Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Chapter 548 - 548 An Old Man’s Final Battle

Dalton grimaced while watching the aftermath of the trap he had painstakingly prepared.There were many that would have called him a madman for causing such destruction to the station he was meant to protect just to stop a few invaders, but he considered it a necessary evil to stop the invaders.

That was not the part that was causing him such distress. Had everything worked out as he wanted it to, then he would rejoiced even as he collapsed a large portion of seven levels of the base.

However, almost nothing had went as he planned right from the start.

The young girl with white hair that he reasoned was one of the leaders of the infiltrators, had some sort of tool on her that she had used to cut through portions of the station and appear in places she should not have been able to reach.

Her unrestrained antics had compromised the encirclement that Dalton had meticulous setup to keep the group of invaders locked down.

Ultimately, he lost far too many troops to her shoving grenades through the ceiling and the inability of the purist squads to stop her.

She had turned out to be far more capable than Dalton's original assessment, but her unexpected abilities was not the only reason that things had fallen apart.

Even after being surrounded and boxed into an unfavorable position, the group of infiltrators had held their ground with powerful portable shield generators and advanced weaponry.

Frankly, Dalton had found their level of equipment to be absurd.

Every one of them seemed to be wielding gear that would normally only be reserved for true elites. It made them tough to deal with and even individuals wearing heavy power armor had been forced to retreat fairly quickly from the onslaught.

The group's leader was the true problem though.

That man clearly had a great deal of experience, and his orders were nearly perfect from the small bit Dalton was able to see through the cameras some of his troops had equipped.

Eventually, they had been able to break through the encirclement, and Dalton had been forced to use the trap he had only meant as a last resort.

Luckily, this managed to work, as frankly, no sane person would ever expect the defenders of a base to cause so much damage to their own home.

Still, he had to sacrifice far more of his own fighters luring the invaders to where the correct location, and Dalton was able to tell from the video feed he had been watching at the time, that the man in charge had detected something off since he had suddenly ordered them to head in a different direction.

They had only been on the fringes of the collapsible area, but Dalton was not going to let everything so far go to waste.

He initiated the collapse and caught most of the enemies up in it even if he had needed to sacrifice some of his own men to do so.

After that he had sent his best squad down to finish off any stragglers that had survived, but it turned out that most of the infiltrators had made it through and their leader was basically unharmed.

This had frustrated Dalton to no end, but he was confident that his top fighters could deal with the man quickly.

Yet, the guy was equipped with obviously high-quality booster equipment and kept the seven members of the strike team running around and unable to kill him.

It should have only been a matter of time, but then the white haired girl and her helper arrived to throw another wrench in Dalton's plans.

He had thought that the team he had trained extensively and equipped with some of the best light power armor available in the Zatis Consortium would still be able to win.

Except, he had just watched the first one of his prized soldiers fall, and it was apparent that the others would be incapable of finishing the job.

"I had wanted to conserve my energy for later, but this truly might be my last battlefield." Dalton muttered, his lips turning up into a self-deprecating smile.

He ordered the two still fighting the girl to lure her over to his position so that he could innate an ambush.

Despite the fact that there was almost no chance of victory, he did not have any desire to give up.

Dalton knew he was getting old, and rather than continue to wither away doing mind-numbing security work, he preferred to go out fighting.

"I haven't felt this ache in a while."

At the connecting point where his metal limbs met flesh, there was a dull pain.

It served as a sort of sixth sense for Dalton, and he knew that whenever he felt it something dangerous was right around the corner.

For a few seconds, he was brought back to the battle where he had lost his arms and legs.

That had been over a hundred and eighty years ago now, when he was still just a young man fresh out of the officer's academy.

Back then he had been a part of the Zatis Consortium's military and fought in the war against the Dramid Alliance.

He had thought himself invincible at the time due to his training and the advanced physical augmentations that he had received.

Oh, how wrong he had been.

In only his third battle, he had found the ship he was stationed on overwhelmed.

Barbaric mercenaries had boarded the vessel like marauders and laid waste to everyone that they could find.

That was the first time that he had truly known fear, and Dalton still shuddered when he remembered the cold red eyes of the man that had cut him to pieces.

The only reason that he survived was because the man did not bother to finish the job and he was left to bleed out.

Before Dalton died, one of his friends found him, administered emergency treatment, and dragged him to one of the escape pods.

There's no doubt that it was a series of miracles that allowed him to survive.

He then was brought to the best medical faciality close to the frontlines and brought back to health.

The option to receive compensation and retire had been given to him due to his injuries, but Dalton insisted on receiving combat capable cybernetic limbs and rejoining the battle.

However, before he could be fully rehabilitated, the war was over.

It had been going on for so long at that point that both sides decided that it was costing too many resources and signed some sham treaties while each of them still wanted to stab the other in the back.

Of course, from Dalton's perspective, the war never truly ended. It was just scaled back for a while so that both sides could regather their strength to start it all over again.

That was evident by the current situation.

Dalton knew what the Odium Syndicate's goal was, and he had joined for that very reason.

He still hated the Dramid Alliance and their mercenary dogs.

'Hehe, I'm not even dying yet and I'm reminiscing about my life like this.' Dalton thought as he reached down and picked up the weapon sitting next to him.

It was not anything elaborate or all that special, just a giant hammer made out of ultra condensed metal that tough as hell.

Even in an age filled with advanced weaponry, hitting things really hard with an immense amount of force was still plenty effective.

Of course, Dalton had other tricks when he needed him. He had outfitted his cybernetic arms and legs with all kinds of equipment and weaponry.

He did not have to wait much longer before his loyal troops had brought his target over to where he was waiting.

Both of them were clearly in rough shape judging by the visible damage they had incurred.

One of them was missing a hand, while the other's helmet had been split open and a long gash ran down their face.

Dalton knew all too well how sharp hardlight weaponry was, so their wounds were to be expected. Truthfully, Dalton was surprised that they were not worse.

Soon, the girl was right around where he wanted to her be, so he jumped from the highest level where the giant hole in the station began and descended towards Liesel like a falling meteor.

It was far from an elaborate attack, but sometimes simple was the best way to go.

Until Dalton was almost right on top of her, Liesel did not notice his approach.

She had been preoccupied with the other two fighters, and he had attacked from a position outside of her line of sight.

Only thanks to her hearing did she notice the sound of something falling towards her. Allowing her to jump out of the way at the last second.

Dalton crashed down with a tremendous impact as he slammed into the spot Liesel had been standing just a moment before.

He was frustrated that he had missed his opening attack. His hope was to crush the girl in one go and then go and deal with the man flying around giving his elite troops trouble.

Nevertheless, he had at least sent a spray of debris flying in every direction, and Liesel's personal shield had already hit its limits earlier in the fight and she ended up blown back by a spray of objects that crashed into her.

A normal person would have ended up with several broken bones from this, and maybe some ruptured organs.

But Liesel just stood back up and casually wiped the dust off herself without any sign of visible injuries.

Naturally, her gaze was drawn to the man that had just tried to kill her, and that was when Dalton saw her eyes.

Immediately, his fury erupted as he got a good look at her for the first time and saw the resemblance. He now knew exactly who was attacking this station.

"KAIZER!" Dalton yelled at the top of his lungs.

A rage that had been building inside of him for nearly two centuries erupted, and he rushed the young woman with reckless abandon.