Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary - Chapter 431

Chapter 431: Chapter 431 A Mother’s Scrutiny Once Again
Avery, Kasandra, and Jasmine spent nearly three weeks enjoying their honeymoon on Azade.

Originally, they were only planning on five days for their honeymoon, but once they started relaxing, they realized just how exhausted everything that had piled up over the last month had been.

The three of them were enjoying themselves quite a bit and needed the time to destress.

Fortunately, the rest of Avery’s team was happy to take an extended vacation as well.

They had all been working incredibly hard since the pirate raid that had led into a confrontation with corrupt Alliance Police officers.

Mercenary life was filled with ups and downs in work and now was a time to relax.

However, they could not just lounge around forever, and Avery eventually received a transmission that pulled him back into action.

Ardesen from Storren Corp. had just informed Avery that his carrier ship was now only twelve days out from completion.

There were only a few finishing touches left to complete. Such as bringing in interior furniture and equipment, and the final detailed diagnostics to make sure that all of the systems functioned properly.

After reading this message a few times, the lax vacation attitude Avery had settled into quickly began to fade away.

He could feel his blood starting to pump in excitement as obtaining his own large carrier vessel was now very close to fruition.

All they needed to do now was gather everyone up and head to the system where Storren Corp.’s main manufacturing sites were located to pick the ship up.

Unlike with Kasandra’s craft, this one was too big to have it delivered. Storren Corp. was not going to provide a crew to move it across the Dramid Alliance.

A bright smile on his face that he could not control, Avery woke up the two sleeping beauties on either side of him to give them both the good and bad news.

It was unfortunate that the three of them would need to end their honeymoon today, but Avery’s carrier vessel was going to bring their mercenary group up to the next level.

The amount of money they would be able to earn was going to increase exponentially, and their living conditions would also be seeing an upgrade.

On their current ships, everything was fairly compact since room was limited.

The carrier vessel was enormous though and had larger bedrooms for all of them and a few luxury facilities that would never fit on a small or medium craft.

“That’s some great news. Now the one major negative to having my own ship won’t be much of a problem anymore.” Kasandra said as she yawned and wiped the sleepiness from her eyes.

With the carrier ship serving as their group’s mobile base, their individual vessels would normally be docked inside.

This meant that Kasandra would no longer have to spend large stretches of time away from Avery other than during long missions where they always needed to be ready for battle.

“I’m looking forward to the large bath and the extensive kitchen facilities. Ah, and I bet it will be amazing to sit in the captain’s chair on the bridge and give out orders. It’s not often that you get to command such an impressive ship.”

Jasmine almost seemed more excited for the carrier vessel than Kasandra did.

It may not have been a goal she was truly aiming for, but there were times when she had fantasized about one day being the captain of an Alliance Police battleship.

And while that possibility may have no longer been possible, Avery had assured her that she would have plenty of opportunities to take charge of his new ship. He certainly trusted her enough to do so and thought that she was qualified for it.

“Once we’ve finished breakfast, would you two contact the others and tell them to get ready to depart. I need to make arrangements with our new doctor.”

Kasandra and Jasmine nodded their heads with knowing expressions.

While they had not seen her since her abrupt appearance in the capital system, Mercedes Raiti was going to be joining them as the carrier ship’s doctor.

From what they knew, she had been arranging for her equipment to be transferred from her base to the carrier and getting her other affairs in order.

She had been based out of the Cocarro System for a couple of decades now, and she had a lot that needed to be accomplished before she uprooted her life.

“Well, it looks like she almost finished. It did not take several days before she responded to me this time.” Avery said, looking at the reply from Mercedes that had just come in.

While she had been in the thick of packing up and preparing to move, it had often taken a couple of days and sometimes up to week for her to reply to any messages.

Of course, that was just the type of person that Doctor Raiti was.

If there was something that she was interested in, she would devote all of her attention to it. Otherwise, she was fairly inattentive and slow to act.

“She says that she’s just about finished, and that we can come and pick her up in about six hours.”

This was good news, since Avery was antsy to get going.

The travel time from where they were to Storren Corp.’s shipyards would take them around ten days without any stops. So, by the time they found an escort mission from the Mercenary Association if they could, and factored in stops, they would arrive probably right around when the carrier ship was ready if they left today.

‘The only thing that might cause a problem though is what my mom thinks of Doctor Raiti. She said that she wanted to meet her, and I suppose that now is the time.’ Avery thought, swiftly typing away at his terminal and sending a message off to his mother.

…

After picking Serena up from the guest house On Regina’s estate where she had been staying, Avery set in a course for Doctor Raiti’s base.

One of the hardest things she had needed to deal with was selling the giant asteroid that she had carved out as her home and place of business.

With all of the equipment and facilities pulled out, it was really just an empty shell, so it had been difficult to find a buyer that would pay a reasonable price for it.

Thankfully, a merchant company that did a lot of work on Azade had shown interest in it.

Mercedes did have to make some concessions for them and leave the propulsion systems, light speed drive, and large cold storage devices though. They would not be able to use it outside of the Coccaro system, but it would serve as a large mobile warehouse they could use for certain specialty goods.

When Avery docked in the hangar of the asteroid base, he found that it was a lot more barren than it had previously been.

It looked like the place had been ransacked in all honesty.

“Ah, you’re here. I was getting tired of sitting here.”

Having been waiting for her ride, Mercedes was sitting on a large piece of luggage that was the only thing she would be bringing with her on. All the rest of her stuff had either been shipped out already or sold off.

Except, as Mercedes picked up her bag that looked comically large for her, Serena moved to intercept her.

“I don’t think I reconi- Oh, you must be a relative of Avery’s. Judging from your facial structure, eye color, and skin tone, you must be his mother. A pleasure to meet you.” Doctor Raiti said exuberantly.

Due to her specialty in anatomy, she had been able to tell that Serena was Avery’s mom with only a few cursory glances.

“Yes, and you’re the one that gave my son bionic augmentations. I’m also told that you are interested in some unexpected changes in his body that your procedures caused.”

“That’s correct. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. It’s very fascinating. But you’re not here to complain about it though, right? From the data I’ve received there are no real threats to the changes and Avery’s truthfully in impeccable health beyond what a human normally could expect. Ah, but do you maybe know something about it? Perhaps some unique ancestry or mutation that was previously dormant.”

Mercedes began firing off rapid fire questions and comments at Avery’s mother.

She was already very interested in what was going on with him, so if she could find some answers through his mother, she would be ecstatic.

Serena was not here to play along with Doctor Raiti’s curiosity, however. What she wanted to do was confirm whether this woman was a danger to her son, and if she ever had any involvement with the people that had conducted horrible experiments on her and other children like her.

Without warning, she began dropping the names of people and organizations to gauge Mercedes’ reaction.

For the most part she just seemed confused, but a couple of the names did elicit looks of familiarity.

“Um, are you trying to quiz me right now? I don’t know most of those names, but I am familiar with some of Spencer Halvarem’s, Miriam Ellutte’s, Amina Krestal’s, and Layton Sarelett’s work. They’ve all published some interesting and informative papers in my fields of interest. Though, I don’t think that there’s been anything of pertinence coming from any of them in a long time. It has certainly been over twenty years since I’ve heard anything about them.”