Chương 59: Chapter 60: Andrew Anderson

Adam shook his head and ignored Frank and the other mercs laughing and joking about him until Lizzie returned.

"Follow me, the hall master wants to see you," Lizzie instructed before heading back towards the door she had just come from.

"Oh shit, it seems the rookies' chat-up line was more hardcore than I thought. Lizzie went and cried about it to the hall master hahaha." Frank joked.

"Shut up, Frank." Lizzie snapped before leaving the room. Lizzie led Adam quickly along a corridor towards the door at the very end, where she quickly knocked before opening it and entering as Adam followed her. As Adam entered, he saw a tall, broad-shouldered older man sitting behind a desk, looking over the photos he had just given Lizzie. The older man looked up upon hearing people enter before looking at Adam with a stern gaze for a few moments as if judging him.

"Hmmm, not bad." The man said before motioning for Adam to take one of the seats on the opposite side of the desk. Adam took one of the seats while Lizzie stood next to the older man.

"My name is Andrew Anderson. It's a pleasure to meet you, Adam. I heard what you did to save Diva Lorelie from a contact I have in the TISF, and because of that, I made the decision to promote you straight to F rank should you join us. It seems my decision was correct in that matter, judging by what you brought me."

"The pleasure is all mine, Mr Anderson, and thank you for the promotion; it was a pleasant surprise," Adam replied politely.

"No need to address me in such a way, just call me Andrew, we mercenaries don't adhere to politeness and proper manners so much."

"So I have seen," Adam replied before chuckling.

"Onto the business at hand, tell me how you found this pirate base." Adam nodded before explaining what happened without talking too much about the Spector's capabilities.

"I considered scanning the base, but it would have most likely given away my location, so I deemed it best to return and report," Adam concluded. Andrew nodded as he absorbed the information before saying, "You were correct to return and report this, since it seems someone in the Palaxia authority is working with the pirates. Just the fact that they could build this base proves it. Not to mention the prisoners they most likely captured from ships that we didn't know were attacked.

Someone is definitely covering things up for them and passing them information."

"Any idea who they are?" Adam asked.

"Not at present. They're most likely from the Palaxia Defence Force; however, even that is not a guarantee, not to mention there could be more than one informant."

"Then how do you know who you can trust with this information?" Adam mussed.

"That's exactly the problem, without knowing who the pirates' contact is, we can't risk openly revealing this information to the defence force or any other authority on Palaxia."

"What about calling in the TISF?" Adam suggested.

"That's an option, the issue is that the TISF ship assigned to patrol this part of Terran space, the Imperial Down, was ordered to transport Diva Lorelie back to Terrana Five, and it will take about a week for a replacement ship to arrive."

"Is it normal for an empire to only have one ship patrolling a sector?" Adam asked as he thought that was rather lax in security.

"No, normally there are two or three ships patrolling a sector, even out here at the very edge of our space. The issue is the event the imperial family is hosting, since there will be many delegates from other nations present, they have recalled much of the TISF to the capital for security reasons."

"While some sectors on the edge of our space retain a sizable presence due to our enemies breaching our borders occasionally, this sector of the galaxy is generally peaceful since we border the Oasis Galaxy and others, which we are friendly towards. Much of the rest is uncharted space from which nothing ever comes out. The main thing we normally have to deal with is pirates, though the defence force has been lacking on that recently." Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform.

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"So what do you plan to do?" Adam asked, and as he did, he noticed Lizzie giving him a look of pity.

"Well your ship is obviously stealthy enough to be able to get close to the pirates base seeing as you got these photos, now I just need you to board the base and hack into their computer system to determine who the informant is, how many captives they have along with where they're keeping them and also how many pirates we're dealing with," Andrew said with a smug grin.

"Excuse me? And why would I do that?" Adam asked with confusion.

"You youngsters these days, you never want to take responsibility for your actions and don't feel the least bit guilty for giving your elders more work," Andrew said while shaking his head in disappointment.

