He then stops to look at me, bending down and gazing into the glowing crimson eyes beneath my white-officers cap. “Wow, is that you Miya? Shit! I thought you were with the prep team.”

I lift my head to look back at the two women still lingering behind. One of them, short-haired with a smile on her face, continued to gaze at me with a taunting expression.

Apelio follows my eyes and turns around. “Ah, right. You two had a little, erm, disagreement back at the lower terminals. Well don’t worry, I’m sure you can all sort it out while you stay here.”

My eyes return back to him, with both my nose and eyelids scrunched down. “While I, stay here?”

One of the women steps to Apelio’s side, clinging to his arm. “Apelio has been working at this station a lot longer than you and has tons of accolades. He deserves to become a Patroller, not some measly half-breed like yourself.”

Apelio smiles and bends his head down as the woman starts to caress the gold and silver medals pinned on his uniform while whispering something into his ear. His eyes then become alert and widen, before he brushes her away and grabs her by the neck slamming her into the wall facing the window exposure.

The woman coughs while looking at him with beady eyes. “W-wait… I-“

“I don’t need you to speak for me, got that? If you ever make this mistake again I’ll snap your neck like an authrax tube.”

She nods her head several times in a fast motion, with Apelio finally letting her fall to the floor as she clasps her neck with a cough.

“As Pavilia suggested, it’s not right that you were accepted for something that I was destined to be. I have contacts in the Sentinel as well as the upper-ranks, including my father that said they feel the same way; And have decided to take it upon myself to establish an over-ranking right here and now.”

He then extends his open palm, a smug look on his face.

“I’ve been stuck at this place long enough, it’s time for me to make a name for myself in the cosmos. Space Patroller Apelio does have a nice ring to it… Anyways, hand over your XMS handgun along with your Patroller badge so I can start my new life on 4056-E.”

I look down at his hand and then to the floor with a sigh. I unattached my gun from its metal holster with one hand and unpinned my Patroller medallion from my uniform’s breast pocket.

The medallion was made of chechurion-alloy, a pinkish metal that became darker when in the presence of heavy chem-materials. It was molded into the form of several smaller planets swirling around a huge yellow comet, with the letter ‘P’ engraved in the middle.

I had found it in my inner pocket when I returned to my quarters-bunkers before my nap. Guess the Coordinant slipped it in without me ever knowing.

“Ahem.” Apelio ushers with a flick of his wrist.

My hands move forward, as the sparkles of a passing white comet through the nearby window create a luminous reflection atop my gun and badge. The sparkle catches my eyes, making me take a step back and hold them close to my chest.

“I-I can’t.”

Apelio’s face enrages as he grips his hand into a fist. “Excuse me?”

“This is… This is a chance for me to finally leave this place. All I do here is get picked on for being… This way… But out there, it’ll be different! Someone gave me this because they saw my potential, and I-I won’t let it go to waste!”

“Fine then.” Apelio sniffs then snaps his fingers.

One of his lackeys walks over to my side, placing her hand on my shoulder with a smile. “Why dontcha just give him the badge? So we don’t have to hurt you like last time.”

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I close my eyes and dip my cap down on my head, muttering something beneath my breath.

“Huuh? What was that?” The woman asks while bending down and putting her ear close to my face.

“I couldn’t quite hear you.”

My eyes then burst open, a crimson glare protruding from my pupils. In a nimble swipe, I slash across her face with the metal tip of the badge, splattering blue blood onto the floor as she holds her eyes and falls to her knees with a wail.

The other woman curses underneath her breath and lunges forward. She closes in for a jab, however, I elude her assault with a duck and grab onto her fist. In an ear-curling snap, I twist it out of place making her scream and grit her teeth.

She takes a step back, holding onto her dangling hand with fiery red eyes. “Suuchi noyer! Golyu’!”

A large puff of smoke comes from my gun as it starts to light up, producing an array of white and black lights on its outer ridges as I line it in front of her.

“Whatever the fuck that means.”

