An old corridor of space, far out. It ended once, and it has not finished ending. Every dawn it begins again, identical, and every captain who enters flies the same one.
At dawn the band resets. The same echoes wait in the same places, the same beacons burn, the same waystations keep the same stock. No captain gets an easier passage than another. What separates you is only what you do with the day you were given.
They are echoes — the dead of that first ending, still running the manoeuvres that killed them. They obey the same physics your hull does: they burn, they breach, they lose air. They are not enemies so much as a record that fights back.
The hull is gone, the crew is gone, the cinder in your hold is gone. You wake at the mouth of the band with nothing, as every captain does. The day does not remember you. The Ledger does.
Every day flown is written down and never unwritten. Your standing rises and falls across a Turning, and when the Turning closes the page is sealed. You do not outlive the book. You only get a line in it.
Nothing you carry leaves the band. Only your name in the book.
Fly the Standing Day