LunaticStar

The cobalt spire pierced the night sky like a knife, spotlights from its base grasping heavenward. Illuminating the starlit atmosphere, twin full moons cast deep honey hues on the rocky ground. At the base of the spire, they congregated. The litigators, the soldiers, the aliens. The war crimes trial had been short, potent, sharp as the monolith. Ida North was sure that she was going to die. She quaked feebly in her gray prison scrubs on a raised dais, ensconced in a narrow shock barrier. She'd been standing there for four hours, not allowed to sit. Legs trembling with exhaustion, Ida's wrists were bruising from the heavy shackles that disabled her cranial implant and weakened her motor functions. The bracers were a tool to restrain the largest, toughest and most vicious of criminals. Augmented super soldiers, seven foot aliens with razor sharp claws. But she was five foot and change, eyes puffy with tears and thin shoulders slumping as her waves of stygian hair lay in tangles along

Arcturus was awoken by the sound of the horn. A hundred horns, all overlapping. As soon as Arc's eyes snapped open, the horns ceased, instantly forgotten as the corpse loomed over. Dust pooled outwards and upwards, a crater within the crater, the grave site of a thousand farmers and workers. The corpse's shadow cut through the particulate and over Arcturus, who lay prone but unhurt. And yet somehow, wounded. Arc put a hand to an unmarred chest. No holes, but something was missing. Arc sucked in a breath. It smelled and tasted dirty. Where was the light coming from? It lit the back of the corpse standing before them, with two plumed wings of illuminated dust. The hand outstretched. Trepidation and doubt filled Arcturus. They didn't take the hand, but stood to face the animated remains nonetheless. The corpse was dressed finely, but the clothes were a mess of ripped and indiscernible garments. A ruffled skirt, no shoes. Dirty, marred knees. Blackened toenails. Her long coat draped