Chapter 27: Departures and Arrivals

February 17^th, 2279

As the whole crew stood in five lines on the now cleaned hangar deck for the remembrance service for Mink and Diop the next day, they had no bodies, no coffins. As the Captain, Basil had to speak before handing it over to Mender, whose face clearly showed terror still.

- Crew of the Rubicon. We are gathered here to say farewell to the Privates Manu Diop and Henry Mink and I would also like to remember the engineer Ensign Mikka Howe, who, in some way, was also part of this crew.

Basil made a pause, not for dramatic effect but because he was unsure of the speech he had chosen.

- Listen. I will not pretend I knew any of these brave men well. They were taken from us way before we could grow together and that is part of our pain now. We don’t know what might have been, what we might have said to each other, what we might have learned from them. All these possibilities were ended by forces we barely understand. All we can do is remember them, cherish what time we spent with our fellow crew members, and remind ourselves that there will be many, many people alive in the future because people like Mink, Diop, and Howe did their duty till the very end. It may sound too vague for a bleeding heart right now, but I for my part will never stray from a path that makes these losses make sense one day. The Rubicon will continue to go where we are needed and we will go ‒ because others would fail and we will change things for the better. That, I promise these three men and that, I promise you.

Basil felt a bit of shame when his inner voice wanted to congratulate him on the speech, but there was no reaction in the large hangar. Everyone was just staring ahead, because all eyes now were on Mender. She had been the paragon of strength to many, tough, always in good spirits, prepared, intelligent, just the ideal soldier, destined to lead platoons through impossible odds and sending badass one-liners via comms. Now, she was somehow smaller, bent, and grey. Her usually strictly-woven hair had fallen apart like her soul. When she spoke, she spoke softly, almost hard to hear from the back line.

- I knew Mink for a long time, you know. I looked it up; we went through 22 hostile encounters together. Can you imagine how many times we saved each other? I owe him my life several times over and yet here I still am, because he volunteered to step into this airlock at a point where we should have already known it’s a trap. What do you think killed him? Is he still aboard that horrible thing? Did it dissolve him? Does it live off us? Does it learn about us by consuming us? What sick universe brings forth such a monster? And Diop ... the best soldier I ever saw, not the shred of a chance. All his skills for nothing. One shot and he dropped.

Her tears were gathering on her uniform, which was weather-proof amongst many other things, which meant they just kept on rolling down her chest, hips, and legs, pooling around her boots.

- Us marines, we see some shit. You know the joke, “you do the flying, we do the dying”. But what we’ve seen on this ship in two missions is beyond belief. None of our training – none of ANY training can prepare you for where this cursed vessel goes. If you have half a brain you run, run as far away from this tombstone before you end up like my men!

- That’s enough, Sergeant.

- Is it, captain? You were the one who warned me that the Argulan might be a trap but would not tell me what it is.

- Sergeant, return to your quarters. Boddins, Lin, go with her.

- WHAT DID YOU KNOW CAPTAIN? WHAT?

That was the last of her energy, put into a scream, put into someone to blame other than a chaotic universe, which felt too indirect to the Sergeant’s impulses. Basil raised his hand, stopping the doctor and his assistant Lin, who were ready to take the sergeant away, hoping she would not use her physical skills on them.

- Sergeant. All I had was a vague warning of danger. No more than that. I told you everything I know.

- You didn’t and I want the crew to know.

- Doctor, take her away.

Mender’s mind had turned inwards, even her dark eyes seemed to have lost some color, now filtered in grey. They followed Basil as she was led out. Salim now left the line, first, he wanted to take her place to say some final words, but then he hurried after the three people that had just left the shuttlebay, as Mender’s last soldier. Everyone else just stood in horror. Noone felt any better. Noone had the feeling they had done their lost comrades any justice with this embarrassment.

Perlas went up the lines and hopped on a box in front of everyone.

