The Six-Eyed Beast
Copyright© 2025 by BenLepp
Chapter 13: A Walk on the Rubicon
January 14th, 2279
Thumbs in his ears, Basil first went to find earplugs and then Perlas.
- Report.
- Glad to see you back, Sir. We heard about the destroyed barge! Are Nocks and the other lieutenant okay?
- They’ll be fine ... I think. Report, Perlas.
- Surely! All secondary systems are in the ship, tested and within spec. The computer core is in, just not set up yet. We’ve also got life support running, all shield gens are hooked up, torp launchers in, beams in, sensors in, grav running, medbay up and running, the cloak field gen is in and so on. We’re only missing the install of the D-9, need to fully close the hull and install both engines. We’ve even got 2 shuttles and spares ready!
- Soo, you’ve worked on the optional systems and didn’t do the engines first?
Perlas waved his claws, crossing them in the air.
- No, no. See, we’ve really got not much of a choice, we’re working our way through the smaller components first. If we drop in the ion engines, we won’t get any other systems past them unless we cut into the hull more, which takes the most energy to do and eventually fix. It’s a huge ship on the outside, but inside, it gets cramped quickly.
- We’ve got only around two days.
- Even less, Sir. RND’s freighter has gone to Vmax.
Shit. I thought we slowed them down.
- Will we make it?
- Hard to say, our people are doing a fine job, but many things can go wrong.
- What are the biggest issues you see?
- The quantum engines aren’t an issue, they sit outside in the flanks, drop right in with some connections – we’ve just been keeping the access open. The ions are tougher; we have to send them through the cutout in parts and then get them in behind engineering. The biggest problem is the D-9 singularity core, lots of things to go wrong and then the hull, we can’t really speed that up. Everything needs to be in place before we can plug the many holes!
- I only need the ship to move out of the hangar without killing the crew. We can finish all other bits on the shakedown cruise.
- Currently, the freighter’s estimated ETA is around 39 hours. I say we will make it, maybe we can even pass the freighter and wave, haha. Well, if we had any windows, that is.
Perlas optimism was sorely needed for Basil, who was quickly running out of the internal force he needed to keep pushing against adverse currents.
- Well then, let’s get to work. Don’t let me hold you back.
- Aye, captain!
Basil watched the little arachnoid hop away; the spider looking happy and energetic. Perlas had apparently extended his shell with protectors for his legs in the meantime. Basil was wondering why the Axxi was so easy-going, as things hadn’t exactly been pretty lately. What Basil was completely unaware of was that Perlas had spent years in the fleet climbing the ladder slowly without ever really being part of a solid team, usually bouncing around between teams where he was needed. It was a double-edged sword to be Axxi in the engineer’s corps. They were very capable officers and came highly trained from their homeworld, but they were also under orders by their own people to not betray the latest advancements their race had made, and the other engineers were very aware of one of their own holding back. There was also the matter that many found Axxi in particular to be the most disgusting race in the League. They simply didn’t want to spend too much time in the same room with a spider leaving little bits of thread when walking up a wall. They also had very good hearing and vision, which made them even more outcast, since people had to watch their words in their vicinity, even when whispering. Perlas had only found stability with Feterni, who had nothing against him, himself being a large hairy tree smelling like wet dog. But Feterni was not exactly an open person, preferring to keep to himself when not needed. The Rubicon and the Rubicon’s engineering team were Perlas’s chance at experiencing the comradery he was promised when joining up, so he was keen to make the thing work.
Basil decided to go to sleep for a final time before the ship’s launch. In the conversation with Perlas he had noticed he did not only not have an overview of the situation, he also didn’t have the energy to attain such overview. He also had no idea when Nocks was going to be back – not to mention Korolev, no clue what the security situation was, no answer from Ton, no helmsman and no replacement helmsman and many more issues. It was time to do a hard reset and then go through a long list.
He just went to his quarters in the hangar, secured the place, soundproofed it, gave himself a strong shot of the antidote for his cocktail and went to sleep, forgetting to set an alarm. It was a dark, dreamless state, no interruptions, no thoughts, just sweet nothingness.
