Captain Pikell

Pikell cuts a slim humanoid figure with smooth purple skin, his only hair being a pair of eyebrows above solid black eyes. The crown of his elongated head narrows into a cone-like point.

For duty he dons the Coalition's regulation officer dress, a collared long-sleeve top in black and red that carries the badge marking his rank as captain, worn over dark trousers, a bright metallic belt, and black footwear.

On paper Pikell carries himself as a serious, dutiful officer, and his caution sharpens into open distrust whenever Viltrumites are involved; he flatly doubts that someone like Invincible can be relied upon. In practice his competence rarely matches his conviction. His crew tends to cringe at the sorry state of their vessel, a wreck he has apparently never earned enough to fix, and his reckless calls do the rest of the damage.

He barrels the ship into an asteroid field out of misplaced faith in its build, then blasts apart a sun-shielding structure and nearly gets Nolan and Allen slaughtered by thawing Rognarrs. That final lapse costs him his post, with even his own crew backing Telia's takeover. For all his shortcomings, he clearly loves his ship and his people, and the sight of the vessel torn apart leaves him crushed.

Little is on record about Pikell before he earned his captaincy, only that he climbed to lead a spaceship crew within the Coalition. With the organization's warships committed to the front lines, his rundown vessel becomes an affordable, inconspicuous ride, which suits Allen and Thula's need to travel without drawing eyes. He welcomes his passengers with grand talk of first-class hospitality that the sputtering, fire-prone ship immediately contradicts. Early on he wrongly assumes Nolan, Telia, and Allen share a romantic arrangement, leaving Nolan stuck on a couch through months of awkward nights before the captain realizes his mistake and apologizes.

The journey takes the group through an asteroid belt to recover the Infinity Ray and on to a world of Sinlak Beetles harvested for their fluids. The trouble peaks on the Savage Planet, where a Viltrumite-built disk keeps the surface in shadow. When Nolan proposes nudging the disk aside for a sliver of light, Pikell instead orders missiles that shatter it, freeing frozen Rognarrs that nearly kill Nolan and Allen until Telia shields them with the ship. An enraged Nolan confronts him, and a crew vote hands Telia command for the trip home while Pikell pleads in vain to be reinstated.

He is later hired once more to help gather Invincible, Oliver Grayson II, and Tech Jacket for the coming conflict, only for a Viltrumite cruiser to blow apart his ship en route to headquarters. The crew survives by jettisoning the bridge at the last instant, and a heartbroken Pikell spends the rest of his appearance in mourning as Thaedus sends them home to fight the Viltrum Empire.