What Do You Mean I'm The Captain Of A Yandere Mercenary Company?

The guy ended up haggling it down to one point five million Credits which I was surprised he was even willing to pay that much because I’m pretty sure Mara’s cost for all that work was pretty much close to zero.

Then again, the guy was most likely rich so a million Credits to him might just be pocket change or something… And it wasn’t my place to care about that in the first place so whatever I guess… He’s the one that chose to buy Mara’s gene mod anyway.

Plus… I bet Mara used her telepathy to read that guy’s mind to settle on that price as well so that must have been the amount he was expecting.

Right as I thought we were done with this place, Hasani stopped at the door of the clinic and turned back to look at me.

”You guys are… Gold ranked Mercs right?” He asked.

I nodded slowly, ”Yes… Why?”

”Would you be interested in taking a job?”

”What kind of job?”

He paused for a moment as though he was considering his words first, ”I suppose… It’s like an investigation type of job?”

”You’re going to need to be more specific than that…”

He hesitated for a moment more before speaking again, ”Do you have a map of the area? I think it would be easier to tell you the details if we are looking at a map.”

I nodded, ”We have a map on the bridge if you would like to head there?”

He nodded, ”Of course.”

Alright then…

I led the way to the bridge with the guards, Mara and Hasani following behind me.

On the way there, I realised Hasani was looking around the place like he was searching for something.

Before I could ask what he was looking for, he gave me a nod, ”I was expecting the ship to be dirty and badly maintained. I’m surprised that I was wrong about that.”

I rolled my eyes, ”Why? Is it because we’re from the Outer Colonies?”

”Yes, precisely so,” He answered, not even bothering to hide his discrimination against Outer Colonists.

”We’re not all slobs out here in the Outer Colonies, you know?”

He only sniffed at my response and said nothing more.

We reached the bridge and it seemed like Lea was on duty in watching over the bridge since she was the only one there, the Alv seated at her usual spot and fiddling with her personal terminal.

She immediately put it aside and stood up to greet me when she saw me enter the room.

”Mistress. Are we heading out already?”

I waved at her, ”Not yet, but maybe soon.”

Her gaze shifted to the people behind me and she nodded in understanding before returning back to what she was doing.

Hasani, of course, took notice of her immediately, ”An Alv? Here? That’s a surprise… You have people other than humans on this ship?”

”We’re not racist either,” I told him without looking back, opting to head towards the map console instead.

”Interesting… You sure she’s not a modded human with Alv features?”

I could almost imagine Lea holding herself back from lunging at the guy, since I know that she has something against people who mod themselves to look like Alvs and this guy was insinuating that she might be one.

”No, she is a pure Alv, I am absolutely sure of that.”

”Oh? Do tell?”

”Trade secret.”

I wasn’t going to tell him about the fact she was a Sage which all but confirmed that she was an Alv.

He looked like he was about to question further so I interrupted him by pointing at the map console, ”Do you want to talk about the job or not?”

He snapped his mouth shut before shrugging to go over to the console.

I tapped on the console to activate it, projecting the map of the system in front of me.

On the map, we could see that this system was basically just the anomaly black hole in the centre while the station we’re docked at was orbiting around it at a set distance away.

He looked at the map for a while and then nodded, ”Right. So I told you it’s an investigation job, yes?”

I frowned at him, ”If your job is telling us to head into the black hole to figure out why it’s behaving abnormally… We’re not interested.”

He waved his hand at me, ”Ha! Of course I wouldn’t ask something like that, you guys aren’t even scientists so sending you guys in is no better than just sending in some rock to investigate it.”

I decided not to grace that with a response and simply stared at him.

He squirmed a little before pointing at the black hole in the centre, ”I’m sure you’re at least smart enough to guess that we’re here for that, right?”

”Get to the point,” I growled.

”Right. Let’s just say that we have been sending probes there to try and gather data on the black hole. Some of them were aimed in an attempt to make them get pulled into the black hole itself but they have all failed so far.”

”And somehow one succeeded?” I guessed.

”What? No. If there was a success, I wouldn’t be asking you to do this.”

”Again… Get to the point.”

”Ah, right, right… Umm… There was one case where one of the drones that was orbiting the black hole suddenly went haywire and started sending back weird and garbled information so we thought that there was a malfunction with it and we tried to recall it. But for some reason, that didn’t work so we had to dispatch a ship there to retrieve it. But then when they got close to the drone, we lost all contact with it. We can still see the ship and the drone from a distance but the Head of Security for this station has refused to send anyone out to investigate the ship or the drone.”

One of the guards spoke up, ”We can’t risk anyone at this point, doctor. In case of an attack, which we suspect is very likely, we need all the ships and personnel we have right now.”

The lion guy waved his hand at the guard dismissively, ”Yes, yes, I heard that excuse a thousand times already. But you guys don’t even understand the significance of the data that could be on the probe! The garbled data showed that the probe definitely picked up something with its sensors! If we can just get it back and inspect it, we might fast track our progress by several years! Maybe even decades! Yet you guys are worried about losing a few ships!”

Sorry dude, but I’m with the guards on this one… They won’t just be losing ships but people on the ships as well… Unless you’re telling me that those ships won’t be manned somehow…

And I could already see where this was going…

I crossed my arms, ”So now that you know that they wouldn’t do it, you’re asking us to do it instead?”

The lion guy beamed at me, ”That’s right! You’re really smart huh?”

”Not happening.”

His face immediately changed from elation to confusion instantly, ”What? Why?”

I sighed, ”You sent a ship there, now they are seemingly unresponsive and most likely the crew on board is dead or something as well. Why would I want to put my crew at risk of suffering the same fate? I care for my crew.”

”I’ll pay you?”

”Can your Credits bring us back to life in case we die?”

”... No? But it’s for science!”

”How about I pack you in a ship and send you there by yourself?”

His face lit up, ”You can spare me a ship to send me there?! I’ll take that!”

Oh…

I thought this guy was going to be a hypocrite but I realised that wasn’t his problem… He just has a completely different value for life and if he thinks he can make some scientific breakthrough, he would gladly sacrifice his own life for it…

I scowled at him, ”We’re not going to do that either. I’m not going to take a job that we could potentially not return from.”

His face turned into one of disappointment, ”Ah… I see…”

Right then, as I was about to ask him to leave, the ring I was wearing on my index finger suddenly vibrated and pulled at my finger.

I looked down to see the ring which was supposed to be the Psionic Chrysalis tugging at my finger and pulling it towards the map.

I let it pull my finger to see what it was trying to do and it maneuvered my finger to point at the black hole.

Wait…

I leaned closer to the map and whispered, ”You want us to go to that probe?”

My finger wagged up and down.

Hmm…

Perhaps it has something to do with Psionic Chrysalis?

Hmm, hmm…

I looked at him, ”How much are you willing to pay for this?”

His face lit up with hope again, ”How about five million Credits?! No, the price is open to negotiation! I can definitely get a job like this approved so we might even quadruple the price!”

I sighed, ”Let me discuss it with my crew first…”

Even if the ring was telling me to go, I want to hear what the other girls say first.