Heated

5

Carrying myself through the maze of hallways, plagued with fatigue from a restless night's sleep, I make it to the Ordnance Bay for my second day of work.

Something about Vader's disdain for me fills me with a sense of motivation to prove to him I can make valuable contributions to Starfighter.

Today I plan to put together a prototype for an idea I have that can improve not only the accuracy of the storm trooper's blasters, but add a silencer to it, so enemies can't hear the "pew" sound, allowing us to perform surprise attacks more stealthily.

Wow. Three days ago, I would not believe I was contributing to the death of others. But this is my mission now.

I go to the blue print station and begin sketching and allow the wooshin and grunting sounds from people practicing combat in the background fade to white noise.

About three hours in, I had to pull myself away to stop. My brain is exhausted with all the mental exertion I've been putting into this blueprint.

I hold it up and smile at the outline of my idea.

"Get into a little arts and crafts, darling?" A gruff voice steals me from my happy moment and I turn to see none other than Nik, smiling at me with a menacing smile.

As confidently as I could muster I puff my chest and say, "Not that it's any of your business, but it's an idea for a prototype that could benefit the squadrone," perv.

"Really?" he feigns fake curiosity, "I'm gonna need to check that out."

He slowly stalks over, instantly making the air around me feel stale and musty. He grabs the prints out of my hand and inspects it, eyebrows raising, "Wow this looks, just wow," He exclaims.

My heart swells with excitement at the prospect of someone liking my idea, "Really?"

"Wow it's terrible," my heart deflates. Dickhead.

An angry huff escapes me, "It's not finished yet," I try to grab the prints back but he holds it high over my head so I can't reach it, so I'd have to jump to get it. I will not succumb to his immature bullying.

"Nik, that's not funny, please give it back," I attempt to stand up for myself.

"Well since you asked so nicely." He smiles, "No.''

I gasp from his rudeness and embarrassingly jump to try to grab it and he just laughs at me.

"Is there a problem?" As relieved as I am to hear Stryker's voice, I'm frustrated that I couldn't fight this battle on my own.

"What's it to you, Stryke?" Nik spits over at him.

"Well I think you have something that doesn't belong to you."

"Whatever it's just a stupid piece of paper with a little drawing on it," and with that Nik throws it on the table and huffs away.

Stryker approaches me, "Hey are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, he was just being a bully."

"Nik is just a low life, don't worry about him, Vader will probably kill him in for his laziness soon enough."

My body cringes at the thought, still not being used to the idea of people casually dying.

"Sorry," he also cringes for making me uncomfortable, "Whatchu got over here?"

Embarrassed by Nik's criticism I suddenly feel shy about my work, "Oh it's nothing."

"No it's not, let me see," he walks to my table and stands next to me so close his arm keeps pressing against my own, but I make no move to put distance between us, don't ask me why.