Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Hearing the name Strozen brought back memories of Avery's meeting with Dorris and Ardesen.

The two of them had mentioned that a man by that name was heading a faction within Storren Corp. that would rather take back the Dauntless by any means rather than make a deal with Avery.

He had figured that such clearly illegal plans would have died out by now thanks to coming to an agreement with two of the corporation's top officers and having retained a beneficial partnership with them since.

Except, from the intelligence that Sarkych had collected, it seemed that Strozen was still pushing for the recovery of the Dauntless even if it came at Avery's downfall.

"I'm sure that you can understand the precariousness of the situation. Unlike with Snyder Heavy Industries, and Iniquus' family, the Mercenary Association cannot simply tell Storren Corp. to avoid all involvement with you considering you have an active contract with them. I figured that I would warn you to be cautious. Not everyone there will be looking out for your best interest."

Avery thanked the vice master for the information and asked if there was anything else that the man wanted to discuss.

To his surprise, he brought up a more personal matter. Apparently, he wanted to know how Urs was doing. They had worked together many times in the past when both of them were still active, and at the very least Sarkych considered Urs to be a close acquaintance.

"I see. Well, as long as he's enjoying his retirement, that's all that matters. Though do tell him that if he's ever gets bored, that they'll always be a position at the Association open for him. Sounds like he'd make one hell of a training instructor."

Once the meeting had been finished up, Avery and Ezra left the room and the same woman that had escorted them was waiting to take them back to the hangar.

As they walked Avery walked a bit closer to Ezra and began discussing their next move.

"If it's not any trouble, I'd like you and Olivia to look into this Strozen guy a bit more. I'd like to have a batter read on my enemy and who his allies are."

"Sure, that won't be a problem. I'm sure that we can dig quite a bit up on him. Considering his position in Storren Corp., he should have at least some notoriety. But what will you and the others be doing?" Ezra asked.

"We're going to go and try to nip the problem in the bud. Right now, we've definitely got Dorris and Ardesen on our side since they went out of their way to make a deal with me. They won't want anything to happen to me since they will look bad if their plan ends in failure. As for the company as a whole, I think I'm probably seen in a somewhat positive light thanks to some intel I slipped them a while back. Now, I just need to make our group more valuable to them. That should restrain that Strozen guy from acting brazenly. Unless he wants to get on the rest of the executives' bad sides."

Avery divulged his plan to Ezra, and while his second in command was a little concerned about Avery potentially being a bit too hasty, he could not deny that his idea would probably be effective.

With their plan set, the two of them returned to the hangar where their vehicles were waiting and found the rest of their companions were already finished with their business.

There they broke into two different groups. Avery, Kasandra, Jasmine, Kaiden, Vi'ivando, and Grito were going to be heading to Storren. Corp's main office located on Dramid III, while Ezra and Olivia, along with her crew, would start investigating Strozen and the other threats to their group.

"Are you sure that it's fine to go to Storren Corp. before we know more about the executive that has it out for you?" Jasmine said, expressing her concern.

"Yeah, it should be fine. We didn't make an appointment or anything, so I doubt he knows that we're here yet. I'll just send a transmission directly to Ardesen. That guy's driven by his own desires for the most part, and I bet he'll come out to greet us personally considering we've already been in discussion having a new ship built for Kaiden."

Avery was also bringing Grito and Vi'ivando along since they were birds of a feather with Ardesen. All three of them were Baccigans and their interests aligned heavily in the technical field. No doubt they would probably get along well.

After setting in the coordinates for Dramid III, Avery exited the Mercenary Association headquarters and headed directly for the station.

Upon arrival, all of them could only marvel at how massive Dramid III was. It was larger than any they had seen before and supposedly had a population of around thirty million. Truly the capital system was built different from any other considering that this was just one of several similarly sized stations.

Getting approval to land took a bit longer than expected due to the immense amount of traffic going to and rom the colony, but eventually the Dauntless received permission.

When they finally got inside, Kasandra plotted out the fastest route to Storren. Corp's office with her terminal.

"Looks like we got a bit unlucky with the hangar location. We've got quite a ways to go." Kasandra said as she showed the rest of them the route details.

Even using the colony's electromagnetic transport system, it was going to take nearly an hour and a half of travel. That just went to show how the interior of Dramid III matched its massive exterior.

Still, there was little that they could do about it other than get going, so their group of six headed towards the nearest station.

However, unbeknownst to any of them yet, a group that had long since been trying to track down two members of Avery's team caught onto their targets' scents.

…

"Boss, I know I just caught a whiff of them. They're both here, I'm sure this time."

"Finally! We've been searching all around for them for so long I was beginning to worry. I knew waiting in this system for them would pay off."

A group of thuggish looking individuals quickly began to gather and set off. Following the extremely heightened olfactory abilities of one of their members in pursuit of their prey.