Now that the opening ceremony had been concluded and all of the participating vessels had been introduced, Avery busied himself looking over what information could be found on his competition.
He had already watched the three that came after him carefully during the live broadcast, and checked out Ravasz Dynamic’s entrant briefly, but there were still others that required his attention.
This contract was worth a lot to the winner, and Avery had every intention of giving it his all since he had already made a deal. Plus, he had been promised a bonus if Storren Corp. were the ones that the Alliance Police chose. An extra incentive to make sure that he performed at his best.
"This is going to be tough. I hate to say it, but I’ve gotten used to having the better ship whenever we’ve engaged in any battles, but this time we’re up against vessel of comparable specs." Avery said, scratching his cheek nervously as he reviewed the opening display videos.
While he did not have a detailed list of his competitions’ capabilities, he could tell just from the few minutes that were recorded of them flying around that each of the other corporations’ vessels were going to be formidable to go up against.
Of course, it was not just the ships themselves, but also their pilots that were impressive.
Avery likely had less experience than any of the others, but he was still at a pretty high level thanks to his intensive training with Urs, and the experience he had built up during his eventful time as a mercenary.
That meant that he was capable of at least gauging the relative ability of his opponents and all of them were experts for sure.
No matter how good a ship’s flight assistance systems were, there was only so much they could do.
For vessels that were all fairly complicated considering the advanced equipment installed on them, it was imperative that someone with the correct capabilities was behind the controls to get the most out of them.
It was a well-known fact that the higher peak performance a ship had, the more skilled a pilot needed to be to bring out its full potential. Put an inexperienced person behind the controls and they would make the craft seem underwhelming compared to what its specs would suggest.
In some ways Avery understood this very well. He could still vividly remember his first fight using the Dauntless and how amateurish he had been back then.
Had he been at the same level he was at now, he could have easily destroyed those four pirates before they were even able to get a single shot off. Yet his inexperience at the time had allowed one of them to crash into him despite the overwhelming difference in the quality of their spacecraft.
’Well, I can’t undersell myself now. I may not have been at this for all that long, but I trained like hell, and I’ve gotten into some tight situation that really pushed me. I think I should be good enough to hold my own at least.’
Avery still did not know the identities of the other pilots, and he was not going to get to for at least two days.
Considering that this entire competition was being turned into a spectacle, so was the reveal of those tasked with participating.
Perhaps someone on the managing committee thought that it would be a good idea to save the identities of the pilots to create some sort of mystery that kept people hooked.
If everything was shown on day one, there would be plenty of people that would lose interest.
However, there was now something for everyone to look forward to later.
For the first day, the ships of each participating corporation had been introduced, and on the third, the pilots that they had each hired would be revealed.
As much as this was an event to decide which ship the Alliance Police would be adopting into its service, it was also a show meant to entertain the people of the Dramid Alliance and for the advertisement of the nine companies fighting it out for the major contract.
"Ah, looks like they just sent us the details for the first competition." Kasandra said, noticing the notification for a recently received transmission.
To prevent any preparation ahead of schedule, or more importantly, any modifications of the vessels, the event director and their team kept the details of events hidden until just a few hours beforehand.
Right now, the focus was still on the opening ceremony and opinions of different experts being broadcast by each network covering the events.
The analysis currently being brought up was mostly just speculation based on what was shown at the opening ceremony, and Avery was a bit amused by how wrong some of them were in assessing the Dauntless.
Naturally he knew his own ship well, and when they said wildly off the mark things about it, he could not help but chuckle.
"They think that we’re just a ship focusing fully on speed from the way you flew around during the opening. I know that maneuverability and the power of the Dauntless’ thrusters are what we showed off, but to think that they’d be this much off the mark. You mostly used the plasma launchers, and fired the scatterguns once, but you think they would have noticed the lack of forward weapon systems and found that odd. Stating that this is a fast but lacking in firepower ship, they have no idea." Kasandra said, getting a kick out of the incorrect analysis herself.
While Avery had now turned his attention to the first part of the competition, she was still merely enjoying herself.
After looking at what the first event would be, Kasandra had understood that there was going to be little to no need for her to get involved.
Considering that it was the first day and the opening ceremony had already occurred, the first contest was going to be a bit lackluster, though still exciting enough to hold people’s attention.
’An obstacle race, huh. I guess that they want to continue showing off how fast each ship can move and their responsiveness to sudden obstructions.’ Avery thought while looking over the details of the starting match.
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