Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Several seconds went by in near absolute silence. With only the quiet hum of the air conditioning echoing through the large supply closest.

Jasmine was about fed up with Huijari's reluctance to speak and pressed a bit harder on his knee with her weapon.

"I can see it in your eyes. You don't have the stomach for this. I ain't telling you anything, and there's not a damn thing you're goin-"

Midway through Huijari's rant, Jasmine pulled the trigger on her laser pistol.

There was a momentary bright red flash the lit up the room, followed by an obstante man clutching his knee and gritting his teeth to hold back a yelp of pain.

"That one was a warning. You won't be getting another." Jasmine said, pressing her gun up against his other knee.

Contrary to what she had said before, she had not blown a hole straight through Huijair's kneecap.

Instead, she had discharged her weapon at its lowest possible setting that could injure people.

This left Huijari with only a light first degree burn. Nothing particularly serious, and an injury that would fully heal in just a couple of days even without any treatment.

However, though he was correct in his assessment that Jasmine had no stomach for this, she knew that it was necessary.

Interrogating someone like this made her feel sick, and it went against her own morals.

Still, Huijari was obviously a despicable person devoid of any sense of right and wrong.

Jasmine had seen what he was willing to do for money and figured that his illegal gambling den was likely only the tip of the iceberg, so to say.

When people started getting involved in illegal trades, it often led further and further into the worst possible crimes possible in the name of making money.

"I've raised the setting on my weapon to lethal now. You're going to need some serious regenerative treatments if I fire this. So, as a businessman, I think that talking would be cheaper."

Huijari glared at Jasmine as she threatened him to talk. He was unsure of what they were really after, and if they would leave him alive if he gave them the information they wanted.

The longer he was able to stall for time, the more likely it became that allies of his would send reinforcements to retrieve him and take care of the brutes that had attacked him.

Nevertheless, the slight sting in his knee turned out to be the deciding factor.

He hated pain, and it was obvious that if he kept his mouth shut, he was going to be experiencing a lot worse than what he was right now.

"Fine. Ask whatever it is you want to know." Huijari said reluctantly.

"Good. Now all you need to do is cooperate and this will be over painlessly." Jasmine said, pulling her laser pistol back a little so that the muzzle was just barely touching Huijari's skin.

She then asked about the fraud case from twenty-five years ago. There was a greater chance that he would be willing to open up about a crime from so long ago rather than anything he was involved in today along with his old protégé. For now, Jasmine just wanted him to start talking.

Except, the moment she brought this up, there was a flash of fear in Huijari's eyes.

"What are you even on about? I had nothing to do with th- Agh!"

The moment that Huijari opened his mouth and started lying, Jasmine shoved her weapon back into Huijair's knee with enough force to bruise him.

"You've really tested my patience. If the next words out of your mouth aren't what I want to know, then I really am going to fire. There will be no more threats or warnings." Jasmine said, her tone deadly serious.

Gulping, Huijari revised his statement.

"Okay, okay. Yes, I'm the one that set up that scam. For all the work they had me doing, I thought I deserved a little compensation. It wasn't even all that big of a deal and I was let off with just being fired. The central government had plenty of money coming in through taxes, so a few million Krenin from a grant going missing hardly matters. Anyway, why are you bringing up something from over a quarter of a century ago? It hardly matters now."

What Huijari said was indeed correct.

A crime from so long ago was of little interest to anyone. And it was not like the confession that Huijari had just given was going to get him in trouble with the law.

The statute of limitations on the crime had already passed.

Of course, all Jasmine wanted him to do was confess since it would give her confirmation that Huijari had defrauded the Department of Education and likely knew how to do so.

He may have been partially caught in one of his attempts, but there's no telling if that was all there was to this. There could have been dozens of grants being paid out to fake intuitions that had been set up, and these schemes could still be going to this day.

"Good, so you've admitted that you were the one involved. Now, I know that you still see your former protégé from time to time, and that he is the current Under Secretary of the Department of Education. So, are you continuing your past scam through him, or perhaps it's the other way around?"

This time Jasmine's question sparked a much greater reaction from Huijari.

His face twisted in panic, and he glanced around at the shadows as if something might jump out at any moment and slice off his head.

"I just meet with an old friend from time to time. I don't have anything to do with the Department of Education anymore, or whatever Andras if doing now." Huijari said, shaking his head vehemently.

It did not take someone with Kasandra's expert hearing and specialized skills to know that he was lying.

Jasmine considered herself capable of reading people fairly well, and try as he might to hide his emotions, Huijari was not particularly good about concealing his true thoughts. TheM|V|LE&MPYRteamworkedhardonthischapter.

With only a couple seconds of reluctance, Jasmine pressed down on the trigger of her laser pistol.

This time, a searing hot beam of light shot out and blasted a hole through Huijari's knee and into the wall behind him.

If he just barely was able to keep from yelping in pain when hit with the lowest setting, this time Huijari was unable to retain any semblance of composure.

An intense pain overwhelmed him, and he started shouting incoherently as he grasped his knee.

For a few moments, Jasmine watched him rolling around on the ground with tears flying out of his eyes and screaming his lungs out.

When she felt it had been long enough, she held him down despite his struggling and applied medical patches to both ends of the wound on his knee.

The damage was not going to be fully healed, but this would at least numb the pain so that he could continue talking. It was impossible to get any information out of someone if they could not do anything except scream in agony.

Once he had recovered enough to glare up at her, Jasmine had Ezra pick the man up and lean him against the back wall of the room. Allowing the hole that the laser blast had left in the structure remain visible in Huijari's periphery.

After that, she jammed her weapon against his other knee that was only slightly burned and asked her question again.

"How are you involved with the current Under Secretary of the Department of Education and the grant fraud that is currently ongoing? And don't try and lie to us again. We know that you're connected to all of this."

It took a bit more prodding with her weapon against the burn mark on his knee, but Huijari eventually started talking again.

"Hehe. You guys have no idea what you're getting involved with here. If you think I was helping siphon off money from the central government just for myself, then you a bunch of clueless idiots. What you're stepping into is a whole lot more dangerous than you could ever realize. If you want my advice, you should stop now and go find a far-off rock to crawl under and hide there for the rest of your lives. Maybe then you'll be able to survive to a decent age."

At first, Jasmine thought that Huijari might be lying. Trying to make all of this sound more important than it actually was.

Except, she had not detected any signs that he was being untruthful, and the fear he had expressed earlier had certainly been real. There likely was something bigger going on here, or at the very least, Huijari believed that there was.

"Your warning is unnecessary. We can take care of ourselves. Just tell us everything you know. Otherwise…" Jasmine said, pushing her laser pistol harder against Huijari's knee.