*Timeskip/PoV switch*
'Thoughts'
"Speech"
[Telepathy]
—————
*3 days later*
We met up with some other mercenaries outside of the guild and were led to a large building near the edge of the military district where we were briefed on the details of the job. The building turned out to be the warehouse section of hanger, and inside it was the ship we would be transporting. It was a cruiser-class ship filled with munitions, rations and medical supplies. Along side us, there were 4 other groups of mercenary squads. The military escort consisted of 2 destroyer-class, 10 fighter-class, 4 bomber-class and 6 corvette-class ships.
To me, it seemed a little overkill, but they are fighting against the 2nd strongest empire, so I could kind of understand their caution. They went over the route, which was just through hyperlane between the Axis System and the Helios System, which is one of the two systems that borders with the Novarius Empire.
"We depart in two hours. Don't be late, dismissed." The sergeant who was in charge of the escort group said after he finished debriefing. Before we could leave, he walked over to me, "That debriefing was mostly for the others, since they're either my subordinates or silver ranked mercenaries. With you being mean obsidian rank, I trust you to do whatever you think is best while we are traveling. If you have any suggestions, I'm open to hearing them." He said to me in a respectful tone.
"I'll probably float around the formation rather than staying in one spot so we can help wherever need be. Other than that, everything sounds fine." I replied after a minute of thinking. Should we run into trouble, I want to be able to fight how I'm used to, not constrained in a loose formation waiting to get pelted by enemy fire.
He nodded upon hearing my words, "No problem sir, that will be changed." I nodded in turn and we left the district and returned to our hanger where we finished some last minute preparations for our trip out of this system.
Since we had done all our preparations the day before, we didn't have much to do and had two hours to relax before Amanda's first job.
"I'm excited, this will be my first job as a part of your crew!" Amanda exclaimed in a loud voice.
I chuckled, "Yup, and as a test, I want you to come up with an effective strategy, for us, in the event we come across a large enemy detachment similar in size to the escort group." I told the excited elf, who nodded with enthusiasm and ran out of the room.
Selene walked over, sat on my lap and snuggled into my embrace. We stayed there with each other and made small talk until it was time to depart. Once it was time, we flew out of the hanger and immediately, we could see a large formation of ships beginning to form around the cruiser from before. We flew closer and a broadcast transmission came, which we accepted. One the other side of the call was the Sergeant from before, "We're finishing up a few minor preparations and we will begin our departure. Stay in formation, if anyone breaks it, don't expect pay. That is all."
With that the broadcast was closed and a few minutes later, the cruiser and destroyers started moving, followed by the other ships. We took our spot, which was below the cruiser and set our ship on auto pilot, letting it stay on pace with the escort and ran the scanner continuously. Once it was on autopilot, Selene and I left the cockpit, if anything showed up on the scanner, an alarm would go off and we'd have more than enough time to get back and get ready to fight.
Like that, the escort job started and passed. It was boring, but that's why it was a silver ranked quest, there wasn't supposed to be any fighting in the first place. The trip itself took us 5 days, since the cruiser and destroyers were quite slow, but there wasn't much to complain about. We spent the time doing some light training, making sure not to exhaust ourselves and at some point I took out some of our frozen leftovers and made a few decent meal for us.
On the last day, we arrived at Helios station and it was visibly much more fortified than Axis, with multiple squads of fighters flying around and four destroyers constantly posted around the station. Lastly, there was also a dreadnaught constant patrolling around the station with its own escort of fighters and other smaller ships.
We made our way through the checkpoint smoothly and were allowed to dock in the hangers at Helios station. From there, we were allowed to go through a small section that was open to those passing through, it had shops, restaurants, a park and a few other stress relief places, like a pool, a bathhouse and a brothel. In this opened section was also the mercenary guild. So we made our way into the guild, which was much more crowded than Axis was, even with that mercenary company there, and turned in the job.
Amanda was quite dissatisfied that nothing happened so I promised to take a job that involved fighting next time, which made her happy. She was really looking forward to showing her tactic expertise apparently. The job was far less profitable than the gold ranked quest, but that wasn't the reason we took it, we only took it for convenience sake.
Though when I saw the list of jobs available here, I got a lot more excited seeing my options.