Chapter 26: Test of Skill

After Rydel turned the big granny around, it's then time to say good bye to her as Rydel detaches the locks and slowly drifts away from it. To his sides, the flow of rocks revealed a potential opening in a few seconds, and Rydel simply moved the cruiser in position and slip through the gap when the time comes.

Now, he is moving in a large arc to try to attack the flanks of the giant capital ship, but it won't be an easy task, for a normal pilot at least.

With more concentration and metal clarity and calmness than he has ever felt, Rydel took a nose dive and went down before the plane of space that consists of the Big Granny and the White Hawks capital ship. Then, he cautiously approached their ship and starting firing away once he got close enough and within effective firing range. The lines of fire easy tore through the rocks in the way and took down a few fighters that are simply orbiting around the main capital ship. As Rydel continued to fire, he also manuvers the ship so that the shields remain somewhat intact.

The ability to truly multitask is one of the most important bonuses the enhancements has offered Rydel.

The fighters and light cruisers by the White Hawk's sides are now in a really difficult position. Their own shields wouldn't last for long before getting shredded by the flying rocks, and yet by staying near the capital ship and participating in the simple clean up duties, they are sacrificing their mobility and speed advantage, leaving them to be pick out one by one by Rydel who is sitting at a comfortable distance. It seemed like the leader also realized the predicament that his fighters are in, but not much were being done as Rydel easily took out all of the fighters on this side.

Finally, a squadron has appeared from the far side of the capital ship, taking a nose dive down to Rydel's level also and each watching each other's back by blasting away the rocks before any of them were hit. Then they started firing at Rydel with all of the rage and hatred. Unfortunately, the formations were less than useful since being close to each other also means they are easy targets for Rydel to also pick off, and if they are the less skilled pilots, then it would have changed nothing.

Quickly aligning his cannons, Rydel then rained down the fire towards the new challengers. To his surprise, from the moment Rydel opened fire, all four of the incoming fighters dived down beneath yet another layer of rocks, evading the attacks from Rydel's ship while remaining in perfect formation.

Now that's a pilot! Rydel can't help but be amazed at the execution of the moves. The few fighters tore through an opening at the lower levels by scattering their fire and clearing away some of the bigger rocks and finally scattered outwards to cover multiple directions before circling in and attempting to box Rydel inwards.

Good thinking. Rydel thought, as he pressed on and accelerated to go towards one of the fighters and attempted to force it back into the areas with densely packed rocks. The fighter avoided the lines of fire that could have ended broke through its shields, but wasn't careful enough to realize the kind of space ship fighting 3D chess that Rydel was playing and then couldn't evade in time to avoid getting rammed by one of the incoming rocks.

Right as Rydel turned his attention away from the very first fighter he took down, another two fighters have come around to both flanks of the cruiser and opened up fire in a desperate attempt to do as much damage as possible. Without a single thought, Rydel reached out with his left hand, and activated his artifact. The glove pulses yellow, and then it darkened into an orange as Rydel puts more intensity into the space bending. By timing the trajectory of the fighters on his left perfectly, he grabbed it away from his left, warping the space into a neat little bubble that traps that fighter in an endless void and released it on his right, placing that bubble of space right inline with the fighter coming from his right.

The curvature of spacetime was restored, and the two fighters realized that they are in a direct collision course and swerved to avoid each, but they are both going at such incredible speeds that the edges of their ships chipped with each other and sent them spiralling away uncontrollably before crashing them into incoming rocks.

Rydel could already feel the fear emanating from the pilots of the fourth fighter, and as he spun the cruiser yet around aggressively to face the last opponent, it seemed like it has given up on its task to take the cargo cruiser on steroids from behind and tried to run away as far as possible. Unfortunately, nobody with a weak shielding could get anywhere within the Chariot, at least nobody here is skilled enough to do so.

