Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 452 Gathered Forces

Avery, Kasandra, and Jasmine all wore similar blank expressions on their faces as they watched Zefield getting pushed out of frame of the video call.

In his place, was a relatively small woman with large, round, pure black eyes, chitinous skin, and long purple hair.

Immediately, they recognized this woman as being part of the Irrather species. A fairly rare people in the Dramid Alliance since their home world resided on the other side of the Vanmir Republic from where the two powers bordered each other.

"Sorry about that. Ze’s not the most outspoken. Try as I might to get him to open up and make some friends." The Irrather woman said. Shaking her head like a mother disappointed in their child for not being sociable enough.

"Um... It’s fine. I pretty much got the gist of what Zefield was saying. He talked to the Alliance Police on our behalf and cleared things up. And now he wants us to go with you to where the rest of our expedition force is. Right?"

Avery was still a bit confused by what was going on, but he eventually got out a mostly proper response.

"Yep, that about sums it up. Still, just because you understood him, doesn’t give Ze an excuse to not tell you all properly what’s going on. We’re going to be working together for a while now in a very dangerous place. Bad communication could lead to misunderstandings and errors. Perhaps even deaths."

"That... does make sense. But uh, who are you exactly?" Avery asked, only having become more confused as the conversation went on.

"Ah, I’m the one being rude now. I should have introduced myself first. I’m Zefield’s right hand and wife, Tuuali. It’s a pleasure to meet you Avery Asteria, I look forward to working with you."

Once again, Avery, Kasandra, and Jasmine all had similar expressions on their faces after they heard Tuuali’s explanation.

They had been flabbergasted as to who would have the gall to shove a seven star mercenary out of the way while talking to another mercenary that he had hired.

However, if the person in question was his wife it made sense. She was probably the only one in the galaxy that could so casually push around a man like Zefield.

"Tu..."

Zefield came back into view and grumbled angrily at his wife. There was no hostility on his face though. Truthfully, he looked more embarrassed than anything.

The two of them seemed to argue with each other for a bit as Avery and everyone on the Intrepid’s bridge watched.

Someone one Zefield’s ship must have muted the call at some point though, as there was only a visual and no audio.

Still, even without being able to hear what they were saying, it was very clear that Zefield had no chance of winning against his wife in this situation.

’Why do I suddenly feel like I have a stronger connection to him now?’ Avery thought as he glanced to his left and right at Kasandra.

Of course, it was something that he already knew. He and Zefield were kindred spirits. Men that would never be able to win against their wives in a logical argument.

Eventually, the conversation between Zefield and Tuuali ended and Tuuali walked out of frame. Although, judging from Zefield glancing in the direction she went, she was still there keeping a watch on him.

"Apolog- I mean, I’m sorry for my improper explanation and instructions. I’ve informed the Alliance Police that your company is with me, so they shouldn’t give you any trouble going forward so long as you’re with me or a member of my team. They’ve been doing that to everyone coming in as a sort of harassment. There are too many details to tell you now. We’ll discuss it at a later time. For now, follow behind us. We’ll take you to the station where the rest of the team is waiting."

At first Zefield had begun speaking in his usual curt way, but before he had finished his first sentence, he winced and started talking far more loquaciously than he ever had before.

Avery found it almost uncanny considering how the man had been up until this point.

Yet, he had a fairly good picture of what must have gone on.

The man had a slightly frightened look on his face. No doubt his wife had glared at him when he started out talking like he normally did with people he did not know well.

"That was certainly... interesting." Jasmine said once the transmission had been terminated.

There was a large disconnect between the image of a seven star mercenary that she had in her mind, and the reality that they had just witnessed.

Still, at the end of the day, even top-ranking mercenaries were people too. With their own lives and problems.

Once they had gotten over their shock, Avery instructed the helmsman to sync up their navigation with Zefield’s.

A few moments later, Zefield’s ship jumped to light speed, and the Intrepid and the rest of Avery’s team followed suit.

They traveled for about fifty minutes before coming to a stop within the space around one of the stations in the system.

It was one of the larger ones in the system, but its total size was only around fifteen percent more than the Intrepid. With a consistent population living on it only being around four thousand people.

Docked and floating around it were over five hundred vessels. An amount that would almost never be seen around a station of this size. It simply did not have anywhere near the capacity to handle so much traffic.

’These aren’t all people that are a part of Zefield’s team. I guess that he probably hired other mercenaries as well. This really is a big job.’ Avery thought as he gazed at all of the different types of mercenary ships around.

It almost made him feel a bit nostalgic for the time he went out to hunt energy lifeforms.

While he had worked with other mercenaries in the past, it had been some time since he had last done so. Especially on a mission of this scale.

Avery began thinking that this would be a good chance to make some connections.

He had risen through the ranks of the Mercenary Association at a faster pace than most did thanks to obtaining the Dauntless earlier on and receiving grueling training and guidance from Urs.

Regrettably, this meant that he had not had much time to interact with other mercenaries as often. Other than those that had joined his team, the mercenaries that he had started out with in the Yuson System were unable to keep up. A five star mercenary was not likely to be working the same types of jobs as two stars and lower after all.

This time though, that was not going to be a problem.

If Zefield wanted to gather merely a bunch of ships, he could have gotten a fleet of thousands together.

Except, those that could not handle themselves would have only served as dead weight.

"I’ve finished searching the information on all of the mercenary vessels present. All of them are part of groups lead by four stars or higher. With most of the leaders actually being five star mercenaries. Oh, and there is one team being led by a six star."

Avery let out an impressed whistle as Kasandra informed him of the rankings of the other mercenaries that Zefield had brought along as subcontractors.

The forces here represented enough power to go to war. Everyone here was an elite mercenary, most of them having decades of experience in the profession and having fought through hundreds of battles.

"There’s another thing. Most of them are space monster specialists as well. Which I suppose makes sense. A few are more allrounders like us though. Including the six star team." Kasandra said, giving Avery a bit more intel on their coworkers for the upcoming assignment.

With so many other mercenaries involved, there was a lot of information to go through, but Kasandra did so seamlessly.

She was the one Avery had left in charge of keeping tabs on the latest internal affairs within the Mercenary Association. And that of course included information on other mercenaries.

Fortunately, it was easy enough to download basic information from the Association’s database. A perk of being an upper ranking mercenary.

"I can understand better why Zefield wanted us now. A lot of the mercenaries here have corvette class ships."

For mercenaries, corvettes were about the largest type of craft that they would typically own. More often they favored small or medium ships that one person could pilot on their own and only had a single deck.

Bigger vessels were hard to maneuver in tight places where priates and space monsters typically resided.

Of course, there were always exceptions to this rule, like Avery with the Intrepid, and Zefield’s ship being a destroyer class vessel.

"Yeah, when he found out that you own a carrier with the capacity to hold three corvettes and perform maintenance and repairs with the latest facilities, it most have been a godsend to him. You could probably count the number of mercenary ships that could keep up with maintaining a force of this size on one hand." Kasandra said.

Naturally, this just went to show how impressive the Intrepid really was. But there were good reasons for most mercenaries to not even consider purchasing a craft like it.

Not only would the initial purchase cost be monumentally expensive, but paying crew salaries and purchasing fuel and supplies was an ever-present and enormous money drain. If work ever became dry, there was a good chance of the owner going bankrupt.

Nevertheless, this was part of Avery’s goal, and it had been paying off so far.

"We just received a transmission from Zefield. Looks like we’re about to have a meeting with the other leaders."