Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Avery and Kasandra left Storren Corp.'s headquarters now that their business there had been taken care of.

With them now, there were three employees of the company that were taking them to the hangar where Kasandra's vessel was waiting.

It had arrived during the midst of the competition, so she had not been able to take it into her custody any earlier.

'She's really excited about this. I guess I can understand. She's been working as my copilot for a while now, but she spent several years flying her own craft. I'm sure she wants to familiarize herself with her new ship and get behind the controls again.' Avery thought as he observed Kasandra for a few seconds.

There was an obvious pep in her step, and she was wearing a bright smile.

It had been several months since the two of them had ordered this vessel together, and now it was finally ready.

A lot had happened during that time.

Back then it had just been the two of them, but now the force that Avery commanded had grown by leaps and bounds. And over the next few months they would be increasing their numbers further.

Once they reached the designated hangar the ship was waiting in, Kasandra recognized it right away from all the time she had stared at a holo-display of it.

Immediately she ran right over to it and began examining its exterior.

The paint job was far more eye-catching than that over Avery's Dauntless and Ezra's Specter which were a single solid color that was darker to help blend in with the typical surroundings of space.

For Kasandra's ship, she wanted it to look imposing and put fear into the people that saw it.

To that end, its main color was a bright gold that had accents of red and black. Apparently, this was a similar coloration to a very dangerous creature that lived on the planet she and Kaiden had come from. Though, Avery had only found this out recently.

The main shape of the craft was a common type.

From the front to around seventy percent of the length resembled roughly curvilinear triangle that expanded gradually from the front to back.

However, the end of the vessel became a bit boxier to house its powerful main thrusters.

Attached to the front of the rectangular protrusions on either side of the ship were two long and menacing barrels.

At a glance it was clear that these were the craft's main weapons, and Avery knew exactly what they were and what they were capable of.

'They really did not hold back. You would not normally see those attached to only a medium sized vessel like this. I think that they are typically used on at least destroyer class ships.'

For Kasandra's main weapons, she had wanted the most power pulse lasers that could be equipped.

That had seen her craft being outfitted with two Sundrast M6 A4 heavy pulse lasers. Also known as "Duster" since the weapon tended to reduce whatever ever it hit into space dust.

The only reason that Kasandra's vessel was able to utilize them was thanks to its impeccable main generator.

Ardesen had really outdone himself on its construction.

Incorporating the energy lifeform cores that Avery had handed over to give the craft far more power than other ships of a comparable size.

Its main generator's output was apparently exceeded even the Dauntless' by a slight margin due to being a bit larger.

Considering that Storren Corp. had spared no expenses when designing the ship they wished to sell to the Alliance Police, this was quite remarkable.

'Well, it if I hadn't made deals for credit and provided the energy lifeform cores, it easily could have cost somewhere between twenty-seven million and twenty-eight million Krenin. For that price, it's to be expected that a medium class vessel would be this good.' Avery thought as he watched Kasandra running around the ship and inspecting it gleefully.

It was just barely longer than eighty meters in length, around thirty-seven meters at its widest point, and pretty much uniformly ten meters tall with only some slight variations in a few places.

There was only one deck as was common on small and medium class vessels. Having more than one would have put too much of a constraint on the size and placement of internal systems, and for a craft that was meant to only have a single person piloting it, this was more than enough.

"I'm assuming that you like it. Seeing ecstatic you look."

"Of course I do. It's perfect. I never thought that I'd have such a fine vessel for myself. I liked my last one, but I think that I'm going to love this one." Kasandra said, rubbing her hand over the smooth outer hull.

When she was satisfied with the external inspection, the Storren Corp. employees opened up the main hatch and a ramp decided to allow access into the ship.

The first thing that they did once inside was head to the cockpit.

Though Kasandra would be the one solely piloting it, there were five other stations for people to sit at other than the main pilot's seat.

'This setup is pretty similar to the Dauntless'. But I suppose that's to be expected since they were designed by the same company.' Avery thought as he glanced around.

Fortunately, this would make Kasandra's transition over to her new craft easier.

There were some differences in the controls, but quite a lot of it was already familiar to her thanks to the practice she had put in during her time as the Dauntless' copilot.

After the biometric authentication was finished and ownership of the ship had been fully transferred over to Avery and Kasandra, the Storren Corp. employees took their leave.

With their work completed, there was no need to stick around any longer. And remembering how enamored Kasandra had been when merely inspecting the exterior, they figured that they would be stuck there for hours if they waited for her to assess the entire interior.

"All the diagnostic show that everything is working as intended. Though, I didn't expect anything else seeing as how this is a brand-new ship." Kasandra said, a near blindingly bright smile on her face.

Despite having already looked through the weapon, propulsion, and defensive systems specs several times already, she was still going over them and occasionally giggling in glee.

She now had a lot of power that she could command at her fingertips.

"I'm glad you like it. With this, we've taken another step closer to becoming one of the top mercenary companies in the Dramid Alliance."

"That's certainly true. There probably aren't many mercenaries with a ship as fine as this one. And we've got multiple in our group that are comparable to it. Once your carrier is finished being built, we truly will be a force to reckoned with." Kasandra said, her gaze seeming to be looking into the far-off future.

Once Kasandra was finally satisfied with sitting in the pilot's chair and looking over the vessel's systems, the two of them left the cockpit to examine the rest of the interior.

The door closest to the cockpit led directly into the main bedroom.

Compared to the Dauntless' captain's quarters which Avery used, Kasandra's room on this ship was around two and a half times larger.

Just being a bigger craft allowed for more room, and the only other bedroom was a small guest quarters just in case anyone else ever stayed on the vessel.

As for Kasandra bedroom, currently the only visible furniture was a large and luxurious bed up against the opposite wall from the door.

For everything else, things like nightstands and dressers had been stored in compartments in the walls that could be brought out and stored whenever Kasandra wanted.

Right now, the room was mostly bare since Kasandra planned on moving most of her stuff from her room in the Dauntless.

However, she planned to leave her current bed and a few of her belongs there.

Avery wanted her to feel welcome to come back whenever she wanted and promised that her room onboard the Dauntless would always be hers.

"I see that you've already obtained a new bedspread of Othuhiri Silk. Just from the feel, I think that it might be softer than even what we currently have." Avery said, patting the sheets and blankets sitting on top of the bed.

"Yeah, is set the order up during the downtime we had after Katarina made a mess of the competition. I figured that I might as well do something with all of the money I've earned since joining up with you. These are the absolute best quality produced in the Dramid Alliance. So, it would be a shame if we didn't enjoy them."

Suddenly Kasandra pushed Avery down on the bed and got on top of him.

Naturally, he could have reacted in time to stop her if he wanted, but there was obviously no reason to do so. He was perfectly fine with this sort of "attack".

As Avery stared up at Kasandra's face, he could see a lustful gleam in her eyes.

It had been a few days since they had last had some intimate time together.

"I figured that you would want to see the rest of the ship first before doing something like this. Are you sure you don't want to put this off a little longer?" Avery whispered into Kasandra's ear.

Except, his words and actions did not match each other.

He had already skillfully begun takign her clothes off with his hands. His intentions we're merely just to tease her a bit since she had so abruptly pinned him down.

"No, I was promised a reward for my hard work, so I'll be collecting it right now."

With those final words, Kasandra locked lips with Avery and the two of them gave into their passion for each other.