Chapter 23: Some Unpleasant Conversations

February 15^th, 2279

With that boost to morale ‒ and some repairs from systems shaken apart by the launch of the equivalent of 20 very fast shuttles in weight ‒ the Rubicon was underway to 61 Virginis to their actual mission. Basil was very happy with the performance of the ship and crew, as again, they had avoided serious bloodshed and gathered suitable intelligence on the pirate menace in the area. There was, however, one thing that bothered him and it was now sitting in front of him in his ready room.

- Ensign Mellir.

- Sir.

Mellir knew what this was about, having already received several dress-downs by Sergeant Mender in increasing intensity, as she didn’t cool off but got increasingly angry at his lack of discipline.

- Why did you spray the pirate?

- I don’t know, Sir.

Basil considered punching Mellir, but this was illegal in the fleet and only tolerated within the Marines to some extent as demonstrated by Mender. Also, the metallic part of Mellir’s face was the left side, and Basil was right-handed. Instead, he chose verbal cruelty.

- So, you are saying you do things without knowing why?

- No, Sir.

- Sooo, you lied to your captain just now?

- No, Sir.

Basil stood up and walked around his table behind Mellir, the cyborg staring ahead, sweat gathering in-between his human and machine face, following the separation line downwards. He winced as Basil suddenly appeared next to his human ear, screaming into the small, slightly inflamed hole.

- WHICH IS IT NOW? DO YOU KNOW OR NOT KNOW WHY YOU TRIED TO KILL THIS GUY?

- Sir ... I hate those fucking rats.

- Pirates?

- Yes, Sir!

- Any special reason?

- Sir, yes, Sir! They came to us so many times and took away the few things we had left before the fleet secured our sector. Many of us died every year.

- So, you DO know why you kept firing?

- I do, Sir.

- Glad we could clear this up. Ensign, you are hereby relieved of duty and are to report to the brig. You’ll be sharing it with our pirate guests until we get to the next station where you’ll part ways with us.

- Sir?!?

- Dismissed. Send Mender in.

- Sir, if I may...

- You may not. Dismissed.

- Aye. Sir.

Mellir got up, his head was turning and he was sick to the stomach. The implant part of his face was burning as his tear ducts activated below it. He hadn’t expected such a hard punishment for some extra shots into an enemy. It opened old wounds. Ever since he had left Proxima Virgo, setbacks of his own making had undermined his sense of self-worth. First, he was duped and left behind by a freighter crew that used a young Mellir to clean up a radiated deck, then, he failed the fleet capability test and barely made it into the marines, where he was skipped over for squad leader for years due to ‒ in his eyes ‒ minor issues and disagreements until he was discharged for his implants after his arm failed in an exercise and he was regarded as a risk to any squad. In security, it didn’t take long for him to realize he was never assigned to places where higher ranks would run into him, always guarding backwaters such as hangars, gates, or cargo rooms. Once, his colleagues had made him guard a box on the ground for two days, telling him it was a sacred artifact of an allied race, only for him to notice the smell finally and finding a dead skitter on some cotton. The fact that it was an ugly creature walking on a cloud fortunately never made its way into his mind, but the message that he was not respected was well-received. All of these instances had not strengthened but weakened Mellir, who was getting more and more desperate to prove himself as the ridicule from others was seeping into his mind undermining his own opinion of himself. Now, he had found a captain who mirrored him in some way, unconventional and daring, with a strong disregard for rules and regulations. He looked up to Basil and had seen his attempts to teach him to think before acting as his best chance to prove his worth and now this exact captain had removed him from duty and, basically, his ship. As he passed Mender, he didn’t manage to get out the words for fear of choking on them, so he simply pointed a weakly-raised thumb at the door behind him.

Mender had a completely different experience on the same chair just a few minutes later.

- Sergeant, good work on the pirates.

- Thank you, Sir.

- Relax. And please sit down.

Mender swung her leg over the chair to sit down, slightly confusing Basil. She simply had some back pain from the fall between the decks of the pirate vessel and was trying not to bend her hips too much.

