Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Being surrounded by heavily armed Alliance Police officers, Avery put his hands up as a sign that he was not going to resist.

Depending on how good their training and gear was, he might be able to break through their encirclement, but there was no reason to do so. That would only make things a lot worse for him. Surrendering was the right thing to do. At least, so long as these officers were not working for any of the enemies he and his team had made.

'None of them look to have itchy trigger fingers, so I don't think that they'll try to kill me and make up some sort of cover story later.' Avery thought, carefully watching just in case.

Maybe he was being a bit too paranoid but considering how many people out there wanted to kill him, and the number of ambushes and assassination attempts he had fought through in the last few months; he felt that he needed to always be wary of the next attack.

Once he was certain that none of the officers here wanted to kill him, Avery glanced back towards Cerise.

Like him, she had put her hands up and showed no signs making any moves.

Still, she had a smirk on her face as if declaring her victory.

"Officers, arrest those two. I'm not sure exactly how they are involved with the situation here, but they're clearly armed and suspicious." Cerise said, attempting to give orders to the Alliance Police officers.

Naturally, they all recognized Cerise, and the lieutenant in charge of the squad had actually worked under her at one point during his career, back when he was still just a rank-and-file officer.

He nearly reflexively saluted her and took her orders. She had used to be a commander after all, and it had not been long since she retired from the Alliance Police. At least as far as most people knew.

Yet, the lieutenant in charge here did not get to their rank and land a prestigious position within the Dramid System police force because he was a ye man that could not think for himself.

As distinguished as Cerise was within the Alliance Police, she no longer held the position that she once had.

For all intents and purposes, she was just a private citizen now.

"Cerise Gunvald, Avery Asteria, Kasandra Woest, I am taking the three of you into custody. Please do not resist as my officers restrain you."

At the lieutenant's orders, three officers broke from their formation and went over to cuff Avery, Kasandra, and Cerise.

When the officer in charge of restraining Kasandra reached her, she instructed as till scared Nianni to head over to her lieutenant where she would be safe.

At first, she was reluctant to leave Kasandra's side but ultimately headed over to where the other Alliance Police officers were.

"Press the switch there, and it will be deactivated."

For the officers detaining Kasandra and Cerise, it had been easy to disarm them, but Avery's exosuit was not something that was coming off easily.

Instead, he had to give detailed instructions for the officer on how to revert the suit back to its idle form and then how to remove it.

Fortunately, things went smoothly, and anything that could be considered dangerous was removed from his person before the officer cuffed his hands behind his back.

'Yep, they're tight, and I won't be able to break them with just strength.' Avery thought, testing how well he was restrained.

However, if push came to shove, he did have a method of getting out of these handcuffs.

It would not be pretty, but he could forcefully pull his hands through. Likely breaking most of bones in hands in the process and tearing off quite a bit of skin.

Still, thanks to the special organ that gave him the ability to heal quickly and even regenerate lost body parts, he would be able to recover on his own.

More officers arrived in mass not long after Avery, Kasandra, and Cerise were put under control.

Swiftly these new officers began gathering up Katarina and her crew who had all been incapacitated.

Despite having lost three of her limbs, Katarina still clung to life.

She had bodily enchantments of her own and seemed to have been tough enough to survive the blood lose before one of the officers gave her a dose of medical nano machines that sealed her wounds.

'She might be wishing that she had died instead, though.' Avery thought as he was dragged away from the scene.

It was not long before the three of them were brought to a hangar where several Alliance Police vessels were waiting.

They had come out in force once word had gotten out that Nianni had been abducted and several of her security personnel had been killed.

While Avery and Kasandra were led onto one vehicle, Cerise was put onto another.

"I'm glad that we're not having to go with her. That would have been awkward." Kasandra said jokingly.

Avery could not help but chuckle a bit at this. He could tell that Kasandra was trying to dimmish some of the tension of the situation that they found themselves in.

Before too long, they had been taken to the nearest police station and were escorted inside.

Soon they were guided to a room where a woman wearing a captain's uniform was waiting for them.

"This is a strange looking interrogation room." Avery said, glancing at the plush chairs and large table in the middle.

"That's because this is a conference room, and I think that is enough sarcasm. Now sit." The captain that was clearly in charge of this station said.

The officers that had escorted Avery and Kasandra into the room then removed their handcuffs and positioned themselves by the door.

It was a bit surprising to see how they were being treated, but Avery was certain that this beat being thrown into a cell.

Doing as they were instructed, Avery and Kasandra sat down across from the station's captain and waited for her to begin speaking.

"To start, I'm Captain Ava Vicars, the commanding officer of this station. For now, you two are under my custody while we investigate the matter that you were involved in."

"Does that mean that we're not under arrest?" Kasandra asked.

"That is correct. At least so long as we don't uncover any evidence that you were involved in the attempted abduction of Nianni Taador and the murder of her security personnel."

As it turned out, Nianni had pleaded with the Lieutenant that had first arrived on the scene. Telling him that Avery and Kasandra were not involved in trying to kidnap her and were in fact the ones that had rescued her.

It was thanks to her words, Avery's rank within the Mercenary Association, and the Silver Cross of Heroism that he had received that saw him and Kasandra waiting in a conference room with the station's captain rather than a holding cell.

"So, what happened with Cerise Gunvald?" Avery asked curiously to break the silence.

"That is not something I am allowed to tell you. Now, how about you answer some of my questions. What I want to know is why you snuck weapons into the concert venue. Did you have foreknowledge that something was going to occur?"

Avery could see that Captain Ava was suspicious of the two of them.

They had gone to a concert that by all appearances should have been safe and well protected.

Sneaking in weapons, even ones that were not particularly deadly so far as armaments went, was still reason to suspect Avery and Kasandra.

"During some previous jobs, we happened to make some pretty dangerous enemies. I'm sure that you can pull up records from our time on an Alliance Police base on planet Azade. There we were attacked by dangerous robots smuggled onto the base that had been sent to assassinate a member of my team. At the time, we had been disarmed and nearly died because we could not properly fight back."

"Ah, and just recently we were ambushed here in the Dramid System. I'm sure that you can understand why I don't want to go anywhere without at least some manner of protection." Avery explained.

Captain Ava had already read the report on the recent attack against Avery and his team members that had occurred on Dramid III.

As this checked out, she went a bit further back and did indeed find several documents in the Alliance Police database pertaining to the assassination attempt on Grito that had happened on Azade.

Going back further, she found more incidents that Avery and his band had been involved in.

While what he and Kasandra had done, sneaking weapons into the concert venue, was a crime, Captain Ava could at least understand their wariness.

It was also true, at least so far from the evidence and testimony they had collected, that the two of them had been instrumental in foiling the plot to abduct Nianni Taador.