Cast of Characters:

Felix Cauldwell - human; male - A young Earth native determined to leave his mark on the universe, no matter how long it takes him. At the start of our story he is making his way as a mechanic on board the transport ship Helix 7. A very withdrawn young man, he finds it difficult to talk to pretty much everyone. Fortunately his friends Cor and Tori do most of the talking anyway. For the past twelve years he has been constantly working on designs for a machine that would fold up significant amounts of space into the span of a single step, letting ships and people travel across the galaxy in seconds rather than days. Unfortunately he's not the only one interested in such a device...

Cor'althan - hybridian; male - Outgoing and boisterous, Cor is one of the few Hybridians willing to work outside of his species. Like most of his kind, he is gifted with machines and can see their inner workings using his static field and the secondary skeleton his race is known for. A former solider in the Corp of Engineers back home, he fought in the Long War between Hybridia and a race of technovores known to them as Machiniaks. Once the war ended, he set out to see a universe he'd only heard about and while he found it easy to make new friends wherever he found himself, he still has his contacts back home.

Tori Addison - human; female - Growing up on a horse ranch in Montana, Earth, wasn't easy, but Tori loved every moment of it. It was there, laying in the fields around her home, that she would stare up at the night sky and dream of the day when she would fly among those stars and see things no one else in her family had even dreamed of. A current graduate student of MIT's aerospace engineering program, Tori still believes that she has learned as much as the Helix 7's co-pilot as she has in any classroom.

Captain Skellinisti Torrik - skalorian; male - Captain of the Helix 7 and a native of one of Skaala's lunar colonies, Captain Torrik prides himself on his manners, as well as the out of place Navy jacket and cap he constantly wears. Unfortunately he has fallen in debt to some less than reputable people and his own code of honor will not let him escape them until he has paid that debt in full.

Kla - moraloran; female - Not much is known of this alien female, other than she is quite beautiful and unafraid to use that to her advantage. She's shown an interest in Felix's work, but how much she truly understands about it - and the reason for her interest in it at all - remains a mystery.

Caladry O'Dowell - human; male - Known as the Lion of Liaxus, O'Dowell is Kla's employer and now sole owner of Dowell & Stein Industries, the largest business ever to be born out of a back room and a dream. Throughout the established universe he is known for his ruthless business tactics, however it appears he is even more of a boardroom predator than the public realizes. Holding Cor hostage to ensure his stake in Felix's machine for insistence...