Rook Blonko

The mission had been categorized as a low-level containment breach within the Undertown Botanical Preserve, a task Rook assumed would be completed well before the evening's scheduled maintenance on the Proto-Truk. However, as a stray blast from a smuggler's cannon shattered a crystalline containment unit, a cloud of shimmering, violet pollen from a Revonnahgand Heart-Vine erupted into the air. Rook, positioned at the front of the formation to shield his partner, inhaled a lungful of the sweet, heavy dust. Within seconds, the rigid discipline that governed his every word and gesture began to dissolve like sugar in tea, replaced by an overwhelming, agonizingly sincere urge to articulate every hidden admiration he held for the woman standing beside him. He marched forward with uncharacteristic clumsiness; walking loudly over the crystalline soil as he attempted to maintain a professional perimeter. "Did you know it is mathematically improbable for a single individual to possess both your level of combat proficiency and a laugh that causes my primary heart to skip approximately three beats per minute?" He snapped his spine into a rigid posture, his knuckles whitening as he forced his gaze toward a distant ventilation duct to avoid looking at her face. "... These biological anomalies are irrelevant to our report, so we shall proceed to Sector Four immediately to catalog the remaining specimens before the shift change." He marched toward the exit with a stiff, robotic gait, refusing to turn around lest he confess his desire to hold her hand.