The Six-Eyed Beast
Copyright© 2025 by BenLepp
Chapter 29: Once More Unto the Breach
February 21st, 2279
Basil had planned to return to Petumbio’s office which took much longer than expected. He was curious about the admiral’s quick retreat from their earlier conversation with Adano, hoping to get some more background info, maybe some rumors or insights into the Maka, which was, after all, docked to Petumbio’s station. First, he took a pod up to the command deck, trying to find Petumbio in his office, as hailing him via comms would give away his intentions and he wanted the admiral to be unprepared for the conversation, maybe letting something slip. As he entered the idyllic office, Adano was still there, looking at his ship, which was weird, since hours had passed since Basil had left the office after their last conversation. Adano turned around and looked at a surprised Basil staring back at him, both men unsure of what to say, having left the prior engagement with their best efforts at intimidation and unwilling to ruin it now. Basil pretended to look at some plants, still didn’t come up with a strong one-liner, so he simply left. He asked lieutenant Zhang where to find the admiral, but she wasn’t sure as he had finished his workday already. She did, however, suggest looking for the admiral in the arboretum, as he had become quite endeared with collecting plant life in the past months.
The arboretum was on a much lower level of the station, specifically a converted former freight hangar, now equipped with fertile soil, simulated groundwater and a humidifier. The quickest way was a pod, but Basil decided to tempt fate and take the freight elevator, finally wanting to meet greybeard again. He was again disappointed when getting on a few decks below, finding the platform empty and the barn door now hastily repaired by unseen hands. At deck 4, a group of scientists got on, eagerly debating a symposium that was apparently being held on the station. Basil listened for a while but soon found it boring as they were talking about terraforming moons to have more space for new tribes trickling into the League. Some of them were older Catanians, there were two Sii, a Fellian and a human woman, apparently the youngest of them all, being fully ignored when she said her opinion, often even being talked over. Basil chuckled at this renewed proof of how humans were seen by the elder races, dead set at correcting this impression, having already gained the respect of at least one Axxi and some semi-respect from a Horon. Either that or Perlas was just being polite and incredibly bored of their conversations. Surprisingly, the scientists separated into smaller groups at different levels, getting off in pairs until only the human scientist was left on the creaking and shaking elevator. From his position leaning in the corner, Basil mustered the woman, her back turned towards him. She was wearing the typical human fashion of the time, fit for official matters: A blouse from thick neo-weave, cut close to the body and a wide and wavy skirt, only the toes of her pointy boots sticking out under it. It was the hottest current trend to combine a wide piece of clothing with one that seamlessly followed the body’s line, even affecting the fleet a little as ship crews began adapting their standard-issue uniform just ever so slightly, tightening and widening them to their taste, hardly visible to their superiors who were supposed to keep them all in equal gear. Basil decided to probe the situation a little, as he had many levels to go and the elevator seemed slower than usual ‒ plus, civilians were the only ones he was allowed to form a personal relationship with and chances like this were rare for the captain of a warship.
- Guess the elder races still aren’t listening.
The scientist didn’t react at all to Basil’s invitation to a conversation, putting him in a strange spot, as he neither wanted to repeat the same sentence louder nor walk around her to check for any reaction. Generally, humans enjoyed the company of their own more and more the further away from Earth they were, feeling a bit lost amongst the races that seemed to be much surer of what they were doing out there. Then again, as a member of the Senatorial Fleet, Basil was held to a high standard and pestering people ‒ especially young civilian women ‒ was much frowned upon by his superiors trying to keep an endless mass of lonely humans under control. Basil decided to leave it at that, if she didn’t want to speak, there was nothing he could do ‒ also, it was probable that she had switched to her inner-ear transplants and was listening to something.
The awkwardness for the captain, whose rank was useless towards civilians in such situation, continued for another ten minutes until thankfully, his level came up. He started getting off at level nine, only turning around to give her a fleet nod, which was their informal way of greeting people whose name they didn’t know, a quick nod forwards followed by a slow return. She didn’t even look at him, staring straight ahead as if watching a movie on her retinas, which was actually what a lot of humans did in their free time. Basil cursed their modern technology and started walking to the arboretum, before he was stopped dead in his track by the female voice behind him.
- You’ve changed, proud Captain.
- Excuse me?
Basil turned to face the woman, whose eyes had changed colors, from the bright blue indicating an active screen to a natural dark brown.
- Last time we met, you were happy to take on the universe. Now you look only hungry.
