Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

With the data and witnesses that would serve as evidence of Snyder Heavy Industries crimes secured, Commander Berk ordered the resumption of their journey to the Coccaro System.

However, he did leave behind two of the corvettes that were part of his squad to monitor the strexnoid collective and keep in contact with other branches of the Alliance Police to organize a force to eliminate the mechanical mimics currently leading the space beasts away from their usual migration path.

Berk wished that he could do this job himself and claim all of the credit for it to add another achievement to his resume, but it was simply a matter he did not have enough strength to deal with.

While the strexnoids recognized the fakes as their own, attacking them would earn the wrath of the entire collective. Even if he added Avery's team to his forces, they would never stand a chance against tens of thousands of giant beasts.

As for Avery, he was more than happy to be on his way. Though there was still a bit of time until he needed to head to the capital system to uphold his agreement with Storren Corp., there was no telling how long the trial Grito would be involved in would last. In the worst-case scenario, Avery might have to leave behind his recently recruited engineer. Something he did not want to do if at all possible.

"We've finished setting in a course for the next hyper lane entrance. Preparing for flight sync and the jump to light speed." Jasmine said, tapping away at the console in front of her.

A couple minutes later, the nine vessels that were moving on all began to move in unison.

With Commander Berk's light cruiser in the lead, their group simultaneously jumped to light speed and headed on their way.

Around three hours later, they finally reached the next hyper lane entrance they would be taking.

After a short time to prepare and calculate their entry, all of them slipped into hyperspace.

"And… it's time for a break." Avery said languidly as he stretched his arms over his head.

Over the last few days, they had needed to stay alert for whenever the perpetrator behind the fake strexnoids would appear.

Fortunately, now that that incident was resolved with the capture of Dustin and Sasha, things could go back to normal.

"We've got two days in this hyper lane before needing to exit. So, that gives us plenty of time." Kasandra said, her lips turned up into a suggestive smile.

Before he knew it, both Kasandra and Jasmine had stood up and were standing next to him.

Each of them grabbed one of his arms and pulled him out of the pilot's chair and dragged him towards the bathroom so that they could get cleaned up together. It had been several days since the last time that they were able to be intimate together.

Now that there was a bit of downtime, the three of them were going to make the most of it.

…

The next several days went by smoothly without any issue.

Their first destination was a highly populated system that had one of the few warp portals scattered throughout Alliance territory. Once they reached it, they would be able to travel tens of thousands of light years in an instant and arrive within less than a day's travel from the Coccaro System.

However, as they exited a hyper lane on the edge of a system five away from the warp portal, something disconcerting occurred.

"I'm picking up some sort of signal from the sensors. But it's gargled. I can't get a lock on its location. It's like it exists and it doesn't at the same time."

As Jasmine tried to pinpoint the signal, the Dauntless' sensors picked up that some sort of transmission had just been sent. Likely from whatever was giving off a faint energy signature that Jasmine had noticed but could not find.

Vexingly, when Avery contacted Ezra, Kaiden, and Olivia, none of their ships' sensors could even determine that the object existed. Their sensors simply were not on the same level as the Dauntless'.

"Contact Commander Berk and tell him about it." Avery ordered. "Then, narrow the sensor's range and only focus on what is creating the signal. Also, send what data we've collected to the others and the Alliance Police. I've got a bad feeling about this and want to figure out what's hiding around here."

Kasandra and Jasmine quickly got to work doing as Avery asked while he enhanced the main viewscreen's resolution and pulled up the feeds from the other exterior cameras.

He glanced around at the display all around him looking for signs of some sort of foreign object. And not just some space debris, but an intact ship or other device.

'It's got to be small whatever it is if it's evaded detection so far.'

At some point, the sensors narrowed the range of the object down, and as Avery carefully examined the area, he caught a glimpse of a shimmer.

"Jasmine focus the sensors on these coordinates." Avery said, quickly transmitting the data to her.

While she worked on this, he kept his eyes glued on the shimmer. It was only perceptible sometimes, whenever it passed by an object that was producing light.

Slowly a picture started to form in Avery's head. He had some ideas about what this thing might be, and the longer he stared at it, the more confident he became in his assessment.

"I've finally got a lock on its signature. Pulling up the scan data now."

With a few keystrokes, Jasmine displayed the information pertaining to the object on the main view screen.

As Avery had surmised, it was a stealth probe.

However, this one was vastly different from the cobbled together one that Grito and Vi'ivando had made using a standard Alliance Police probe as a base.

The probe that had been waiting near the hyper lane exit was a custom job not on the market.

They were not illegal per se, but any that were produced in the Dramid Alliance were required to be programed to identify themselves to Alliance Police vessels. Also, they were not supposed to be able to avoid their sensors. But this one certainly had. Neither Commander Berk's light cruiser nor any of the corvettes under his commander had picked up this probe.

In fact, now that Jasmine had gotten a lock on the deceive with the Dauntless' sensors, it became apparent that this thing was specifical designed with avoiding the Alliance Police in mind. Its cloaking technology was most adept at evading the standard sensor readout used by the Alliance Police.

"I guess we're lucky that Storren Corp. decided to upgrade the Dauntless' sensors from what the Alliance Police usually use." Kasandra commented.

Both Avery and Jasmine nodded their heads in agreement and continued to monitor the probe.

It did not seem to have figured out that it had been noticed, or perhaps it had not been programed to care, as it was still observing Avery's team and Berk's squad.

Eventually, by using the data from the Dauntless, the other vessels were able to detect the probe, and they slowly surrounded it as they observed the device.

"Well, there are near infinite reasons why something like this might be here, but I'm pretty sure that it was waiting for us."

Avery was fairly confident in this assertion.

A stealth probe clearly not of Alliance make, designed with the intent of avoiding detection from the Alliance police. This stunk of the Odium Syndicate and was almost certainly their work.

No doubt such an organization had spies planted throughout the Dramid Alliance, and some would without question be in the Alliance Police.

They probably knew about Grito resurfacing and being brought back to the Coccaro System for the trial already.

Still, trying to deal with him once he arrived would be more difficult. If he perished while enroute it would be far less of a challenge and leave a certain ambiguity as to what really happened.

Ships traversing space went missing all the time, and even those under Alliance Police protection were not exempt from this tragic occurrence.

"We've received permission from Commander Berk. We're free to capture that probe." Jasmine said, reading the transmission that had just come through.

Obviously, they could not just leave the foreign probe here. It had likely already transmitted their location to someone, and likely was programmed to follow them and constantly send signals back to its owner.

Of course, it would be easy enough to destroy the probe, but then they would be unable to learn anything else about it. The best course of action was to disable it and let Grito and Vi'ivando analyze it.

Fortunately, the Dauntless was currently equipped with the perfect weapon to deal with this situation.

"Aida EMP MK VII is locked on and ready to fire."

"Got it. Firing now."

Avery pressed down on the trigger, and powerful EMP blasters equipped where the Dauntless' auto turret had once been, launched a ring of crackling energy.

Finally, the probe seemed to assess that it was in danger and attempted to fly out of the way of the attack coming its way.

Sadly for the camouflaged probe, it was a bit too late on the uptake. It could not hope to move fast enough to avoid Avery's shot after it was fired.

The ring of energy scored a direct hit on the probe, and it moved erratically for a moment before all of its systems shut down.

No longer were the reflective panels on its exterior displaying images of its surroundings and it had come fully into view. Inert and ready to be collected without any resistance.