The emergency lights flickered like the heartbeat of a dying star. Kael stood perfectly still, listening. The hum of the ship's core had faded to a thin, unstable vibration. The creature whatever it was had drained more power in thirty seconds than a mining vessel could pull in an hour.
The silence wasn't empty. It was watchful.
"AI," Kael whispered, "status of intruder?"
No answer.
His jaw tightened.
"AI."
Static crackled through the corridor speakers sharp, distorted, broken.
"…cap…—ain…"
Then silence.
Kael swore under his breath. He lifted the plasma cutter again and scanned the shadows. A single emergency bulb buzzed faintly above him, casting a weak red glow across the metal floor. The severed hand was still there, lying motionless like a dead spider. At least that part wasn't moving.
The hatch rattled suddenly.
Kael spun, weapon raised.
Something scraped along the outside of the door. Slow. Deliberate. As if it were… feeling for a way in. The sound traveled, dragging along metal, moving toward the upper corner of the hatch.
Kael backed up one step.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap-tap-tap.
Those knocks again.
He hated how human they sounded.
The lights flickered a second time. Kael steadied his breathing. "AI… if you can hear me… reroute tertiary power."
The speaker hissed.
"…trying…"
Good. The AI wasn't dead. Just injured.
Kael moved into the main passage, stepping over fallen cables. The corridor ahead was dark, except for faint red stripes along the floor guiding the emergency path. His boots crunched softly against debris. Every breath echoed.
His shadow stretched long behind him.
As he walked, the lights dimmed again not flickering, but fading, as if something was moving past them. A cold pressure washed down the corridor. Not wind. Not movement. Something deeper like an invisible presence trailing its fingers along the walls.
Kael didn't stop.
He reached the elevator shaft and pressed the manual override. The doors opened, revealing the dim vertical tunnel leading toward the upper deck. The elevator car hung somewhere above dark, unmoving.
He looked up.
Something stared back at him.
Two white slits the same eyes he saw in the drone footage glowed faintly in the darkness above the car. They blinked once, slowly, impossibly human.
Kael's breath hitched.
The creature clung to the underside of the elevator car like a spider, limbs spread wide, body pressed flat against the metal. Its cracked mask-like face tilted slightly, watching him with inhuman stillness.
Kael stepped back.
Its body shifted soundlessly and it began crawling down the shaft toward him.
Fast.
Kael slammed the elevator controls. The doors snapped shut just as a metallic hand slammed against the other side. The doors bowed inward from the impact.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
The metal dented with each strike.
Kael backed away, heart pounding.
"AI!" he shouted. "Reroute power to upper bulkhead doors! Now!"
"…rerouting…"
The pounding continued.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
Then silence.
Kael didn't relax. Silence meant it was thinking.
The lights above him flickered, casting long shadows across the hallway. His pulse hammered in his ears. He forced a breath through his teeth, fighting the urge to run.
A low scraping sound echoed from somewhere deeper inside the ship.
It was no longer at the elevator.
It was inside the ventilation shaft.
Kael spun toward the sound. The vents along the walls vibrated softly, as if something was crawling through them. Something large. He tightened his grip on the plasma cutter.
"AI," he whispered, "trace the movement."
No answer.
"AI!"
Static.
Then:
"…it's… in the main deck… moving fast…"
Kael swallowed. "Is it heading toward the cockpit?"
"No… toward the cryochamber."
He froze.
The cryochamber was sealed months ago, ever since the crew vanished. Kael had never reopened it. He still couldn't bring himself to step into that cold, silent room where forty empty pods stared back at him like unblinking coffins.
Why was it going there?
"AI," he said quietly, "access internal cameras."
"Only two are operational."
"Show me."
Two grainy feeds appeared on the nearest console screen. Kael moved closer.
Camera 1 Engineering Hall:
The lights flickered. Shadows stretched across the floor. Nothing moved.
Camera 2 Cryochamber Entrance:
A narrow corridor. Frost lined the walls. The door stood sealed.
A faint shape flickered across the edge of the camera frame.
Kael leaned closer.
Then something crawled into view slowly, deliberately a long metallic limb emerging first, then the angular, fractured face. It reached the cryochamber door and pressed its hand against the access panel.
The panel lit up.
Kael's eyes widened.
"It's using the ship's systems."
A moment later, the heavy door slid open. Cold mist spilled into the corridor.
Kael's breath tightened. "AI. Seal that door. Now."
Silence.
"AI."
"…I can't… it locked me out…"
Kael inhaled sharply. "What do you mean locked you out?"
"The creature is overriding internal controls. It has taken partial access of the command network."
The creature stepped inside the cryochamber. The camera flickered. The feed dissolved into static.
Kael stared at the screen, fists clenched. His throat felt tight, pressure building behind his ribs.
"What is it looking for?" he whispered.
The AI's voice came back faintly.
"…Captain… I detected an internal shift in cryopod 04…"
Kael stopped breathing.
Pod 04.
He knew that pod better than any other. He had stood in front of it for hours after the disappearance, unable to open it, unable to accept what happened.
Pod 04 wasn't empty.
It held the only body they ever recovered.
"AI," Kael whispered, voice cracking despite himself, "scan Pod 04."
Silence.
Then:
"…Captain… I'm reading movement."
Kael's blood ran cold.
"What kind of movement?"
"…biological."
Kael's world tilted.
"That's impossible."
"It shouldn't be moving," the AI agreed. "But something inside Pod 04 is waking up."
Kael stared at the dark corridor ahead of him.
For the first time since the crew vanished, he felt something he hated more than loneliness.
Fear.
Deep, cold fear.
Not of the creature.
But of what or who was inside that pod.