Suddenly, the proximity alerts of the ship began screaming as an energy beam stuck the cargo cruiser from above, completely rattling the ship and almost throwing Rydel out of the seat belts. It's the main capital cargo ship! Rydel quickly pushed the engines and moved the cruiser forwards in order to get some separation and hoping for the rocks can block some of the incoming fire. Once he got clear of the second shot, he switched on the peripheral thrusters and spun the cruiser around to face the the capital ship while still drifting to the side.

The main guns of the White Hawks capital ship was pointing right at him, and another shot was charged up. Rydel quickly scanned the environment both with his instruments and his eyes and ducked towards the nearest biggest rock, which was just smaller than the frames of his cruiser. The moment he went behind the cover, the shot was fired and the energy beam ripped the rocks apart, sending shards and pieces in all directions. Using this opportunity as cover, Rydel pulled his cruisers back and matched the velocity of the travelling rocks before turning the main engine off.

Without the main enigne giving off pulses of heat and energy, it would be a lot harder for the big capital ship to track the cruiser, but that also means that it would be a lot harder for Rydel to avoid all of the incoming rocks from all directions. One can only gain so much maneuverability from the peripheral thrusters, and Rydel still have to take out the remaining four light cruisers surrounding the capital ship.

Quickly thinking about his next steps, he stopped the forward momentum of his light cruiser until it stops when the capital ship is nearly out of range of his scanners, then he simply kept a constant speed and maintained the same distance with the capital ship using the peripheral thrusters. With his right hand inputting the commands into the ship's computer, his left hand is then focused on feeling the space around the ship and warping away any bigger rocks that came close enough.

It wasn't straining for him individually, and he was able to deflect quite a few of the rocks with the swipes of his hands, but as time goes on, the shear number of uses he has to do with his artifact becomes a bit overwhelming. He was a little fatigued, and stuffed an energy bar in his mouth while maintaining full concentration on the new task at hand. He can clearly feel the benefits of the physiological enhancements coming through when he uses his artifact. He can be more precise with his movements and actions, while elevating the ceiling of his power, improving overall accuracy and power at the same time.

Maybe I can use the artifact as a weapon? Rydel thought suddenly, as he slowed the speed of the cruiser down in order to match that of the capital ship, which began slowing down as it approaches their first mining site, just like before, grab, aim and throw?

Just like that, Rydel subtly moved the cruiser behind layers of rocks into a position where the four accompanying cruisers have scattered after the capital ship has touched down in order to begin the mining process. The nearest cruiser to him was still kilometers away, and it's busy clearing away any rocks that my go in the directions of the main ship.

With his left hand outreached once again, Rydel unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up. He felt for the space around him, feeling the prickly edges of the rock within his palm and picked a rock that felt like the size of a baseball in his hand, in reality it was probably around the size of his light cruiser. With his fist closed and that piece of rock engulfed in the warped bubble of space time, he adjusted the ship's tilt, aimed at the nearest cruiser and launched the rock away!

His newly gained power offered him so much more power in his throws that he almost thrown himself into the controls. Thankfully he propped himself up by pressing against the window, and when he looked up, he saw the rock travelling at a blistering speed towards the nearest cruiser, the release point was perfect, and the speed was more than he could ever ask for. But Rydel didn't expect the first rock to do all the damage, so he kept on searching around and repeating the same thing.

Moving rocks in space was slightly less in terms of effort as the only proportional force he has to apply would be used to give the objects momentum, rather than expending most of them to overcome gravity.

Not all of the rocks are aimed at the cruiser either, some of them were directed at the main ship, and a choice would be forced on the cruiser's hand, whether to save themselves or the capital ship. Not all of the rocks were able to travel in a staright line also, and quite a few of them ran into other rocks on the way and simply created more chaos. The cruisers tried their best, but still one of the giant rocks got through and rammed into the shields of the main capital ship, rattling everyone on that ship to their core.

Rydel could almost hear the screams of the men within that ship, and he tried not to think about it.

He simply moved around the perimeter and kept on creating such chaos, eventually, the first cruiser fell, being hit by a stray shard half its size and was cut cleanly in half after their shields finally gave in. It wasn't long before the other three were overwhelmed, but that wasn't before Rydel got quite exhausted from all the damage dealing and throwing, he could feel a sort of dull ache echoing in his shoulders, and the energy bars no longer providing him with much help.

