Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 427 Subduing the Killers

Now that the criminals’ vehicle disabled, Avery activated the Dauntless’ tractor beam and began lowering it to the ground.

They were currently a few hundred kilometers away from the capital city in an open area that was lightly forest and had only a few buildings sparsely spread out.

This meant it was easy enough to find a good place to set the vehicle down and land the Dauntless next to it.

’The only worry now is if they blow themselves up along with the evidence. But I doubt that they’re so fanatic as to do something like that, and it’s unlikely that they could even if they had bombs onboard. They would need an explosive that didn’t use any electronics in their triggering device, which is pretty rare these days.’ Avery thought as he got up from his seat.

With Kasandra following behind him, the two of them exited the Dauntless in time to see the team that had abducted and killed Kokkas forcing their way out of their deactivated vehicle.

Unable to use any of the normal electrical systems, they were forced to open it manually, and it seemed that the door was a little stiff from lack of maintenance.

As the fifteen people that had been inside the fairly large transport vehicle came rushing out, Avery glanced over at Ezra and Olivia who had both disembarked from the Specter and were approaching as well.

"Try to capture them all alive if possible. But making sure that none of them escape is more important. So, if it’s necessary, don’t hesitate to kill them."

"Noted. Though I don’t think that’ll be a problem. They look like a group of thugs without any proper equipment or training." Ezra responded to Avery.

Naturally, they were close enough that their targets could hear them, and they were visibly displeased with being insulted.

Some of them aimed weapons at Ezra and tried firing, but nothing happened.

Their laser pistols looked to be cobbled together from a multitude of different parts and had been rendered useless by the Dauntless’ earlier EMP attack.

’How do they even have those things? They left directly from the chancellor’s estate, and I know they didn’t have time to stop.’

’Ah, they look like pieces of trash because that’s probably how they kept them hidden. The parts were likely integrated into other areas of the vehicle and the equipment onboard to avoid scans picking them up. That’s fairly smart, but they’re still idiots to think they could get away with abducting and killing someone in one of the most protected places on the planet.’

Avery quickly analyzed their opponents’ weapons.

He had seen something similar done before during the incident at the courthouse on Azade.

Former Senator Fena and her right-hand man had Fargus had snuck parts for electromagnetic weapons into the court where they were being tried as collaborators with the Odium Syndicate.

They had gotten them through checks meant to detect any dangerous weaponry by disguising the parts within mundane equipment.

However, while this was one of the most surefire ways to sneak weapons into secure areas, it came with some drawbacks.

For one it took time to put all the pieces together to create a weapon, and another downside was that the final product never ended up being all that powerful. Naturally, any military grade parts would be discovered by most thorough scans even if you tried to disguise them.

"It seems that they’ve figured out that their guns aren’t working and have switched to blades." Olivia commented nonchalantly.

Each of the fifteen thugs had pulled out long knives and were holding them threateningly.

Since the vehicle they were in was meant for transporting fresh meat, it made sense that they had these knives to use as cooking implements, though what they were brandishing were clearly longer and sturdier than one would expect from usual carving knife. No doubt they had prepared these as backup weapons.

Still, while the average person might have been terrified of fifteen assailants wielding sharp blades, neither Avery, Kasandra, Ezra, nor Olivia looked bothered in the least.

All of them had fought far more dangerous enemies than these people before. The only really challenge would be incapacitating them all without accidently killing some of them.

"I don’t think that you’re going to, but I’d still like to ask that you surrender. Consider what your crimes are, don’t expect to get off easy. But if you give up now, I’ll at least put in a good word so that you end up in a marginally nicer prison."

Avery gave them this offer to possibly save him and his companions some trouble.

Yet, as expected, the thugs that had committed murder on the grounds of the chancellor’s estate and been part of the scheme to drug Jasmine were not planning to come quietly. Obviously, they knew what was going to happen if they were caught and we’re willing to take their chances in a fight instead.

In fact, they were feeling a bit lucky right now.

Their opponents had gotten out of their ships and there were only four of them.

There were two vessels belonging to the Keepers of the Peace hovering in the air above them, but that would be a problem to deal with once the battle on the ground was over.

"You should have stayed on your fancy ships." The lead thug chortled. "Kill the two men and take the women hostage. We’ll use them to take control of vessels and make our escape."

As crass as their plan was, it probably was the best option that the criminals had in this situation.

Except for it to work, they would need to beat Avery, Kasandra, Ezra, and Olivia in a fight.

"I was wondering if I might get to test out the new capabilities Grito added to my exosuit, but I guess not." Avery said as sidestepped the first assistant to reach him.

These guys were not complete amateurs in a fight, but none of them had any augmentations or special gear. They were just normal people.

After dodging the swipe from the long knife, Avery lightly swung his arm and hit the man that had tried to attack him in the chin.

He did not put much force behind the blow to avoid causing a death wound.

Nevertheless, though it was only a casual strike, he still broke the guy’s jaw and gave him one hell of a concussion.

At the same time, Kasandra, Ezra, and Olivia defeated the first thugs to reach them as well.

The one that had tried to attack Ezra was in particularly rough shape.

He had broken ribs jutting out of his left side, and his torso was bent at an angle that was not normally anatomically possible.

This much damage had been done by Ezra simply kicking the man away. It went to show just how strong he was that he caused such serve injuries with just a single restrained hit.

Seeing how easily their comrades had gone down, the reaming eleven tried to use their advantage in numbers to gang up on Avery and his companions.

They were fighting more fiercely than before, but there was a clear hint of terror in their eyes after seeing how easily their hastier compatriots had been beaten.

’I brought Ezra and Olivia along just in case. It doesn’t seem like I needed to though. These thugs are weaker than I was expecting.’

Avery swatted away a knife coming towards him hitting it on the flat of its blade. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

He then followed up by slamming a palm strike into the stomach of guy wielding the weapon.

This knocked the window out of him, and he collapsed onto his knees and began coughing violently as he spit up blood.

Knowing that this man would not be rejoining the fight any time soon, Avery did not spare him another glance and moved onto his next opponent.

Within less than two minutes, the fifteen people that had been aboard the vehicle were all flat on the ground in various states of injury.

Not a single one of the thugs had gotten away unscathed and they were all in bad enough shapes that they would not be moving around much until they received medical care.

"Ah, leave investigating the vehicle to the Keepers of the Peace. I’m pretty sure that there’s a gruesome scene inside that none of us want to see." Avery said as Olivia began walking towards the disabled refrigerated transport.

Truthfully it had not been necessary for Avery to lead members of his team to track down the criminals behind Kokkas’ disappearance.

Regina would have easily been able to send her own forces instead and the outcome almost certainly would have been the similar.

Mostly, Avery had just wanted to blow off some steam, and this gave him the opportunity to actively assist in the investigation and hit a few criminals to take out his frustrations on.

It did not take long for more of Azade’s Keepers of the Peace to arrive.

A large team began restraining the thugs and carting them off into transports that would bring them to an interrogation facility.

With the dead body of the person believed to have drugged the chancellor’s daughter inside their vehicle, they were in for a rough time if they did not fess up quickly.

Avery was pretty sure that Regina would use any method at her disposal to get to the bottom of everything that was going on. She was quite protective of her only daughter after all.