Classes for the day had ended, so Geo had decided to head for the campus gym and weight room. Astrogation thus far had been easy, most of it being computer controlled, but some of the math had stretched her brain a bit too much, hence exercise. Upon arriving at the gym complex, Geo made her way to the weight room. It smelled... like gyms everywhere. Feet, sweat, unwashed bodies. She cringed at the odor, but walked inside and headed to the locker bay, located just beside the door.

Looking around she didn't see anyone she knew, so she sat down by herself on a convenient bench and took off the sweatshirt, her 20 pound weighted jacket (actually a long sleeve chainmail shirt she had had Campy run off for her so she could keep her muscle tone while off of the Nautilus), leaving the steel toed and weighted engineers boot on, and stretched.

She then proceeded to a nearby weight machine and punched in her species code and requested weight <50lbs>. "Error. Error. Error. That species code is not recognized." The machine proudly proclaimed. Blushing slightly at all of the eyes she had attracted because of the machine, she stomped over to the free weights and started testing them.

"Hey, little thing," a largish hexapodal ape creature says to her, "Don't you think you should be in the gym down by the ?" A titter and clacking of laughter sounds from all the people around the gym.

Sighing at the stupidity of gym rats everywhere, Geo grabs a pair of the third largest free weight barbells, sits on the nearby bench, and starts doing curls. These feel like they are only 15lb weights. Stupid gravity must be set to Galactic Standard. She completely misses the stares of shock, surprise, and horror she receives from the other gym goers.

10 sets of 10 later, she puts the bars away, and walks to the bench press. As she approaches, the gym rats all "scurry" out of her way. She mounts up the third largest weights and starts her reps. Again 10 of 10.

As she stands and stretches from the workout, she does notice that the makeup of gym rats has changed. Not only are there more of them, there are people in street clothes watching too. She starts to take the weights off of the bar. Then a musclebound Brnul with a decorative scar on the right side of his chest, strides toward her, fresh from the locker room, "What are you doing here little hairless goggins? Did you escape from your ?"

Tired and stressed after a full day of school and paperwork, Geo looks up at the muscle bound freak, shakes her head and replies "Are you really as dumb as you act? What do you think I am doing? I'm exercising. And if you used your brain, for anything, you would realize that."

The Brnul takes a half step back, before clenching his fists, and glares at her through half closed eyes. "You’re gonna pay for that, you little..."

Geo's stomach tightens, her hands start to tremble, as the pent up adrenaline starts to pump through her body. Swinging the weight in her left hand, Geo hits the thug square in the chest. "I don't have time for you, little . Crawl back to your mother and cry like the baby you are." The gym goes quiet as the thug staggers back, barely keeping his balance.

Geo turns to leave, takes about three steps, and something grabs her by the left arm. She pivots on the ball of her left foot, now looking at her attacker again. "Let me GO!" she yells, and kicks his left knee as hard as she can with her steel toed boots.

There is a noise similar to the sound of splintering wood as her foot connects, and the Brnul drops to the floor, shrieking in pain.

The anger dropping from her mind, Geo gawks at the sight in front of her. Dropping the weight to the floor, she forces herself to slowly walk to her locker, reclaim her items, and then leaves.

As the whispers start, no one tries to stop her. "That was The Dirt-Rockian", "Dude messed up big time there", "I heard she choked a space marine to death, one handed!" and other nonsense.

She keeps her composure till she rounds the end of the corridor, then flees, sobbing, and cursing herself for letting the harassment get to her again. Just like back in middle school.

At least they didn't call me an Oreo, or a beaner...

*-*-*

"Hi Lod. I didn't have a great day."

"Oh? Tell me about it?"

"Well, I found the school's weight gym, and decided to try and exercise there. The gravity is way too low for me. And the people there...the worst bunch of gym I have ever seen!"

"Alright. So what went wrong? We've all seen what gym people can be like."

"There was one guy there who was a complete ass. He laid hands on me, and I kinda snapped..."

"Oh my. What did you do?"

"...I think I broke his knee..."

"We have spoken about this kind of thing before. Was security called?"

"I...kinda ran away...crying."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"There, there my girl. I know this period of adjustment is hard on you. Don't beat yourself up about it. Things will eventually even out."

"Thanks Lod. In other news, one of my classmates, Mermer, the captain of the club, asked if I wanted to join the club for a trip to a restaurant tonight!"

"That is excellent news. It is always a good idea to make friends outside of your command structure. Go and enjoy yourself!"

"I think I will. Thanks Lod; and thank you for listening to me. Goodbye!" Geo ended the communication.

Geo punched in Mermer’s comm code, "Hey! It's Geo, I think I will join you tonight after all! <8pm>? Ok, yeah, I know the place. See you then!"

