Panic set in quickly as Avery assessed the data displayed on the monitor in front of him. He had done a thorough scan of the four incoming ships and found that two of them had bounties on them. Without a doubt, a small pack of space pirates were coming his way.
Avery cursed rapidly as he hastily input several commands into his control console and took manual control over his ship.
As much as it pained him to do so, he had to abandon the mining drill and one of his collection drones. Waiting around for either of them would cost him time he did not have. Every second brought the space pirates closer to him.
"This is why I try to avoid places that are too good to be true. Damn it! I should have listened to my first instincts instead of getting greedy."
Unfortunately, Avery's regrets were not going to change the situation. He had begun salvaging the area despite knowing the risks, and now he was having to pay for it.
Pushing his ship to its limits, he navigated through the asteroid field and attempted to lose his four pursuers.
The space pirates, though, possessed faster ships than his and they were more familiar with this area than Avery was. It was only a matter of time before they caught up to him.
"Hehe. Look what we have here boys. A little buzzard was slinking around trying to make off with some loot. But this is our score. We'll have to teach him a lesson for taking what ain't his."
"Yeah, I can't wait to hear his last scream as his ship explodes."
"Wait, he's riding in a piece of junk. Probably be easy to disable it and take him back to base. If he's cute, I wouldn't mind playing around with him for a bit."
"Enough with your strange fetishes. Let's just blow him away and get back to work. The boss will be livid if we take too long."
Avery heard every word the space pirates said over wideband communications. Space pirates were known for using this method to taunt people and drive them further into despair. They especially got a sick kick out of it when people begged for mercy.
Of course, Avery refused respond to their tormenting, and instead focused on how to get out of this situation alive.
He knew that fighting was out of the question. Even if he was only up against a single ship, he would still be horribly outgunned. His vessel only had a single thirty-year-old, class one pulse laser as far as weapons went. It was as weak of a weapon as they came and only really useful for blasting away things his collection drones could not move on their own.
Still, this was not the first time Avery had been chased by space pirates. He had a few tricks up his sleeves that he had used numerous times in the past to stay alive.
First, he activated his long-range sensors to scan for any Alliance Police or mercenary vessels nearby. If he led the space pirates to either of these types, they would typically engage the pirates immediately. For the mercenaries they would want to collect the bounties, and the Federation Police were duty bound to clean up space pirates.
"No dice huh." Avery muttered bitterly.
His scans did not detect any other vessels in range. The only ones out here with him were the four space pirates that would soon have him in weapons range.
He was a bit hesitant to deploy his other defensive measures since they were quite costly, but when an asteroid in front of him exploding from being hit by the pirates' weapons, he knew now was not the time to worry about money.
After hitting a few keys on his control panel, a compartment on the back of his ship slid open and several small orbs flew out of it.
Each of these little orbs was a decoy beacon that would emit a signal that was nearly identical to his ship's. It would make it far more difficult for the pirates to lock onto him with automatic targeting and give him a bit of breathing room while he looked for an escape route.
Nevertheless, the decoys were far from foolproof. High-end scanners could see through them, and anyone that was an especially good shot could activate manual targeting instead and aim for his ship that way.
Thankfully, these pirates did not have any advanced scanners nor were they expert marksmen. Most of their shots either hit the decoys or went wide when they attempted to target Avery's ship directly.
"Come on, there has to be something I can do."
Avery was hastily checking his sensors' data to find something that would get him out of his current mess. The decoy beacons had bought him a little time, but once they were all destroyed, he would be in trouble.
Eventually he came across a certain celestial body that might be able to help him out.
However, it was a good distance outside of the asteroid field and making his way towards it would leave him a sitting duck without out any cover in open space.
Then there was the risk involved in the maneuver he was planning on performing. He had heard from a passing trader at a bar once about how they had used this trick to avoid some pirates, but it was pretty dangerous.
"I'd rather die messing up then just waiting around to get shot down." Avery grumbled as he turned his ship towards his only real hope.
Pushing his thruster to full speed, he shot out of the asteroid belt and made a beeline for a large comet that was passing nearby.
It did not take long for the pirates to notice him fleeing, and they ignored the rest of his decoy beacons and shot after him.
Avery carefully watched his radar for the pirates coming up behind him and continually glanced in front of him at the comet flying through open space. He needed to time things perfectly or his attempt to fool the pirates was not going to work.
Yet before he was close enough to enact his plan, his ship's computer blared with a warning before the entire vessel shook violently.
"Damn it!" Avery yelled as he felt another blast hit his ship.
The pirates had closed in on him again, and without any cover, he was an easy target for them to shoot at.
With just two hits from their weapons, his weak shields had already been depleted by over sixty percent. He would likely only survive one or two more blasts at most before he was turned into space debris.
"We've got him on the run now boys. Let's hurry up and finish him off so we can get back to collecting the loot from our earlier raid."
"Although, if he wants to surrender peacefully, I might just let him live as my pet for a while."
"Dude! You seriously need to get your mind out of the gutter when we are out on a mission. This guy has annoyed me enough that I won't be satisfied until I see his ship explode in a giant ball of fire."
"Just shut up and blast him. I'm tired of playing tag with him."
Again, the pirates sent their communications out for all to hear to shake up Avery. Unlike last time though, he really was starting to panic. He had been in tight situations before where his life was on the line, but this was definitely the closest to death he had found himself.
Another laser blast hit his ship, and it rocked violently from the impact.
Avery's shields were completely spent now, and all he had left was the light armor around his hull that would almost certainly fail to protect him.
"It will have to be close enough."
Before another shot hit him, he deployed the rest of the decoy beacons he had onboard.
This saved him from instant death as several lasers collided with the small robots and took the attacks meant for him.
A moment later he heard complaints and all manner of rude remarks from the pirates, but he ignored them.
Pressing another button on the console, Avery launched a larger spherical device out of his ship and towards the pirates.
Once it had flown through space for three seconds, it grew bright and erupted in a giant flash of light.
"Gah! The bastard just used a flash mine!" One of the pirates angrily yelled over the comms.
Now that the decoy beacons were masking his location from sensors and his flash bomb had made it impossible to get a visual on him, Avery gunned it towards the nearby comet.
Getting in front of the giant mass of ice and rock, he swiftly deployed his landing gear and steered his ship onto the comet.
This was a crazy dangerous maneuver as a single misstep would see him getting crushed or having his landing gear ripped off and flung away into open space.
"Come on! Catch already!" Avery shouted as his landing gear skidded across the ice.
Luckily, he eventually dug into the ice and his ship came to a stop. He had managed to successfully land on the comet and was hitching a ride with it.
This was not the end of what he had to do, though. To prevent himself from being picked up by the pirates' sensors, he had to completely power off his ship and activate the emergency cooling system to mask any signature that could be detected.
Almost immediately he felt the biting chill as his life-support system was cut off. He could not leave a single system running if he hoped to lose the pirates.