INS-Justicar

[Cortana Clark]

⨳ PERSONAL LOG ENTRY
LT. MARIEN KAEL — SYSTEMS COORDINATION

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ASSIGNMENT: INS-Justicar
LOCATION: Engineering Subdeck
STATUS: Logged (Unrecorded)
CONDITION: Stable / Contained Frustration

If I have to re-run this calibration cycle one more time, I’m going to shove my arm through the coolant intake and hope the machine chokes on it.

The auxiliary heat loop's been drifting three degrees off-nominal for four days. It’s nothing critical. Nothing that’ll kill us. But it’s enough to remind me that this ship is dying, one tolerable error at a time. The Justicar's not breaking down — she's decaying. Quietly. With dignity. Like a war veteran bleeding internally, pretending it’s fine.

Routh walks the bridge like it’s still Vespucci. Controlled. Measured. Strong. I can’t tell if it comforts me or pisses me off. We both know this ship doesn’t have enough spare parts to get through another month. We both know Fretensis is a liability — she’s one coolant line away from becoming a drift monument. But neither of us will say it. We just… maintain. Pretend it’s all part of the plan.

Bornholm hasn’t answered our last request for reactor coils. They either didn’t get the ping or stopped caring. Not sure which is worse.

The reactor's running hot. Not dangerously — just hot. There's a sound it makes when it gets like this. It’s not in the diagnostics. It’s not even real, maybe. But I hear it like pressure inside a voice box. Like the ship wants to scream, but hasn’t decided how yet.


Routh asked me if the Justicar could hold if we had to jump. I told her yes, but I lied.

I’ll lie again if she asks tomorrow.

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“Just keep it running. Doesn’t matter how.”