CHAPTER 288: CHAPTER 288 THE COMPETITION GOING FORWARD

Several days went by as the committee in charge of the competition attempted to come to a decision on how to move forward.

With all that had happened, there were quite a few that just wanted to cancel the entire thing.

From the very start, the competition to decide on which corporation would be providing a new line of small classification vessels to the Alliance Police had been fraught with trouble

There were supposed to be ten entrants to begin with, but Snyder Heavy Industries had been forced to withdraw after their illegal actions involving the migration patterns of a large group of Strexnoids came to light.

Now, another company had not only been implicated in the many major crimes, but it seemed now that their sole purpose in entering in the first place was to get a chance to abduct the famous singer, Nianni Taador.

Obviously, this corporation, the one that had hired Katarina as their representative and placed her in a position to abduct their target, would not be allowed to continue to participate.

In fact, the Alliance Police were currently raising hell and had already arrested three executives that had been proven to be involved. There was no telling if the major corporation would even survive after this.

What was supposed to be the perfect blend of entertainment for the masses, a great chance for advertising the Alliance Police and the participating corporations, and a means to choose the new top-of-the-line small ship to be integrated into the Alliance Police fleet had become poisoned.

The initial good press had now turned sour, as all that was being talked about was the attempted kidnapping of Nianni Taador.

Naturally, a great amount of blame was being thrown around, and there was no shortage of criticism against the organizers and the Alliance Police for allowing something like this to occur.

Nevertheless, for all of the voices claiming that the competition needed to be cancelled, there were just as many advocating for its continuation.

Many believed that it would show a sign of weakness to end things where they currently were. That a single act of crime could utterly derail a major event supported by the central government of the Dramid Alliance was something that could not be allowed.

Other than national pride, money was another major contributing factor for many to want to go ahead with the competition.

Billions of Krenin had already been spent, and great deal more would be lost if everything suddenly came to a stop.

There were an enormous number of contracts, blocks on news programs that had been purchased for promotion, and tens of thousands of staff members expecting to get paid for their work.

These were just a few of the losses that would be incurred if the competition was shut down halfway through.

Everything had already been paid for, only a small amount would be able to be recouped at this point. Most of it would just in up lost.

The squabbling between the officials in charge did not die down even into the final day they had to make a decision.

However, things could not go on for too much longer, or any possibility of salvaging the competition at all would be impossible.

People’s attention would only remain on it for so long, and if no news came out about the situation, many would move on, and interest would become difficult to rekindle even a fraction of the original interest.

A vote was ultimately put in place, and in the end, those wishing to continue the competition barely eked out those that wanted to cancel it.

"It took them long enough. The time off was nice at first, but honestly, I was starting to get a bit restless." Avery said, a hint of discontent in his expression.

Things had been moving fast ever since his team’s arrival in the Dramid System, so he was glad to have a couple days to relax.

Still, just having to wait around in a state of limbo where he had no idea if the competition was going to continue had been nerve-racking.

It was not just about having to stay put and wasting time, but also because rest of Avery’s team being led by Jasmine were still hard at work on investigating the grants being sent out to fraudulent organizations.

They had steadily been trying to collect more information and evidence.

Except recently, their main target, the current Under Secretary of the Department of Education, had been acting more erratically.

Something was clearly going on behind the scenes, and Avery felt useless having to just sit in his ship and listen to reports.

What he wanted was for the competition to either start up again soon, or for it to be called off so that he could go and join the rest of his team. He was the type that had difficulty doing nothing while others were hard at work.

"Yeah, they really did take their sweet time." Kasandra said in response to Avery’s grumbling. "It’s been nearly four days. You’d think that they could come to a consensus faster than that."

Unfortunately, as much as the two of them were displeased, the wheels of bureaucracy typically turned slowly. A definitive decision within four days was honestly quite quick in all actuality.

Along with the message that they received that the competition would indeed be continuing, they had also been informed that there were going to be some changes to how the events would be structured.

They were now down to only eight participants, since obviously Katarina was not going to be able to continue, and the corporation that had been behind her was no longer in consideration.

"I wish that they would have given us more information. They just said that certain things would be changed. But they never even told us what that would entail." Avery grumbled.

He understood that some things needed to be kept secret to keep things fair, but he also would have liked just a little more transparency.

"After all of this, we’re also being called into a meeting in with only three hours of warning. I guess that they probably want to get started again tomorrow." Kasandra said.

Having already delayed things by several days, Avery agreed with Kasandra’s assertion.

No doubt the organizers wanted to speed things back up now that it had been decided that the competition was continuing.

Taking what time they had left, Avery and Kasandra prepared and outfitted themselves with all of their best gear before leaving the Dauntless.

After what had occurred at the promotional concert, if they were not prohibited from carrying weapons with them, then they were going to be well prepared for another fight.

When the two of them arrived, they found a round table set up in the middle of the room.

There were sixteen seats at the table, one for each competitor, and another for a member of their team if they had brought one with them.

Five other people were already sitting down at the table.

Jack Huxley and the man who was his main manager sat next to him.

In the chairs across from those two was Liesel Kaizer and another girl around the same age as her that was presumably her copilot.

As soon as she spotted Avery, she stared at him inquisitively.

There was obvious interest in her eyes, as well as a hint of rivalry.

Avery was a bit more than a year and a half older than her, but the two of them were both young mercenaries that had quickly risen through the ranks.

Before he came onto the scene, she had been the most prominent rookie mercenary.

Now though, she had some competition in Avery, and naturally he drew her interest.

Finally, the last person that had already arrived was sitting at the spot designated for the first-place competitor.

Cerise Gunvald had come alone unlike everyone else.

She was flying her ship solo and had no team or even a copilot supporting her.

When Avery locked eyes with her, she glared at him for a moment before turning away.

Obviously, she was still a bit miffed about how things had turned out.

While it seemed unlikely now that he was in anyway involved in trying to abduct Nianni Taador, she still remained suspicious of him.

Her initial placement in the competition involved investigating another matter, and she could not rule anyone out as a suspect.

’You could almost cut the tension in her with a knife.’ Avery thought as he sat down at the seat designated for third place.

It took nearly another half and hour for the rest of the competitors to arrive. With the last to show up being Stifur’s representative, Atlas Himmel.

Once the rank two in the competition sat down, the lead organizer walked into the room. Clearly having been waiting for everyone else to arrive first before making his own appearance.

"Oaky, now that we have all of you here. It’s time to discuss the changes that have been made to the competition going forward."