Starbound: A Space Odyssey - Chapter 156 Lost in Space...Again 3

“That’s basically the story.” Lenny concluded while drinking a mouthful of booze, “I will spare you and myself of the details of what I did.”

“Really…” Peri sighed and looked at Lenny with some pity, “I never expected you to have gone through so much.”

“We all have our stories.” Lenny said with a small smile on his face, “I bet you have some dark stories as well, right?”

“Yes, indeed.” Peri nodded, “But different from you I accept and move forward without regrets. If I regret every single of my bad choices and actions, I won’t have time to live my life, so why would why? I just keep moving forward, without looking back.”

Lenny looked up and saw those black eyes gleaming with unknown meaning, staring directly at him.

“Why do you always strangely look at me and have some faint enmity against me?” Peri suddenly asked.

“Huh?” Lenny was surprised for a moment before he awkwardly scratched his forehead, “Well, you see…your existence makes me remember of my terrible experience there, just like when I use my powers. I rather avoid having interactions with you, I don’t want to constantly suffer from the sins crawling at my back and nagging at my mind whenever I feel your mark.”

“Oh…is just that?” Peri thought it was something more serious and mysterious, but from the looks of it, was just something simple.

Lenny’s lips twitched when he heard the nonchalance tone in Peri’s voice.

He felt like he was being looked down by her. Like he was someone so weak that he couldn’t move forward after a few setbacks.

Although he hated to admit, Peri was stronger than him, physically and emotionally.

That’s why he somewhat avoid Peri, as he envy the fact she doesn’t have a emotion scar from the Challenge Dimension.

And from what she told him, he could somewhat guess that her Challenge was completely different from his.

While his he fought against some otherwordly human-like people with strange powers, Peri had to survive against beasts and monsters.

Lenny had to say, it was very strange as how the challenges seemed to be appropriate and built for to test the ability of each of them.

Lenny was trained since young to be a sharpshooter and kill people when he was with the Starkid Crew. And so his challenge was to kill people.

Peri was Floran Warrior that was trained since young to fight people, but her main training was without a doubt to hunt down animals and beast as Florans almost never enter in conflict with other races, and just stay in their tribes surviving from hunting. So, her challenge was what appears to be to hunt beast and animals.

This realization left Lenny wondered about the intentions of the person that created such places.

There was few minutes of silence between them as they stared at each other.

They were so focused at their talk and staring that even Peri, with her keen senses, didn’t realize there was a single figure leaning at the room’s door.

This figure had been there since the beginning and heard everything they spoke.

John opened his eyes and slowly walked away. His face, completely expressionless, not a single emotion could be seen there.

His thoughts were a mystery.

As such, he disappeared at the hallways…

…

After some minutes, Peri broke the silence, “Are you going to tell John, about this?”

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“I don’t know…” Lenny sighed, “You know how he is. I fear that he will straight up try to arrest me, or even worse, kill me, as soon as I tell him that I might have killed hundreds of innocent.”

“Yeah…his sense of justice is unusually strong.” Peri said while she casted a quick glance towards where John was hiding before turning her eyes back at Lenny, “Protect the good and punish the evil. But I don’t think he will decide what to do with you without hesitation. I guess he will be pretty torn about how to deal with you, after all, you’re his friend, one of the few, if I’m not wrong.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case.” Lenny shook his head and sighed once again.

Both of them returned to silence and just casually looked over the window and into the endless dark space outside the spaceship.

…

John’s unfocused eyes soon came back to normal after he remembered the conversation between Peri and Lenny.

Although Lenny had said to him that he had killed some people, John never expected that Lenny had also killed innocent civilization. Even though from what he said Lenny had to other choice and he was in some kind of strange bloodlust, John will condemned Lenny for what he did.

[I once made a vow…] John rested his head at the chair, […to bring justice upon evil and protect the innocent and good people of the universe.] Looking at his downcast figure at the mirror, John asked himself, [Lenny…are you evil? Just like that assassin? Just like that BSS bandits? Lenny…]

John began doubting himself and his reasoning when he killed those people. He kept convincing himself that he didn’t kill people, but rather cleansed the world from evil when got rid of those BSS soldiers and the assassin.

But if Lenny was also someone evil, and John was simply allowing him to continue living, [What am I’m going to do with my pledge to bring all evil to justice? No, he’s a changed man… maybe…he said he was a Bounty Hunter…a Protector must take action when sees injustice and evil…will I be able to force myself to take action?]

John kept telling himself that he wasn’t wrong in killing those Syndicate soldiers since they burned down and killed innocent people and Peri’s family. They killed men and women, young and old. To John, they worst and then monsters and in his sense of justice, they deserved to be erased from the universe.

But since Lenny did basically the same thing, John was becoming confused. He always saw the world in black and white, good and evil. Since John somewhat consider Lenny a friend, he was going through an internal struggle.

Does he need to act on his sense of justice, like he did with those Syndicate soldiers, and kill Lenny? Or should Lenny be given a second chance?

But John didn’t give a second chance to those soldiers. If he give a second chance to Lenny now, he will become one of the type of people he most hate, hypocrites.

[What to do? Kill or not kill?] John’s face twisted and became grim as these thoughts invaded his mind.

John shook his head and expelled the unnecessary thoughts away from his mind.

[Focus, John!] John slapped his own face, [Think about Lenny’s past after dealing with the current situation. Yes, I have to find a way out of this place first. Although me and Forge can build another engine, it will take far too long. The clock is ticking, I have to hurry up and get the Artifacts as soon as possible to stop that monster from destroying the universe. Minor problems such Lenny’s can be left alone for now.]

After taking a shower to wake himself up, he walked out of his room and walked towards the Crafting Room.

John and Forge were the only ones in the spaceship capable of using the computers in the room to carefully create a blueprint of a new engine.

The moment they finished the blueprint, they would just load it inside the Assembler and gather some raw materials so that the machine could automatically create the engine. It works almost like a 3D printer, but a lot more advanced.

Although they could use the Scanner in to scan and automatically create a blueprint of the engine they were using, it wouldn’t work since it was basically destroyed to the point it was impossible to use the Scanner.

…

John stopped by the Crafting Room’s door and opened it.

“Uncle John!” An innocent and childish voice greeted John as soon as the door opened.

John’s lips twitched once he heard him being called uncle.

It wasn’t strange for him to act this way, since he was way too young to be called uncle.

Despite him being somewhat unhappy of being called uncle, John still crouched and looked at the cute, blue Hylotl kid in front of him.

Looking at that cute face, John couldn’t force himself to get angry, “What is it, Saito?” John smiled and patted Saito’s head.

“When is dinner going to be ready?” Saito’s head tilted to the side in a cute manner as he asked that question.

“Soon, just be a little more patient.” John stood up as his lips moved upwards forming an evil grin, “Go find uncle Lenny, he’s probably sleeping at the quarters. He might have some toys for to play with.”

“Okay!” Saito nodded and briskly ran from the Crafting Room.