Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 480 Testing the Waters

"Launching in three, two, one."

Avery watched from the Intrepid’s bridge as the newly modified stealth probe was launched.

Grito had spent the last couple of days tinkering with it to maximize its efficiency and fit it with as powerful an explosive warhead as possible.

While they were merely conducting a trial run right now, it was important that all of the factors that would be present during the main plan were present now.

Which was why Avery had stressed that the modifying of the probe be completed before attempting to see if it could get close to the commander type space monsters unnoticed.

This also made sure that the expensive piece of equipment would not go entirely to waste.

If it was discovered, they could still detonate its payload and potentially deal some serious damage.

When the probe exited light speed, the sight of now more than a million space monsters came into view.

With the Intrepid having the most sophisticated and advanced system, remote control over the probe had been left to Avery.

Right now, it was displaying everything its main camera was seeing on the Intrepid’s main viewscreen.

There were a few audible gulps from the bridge crew as they witnessed what sort of enemies they were up against.

For everyone expected for Avery and Liesel, this was their first time seeing army being amassed to crush them.

’There are definitely more of them now. I wonder if those commander types are trying to gather every single space monster in the system?’ Avery thought as he grimaced.

There was no telling how much more their enemies’ forces would be able to grow, so it would be imperative that they struck as soon as possible.

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Avert pushed the stealth probe forward.

He was still a few hundred thousand kilometers away from the edge of the monster hordes.

However, he could not stay far away from them and just observe forever.

There was a lot that needed to be confirmed on this test run before the mercenary fleet moved on to the main plan.

Once he had the probe within just a few dozen kilometers of the creatures, Avery slowed its speed down and eased towards them.

It only took a few minutes, but the immense concentration made it feel like longer for Avery.

Everyone seemed to be holding their breathes as he got within a few meters of a giant Volmargar and started slipping into the ranks of the monsters.

Thankfully, it did not show any reaction to the probe.

Avery continued to pass through the space monsters, making sure to keep close to the largest types since there was the most room between them.

The stealth probe was fairly large due to having an intricate cloaking system equipped, as well as a light speed drive and hyperdrive.

Though, the hyperdrive had been deemed unnecessary and had been removed to make room for the warhead that was now stored inside of the probe.

"Damn! Those pests really show up at the worst possible times."

While he was navigating deeper into the hordes of monsters, a few dozen pests that were flying around were coming the opposite direction of the path that Avery was using.

It seemed that the open spaces between the larger space monsters was not just to keep them from bumping into each other, but also to serve as places the smaller ones could fly through.

Hastily, Avery brought the probe over to the edge as close to a nearby Fluem as he could get without compromising the probe.

This gave the pests enough room to fly by.

Yet the one that passed closest to the probe suddenly came to a stop.

Avery felt like there was a lump in his throat as this happened.

The other pests seemed to notice and even the Fluem that Avery had parked the probe under started to move.

"Sh*t! This isn’t good." Avery curded as he scrambled with what to do.

None of the space monsters had shown any sign of detecting his company’s stealth corvette before, but something about the probe has set off the pests.

The cloaking technology it used was not exactly the same. Still, it was high-end and meant to avoid sight and sensitive sensors.

’Wait. That’s what might be causing this.’

As Avery’s mind raced, he thought of one major difference between the stealth ship and the probe.

He was currently controlling the probe remotely. Meaning that there were signals coming to and from it.

The pests were space monsters focused on creating signal interference, so it was likely that they had some means of detecting such things.

Realizing this, Avery cut off the connection with the probe and left it in standby mode.

This meant he would be relying entirely on its programming to keep it safe now, but there was nothing else he could really try.

’Should it get discovered and destroyed though, we won’t have any idea what happened because I shut off the signal. I’ll just have to hope everything works out.’

Avery waited for about five minutes before attempting to reconnect to the probe.

For a moment he thought that there might not be anything left to receive the signal, but fortunately, the probe’s camara sprung back to life and began displaying what was around it on the Intrepid’s viewscreen again.

Luckily, the pests seemed to have moved on and the Fluem, while it had moved, had not come in contact with the probe in any way.

Now knowing that the probe’s stealth functions were not absolute, Avery was even more careful with its pathing.

He avoided getting close to any pests whenever he could, and when that proved impossible, he would disconnect from the probe and wait a bit before reconnecting.

This made the endeavor far more tedious, and there were a few close calls where the probe was almost discovered.

Nevertheless, kept going and soon he was within just a couple dozen kilometers of one of the commander type monsters.

Up this close, they were even uglier to look at.

Their bulbous bodies that were a sickly light purple in color looked almost like a mass of tumors.

It certainly was not appealing to examine them closely.

Regrettably, this was part of the job and something that Avery had to do.

’This is the one that’s controlling the Hinvieners. The same one that tried to take over my mind.’ Avery thought, feeling a strong animosity towards the creature.

The damage that he had done to it seemed to have recovered already.

There were no longer any visible signs of its injuries, and it was not showing any sluggish behavior compared to the other four members of its species.

Avery would be lying if he said that the thought of ramming the probe into the monster and detonating its payload did not cross his mind. That was just how much he resented the thing for making him go through one of the most agonizing experiences in his life.

The logical part of his mind kept him from doing so though.

It was only a fleeting thought, and one that he would never act on. Doing so would put everyone in jeopardy and ruin the plan that he had come up with.

"Okay, we’re within three kilometers. No signs of detection yet."

Things were going well; Avery had brought the probe in pretty close and there was no a clear shot to Hinvieners commander.

However, once he based the threshold of two and a half kilometers away, it suddenly started to react.

Immediately, Avery pulled back the probe to create some distance, but it was already too late.

A swarm of Hinvieners and pests were now flying in to investigate the anomaly that had been discovered.

Avery hesitated with what to do for a second before making his decision.

Immediately, he ended the connection with the probe and activated its automated return home program.

He could have detonated its explosive warhead on the monster, but that probably would not have been enough to kill it.

Seeing as how they had powerful regenerative capabilities, causing some major damage now likely would not matter. If it was already healed by the time the main operation started, then the probe would have been wasted.

Such an attack was likely to make the commander types more wary as well.

Right now, all they knew was that something had gotten close to one of them. There was no telling what it could be or if it was hostile.

"All we can do now is wait and hope the probe returns to us. I don’t dare reconnect with all of the pests that have been mobilized now." Avery said, leaning back in his chair.

While they were waiting, Zefield and Quokka began discussing what data they were able to collect so far.

Avery had been the one in control of the probe, but other members of the mercenary fleet had been monitoring what was going on.

With nothing else to do, they discussed minor changes to their strategies and more potential ideas to nudge the outcome in their favor.

As time went by, everyone’s nerves began to grow.

Here was no telling if the probe would make it out on its own.

Its programs were high-level since it had been designed to act autonomously, but the probe had been left in the heart of a swarm of monsters.

Hours went by and there was still nothing.

Avery was starting to become doubtful that the probe would be coming back.

Yet right before he tried to reconnect with it to confirm its status, the device sent a message on its own.

It had exited the space monsters’ ranks and had entered light speed. Soon it would return back to the Intrepid and deliver all of the data that it had collected.