Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

"Well, I guess that this proves it. Someone is trying to lead this group of strexnoids away from their usual migration path."

With another fake at the front of the collective, it was pretty obvious what was going on.

This also served to help reveal the purpose of the imitation infant farther back in the group.

It was there to draw in the other larger strexnoids that would usually be out front leading. As the biggest and strongest of the collective they were prioritizing defending what they perceived to be a distressed child.

"I bet that if we checked the entire group, we would find more of those fake baby strexnoids." Kasandra said with certainty.

Avery was inclined to agree and transmitted the information they had complied on the mimic strexnoids to Ezra and Kaiden so that they knew what to look out for in the areas that they were searching.

Having accomplished what they currently could, Avery, Kasandra, and Jasmine waited around for Commander Berk's decision.

He was still mulling over whether to destroy the fake strexnoid leading this collective, or to wait and see what would happen.

Of course, trying to figure out the ultimate destination of whatever entity had diverted these space beasts from their regular migration path could take quite a bit of time.

Strexnoids did move at a decent pace, but they were far slower than any space faring vessel in the Alliance. It could be years before anything came of the investigation this way.

Time that Commander Berk certainly did not have. Grtio was due to appear in court in less than three weeks. If he failed to deliver such a critical witness, it would be a major black mark against him and bring a grinding halt to his career within the Alliance Police.

Destroying the fake strexnoid in the lead and escaping before the others rampaged was another option, but then the induvial or group behind this plot would most likely go undiscovered. Once they realized that the Alliance Police had caught on, they would not come anywhere near the strexnoids.

"What is the right choice here?" Berk mumbled while tapping the arm of the chair he was sitting in.

As if having heard his question, a call from the Dauntless came in at that very moment.

"That's quite the pensive look you're wearing." Avery said. "I might have a suggestion for you."

"And what might that be? I'd love to hear the infinite wisdom of an esteemed mercenary such as yourself." Berk responded with contempt.

However, once Avery detailed what his plan was, Commander Berk could hardly disregard it.

"Too much effort, and too many resources have been put into this scheme. So, while it is mostly automated, I bet that the people that have set all of this up have ways to monitor the situation and probably drop by at least on occasion. If we give them a good reason to show themselves, I bet that they will."

Avery's idea was really rather simple.

All they needed to do was reactive one of the tracking tags that had been on one of the strexnoids.

The mechanical mimics were probably set up to detect such anomalies and alert the organization that had created them.

After that, someone would come by to check on the issue before it caught the attention of someone else.

"That might work, but if we are detected, the people that came to check on the tracker will just run away. If we can catch them then its fine, but there is no guarantee they won't get away." Berk said, bringing up one of a few flaws he could poke in Avery's plan.

"Yeah, that is a risk, but we can mitigate it by staying out of sensor range. If we left a stealth probe among the strexnoids to inform us when someone shows up, we could arrive by light speed and catch our target off guard.

While Berk did think that there were some merits to this plan, a quick check of his vessel's equipment along with the other Alliance Police ships under his command showed that none of them had any stealth probes that could avoid detection. It was not a standard piece of equipment that they would need.

Nevertheless, Avery had already spoken with Grito and Vi'ivando and the two of them were confident that they could modify a type six probe that was the most common model employed by the Alliance Police.

"Fine, go ahead and get started on it. I'll have the probe sent over so that the work can begin immediately. In the meantime, I'll still be considering other options."

With that Berk cut off the communications.

"You know that you look pretty smug right now. Especially since that was my idea." Jasmine said, her cheeks puffed up in an exaggerated pout.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure that you get the credit for it. Without your knowledge of Alliance police probes, we won't have been able to get that proposal together. Now I think that we've got some time to lounge about now. What do you two want to do now?"

…

After around half a day Commander Berk decided to go with the plan Avery had presented to him. He could not come up with anything better that did not have major risks.

There were obviously still problems that could occur with this course of action. If the group that had put together this operation to move the strexnoids were especially cautious, just the tracker becoming active might be enough for them to abandon the entire thing.

Though, this would constitute a heavy loss. Researching and manufacturing the mimic strexnoids no doubt cost an enormous amount of money. To give it all up at the first sign of trouble would probably be difficult to swallow for most.

"Okay, we're moving out. Stay in the designated positions and only communicate with secure channels, and only if absolutely necessary." Commander Berk said before everyone went their separate ways.

There was no telling from which direction their quarry was going to appear from, so all of them spread out to cover as much distance as possible.

Naturally, they needed to be wary of being picked up by their target first, which was why all of them were going to be hiding in areas nearby that were covered in space debris in low output mode to prevent being detected.

Then once the stealth probe picked up any suspicious vessel and transmitted it, they would surround the craft and capture it. From there it would be an easy enough matter to extract the information the Alliance police wanted.

"We've only got five days though. What's Berk's plan if no one shows up by then?" Jasmine asked once the Dauntless was in its designated position.

"I'm afraid he didn't tell me." Avery replied with the shrug of his shoulders.

Five days was the longest they could stick around here and still make it to the Coccaro system in time for Grito's court date. And seeing as how the delivery of his testimony had already been delayed once before, being late was not an option.

Perhaps Berk had already contacted the Phregon System and had worked out how to send another squad, or maybe he planned on leaving a few of the corvettes under his command behind to keep track of the situation.

Fortunately, on the fourth day, when everyone was starting to worry that no one was going to show up, the stealth probe sent back a simple signal that was difficult to detect without having a commutation system ready to pick up the exact frequency.

"It looks like someone took the bait. Let's go see what we caught." Avery said, powering up the Dauntless and preparing to activate the light speed drive.

There was a familiar hum in the cockpit and space seemed to stretch around them for a moment as they jumped to light speed.

Within less than two dozen seconds, the Dauntless had reached the vicinity of the strexnoid collective and Avery disengaged the light speed drive.

"Looks like we're the first ones to arrive. Oh, and they're starting to panic." Avery said.

The small sized craft that was currently working to deactivate the tracker and cover it up again started moving erratically just moments after the Dauntless entered the area. Understandably, the person piloting the ship was shocked by the appearance of someone else.

Except the panic that they were experiencing soon turned to dread.

Within just a couple seconds, Commander Berk's light cruiser arrived.

Following that, the rest of Avery's team and the six Alliance Police corvette showed up quickly. Within less than two dozen seconds, their entire force had the unidentified small ship surrounded.

"They're trying to make a break for it." Kasandra said, noticing the vessel powering up its engine.

With the Dauntless being the farthest from an of the Alliance Police vessels, the small ship decided that getting past it would be the easiest path of escape.

Of course, this was a bad choice, as Avery simply disabled the craft's engines with his laser cannons and left it dead in space.