Three crisp narrow beams of white light shoot from the gun’s nozzle, all of them racing past her chest and hurling her back. One of the discharges collapses into the window behind her, making a small crack form as the air starts to seep through the crevices.

“Y-your crazy!” Apelio shouts as he takes a step back.

The split then enlarges until it becomes a small hole that starts to suck all the air along with loose objects into its vicinity. My cap flies off my head as air continues to fly past me, a faint ringing filling my ears. I feel my soles slowly losing their grip on the ground as I slide forward in its direction.

“A-Apelio! Help mee!” The woman with the broken wrist screams as she’s taken by the large gusts and thrusts into the opening.

As if a missing piece to a puzzle, her body slides into the aperture causing all of the wind to stop whisking in the room. With a sigh, I walk over to my cap and pick it up from the ground dusting it off and placing it onto my head.

I look at the two ensigns, both of them in shock as they continue to press the colorful buttons on the launch terminal.

“Am I good to go?”

The two ensigns nod their heads and take a step back, a single blinking yellow button waiting to be pushed on the screen.

“Then leave through the breach door, this place is about to break through.”

The two ensigns look over to the window being covered by the woman starting to form cracks around it. The one officer then helps his handicapped companion by dragging him by the torso through the breach door with it slamming shut. An alarm starts to fire off as red and green lights swirl above our heads.

“Breach Detected… Window Seal Unlatched… Please Pull Emergency-Sigule For Hatch-Release… All Departures Routed for Transfer in T-Minus Sixty Seconds”

“Let’s play a game shall we?” I grip onto my trigger and fire two blasts of black light into Apelio’s knees, making him fall to the ground with a yelp.

I bend down, gripping his hair beneath my fingers and twisting his head to face the woman still crying while clinging onto her scarred face, blue blood running down her chin and onto her white uniform.

“You can’t move, but she can. You’re going to instruct her on where the emergency switch is, or you all suffocate in the cold vastness that’s awaiting you in less than…”

“…T-Minus Thirty Seconds Until LockDown Departure…” The intercom blares, finishing my statement.

I stand up and pat him on the head as I make my toward the metal chamber, smashing the yellow flashing button on the holo-screen.

Apelio attempts to crawl forward but winces as he looks down at the blackened holes in his legs. “Yuusfat! Pavilio, you must listen to my instructions exactly if we’re to all make it out of this!”

The now-blind woman whimpers and nods her head, revealing her deformed and grisly face as she stands from the ground.

“… It’s to the left Pavilio! It’s literally in front of you!” The woman pinned on the breaking glass exclaims.

Her companion strays forward with her arms in front of her, finally reaching the end of the metal wall, smearing her blood along the way while guiding herself to the lever.

“You’re doing great Pavilio! Just a few more steps and—“ Apelio’s voice is cut off as he turns to face me.

I strap my safety vest over my body and sit down in the leather seat of my chamber, I input a set of pressed keys on the inside terminal with the hatch closing.

“…T-Minus Ten Seconds Until LockDown Departure…”

“Dammit!” Apelio seethes with a slam of his fist onto the floor.

The woman finally reaches the lever, her fingers grazing along the inner blue handle.

Apelio gives a sigh of relief. “T-That’s good… We’re saved… As soon as we’re out of this shit, that bitch is going straight to—“

The glass at the pinned woman’s back starts to break away as she reaches a hand forward toward her blind companion. “Y-you idiot! Fuuksha no clevia! You’re going too—“

Her warning was for not, as her sightless officer pulls the lever down, causing my space shuttle to shoot from its chamber and into the outer sphere.

I rest my back on the white leather interior and look through the small window in front of me, as three figures along with multiple debris and glass scatter from the outer brig and become lost in a nearby asteroid belt.

The terminal itself, a large cylinder-shaped metal vessel with several outer rings, became smaller as my shuttle continued to soar through the cosmos.

My eyes close and I take a deep breath.

“Alone at last.”

. . .