Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I heard we are heading to Feln. We should be there within one solar day.” Sorn informs.

“Ya, shouldn’t be too long now. As soon as we break free from this storm it’ll be in sight.” Sorn leans in filled with excitement.

“I hear it’s a beautiful place! The planet has two moons and I hear that when they glow at night it looks like two giant shining pearls hanging from the skies. They cast a light over everything, making the natural habitat plants glow. The planet has interesting vegetation and animals.The plants grow during the Moonlight, and many of the planet's life forms are nocturnal.” Sorn lost himself as he went on about all the interesting facets of Planet Feln, and unsurprisingly you’ve lost complete interest.

Soen was too focused on the Planet to notice your waning interest. You scan the room with your eyes taking in all the happy faces, the laughter. You continue to observe everybody mingling, all the various races gathered together, working together in perfect harmony. You smile at the thought.

A loud gurgling grunt spiked the hairs on the back of your neck. Twisting your head aroun, your eyes land on a pair of luminous orbs that glare at your with a hint of hostility. Your smile shattered and the idea of everyone working together in harmonious unity disintegrated as you stared up at the less than amused mountainous of a man, Rudderwick.

“Shit.” You mutter under your breath. He’s the one I popped in the nose when you believed him to be a Sandarian the other day.

Sorn chimes in from behind you, “Hey, Rudderwick! How’ve you been?” Rudderwick just kept his piercing gaze on your completely ignoring Sorn question. His purple, smokey eyes dug into yourself like claws, and the feeling that this is a friendly visit was fluttering away at a rapid pace.

“Listen, I wanted to apologize for breaking your nose.” You apologized in earnest. “It was an accident and I didn’t mean to.”

Rudderwick grunted over your words, “you can take your apology and shove it up your ass, Nellita!”

Wow. Ok, asshole alert. “It was an honest mistake! Look, I’m sorry, ok?” You smile trying to diffuse the situation. When you saw Rudderwick before he had his uniform on, hiding the walls upon walls of muscle. Now he only wore a green tank top that showed every defining line that webbed around his body. His hard chest was a wide wall, and his arms jutted from his torso like tree trunks with equally massive legs. He was no ordinary human you mused. What you find interesting though isn’t his maybe glorious muscles, but the weird looking ports on his body that meld into his skin. Almost as if he was part synth.

Oh, shit! You think you pissed off a man machine. Which basically is just saying he’s been bionically enhanced. Which isn’t odd at this day and age, but not widely known as it costs astronomical amounts of credits. Only way to have bionics is to be either crazy rich or through the Military. The latter would be extremely rare, as there are strict requirements to be able to become a candidate. A selection process weeds out everyone who doesn’t have the fortitude and skill set that’s required, roughly 1% is accepted and even then, that percentage is cut in half as even that small group, more than half won’t survive or pass the final testing. You have no idea what kind of testing is done, you’ve only heard stories and even those stories are more like ghost stories. No clue as to what holds true and what is made up of someone's fantasy.

Eyeing his short cropped hair and the way he held his posture, he definitely screams battlefield experience. Leaning in, you take a subtle whiff, and conclude he smells a bit of cinnamon, but with an underlying hint of metal.

“Nel? Your mouth is hanging open.” Quickly your mouth snaps closed and you shoot daggers at Sorn. Turnning back around you notice the smirk Rudderwick had plastered to his face. The more the see that smirk, that type of look that he enjoys the attention he gets from others. He loves the gawking stares he gets from everyone, and the more you kept thinking about it the more that stupid smirk became annoying to look at.

“You know what I am, now how about we try this again.” His voice was low but boomed like a Ion cannon. Dark, with a slight accent that you couldn’t decipher.

He slams one meaty fist into the palm of his other hand. With slow deliberation his knuckles crack loudly. You roll your eyes at his theatrical display. The whole tough guy routine is overly played and you’ve seen so many over the years. Even now, the men tend to think themselves better than the females in most aspects. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve put them in their place. Is it that surprising that this behemoth would be any different? A weary, irritated sigh slipped past your lips.

“Wait? Am I missing something?” Sorn asks. He obviously hasn't heard what’s been going on around here. You wonder what he does and where he goes that he doesn’t hear the stories. Gossip travels fast on this ship and usually when something happens on one end it's only like a nano cycle for it to have circulated to the other side.

Ruddewick leans in, the corner of his lips curling into a sneer, “She broke my nose.”

“I broke his nose” You admit in unison with his accusation, which holds true. You did break his nose but in your defense you thought he was an ugly Sandarian. Instead, he’s, well he isn’t ugly by any means, actually very handsome with his bow shaped lips and his chiseled jaw. His eyes were sharp with the lavender orbs, never missing anything, as they scan his environment.

You both stare at one another like some form of challenge, neither daring to break eye contact. Rudderwick rolls his massive shoulders, stretching that poor tank top to the max, any more and the fabric would tear. You had this pang of sorrow for his poor tank top.

“I challenge you to a duel.” Damn it. You knew he’d be hunting you out for a duel, which is just a fancy way of saying fight. Numerous fights would break out across the coalition with the different species and races joining together that it was impossible to prevent fights from breaking out. The coalition formed what they call a dueling program, which in large part worked for most. It's a challenge and normally you don’t turn them down, but it’s a way for individuals to get their anger out in a somewhat friendly bout. Usually after the fight they’d go their separate ways with sore ego’s but friendlier towards each other. It helped stave off many problems before they escalated.

“Rudderwick, Listen I’m sorry that I did that to you. Believe me when I say I didn’t mean to. I thought you were a Sandarian. I never meant to hit you.” You pleaded. Hearing yourself plead like this made your ears cringe.