Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

It was only a few seconds before Avery reached Cerise, and when she picked up the call there was a deep frown on her face.

"I thought we were supposed to not get into contact during this time." Cerise said.

Avery did not need her to go into details in order to understand what she was getting at.

While Delia should not have had any means to learn about their conversation, the slight risk that she had found some way to listen in or gain the information after the fact via some informant or spy she had among Avery's crew or the Alliance Police was a possibility that had to be considered.

Still, the information that he had just learned was something that Cerise absolutely needed to hear.

Naturally, he told her about the war that had just broken out, and she responded to it with barely concealed anger and distress.

"So, should we turn around and abandon this operation? The main reason we were going ahead with it was to prevent a war between the Dramid Alliance and Zatis Consortium. Since it's already too late for that, I don't know if the risks are worth it anymore."

Cerise went silent for over a minute as she contemplated what Avery's next actions should be.

After that, she asked her trusted adjutant who had contacted Avery what had triggered the war in the first place.

As it turned out, the conflict had been sparked by incriminating evidence against both sides being leaked, and an overzealous captain from the Zatis Consortium firing the first shots.

It had not taken any more than that for things to escalate, and only a day and a half in the Dramid Alliance declared war against the Zatis Consortium.

"This is not good. Normally, I would order you to turn around, but I think that that would be a mistake. Hidden information on secret operations being leaked out of the blue reeks of manipulation. I wish I did not even have to consider that Delia is capable of something like this, but my gut tells me that she is. From everything you've told me and I've seen, this feels like something that she would do."

Judging from the fury on her face, Avery did not doubt that Cerise wanted to go to Delia's room right now and cut the woman's head off.

Unfortunately, that was not currently possible for multiple reasons.

The main one being that they still needed her to reach the heart of the Odium Syndicate's operations.

"With the war going on now, it will be very difficult to get back across the border. All of the checkpoints will be locked down, and places that are normally only monitored by autonomous sensor stations will be swarming with patrols. I also don't doubt that Delia will have ships ready to intercept you if we do turn around. She wants you to head deeper into Zatis Consortium Space and take out the rest of the Odium Syndicate for reasons I can only speculate about." Cerise said, wearing a troubled expression.

It unnerved Avery how little they knew and how easily Delia was able to get them to do what she wanted.

He also considered just killing her and hoping to break through whatever traps she had set.

From the first moment she had revealed herself, he had known that she was a snake that would eventually turn on them.

The problem was that she was just too useful to get rid of.

They would not have gotten anywhere near as far as they had come in dealing with Odium Syndicate without her.

But considering war had broken out, their accomplishments felt almost worthless.

"This may not be pertinent, but since it happened close to when that woman first appeared, perhaps there is a connection. Word about this reached me not long before the war started. It seems that one of the prisoners brought in from the production facility has gone missing. Several guards were paid off to make this happen, and all those that were involved have been either found dead or have gone missing." Cerise's adjutant said.

It seemed a bit farfetched to consider Delia and the missing prisoner to be connected, but when Avery heard the name, he thought it sounded familiar.

"Doctor Layton Sarelett."

Avery rolled the name around in his mouth a couple of times, trying to recall where he had heard it before.

He felt that it was important, but he could not quite remember why.

Luckily, he had someone that he figured might know and sent a quick message to Mercedes asking her for information on the escaped prisoner.

Once Avery read the response, his eyes went wide in realization.

Whoever this guy was, he was among the researcher that his mother had named while interrogating Doctor Raiti.

'Were those monsters his doing? It felt like one of them possessed psionic abilities of some kind which I thought was just a coincidence. But if this actually one of the people that worked on the experiment my mother was a part of, he might have tried seeing what would happen if he mutated an awakened person.'

Avery knew that all of this was just conjecture on his part, but he trusted his instincts. Even if he was off, he would keep this in mind.

It also made a few other things make sense if Doctor Sarelett and Delia were working together.

For someone reason the woman seemed to have directed her focus on him, but he could not understand why for the life of him.

However, if it was really Doctor Sarelett who was interested in him, that made more sense.

Avery had used his psionic abilities very liberally during the raid on the Paradise production facility.

To anyone that did not know better, everything he did would have been considered freak malfunctions or the effects of some unknown piece of technology.

Yet, for someone familiar with powerful psionic abilities, it would not be too hard to see what Avery had been doing.

'Damn it! If I had recognized his name on the list of prisoners, I would have dealt with him before handing him over.'

A new wave of anger washed over Avery as he thought about one of the people that had conducted cruel experimentation on his mother being out there free and continuing the horrid work.

He thought about trying to interrogate Delia, but he did not believe that he would get anything out of her and revealing that he knew about Doctor Sarelett would only give her more information.

'Maybe we could try and really get her on our side? No. she'll just act like she's working with us up until the moment she betrays us. I have no idea what truly motivates her other than her own amusement. And that's not something I can control or predict.'

"Avery, are you doing okay? You've had quite the scary look on your face for a while now." Cerise said, interrupting his train of thought.

"Sorry, just something personal. But I think I might know why Delia has pulled so many strings to get me to go to the Odium Syndicate's main base. I'm probably the target. She wants me for some reason."

Cerise asked him to elaborate, but Avery had no intention or revealing everything to her. Especially his mother's past.

She just wanted to put all of that behind her and live a normal life. She had even altered and erased some of her memories to do so.

Though, for Avery's sake, she had remembered everything and was not suppressing her memories any longer. Her love for her son outweighed the pain of her past. If it became necessary, she wanted to be there to help him.

Obviously, Cerise noticed that Avery was holding back, but she did not push him. Everyone had secrets that they were not willing to share.

"Well, I've given you my opinion. I think that facing down whatever trap Delia has set up will be better than running away. Even if we do make it back to the safety of the Dramid Alliance, I don't doubt that she'll have other plans prepared. Plus, there's no telling when those mutagenic experiments will rear their head again. Fighting normal enemies is already difficult enough. I don't want to have to deal with people that have been turned into monsters. Still, the decision is yours. It's not my ship and crew that's barreling towards the enemy."

Avery took a few moments to think about his response, but he already knew what his answer would be.

He did not want to run away from this.

Certainly, there was untold danger involved, and it could all turn out for the worst.

Still, thinking about everything that was likely to occur if he did not go through with this outweighed his current concerns.

Plus, deep inside, he just wanted to put all of these bastards down.

"We're going to keep going. It's time that we finish this."

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