He awoke to a terribly loud blasting noise and shot up on his bed, jumping to his feet on the harsh mattress, reaching for a sidearm he no longer carried. As his eyes started to work and slowly focus, he saw an armed security drone blasting a loud crowd control horn at him. He glared at the door behind the drone, accusing it of letting in already the second intruder. The unimpressed door, however, still showed the red locking symbol on the panel. The drone must have either locked the door again or been with him the whole time. Neither option made much sense, unless...
Ah, Nocks is back.
When he checked the time, his blood dropped to his feet. He had missed 14 whole hours. There was almost exactly one day left for the Rubicon to launch. For a while – after the drone had stopped blasting the horn at him and recloaked, zipping upwards – he sat on the bed and tried to guess the situation outside his quarters. Did anyone notice their captain had overslept? Were Feterni and Perlas still on time for the launch? He decided to pretend this had always been his plan, to be well-rested before the ship launches, ready for the first challenges aboard his new ship. He walked through the cleanarch, looked at the mirror, still looking like a third divorce and walked through the arch again. His uniform was still ripped from splinters flying through the barge, but he did not mind. He unlocked the door and walked out.
Admiral Petumbio almost hit Basil in the shocked face, as he was knocking on the door.
- Captain, nice of you to open up.
- Admiral.
- I’ve been looking for you for hours!
- Apologies Sir, I took a last rest before the launch.
The admiral’s shiny face reflected the hangar’s light bars as he was staring down the drowsy captain rubbing his eyes.
- Hm.
- What did you want to talk about, admiral?
- This order.
Petumbio flipped some text up into the air, now hovering between the men. Basil had to walk around Petumbio to be able to read it, as it was mirrored from his perspective, only to realize it was in Dorion. He also opened his display and read the translated version. It wasn’t good: An order from Admiral Vandermeer in RND to immediately stop construction of the Rubicon and seize all components assigned to the ship. RND had become aware of Hays’ last order. Basil looked past the wide Dorion shoulders to see that work on the ship was progressing as usual, but there were now many security guards around the gate into the station and the rear hangar gate – where the ship would leave – was closed.
- What are you going to do, admiral?
- I’m in a little bit of a bind here, captain. Vandermeer has one star more than I do.
- Sir?
- My only problem is that your ship is already launched, the order came in too late.
Oh-oh.
- See captain, when I received this order 4 hours ago, I immediately went down to this hangar to seize all RND property, but you and your fine engineers had already done the job and left. I didn’t know because your ship was cloaked when it snuck out the gates. You know, for secrecy.
God, I hope the cloak is hooked up by now.
- I see, Sir. But RND will surely understand there was nothing you could have done, as my ship operates in comms silence.
- They will ask to see the hangar and recordings, but the darndest thing just happened a few hours ago, we had a power surge in the whole lower grid of the station, lost all recordings. There is a danger of depressurization now, we are investigating. My men have secured all levels; we had to evacuate.
- Very prudent, Sir.
Petumbio had said all this with a cheeky smile in his heavy lips, but now they straightened.
- Don’t mess this up, Captain Basil.
- I won’t, Sir.
- Send me a ping when you leave. The lower half of the station is grounded, and we’ll open both the hangar gate as well as the main gate. Use a ping! Just a ping! I want no words on this!
- Aye.
You’ll get your ping, Vassily.
With that, Petumbio hurried back to the entrance. He left a few men to secure the hangar, but to Basil’s surprise he took a few people with him, including the security officer that came in at second place in the coffee cup, the Sii doctor, eight marines and five engineers.
Basil spotted Nocks, sitting at her hangar workstation. She was setting up the main computer of the ship, currently running diagnostics and installing routines. He rushed over.
- Nocks, welcome back. How are you feeling?
- Fine.
She was apparently back to her old self.
- Listen, why is Petumbio taking our people?
- That was me.
