Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Avery threw himself back against a couch in the guest suite that he, Jasmine, and Kasandra had been provided for their stay on Azade.
He threw his arms over the back and rested his head against the top of the cushion.
Though he was not physically exhausted thanks to his augmentations, everything that he had needed to do over the last three days had drained his mental energy.
Planning and executing publicity stunts had been no easy feat, and Regina had invited several of her closer associates to meet with Avery and get acquainted with Avery before the wedding.
While most places had long since done away with grand ceremonies and opted for simple gatherings of close friends and family to celebrate the occasion at most. Azade’s people and especially the planet’s upper crust still held onto the tradition of holding large weddings.
Regina had insisted on her daughter’s wedding following this tradition as well, in part to show off that her family was still powerful, but also to put a stop to the incessant requests that kept coming in from former potential suitors.
There had been at least five young men that had at one time known Jasmine that did not give up after Regina rejected on Jasmine’s behalf the first time.
The most active and prominent of them was of course, Bastion Cuach.
From the information that Regina had gathered and shown to Avery, he had taken fairly drastic measures just to smear Avery’s name and try to have the wedding canceled.
It was a plan that was doomed to fail from the start though.
No matter what, Jasmine was not going to leave Avery at this point. Had they been unable to repair his ruined reputation on Azade, they just would have left and wiped their hands of the matter.
Perhaps that was not something that someone like Bastion Cuach who had lived on Azade his entire life understood.
Jasmine was a member of a mercenary team now. Their work sent them all over the galaxy. If one place was unwelcoming, they would just go somewhere else.
"You really are quite the heartbreaker. What did you do to get all of these guys so enamored with you when you were younger?" Kasandra said teasingly as she looked over the list of men that had not yet given up on her and that had been scheming in the background. Most of them were ineffectual thankfully.
"As far as I know, I didn’t do anything. I met a few times with some of them, but the ones that still haven’t given up are the worst. There’s a reason that they aren’t all married already or even have girlfriends. I think that these four are just looking for political gain, since they’ve all been stalled in mid-level bureaucratic positions despite their family names. Bastion’s different though."
"He is already a senator. So even if he has greater political aspirations, he wouldn’t really need me. But he was always a controlling creep that would not leave me alone and pushed my boundaries to their limits."
Jasmine shuddered as she recalled what had happened during her childhood.
She had first been introduced to him when they were both eight years old.
This was before her father had passed, and he happened to be good friends with Bastion’s father.
The two were pushed closely together to see if they might prove to be a good match, but it became clear to Jasmine quickly that Bastion was insufferable.
"When he visited my house and we we’re watched over by my family’s caregivers while our parents talked, he acted a bit better behaved. But whenever we went over to visit him, no one would stop him from terrorizing me." Jasmine said, her lips twisted into a frown like she had just eaten something unbearably sour.
She recounted some of the instances that stood out to her that had led to her loathing him.
He had often pulled on her hair or flipped her skirt up in the guise of playing around.
On one occasion he had pushed her into a fountain while she was wearing a white dress and had leered at her when the water had soaked through and made her clothing translucent.
Another time when they were twelve, he had wrestled her to the ground and laid on top of her like she was some sort of body pillow.
"I hated every moment of it, but after my father passed, his parents provided a lot of support to my mother. So, I didn’t want to sour their relationship by complaining about it. At that time, I was still trying to be a good daughter for my mother and do everything that she said. Even if I found it unbearable."
Eventually, Jasmine figured out that by scheduling important lessons at the same time or making herself sick with a certain tonic she found her body rejected would get her out of going over to Bastion’s home.
This made it so that the only times the two of them saw each other was when he came over to her house, or at large social gathering. Places where he at least showed a little restraint and was unable to terrorize Jasmine as much.
"Now, I’d rather not talk about him anymore. As far as I’m considered, I don’t plan on every seeing him again, and the nuisances he caused this time are already most resolved."
Noticing that Jasmine’s mood had soured a bit, Avery brought up something that would distract her and be a bit more cheerful.
"Okay, then let’s talk about where we’re going to go for our honeymoon after the ceremony. We’ve narrowed it down a bit, but we still haven’t decided on the place. Truthfully, I’d prefer to go to this mountain resort since I’ve never seen snow before, but I know that you two wanted somewhere a bit warmer." Avery said, holding out his tablet with brochures of all of the places that they were interested in.
Except, as the three of them blissfully discussed their honeymoon destination, they remained unaware of the extreme lengths that Bastion Cuach was preparing to try and obtain Jasmine for himself.