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The CSV Aegis Runner hummed like a restless animal, a low vibration that Kai Drenn had grown both accustomed to and mildly unnerved by over the past week. It wasn’t the hum of confidence; it was the sound of a ship that creaked like old bones when stressed, patched up just enough to keep going.

Kai sat at his station on Deck 7, watching the soft pulse of the security console lights. This wasn’t how he imagined his first posting. Not at all. He’d dreamed of space as a boy—dreamed of gliding past Saturn’s rings or seeing Europa’s ice plains firsthand—but the reality of it all made him wonder if space was a mistake. A body’s meant for sunlight and soil, he thought, not recycled air and flooring that vibrates like it’s worried about something.

He was here because planets were luxury commodities now. Being planetside meant wealth, influence, or the willingness to do things his mother had warned him would haunt him for life.

“Don’t go digging in the kind of dirt you can’t wash off, Kai,” she’d said more than once.

And so here he was—one of millions living and working in Sol’s sprawling orbital habitats, where humanity had been bottled up for 400 years. Nobody crossed the Oort. At least, nobody who came back was sane enough to talk about it.

His first day aboard had been chaos. The thought hit him now as he slouched in his chair, drifting off in a daydream. The Runner had barely given him time to drop his bag before Hammond cornered him.

“Fresh meat!” Hammond had barked from across the deck, grinning like a madman. Tall, wiry, and always smelling faintly of coolant, Hammond had that look of someone who’d seen every corner of the ship go wrong at least once—and survived purely out of stubbornness.

“You’re the rookie?” Hammond asked, though it sounded more like an accusation.

“Ensign Kai Drenn,” Kai had said, standing as stiffly as he could manage.

“Yeah, yeah, relax. Nobody salutes down here unless someone’s died.” Hammond had thrown a look over his shoulder, calling out, “Vance! We’ve got a newbie! He’s not broken yet!”

A second man, older and broader, with short-cut hair and a calm, unimpressed demeanor, had appeared from behind a bulkhead. “You’re late.”

“I—uh—”

“He’s not late,” Hammond interrupted. “He’s just on time in rookie time. Give him a break, Vance.”

Vance had only grunted. “Follow the rules, don’t touch anything you don’t understand, and don’t touch anything Hammond tells you to ‘try out.’ That’s all you need to know.”

Hammond grinned. “Ignore him. The rules are guidelines.”

Kai’s week had been a blur of on-boarding routines—Hammond’s half-serious lectures, Vance’s silent judgment, endless safety briefings, and tedious cargo checks. By day three, he’d realized that the lower decks were less about chain of command and more about who could survive the longest without snapping.

A soft jostle snapped Kai out of his thoughts. “Hey, space cadet.” Jessa Lin stood over him, raising an eyebrow. “You drifted. Don’t tell me you fell asleep with your eyes open.”

Kai blinked and sat upright. “Was just… thinking.”

“Thinking about what, exactly?”

“First week. How much of it was lectures versus thinly veiled death threats.”

Jessa smirked. “Welcome to Deck 7.”

Now, a week in, the excitement had worn off. He’d been on this shift for hours already, staring at the same flickering logs. Nothing had happened all morning. Jessa had come and gone twice, checking supplies or muttering about inventory errors.

The console beeped, but only to remind him that nothing was wrong. Kai leaned back, staring at the ceiling. This is it? The grand adventure?

In the back of his mind, his grandfather’s voice echoed:

“If you’re just gonna sit there, at least be useful doing it.”

Kai muttered, “I’m trying, Granddad. There’s just nothing to do.”

Hammond strolled in, thermos in hand, and plopped down across from him. “Still alive? Good. You looked like you were about to start chewing the console out of boredom.”

Kai sighed. “I expected… more.”

“More what?” Hammond asked, grinning. “More near-death experiences? Trust me, you’ll get those soon enough.”

Vance’s voice crackled over the local comm line. “If he’s whining, put him on cable checks. That’ll teach him what boring really is.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Hammond said with mock seriousness. “Cable checks are how they brainwash you into loving this job.”

