Chapter 7: The bar

Waiting is always boring.

It will be a long time before the Aphrodite is ready for its refit.

Reynolds is stuck with nothing to do.

This makes him envious of his soldiers: the infernal separation of ranks policy prevents him from being with his men, and there are only two officers from the Aphrodite in this sanatorium with him.

One was Alec Davil, the director of artillery on the Aphrodite, nicknamed 'corkscrew', because his guns were always so accurate that every time he fired, the opposing ship would make a popping sound like a cork being removed from a bottle of wine, and then a bright red liquid would flow out.

Of course, not every nickname is meaningful.

Ebi Faulkner, another guest living on the Abrody, is the ship's scientist in charge of scientific research on board. He is a typical nerd and is nicknamed 'woodpecker'. The reason he was given this nickname is simply because one day he was holding his experimental hammer and curiously knocking on a piece of wood from the Aribia star, making a sound of bang...

After arriving at the sanatorium, the two men quickly found their own ways to have fun. The bottle opener would take an old-fashioned shotgun up the mountain every day to hunt, occasionally catching some pheasants, which he would come and share with Renaud. Woodpecker, on the other hand, has developed a keen interest in some of the native plants on Earth and is doing his research.

With nothing to do, Renault had to rely on playing games to pass the time.

Clarice would occasionally come over and talk to Renault, mostly about uninteresting things, and occasionally she would ask interested questions about life on the ship.

Once she brought a bottle of red wine over, and the two got drunk that night.

But they just got drunk, nothing else happened.

Claire was stationed 800 kilometres away from the San Juan Mountain Sanatorium.

She would call Leonard every day.

Leonard was relieved when the Mr Russell Hill never showed up again for a few days.

Today Leonard decided to go out for a drink.

Mount St. John's Sanatorium is located on the outskirts of New Darwin City, about 30 kilometres from the city centre, a ten-minute drive by flying car.

He drove into Cantina Street and at the end was a bar called Black Rose, where Renault often went when he had nothing to do.

The bar was made from an abandoned train carriage and had been given a simple interior makeover.

He parked the car and Renault pushed open the door and entered.

The strong aroma of gardenia liquor hit him.

The bar was quiet, with a few customers sitting quietly in their seats drinking, and light music played on the piano in the air.

A beautiful little blue elf with a pair of wings and less than a metre in height flew towards Renault and bowed to him, saying, 'Welcome back, Mr. Renault. Miranda is happy to serve you again.'

'Me too, sweet Mirandah,' said Renault, touching the elf's antennae on the top of its head, which was the elf's favourite way to be touched.

In the vast universe, life is never limited to humans.

As people began to venture out into the stars, more and more life forms came into view.

From the first contact with an alien plankton in 4988, the number of alien life forms encountered by humans soon exceeded 4 million in the next 2,000 years. Among them were 300,000 species of complex life, more than 3,000 species of advanced intelligent life, and more than 1,000 intelligent species that had formed a civilised society – as is customary, for non-human advanced extraterrestrial intelligent beings, people would add the suffix '族' to the planet to distinguish them. For example, the term '蓝灵族' means that this is a human who has migrated to the planet 蓝灵星, while 蓝灵族 only represents the fact that this is a native advanced intelligent life form on the planet 蓝灵星 that has formed a social structure – usually there is only one of these types of life on a planet.

The Blue Spirit race is one of more than a thousand intelligent species that have formed their own communities.

As for beings that have been able to leave their home planet and form a galactic civilisation, there are none.

In other words, in the past 3,000 years, humanity has not discovered the civilisation of any intelligent species that is higher than its own, which has caused all the intelligent species they have discovered to eventually become vassals of humanity.

Of course, this does not mean that humanity will never encounter beings that are superior to itself—in fact, they have already appeared.

The Blue Spirits are one of the alien lifeforms with the closest biological structure to humans, which allows them to speak human languages directly without the use of a vocaliser.

After receiving praise from Reno, the young Blue Spirit Mi Li happily flew in the air for a while, before flying over to the bar and shouting, 'A cup of scarlet agate with olives, Octavia.'

A young woman with brown hair and tanned skin was sitting at the bar. She had a thick cigar clamped in her left hand, her right hand tapping the counter unconsciously. Her eyes revealed a wild spirit that was unruly and not easily tamed.

Her name was Octavia Bisier, the proprietress of the Black Rose Bar. She was a famous thorny rose, and the bar was named after her.

After seeing Renaud enter, Octavia Bichir gave him a lazy look and then said in a dissatisfied tone, 'Renaud is not a big customer, so you don't have to be so attentive, Milan.'

'But he is my favorite customer, and my name is Millet, not Milan,' Millet said crossly, obviously unhappy with Octavia's comment.

