Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 443 An Intriguing Offer

The merchants that Avery’s team had rescued were obviously grateful and offered them a decent reward for their help.

Of course, after expressing their gratitude, they asked if Avery would be willing to escort them through the system to where the next hyperlane entrance they were taking was located.

It was clear that having been attacked once that they were looking for some more protection.

While the mercenaries that they had hired were three small groups of decent two stars, there just were not enough of them to serve as proper escorts. There were only eight mercenaries, which meant that there were not even two to serve as protectors for each cargo ship.

Any large group of priates would see them as perfect prey, and that fact had already been proven.

The price that the merchants were willing to pay, even for just an hour and a half, was honestly a bit low considering the strength of Avery’s company.

’Still, it’s a hundred thousand more Krenin. Plus, there might be some upsides to traveling as a group.’ Avery thought, a slightly mischievous look on his face.

He eventually agreed, but he had the traders agree to some terms.

Though he would be serving as a guard, he had no intention of determining priates. Honestly, he wanted them to attack.

That meant that the Intrepid would continue its ruse as a cargo vessel. Something that would likely attract far more priates.

In a way, Avery was using these additional merchant ships as extra bait.

In the end though, their young and inexperienced captains agreed to Avery’s conditions.

Having seen the firepower of the Intrepid and the other vessels being hidden inside of it, they felt it would still be safer to become massive pirate lurers. If they went without Avery’s company’s accompaniment and ran into more priates, there was no telling if someone would come to their rescue again.

Naturally, pirates tried attacking them again, and their sizes had increased by about twenty percent compared to the first time.

Nevertheless, they served as nothing more than prey for Avery and his team. Pirates were the types that only liked to go after those weaker than them, but they were unable to see past the Intrepid’s tricks and assumed it was just another defenseless cargo vessel. Something that they did not live to regret.

When they finally crossed the system to the hyperlane entrance the merchants would be using, they had eliminated four more groups of priates that totaled more than three hundred. Their bounties were not particularly high though, so the total amount only added up to just under one and a half million.

But they had managed to take down some of the pirate ships with only minimal damage and had brought them into the empty hangar spaces. From there Grito and his team would repair them for resale once they returned to Granvard I.

...

Around three weeks went by as Avery’s company went around hunting pirates within the systems in the vicinity of the Granvard System.

They had spent most of their time cruising around and luring priates to them, but even greedy outlaws were bound to catch on eventually.

Ontembaar cargo ships became something that they stopped going after no matter what. Word had gotten around and no matter how good a payday might seem, the pirates in the sector had decided that it was not worth possibly falling into an all but guaranteed deadly trap.

Unfortunately for them, once the priates stopped coming to Avery’s team, they changed tactics and started targeting the pirates’ basses instead.

Having captured plenty of their vessels and checked through their flight and fuel logs, it had been easy enough for those working for Avery that specialized in navigation to pinpoint general locations of pirate bases.

Most of them were in places that would be difficult for the Intrepid to reach, but that was perfectly fine.

Avery simply switched over to the Dauntless and led the full force of his fleet minus the carrier ship to the pirate bases.

None of them were particularly large, and their defenses crumpled before the might of several dozen warships.

Kaiden’s new corvette proved to be especially effective, as its immense firepower and shielding allowed it to easily bully any of the vessels the pirates were using. One time he had even taken on eight modified medium transports head-on and come out mostly unscathed after destroying all of them.

"That should be the last one in the sector. Let’s head back to Granvard I." Avery said once they had finished taking everything valuable from the pirate base and storing it in the Intrepid’s Cargo hold.

Before they left, a round of laser fire slammed into the hollowed out asteroid that had been turned into a base for priates.

It was quickly reduced to dust and would not be able to be used ever again.

’Hm, I think that we’ll get between five and six million for everything today. That’s not bad, but I’d like to do better.’

Avery had started to get pretty good at understanding of the valuable of loot from pirate bases.

Even just from a quick glance at a list, he could figure out approximately how much they would earn.

Of course, prices for items were always in flux, and the more they brought back to a single area, the more saturated the market would be. Something that was beginning to be a bit of a problem in the Granvard System.

Avery figured that it would be time to leave after selling off their latest haul, but upon retuning to Granvard I, he was surprised to receive a direct call from the Mercenary Association branch manager.

He had naturally already introduced himself and told the local association that he would be operating in the area for a while, but it was unexpected to get a transmission from out of the blue.

"Sorry to reach out without prior warning when you just got back into the system." The branch manager said, his head slightly bowed.

"It’s not a big issue. I’m sure that it’s something important if you couldn’t even wait for us to dock and come to collect our rewards."

"Yeah, I didn’t want to blindside you with this. But I couldn’t really say no to the ones asking. And I figured that this will be a good deal for you. A seven star mercenary is here personally to recruit your company as subcontractors on a job they’ve been hired for."