Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 87 An Acquaintance in Peril

"Whew. That’s better."

Avery walked out of the medical bay aboard the Dauntless while stretching his arms above his head.

Last night he had partied hard with Kasandra, Kaiden, Ezra, and Urs.

Not having had a drink for quite some time, Avery allowed himself to indulge a little too heavily and ended up stupidly drunk.

This had not been a problem until he woke up after going to sleep. Thanks to hardly drinking any water and indulging in some vigorous activities with Kasandra once they returned to the ship, Avery had found himself with a killer hangover.

Fortunately, the small medical bay built into his vessel had a restorative pod that he could crawl into to quickly remedy the minor affliction in only a few minutes.

Now Avery felt fully refreshed. The alcohol purged from his system and his body rehydrated.

"Kasandra had a decent amount last night as well. She’s still asleep right now, but she should probably use the restorative pod when she wakes up." Avery mused, peeking into his room where Kasandra was still curled up in a ball on the bed.

Pulling out his terminal, Avery checked the time since he had made plans to contact Kaiden and Ezra today to discuss their next move.

"I’ve still got about four hours until the designated time. Guess I should look at the galaxy map and pick some suggestions for where we go from here."

Yet, as Avery was making his way to the cockpit to lounge in the pilot’s chair, he received a proximity alert from the Dauntless’ main computer. Someone was waiting by the entrance.

Pulling up the exterior view from the camera, Avery was a bit surprised to see who it was.

"She’s not wearing her uniform this time. A courtesy visit maybe? But why does she look so frantic and sleep deprived?"

Waiting just outside the Dauntless was Jasmine Iralus. She had been onboard Avery’s ship a couple of times before, but that was always for work as an officer of the police.

As Avery was about to go greet her, Kasandra suddenly came out of his room. She yawned for a brief moment before heading over towards him.

"I got the notification as well. Seems we have a guest." Kasandra said, holding up her terminal that had the video display from the exterior cameras.

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Had Jasmine been acting normally, she would not have forced herself to get up. But the usually calm and collected sergeant looked panicked and rundown. Obviously, something had happened to her.

When Avery finally opened the ship’s main hatch, a hopeful look appeared on Jasmine’s face for a brief moment, before she did her best to compose herself.

"I’m sorry to intrude, but do you think you could let me onboard for a moment? There’s something I wish to speak with you about."

"Well, before that. Is this for Alliance Police business, or soemthi-"

"Avery, just go ahead and let her in."

Kasandra’s eyes were narrowed, and she was glaring at the entrance to the hangar. For just a single instant, she was certain that she saw someone hiding behind it.

Then when she focused, she could hear the faint heartbeats of four individuals.

"Okay. Welcome aboard, Sergeant Iralus. Or since you’re not in uniform right now, should we just call you Jasmine?" Avery said, picking up on the seriousness of Kasandra’s tone and standing aside so that their guest could enter the vessel.

With noticeable hastiness, Jasmine walked onboard, and only when the hatch had shut behind her, did she allow herself to feel relieved and respond to Avery.

"Jasmine is fine. I’m not on duty now. Or will I be ever again."

After she said this, Avery and Kasandra were able to tell immediately that she was on the verge of breaking down. As if admitting the reality of her situation was the final bit of weight she could no longer handle.

"Let’s go somewhere better to talk at length." Avery said, ushering his clearly emotionally unstable guest to the Dauntless’ small dining area.

Once there, he sat down across from her while Kasandra used the auto cooker to make some tea and snacks.

The two of them waited for Jasmine to drink and eat a bit and calm down before beginning the discussion.

"So, what did you mean by what you said? Did you get fired?" Kasandra asked.

In response, Jasmine shook her head and said, "No. I-I resigned."

Cleary she was shaken up still, but naturally there must have been a reason for her to quit her well paying job that came with a decent number of benefits. There were plenty of people that would kill to have a shot at being a police sergeant.

"If it’s hard to talk about, just a take a few more minutes to collect yourself. We do need to know what’s going on, but don’t feel like you need to force it out immediately. You’re safe here. So just relax for a little while longer."

Hearing Avery’s words appeared to help Jasmine calm down, and the tension in her body slowly faded away.

Once she was ready, she finally explained how she had ended up leaving the police.

"It was about a week and a half ago. My captain called me into his office and gave me a new assignment. I was going to be promoted to lieutenant and transferred to Yuson IX (9)."

Learning this was enough to make both Avery and Jasmine go wide-eyed.

Yuson IX was a prison colony where captured space pirates and other outlaws that had committed some of the worst crimes imaginable were sent.

There they would work in the grueling ore processing plants to pay off their debt to society. It was not the kind of place that anyone wanted to ever end up at.

Of course, Jasmine would have been sent there as an officer, which would be significantly better than being a prisoner. But it was certainly a harrowing assignment. Giving her a prometon along with it would hardly make up for the environment she was being sent to.

"And I would have accepted it as my duty, but the way my superior looked at me. I’d seen that same look in his eyes before. When he was sending officers out on a mission he knew some of them would not be coming back from. In his eyes, I was already dead." Jasmine said, her breathing becoming labored and erratic.

Just remembering that awful day was starting to make her panic. She realized that she was being punished for leaking the case files on Avery. Even if there was no hard evidence she had anything to do with it, someone powerful suspected her. And she was going to be made into an example

It was rare, but sometimes prisoners rioted. Even more uncommon, sometimes officers died during these riots.

Jasmine was smart enough to realize what was going on. Her transfer and promotion were a death sentence.

That had really only left her one option. To resign.

She hated to do so since she had become an officer to uphold the rule of law. She believed in being just and maintaining the order and fairness of the Alliance.

"I was ready to die in the line of duty, but not like that." Jasmine said, tears flowing down her face and clenching both of her fists on top of the table.

After listening to Jasmine, Avery understood what sort of predicament she was in.

"And it didn’t end with you just losing you job. You’re being followed, right?" Kasandra asked.

For a moment, Jasmine looked stunned to hear this, but she quickly nodded in agreement.

In fact, she looked reassured that someone else had confirmed it.

"Seems they got a bit sloppy when we opened up the Dauntless’ hatch."

Avery pulled out his terminal and played a short recording from his vessel’s exterior cameras.

It was only for a single frame, but the edge of a person’s face could be seen momentarily peeking through the hangar doorway when Avery and Kasandra came out to greet Jasmine.

"I told them I wasn’t paranoid or delusional!" Jasmine shouted.

Once Avery got her to calm down, she explained that she had tried to contact the police that she thought she was being stalked and that her room had been broken into, but they brushed her off.

She went so far as to personally call her former subordinates, but they had been reprimanded when they attempted to help her. It appeared that someone powerful had set their sights on her.

"This seems a bit extreme just for being suspected of leaking some information on a single case. Do you know who would go to this much trouble to harm you? This just seems like a lot of effort for something so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

If Avery had not made a deal with Storren Corp. already, he might have suspected them. But there was hardly any reason to go out of their way to make Jasmine’s life miserable for tanking any shame investigation into Avery. They had already mostly gotten what they were after.

As for other enemies he might have that wanted to see him locked up for a crime he did not commit, the only ones he could think of were the pirates that had survived the large-scale extermination. Except there was no way any of them had the influence to pull something like this off.

"There’s really only one person I can think of. Deputy Chief Camila Svikari. She’s the one that originally pushed for the investigation into you as the prime suspect for the murders aboard this ship."