ENTRY #00001 - SPACER'S LOG

Sleep never came easily on a freighter.

Mira Kess woke up to the dull vibration of the ship's reactor humming through the bulkheads. It wasn't the comforting hum of a well-maintained vessel—it was uneven, faltering slightly between cycles, like an exhausted beast forced to keep marching long after it should have been put down. She didn't trust it. She didn't trust anything about the Meridian Star.

Her bunk was nothing more than a recessed alcove in the ship's crew quarters, a thin mattress bolted to the wall with a single durasteel rail to keep her from rolling off in zero gravity. The air smelled of stale sweat, lubricant, and recycled oxygen—the kind of stink that clung to clothes no matter how many times they were washed. If they were washed.

Mira shifted, her joints stiff as she sat up. The bunk above her creaked, and she could hear Gorran, one of the other security officers, still snoring. Loud, guttural, obnoxious. He'd be late for shift duty again. The same thought passed through her head as it did every morning: One day, I'm going to kill him.

Not today.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, bare feet touching the cold metal floor. She felt the deck plating beneath her toes, assessing—No tremors. No shifts. The ship was still running. For now.

The lighting in the crew quarters was dim, set to low-power mode to conserve energy. The glowstrips on the ceiling flickered, sending erratic shadows across the room. Half the crew were still asleep in their bunks, wrapped in thin blankets or whatever scraps of clothing they used as makeshift pillows.

Mira pushed herself off the bed, reaching for the locker built into the wall beside her bunk. It was dented, scratched, and stained from years of use. Her fingers ran across the keypad, punching in a six-digit code from muscle memory. A small red light blinked twice before the door hissed open.

Inside, everything she owned in the galaxy was crammed into a single compartment:

• Her security armor, faded and scuffed from years of use.
• A spare set of clothes, the same drab gray work pants and utility shirt she always wore.
• A basic blaster pistol, standard-issue, barely worth a few hundred credits.
• A half-empty ration pack, because ship meals were rationed tighter than anyone admitted.

She pulled out her clothes first, swapping her sleepwear for her work uniform—not because it was clean, but because she didn't have a choice. The fabric was rough, synthetic, and had lost whatever comfort it once had years ago. It smelled of ship grease and sweat, and it didn't matter how many times it went through the sanitation cycle.

Next, the armor.

She ran her fingers over the chest plate, checking for cracks. It had taken a few solid hits over the years, but the plasteel plating still held. Good enough. She strapped it on piece by piece—shoulders, chest, forearm guards, knee plates. Nothing about it was high-end, but it had saved her life before.

Mira picked up the blaster, turning it over in her hand. Energy cell: 37% left. Enough to drop a few people, if needed. Not that she expected trouble—just that she never trusted a shift to go smoothly.

She holstered the weapon at her hip, clipped her comlink to her belt, and took a deep breath. Another day. Another shift.

Her fingers curled into a fist for a moment, then relaxed.

One day, this won't be my life.

For now, she was just another security officer on a freighter hauling cargo across the void. Just another worker watching the days blur together in the same recycled air, under the same dim lights, hearing the same dull hum of the engines.

One day, she'd leave this all behind.

But not today.

Today, she had a job to do.

And it was time to get to work.