- Could you be more specific, please?
- Petumbio is going to take them all and brief them to say we left 7 hours ago. Whole hangar is on lockdown. All of those remaining here will board the ship, excluding those security people at the gate.
- How will he silence them?
- No idea. Likely making them a good offer, some position or something.
- Hm. And how did he choose those people?
- Feterni chose the best 14 engineers they need. Meanwhile, I went and asked the security guys, they told me about that cup thing, so I sent the other one with the admiral. As for the doctor ... The Visser agreed to join, along his trainee. The Sii doctor had zero interest, called us doomed.
- Did all the other people arrive?
- Yep. Second helmsman is here. Helmswoman, actually. Human. Ensign Ivern. She was a pilot here. Meaning she is the one that flies ships into the station in order to avoid damage. Should be a good one. Your first choice also arrived and immediately got into trouble with security for bringing a large knife – no clue where a prisoner gets that. He’s on the ship now, training to fly, just like Ivern. The Exobiologist is here, setting up the lab. Korolev as well.
- Korolev is up?
- No. But we were able to move her to the Rubicon’s medbay. Dr. Boddins is taking care of her. The Visser, that is.
Ah, so that’s his name.
- Hm. Marines?
- Sgt. Mender chose her team.
- They won?
- She won.
- How?
- They kept losing. All of the teams. So, I sent them in alone. She managed to successfully complete one of the missions.
- Come again?
Basil had lost control of his facial features, like a deer caught in headlights.
- Yes. She then chose the best three privates, not the sergeants.
- Impressive. I’ll make sure to send CO the data.
- Fake the timestamp or location.
- Huh?
- She just did that 2 hours ago. We’re supposed to have left 7 hours ago.
- Ah, I see. Good catch.
- Sir?
- Yes, lieutenant?
- You need an XO.
- Why?
- Because I have to perform two roles at the same time. That won’t work long.
- I’ll think about it.
- Please do.
The captain – still wearing a commander’s number of stripes – smiled through her disrespect. She had earned it, and she wasn’t wrong. He noticed her back was arched around her workstation a bit more than usual, the broken spine had apparently left some damage, even after being replaced by the medical team.
Basil now spotted Feterni, walking in-between of some engine components, like a giant stepping over some mountains, slowly and unphased. Basil walked over.
- Feterni, report.
The Horon let out a sigh, as the captain had interrupted him checking the sequential serial numbers of some components, making sure they lay in the correct order they were to be lifted into the ship to speed up the process. He’d now have to walk back and start again, as he had lost his train of thought.
- Core is in. Perlas is wiring it up. Ions are in. The hull is closed, apart from the engineering cutout and the jumpdrive plates. We’re lifting the cutout into place, soon. We’ll need to finish the quantum drive and then connect a few thousand items...
- Do we have cloak?
- No, Sir, it’s low priority.
- It’s high priority.
- Why?
The Horon was looking down at the human’s hair, the human refusing to lift his head up fully, not wanting to look like a child asking for ice cream in a shop.
- Admiral Petumbio. He’s pretending to RND we left hours ago. We’ll need to be cloaked when we undock.
- When exactly will RND reach this hangar?
- Hard to say, they dock in 24 hours, after which it depends on the admiral, how long he can stall them.
- You’ll need to sacrifice another system.
- No time?
- Yes.
- Okay, just throw the quantum drive in without any further ado. We’ll depart with ions and hide somewhere to do the rest.
- How long until the fleet asks for our status?
- Few days, maybe more. We can stall them.
- Understood. I’ll tell the teams.
- You need some more helping hands?
- Absolutely not, sir. We’re packed in as is.
- I see. Dismissed.
