Avery sat in the cockpit of his ship, nervously tapping at the screen of his terminal.
Having signed up for the upcoming attack on the space pirates base, he was unable to take on any other work and was simply waiting for the Alliance Police to announce the start of the raid.
However, while he had waited patiently for the first few days, a sudden dreadful piece of news had reached him.
His father's condition had begun to deteriorate, and he had been brought to the best hospital on Yuson II.
Unfortunately, while he was currently being kept alive, without receiving the necessary regenerative treatments soon, he was going to die.
"Mother's not even able to stay by his side since she has to continue working, and even the Krenin I sent her won't be anywhere near enough. So far, it's just paying for the hospital bills. I need to at least earn enough to get the procedures started or my father's going to die." Avery said, flutily searching for some sort of option.
The only thing he could think of was to sell off his ship. It would certainly be valuable enough to pay for his father's medical expenses.
Yet, his mother had told him not to. Apparently, his father had made her promise not to let him do so. Not after he worked so hard to pursue a life among the stars. Even if it was the only way to keep him alive, Avery's father did not want him to sacrifice his dream.
That left him with only one real option. To earn a massive sum of money during the upcoming mission for the Alliance Police. If what he had heard from other mercenaries was true, the opportunity to make a substantial profit would be high. All he had to do was shoot down enough pirates.
Still, before anything else, he had to wait for the Alliance Police to get their act together.
Right before they had sent the request for personnel to the Mercenary Association, they had set up a blockade around the area where the space pirates were supposedly based.
Naturally, it was somewhere away from the usual routes travelers would take and far from any of the mining operations being run in the system.
From what Avery heard through the mercenary network; the pirates had built themselves a base on a small moon that orbited the tenth planet in the system.
It was one of over a thousand moons that the enormous gas giant had caught in its gravity.
"There certainly picked a tricky spot to get at."
Avery was fully focused on learning everything he could about the future battlefield.
The moon the pirates were supposedly on was fairly close to the planet compared to most of the others, and the orbit patterns of the multitude of other moons made it difficult to approach. Any larger vessels would have a hellish time trying to get close with any sort of expediency.
This explained why the Alliance Police were trying to recruit every mercenary they could. Their fleet was comprised of sizable ships that focused more on firepower, and they lacked the necessary number of smaller fighters necessary to hunt down an eliminate all of the pirates.
Certainly, they could take out the base on the moon, but the pirates would simply scatter like flies and eventually come back together somewhere else if the majority of them were not eliminated.
That was where the mercenaries came in. Most of them had either small or medium craft that were fast and maneuverable. Perfect for chasing down their usual prey, which just so happened to be space pirates.
It was when Avery's nerves were just about to reach their limit that a message came in.
In thirty minutes, the commander in charge of the mission was going to hold a briefing, and then they would set out to eliminate the pirates and their base.
After impatiently waiting the designated amount of time, Avery received a transmission going out to every mercenary that had accepted the request to fight with the Alliance Police.
As he opened it up, the image of a young man with short black hair and sharp grey eyes appeared.
"Good day to all of you. I'm Deputy Chief Ikla. I'll be heading up the operation to wipe out the outlaws that have been terrorizing this system."
Without any other words of greeting, Deputy Chief Ikla began giving a broad overview of the assault plan and what position the mercenaries would be taking.
"Our cruisers shall begin by opening fire upon the base and destroying it. At that point, as has been observed several times in the past, the pirates are likely to swarm out like a nest of disturbed insects. The police forces under my command will primarily be targeting their large and medium craft, while you mercenaries will be positioned at specific locations to intercept any that attempt to flee."
At this point more data was sent to all of the mercenaries. It not only included which position they would be taking, but also the payout they would receive for taking out the pirates.
Along with the bounties and whatever cargo the pirates were carrying, every small vessel was worth nine thousand Krenin, medium ships were worth twenty-eight thousand, and on the off chance any mercenaries took out a large craft, they would receive a hundred thousand Krenin.
Of course, none of the mercenaries realistically thought they would have any opportunity to take out any ships that were classified as large. If the pirates had any at their disposable, they would be few in number and the primary target of the Alliance Police once the base was dealt with.
"I'll need to take out around a hundred smaller ships, or a bit more than thirty medium sized ones if I want to make enough. No maybe a bit fewer if I consider cargo and bounties." Avery mumbled, doing some quick math in his head to figure how well he needed to perform to afford the treatment his father needed.