Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

"Those terms are agreeable. I accept."

Once Avery had finished negotiating with the Alliance Police officer in charge, he had gotten most of what he wanted.

In return for his efforts and turning over one of the main perpetrators behind this audacious thievery, ownership of two of the three corvette class vessels he had disabled with his phasic torpedo would be handed over to him.

Only after the Alliance Police finished a thorough investigation and removed any illicit items onboard though.

Of course, he had really wanted all three of them and the enemy command ship, but some concessions were necessary.

Technically, Avery had not fully taken over the vessels since the crews were still aboard and would doubtlessly offer some resistance.

The Alliance Police were the ones that were going to have to board all of them and detain everyone so that the ships could be impounded.

Still, Avery and Liesel were going to receive a hefty award for disabling the lead vessel in lieu of gaining ownership of it.

From the commander's demeanor, Avery could tell that the man was not going to let something so valuable go, but he also did not want two upper ranking and influential mercenaries causing a fuss because they felt cheated. Hence why a compromise of a monetary reward was decided on.

"Please dock with my ship immediately. We'll take the prisoner off of your hands." The commander said before cutting off communications.

Now that everything was almost wrapped up, Avery let out a sigh that released all of his tension and leaned back in his chair.

The final event of the coemption had turned out to be far more exciting than originally expected. Although, not in a particularly good way.

Avery may have come out with a number of rewards, but the same could not be said for everyone.

Multiple people had been abducted, and four advanced vessels stolen.

It was unclear right now if the corporations that Atlas and Jack Huxley had been representing were in on their plans to turn traitor, or if they were just more victims. Either way, there were going to be some major consequences.

"I wonder how they're going to choose a winner now?" Avery said absentmindedly.

Originally, this competition was supposed to have featured vessels from the top ten shipbuilding corporations in the Dramid Alliance.

That number had then been shaved down to nine because of the mimic strexnoid incident perpetrated by Snyder Heavy Industries and had been reduced down further to eight when Katarina had attempted to kidnap Nianni Taador.

Now there were only four of them left, and there was no doubt in Avery's mind that the competition would not be continuing.

There was far too much controversy around it at this point to go on.

With so many traitors involved and an abject failure by the Alliance Police to keep people safe, it was likely that the day's events would be mostly hidden from the public if it was possible to do so.

They would come up with a different story. Most likely stating that some sort of catastrophic accident had occurred.

"We've finished docking. Do you want to stay here and rest? I can deliver Clarien by myself." Kasandra said, glancing down at Avery's arms momentarily.

"Nah, it's fine. I'm the captain so this is something I need to do. And I've already mostly recovered already. That special organ Dr. Raiti created works wonders."

The two of them got up from their seats and headed to the medical bay.

There they found Clarien still unconscious inside the medical pod in a comatose state.

However, only a few seconds after they opened the pod to retrieve him, his bloodshot eyes shot open, and he lunged at them.

One of his implants had been pumping his body with adrenaline to try and counteract the anesthetic agent that was keeping him unconscious.

It had not quite been able to wake him up while he was still in the pod, but once he was outside, he woke up nearly immediately.

With an impeccable surge of strength, he shoved Kasandra away and into the wall behind her.

The force was so strong that it left a dent and knocked the air out of Kasandra.

After that, he tried to attack Avery as well, but his element of surprise had already been spent.

Avery landed a heavy kick on the man's torso and slammed him back into the medical pod.

"We already beat you, so just stay down already." Avery said as he pulled out his laser pistol and fired.

Having so much adrenaline coursing through him, it took several well-placed blasts to finally stop Clarien.

In the end, Avery had to render him fully immobile by shooting through specific muscles and tendons in his arms and legs.

"Are you okay, Kasandra?"

"Yeah, just a little shaken up. Didn't expect that."

Clarien's final resistance had come to an end, and the man lay on the ground in a daze from getting thoroughly thrashed and having copious amounts of drugs and endorphins coursing through his system.

Quickly, Avery and Kasandra tied the man up and headed over towards the air lock.

On the other side, there were nearly twenty heavily armed Alliance Police officers waiting to receive their new prisoner.

"He's not an easy one to contain. He has over a dozen implants in his body, and he is very strong. Don't underestimate him even in this state."

"We're the Alliance Police. We know how to handle situations like this." The officer in charge said, not seeming to care about Avery's warning and acting dismissive of him.

"Well, he's all yours now, so do whatever you want."

Avery then closed the air lock door and detached the Dauntless from the Alliance Police vessel.

While there would still be more follow-up interviews and other small things to take care of, at least for now, everything was finished.

"I'm going to go take a shower. Do you mind holding things down for me?"

"Sure, but I will be expected to be personally rewarded for my hard work later. I put in a lot of effort today after all." Kasandra said with a lascivious wink and smile.

After agreeing to do whatever she wanted, Avery headed to his quarters and took a far longer shower than he normally would have.

The purpose was more to relax rather than just to clean himself.

When he got out, he was feeling refreshed and headed to the cockpit to tell Kasandra that she could clean up if she wanted to.

However, though she had been in a good mood when they parted, there was now a visible frown on her face now.

"Did something happen?" Avery asked, with concern.

"Yeah. It's nothing major, but Liesel said that she wants to meet up to discuss something. She says that you owe it to her to listen to one of her requests after roping her into our plan."

Avery pursued his lips together upon hearing this, but he did not give any pushback.

Considering the difficult position, he had put Liesel in so that they could infiltrate the enemy command ship, he really did have a debt that he needed to repay her for.

"We'll just have to hope she doesn't want to ask for much. Maybe she just wants one of the corvettes we managed to obtain. Honestly, I wouldn't mind giving one to her if that's all it took to appease her." Avery said, his relaxation from the shower fading quickly as he thought about what was on his plate going forward.

There were at least four difficult meetings ahead of him in the near future.

The competition organizers were certain to call in the remaining four competitors to come to a conclusion about how things would be settled.

No doubt Storren Corp. was going to want to talk to him in light of the events. There was a good chance that a lot of their effort was going to go to waste if the entire competition became null and void.

After that there were two more personal meeting Avery had to see to. One with Nianni Taador, and now another with Liesel.

"We've received instruction from the Alliance Police. We'll be heading back to the designated competition hangar and be allowed to rest until tomorrow. Early in the morning, we going to have to sit through some interviews."

This was expected, so Avery merely accepted it.

Yet, he did have one request to make.

The Dauntless had taken some internal damage so it was not currently in a fully habitable shape.

With the waste management system breached, it was impossible to dispose of any garbage that piled up.

Avery had been able to take a shower since the water management system was separate, but it would make life a bit less comfortable if they could not get the internal systems fixed.

"Looks like they'll allow us to stop by a Storren Corp. facility for repairs." Kasandra said after receiving a brief response to their request.

"Got it. Set in the coordinates to the largest one in the capital system. I'm ready to put this behind us."