AllRounder

Commander Ryan Hail had never liked silence. In his experience, silence usually meant something had gone catastrophically wrong, like when the ship's reactor coughed once, decided it had done enough work for the day, and then exploded spectacularly across orbit. The silence that followed was the kind that pressed on your skull, and made you aware of every little sound inside your own body. His breath rasped in his helmet. The faint hum of the emergency oxygen pack tried to sound reassuring, but mostly it sounded like a bored insect trapped in a jar. He drifted through the ruins of the orbital colony, surrounded by the glittering debris of what used to be humanity's proudest achievement. Now it looked more like a cosmic junkyard sail that had gone terribly wrong. Panels floated by him lazily. Shattered solar wings turned slowly, catching the pale light of the distant sun. The earth glimmered below, so heartbreakingly close he could trace the curves of the oceans, the faint light...

The emergency lights painted everything red inside the Varathic station. Ambassador Threshkal walked quickly through the curved hallways, his forearms moving with nervous energy. He had never seen the Galactic Council call an emergency meeting before. In his 40 years of service, the council had always moved slowly, taking years to make simple decisions. But today was different. The council chamber was a massive sphere that floated in the center of the station. Representatives from 300 species sat in seats that lined the walls. Each one placed according to their species need for gravity or air or light. Threshkull took his seat among the Zenthari delegation and looked around. The mood was dark. No one was talking. Everyone waited. High magistrate Thora entered the chamber. She was ancient even for her kind. Her crystallin body reflected the light from a thousand different angles, making her seem like a living star. She had led the council for over 2,000 years. Threshkall had never seen ...

  The Grand Chamber of the Galactic Council floated in the darkness of space. A massive ring of metal and light  orbiting the neutral world of Concordia. Inside its halls, representatives from  47 different species gathered beneath crystallin domes that showed the stars beyond. For 10,000 years, these species  had lived in peace under the council's rule. They had avoided wars, shared technology, and built a civilization  that stretched across thousands of worlds. Ambassador Sarah Chen stood at the center of the chamber. Her small  human frame dwarfed by the massive aliens around her. Some had multiple arms, others floated in tanks of liquid,  and a few were so large they had to attend through holographic projections. She clutched a data tablet in her hands,  her heart pounding, but her face calm. She had spent 3 months gathering this evidence, and now she would present it  to the entire council. Humans were the newest members of this ancient ...