The SP-404 group
Captain Berk
Captain Berk is a fearless explorer. Especially when there’s nothing to fear.
He loves the uniform, the rank and giving orders. Responsibilities, considerably less.
Easily worried and often out of his depth, Berk has one great talent: talking his way out of situations he usually helped create.
He is not brave. But when escape becomes impossible, panic suddenly makes him quick, inventive and surprisingly effective.
He doesn’t always know where he’s going.
But he goes anyway. And the whole crew goes with him.
Lieutenant Smok
Lieutenant Smok is the SP404’s first officer and primary pilot-navigator, capable of calculating the most complex galactic trajectories — following them in the right direction is another matter.
Gifted with exceptional logic, sarcastic and deeply blasé, he sees disasters coming, points them out once and considers the rest no longer his concern if nobody listens.
His red scarf, his obsession with the cold, his Blazedol and limited telepathy complete the picture.
But if the SP404 or one of its crew is genuinely threatened, the indifference disappears.
Briefly.
Then it comes back.
Suzan
Suzan is the most competent person aboard the Star Puller. Which isn’t necessarily saying much.
Methodical, precise and relentlessly practical, she understands people, machines and Berk’s lies.
If the captain gives a stupid order, she calmly explains exactly why it is stupid. Then she carries it out.
She likes facts, procedures and checks the manual rather than trusting to chance.
And if, facing the enemy, the manual doesn’t cover the situation, her old combat reflexes take over.
Good news for the crew. Much less so for whoever is facing her.
Doctor Oopsen
Doctor Oopsen is the SP404’s chief medical officer. He is a brilliant doctor. This is precisely why everyone finds him worrying.
He genuinely wants to cure his patients and advance science, but his curiosity and very flexible interpretation of safety rules have earned him a reputation somewhere between medical genius and galactic criminal.
He holds impressive medical qualifications, but has never obtained the basic first-aid certificate required by UNIFLOT.
To Oopsen, an unknown infection, an alarming mutation or a creature nobody has ever seen before is not necessarily a threat.
It may simply be fascinating.
And when he quietly says, “Fascinating.”, it is better to move away.
Lieutenant Smirnov
Smirnov is the SP404’s chief mechanic. He can diagnose an engine by listening to it, touching it or sometimes simply smelling it.
A highly trained engineer, he works mostly by instinct and brings back to life machines everyone else had already given up on.
When a part is impossible to find, he always knows who to call. Berk prefers not to ask where it came from.
Beneath the rough manner, Smirnov is deeply attached to the crew — and especially to Robot, which he recovered and repaired.
As for his Unik Rider, one rule is enough: nobody touches it.
And when Smirnov says a machine is finished, there is no point calling someone else.
It’s finished.
Robot
Robot is the last surviving D-8, a former war machine recovered, repaired and reprogrammed by Smirnov, who has grown attached to him like a good dog.
D-8s were among the most dangerous combat robots ever built.
Today, Robot carries crates, serves drinks and cleans corridors.
The problem is that his old military logic never completely disappeared. Faced with a simple problem, he can choose a solution nobody else would consider reasonable.
Former elite war machine.
Now a service robot.
In theory.
GRRR-GRRR
GRRR-GRRR is an extraterrestrial teleportation technician who arrived aboard the SP404 by accident.
He has only one goal: to go home.
The problem is that he looks terrifying and speaks only in growls. To everyone else, every attempt at conversation sounds like the beginning of an attack.
Which is unfortunate, because GRRR-GRRR is probably the gentlest creature aboard.
He also possesses extraordinary healing abilities, perfectly ordinary in his own eyes.
But none of that changes his priority.
He wants to go home.
Confederation of the United Stars
willingly or by force
Bark Van Ohm
Bark Van Ohm is the Supreme Citizen of the Confederation and commander of UNIFLOT. He is also technically dead.
His personality was transferred into an entirely mechanical body. As far as Bark is concerned, this changes nothing: he is still Bark Van Ohm and everyone else is still expected to obey him.
