already in position and opened fire the moment their target revealed themselves.

A spray of lasers flew down the hallway and started pounding into the armor's shield.

Considering how bulky the suit was, it likely had decent defenses, but it would not last too long under a concentrated bombardment.

Naturally, the person inside was not just going to let themselves get blasted without retaliating.

The laser cannon that they were wielding quickly roared to life and shot out a giant burst of searing light.

Liesel had almost instinctively dashed to get out of the way of the incoming attack. She had been trained to keep her distance and always be moving to avoid getting hit by attacks of such intensity.

Nevertheless, she was not fighting alone here or in a disorganized group.

There were forty-five of them together, and she would trust the others and keep firing.

Just before the blast from the laser cannon reached her, it impacted against an invisible wall.

"You're not the only ones with shields." Liesel muttered as her lips curled up into a smirk.

They had been carrying with them five portable shield generators for scenarios like this where they ended up locked down.

It was impossible to move them while they were active, but Liesel's and Burke's squads now had an immediately ready defensible position.

Of course, they were not just dealing with one individual in power armor attacking from a single angle.

Down every other connecting corridor enemies were surging in to kill them.

This left all of them boxed in and merely trading fire with each other until oen side was worn down.

And considering how many enemies had been detected by the scanners, this did not bode well for Liesel's and Burke's squads.

'Only if we keep this going as a war of attrition though.'

Liesel was continuing to fire down the path she had chosen to guard, but she had no intention of remaining like this for long.

Half of her attention was on Casey next to her, who was keeping track of their opponents' movements.

Once her longtime friend and companion had a grasp on the entire state of the battle, she was planning on taking a far more aggressive role in this fight.

"Okay, I've got it all, are you ready to go?" Casey asked after just a few seconds later.

Liesel nodded her head and then looked towards Burke who was issuing commands while firing his own weapons.

"Can you hold things down here while I go cause some havoc?"

"Yeah, that won't be a problem. Just don't go getting yourself seriously injured or killed. I don't want Avery exploding on me because something happened to you." Burke said with all seriousness.

Liesel paused and blushed for a moment as she imagined the scenario Burke had just mentioned.

While Avery was normally fairly relaxed, when it came to the people he cared for, he easily lost his cool when they were in danger.

She had seen it happen before, and Kasandra and Jasmine had told her about some of the times he had snapped before she joined the team.

'Well, it's not like I was planning on getting hurt anyway if I can help it.'

Shaking her head, she dismissed the errant thoughts and followed Casey's instructions.

They had already confirmed that there was no one directly below them, so that's the direction the two of them would be heading.

Liesel grabbed a fairly thick, half meter long cylindrical item from her belt.

With practiced movements she slammed it into the ground and swiftly traced a hole just large enough for her and Casey to fit through.

When she was finished, she disengaged her plasma cutter and gave the already falling piece of the floor a good kick to fully dislodge it.

There was a resounding clanging sound as it collided with the level below them.

Without hesitation, Liesel dropped down and then moved aside to make room for Casey to follow.

The two of them raced off down the corridor, following the loud thuds above from the people wearing power armor.

"Here should be good." Casey said, indicating the area just above them.

Their enemies had been engaging them methodically by sending out a few soldiers in power armor to attack and then having them retreat around the bend in the hallways once their shields were getting low and replacing them with fresh fighters.

It was a good strategy to use that would see them avoid any losses while still keeping the members of Liesel's and Burke's squads pinned down while they wore them down.

Had none of them possessed a safe way to circumvent the structure of the station like Liesel had, it would have eventually left them with only the option to charge down one of the corridors to try and break the encirclement.

'Good thing that we came prepared for a multitude of situations.' Liesel thought as she jumped up to the ceiling and affixed herself to it using a special material on her boots that became adhesive like the cling pads of certain animals when a specific frequency was challenged through them.

Avery had made sure that not only his ships were topnotch, but the equipment the members of his company had access to were as well.

Even typically prohibitively expensive or unusual gadgets were available, and thanks to having their own engineering team led by Grito, even specialized custom items could be easily acquired.

Liesel had made sure to kit herself out with everything she wanted, that did not impede her mobility too much.

Her own body was still one of her greatest weapons, especially after receiving some upgrades from Dr. Raiti's augmentation treatments.

Utilizing the same plasma cutter she had used to carve a hole in the floor, she created a much smaller opening in the ceiling above right where the enemies were resting and recycling their shields.

With her enhanced strength she grabbed ahold of the shuck she had cut out and yanked it down to clear the way.

Obviously, her actions did not go unnoticed, and she soon saw the helmet of one of the suits of power armor peering down into the new hole.

"Here's a present for you." Liesel said as she casually tossed a grenade through the opening.

She did not wait to see the outcome as she dropped down and started running away.

A couple seconds later, there was an explosion that rocked the area.

Liesel wobbled a bit for a moment but regained her footing and kept moving.

Casey was already waiting at the end of the corridor, having pinpointed the next area that they were going to cause some chaos.

There were more than just troops wearing power armor assaulting them.

Several dozens of other individuals had set up defensible positions at chokepoints along the paths that Liesel's and Burke's squads could take.

It was clear that the production facilities defenders were devoting a lot of manpower to taking them out and making sure that they did not escape.

Unfortunately for them, it seemed that they had not considered that anyone would start cutting through the flooring and ceilings.

Otherwise, they would have positioned teams above and below as well.

'Or maybe they just don't have the manpower to cover so much area.' Liesel thought as she followed behind her partner.

It was not common for people to come equipped with gear that could easily slice through the sturdy material used to construct the interior of a station.

The plasma cutter that Liesel was using was expensive, very dangerous, and could only work for a short amount of time.

Already the capsule inside that stored the plasma was more than two thirds empty.

She would only get one or two more quick uses out of it before it needed to be replenished.

"There just above here."

Looking at the spot Casey had indicated, Liesel jumped up again and began creating an open she could throw another grenade through.

Except this time, before she could fully dislodge the piece of the ceiling she had sliced into, someone kicked it out from above and stuck the muzzle of a laser rifle through it.

Shots started raining down through the opening and Liesel had to throw herself back hastily to avoid getting hit.

She landed on the floor in crouch and glared up with a frown.

"I guess that they've already figured our trick out. It probably won't work again." Casey said.

Liesel agreed, but that did not mean she was just going to let this chance go to waste.

If someone was pointing a laser rifle down the hole, that meant that they must have been standing nearby.

Liesel estimated where their feet were likely to be and jumped up one more time. Careful to avoid getting in the line of fire of the rifle.

Instead of slicing a hole through the ceiling, this time she just jammed the plasma cutter into it and released a burst with all of its reaming stores.

There was a loud shout of pain that followed, and Liesel smiled as she was certain she had just fried one of the guy's feet.

However, her revelry was short lived as she watched a small black object fall down the hole in the ceiling that was less than a meter away from her.