Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Chapter 551 - 551 Liesel Vs Dalton (3)

Liesel swung her sickle at the first laser streaking towards her and deflected it.With her one good arm and leg, she moved as quickly as she could to avoid and block the barrage that Dalton was firing at her.

Eventually, she failed to intercept a blast in time, and it hit her square in the chest.

She felt a small spike of pain, but her armor and enhanced body absorbed the hit so it only did minor damage to her.

The real problem was that she was losing her balance and falling over.

This left her in a precarious position where she would be unable to dodge or block.

Knowing she would not be able to stop herself from falling, Liesel immediately made the decision to throw her weapon at Dalton.

That was the only thing she could think of in the moment to prevent herself from being overwhelmed by laser fire.

By the time that her sickle started flying, Dalton had already gotten off two more shots at her.

The first, her sickle carved through and deflected, but the second raced towards her and hit Liesel on her left shoulder.

Pain erupted in her arm, more from the movement of the impact shaking up her broken bones than from the damage done by the laser itself.

Fortunately, no more blasts came her way while she fell over, as Dalton had something else to worry about.

Liesel's sickle flew towards him rapidly, and he was forced to move on his one working cybernetic leg.

He had an easier time than Liesel since his malfunctioning leg could still bear weight, but his movements were far more labored than before.

Still, Dalton did not have any problems getting out of the way in time to avoid the weapon, and once he did, his laser rifle was aimed back towards where Liesel had been to finish her off.

Except, he did not find her.

In the very brief time that she had, Liesel had dragged herself over to a raised pile of rubble and hid behind it.

Her breathing was heavy and she winced from the exertion, but she had managed to get behind cover.

'Where the f*ck is Avery? I take it back; I don't need to do this by myself.' Liesel though, her confidence having waned now that her condition was unfavorable.

At first, she had wanted to take on this challenge and crush the enemies that had ambushed them as a way to prove herself, but her feeling on the matter were changing with he state of the battle.

Their communications were still being jammed, but she figured that Avery, or Jasmien would have noticed and sent aid.

Yet, no one else had shown up so far, and Liesel felt that it had been long enough already.

The only thing that she figured could delay backup from coming to offer assistance was if the others were dealing with a crisis of their own.

Pondering this certainly did not help her mental state in the moment, so Liesel pushed it out of her mind.

Everyone else was stronger than she was, so there was no real need for her to be worrying about them right now.

'Especially with that vindictive hammer wielding lunatic trying to kill me for some grudge against my family. I wasn't even born yet whenever what happened to him occurred. Why is he trying to take it out on me?'

Of course, Liesel knew that her internal griping was not going to get her anywhere, and the animosity Dalton had towards her was not rooted in any sort of logic.

Her attention as better spent figuring out a way to win this battle, so her mind started racing with possibilities.

While she thought, her one good hand moved to a pouch on her belt and grabbed a handful of nanomachine medicine.

She already had the implant inside of her going to work, but some extra healing would not hurt.

The soothing feeling that came with ingesting the pills numbed the pain more, and that helped to lessen a major distraction.

A couple seconds later, she heard blasting being fired in her general area and the rubble she was behind began to shake.

It seemed that Dalton had figured out her general location and was trying to lay waste tot eh area.

Likely the only reason he had not already closed in on her was his own mobility issues. Moving on only a single leg while being down an arm was not easy.

'I now have a good grasp of where he is. Let's see how he likes this.'

Liesel grabbed one of two laser grenades that she had left, and tossed it over the mound of rubble she was hiding behind.

It flew in Dalton's direction, and she could hear the man cursing as he dealt with the incoming weapon.

Liesel was under no illusion that the attack would kill her opponent.

She doubted it would be enough to catch someone like him off guard even in his current state, though she would have been happy to be proven wrong.

Unfortunately, after the blast from the grenade went off, she heard more lasers being fired at her temporary shelter.

Liesel was prepared to hastily move and counterattack if Dalton attempted to throw a grenade her way as a means of reprisal, but he seemed content to keep shooting until he got through the rubble she was hiding behind.