It's time to up the anti. Rydel slipped one of his pocket open, and picked out a caffeine pill before slipping it in his mouth. The lemon and lime flavourings exploded within his mouth and gave him a refreshing shot of energy, and he could slowly feel himself getting more and more alert. A temporary measure, but it should be enough until the end of this plan.

With all of the light cruisers taken care of, All that's left for Rydel to deal with was the main capital ship. Knowing that the Wolf Pack wouldn't be happy with anything less than a near full haul, Rydel decided to give them some time to do their thing. The rocks would chip away at the shields at a decent speed, but not enough to do any critical damage if Rydel wasn't there to make things worse.

He estimated the time that would take for them to mine out near full haul of heavy metals would be about twenty minutes or so, and they are still well within the safe return zones, beyond which it would be near impossible to return to the Black Pegasus region in time.

Taking this precious down time, Rydel parked his very own cruiser near a comet that was scanned to be about twenty tons and focuses all of the shielding to the frontal side of the cruiser before descending down to the back of the ship. There was simply no time for him to set up the equipment, dig through layers of crusts and find those heavy metal lumps among layers and further lumps of rocks.

With the container set and ready, Rydel stood in the middle of the ship, tried to concentrate himself and continued pushing forward with the use of his artifact. It was rather liberating, that he get to use his artifacts as many times as he did today, and in as many different ways as he could. There was a small sense of rustiness for sure, but it wasn't mostly gone at this point in the game. As he touched the heavy metal sample and felt for the textures and it's weight, Rydel thought about what it would be like to summon a whole lump of it.

The first few things he did with the glove of summoning, was to pull out a lump of heavy metal from underneath the grounds of Athena 3 and throwing it towards Dolon, and it was quite interesting how everything also came back full circle.

With his eyes closed, and his left palm open and fingers outreached, he began to sense where within this gigantic rocks the heavy metal lumps lie, and once he felt the slightly spotty touch from one of the lumps, he then wrapped his finger around it and warped it out.

The lumps was the released and dropped into the gigantic container before a quick scan confirms that it was indeed the material that was expected, and it weights one ton. Now all he had to do is just to repeat the same, and it turns out the most difficult thing about this mining mission is never about the mining process itself, as he very quickly got himself all of the heavy metal he needed. The hardest thing would be to survive the entire process outside of the mining bit, and especially on the way back, which Rydel wasn't even thinking about just yet.

With cruiser now ten tons heavier and a lot harder to pilot, Rydel needed to be even more careful. As he moved out of the protections of the rock that he is on, he saw the White Hawk's capital ship also moving off at nearly the same time, the surfaces of the ship already quite severely dented as they redistributed their shields to only protect the most important part of their ship.

A single concentrated fire or a big rock toss might really be able to take it down, Rydel thought, but then it would have been pointless.

Right now, Rydel knew that he would benefit if he could travel in the wake of the giant capital ship, he would avoid most of the rocks as the giant ship would have been a perfect cover for him, though he still need to keep a safe distance just in case they turn around and fire at him.

But that's the beauty of everything that has happened so far, the chaos within the comet clusters means most if not all of any ship's energy should be dedicated towards the shielding, and despite the giant ship having a much larger energy and hence shield reserve than Rydel's smaller cruiser, it is also much bigger and has more areas to cover, and it is way more likely for any rocks to run into its sides, as evidented by the dents and piercings on the back sides of the ship. Rydel is now betting on the fact that the capital ship's condition is exact as how it looked from the outside, and what's left of this half of the White Hawk's forces would focus more on getting out of the clusters alive than getting rid of the tailing Rydel.

And they would think that they will be safe as long as the other half of the forces would come in their aid and get rid of the annoying pest that is Rydel for good. With that realization, Rydel quickly brought out the code that he and the Wolf Pack had agreed upon to communicate with each other with, and dialed it out.

