Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

As Avery waited patiently for the ship's automatic diagnostic to complete, he glanced around the now lit interior of the vessel.

At the front of the cockpit were two chairs meant for the pilot and copilot, and the right and left sides each had two chairs as well for supporters to man other systems like communications.

"This is some pretty fine materials."

Even through his environmental suit, Avery could feel that whatever the seats were made out of was both sturdy and comfortable.

His interest continued to bounce all over the place, but eventually he was forced to deal with the seven bodies that had all fallen to the ground now that the artificial gravity had been restored.

When he finally worked up the nerve to check on them in detail, he found that all of them had on Storren Corp. uniforms.

He let out a sigh of relief at this. Had anyone onboard been an Alliance soldier, it would have caused him far more trouble.

After checking everyone's identification, Avery had a fairly good idea as to what had happened here.

"I'd guess that this was an experimental vessel going on its first test flight. The single guy that tried to kill everyone else is probably some sort of industrial spy or agent of a foreign power that wanted to steal this ship." Avery muttered after considering what he had found.

Of course, this was just his conjecture from what he could see. It was not like he was some sort of master detective that could make leaps of accurate deductions off of the smallest clues. He simply knew how the galaxy worked and figured that what he concluded was the most likely outcome.

Companies and governments only played by the rules when it was to their benefit. If murder and theft got them ahead, they would do it without question if they thought they could get away with it.

The real problem that Avery faced now was what to do with the seven corpses aboard this ship. He could simply jettison them out into space and be done with the matter if he wanted.

But if he did that, it could cause problems when someone came looking for this ship. Even though as the one to find it abandoned in space it technically belonged to him, he doubted that Storren Corp. would simply ignore their missing vessel once they learned it had resurfaced.

If he wanted to make sure everything was aboveboard, he would be best to hand over his and this ship's data along with the bodies when he returned to the nearest space station.

Avery knew that it was going to be a major hassle but letting go of a prize like this that only came around once in a lifetime would be the height of foolishness. Especially when he was barely making ends meet as it is.

"Well, even if trying to keep the thing is more trouble than its worth, I'm sure I can get plenty of Krenin if I sell it back to Storren Corp."

However, even as Avery said this, he did not really consider letting this vessel out of his grasp. It was something all those that traversed the open abyss of space dreamed of owning.

While he was planning out his next move and storing the bodies in one of the crew bedrooms, SCXD-011 finally finished its diagnostic.

The data appeared uniformly and in an easy to digest form on the main screen for Avery to read.

Other than having only around a quarter of its max power left and a bit of damage to the outer plating, the ship appeared to be in perfect working order.

Except there was one thing that was completely unexpected. All of the biometric data had been erased from the ship's computer and was primed for anyone to register themselves.

"Whew. That guy must have been pretty good to wipe such important information. This also serves as more evidence for my hypothesis. Someone was definitely trying to steal this vessel." Avery said, his face a mask of complicated emotions.

Normally he would have been pretty limited in what he could do thanks to the security that SCXD-011 had. The systems he would have been able to access would have been restricted, and it would have been impossible for him to operate the propulsion system.

Yet, if he registered himself as the new owner of the ship, everything it was capable of would be at his command. Both in law and practice he would be the experimental craft's owner.

After thinking it over for only a few moments, Avery began taking off his environmental suit so that he could register his biometric information and officially become the ship's captain. This was something he could simply not pass up on.

Once the computer had finished collecting his data, it saved him as its primary user. It now answered to him, and only him.

"Now. I should be able to access a lot more information than before."

Wanting to know everything he could about his new vessel, Avery pulled up SCXD-011's logs.

He found that the computer system was first turned on around two and a half years ago, measured by the rotation of the Dramid Alliance's capital planet.

Scrolling through the logs, he mostly found more diagnostics data and system updates.

Finally, when he reached the end, the logs detailed the craft's first test flight beyond the shipyard it had been built at. This had been one year and three months ago. Which was likely how long it had been drifting through space.

Honestly, it was a miracle that I collided with a comet, and another miracle that Avery managed to find it. Nevertheless, in the vast expanse of space, one never knew what might happen.

Once he finished skimming the experimental vessel's history, Avery accessed information on what he really wanted to know.

This was a top-of-the-line light fighter that had been meant for ace military pilots. It was bound to be chockfull of some of the highest quality technology in the galaxy.