- What would you do with Mellir in my stead?

- Sir...

Mender was not entirely sure if she should say what she thought as the captain was still swinging between reasonable and malicious in her eyes, portraying the marine’s deep mistrust in the fleet.

- Keep talking.

- Sir, with all due respect. Why do you ask me when Mellir is already off duty? He just passed me and didn’t look good. You already made your decision.

- Ha. Humor my question, still.

- In the marines, he’d be on discipline. Have a hearing and likely be on his last warning.

- Hm. Anyways, you’re now responsible for security, that includes the brig. You’ve got 6 pirates there plus Mellir.

- Mellir?

- Prisoner now.

- Sir?

- Yes?

- That’s pretty harsh.

- Oh, I’ll do you one better. See this layout?

Basil opened the holo display on his desk. It showed the current layout of the brig, with two long rooms separated into three sections each, housing one prisoner.

- Listen. I want two cells. One housing Mellir, the pirate leader and the grunt Mellir shot. Stick the rest together in the other cell. Ka’al will then take over interrogations.

- Sir! They might attack Mellir!

- Nah, they won’t. They know they’ll get off lightly if they don’t dig deeper.

- But they’ll suspect Mellir from the start. I mean, he’ll look like our mole.

- That’s his problem. Your job is to have one marine in the corridor at every moment and assist Ka’al in pulling them out one by one for interrogations.

- Why Ka’al?

- I’ve seen his work. He’s talented. Also, the mask and the general rodent-like appearance make it easy to intimidate people.

- Aye. Sir.

Thus, Mender was down to Earth again after having felt pretty good about the last mission. The captain was willing to risk the safety of Mellir for no apparent gain and leave interrogations up to a former Oopid soldier, and what she had heard about Oopid interrogations wasn’t pretty. She would instruct her men in no uncertain terms to be on the lookout for anything problematic ‒ especially hands around Mellir’s neck.

As the Rubicon returned to her original course and had 8 more hours of flight time ahead of her, everyone who could went to sleep, the captain being the quickest one to bed. Perlas was snoring in his box, Feterni hugged his tree, Nocks spent some time online in her quarter’s setup, fully immersed in her avatar living in a community with other lonely souls, simulating everyday life. Ensign Ivern was on helm, having had to cancel a private meeting with a promising engineer named Roojeen, her current favourite, since Ka’al was getting ready to interrogate the pirates. Ensign Roojen inadvertently was also Feterni’s favorite lately, not only because he was good at his job, but also since he talked almost as little as the Horon, but in his case, this was due to his daydreaming about Ivern’s well-trained features surrounding a lucky bons structure and perfect ­ - albeit enhanced – skin and his fear of slipping up and giving his connection to her away, as there was indeed competition for the tall, charming socialite with the heavy black hair. Salim was still involuntarily asleep on medbay, watched over by the carebot, which was now fully integrated into the services they provided, albeit mostly only used for the boring parts like observing patients and ringing alarms. The carebot was attached to the ceiling of medbay in a long arm leading to a circular body, out of which further, smaller arms extended. It was good at moving patients and very useful as an assistant for surgery, only the digital face Nocks had given it on its screen disturbing patients waking up, which had led Korolev ‒ the first victim of the big smile ‒ to suggest a toned-down version of the face, which Nocks denied. Ensign Lin was on call, sleeping in the small backroom of medbay and Dr. Boddins was enjoying a succulent Visser meal, in his own quarters, as the meal consisted of a species of live eels he kept in several tanks. They were ideal nutrition for a Visser, fast-growing and rich in proteins, but known to release loud screams when bitten ‒ which had once led to a security raid on Boddins’ quarters on Kappa 3, when he had forgotten to activate the soundproofing of his cabin. There even was an secret ethical debate within the Visser, as hundreds of years of optimizing the eels for quick production had also led to some early signs of intelligence, but ultimately, the Visser had decided to keep eating them, only telling other races with more compassion towards edible animals such as the humans that their eels were just very well-synthesized and not really alive.