It wasn't much waiting before their call is picked up, and to his surprise, it was the leader figure of the Wolf Pack that picked up his transmission.

'I presume your plan has gone exactly according to plan?' He asked, the voice containing a blend of mock and anticipation.

'If you were the ones doing your part in fighting off the White Hawks, then yes.' Rydel said, refusing to let anything slip through the way he talked, 'I have the Capital ship in sight, and I have rid it off all of its accompanying ships and fighters.'

'You know, that wasn't part of the deal.' The Wolf Pack's leader said with a hint of annoyance, though he is intrigued by how exactly Rydel managed to take down all the White Hawk's forces, 'I could very easily end the medical support on the girl, you know? I am sure the Black Wolf wouldn't mind.'

'How did you...'

'Oh come on now. I should have known better than to entangle with you Absolute Academy brats and whatever ridiculous tests the Great Grey Wolf have you do. The enhancements aren't exactly hidden in this region, despite how not many people actually gets it.' The leader continued on.

'Fine, whatever. It does not matter why we are here.' Rydel tried to brush off the leader's discovery and moved the topic to the one thing he knew he would be interested in, 'if you are able to get rid of the other half of the White Hawk's forces that's currently in their way to reinforce the capital ship, then you not only eliminate one of the rivals, but you also get a capital ship full of heavy metals and next to no resistance.'

'Once again, kid, that wasn't part of the deal. You said you would bring me the ship, and I will give you the girl.' The leader once again emphasized on the terms of arrangement, but Rydel knew that he would be somewhat satisfied with the current outcome, 'and your so-called rivalry was ironically made more pronounced thanks to you two.'

'The fact is, the ship is here, and I don't think you would pass on the opportunity.' Not denying the fact that both Valerie and himself messed up in this supposed test of skill and showed a ridiculous amount of recklessness and lack of respect for the people in the wild regions, it did take all of his skill in the end, including those that he learnt at the Absolute Academy, and those that he learnt before, to bring himself into this position, right now.

'...Send me their trajectory.' The leader waited for a few seconds, and then finally agreed, 'keep playing with fire like this, and you would find yourself hovering in the vacuum of space like one of those rocks.'

'Noted.'

The capital ship left the comet clusters with a minimal amount of shielding left within its reserves, only to find itself not surrounded by the other half of their forces, but by the ships that belonged to the Wolf Pack Company, and now the Aquarian gang members finally realized that the radio silence was in fact not as a result of interference, but rather total annihilation.

The ship eventually surrendered itself over without any resistance, and was boarded. Hundreds of tons of mined rocks were handed over to the smiling leader of the Wolf Pack Company, and as the occupying forces breached the bridge, the gang's leader was simply standing near the edge of his command post and staring out of the viewing screen and cursed at the light cargo cruiser that passed by. It made a slight turn, and picked up a small escape pod capsule into its haul.

Rydel couldn't believe that he actually pulled it off, despite how much he had to use his ultimate power. It is truly a test of skill, one that demands his total respect and commitment.

As a treated Valerie woke from the Aquarian healing beds, Rydel couldn't help but smile uncontrollably.

'What's....What's happening? Did I miss much?' Valerie asked, her voice weak and slightly broken.

'Well, let's just say we skillfully completed the task.' Rydel pushed the bed towards the back and showed her the containers, filled to the brim with the rocks, 'things worked out in the end.'

'What the...' Valerie simply couldn't believe what she is seeing, her gaze going back and forth between the container and Rydel's tired face as she tried to sit up and rubbed Rydel in the arms, 'how...this is incredible...'

'Yeah, now let's make sure we don't bite off more than we could chew next time.' Rydel yawned as all the built up fatigue began to catch up to him as he relaxed more and more, 'let's get this final hand off over and done with, shall we?'

Valerie nodded in agreement, and got herself out of the bed. Her wounds freshly sealed up, though it is painless if she managed her movements carefully, 'you go get some rest, I shall pilot this ship back to Wolfana, skillfully.'