Inktober 2026 22, Beacon

It took hours. Cutting torches, pry bars, and the hero’s bare hands on the worst of the beams. Finally the debris shifted and there it was, wedged under a collapsed bulkhead: SOSi.

Bashed, scorched, one panel hanging by a hinge, a long scrape down its flank. Nobody dared say it out loud.

Then the status lights stuttered on, one by one, and the little unit gave a groan of servos and hauled itself upright. It shambled off across the wreckage on its four stubby legs, limping on the left rear, and climbed to the highest ground it could find.

Inktober 2026 21, Hero

Scream of metal. Deck plates buckling underfoot. The hull is tearing open and the air is going, and someone is screaming for a medic, and it might be me.

Then through the smoke and steam, a shape. Massive. Unmoving. Power armour, scorched but standing, the skull on its chest glowing through the haze.

We’re not dead. He came. The hero came.

Hero.

Inktober 2026 20, Lounge

Mission log, Day 20

Fourteen crew sealed in the lounge, behind a corridor of twisted girders. Atmosphere holding. Morale holding. Whisky holding, but not for long. There are worse places to be trapped, and they appear to have found the best one.

Cutting teams are working the debris around the clock. Estimated time to clear the corridor: two days. Estimated time for the lounge to drink itself dry: one and a half.