*-*-*

Geo groaned and rolled over. The sound of her pulse pounding in her ears. I should never have let Mermer talk me into going out with the club. She groaned again, and slowly sat up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. Now where am I?

It took more than a few minutes for her brain to fire up into mostly working order. “Where in the...?” As she looked around she could see what looked like a college dorm room, covered in posters, dirty clothes and other various detritus. The door was open, and from outside she could hear noises. Her head started to throb.

Slowly making her way to the door, only stumbling once on the piles of trash, she took account of herself out loud, “Clothes? Check. Communicator thingy? Check. Boots? Boots? Where are my boots?”

Stepping (staggering really) through the door, the view of a common room greeted her. Bright lights pierced her eyes, odd smells assaulted her nose. She could feel her stomach gurgle in a very bad way. Looking up from a couch, an unrecognized alien said “ is that way.” pointing to her left.

She ran.

A few minutes later, feeling somewhat relieved, she reentered the common room. “So, where am I?” she asked, leaning heavily on the wall.

The alien looked up, “You don't remember? Huh. You're in hall.” It spread it's arms, “Welcome.”

“So, what happened last night?” She looked around for her missing boots, head screaming in pain every time she moved.

“Well, after drinking Mermer under the table by 5 or 6 , you picked a fight with a Torvusk, broke one of his tusks off, bashing his head into a table, and then threw his buddy out a window.” The alien shook his head. “Then, when security showed up, you said you could take them all, and charged, yelling 'Leroy Jenkins'.” It took a swig off of what looked like a beer bottle. “After that, we posted bail for you and brought you back here. It should be on the news today.”

Geo looked at the alien, “That explains the headache and the pain... But wait, I ordered fizzy juice! It wasn't supposed to have alcohol in it!”

“Sadly, it did. Oh, and security said that if you ever get arrested again, they are putting you in the stasis cells that are reserved for murderers and extra violent offenders.” The alien said. “Oh, almost forgot, the head of the local has sent you a letter of apology for the 'misunderstanding' in jail, and that 'She hopes you won't hold it against her or her employees' in your future endeavors.”

Looking at the ceiling, head throbbing even more than she thought possible, Geo says, “Oh ! What did I do?”

“I don't know exactly, but when we bailed you out, medical services were all over the place.” The alien responded.

Geo finally squinted her eyes at the alien. It had pale yellow skin, an elongated muzzle, tall pointy ears, and a severe lack of fur or hair. All it was wearing was what could only be called 'boxer shorts'. “Um, what, and who, are you?” Geo finally asked.

“Oh, I'm but you can call me Kevin. I'm a Dolken, From Dolseke.” Kevin replied.

“How much trouble am I in?” Geo asked.

“All said and done? Not much. Apparently the criminals and security don't want word getting out that a lone alien beat the out of them. The bail went to pay the 'disturbing the peace' fine, and the has said that they will not be pressing charges. Ever.” Kevin takes another long pull at its bottle, “Whatever you did in there, it really left a mark.”

“Oh , what did I do?” Geo quietly asks herself.

“Oh, security said that they are keeping your boots, as they consider them to be deadly weapons.” Kevin adds in a quiet voice.

“Poop.”

After saying a quick goodbye, Geo headed home to get ready for school.

*-*-*

Later that day, as she entered “Astrogation 101” beings were clustered together, whispering. As the individual groups saw her, it became eerily quiet. When she got to her seat, the quiet was so intense she could have heard a pin drop. A few moments later she noticed that no one would sit near her. Looking around she sees many beings looking at her, and when they see her looking back they shudder and quickly look away. When the professor finally steps into the classroom, he looks up at Geo and says, “Miss Geo, the administration has been informed as to the disturbance last night. I assume that you will refrain from your while here in class?”

In a shaky voice, Geo replies, “Yes Professor.”

“Good. Okay class, today we will be continuing our lecture on the basics of course setting...”

*-*-*

Looking up the arrest reports for the previous night, Geo finds her name only once, a charge of “Public Misconduct ”, listed as fine paid. Nothing more. The evening news is also quiet about it, except that a had a “bit of a disturbance” but that security had easily handled it.

Shaking her head, Geo wanders to her room and drops into bed, asleep before her head hits the pillow.

*-*-*

“Um, Uncle? Geo...um... got in a fight with the Voddkerck . She is reported as being fine.”

“17 help us. That 'girl' is a walking natural disaster. Did she kill anyone?” Grand Admiral Czuoi-xp replied.

“No sir. But she did stab one of them with a broken Torvusk tusk, lodged one of her boots in another's , and used her other boot to break appendages, jaws and such, until security hit her with the military stunner we gave them. Twice. On overload.”

The two looked at each other for a quiet moment.

“Couldn't have happened to a better group.” Czuoi-xp said.

“My thoughts exactly, sir.”