Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

"Nothing in this sector either."

A young man with sandy blonde hair and sunken green eyes stared at the monitor in front of him and let out a deep sigh.

He had been searching for the last twenty hours for any lost goods or wreckage floating around that could net him a tidy profit.

Unfortunately, all he had come across was scrap metal too damaged to be worth taking up room in his spaceship's modest cargo hold.

"Just got to keep looking. I don't have enough Krenin left to pay for docking fees at the trading colony. And I'll be damned if I've got to hawk any more of my equipment." He muttered to himself.

Grumbling as he did so, he reached over to a compartment off to his left and pulled out a small silver pouch with a cap sticking out of the top of it.

With practiced movements he pulled the cap off with one hand and sucked the contents out of the pouch.

The liquid inside tasted godawful, but he continued to drink until it was empty. He had plenty of experience draining these disgusting nutrients packs since they were about the cheapest way one could get their required calories for the day.

After tossing the empty pouch into the waste compartment, Avery, the sorry captain of a rundown salvaging ship, took a deep breath and slapped his face with both hands to regain his focus.

"I don't really want to, but I guess checking near the Varnein Asteroid Belt is my best bet. The dozens of mining operations there have accidents all the time. Maybe I'll get lucky and find some lost ore or damaged but valuable equipment."

Avery, feeling his hopes rising, typed in the coordinates on his onboard computer and laid in a course to the Varnein Asteroid Belt.

When he arrived, he found something wholly unexpected. Instead of the prosperous mining operation that was supposed to be working in this area, he found ship debris floating among the asteroids.

"Sh*t." Avery cursed when he saw the scene in front of him through his view screen.

While accidents might cause a few ships to end up destroyed, the widespread carnage before him could only be caused by either other people or a space monster. Neither of which Avery wanted to deal with.

"Looks like it was definitely other people. The analysis shows signs of weapons fire."

Most salvagers would have been ecstatic to see the scene before them, but not Avery.

For as lucrative as a recently destroyed mining operation could be for someone like him, the risk often did not equal the reward.

These ships had not just blown up on their own. Space pirates, or possibly a rival company's private army, were the most likely culprits. Either of these groups would attempt to eliminate anyone they saw poking around at the sight of their attack.

"There are no other ships within sensor range, though. Perhaps whoever did this is already gone." Avery said hopefully.

Normally he would have hightailed it out of the area the moment he saw the destruction in front of him, but currently he was pretty desperate for cash. The money in his account had dwindled over several unsuccessful days. Yet now a big score was floating around for the taking.

"I'll grab some stuff really quick and get out of here. If I'm lucky, I might even find a data box from one of the mining vessels. The information on it would be worth a lot to the authorities and the company that has jurisdiction over this area." Avery murmured while suppressing his fear. He did not like going into such dangerous situations, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He was in serious need of Krenin.

Grabbing his ship's controls, he maneuvered his way through the wreckage and asteroid field and began scanning the destroyed ships.

To his dismay, the first half dozen were all too damaged to be of any value, and their data boxes had already been harvested by whoever had attacked them.

Still, he could not give up yet and continued to search for anything that would allow him to net a profit.

"Finally!"

After scanning a more intact ship than the others he had passed by, Avery hit what a scavenger considered to be a jackpot. The artificial gravity module and drilling equipment were still operational. Both of these were quite valuable and would net him several thousands of Krenin.

"The artificial gravity module is just the standard issue, but the drill's pretty sweet. A Tahoshi Extract Mk Three. A nice high end mining drill that's only two generations old. That's definitely going to sell well."

Avery wore a gleeful smile on his face now that he had found some loot worth all the effort he had put into searching the vast expanse of space.

Pressing a couple of buttons on his control panel, he eased his ship close to the wreckage and set his propulsion system to keep pace with it as it slowly floated through the asteroid field.

Once he was in position, he operated another panel to his right and released the collection drones he had onboard.

His ship slightly shook as three panels opened up on the side of his ship, and a spherical robot popped out of each of them.

Quickly coming to life, the three robots used their small thrusters to approach the ship Avery had his sights on and went to work separating the still functional artificial gravity module and mining drill.

As he waited, Avery put on some music and joyfully whistled to the tune. After he got back and sold his salvage, he would not have to worry about money again for at least a couple more weeks.

His good mood did not last long, sadly.

Just as two of his collection drones were putting the artificial gravity module into his cargo hold, his ship's sensors picked up four vessels that were swiftly approaching his position.