Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 163 Through the Warp Portal

At certain intervals there were what looked like bumps protruding out of the ring. Though these were actually compounds where maintenance staff lived, and spare materials were stored.

In terms of any sort of structure Avery had ever seen before, this warp portal was by far the largest and most impervious.

It had a diameter of nearly two thousand kilometers. A truly enormous device, capable of swallowing even some smaller moons.

This was simply how large it needed to be to facilitate connecting two points in space. Nearly a year's worth of energy expenditure for an entire planet was used every week just to use this single warp portal.

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Maintaining the network was by far the most expensive and resource intensive project within the Dramid Alliance but being able to travel tens of thousands of light years in a single moment was more than worth the effort.

Using light speed and hyper space travel alone would have made it nearly impossible to govern the vast territory of the Dramid Alliance.

From one end to another it could take over a year of dedicated traveling with minimal stops. And this distance continued to grow as the Alliance expanded its territory.

Yet thanks to the warp portal network, even the farthest reaches were accessible within a month. They were a true marvel in the current age of spacefaring and those in power would love to build far more if not for their exorbitant costs.

Of course, only certain people had access to warp portals.

Their use was heavily restricted. The Alliance Police, high ranking government officials, and the few approved merchant companies were the main demographics that were allowed to come and go through the warp portals.

People like Avery were an exception. Thanks to his meritorious service and receiving the Silver Cross of Heroism, he had been given permission to use warp portals. A perk rarely handed out to mercenaries, though one used as an incitive for the best to stay within the Alliance and not take their skills elsewhere. Especially to an enemy power.

"Oh, it looks like we've received out timeslot for entry." Jasmine said, reading the message that they had just received.

Despite being escorted by the Alliance Police, there were still procedures that needed to be followed.

Activating a warp portal was by no means something to be done lightly, so only once a sufficient number of vessels had been accumulated for the jump were they activated. Sometimes this could take several days, but fortunately, they only needed to wait a few hours.

Now that his attention had been momentarily drawn away from the warp portal while he was listening to Jasmine repeat the transmission the Dauntless had just received, Avery turned his gaze towards the thousands of ships hovering around the system.

A vast majority were Alliance Police vessels serving as protectors for the warp portal. Other than the capital world itself, there was no more strategic target for any of the Dramid Alliance's enemies.

Just at a glance, Avery counted over thirty heavy cruisers and saw two types of ships he had heard of but never laid eyes on before.

Battleships, the true behemoths of the Alliance Police.

Avery sighted four of them within close proximity of the warp portal. Standing in position as its guardians.

Each one was larger and more heavily armed than the heavy cruisers that Avery was familiar with.

While heavy cruisers typically ranged in size from around eight hundred to twelve hundred meters long, Alliance Police battleships were all at least fifteen hundred meters long.

Up until now, the largest craft Avery had seen was the Moonrise merchant company's flagship, but these battleships were all slightly large.

Except, among all of the Alliance Police vessels, there was a single one that stood out amongst the rest.

It was the largest and most prestigious type of craft currently in use by the Alliance. A capital ship.

While technically a class of battleship, capital ships were the largest and strongest, and served as the lead vessels of massive fleets.

At around two thousand meters long, the Alliance Police capital ship was by far the most impressive.

Its very presence here showed off the might of the Dramid Alliance and served as a warning to any that might have any nefarious plans towards the warp portal under its protection.

"Wow, that's an impressive craft." Avery said in awe as he stared at the capital ship. "I don't think that there's anything we could do if we had to fight that thing."

"Probably not. "Kasandra replied. "Perhaps if we still had phasic torpedoes and caught the crew completely off-guard, we might be able to do something. But yeah. There is no way we could hope to stand up to that thing's firepower even with the Dauntless."

Fortunately, the Alliance Police were currently their allies, so there was essentially no chance of having to fight against one of their strongest ships.

Still, being mercenaries that often got drawn into battles, Avery and Kasandra could not help but start thinking of ways to overcome the challenge before their eyes if the outlandish scenario ever did present itself.

While the three of them marveled at the vessels all around them, the time for their departure soon arrived.

Encircled by Commander Berk's squad once again, Avery and his team lined up with the other people aiming to go through the warp portal and reach the other side of the Alliance.

"Woah!"

When the warp portal finally became active, what looked like an inky black liquid film slowly spread out across the empty space between it.

To all that had ever seen this before, it was undoubtably an astonishing sight. And if not for the Dauntless currently being in flight sync mode, Avery would have missed his cue to begin moving and sat in the cockpit in a daze.

As Avery, Kasandra and Jasmine watched the line in front of them, every time a ship passed through the inky threshold, it completely vanished.

Soon they had reached the front, and Commander Berk's light cruiser disappeared.

Once it was finally their turn, Avery gripped the Dauntless' controls a bit tighter as they were engulfed.

For only a single second, the entire viewscreen went black, before they arrived on the other side.

""That's it."" Avery and Kasandra said in unison.

From all of the starting fanfare, they had expected some more flashing lights or some realty bending experience, but instead, it was simar to simply walking through a door. All they had done was go from one point to another.

"I think I did say a while ago that traveling through a warp portal isn't all that impressive. All they do is connect one point to another, so really you just fly through it."

While a bit disappointed by the lack of any flare, Avery and Kasandra still had to marvel at the distance they had traveled.

Their navigational computer swiftly updated their position by reading predownloaded star charts and the positions of nearby celestial bodies.

In a mere instant they had just traveled over twenty thousand light years. A trip that would have taken several months through hyperspace.

Nevertheless, they had not quite arrived at their destination yet. They still needed to go through one more hyper lane, and then they would finally reach the Cocarro System. Where the trial Grtio would testifying in and Jasmine's mother awaited.