Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

"If you were going to talk in the end, you should have just done so from the start." Avery said with an exasperated sigh.

At first, Kaliya had closed his mouth and refused to give up any details of what he and his goons had been doing here.

However, after a half minute of pretty light "encouragement", his previously strong will had broken entirely. The man seemed to have almost no tolerance for pain.

With only a little prompting, he began to spill everything. Even giving Avery and Kasandra some information that they had not asked for after being caught in a lie once and receiving a swift kick in the gut for it.

'So, he's just an expendable pawn for someone else.'

From what information Kaliya had divulged, he was acting under orders from his superior.

He did not know why she wanted Nianni Taador, but his boss was the one that had given him his current position and raised him up from the bottom rungs.

Along the way, he had been ordered to some questionable things, and today's kidnapping was just another job he needed to fulfill to continue his upward trajectory in life.

The man showed no remorse for what he had done, and it was clearly that he had gone morally bankrupt long ago.

Fortunately, Kaliya did not have any sort of spine to speak of. He was the type that only looked out for himself, and when he realized he was going to be in a world of pain if he kept his mouth shut, he had betrayed his boss without a second thought.

"Kasandra, would you mind?"

Having gotten the information that they wanted, Avery indicated to his partner that it was time to wrap things up.

A slightly sinister smile on her face, she electrified one of her batons and aimed it at their captive.

"Wait! I thought that you weren't going to hurt me anymore if I talked. I swear, that I told you everything!" Kaliya screamed while struggling frantically.

Except, locked in Avery's grasp, he was unable to get away.

"Don't worry. The discharge on those is pretty high. You'll probably be knocked out before you can feel much of anything."

Right before Kasandra stuck with her weapon, Avery let go of the man.

In a swift motion, the electrified baton was jabbed into Kaliya's torso.

For about a half second, he screamed in agony before being knocked unconscious.

Even after he fell to the floor, his eyes devoid of any light, his body was still twitching a bit from having a powerful electrical current run through him.

"You two are quite brutal." Dr. Raiti said as she approached them.

"Yes, well, sometimes this much is necessary. We're not going to brew some tea and sit down for a constructive conversation with people that tried to kill us. This guy and his subordinates are lucky that all we did was knock them out and break a few bones. Considering the situation, no one would fault us for killing them." Kasandra replied.

"I see. I'll shall keep that in mind for the future."

Mercedes hardly looked perturbed by what was going on and seemed more fascinated than anything. Perhaps she was getting a feel for how mercenary life was by observing Avery and Kasandra. Though, the situation that they were currently in should have been a fairly uncommon occurrence.

Still, their group seemed to get into trouble more often than not. Sometimes by their own making, and others by random happenstance like right now.

"Do you hear anyone else nearby?" Avery asked Kasandra.

Just as before, she listened intently with her acute hearing ability.

Yet, this time all she could do was shake her head after around a dozen seconds.

"There's no one else close enough for me to detect. This should have been Katarina and her crew's escape route, but either they passed by us somehow already, or they chaged their plans when they learned this guy had failed to secure the area." Kasandra said, pointing down at the unconscious Kaliya.

Avery frowned as he considered what their next move should be.

He had prioritized hunting down and crushing Kaliya and his men as a matter of safety.

They had been shot at first, and after taking out one of them in self-defense, it was obvious that anyone else working with the guy that had attacked the three of them would come looking for the ones responsible.

It had been obvious that things would go better if they were proactive and pressed the attack.

The last thing Avery had wanted was to be surrounded on all sides by an organized effort to kill them.

Now, however, the threat to their lives was minimized greatly.

Kaliya and his goons had been neutralized, and they would not be getting up anytime soon.

Katarina and her team were still out there but considering that they were not close enough for Kasandra to detect them, it would be easy enough to simply avoid them.

'Should we just find a place to hole up and wait for things to blow over on their own, or do we go after them?' Avery contemplated.

Naturally, he did not condone their effort to kidnap Nianni, and a part of him did want to go to her rescue.

He had quite a few questions that he wanted to ask, and Kasandra certainly wanted to help out her favorite singer.

Nianni's music meant a lot to her, and if she ended up abducted here, there was a good chance that she would never produce another song or hold another concert ever again.

Nevertheless, it might have already been too late for them to do anything.

It had taken around fifteen minutes to take down Kaliya and his subordinates, and then a couple more to question the man in charge.

'Also, we'd be running directly into danger. It won't affect us much if Nianni get kidnapped, but we could end up hurt or dead if we continue.'

Knowing her reputation, Avery figured that Katarina and her followers were bound to be a lot more dangerous than the group they had just taken down.

Certainly, Kaliya's guards had some combat training, but their real experience was practically nothing.

The moment that the battles had become chaotic, they had failed to adapt.

Avery doubted it would go the same way with Katarina.

She and her crew were hardened mercenaries willing to undertake entirely unethical jobs. No doubt they had gotten into their share of deadly battles before.

"What are you hesitating for?" Kasandra said as she slapped Avery on the back. "Don't you love diving into danger to rescue damsels in distress? That's what you did for me and Jasmine."

Rubbing the place where he had just been hit, Avery stared at Kasandra, who was wearing a playful smile on her face.

However, underneath her smile, there was a hint of panic. Something Avery could tell thanks to how close the two of them were.

He understood that she really wanted to head after Nianni but was respecting his decision since he was the leader of their mercenary group. Though, she had decided to make her option known and give him a bit of a push considering that she was his lover before his subordinate.

Still, if Avery still concluded that they would not go to Nianni's rescue, she would abide by his decision.

"Fine, let's get going. I'll be hearing about it from you and Jasmine for months if I don't do anything here." Avery said with a defeated shrug of his shoulders.

His two future wives were big fans of the singer that was currently in distress. Doing nothing was bound to lower their opinions of him.

"Dr. Raiti, I don't think you need to worry about running across any other dangerous criminals, so I want you to head to where the lounge where the other competitors are. If they haven't already realized that something is going on, tell them about what's happening. I'm sure that at least a few of them will be willing to help out."

"Got it. That should be easy enough. Ah, but I want you to promise to let me examine you for a full day once you've obtained your carrier ship and my lab is set up on it." Mercedes said, a fascinated gleam in her eyes.

Seeing Avery in action had only increased her interest.

"I'll give you four hours. Now get going already. This isn't the time for something like this."

"I suppose that will be acceptable. Don't go saying you forgot this promise later." Mercedes said, before happily skipping away and heading to the room where the other competitors should have been waiting.

Without someone that needed protection around, Avery and Kasandra were free to move about as they pleased.

With the map of the facility they had been provided opened on his terminal, Avery looked for the most likely escape routes that Katarina and her team might have taken. At this point, all they could do was run around and hope that they got lucky to find their quarry.