It’s my first day as Commander, my 16^th birthday, I walk onto my Starship and meet my crew for the first time. I’m not nervous, I was born, no, grown for this, as were they.

I sit in my chair and gaze around me, inspecting the varied appearances of my crew. Every single member is completely altered genetically to optimise efficiency at their task. They’ve stopped caring how human we look, how human we feel.

I touch a button on the control console and ship the hums into life, it’s the most modern ship, we’re the most modern crew. For the next 6 months we’ll be the most advanced ship in the fleet, we’ll be everywhere, doing everything. Then every 6 months we’ll become more obsolete, until we’re decommissioned in 10 years.

As I give the order to the 6-armed pilot to leave Academy airspace I catch his eye and know what he’s thinking, what we’re all thinking.

We were grown wrong, we’re broken, and we’re never coming back.