CHAPTER 667: SHE WAS A WILD ONE BACK THEN

Well... The other Zwerger finally managed to calm down after a while and she told me that she would send me the mission details later.

That meant we could return to our ship and prepare ourselves to set out the moment the details were sent, which in turn meant I took the opportunity to confront my lover when we got back to our ship while we were having our ’afternoon’ tea.

"What the hell is the Gold Demon?" I asked, lifting an eyebrow at Amber.

She giggled, "Ehehehe~ Oh gosh, that was such an embarrassing time back then~ Does Tera really want to know?"

"I suppose... If you’re ok with sharing it?"

"Mmm... I don’t mind~ I already told you about my origins anyway so I don’t really have any more secrets to hide from you~ This happened back when I first started as a Merc when I was still a rookie. The Zwergers were also in another civil war back then and that one in particular was pretty brutal last I remembered."

"What were they fighting over?"

"Hmm... I think that one was one side trying to change the social caste of the people or something? I don’t really remember."

Mara spoke up from the side without even looking up from her personal terminal, "The governing body at that time was trying to reduce one part of the working class into slavery and the entire working class rebelled against them. You fought on the side of the rebels, Amber."

Ambeer clapped her hands together, "Oh yeah! That’s right! Now I remember! I was still a little pissed about everything back then since, you know, I just escaped from that facility and everything, so I was kind of looking for something that I can just blow up, you know? Then I saw that they were recruiting Mercs to join in that war and since one side was fighting against their government, I joined on their side just to take out my frustrations on them since I can’t exactly fight the entire Terran Military after all~"

So she really just joined a war out of spite huh...

"And what happened during that war to earn you that nickname?" I asked, giving her a pointed look.

"Hmm... I’m not actually sure when they started calling me that to be honest... Since I did quite a lot of stuff to them, both with and without my powers. Of course I made sure they never knew I was a Psionic of course."

"The Zwerger was saying something about you taking out an entire battle group by yourself or something?"

"Wait, really? I thought that was pretty normal. I did other stuff that was way worse than that during the war though... If it was because of that... Oh, maybe that’s the only one she remembers since she did say she wasn’t on the other side of the civil war?"

"What happened?"

"It’s nothing that interesting. I was part of a rebel assault group that was supposed to be laying an ambush for what we thought was a supply convoy but it turned out to be a full battle group instead. At that time I still didn’t have my personal ship, so I was actually flying one of the rebel ships which was just a civilian mining ship that had been retrofitted with weapons to turn it into a combat ship."

In other words, the ship she was using was basically crappy as hell.

I tilted my head, "Were you guys in the wrong place or something?"

"Oh, nah, there was just someone who betrayed us and gave away the plan so they sent those guys to take us out."

"What happened then?"

"Well... Predictably, most of us got slaughtered immediately before we could even fight back. The others basically scattered and tried to run."

"And you?"

She broke into a mischievous grin, "To be honest, I got really pissed so I just charged directly at them."

I raised an eyebrow, "You’re not telling me you wiped out the entire battlegroup in a mining ship with guns strapped onto it, are you?"

"Oh, definitely not. I used it to wipe out the fighters and the heavy fighters but obviously there was no way that little ship could take on the two Destroyers and Cruiser they brought along as well. So I used the ship to fly straight into the Destroyer and crashed into it to board it. They thought I got desperate and tried a suicidal charge and died in that crash but I ended up fighting my way to the bridge and killed everyone in there before they realised I was still alive. Then I turned the weapons on the other Destroyer and blew it up into pieces before I flew my Destroyer to smash into the Cruiser. But then the remaining crew on the Destroyer managed to break open the door to the bridge I welded shut with my fire so I ended up blasting a hole out into space to vent all of us out before I flew back into the Destroyer and overloaded its generators to rig it to explode."

"You exploded the ship with you still in it?!"

"Oh no, I got to the hangar and flew off on one of their remaining fighters right before it exploded, so yep~ I technically wiped out the entire battle group on my own~ It’s nothing that impressive though~"

"Not impressive? That’s like... At least a few thousand people you killed, isn’t it?!"

"Eh? That’s no big deal though? Besides, the truth is I wasn’t really the only one there, the other rebels were also there to help me distract those guys even though they were just focused on running away. If I had been completely alone with no one else, I wouldn’t have gotten close to the Destroyer."

I would really like to refute that but then again... If she had been a normal person and not a Psionic capable of shooting fire out of her hands, I would say that they would have also died anyway. So I suppose the only thing I could say to her was as expected of Amber?

"And that’s what got you the moniker of the Gold Demon?" I asked.

She tapped her cheek, "Like I said, I’m not sure when it started since I did do a lot of other stuff after that as well and only heard about it being whispered even amongst the rebels after a while. But the battle group event was what I just described."

I sucked in a breath, "What other things did you do then?"

"Hmm? I guess there was that time I burned down an entire station? I would have thought that event would be the one that would have given me that name but I guess not. Oh! And it’s thanks to my participation in this war that got me the Credits needed to buy that ship of mine! Cool right?"

"Mmm... Yes, very cool, Amber. You’re always the coolest one for me."

"Ehehehe~ You’re making me blush, Tera~"

I was about to ask if there was any other exploit of hers I should know about when I got a notification beep from my Codex, prompting me to open it to check who sent me a message.

Hmm? This message is... Different from the normal ones that I am used to receiving?

Seems like this is a text message so let’s see here...

The first thing I noticed was that there was an emblem at the very top which I assumed must be the coat of arms for one of the organisations within the Zwerger government or something.

The message was also written really formally and they referred to us as the ’Teran Mercenary Company’ so I know this was definitely official business.

Hmm... We are tasked to intercept a rebel convoy... Convoy is believed to be smuggling military grade equipment... Dangerous materials... Heavily escorted... A single transport ship... Transport ship should remain intact... And we are to dispose of everything on the transport ship?!

Wait, wait... That’s not what we agreed on! I thought we were allowed to keep everything we found on-- Oh wait...

The wording here... ’Teran Mercenary Company will be responsible for disposing of the equipment and materials found on board the transport ship to ensure they will not reach rebel hands’.

I get it. How clever.

Us keeping it for ourselves also counts as ’disposing’ them because we would be keeping them out of reach from those rebels as well.

Guess for them, they can’t outright just write in print that they were giving all that stuff away to me. But just in case I get caught with the stuff, I could just argue my way out of it.

Hooray for bureaucracy~

When it benefits us of course~

Anyway, it seems like aside from all the stuff on the transport ship, they will also pay us for each rebel ship we shoot down and also a flat fee of five hundred thousand Credits just to complete this mission.

Well girls... Time to set out to make some more money!