Lieutenant Feterni climbed back into the ship, using the last involuntary hull opening the ship had, the engineering cutout. Basil decided he had nothing really to do at this point, as it was now simply down to the engineering crew. If they had another accident, they would have to somehow pull the ship out into space without being noticed. Basil decided to walk a full lap around the oversized medium cruiser. It was now a different ship than on his first lap, just days earlier. The six heavy torpedo launchers in the frontplate were now properly protected by thick oversized covers smoothly thinning at the outside of the circle, where the launcher’s holes stopped and the armor began. There were recesses above in the overhanging top part of the hull where the covers would sit in battle. The sensor suite was already lit up, humming and shining a dark red light, defeated by the bright light of the hangar. The belly of the ship had some – intended – louvered cutouts, behind which the reverse thrust engines sat. Along the sides of the ship, a multitude of small recesses covered the maneuvering thrusters. The stubby diagonal “wings” of the ship housing the quantum entanglement’s slipstream conductors were still missing some armor but the corresponding pieces – which were thinner around the quantum engines as not to hamper the slipstream field – were already hovering nearby, ready to be welded in by the Shrill as soon as the engine components were tucked in behind them. Further back, flanking the centerline of the ship to the rear were louvers or deep cutouts in the armor, allowing the ion engines to generate thrust. As he walked the long, thinning tail of the ship, he found more of those louvers, hopefully alleviating some of the maneuverability issues expected with the superheavy ship.
Worst case we can play Salamis and ram anyone into submission, ha.
Now I sound like Perlas.
It was a beautiful ship. Immensely powerful. A cunning design. He could not wait to see it in action; it felt like this ship might be the key to the destiny he had always hoped to have waiting for him. It was, after all, the ship from his vision. There was a reason Basil hadn’t commented on the bridge layout. He didn’t want to interfere. He didn’t even know who had designed the bridge, likely Feterni. But he knew for a fact that when he would set foot on that bridge very soon, he would find it as he had seen it all those years ago on that dreadful day. And it would confirm to him that he was about to take this ship and this crew to unforeseen heights and turn the name Rubicon into the most revered name in the fleet. But the ship had already cost a life, more even, since he strongly believed the attackers on that small skipper were somehow connected to the whole host of adversities he had faced. Maybe even Hays, he had forgotten to ask Petumbio for the latest, but he would do that via comms from his ready room on his ship, off this strange station.
As there was nothing to do, he went back to his quarters, trying to come up with something to investigate, anything. There were so many unexplained things. First, the old man. He had the computer run a search for both his outfit as well as any combination of words that told one to “listen to the stars”. There were, of course, some poems. Many poems in fact. Not surprising in a part of the galaxy where a good chunk of all people were hungry for the fine arts, writing, singing, performing. Most of the poems were horrible, and none had any connections to anything relating to greybeard. Then, there was the skipper. The Type-255 was a very popular model, sold in the thousands. It was used for any conceivable occasion, from sightseeing to priority transport. Almost all units received some kind of modification over their lifespan, many of them even being armed. He went through the list of shipyards that performed such upgrades, but none of them offered the same configuration he had seen. Then, there was the supposed owner of the ship. Basil wanted to contact the real person – as there was no news about him missing – but found comms were blocked for the entirety of the hangar areas of the station. Petumbio’s measures to keep his head were all-encompassing. All he could do was to use the grid like anyone else. There was no use in looking for the uniformed man, as CO agents weren’t exactly featured in any database and regularly changed their faces, build, and even height. Basil was on his 7th face after his long career (and had made himself taller bit by bit, as not to let his CO colleagues see his vanity), but he had no motivation to switch back to his original look, since that person had died back on the Tel’neo. Also, he looked more imposing now, which he liked. There was also no news about Hays, apart from many condolences uttered by half the brass.
He spent some time reading the news, but nothing much had happened. Another gravwell had been detected in Sector 32, the first one in one of the more central sectors. It was being investigated. Korolev’s flat worms made the news for refusing to make sense, apparently, they didn’t share the bacterial DNA of the planet they were found on, happily digging in the soil and having come out of nowhere, albeit carbon-based and therefore not a main focus for conspiracies. The SFC Gam-Na had suffered an accident aboard; the number of causalities was still unclear. The Senate had passed a few new laws and regulations, limiting trade in some sectors and opening some other sectors to new goods. Finally, there was a highly regarded Hikuranei doctor, who had publicly commented the Gill plague – the reason for a quarantine in a full 7 sectors – might not be a virus after all, but a new microorganism. He had explained this in complicated terms, none of which made sense to Basil but it also seemed to him that whoever wrote the piece also hadn’t understood.
