~Mae~
You know that sinking in the gut feeling that you get when you know something bad is about to happen?
Like if the absolute worst case scenario came true for once and the only things you could rely on were your wits and your fists?
If the only thing you could use to defend yourself against the terrible thing attacking you was your willpower….Would you even be strong enough to outlast the attack?
While these may be such deep thoughts for a girl like me, they weren't entirely uncommon or unnatural to be having considering the fact that I was, quite literally, going to beat the shit out of this man who could spread rumors faster then the next gullible girl could spread her legs for him.
And considering the fact that there were fewer women on the Celestial then there were when the apocalypse happened back on Earth, I highly doubt that Mr He-Who-Eats-His-Own-Shit could pull any ass around here which is probably why he resorted to one of the two things he was good at anymore.
Gossiping.
If rumors were considered to be threats to the Celestial, we would've been under attack a long time ago and we'd all be dead from their useless, degrading lack of knowledge.
But rumors were almost as toxic as poisonous air or the strength that I was exerting to half strangle motherfucking Kyle Abernathy to the brink of near suffocation and I couldn't focus on the fact that my fellow comrades were shouting at me to let him go.
That Indie was frantically pulling at my shoulders in an attempt to yank me off of him.
That I was, undoubtedly, going to get in so much trouble for jumping him like that.
I couldn't focus on anything besides the fact that he thought it was somehow okay and all right in his world to threaten me with tattle-taling to Commander Ophelia about my late night work hours and not expect some sort of repercussions for his asinine actions.
Could I have been overreacting a bit by deciding to strangle him until the man couldn't speak nor breathe and would fear me for the rest of his adult life if I decided to ever let him go?
Possibly.
But Mama did always say that I was quick to anger and this fact wasn't new to anyone aboard the Celestial since my arrival.
But….That also doesn't make it right to hurt him either.
Didn't Mama always say that two wrongs never made a right?
That small, nearly inaudible thought bouncing around in my head like a mini holographic ball was enough to knock out of the initial red haze clouding my vision and when I saw his once pale face now beet red and beginning to turn purple staring up at me, choking gasps coming out of his parted lips as he tried to plead with me to let go of his throat.
"P-Please....I-I'm sorry…"
He pleaded with me, he was begging me to let him go and here I was, strangling him over a goddamn rumor.
Before I knew what I was doing, I shoved myself away from him and stared down numbly at my own hands, at the blood that lay greasing over my knuckles and fingertips.
My stomach churned uneasily at the realization of what I had done, of what kind of monster I was becoming.
Was I so far gone in my own anger and agony that I was beginning to inflict it in the form of violence upon others just because I couldn't control my own emotions?
Kyle quickly scurried backwards using his heels, his hands rubbing at his throat, at the blood from his oozing cuts on his face, his shoulders, at the damage I had done to him.
My own throat felt tight as I swallowed past the sudden knot that had formed out of guilt and remorse before I tried to speak, tried to make things right again.
"Kyle, I....I apologize for--"
Suddenly, there was a brief flash of movement out of the corner of my eyes before I felt the hardened grip of two heavily armored security guards hauling me away from the fight that had dispersed as they shouted orders directly into my ear canal.
"Miss Minerva! The Commander has sent orders to have you escorted to her office immediately following the repercussions of aggravated assault!"
One of the guards yanked hard on my arm, half jerking me off my feet and I would've gone flying to the ground had they not been physically dragging me away.
My heels dug a bit into the ground, I wasn't exactly going to make it easy on them when it came to bringing me to the Commander's office because where's the fun in that? They could at least put up a bit more of a fight, in all honesty.
"Oh, come on! Like you've never seen a catfight before! Lemme take another swing at him--sorry, her because he's about as prissy as any woman here."
I jokingly said but I was also being a bit serious, a part of me definitely still wanted to have another go at the little sack of puny dicks just so I could prove my point, that he was nothing more than any annoying thorn in all of our asses.
But the guards only gripped harder on my arms, yanking me out of the training room and down several halls while I put up any verbal protests whenever I could as there was absolutely no way I could wiggle myself out of their grips.
Commander Ophelia hired only the strongest men when it came to the security around the Celestial and these two chunks of meat were no exception.
Still, I wanted to roll my eyes at their silent huffs of irritation, they obviously weren't in the friendliest of moods today.
I wonder who pissed in their orange juice this morning.
Oh wait, that's right!
It was probably one of the lower level workers because we would never know what it would be like to drink freshly squeezed orange juice, until these two meat trucks for bodies.
Oh, how I wanted to bring up the fact that even though the security guards did little to nothing to reinforce the crimes committed on the Celestial, they were still paid as much as any higher level medical professional or engineer were and they were still granted better mealtimes then anybody who actually mattered to the integrity of the station, to any higher level officer in command but I couldn't.
Because my complaints would only be passed further down the line to the Commander and then, I'd get another lecture about how I should be "grateful and enjoying what privileges I do have" when I had little to none around here.
I was a goddamn prisoner just like everybody else but nobody gave a rat's ass about us, the ones who were basically the backbone of the ship.
Nobody cared about anyone anymore….And that was just fucking depressing to think about.
However, my depressing thoughts of how the lower level workers were being treated had to be pushed aside for the moment as I was physically pushed into the large, glass window encased office that belonged to the Commander.