'He's playing it safe and not giving me an opening to fight back. For all of his anger towards my family, he has kept a surprisingly cool head. I wish he would just do something reckless that I could exploit.'

Dalton had her pinned down, and he was not letting up on his attacks.

If Liesel still had her personal shield generator working, she could have absorbed a few attacks without worry, but the piece of equipment had run out of capacity a while ago.

The fight against the three skilled fighters before Dalton showed himself had worn her down and left her in a less-than-ideal state to fight someone so capable.

Her armor was not going to be doing much in the way of help now either.

She had used it to block a number of this already, and it was starting to fall apart.

There were too many vulnerabilities, and if she got hit in the wrong place now, it would do serious damage to her.

There was a possibility someone else might come by to help, but she could not hold out for that.

Other battles were still ongoing throughout the area.

Burke and Casey were dealing with their opponents, while the other members of their squads that had dug themselves out of the rubble were engaged with the remnants of Dalton's forces.

'Ugh, this is really going to hurt. Once this is all over, I'm going to be in need of a long visit to the medbay.' Liesel thought as she forced herself up.

The few seconds she had spent recovering had helped with her injuries, but what she was going to do next was bound to reverse her recovery and cause even more damage.

Before she enacted her reckless plan, she threw her last grenade over towards Dalton.

This was more to control his movements rather than to potentially hurt him. She knew that was unlikely.

Gritting her teeth and pushing herself through the pain, she slammed herself into the weakened barricade of debris she had been using to protect herself.

Most if it broke apart, but she kept some of it together grabbing chucks with both of her arms.

Her left arm hurt like crazy, but she endured thanks to the hard work of the medical nanomachines in her system.

Dalton had only just managed to evade the grenade she had thrown a few seconds ago and was off balance when Liesel started to charge him.

Every step sent waves of agony up her burned leg, but she forced it to move.

"Just die already!" Liesel heard Dalton scream.

He started blasting at her with his laser rifle, and the rubble she was using as a shield was quickly blown apart.

At the last moment she tossed the last of a piece of metal she was holding at him, but it was blasted out of the air before it reached.

Still, Liesel had closed the gap between them so that she was now less than three meters away.

Dalton looked frustrated by her resistance but assured of his victory as he pulled the trigger on his weapon.

He knew that Liesel was not in any state to dodge, and any bursts of movement she managed chipped away at her strength. Soon he would be able to finish her off.

Before the shot fired however, Liesel's hardlight buckler sprung to life.

During her time behind the mound of rubble, she had switched it to her good arm. She was not as practiced with it using her right hand, but she felt certain she could block enough shots at this distance to reach Dalton and kill him.

Each blast became harder for Liesel to block as Dalton became more frenzied the closer she got.

Even with her best efforts, she was unable to deflect them all, and one hit her in her good leg, while another hit her where her armor was already weakened and burned a hole in her side.

Nevertheless, Liesel did not stop, and when she was finally upon Dalton, she swung her shield with every bit of strength she had left.

Dalton met the attack with his remaining cybernetic arm.

He attempted to stop its momentum by gripping ahold of the flat part of the shield. And had Liesel been any weaker, he probably would have succeeded.

Her augmented muscles pushed through though, and the sharp edge of the buckler sliced right through the mechanical hand.

Without stopping, she jammed the hardlight construct into Dalton's chest and buried it as deeply as she could.

This wound was far more grievous than the previous one she had inflicted, and there was no doubt in Liesel's mind that it was going to be fatal.

Blood started gushing out of the man's chest, and it would not be long before he bled out.

Not dead yet though, he fixed Liesel with a glare and choked out some last words.

"What… is… your… relation… to… Matthias… Kaizer?"

Liesel was baffled by the sudden question about the current leader of the Kaizer Fleet, but she went ahead and answered the dying man.

"He's my grandfather."

"I… See. Then I can find some solace in knowing I deprived him of one of his grandchildren before passing on." Dalton said, his bloody lips curling up into a devilish smile.