Spacial Illusions

Prologue

NOT PROPERLY EDITED

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Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns. This is the motto of the S.T.A.R. Corps of Earth, a project created specifically for finding a new home planet for the Earth's population that has grown too numerous for an already dying planet. Pollution of air, water, and food had activated the human's survival-by-any-means instincts, leading with all humans to partially devolve into stronger animal species that are built to survive the wild elements of the world they had created.

Recently, a S.T.A.R. Corps Scout Regiment drone found a planet compositionally deemed habitable by the new human race. It wasn't the commonly assumed Mars or the Moon, but a planet orbiting a blue sun within Orion's Belt. The different colored sun lit the atmosphere a deep purple hue, and the nearly constant cloud cover meant they were unable to see down to the surface for bodies of water or any variations in vegetation. No drone could reach the ground, so the S.T.A.R. Corps voted to send a multi-purpose team to evaluate the potential of the new planet and to possibly face hostile resistance with the risk of intelligent life. The chances of humanity's survival outweighed this margin, and so they dubbed the purple planet of Orion's Belt Salutem- Latin for Salvation.

Callisto was a recruited soldier on the first Scout Regiment mission to Salutem due to her mix of hybridizations: a human, a mountain goat and a mountain lion- a perfect trio of intelligence, agility, and strength. She was a beautifully royal blue color from her long hair to her clawed feet to her silky tail plume. Along with a tail and her different color she also had two glossy, pitch black horns protruding from her hairline to twist towards the back of her head before swerving at an almost perfect 90 degree upwards swoop. Callisto was sky ferried from New York City to the S.T.A.R. Corps Launch Quarters for her mission to Salutem the next day. She was shown her barracks and her suit before all were ordered to bed for the night. The hybrid female hardly slept- though the main reason was because the soldier above her had tentacles that would swing down and slap her awake at random intervals of the night with a cold and slimy mucus.

It felt that Callisto only had a few minutes of rest until the alarm began to scream for the recruited troops to get up and get suited for launch. She tugs on the silvery grey and gold spacesuit and found a built in extension for her tail and wider feet without compromising the suit's airtight integrity. The helmet they gave her was modified specifically for her horns to fit in comfortably as well. Callisto tucks the helmet under her arm after she finished and stood by her bed as she waited for her other Scout Regiment shipmates to suit up and the ship captain to fetch them for launch.

"What do you think we'll find on Salutem?" Questions a girl with the name Rasmeda over her heart in gold. Rasmeda was a hybrid of a human and a bat, giving her large and furry ears and leathery wings plus a few sharpened teeth when she smiled.

"Probably nothing but trees and plants like that, so far no other planet has had life but Earth so this won't be much different." Comments a boy who sported the name Duma and was a hybrid with human and cheetah, his ears furry and rotational with the black stripes running from the inner corners of his feline eyes to the outer corners of his lips. His mutation changed him from the waist down into the lean and lithe cheetah body covered in the stretchy spacesuit.

"If that was the case then the S.T.A.R. Corps wouldn't be sending a Scout Regiment when they could still use the drones to keep looking." This came from Callisto herself and a response was denied when the S.T.A.R. Corps Launch Captain stepped through the doors. He was a mix of human, bald eagle, and a dingo. This mix gave him black dingo ears that that flowed out into thick white feathers hiding under his uniform and spreading out on his huge wings. He wore no shoes and so his clawed doggish feet clicked as he walked down the isle of Scout Regiment recruits to Salutem.