When she was earth bound, Alys wore the scars of her vocation with pride. The hardware fused into her head, arms and back--input terminals for the iron maiden's controls, could only ever be replaced, not removed. When star bound, she spent months at a time strapped into the synaptic throne that connected her to the controls of the multi-use ship, Mink.
This last trip had been a huge success. A supply run to the newly colonized Kucosh system which should have been nothing more that a hop, skip and jump delivery had turned into a scramble to evacuate settlers from a planet whose dormant super volcano had become silently active and was steadily poisoning the population. Mission accomplished, they were now headed back to their home world and the birthplace of Archangel technology, Oberon.
Say the only dream you ever had was blue, a cool brilliance that engulfs everything in the universe. All you know of your place in the monochromatic everything is webbed feet, jewel fingers and a certain unnameable longing.
