Chapter 337 - 337 Strategy Testing

Avery watched from just outside of the battlefield as his forces cleaned up the last of the pirates they had been hunting.While his carrier vessel that was disguised as a cargo ship was not quite ready yet, he wanted to get some practice with the general plan he would be employing in the future.

To do this, he had first identified a good location where there was a high level of pirate activity that was at least loosely on the way to Coccaro System where Azade was.

It had now been around a month since Avery and his team had left the capital system, and they had finally finished their first test run of the strategy quite successfully.

Avery had rented the cheapest large cargo ship he could find in the surrounding systems and loaded it around half full of a luxury good that would be enticing for pirates.

There was around six million Krenin worth of pongrulsig spice onboard the craft, and it was worth several million itself, so there was quite a bit more risk involved here than there would be in the future.

Had the pirates attacked in mass immediately, they might have been able to destroy the old cargo vessel that was not particularly durable with only some light shielding and armor.

Though, that was why he had Kaiden keeping close by with his cloaked ship so that he could come out of hiding and protect the cargo ship if necessary.

If the pirates had better sensors they would have noticed the cloaked vessel, but that was just a risk Avery had to take to mitigate other dangers.

"We're getting an incoming transmission form Kaiden."

As he was analyzing the battle that was now almost over, Jasmine informed Avery about an incoming call.

Wondering what it could be, he had Jasmine accept the communication request.

"We've finished eliminating those that are hostile, but one of the pirates surrendered and a few others followed suit. We didn't discuss what we would do about taking prisoners, so what do you want us to do?" Kaiden said, looking to have already settled into the role of a commander with his own crew quite well.

It was true that the prospect of capturing the pirates alive was an oversight on Avery's part.

Normally, pirates either fought to the end or managed to run away.

Honestly, it was rare for them to give up, since they knew that there was almost no chance that they would ever be released from prison and their lives would consist of hard labor until they died.

Piracy was a major problem in the Dramid Alliance, and really throughout the entire galaxy.

There were always those with debauched tastes that could not or did not want to fit in with society, and others that got drunk on the thrill and easy money that came from robbing those weaker than them.

That's why the penalties needed to be harsh and swift, to help dissuade people from joining the practice, and to make it easier to root out those that were already a part of it.

Even if they surrendered, pirates were not offered much in the way of leniency.

Mercenaries could still simply execute them on the spot if they wanted. Considering what pirates did to others, they were not offered much in the way of human rights.

'Hm, taking them all in could be dangerous. We don't really have much in the way of detection facilities, and the only hangar we have is a small one on Kaiden's corvette, which is meant for a single small vessel. It would be possible to bring them onto the cargo ship, but it's not well equipped to defend itself and they might try to take it over and cause some problems.' Avery thought as he contemplated what to do.

There were nine pirates that had surrendered in total. Not a great number, but it was never clear what their type might do when they were feeling desperate.

In the worst case, they could rig themselves with explosives and blow themselves up once they were captured to cause as much damage as possible before dying.

"I've identified that seven of them have decently high bounties on their heads. Target their cockpits and eliminate them quickly with as little damage to the vessel as possible. As for the two that don't have bounties, we'll take them as prisoners."

Though Avery's orders were quite ruthless, they were practical.

The pirates with bounties on their heads were a lot more likely to try and cause trouble and would just generally be harder to deal with.

Destroying them would eliminate a dangerous variable and help to serve as a example of what could happen to the two without bounties.

With their targets at a standstill, it was easy for Kaiden to aim his corvette's weapons and kill the seven pirates in one fell swoop.

They did not have time to evade, and their shields were not strong enough to stop the laser cannon fire from a near military class corvette.

At the same moment that the seven with bounties were killed, the two without a price on their heads were sent messages that their surrender was accepted and that they should give remote access of the vessels over to Kaiden.

One at a time, he would have them dock in his corvette's hangar which had initially been meant for capturing one of the competition vessels.

From there, the pilots would be escorted to the brig and questioned.

"Okay, we've wrapped things up. Burke, I want you to lead fourteen ships out on a patrol of the area, to make sure that there aren't any other pirates hiding around and that reinforcements aren't coming. We know that this isn't the entirety of their group. As for everyone else, let's start loading our spoils onto the cargo ship. We only filled it up halfway for a reason."

Avery's orders we're quickly executed, and the cleanup of the battle began.

With their rented cargo ship, they would be able to take far more back with them than normal.

The enemy ships in the best conditions and with the highest quality equipment would be loaded onboard, and for the ones that had been more fully destroyed, intact cargo and gear would be taken by those with room in their own cargo holds.

"I just finished compiling the total from their bounties. Between a hundred twenty-one, we've earned nearly two million Krenin." Jasmine said, putting the numbers up on the screen.

Along with it was a list of those that had eliminated the most pirates in descending order.

While he had participated in the battle, Avery had mostly been watching over it as a commander, so he was rather low on the list compared to what his actual skill would suggest.

"Looks like Kasandra took the top spot and Ezra and Liesel tied for second place only being one kill behind. Olivia and Kaiden ended up a bit lower since their ships were mostly used for zoning in this battle. Still, we got through without any casualties, or even major damage, so I would say that this was a decent victory."

While the almost two million Krenin in bounties was not a great deal of money in relation to the size of Avery's forces, that was only part of what they had gained. The source of thɪs content is ????????????????????✶????????????????✶????????????

There were the pirates ships themselves, as well as the other assets that they had been carrying.

Of course, this was still only a small portion of what Avery hoped to gain.

More pirates still lurked about this area, and thanks to Kaiden's corvette's communication disruption equipment, no transmission would have reached the other pirates.

Avery planned to employ this same strategy a few more times to thin out the pirates' numbers, before staging an attack on their bases. That was where they would find the real loot, since most pirates did not travel with too much on them unless they had just completed a successful raid or were on the run.

"Take us towards Kaiden's corvette. We'll be able to get some data from the captured vessels, but pirates typically have it set up so that relevant information on their bases is erased or corrupted whenever they die or get captured. But, with a couple of live prisoners to negotiate with, we should hopefully be able to get everything we want easily enough." Avery said, having already pulled up the intel they had on the prisoners.

He was letting Jasmien pilot the Dauntless now that the battle was over so that he could put his full attention towards preparing.

Since the two pirates were prisoners, his team already had the advantageous position in any negotiations, but it didn't hurt to be as ready as possible.

'He'll probably be the easier of the two to break. And I've already got a few ideas just from what Kaiden sent me about what they found on his ship.' Avery thought, looking at the live video feed of a forlorn looking man with greasy, long dark brown hair.