Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

While Avery, Kasandra, Jasmine, Ezra, and Grito were off infiltrating the enemy’s base, Kaiden was left on his ship with prisoner they had captured.

There was no absolute guarantee that this man was working with the people that had abducted Grito and his uncle, but it did seem to be highly likely.

From the group’s gear and training, it was obvious that those that had gone after the Dauntless were someone’s private soldiers. The most logical reason for the fierce attack was that they wanted to recapture Grito.

"Okay, time to wake up."

Standing in front of the medical pod aboard his vessel, Kaiden accessed the control panel and swiftly entered a set of commands.

A couple moments later, a jet injector administered a stimulant to the man to counteract the sedative that had been keeping him unconscious.

When the man’s consciousness finally returned, his eyes shot open, and the first thing he saw was Kaiden glaring at.

"You’re going talk, or you’re going to experience hell. Pick which one you want." Kaiden said as he slammed his arm against the glass and brought his face as close as he could.

His tone was ice cold and the expression he was wearing was evidence enough that he was absolutely serious.

Even being a trained soldier, the man held within the medical pod felt an intense terror. In this moment, Kaiden appeared almost like a demon to him.

Nevertheless, even as fear welled up inside him, the soldier remained tight lipped and said nothing. He could not speak, or the consequences would be dire.

"I see. Well, this should get you talking soon enough."

Kaiden’s intimating demeanor did a complete one eighty and he suddenly seemed completely relaxed. As if the hostility he had been exuding had never existed to begin with.

Had he actually wanted to torture the guy, it would have been easy enough. But there were better and smatter ways to make people talk.

"This is a real pain, since I didn’t want to have to use this stuff. It’s all high quality and from my personal stash." Kaiden said with a sigh.

From out of a hidden compartment in the room, Kaiden pulled out a well-crafted but completely nondescript bottle.

Sloshing around inside of it was a silver-colored liquid, that if anyone got a whiff of, would know it was highly alcoholic immediately.

"This is a wine that uses the yevesa fruit as a base. I wonder if you know about it?"

Kaiden shook the bottle in front of the man’s face and gave him the most sinister grin he had ever seen.

Of course, he had heard of the infamous drink before. It was actually illegal in Alliance since the fruit that was the wine’s main indigent had strong psychedelic properties. A small amount was fine and allowed most people to enjoy a very blissful buzz, which was why it was sought after despite being outlawed.

However, too much and a person could completely lose control of their faculties. They would start seeing things and be far more susceptible to suggestions. With all of their inhibitions wiped away, it was said that anyone that had enough of the drink would happily spill even their most closely guarded secrets.

In response to this blatant threat, the man closed his mouth shut and prepared to resist.

"Did you really believe that I was going to try and force you to drink this. Do you not realize where you are? There are much easier ways to administer this." Kaiden said vindictively.

While this was not its intended purpose, Kaiden filled a certain compartment meant for medicine with around half of the contents that remined in the bottle. He figured that this would be more than enough.

After that, he entered a few commands into the console and activated the pod’s vaporized medicine administration process.

Immediately the sealed space filled up with a thick alcoholic vapor.

Unable to hold his breathe for long, the man naturally drew the substance into his body.

Quickly, his consciousness began to slip, and he entered a sort of hypnotic state. Reality seemed to disappear, and he felt a bubbly sense of euphoria that put a stupid looking smile on his face despite the circumstances he found himself in.

"Okay, friend. I seem to have forgotten your name. Would you mind telling it to me again?" Kaiden said, acting overly familiar to make the man seem as if they were already acquainted.

"Huh? O-oh yeah! Wh-what we’re we doing again?"

Not getting the response he wanted immediately, Kaiden had to hold in a growl and continued to probe the man with friendly conversation.

It took a while to get exactly what he wanted since the person he was integrating was somewhat delirious, but Kaiden eventually found out his name.

"Now, let’s see what sort of information I can pull up you, Erantur Oert."

Kaiden swiftly pulled out his terminal and searched up the man’s name. Yet what he found was shocking.

The man before him was a two star mercenary, but one that had gone missing four years ago. After not checking in with association or having any electronic records within the Dramid Alliance since, he had been presumed dead.

Once Kaiden skimmed through some of the information he was able to find on his captive, he got back to probing him for information.

"So, you’re a fellow merc. No wonder we got along so well. Now tell me about your work."

Slowly Kaiden dug into Erantur’s past and started to piece things together.

He eventually got to the topic of the last job the man had done and learned that it had been off the books. A job not vetted by the association.

Naturally such work could be highly lucrative, but it was almost always something that was illegal.

Nevertheless, mercenaries hard up for cash were not typically particularly picky about the jobs they took.

"And that last job you took. It somehow led to you working for your current employer?"

"Yes, that’s right. My master, Lord Ini-"

Just as Erantur was about to spill the information that Kaiden wanted, he suddenly started screaming and thrashing about violently.

Seeing this, Kaiden panicked for a moment, absolutely baffled by what was going on. He had bene monitoring the man’s vitals with the medical pod and there had been nothing out of the ordinary.

Now however, Erantur’s heartrate had skyrocketed, and some sort of foreign electrical impulse was activating every pain receptor in his body all at once.

Kaiden frantically tried to stabilize the man’s condition, but no matter what he did, the electrical impulses only grew stronger to counteract it.

Eventually, his captive stopped moving entirely and the signal from his heart came to a complete stop. Whatever had just happened had killed Erantur.

Clenching his teeth so hard that they started to creak, Kaiden slammed his fists into the glass of the medical pod’s lid.

He had been keeping his usual fiery temper contained and pretending to be cordial to get the information he wanted, but now the captive he had worked so hard on was dead.

All his frustration came up at once, and Kaiden could not hold his anger in.

He smashed quite a few things in the medical bay, before eventually taking a small swing of the yevesa wine to calm down.

"Damn it, how could he have died while he was inside friggin medical pod? Was this thing defective?" Kaiden grumbled as he ran a diagnostic.

Yet, everything seemed to be fine, so the only other possible answer was something internal.

Still, a scan of Erantur’s body did not show any sort of foreign device or substance in his body.

Explore stories at NovelBin.Côm

For a moment, Kaiden was stumped. But he then came upon the idea of tracing the electrical impulses back to their source.

He found it to be the brain, which obviously already managed the natural electrical impulses within the body. Making it difficult to determine the cause of the anomaly.

Nonetheless, there had been nothing natural about Erantur’s death, so despite not wanting to, Kaiden opened the pod and cut into the man’s head.

"Whoever put this in him must be a sick son of a b*tch."

Planted deep inside the man’s brain was some sort of implant. It had been carefully made not to show up on normal scans which was why Kaiden’s medical pod had been unable to locate it.

Unfortunately, just having the device did not give Kaiden any real information. He was not some technological genius. To him it just looked like a piece of advanced technology.

"Maybe that Baccigan, Grito can figure something out about it when he gets back. At the very least, I do know that this is what killed him. And it did so when he was about to reveal who he worked for." Kaiden said, going back into his memory and careful replaying what Erantur said.

He had started to panic when the man’s condition destabilized, but right before then, he could remember him saying the beginning of his maser’s name.

"It’s someone whose name starts with Ini-. Guess I’ll search around to see if anyone fits the bill."