- We Axxi started exploring space a full 278 years before the Catanians came to Earth, did you know that? Back then, we were foolish and innocent, thinking everyone who could travel faster than light would be like us ‒ a civilized new friend. But they weren’t, especially not to us. We lost many ships and so many colonies. We were wiped out like a pest, since we look like one to many races. The pain that crept into our society almost broke us apart. We now hide behind one of the densest defense networks in this galaxy, because we are scared. Most of us never leave our domain. We never attacked anyone, we never lied to anyone, we never stole from anyone. But still, this universe does not care. With infinite size come infinite situations and with infinite situations come infinite fears. Most of those we will encounter will always choose force when facing said fears, as it is the simple logic that is most likely to work. But we will not become like them. Oh, we can well fight; we’re still not even halfway done with what the Rubicon can be but we will always try to prevent loss of life. We are here to keep the peace, we are here to help, we are here to find the truth about whatever is going on. So, we will take our pain and we will take our tears and we will take our fears and we will acknowledge them and then we will put them in their righteous place in our souls and realize it can only be our rationality that can trump them and be the key to a better League, a better galaxy, a better future. Don’t ever lose sight of why you are here in the first place and what you can do from here, aboard this unique ship. And I’ll be with you through it all, as will the other officers.

There was no clapping. Nobody spoke. Nobody looked at anyone. But every single one of them was nodding slowly, as the spider’s words made it into their minds. They would not lose sight of why they even wanted to be there in the first place. They wanted adventure, see new life and new places, be someone, be unique, grow, but above all, they wanted to be the good guys, and that was not going to be easy.

On the way out, Basil gave the Axxi a friendly tap on the head, very happy to have his backup XO. Even Nocks gave Perlas a weak smile and the engineers hung around, wanting to talk to Feterni and Perlas, pretending to be interested in the next steps of repairs, but also wanted to talk as a group about their fears and hopes. Even Feterni took the time to hang around for a while and half a shift was lost to their slow talks in low voices, sitting around on random boxes, Perlas keeping an eye on all of them, quite literally.

Basil had one last thing to do. He knew the captain of the pirates knew one more thing he needed to know. Ka’al had by now interrogated all of them in varying quality (Heppi twice, the man still not giving him much), coming to the conclusion that only the captain likely knew why he had chosen to change course to go in-between systems, ignoring the lucrative trade routes, only to stumble across the Tillin freighter. Nocks repeated analysis also showed that he had deleted some data and then changed course. Now, Heppi, was sitting in Basil’s ready room, defiantly staring the captain down, who was trying to look calm and unimposing.

- What’s your actual full name, Heppi?

- Doesn’t matter. In order to protect our relatives, we give ourselves a raiding name, and that’s it.

-Listen, I have a simple deal for you. You get your wife and a shuttle when we pass Gliese 581 and I get just one piece of information.

- And what information would that be?

- I want to know who told you to go in-between systems, start jamming and find the Tillin freighter.

- I could give you any number of lies now, captain. How will you know it’s true?

- I will make sure it is before you go anywhere.

- And how will you explain our escape?

- Simple. Since the Rubicon is at maximum capacity with her prisoners, we can hand you over to a fleet freighter near Gliese 581 that will pass us in 2 hours. You’ll be in a shuttle with Mellir, whom you should know well by now. You might have to knock him out, but make sure he survives, as this is his last punishment before returning to duty. Drop him off in his space suit and run, there are 5 inhabited planets, classic Frontier-Fringe settlements. Plenty of opportunities to get lost.

- Yea, but you will just blast us out of the sky.

- Nah, that freighter will have issues with their weapons, and so will the Rubicon. We just had a major battle; systems are pretty tricky right now. Lots of failures all-around.

- And your superiors?

- Ah, we’ve done exceptionally well on two missions now, they’ll forgive me. I think your contact is worth more than what I lose.

- Why is this so important to you, captain?

- Something is going on within my fleet, and I need to find out what it is.

- To stop it?

- Or to join it, if I like what they are doing. Just want to be kept in the loop.

- Ha.

- Do we have a deal?

- I want Musderan, too. I need an engineer. Plus, he’s got kids. I don’t care about the three brothers; they are better locked away.

- Good. Deal?

- Deal. I’ll send you the contact code when I am on the shuttle, landing on one of the planets.

- Nope, you’ll give me the code right now. I need to check what your contact knows.

- Trust me, they know a lot.

- Then hand it over.

- And then you send me back to the brig and pretend this conversation never happened?