I don’t know what day it is anymore. The clocks are all off—either fried in the solar flare or sabotaged by the… thingsthat boarded the ship.They came out of nowhere. I was dozing in the command chair when proximity alarms screamed—too late. The airlock was breached, hull integrity didn’t even register the penetration. And then they were inside.Tall, bipedal, scales black as vacuum, with slit eyes that gleam like molten gold. They don’t talk—at least, not like we do. Their leader, or whatever it is, used some kind of translator drone. Tinny voice, broken syntax, but the message was crystal clear:“You pay 400 million orbits. Or you die.”I don’t have 400 million orbits. I barely have four. I tried explaining, begged, bartered. One of them hissed and slashed through my pressure suit with a claw, just deep enough to bleed, not kill. A warning. They’re keeping me in the cargo bay now, surrounded by crates I never loaded. I think they’re using my ship to smuggle something. Weapons? Spores? I don’t know. I don’t want to know.I’ve rigged this journal log to piggyback on any emergency frequency still flickering in the dark. I don’t know if it’s going out. I don’t know if you can hear me.But if you can—please. Help me.This is Commander Shark of the Odyssey Drift. Location: Unknown. Status: Hostage. Hope: Fading.