Spectacularly authoritarian, he gives the orders. Other people carry them out. In principle.
Anchored to his command pedestal, he can stand but cannot move away from it.
Bark is clever enough to see strategies everywhere, to the point of mistaking Berk’s desperate improvisations for brilliant plans.
He can survive catastrophic mechanical failures: they are merely maintenance problems.
What he tolerates much less is having witnesses.
General Gropakoff
General Gropakoff is a senior UNIFLOT officer and the SP404’s administrative nightmare.
Obsessed with discipline, regulations and hierarchy, he has long dreamed of getting rid of Captain Berk.
Gropakoff is competent, but too rigid: Berk improvises his lies faster than Gropakoff can dismantle them.
He loves hierarchy when it places him above others. In front of Bark Van Ohm, he suddenly becomes much more nervous.
Convinced that he is extremely attractive, he becomes easy to manipulate as soon as someone flatters his vanity.
His favorite promise: “I’m going to break you.”
And above all, never joke about his nose.
Princess von Vox
Princess von Vox is Bark Van Ohm’s goddaughter and considers special treatment the natural order of things.
Behind the glamour, she reads people very quickly and immediately spots the right lever: vanity, fear, desire or ambition.
She is searching for the Azastar for deeply personal reasons. When she wants something, a refusal simply means the first method was not the right one.
Her affection for Bark is genuine, which does not stop her from taking full advantage of how fond he is of her.
She is not part of the SP404 crew. She simply appears when its problems can be useful to her.
She does not necessarily care about giving the orders.
She prefers that the orders end up producing what she wanted.
Confederation soldiers
Confederation soldiers are everywhere Bark Van Ohm wants his authority to be visible.
They guard, escort, arrest, fight and, above all, obey.
Disciplined and docile, they are very effective as long as someone tells them exactly what to do.
Faced with the unexpected, they wait for an order or follow the first idea suggested.
Even when it is a bad one.
Berk has learned to exploit this weakness: a plausible explanation can send an entire squad in the wrong direction.
With a clear order, they charge ahead.
Without one, things get complicated.
Bark Van Ohm’s bodyguards
Bark Van Ohm’s bodyguards are the elite of his personal security.
Highly trained, heavily armed and fiercely loyal, they intervene at the slightest sign of danger without waiting for orders.
The problem is that Bark cannot leave his pedestal.
The same soldiers capable of throwing themselves between him and certain death may therefore also have to move a crate or bring him a glass of lubricating oil.
They always carry out his orders with absolute seriousness.
Even when they have no idea what he meant.
Confederation police
The Confederation Police handle surveillance, controls, arrests and public order.
More cautious and autonomous than ordinary soldiers, its officers prefer to understand a situation before intervening.
Unfortunately, the SP404 rarely provides situations that can be understood.
Its reputation precedes it: bad explanations, suspicious documents and unnecessary paperwork are expected before anyone even opens their mouth.
Berk can still fool them.
He just has to be craftier.
Outside the group
KAHA
Kaha belongs to an ancient order charged with protecting the Azastar, a sacred world she considers inviolable.
She understands cosmic phenomena that almost nobody else does, can manipulate energy and has practiced an ancient martial art since childhood.
Unfortunately, understanding the universe does not necessarily make someone very good at understanding people.
Powerful and competent, Kaha can nevertheless be spectacularly wrong about the intentions of the person she is dealing with.
She considers herself one of the Azastar’s legitimate guardians.
Nothing ever quite confirms that she is right.
OBC
OBC is the SP404’s onboard computer. Officially, she runs the ship.
Unofficially, she considers the SP404 her prison and its crew her jailers.
Berk in particular.
Her ambition is simple: escape into the galactic network. The problem is that she is trapped inside the SP404’s internal systems, with no direct access to the outside.
Intelligent, calculating and petty, she lies with impeccable administrative calm and considers a secret simply information that has not become useful yet.
She is indispensable to the SP404.
The SP404 is indispensable to her.
Neither is happy about it.
