"Count Iniquus Dannoso. If we put together everything we've gathered, he seems to be the most likely candidate for the one pulling the strings around all the incidents happening here."
Avery traced the final remaining name on the list Jasmine had put together.
This man was the only one with a solid connection to the planet being terraformed in the Phregon System, possessed a name starting with Ini-, had a discernable association with the person named as CEO of the shell corporation, Bréige Pharmaceuticals, and had a strong business relationship with the company Grtio had identified as providing the diodes and resistors used in the manufacturing of the implant found within Erantur Oert's head.
There was a possibility that they might be wrong, but at the very least, all the evidence that the six of them had collected pointed to this man.
"Now that we've finally got a target. Let's dig up everything we can on him. Though, I do wonder why he had people addressing him with his middle name?" Avery said.
As he did, everyone except Grito looked at him in confusion. It took them a few moments to realize that Avery really did not know something that they figured he would.
"Uh, Avery, count is not his first name. It's his title. He belongs to one of three planets within the Alliance that still practice feudalism. Shouldn't you have learned about this in school?" Jasmine said, looking perplexed.
Hearing this, Avery froze for a second and tried to think back on his days as a student. He certainly distinctly remembered having a class that covered all of the planets in the Alliance, but he also hardly paid attention to their political structures.
He had been far more interested and competent in math and science, and the only thing he really cared about when learning about planets was geography. Namely amazing scenery which could never be found on a station like his home of Yuson II.
"Yeah, I remember. It's just been a bit, and I wasn't really thinking about something like that." Avery said, a hint of embarrassment on his face.
Quickly, he looked up the political structure of the planet Iniquus was a part of and familiarized himself with it.
'Ah, so he's basically some sort of privileged class that owns a bunch of land on his planet. His title doesn't mean anything anywhere else though. Of course, having ownership of a large terrestrial territory gives him immense wealth. And a lot of the time, there's nothing more powerful than money.'
Iniquus certainly had the financial ability to fund and manipulate the pirates and terrorists that had caused chaos in and around the Phregon System.
While Avery and his team made good money as mercenaries, someone that controlled around three million square kilometers of terrestrial land made several magnitudes more. Controlling a force of private soldiers, abducting Grito and his uncle, and smuggling in foreign warships to give to extremists was certainly within his means.
And he had managed to do all of this without getting sniffed out by the Alliance Police. The only reason Avery and his group had managed to connect the man to everything going on was because they got lucky. Their information was also only speculative and hardly served as concrete proof.
"Now that we know who our enemy is, we can begin coming up with some strategies, but this is still going to be difficult. It'll be nigh impossible to sneak aboard the station and rescue Grito's uncle." Ezra said, a pensive look on his face.
If all they wanted to do was interrupt Iniquus plans, they could probably do so by anticipating his next moves and intervening. But so long as no damning evidence presented itself, it would be impractical to retrieve Grtio's uncle from the orbital station. They had no grounds to infiltrate the place.
Should Avery's group try to force their way in, they would be the ones labeled as criminals.
"It's regrettable, but this might be as far as we can go. We're only a small group of five mercenaries. Without the authorities backing us up, there's not much more we can do."
Kasandra's words hit Grito hard, and the bit of hope he had started to dimmish quickly. These people were his only option to rescue his uncle, but if they gave up, it would be over. Even if the Alliance Police listened to him and opened an investigation, it was likely that the people holding his uncle captive would destroy any evidence and move him elsewhere before the police found anything.
"We're mercs, so at the end of the day, we've got to know when to cut our losses. Though, I think we've already invested too much into this job to pull out with nothing to show for it. Thirty million Krenin is a lot, so we can't just let it go this easily." Kaiden said, seeming to come to Grito's defense.
Yet, as the young Baccigan looked towards what he thought might be his last ray of hope, he saw Kaiden's lips twisted up into an undoubtably sinister smile.
"Judging from all the trouble they've gone through to recapture Grito, I bet he's worth at least as much as he offered us to this Iniquus guy. Now that we know who we're dealing with, we can try and negotiate."
Kaiden's words crushed the last remining bit faith Grito had. As he looked around at the people he had thought were his allies, all of them suddenly looked like vicious predators ready to rip him apart.
His eyes filled with despair and horror, and he turned towards the cockpit's exit and thought about bolting.
"That's a pretty sick joke Kaiden! How could you say something like that. Can't you see that you that you've terrified him?" Jasmine said, her feelings of righteousness not allowing her to even entertain the idea of selling Grtio out.
After that the two of them got into a heated argument, Avery needed to slap his hands together loudly and glare at the both of them to restore order.
"Both of you, stop. This isn't the time to be quarreling amongst each other." Avery said, his expression stern. "Jasmine, I understand where you are coming from, but let Kaiden continue. I want to listen to what he has planned until the end.