Fall of Icarus

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“Captain on the deck!” the navigator yelled, as the small crew on the bridge of the Liberator leapt to their feet. Captain Hallith stepped off the lift and ran a hand along the bony ridges near his thinning hairline. Sweat beaded on his pudgy face from the exertion of walking down the long halls of the Alliance Cruiser. Where the sweat droplets fell, they pooled in rivulets along the sharp, bone protrusions that ran along his jaw, cheeks, brows, and at the base of his hairline. The Uligart smiled at the disciplined crew manning his bridge.

“At ease,” he said softly.

The cramped bridge of the Alliance Cruiser was small enough that his nasally voice carried clearly across the room.

The crew took their seats, as the Captain took his at the top of the tiered rows of seats. “What’s our status, Mr. Paporus?”

The ship’s Tactical Officer, a large Oterian, reviewed the day’s logs as he spoke. The Tactical Officer stood well over seven-feet tall. His tan fur-covered body seemed grossly disproportionate on the small bridge, so much so that his jutting horns nearly scrapped the low ceiling as he moved. Captain Hallith only half listened, knowing that today’s review would be dreadfully similar to yesterday’s, and the day’s before that, and the day’s before that. The Liberator, an archaic vessel that was refurbished for its current mission, was assigned the duty of patrolling the Demilitarized Zone between Alliance and Empire space. Established in the Taisa Accord nearly one hundred and fifty years previously, the Demilitarized Zone became a virtual barrier, existing of nothing more than sparse star systems and open space, but an invisible knife’s edge through which ships from neither side would cross.

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