“Good to know,” Kai muttered.

Kai turned back to his console, watching the empty security feed. I just want to live a boring life while exploring the system, he thought, but if I’m stuck here, maybe I can at least make it bearable.

His fingers hovered over the input keys. Back at the Academy, he’d been known for “morale hacks.” Nothing dangerous—just small subroutines that injected humor into otherwise soul-crushing routines. It was either that or let the stress grind everyone down.

He opened a blank system shell and began coding.

• First, a trigger: Yellow alert or higher.
  
  

• Next, a quick animation: Commander Orlin’s face, smirking around a cigar, with bold letters scrolling across the display:
  
  “I’VE GOT A PLAN, MAN!”
  
  

For high-risk chatter, he added a secondary line:

“DON’T YOU LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER?”

Jessa caught him mid-code this time. “That doesn’t look like diagnostics.”

Kai minimized the screen too slowly. “It’s… preventive morale management?”

She arched an eyebrow. “You’re insane. Or brave. Either way, when Orlin spaces you, I’m not writing the incident report.”

Two more hours dragged by. Kai almost fell asleep twice, head propped on his hand. Hammond passed the time with bad analogies about life in the Belt (“We’re potatoes, kid—rootless but still edible”), and Vance occasionally buzzed in with dry remarks about upcoming shifts.

Then the comm crackled to life, loud and clear:

“Attention all decks, this is the bridge. Secure stations.” Commander Orlin’s voice was smooth, commanding, and entirely humorless. “We have an unresponsive hauler drifting across convoy lanes near Ceres. Adjusting course for intercept.”

Kai sat upright, suddenly wide awake.

The main screens lit up with sensor data. The vessel was massive, blocky, and scarred with centuries of wear. Its transponder was silent.

“That’s no modern freighter,” Hammond muttered, leaning in. “Look at those hull lines. That’s hacked Forgeborn tech—early stuff, maybe Spectre Corp vintage.”

“Spectre who?” Kai asked.

“Company from way back,” Hammond said. “They took ARES designs and twisted them. Fast and cheap, but sometimes unstable. Most of their ships went rogue or blew themselves to pieces.”

“Yellow alert. All decks, prepare for boarding protocols.”

Kai’s subroutine triggered. Deck 7’s consoles flickered, and suddenly Orlin’s grinning face filled the panels:

“I’VE GOT A PLAN, MAN!”

Hammond wheezed with laughter. “Oh, this is the best thing I’ve seen all week!”

Jessa, who had just returned, gave Kai a withering look. “You’re going to get thrown out an airlock.”

Kai shrugged, smirking. “Morale boost. Completely official. Probably.”

The Aegis Runner moved into position, docking thrusters firing in short bursts as the hauler loomed closer. Up close, it looked worse—pitted with micrometeorite strikes, hull seams gaping like unstitched wounds.

“Service crew, gear up,” Orlin ordered ship-wide. “Hammond, you’re leading. I want a full systems check before we touch anything.”

“Copy that,” Hammond said, fastening his toolkit. He pointed at Kai. “Rookie, keep our comms clear and watch for anomalies. If anything weird happens, yell.”

“Define weird,” Kai muttered.

“You’ll know it,” Hammond replied with a grin, heading for the shuttle bay.

Kai monitored the shuttle feed as Hammond’s team approached the hauler. Its docking ring looked ancient, almost ready to fall apart.

“Shuttle attached,” Hammond reported. “Docking seal is… uh, questionable. But we’ll make do.”

On the bridge, Helmsman Yates worked the registry scans. His voice came over the ship-wide comm. “Commander, I have a match. This hauler is Spectre Corp. Registry dates it circa 2060. These things were scrapped centuries ago.”

Kai’s console flickered. His subroutine wasn’t active, but Orlin’s cigar-grinning face appeared again—distorted this time, glitching:

“PLAN… TOGETHER… PLAN… TOGETHER…”

“Runner, this is Hammond—” The comm hissed with static. “Something just powered up in here.”

The feed went dark.