The metal door slammed shut behind me, the guards having exited the room after tossing me in but I didn't care, I was too busy taking in the view to care much about anything right now.
The furniture was expensive looking, two cremé colored leather seats sat across from a glass table desk placed strategically in the center of the room and the desk chair was a swivel chair, it actually had wheels on the bottom that barely made a sound on the otherwise cold, metallic flooring.
The walls were empty as per usual for the Celestial, probably because the ship was a reflection of its Commander.
Pretty on the outside, empty on the inside.
Beyond the reinforced windows that must've cost a fortune to have made for those specific dimensions lay a starry galaxy that could've brought tears of wonder and amazement to my eyes had it been any other occasion that I could get a rare glimpse at the space that lay just beyond my fingertips.
But instead, my stargazing moment was ever so rudely interrupted when the door clicked open once before it slammed shut again, the action disturbing my moment of silence as I visibly jumped out of my skin just before a humorous chuckle responded throughout the room.
"Hmm…..Gorgeous, isn't it? It's not everyday you can honestly say that you're allowed to wake up to a view like that one."
The voice was feminine but brought a hard line of built up frustration and years of repression that only a masculine tone could deliver and I watched out of the corner of my eye as the Commander slowly walked into my line of sight, a smirk on her face as mischief twinkled in her dark eyes.
Commander Ophelia had aged a bit since I was a child and that was only natural to happen but part of me still wondered how she still looked so eternal even in her early 40s.
Barely any wrinkle lines around her eyes, her forehead, her mouth.
Her hair was still as dark as I remembered it being, still as black as a black hole but it was short now, the jagged cut barely reaching the tops of her well muscled shoulders.
Commander Ophelia was built to be stronger than most of the females upon the Celestial, myself included.
She practically oozed masculinity over femininity, something that might have worked as a scare tactic back on Earth to intimidate the men in her line of work but I saw through the misty cloud of bullshit.
Just because she was physically fit did not mean she was anymore of a hard ass then the next person, that part was guaranteed.
"Well, I seem to have forgotten myself for a moment. I am allowed to wake up to such a spectacular view unlike you, a mere mechanic with lesser skills and knowledge than that of a peasant farmer."
She said cockily and I bit my tongue to refrain from smarting off to her, she was just a bitch and anybody who came within her general vicinity knew that to begin with.
Commander Ophelia sighed almost disappointedly when she realized she was going to invoke a response from me that way and she casually strolled around to the back side of her desk, sitting down in the swivel chair before she crossed her legs elegantly over each other whilst clasping her hands on the desk before her.
With a stone cold expression on her face now, the Commander gestured for me to take a seat in one of the two available leather chairs.
"Sit down, Miss Minerva. We have lots to discuss, don't we? Starting off with the fact that you knowingly provoked a fellow worker before proceeding to verbally and physically assault him as well, isn't that right?"
At her casually tossed out words, I couldn't stop the huff that left me when I sat down in the leather chair, the material squeaking beneath me as I wondered just how many people sat in this chair before me.
Just how many of their hopes and dreams were crushed beneath the heels of her steel toed boots.
"You know as well as I do that he deserved everything he got, I could've beat his ass further too if your little brainwashed minions hadn't pulled me off him."
Commander Ophelia chuckled lightly as if she found this conversation to be amusing and she leaned back in her high back chair as she visually examined my appearance.
I felt like I was being put under a microscope with her gaze locked so intently on me and not in a good way either.
"Ahh, you're just like your mother, you know that? A little spitfire that burns everything she touches until she burns the wrong person."
Crossing my arms as I leaned back in my chair, I knew that she was playing a game with me.
Screwing with my head by using her manipulative words.
But two could play at that game.
"If I was just like my mother, then you would have no problem allowing me to reapply for an Explorer position, now would you? After all, I think I proved today that I'm both physically and mentally strong enough to carry out a successful mission."
And just for a second, I thought she was going to take me seriously, that she would actually reconsider her set in stone decision to ban me from ever applying to be an Explorer again.
But instead, the Commander only burst out laughing as if that was, single handedly, the funniest thing she's ever heard before.
It only pissed me off further and I gripped onto the armrests of the leather seat, digging my fingernails into the squeaky material to refrain from slapping that high and mighty bitch cleanly across the face.
"Wow, you really do know how to explode with that punchline, don't ya? God, your sense of humor is truly remarkable."
Commander said as she faked wiping laughing tears out of her eyes before she smirked right at my expressionless face.
"Just to make sure we're both clear on this, for as long as I'm alive, you will never be an Explorer nor will you ever have the chance to reapply. How shall I say this….You are simply not built to be one of our Explorer's."
She glanced pointedly down at my right leg, at the leg that beneath the material of my uniform was only half of my body, the rest of it was purely machinery.
My blood boiled in my veins, how did she find out about the deformity?
What dick wad in this station squealed like a motherfucking pig with this classified information to her?
And her next words had me almost ready to rear up from my seat and suckerpunch her right where it would hurt.
Her cold, blackened heart.
"Be thankful I'm not having you Cast Out. Now, you'll be on probation for the next two weeks and I'll have to revoke your pass for scheduled meal times with your fellow workers."
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-Ro♥️