Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary - Chapter 367

Chapter 367: Chapter 367 Profit and Emergency
A few days after his private meeting with Cerise, Avery was busy directing the sales of the pirates’ goods that his team had secured.

There was still a melancholic air among his team due to their losses in the recent battle, but life kept going and they had to move forward.

‘Thanks to the merchants that Cerise connected us with, we’ve been able to sell the autochefs at a reasonable price. The high-quality motherboards already sold to a company in the system. We’ve got buyers for the mining equipment that should arrive in the next couple of days. All that’s really left is to find someone that wants to take the personal vehicles the priates had collected.’

Avery carefully looked over the list of items that had been sold already and the amount of Krenin that they had gotten for them, along with things they still needed to find a buyer for.

Certainly, they were able to make a lot of money from selling off everything the pirates had stashed away, but it was more work than any of them had been expecting thanks to a number of factors.

The first was that they ended up with far more stolen goods than their initial projections.

When Avery’s team had chosen this system’s pirates to attack, they had not known about the collision with the local Alliance Police which had let the outlaws enrich themselves what normally would have been possible.

Another factor making sales harder was the fairly sparse population of the system.

There were only a handful of populated stations, and they were mostly meant for refueling and resupplying traders that came through to use the many hyperlanes that connected to more active systems.

Still, even when they were not able to maximize their profits, the amount of money coming in was staggering.

Combining bounties on the priates, selling mostly intact ships that they captured, and the goods from the bases, Avery’s team was looking at a payday of around eight hundred million Krenin in total.

This was after calculating expenses, so that amount was pure profit for the group. Truly it was a staggering amount to have earned off of a single pirate busting operation. But that had just been how big the band of outlaws had been.

“With my base percentage, bonuses for my contributions, the cut I get from Kasandra’s, Olivia’s, and Kaiden’s vessels that I own or partially own, its looking like I’ll get a total of close to twenty percent.” Avery muttered to himself as he calculated up the money he had personally earned.

It was a bit less in total percentage than he used to get back when his team was smaller, but the size of the jobs that they could take more than made up for this.

He was looking at earning nearly a hundred sixty million Krenin from just a single operation that had not even lasted two weeks. That was quite impressive and gave him a significant increase in his funds.

Of course, he did still have a large amount that he owed to Storren Corp. for his carrier ship, but with money he had just earned and the one hundred million advance that Cerise had promised him, he would have enough to pay off what was left.

This eliminated one of Avery’s worries, and much sooner than he had been expecting. He had figured that he would need most of the time before his wedding on Azade to earn the necessary money.

Still, there were plenty of other issues to be concerned about.

Yet everything currently on Avery’s plate would seem insignificant compared to the news that he was about to receive from Urs.

The transmission came in through the Mercenary Association. Having traveled all the way from the Yuson System which was fairly far from Avery current location.

When the message was first forwarded to him, Avery left it unread since he was busy and did not open it until later in the day when he was getting ready for bed.

However, as he read the contents of the message, Avery’s eyes went wide and any drowsiness he was feeling was swept away by fury and fear.

“What is it, Avery?” Jasmine asked in concern, having noticed the change in Avery’s demeanor and the harsh expression on his face.

She had come to check on him in the Dauntless’ cockpit and had brought a warm drink to help him relax, but it was obvious that something in Urs’ message had upset him.

“I’m sorry Jasmine, I know you must be tired as well, but I need you to contact Olivia, Kaiden, and Burke for me. I’ll get Kasandra, Ezra, and Liesel. There’s something that we need to address right away.”

Despite how late it was and the exhaustion from working all day, it only took three minutes for the leaders of Avery’s team to connect together on a single call.

“I’ll get right to the point. Urs’ just sent me an urgent transmission. I’ll send to all of you so that you can read it.” Avery said, sharing the message with everyone.

Since it was not particularly long, it only took a few seconds for each of them to read the details and get caught up on what was going on.

“I know that our plans were to earn money as we made our way towards the Cocarro System, but this changes everything. Even if no one else will go, I’m returning to the Yuson System. I’m not going to let those bastards harm my parents.”

Avery’s intentions were clear and his will resolute.

He had already chosen the path that he would take, and it was obvious that nothing was going to stop him.

“I don’t know why you’re making it sound like this is only your problem. Of course I’ll be coming with you. We all will.” Kasandra said, giving Avery a reassuring smile and glancing at the others as well.

Kaiden was the next to speak up and give his complete support. Naturally he understood what Avery was feeling right now having had to live through his own parents constantly being put in danger when he was younger due to the civil war on his home planet.

Ultimately, he had lost nearly his entire family except for his sister, and he did not want his soon to be brother-in-law to go through the same thing.

“It’s an unexpected detour, but it’s unavoidable. Now that you know that enemies are after your parents there is no choice but to go. And I have wanted to see my uncle again. I’m sure that he’ll keep them safe until we arrive.”

With Ezra agreeing, Olivia offered her support as well, though even if Ezra had refused she would have come along anyway.

“You saved me from the hell I was living in and gave me an opportunity to get me life back together. Other than a clear suicide mission, I’d follow you anywhere.”

Following Olivia, Liesel said that she had no problems with going along with whatever Avery wanted to do. If her own parents were in such danger, she would have rushed to their sides as well.

“Plus, this will be my chance to meet his parents. I need to make a good impression so that’ll they’ll accept me.” Liesel murmured under her breath, her cheeks slightly flushed.

Disregarding Liesel’s behavior, Avery turned his attention to the last person to speak.

Burke was the one that could be said to be least involved since while he was part of Avery’s team, their relationship was not quite as close as the other leaders. The two of them had come together as part of a transactional agreement more than anything. Burke had needed Avery’s support to continue working as a mercenary, and Avery needed more people to join his team.

For several seconds Burke remained quiet as the others waited for his response.

It was apparent from his expression that he was thinking deeply about what to do.

Eventually though, he came up with his answer.

“I’d like to stay out of this if I can. Like when the rest of you went to the capital system, I’ll manage those that were a part of my former company separately and continue with our initial plan of earning money along the way to the Cocarro System.”

Burke’s request was met with looks of shock from Kasandra, Kaiden, Liesel, and Olivia, and that surprise was quickly morphing into anger.

However, before things got out of control, Avery took over.

He understood Burke’s intentions here and after quickly thinking it over himself, he thought it was for the best.

“That’s fine. I’ll take along Kasandra, Ezra, Kaiden, Olivia, Liesel, and our other five best pilots among the team with me. Everyone else will be left in your care until we meet back up in the Cocarro System.” Avery said, bringing an end to this matter.

Some of the other leaders did not look too pleased with his decision, but once he explained his thought process, they realized what his intentions were.

Against pirates, everyone on their team was skilled enough and possessed strong enough ships, but not all of them could content with the people that were targeting Avery’s parents. Just like against the fight with the corrupt Alliance Police, they would only become liabilities.

“Now, we have at least fifteen and a half days of travel to reach the Yuson System even if we get lucky and can immediately use a warp portal when we reach the nearest one. So, everyone get ready to go, we leave immediately.”