"Responsibility for my actions? What guilt for giving my elders more work? What nonsense are you talking about?" Adam asked, bewildered.

"Exactly my point." Andrew said with a sigh before continuing, "It's your fault that the Imperial Down is no longer here to clean this mess up and is instead returning to Terrana Five, as if that's not enough, you go and bring me the location of the pirate base along with proof that someone in the Palaxia authority is covering up their misdeeds."

"Do you think I don't have enough to deal with from those idiot mercs out there? And now you bring me this crap. Normally, I would just hand this evidence off to the authorities and forget about it, but I obviously can't do that, so I now have to make plans with the bounty hunters guild master."

"I need you to go infiltrate the base of those damn pirates and find out who they're working with so I can get this off my plate."

"What about the captives, sir?" Lizzie asked with a sigh as if she was used to how lazy her boss was.

"Yeah, them too, of course, I mentioned them earlier after all."

"Of course, sir," Lizzie replied while rolling her eyes, indicating that she didn't entirely believe him.

"I get what you're saying, but honestly, normally I wouldn't care what happened with those pirates as long as they stayed out of my way," Adam replied, causing Andrew and Lizzie to frown.

"Do you have no patriotism in wanting to protect and save your own kind?" Andrew asked angrily.

"You seem to forget, Andrew, but I am not one of your kind, I'm not Terran," Adam replied calmly.

"What?" Andrew asked in surprise before pulling up Adam's file on his console.

"Sigh, you didn't look at the information I sent you after all," Lizzie commented with a sigh.

"But I…" Andrew began before Lizzie cut him off.

"I know, I believe your response was, 'what do I care about one new rookie merc from god knows where, he will be dead in a week anyway.'""..." Andrew"..." Adam"Yes, well, it seems I was wrong this time," Andrew said awkwardly.

"So gotta ask, but are you two married?" Adam suddenly asked.

"Unfortunately," Lizzie replied sarcastically.

"Hey, now that's harsh, I'm still your boss, remember," Andrew replied, but suddenly shrank back when Lizzie shot him in the side eye.

"Oh, really? Shall we discuss this further after we get home tonight?" Lizzie asked with a dark grin that Andrew knew meant he was sleeping on the sofa.

"No ma'am," Andrew said while lowering his head.

"Good boy," Lizzie said with a small smile.

"Cough, cough." Adam coughed before speaking in an attempt to get the conversation back on topic.

"So as I was saying, I wouldn't normally care about some pirates as long as they don't target me; however, I received a stream quest related to destroying the pirate base and saving the captives, which is why I located their base and brought the intel to you."

"You received a stream quest?" Andrew asked with surprise.

"Are you a streamer, Adam?" Lizzie asked with interest.

"Yes, I stream my adventures, and that includes earlier when I found the pirate base," Adam replied.

"IDIOT!" Andrew suddenly roared, causing Adam and Lizzie to jump.

"What happens if those pirates saw or heard about your stream and learned that you discovered their base? They could be clearing out right now." Lizzie frowned as she understood the implication of Andrew's words.

"Not a problem, my streams can only be watched by those who have no involvement or connection with what I am doing," Adam replied calmly.

"What do you mean?" Andrew asked suspiciously.

"Hypothetically, let's say that I have a bounty mission to kill you, you're thinking that if Lizzie here or someone came across my stream and learnt I was aiming to kill you, then they could just inform you."

"Sometimes I wish someone would' kill this idiot," Lizzie mumbled, causing both guys to look at her before deciding to ignore the comment.

"Fortunately, it doesn't work like that. I have my stream set up so that no one related, friendly or even associated with you will be able to watch my stream, not even that random guy you meet in the barbers once a month but never actually see any other time would be able to watch it."

"Only those that my actions won't negatively impact or those that are completely unrelated to what I am doing can watch my streams unless I specify otherwise." There was silence for a few minutes as Andrew and Lizzie contemplated Adam's words before Andrew finally asked.

"So what you mean is that no one connected to the pirates or their base has any idea that you found it, even though you were streaming to god knows how many?"

"Exactly."