Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary - Chapter 369

Chapter 369: Chapter 369 A Scorpion’s Manipulation
Clarien had already been wavering on whether or not to stay and complete their objective but learning that Avery was on his way with his forces in tow certainly added another notch in the column of calling everything off.

His last encounter with the Avery had left him battered and beaten far worse than he had ever thought possible.

The conditions he suffered under Alliance Police custody had been horrid as well. Enough so that Clarien believed he would rather die than end up in their hands again.

Since he had been labeled as a pirate, that left him practically no protections under Alliance law.

All manner of unspeakable things had been done to him, and the entire time he had been sealed away in a room too small for him to even lay down in with only just enough food and water to keep him alive.

If not for the implants within his body that would periodically stimulate his brain to produce endorphins, he likely would have broken under the pressure no matter how strong his mental fortitude.

Some nights Clarien even woke up in a cold sweat when he had nightmares about being back in prison.

“Though I don’t want to, I believe that it would be in our best interests to stop while we can. With an unforeseen obstacle in Urs Orso, the Alliance Police are beginning to catch wind of us, and Avery on his way here, the risks are simply mounting too high.” Clarien said after weighing their chances.

“But we’re in too deep to pull out now! With all the time and resources that we’ve put into this, backing down will leave us at far too great of a loss. Clarien, our positions within the organization will almost certainly fall if we don’t accomplish something of substance.” Rook said, glancing over towards Delilah.

No doubt she had already sent messages to several of their other associates or at least set up transmissions to go out whenever she wanted or certain conditions occurred.

If they stopped now, she would probably do whatever she could to ruin them. At least that was what Rook believed would happen.

“Our plan to steal the experimental vehicles during the Dramid Alliance’s competition was only partially successful, and the damage we took to our forces ultimately made it a failure. But if we succeed at bending that bastard Avery Asteria to our wills by holding his parents hostage. We’ll gain access to two of the ships that we lost. Liesel Kaizer, the b*tch that deceived you is with him now and still has the same vessel. Don’t you want to get revenge on them for what they did to you?”

Rooks last words echoed thought Clarien’s head.

Not a day went by during his incarceration that he did not imagine what he would do to Avery and Liesel if he ever got his hands on the two of them.

If not for their tricks, he would not have suffered anywhere near as much damage to his fleet as he had, nor would he have been captured and locked up.

“Delilah, how long do we have before Avery arrives?” Clarien asked, his choice close to being swayed by Rook’s speech.

“Well, it took almost four days for the message from my informant to arrive here, so I imagine that we’ve got at least another eleven days before he could reach the Yuson System. If only he didn’t have access to the Dramid Alliance’s warp portal network, we would have more than a month before he could get here using hyperspace.”

“That’s not long, but its not too short either. We might have enough time.” Clarien muttered under his breath.

He was going through multiple scenarios in his head, but nothing covert seemed likely to work with Urs Orso protecting Avery’s parents and keeping an eye out for them.

That meant that Clarien and Rook only had a few viable options, and each one was bound to cause quite a lot of chaos and destruction.

“I’d rather not do this, but we don’t have enough ships or manpower to forcefully storm a station protected by the Alliance Police. We might be able to get in and grab our targets, but we’d never get out in time before the police had the place surrounded. So, Delilah, what do you think the odds of Adder providing us assistance are?”

Seeing as how they were already dealing with one snake in Delilah, Clarien and Rook had wanted to avoid directly getting involved with Adder if at all possible.

Delilah was partially dipping into his information network, but that was the extent of his current connection to the operation.

“Hm, I suppose that will depend on what you have to offer him. Adder can be swayed by his interests like me, but he’s a bit less whimsical than I am. While I’m helping you two for basically nothing because what we’re doing is entraining to me and I do have a bone to pick with Avery Asteria myself, Adder will want something more concrete if he’s to join in.”

“He is certainly no fan of the man since Avery has gotten in his way before as well, but he has not shown much interest in getting back at him since I failed to goad him into it. I was very close to getting him to take an active approach, but he pulled back when he realized what I was up to. Now he’s taken a passive stance in regards to this matter.” Delilah said, sighing and shrugging her shoulders in exaggerated disappointment.

Neither Clarien nor Rook detected any lies in what she had just told them, and her outward display of dismay, while overdone, was her true feelings on the matter.

Yet though Rook did not read into her words, something she had said set off warning bells in Clarien’s head.

He was not sure at first what it was, but eventually it came to him.

‘She tried to get Adder to take care of Avery for her before we were even involved!’

It finally dawned on Clarien why Delilah was assisting them so closely as to have put whatever other schemes she might have had on hold to come with them personally to get revenge on Avery.

They were just the pawns she was using to eliminate a thorn in her side without her having to get her hands dirty.

“Oh, that look on your face tells me that you’ve figured it out. Well, I did just drop a big clue, so I would have been saddened if you hadn’t.” Delilah said, sending her signature grin Clarien’s way.

He was almost enraged enough to grab the laser pistol at his side and blow a hole in the side of her head.

However, the rational part of his mind kept him from doing so.

It would not accomplish anything expect giving him a brief moment of satisfaction which would undoubtably be followed by regret.

“What’s going on?” Rook asked, noticing the change in the atmosphere but not understanding what had suddenly changed.

“Delilah has been using us this entire time. She doesn’t care about helping us in the slightest, we’re just tools for her to get rid of Avery Asteria for her.”

Hearing this, Rook took it as Clarien accepting that they would no longer tolerate the duplicitous witch.

“Good I’ve been waiting to do this for a while now.”

Rook stood up and began walking towards Delilah. He had only held back until now because of Clarien. But if that was no longer an issue, he was going to rip her in half.

“Stop Rook. No matter how we feel about being duped by her, we still need her assistance if we want to complete this operation.” Clarien said, a bitter expression on his face.

“She’s just using us! And you still want to defend her!”

Rook was understandably frustrated. While it was not entirely true, everything seemed to have started going wrong for them the moment that Delilah had gotten involved.

“I’d like to say something before you kill me, if you don’t mind.” Delilah said, looking entirely unbothered.

“While I may have steered you back towards Avery after your failed theft of experimental warships, it’s not like I fabricated your interactions with him or gave him any information about you two. What happened was just a natural consequence of your interests intersecting and being incompatible with each other. If you remember, I did try to warn you about him and delivered vital information about his team to the two of you. Don’t blame me for what happened, I was rooting for the two of you.”

Everything that Delilah said sounded plausible, but at this point just her voice felt grating to Rook.

He was ready to get rid of her, consequences be damned.

Still, Clarien understood her worth, and as things were a bit more transparent, at least her motives made more sense.

‘What she’s really after is getting rid of Avery Asteria just like us. She just doesn’t want to use any of her own forces to avoid potential losses. That means we should be able to at least rely on her to provide her best service in our efforts.’ Clarien thought, believing that he had a slightly better understanding of Delilah’s current desire.

Having come to this conclusion, Clarien asked her to set up a meeting with Adder.

Clarien knew that he cultivated pirate groups to use as disposable forces for whenever he needed to cause chaos. And that’s just what they needed now to successfully complete their mission.