At the hospital, Avery entered his father’s room along with his mother. They had left Kasandra back at his parents’ apartnt to avoid adding any other worries. Once they returned ho, Avery planned to introduce his father to her.
"It’s good to see you two. How do I look?" Robert said, currently sitting up in the hospital bed he had been resting in.
He had clearly lost a bit of weight since undergoing the regenerative procedure, but this was to be expected.
The more noticeable detail were the chanical braces around his legs that ran up to his spine. This was an apparatus to help him walk until he had fully regained his strength.
Seeing his father moving again, and with a genuine smile on his face, brought both Avery and his mother to tears again.
It had been a little more than a year now since the accident at the spacecraft repair shop he used to work at. The company had foisted all responsibility onto Avery’s father and left him without anything to show for all the long years he had worked for them other than a broken spine and damaged lungs.
Now though, he was on the path to recovery. In only around a month, he was expected to be back to perfect health.
"Whoa! Guess I’m still a little wobbly"
As Avery’s father moved to stand up, he nearly lost his balance and needed to grab the edge of the bed to stabilize himself.
Without hesitation, Avery moved over to his father and lent the man that had raised him his shoulder.
"Thank you, son. For a while I truly thought that I was simply going to wither away. But you’ve given my life back. Truly, thank you." Robert whispered into Avery’s ears so that Serena could not hear him.
He was starting to tear up himself, and Avery was astounded since this was the first ti he had seen his father cry. Even after the accident he had not wept, there had only been a look of despair in his eyes. The only thing that had kept him going this entire ti was the support of his family and the desire not to let them down by giving up.
After assisting his father with walking for a bit and getting one of the assistant robots to adjust the output of the braces supporting the man, the three of them left the hospital.
Currently, Robert was unable to move particularly fast, but after a year of being paralyzed, any mont at all seed like a miracle.
However, the heartwarming reunion was interrupted by a sudden ssage Avery received.
It was not a contact he recognized, but the sender was not so sort of telemarketer or scam artist. He had a filter to block out those, and even if they did make it through sohow, he could easily just ignore them.
That was not sothing he could do with the sender of this transmission, though. It was from a certain corporation. One he knew would be reaching out to him eventually.
’They must have gotten my contact information from the rcenary Association. To think they would go so far as to issue a formal request just to et with .’ Avery thought after he finished reading the ssage.
Storren Corp. had even offered him fifty thousand Krenin as an advance paynt. This was an outrageous sum just to schedule a eting. There were no other requirents than that he show up.
Still, this showed at least so amount of sincerity. It was far better than if they sicked a squad of goons on him or had representatives constantly stalking and badgering him to hand over his ship.
Of course, if he refused, these might be the thods that they deployed next. He doubted that ignoring Storren Corp. would make them go away.
Avery figured that it would be best to settle things in a peaceful eting rather than have one of the wealthiest enterprises in the Alliance coming after him.
With a sigh, he accepted the request. Which even went so far as to allow him to pick the place and ti of the eting so long as it was within the next week.
This was clearly a lot of concessions on Storren Corp.’s end, but clearly, they were desperate to get him into a room and discuss things.
When he had everything set up, Avery finally put away his terminal and turned his attention back towards his parents.
Naturally, they had noticed his change in deanor and were looking at him expectantly to explain.
"I see, sounds like trouble. Though, we knew that this would be coming." Avery’s mother said with a worried look on her face
His father offered to provide whatever help he could, but Avery told him to focus on regaining his strength instead. He may still have been young, but he was an adult. He would handle this on his own and only ask for help if it beca clear he could not.
’A space rcenary has to be tough even when negotiating with the leaders of planets, or representatives of the Dramid Alliance Assembly. I can handle a few bigwigs from Storren Corp. without and problems.’ Avery thought to psych himself up.
As far as he knew, the law was on his side. The only way that anyone could take the Dauntless away from him was through force. And he was prepared to fight back using the skill Urs taught him if necessary.
Upon returning to his parents’ apartnt, Avery introduced his stunned father to Kasandra.
Thankfully there was not any tension or suspicion this ti. Robert accepted Kasandra right away. He was unbelievably happy to see that his son had finally gotten himself a serious girlfriend, that was both talented and beautiful. Up to this point, he had never even introduced them to any of the fleeting relationships he had when he was still a student.
Once enough ti had passed and it was starting to get late, Avery and Kasandra took their leave. Though, Avery’s mother did make them promise to co by again soon.
"So, Kasandra, would you help prep for the eting with Storren Corp. and co with for it?" Avery asked as they rode the elevator back down to the lobby. Obviously, he had already fully caught her up on the situation.
"Of course, leave it to . As your senior in the rcenary field, this is my ti to shine. I hate to admit it, but you’re probably already a better fighter than when piloting a ship. I’m not sure what sort of intense training you undertook, but it must have been brutal."
Avery let out a dry laugh at this. His ti under Urs’ tutelage had been fruitful, but it had been monstrously demanding as well. Sotis he still had nightmares about it.
"I’m glad to have you with . I don’t think Storren Corp. will try anything violent, but if they do, having you fighting alongside will be reassuring."
"Just leave it to . I throttle anyone that tries to attack you." Kasandra said, a completely serious expression on her face. It was almost enough to make Avery feel sorry for anyone that tried to co after him.
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