Someone knocked on his door. As Basil turned and gave the signal to open the door, one of Petumbio’s security men – a grumpy Fellian – appeared in the frame. He was holding a long package.
- Captain Basil?
- Yes?
- Package for you. From Xi 1.
- Ahh, thank you.
Basil grabbed the well-wrapped object.
- Sir?
- Yes?
- Remove the content of the package please. We will replace it with a similar object and send it to storage. You’re officially no longer here.
- I’ll do that. Wait outside, please.
The door closed on an angry-looking Fellian and Basil unwrapped the present he had sent himself. It was basically his only prized possession, a Mennikor rifle. He had taken it off a dead enemy soldier during the war, the Mennikor being one of the many races forced to fight for the Oopid-Seki duality of horrors. It was a thin, very long weapon, now adapted to human physiology. Back then, Basil just thought it would make for a good trophy to get out of the whole mess. Later, he realized it was actually a very good weapon, accurate, robust, and powerful. Also, it wasn’t hampered by the safety regulations of the League, which sometimes made handling their weapons a slow affair, which was bad news in certain situations. But the main reason he had kept it occurred to him only when captured soldiers and captured enemy agents were much more cooperative when he had the weapon on his back. They were much more scared than they should have been – anyone could take a rifle off a dead body – so he asked one of them. It turned out that the Mennikor had developed an alternative firing mode of this energy-projectile weapon. If he switched some settings, he would be able to fire the most dreaded shot in the whole Oopid Alliance. It was not designed to kill an enemy outright, quite the opposite – it was supposed to hit the enemy and send the nervous system of the unlucky target into overdrive, causing unbelievable pain. Once hit, there was no rescue, the target would drop to the floor, winding in pain and screaming for the torture to stop. It could take hours, depending on the race and condition of the victim. Ever since learning this, Basil had made sure to check his rifle carefully each time he picked it up.
He went over to the synthesizer and created some pipes that would fit the general size, repacked it by wrapping the old laces around it again and handed it to the waiting officer. He then carefully rolled the rifle into newly-synthesized bubble wrap, picked up his duffle bag and accepted the fact that it was now time to board his ship, since almost everyone else had, the hangar being a deserted mess of chairs, workstations, boxes, tables, medical equipment and drinking cups on every surface. Only the marines were still walking their imagined battle lines.
The only way to properly get onto the Rubicon besides the still chaotic shuttlebay, the rear exit, and the cutout was a small airlock below the frontal plate, forcing Basil to walk up the ascending walkway towards the towering and industrial-looking torpedo launchers. Soon, the ship encompassed his whole vision, a grey whale ready to swallow him whole. The airlock itself was a strange installation, since the armor was so thick and the engineers had to come up with a way to avoid putting a weakpoint in their beloved hull. It was basically a cone, thinning towards the inside of the ship, forcing Basil to duck the last meters. The cone, when pulled out like a cork, flipped over and sat under the walkway of the hangar, looking like someone had forgotten a single hair when shaving.