'I like calling you Milan, and that's how I'm going to keep calling you. Milan, Milan, Milan!' Octavia replied with a big smile, then said to her bartender, 'Barber, give him the drink.'

Barber, the bartender, was a Zinctavian. A six-limbed – they had four arms – simple-minded alien race with shaved heads, green skin and a short temper. They had been the rulers of the planet Zinctavia before humans arrived, and after the humans came, they became the losers, captives and vassals.

For this reason, the Zinctavians never hid their hatred of humans.

Especially the military.

The bartender behind the bar gave a menacing glare at Renault as he walked over, while expertly pouring wine from the barrel. The scarlet liquid filled the crystal glass, which was then placed heavily in front of Renault while the bartender cursed loudly in a strange unintelligible pronunciation: 'Here you go, you damned son of a bitch. May the Cinc gods pour this down your asshole and make your body bloom the same colour...' Renault took the glass and said, 'Thank you for your greetings, Balb. By the way, you should take off your voice amplifier before you swear,'

said Renaud, pointing at the barman's neck.

The barman looked down and saw that he had not taken off his voice amplifier.

'Damn it!' Barman Balb shouted angrily.

The guests nearby already laughed loudly: 'Hey, Balb, this is the twelfth time this month that you forgot to take off that thing. I say, don't you Zinctanvians have brains? You keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.'

'The most interesting thing is that despite their stupidity, they are still classified as a highly intelligent race,' someone chimed in.

There was a burst of laughter in the bar.

Balbo shook his head in dissatisfaction, but didn't say anything.

Although the Cintanvia were short-tempered, they had the advantage of admitting their mistakes – even if they never improved.

With a glass in his hand, Reno found a place by the window and sat down.

Most people drink because they want to impress women and let loose.

But Renault drinks because he simply likes to drink.

He likes to sit alone in the corner, quietly drinking, looking out the window at the gorgeous lights, watching the air trails of flying cars in the sky, watching people of different races gather and wander in the streets, feeling the strong alcohol rush into his brain, giving him a slight sense of dizziness, as if his spirit has been sublimated.

This made Renault, who was drinking, look exceptionally quiet, as if he were a shy young boy.

'Hey, look, here comes a girl,' someone exclaimed, pointing at Renault.

Reno raised his head and saw that it was a bald and strong man. He was very strong, covered in black hair, and had large tattoos on his chest and arms, but Reno knew that they were only there to scare people. The real threat was his left hand, an alloy prosthetic arm that could crack a skull in an instant. Despite looking real, Reno could tell from the stiff posture that it was worthless shoddy work.

Baldy was now waving his fake hand around and laughing loudly, a reckless, boastful, overbearing laugh.

Reynolds shook his head and ignored him.

But Baldy, who had probably drunk too much, came staggering over.

He sat down in front of Reynolds and said loudly, 'Hey, man, you know, you really do look like a sissy when you drink. I mean, maybe you really are a sissy in disguise? Why don't you take your pants off and show us what you've got down there.'

This remark caused a burst of laughter.

It was clear that Baldy was not alone. In the direction from which he had come, there were several other thugs sitting there, looking at Reno unashamedly. Their eyes were full of evil, and even one damned bastard was blowing slogans at Reno, shouting 'Beauty!'

At this time, a voice came over: 'You'd better not mess with him, Boke.'

It was Octavia Bisier, the black rose.

She was twirling a glass in her hands and said in an arrogant but somewhat casual tone, 'You can't afford to mess with him.'

Reynolds frowned.

Octavia's words seemed to be trying to stop a fight, but in fact they were full of a strong sense of provocation.

This damned woman, has she gone crazy trying to make money?

There is an unwritten rule in all Earth bars that guests are free to fight, as long as they don't forget to pay for the damage.

The practice of profiting from the damage done to tables and chairs has become an important source of additional income for bars, and it is known as the 'pirate bar rule'.

Bar owners are not worried that this will cause guests to leave, because when everyone does it, guests have no choice. Besides, there is always a new wave of guests coming, so there is never a shortage of new guests.

Realising Octavia's ulterior motives, Renaud had already planned to leave.

But it was too late. After hearing Octavia's words, Bald Boke's eyes did widen.

He said in a gruff voice, 'What are you talking about? Octavia baby.'

'I'm saying you can't mess with him because he's a soldier,' Octavia Bisier said. 'A Federation soldier. You can't possibly be a match for a soldier,'

'Federation soldiers?' Polk froze for a moment, then burst out laughing. 'A bunch of losers, beaten to shit by the gods, losing three million soldiers in a single battle. Even if you send a pig, it can fight better than them!'

Reynolds, who had just gotten up to leave, stopped in his tracks.