Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Dr. Raiti began grumbling at Avery blunt refusal to go back to her lab with her.

The scan data that she had received showed that Avery's musculature was denser than it should have been after the augmentations she gave.

There were also his organ functions, blood flow, and bioelectrical signals that had been improved even beyond her highest estimates.

Unfortunately, the medical pod on the Dauntless was not a toll for detailed research. It was mostly for assessing a person's condition and fixing any problems that were detected.

From the data she had received, Mercedes knew that something strange was happening with Avery's body, but whatever was going on was strictly beneficial. The medical pod found no issues with him, and in fact, he was preposterously healthy.

"Fine. I will acquiesce here. There's nothing I can do to force you to come with me." Dr. Raiti said in defeat.

Still, she was not going to go home empty handed.

"Instead, I want you to provide me with a sample of your blood, saliva, skin, and hair."

Avery looked reluctant to give into the doctor's demands, but he was also a bit curious about the state of his body and figured that this would be easy enough to do if it got her off his back.

Except, she did not stop at just the four initial samples she listed.

"Oh, and I should probably take samples of your urine, sperm, spinal fluid, and liver as well. Hm, a finger and a toe would not be out of the question either. Ah, and a kidney. The body can easily function well enough with only one. Now what else might I need?"

The expression on Avery's face went from annoyance to fear as Mercedes listed off more and more parts of his body she wanted pieces of.

As she went on, it sounded more like she just wanted to outright dissect him rather than just collect a couple easy to obtain samples.

"Yeah, we're done here. I'm not letting your slice off pieces of my body however you see fit. The first four things you wanted were one thing, but I'm drawing the line there." Avery said, unamused by how things had turned out.

"Come on, surely there's a deal that can be worked out here? You know that I'm quite capable in my field, so if there's something that you want from me, I'm willing to compensate you."

For a moment Avery was about to just fully reject Dr. Raiti's proposal, but something he wanted did come to mind.

"How about three hundred million Krenin. If you're willing to pay me that much, I'll provide you with some of my blood, skin, hair, saliva, urine, and spinal fluid."

Now it was Mercedes' turn to be shocked by Avery's unreasonable demands.

The sum of money that he wanted was outrageous, and he was not even offering to give her everything that she wanted.

She certainly had a decent amount of money, but nowhere near three hundred million Krenin.

A lot of what she earned went right back into her research. Both to obtain new and rare biological samples, and to constantly upgrade her equipment so that she was at the forefront of current technology.

Perhaps if she sold off almost everything she owned and emptied her accounts, she could obtain three hundred million Krenin, but that would not be worth it.

It would be like selling one's ship to be able to pay for refueling. No matter how interesting Avery was, the price he was asking for was just far too much.

"I can't afford that amount, and what's with you being so stingy in return. For three hundred million I should be able to have unlimited access to you as I see fit for an entire year. And where did you even come up with hat figure? Wait, let me guess. That's how much you need to pay for that carrier ship of yours." Dr. Raiti asserted.

Avery's eyes went wide as she hit the nail on the head.

He had been trying to get most of what he owed Storren Corp. to pay off his new ship from her.

Of course, he hardly had thought that she would agree. He just wanted to make an unreasonable demand of his own.

"How do you ev-"

He was about to ask her how she had learned about the carrier ship but quickly remembered that he had disclosed that information during the interview.

She had already insulted his intelligence earlier because he had not considered something so obvious, and he was not going to make the same mistake again.

"Yes, you caught me. I was trying to get you to pay off the rest of my carrier ship. But you wanted part of my liver, a kidney, and one of my fingers and toes. Just to name a few things I'm not willing to part with."

"Oh, I'd make sure that you were under anesthesia when I did the procedures, and thanks to that special organ I made for you, everything I took would regenerate on its own soon enough. You'd hardly be losing out on anything."

"How do you even know if the anesthetic agent will work on me anymore. If my body has changed as much as you think, then I might have to endure agonizing pain just so that you can get what you want." Avery countered.

It did not take long before their conversation devolved into a full-blown argument between the two.

From one of the room's corners, Kasandra merely watched what was going on with an amused smile. Seeing no reason to interject yet. Though, if this took too much longer she would. The time when the competitors and their crews were going to be allowed to meet Nianni was approaching, and she was not going to miss that.

"This is stupid. I really am grateful for the good job you did with mine, Kasandra and Jasmine's augmentations, but I'm not going to put up with this any longer. Obviously, I don't want to be torn apart, but that's what you want to do with me. So, we're done here. Good day."

Avery did not want to severe his connection with Dr. Raiti since she was such a capable augmentation specialist. However, he knew that she was passionate about her research, which was her true calling, and that she never stop pestering him if he relented here.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Mercedes said hastily, putting herself between Avery and the door.

"Your right. I was being unreasonable. How about this. Ten million for the easy to provide samples. Just your blood, saliva, skin, hair, urine, and sperm. It wouldn't even take five minutes to collect all of that. Just think about it this way, you'd earn ten million Krenin for just five minutes of work. That almost all of what you paid me for your augmentations."

Stopping in place, Avery considered the deal.

Still, he had one addendum to it.

"I'll give you everything but my sperm. I'm afraid of what you might to with it."

"And I don't like what you're insinuating there. Do you think that I'd try and impregnate some random woman just to satiate my curiosity. I do have morals that I uphold. If I wanted to do an experiment like that, I'd just use myself."

At this, Avery and Kasandra both stared at Mercedes as if she was insane. Without a hint of hesitation, she had stated that she would make herself pregnant just for the sake of her research.

"You know, I was not afraid of you doing that before, but I certainly am now. So, I'll send the other samples to you after you've signed the contract I'll have written up and the money is deposited into my account. That's the best deal you're going to get. Now, I have other things I need to do right now, so please, just go on your way and leave us alone." Avery said, putting an end to the conversation.

Except, Dr. Raiti was still not quite satisfied yet. She wanted more than just minimal samples if possible.

"Ah, I think I just came up with something better. Why don't I join your crew instead. Before it wouldn't have been an option, but I bet that you can have a good enough lab built for me on that carrier vessel of yours. I'd be willing to pay for the facility and can just transfer most of my current equipment over. I'd be willing to sell my augmentation services to you and the crew for cheap, and I could act as the ship's doctors when a medical pod isn't good enough. I'm sure that you can see the merits in bringing me along." Mercedes said, a wide grin on her face.

She was obviously pleased with this new arrangement that she had come up with. No doubt because she would have nearly unlimited access to the subject she was currently most interested in.