Basil arrived in a thin tunnel in-between the firewall separating torpedo launcher 3 and 4’s synthesizers on deck 5. The tunnel led into a corridor, to his left and right it was bending slightly downwards to the service accesses for all synthesizers, interrupted by heavy bulkheads and thick doors. In front of him was another, much heavier bulkhead, indicating where the citadel started. It felt like walking through a vascular system, as there were no straight edges in the ship’s structure – something Nio had pushed for for years and it seemed he had finally taken the opportunity to simply do it with the prototype. It was very clear at this point that the ship had been cut from one solid chunk of what looked like Marqina marble – dark black, interwoven with white lightning. Basil had never seen this, as the exterior of the ship from the start had been painted in a heavy dirty grey to mimic the rest of the fleet – but now he knew that Hays’ desk had also been made from HCC – and why it was the last thing to be moved. The fleet’s standard equipment was usually kept in black and blue, so the standardized grating he walked on above the rounded edges of the actual corridor looked familiar to anyone who had seen the inside of the Senatorial Fleet’s current ships. The layout of all decks on the ship followed the same principle, whenever possible, there were several parallel corridors with rooms in-between. This also contributed to the space issues that would plague the ship for a long time, but it would also enable the crew to get anywhere in tens of seconds without running each other down. Basil walked the whole length of the deck, past the energy capacitors which were long, winding, man-high worms holding power for when the ship had to operate too many intense systems at once. As he came to the last bulkhead, he took a peek into the lower section of the engine room. The D-9 that had looked rather manageable in size when controlling the barge’s arms was now towering above him like the statue of a starfish-shaped god. It was a noisy place, the limits of the engineering deck not really visible through smoke from welding, cables coming out of every wall and floor, even the in-between decks, following the walkways. Bright spotlights were pointed at the most difficult processes. He could see Perlas swinging between the levels, barking orders to sweaty engineers and Feterni towering over the chaos like a mountain climber looking down at the clouds below.
He decided to leave them alone; there was nothing he could say they didn’t already know. He turned about and followed the corridor back to the lift, which was an open design, just like XD had built it in Hays’ office complex way above them. Basil did a little hop onto the platform and went up two decks, wanting to see medbay and Korolev first. After all, she had been injured only because Basil had forgotten to wear his endosuit – otherwise, it would have been the logical choice to send him out for physical labor, as Nocks was needed setting up the systems. Medbay was quite the opposite to engineering, a peaceful calm environment with eight medbeds ready, one of them occupied. Boddins was nowhere to be found, but his young assistant was seated near Korolev, who was calmly breathing in a translucent capsule, visually fine, but not conscious. The assistant looked up at Basil.
- Greetings.
- Captain.
- How is Korolev?
- We’re repairing her nervous system now. She’s out of any danger but we’re not sure how well she will be when we wake her up.
- Why is that?
- Her brain will basically have to rewire all connections. It might be difficult for her to return to duty at all.
The captain looked at the wavy hair spreading out around the mask on Korolev’s face and remembered how she had to move it out of her face several times while explaining her time in Epsilon Indi. Her lively face was now pale skin, covered by the unmoving breathing aid. Even the freckles seemed weaker.
- She’ll find a way. Keep me updated.
- Will do.
- Where is Dr. Boddins?
- In his quarters, we’re splitting the shifts at the moment.
- Did you receive a carebot?
The assistant looked shocked.
- Why would we...?
- Ask Nocks. She’ll provide you with a carebot for the dead shifts.
- I am not sure if a bot is up to this, sir.
- Let Nocks try, we need a backup.
- Understood, Sir.
Basil felt it hard to avert his eyes from the science officer hooked up to the machines as if she’d be worse off when no one looked at her. He walked out of medbay finally, feeling guiltier than before. He spotted ensign Frank Mellir in the next room, as this was security, including the armory and the brig. He was unpacking sidearms and rifles, neatly stacking them against a wall. It made little sense, since the marines also had their own, specialized weapons so Mellir now had an arsenal without an army, unless the engineers fancied some action. Basil hesitated for a while, went to the synthesizer and then entered security.
- Ensign.
- Captain!
He almost knocked over his stack of rifles as he tried standing in attention.
- Why are you not securing the hangar, ensign?
- Sir, sergeant Mender is on patrol with her squad.
- How will you secure this ship from here?
- We have scanners at each entrance point, Sir. You, for example, are carrying a rifle, Sir.
- What else?
- Sir?
- Rifle is easy. Lots of materials in there the scanner easily recognizes. What else popped up?
- Uh, nothing else, Sir?
- That’s not going to be enough. I have at least three more items in my bag the scanners should warn you about.
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