Inktober 2026 10, Mystical

Captain’s log, Day 10

The mystical signal brought us here, and I wish it hadn’t.

At its source stands a structure so old that the land has grown up around it. The trees lean toward its walls like they are listening. The rock has folded itself around its base. Nothing about it feels abandoned.

Two enormous fins rise from the roof, tearing the air into plasma and forcing the signal upward in long, shuddering lines. It is not leaking out. It is being sent.

Inktober 2026 9, Ram

Cargo Chief’s log, Day 9

They call it The Ram. Earned it. Ten tonnes of scarred alloy that goes through a bulkhead door like it’s an insult.

Cargo droid. Generation AI, the kind with opinions. Mouthy, sulks, glitches hard enough to freeze mid-lift and stare at the wall. I’ve requested its decommission three times. Never filed one.

Bay Six went at 0300. Hull holed, air gone, the whole deck screaming. Nobody ordered it. The Ram put its own chassis in the breach and held it there while we dragged eleven people out.

Inktober 2026 8, Stinky

Engineer’s log, Day 8

Stinky. Always stinky.

Everyone else gets new planets and starlight. I get the waste recycler.

Elbow joint split open overnight, and the deck reeks. That recycler has never played fair. It chokes and cracks when it feels like it.

I’m knee-deep in it again, clamping and swearing. Somebody has to deal with the filth so the rest of you can keep breathing.

Space plumber. Not glamorous. Just necessary.

Inktober 2026 7, Panic

Engineer’s log, Day 7

06:12. The alarm goes off in the EVA locker and the beacon starts flashing AIR LEEK (somebody lettered that sign, and nobody ever corrected it).

One helmet, one cracked visor, forty seconds of loud, unprofessional panic.

Then the training kicks in: tape over the crack, sealant over the tape. The hiss drops to a whisper. The leak is slowing, not stopped, and the helmet is now tagged and benched until the Chief Engineer has had a look.

Inktober 2026 6, The OGRE

Engineer’s log, Day 6

Main plant went down again at 0340. Three subsystems threw errors I’ve never seen, and the diagnostic AI asked me to “please restart the universe.” Not helpful.

So I went aft and woke the OGRE.

The Oxygen Gas Recycling Engine is older than the ship’s paint. No firmware, no network, no software updates. It has a hand crank, a dial with one needle, and a flywheel the size of a dustbin lid. The brass plate on the front says D9, and nobody knows what that means. The pipe fittings are held on with bolts a child could undo.

Inktober 2026 5, The Smack

Log entry, Day 5

Captain’s log. Day 5 out.

Space is empty. That’s the whole point of it, and I’d got used to it. Four days of nothing on the scope, and the crew had started saying the odds were with us.

At 02:14 ship time, they ran out.

It was a hard knock, felt through the deck plates, then the alarm. Something small and fast hit the port nacelle housing and went through the outer skin. The scope shows a vapour trail where it came in. We’re venting coolant from the damage.

Inktober 2026 4, Cactus

Scrubbers at 87%. Cactus at 100%.

Chief Engineer’s quarters are the only place on the ship with a plant, and technically it shouldn’t be there. The mass allocation sheet lists it as “personal effects, 0.4 kg, non-essential.” The pot is a standard-issue ceramic planter, orange from the factory, bolted to the desk with two repurposed cable clamps.

The cactus is a prickly pear. He’s had it longer than the posting. It’s flowered twice, and both times it was a surprise. Nobody has ever been able to tell him why it flowers now and then.

Inktober 2026 3, Miniature

Captain’s personal log, day 3

Tea’s gone cold again. The Pennywhistle is parked next to the mug, where she’s sat since we left dock. She’s about as long as my forearm, and she’s held together with solder and stubbornness.

She was my first command, a Class-4 cargo tug. Eleven years of hauling ore pods through the belt in a hull that rattled and leaked and stank of coolant and old coffee.

A random sketchbook drawing, nothing to do with Inktober this time. It’s three cacti in ink and paint pens: a prickly pear, a pair of tall ribbed stems and a round barrel cactus, each with a few red flowers.

Inktober 2026 2, Relic

Mission Log, Day 2: No Signal Required

Chief Engineer Okafor’s family has carried this phone for six generations. It has no battery and no signal, and it’s held together with gaffer tape. She keeps it in her pocket for luck. When the long-range array died again, she spliced it into the comms trunk. The signal came back clean. Nobody can explain it, and she isn’t taking it out.