Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Once Avery and Ezra had connected their ships' airlocks, the five of them all met on the Dauntless so that Avery could hear what Jasmine and the others had uncovered.

Before they began though, Jasmine headed over to the Dauntless' autochef and had it prepare a drink that was high in caffeine content.

Despite her augmentations that made her tougher than a normal human, she looked incredibly worn out.

With her drink in hand, she took her seat and swallowed a large gulp of the dark orange liquid.

"Okay, I'm ready now." Jasmine said, locking eyes with Avery.

She then told him about the clues that they had followed to Huijari, and the information that they had managed to get out of him after giving him some "encouragement".

As it turned out, the corruption in the central government that Regina had wanted them to look into was a lot more widespread than expected.

What they had all thought was that it was just a small group of greedy officials stealing money from a single grant meant for Azade.

Perhaps they might have found that this thievery was happening in other places as well, but not to the degree that Jasmine had uncovered.

"Huijari didn't know if this was all of them, but he has helped set up over a thousand fake institutions that are receiving educational grants. When he lost his position when one of the institutions was exposed as being fraud, he handed over the operation to his protégé and still assisted from behind the scenes."

Avery nodded his head when Jasmine told him this.

The last update he had received from her had been to explain the suspicions that they had and that they were going to investigate the people involved.

Still, the scale of this scam was a lot larger than he had been expecting.

Depending on the values of the grants that were going towards these fake institutions, the amount of stolen money could be well over a billion Krenin. The l-a.t^est c-h-a+pter.s! are a$lw+a*y!s ava^i&l*able^ fir*s-t% on M*V.5LE&MPY+R.

'No, considering how long this has been going on, the true sum might be even more than that. How much money have these people been stealing, and what have they been using it for?'

If those involved just wanted to live lavish lives, they probably already had enough. That meant that the capital they were siphoning off from the central government was likely being used towards some goal.

"Yes, it's disconcerting how far this goes, but the real cause for concern is the one that originally set this up. Huijari is just the official that was approached to implement the plan. Not the person that came up with it."

The individual responsible for starting all of this just so happened to be one Count Dannoso.

"You're saying that this was another of Iniquus' schemes?" Avery asked, a look of surprise on his face.

However, Jasmine shook her head in response.

"No, it wasn't him, but his predecessor. His father was the one that approached Huijari with the proposal to create fake educational institutions and receive grant money from them."

Thinking about it, Avery realized how it would not be too difficult for someone like Iniquus' father to set this up.

He controlled a large territory on his home planet and could just say that the money was for schools or research institutions he had built.

No one would ever catch on so long as he bribed the relevant officials involved in the process.

Of course, considering that Iniquus had succeeded his father's position, the man could not still be the ringleader of all of this. And with Iniquus now dead, it couldn't be him either.

'Then who is in charge of all of this right now?'

Not long after he had this thought, the answer stuck him like lightning.

Through his close aide's betrayal, they had learned that there was some other group that Iniquus had been a part of.

He had not kidnapped Vi'ivando to create the solar flare emitter for himself, but to increase his standing within the shadowy organization he was a member of.

"Looks like you've caught on already." Jasmine said, having noticed Avery's expression change.

"Um, does someone want to clue me in. I understand up to a point, but I think that I'm missing something."

Kasandra glanced around at everyone else, the only one that did not yet know what exactly was going on.

Avery motioned towards Jasmine to explain, just in case his own assumption turned out to be wrong. Unfortunately, he was not.

"Huijari didn't know much, but he's aware that the people he's helping steal money for are a dangerous group with a lot of resources. He told us that the current contact overseeing all of this is a man going by the name Adder. Except, he's never met the man or even seen him. Only heard his voice a couple of times to receive directives. His protégé, Andras, is the one in charge now, so if anyone has had direct contact with this Adder, it would be him." Jasmine said, a frown on her face because of how complicated things had become.

Yet, this was not everything.

It had taken them a lot longer than they wanted to extract this information from Huijari, and when they had tried to leave, they had found themselves being followed by a number of skilled individuals.

"They we're pretty good. We wouldn't have even noticed them if not for Kaiden's keen eyesight. It took us hours to lose them." Ezra said, recalling the incident.

Learning this let Avery and Kasandra understand why Jasmine looked so shaken up. She had dealt with a similar experience in the past, and fearing for her life was one of the reasons that she asked to join Avery's crew.

'So, if we keep pursuing this matter, all of us might have innumerable stalkers coming after us that are looking to take our lives whenever the chance presents itself.' Avery thought, wearing a grim expression.

His team already had their fair share of enemies, but getting on the bad side of an organization that they knew very little about and had abundant resources sounded like a bad idea.

The problem was, they already likely had the ire of these people.

Taking down Iniquus had definitely gotten them on the radar of this organization, and there was no telling if they had gotten involved in other matters that they did not even know were connected.

"If there's any consolation, they probably don't know who we are yet. The three of us were wearing disguises, so all they really learned was that a bahnen was among the group that interrogated Huijari. Regrettably, no disguise was going to hide that." Jasmine said, glancing over at Ezra.

Even if he chaged up his face with a disguise mask and wore different clothing, no one was going to mistake his species for any other. Their characteristics were too distinguishing.

Avery understood was Jasmine was getting at here. If they stopped digging into this now, there was a good chance that they would not get found out.

The opposite was true as well though.

If they continued to look into this scheme to steal money from grants being provided by the Dramid Alliance's Department of Education, then the chance that the perpetrators involved would learn about their identities increased.

'Still, uncovering and crushing them might be the best way to ensure our safety.'

It was hard for Avery to say that they were not already involved.

Nothing overt may have happened to them yet, but there was no telling what the future entailed.

The group that Iniquus was a part of might seek revenge against them one day, if they were not already making plans to.

"You're our leader, so I wanted you to make the final call. We can take what we've already found and hand it off to Aunt Esm- I mean Azade's representative. Then cancel the contract with the chancellor. Considering the situation and what we've already found I don't think that she'll ask for any of the money we were paid back." Jasmine said.

Avery wondered if Regina would be so generous, but as he thought about it, he figured that she might considering that Jasmine was her daughter and the high pay was partially meant for keeping her safe.

'She might even insist that we stop if she learned how dangerous this is. A few corrupt bureaucrats stealing from the government is one thing. What we've stumbled into though, is a lot more difficult to handle.'

Right now, Avery was being forced to confront the hardships of being a leader.

He had the lives of several people in his hands now, and if he made the wrong decision here, he could be putting them all at extreme risk.

Being a mercenary naturally meant that one could lose their lives at any time, but dealing with dangerous cabals was normally outside of their purview. Usually, they would just be fighting space pirates or monsters.

"I don't think that we can just sit back and let things play out without getting involved. I'd rather jump into peril than let it grow and fester in the background until it's gotten to the point we can't deal with it. We're already involved, so keep digging. Jasmine, I want you to expose Huijair's protégé, Andras, and find out more about the man behind him going by the name Adder." Avery said, a resolute gleam in his eyes.

"Understood, you can count on me. We'll get back to it. I've got to return back to my job at the Department of Education tomorrow, and now that I've got a solid target, I'll find out everything there is to know about his dirty dealings."