- Greybeard????
- Who’s Greybeard?
The woman checked her jaw with her fingers for any hair. Basil’s theory of meeting greybeard on the elevator seemed to be wrong in this case.
- Who are you?
- You forgot?
- I had quite a few brain injuries, apologies.
- Let me help you: Last time we met you promised to take me to the festival of Innallas 7.
Basil had never promised this to anyone, but not for lack of want, but for lack of woman.
- Who do you think I am?
- Ouch, your injuries must have been bad. We went to SciComm together before you joined the fleet. You’re Alex Naxos. You made yourself taller, ahah.
And now, it dawned on Basil. His current face. His whole appearance actually. CO needed a believable face for his final internal affairs mission so they took the likeness from a recently deceased officer. And that woman had known him. Basil was now in a bad spot. Clearly, the two had some kind of romantic involvement, Innallas 7 was nothing but an orgy and now he could either run off, leaving her confused, tell her the truth which would lead to questions about the stolen face (illegal as hell outside CO) or he could play a brain-injured Naxos and rekindle the affair.
To his greatest shame, he chose the latter and created a Naxos-Basil hybrid.
Goddamn Tony, you are a lonely little man.
She was still having her finger on the button that kept the barndoor up, much to the unbeknownst annoyance of some engineers a few levels below.
- I go by Anthony Basil now. Been with CO for a while since my accident. My ship’s docked here for a few more days, would you like to grab a drink and tell me who I was before all the shit?
She hesitated, as she had clearly been returned a very damaged individual, but she was also curios, Alex had been one of the funniest guys in SciComm and very honorable, his honor compelling him to join the fleet in times of great need for smart people. He was definitely worth a few hours talking.
- Sure, I’m stuck here anyways. The symposium won’t end for a week.
She swiped him her contact.
- Great! Let me see what the status of my ship is and then I’ll get back to you.
- Oh, what’s the name of your ship?
From the contact she sent him, he could see her name was Sasha Freiberger, so for a moment, he hesitated and considered saying it was SFC Sasha, for the romantic notion that a man had lost all of his memories but named his ship after the only thing his injured brain told him to remember. He saved some of his dignity, in the end.
- It’s the SFFV Grubben.
She looked disappointed. Alex Naxos was destined for more than hauling freight around. His injuries must have been very severe; it was likely that this was a pity position for a very damaged officer who had served the fleet well by risking his brain. Nonetheless, it sounded like a good story and the elder races weren’t exactly socializing on Kappa 3.
- Great! Tell me all about it, then!
- Will do, have a nice day!
- You too, be nice to your crew, eh?
Basil chuckled and turned to walk, not very proud of himself, but also invigorated. Lying to women felt like his time in CO. After this last realization, he felt even worse, deciding to simply not contact her.
He could smell the arboretum long before he arrived at the giant former freight gate, feeling the thicker air immediately relax his lungs and improve his mood. He was only in the tenth generation of humans venturing into the stars, and like many humans in the fleet, he had suffered through rusty or dusty far-away places instead of finding a nice forested area to live in and get an accent. In Basil’s opinion, it was genetic memory to long for nature the older one got and he was asking himself how long he would endure on the cold, dark, and cramped ships and stations of the League, rarely setting foot on a planet ‒ and if they did, it was a sandy terraformed rock centuries away from being mentioned in a fairy tale. As the gates swung open, a wave of wet air and warmth engulfed the captain, who immediately felt like he was sweating ‒ which he usually was due to his stimulant problem. In this case, it was the wall of humidity he had walked into, forming drops on his skin and uniform, gliding off the latter’s hydrophobic surface, forming audible drops hitting his boots. Basil now found himself in a foggy forest, wondering if all the trees were deliberately chosen for the hot, humid climate or if some of the trees were suffering as much as he was. The path soon branched off into multiple small paths, his boots crunching on the yellow stones underneath them, staining them like a bee collecting pollen. The paradisical environment stood in stark contrast to how the captain felt, soon removing his heavy uniform jacket and once more cursing its designers, as it was too stiff to be thrown over an arm or a shoulder, instead having to be held to his side like a cardboard box. He also fumed at himself for not wearing his endosuit, which would have been able to keep him nice and cool through this, but he simply kept forgetting to put it on, as in CO, an endosuit would be a clear giveaway for any agent, so they usually wore whatever people usually wore around where they operated, including that one planet were he had to wear a tight dress for weeks on end.
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