Chapter 153
Galactic Standard Date: 152,323.09
Orbit: Haven-1
Colonel Raphael Israfa
RAPHAEL
Raphael greeted the biomechanical 'needle' using the voice translation device developed to communicate with the strange life form. Although life in the Milky Way tended to clump into one of six basic life forms, occasionally something didn't fit life as they knew it. Needles fit that category. The living remnants of some great civilization that had risen and fallen in a distant galaxy, they were a curious synergy of biology and machine.
Needles were sentient, gentle creatures whose level of intelligence was about that of a 5-year-old humanoid. Obedient and eager to please, they had to be cared for like children. As much as Raphael wished they cared for the trusting biomechanoids because it w
