The airlock slammed shut behind Kael with a hydraulic hiss, cutting off the vacuum of space. He collapsed against the bulkhead, helmet fogging with his ragged breath.
Outside, through the narrow viewport, the monster was still coming.
Patch zipped past him, emitting a rising series of alerts. "Hull impact imminent. Hostile proximity: four meters. Deploying countermeasures."
Kael pulled himself upright using the nearest grip bar. His hands trembled—not from exertion, but from the raw surge of adrenaline clawing its way down his spine.
No weapon. No armor. Just the shuttle's defense grid and whatever nerve he had left.
Outside, the baby creature—if that term even applied to something that moved like a nightmare—twisted through the debris. Its pale, barbed body coiled and flexed, tail lashing behind it like a whip. The drones had scorched part of its flank, blistering the semi-translucent skin, but it was still fast. Still hunting.
"Patch," Kael snapped. "Keep it away from the shuttle. Focus on containment—corral it, drive it into open space."
"Affirmative. Rerouting drone flight paths. Flak radius expanding."
Through the viewport, Kael watched the drones reposition, weaving an invisible net with their flight patterns and bursts of plasma fire. The creature recoiled from each blast, hissing silently, but it didn't retreat. It learned. Adjusted. Circled.
A heartbeat passed.
Then it vanished behind a drifting slab of bulkhead plating.
Kael stiffened.
"Visual contact lost," Patch confirmed.
He moved to the cockpit, fingers dancing across the interface. "Scan the perimeter. Thermal. EM. Pulse if you have to."
"Running sweep. Stand by."
Outside, the wreckage field glittered with angular shadows. A corridor shell turned slowly like a coffin adrift. Behind it—nothing. The scanners returned static, the creature's heat signature having bled off into the vacuum.
But Kael knew better. It was out there. Waiting.
He closed his eyes for half a second, exhaled, and activated the intercom.
"Renn," he said. "You still there?"
"Still breathing," came the gruff reply. "What the hell happened?"
Kael's voice dropped. "The survivor wasn't alone. It was in him. A parasite or… larva. It came out when we got close. Tried to kill me."
A pause. Then: "You okay?"
"I'm fine. For now."
Kael leaned forward, eyes locked on the drifting debris. "But we need to talk about what that thing was. It's the same species as the one I found earlier. The one you described in your report—but younger. Smaller."
Renn didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was low. "If it's growing inside people now… we're in worse shape than I thought."
Kael didn't argue. The signs were there—Lira's condition, the strange biometrics, the seizure before death. Something had used him. Worn him like a shell until the right moment. It explained the silence in so many wrecked modules. The missing bodies.
They weren't missing.
They were changing.
Patch broke in. "Contact reacquired. Target repositioning—fast."
Kael's HUD lit up with the new telemetry. The creature was weaving back toward the shuttle's underbelly—trying to slip beneath the ventral plating where the outer sensors were weakest.
"Drones one and three, intercept now," Kael ordered. "Two and four, maintain overwatch."
The AI complied instantly. Twin plasma bolts streaked from the left flank, searing across the void. One clipped the creature's tail, spinning it sideways into a comms array fragment. The drone formation tightened, boxing it in.
Kael gritted his teeth. "Let's see how you like being the one trapped."
But even as he watched, the monster twisted again, its thin limbs folding inward. It coiled in place, compacting its body into a tight spiral—
Then flared outward in a burst of speed.
Too fast.
It shot upward, evading the trap, darting into a dense cluster of plating and hull scraps.
"Damn it," Kael muttered. "Patch, predict trajectory. Where's it heading?"
"Based on vector and structural gaps, most likely outcome is re-entry via docking flank."
Kael's blood ran cold. That would put it inside the maintenance channel.
Inside the shuttle.
"No. Reroute remaining drones to cover that section. If it breaches the hull—"
A clang.
Kael spun.
A tremor rippled through the floor. Another.
He ran for the aft corridor.
The shuttle's lights flickered as a pressure warning flared red. Hull breach attempt—Section 7.
"Renn, you still hearing this?" Kael barked.
"Yeah," Renn replied, voice tight. "Don't suppose you've got a gun?"
"No," Kael said grimly. "But I've got tools."
He reached the storage compartment and yanked out a high-frequency cutter, the kind used for slicing through bulkheads. Heavy. Slow. But the edge would go through steel if given time.
And maybe—just maybe—through that thing's hide.
The lights flickered again.
Then a new sound—scraping. Inside the wall.
Kael moved slowly toward the noise, cutter held low, eyes scanning every seam. He could hear his own breathing, feel the thrum of the ship's systems against his boots.
Silence.
A vent grille above him clanged loose.
Kael looked up—
A flash of pale motion, needle-teeth bared, limbs reaching.
He fell backward, bringing the cutter up.
Too slow.
The creature landed inches from his chest, claws raking the plating as it surged.
Before it struck, Patch's internal turret snapped open from the bulkhead.
A focused plasma lance burst from the wall, catching the creature mid-lunge.
It shrieked—finally audible inside the shuttle's pressurized space—and twisted away, smoking and thrashing.
Kael rolled to his feet.
"Patch—vent the corridor. Now!"
"Warning: personnel still inside. Risk—"
"Do it!"
The outer bulkhead iris snapped open.
Air roared out of the corridor. The creature screamed again, scrabbling at the floor, caught in the sudden decompression.
Kael latched onto a handhold as the vacuum tried to rip him away.
The creature's claws tore grooves into the plating—then slipped.
It was gone.
Blown back into the void.
The iris sealed.
Silence returned.
Kael let go of the grip bar, chest heaving.
Patch's voice was quiet now. "Threat removed. Hull integrity compromised in one section. Initiating repair protocol."
Kael walked slowly back to the main cabin, still gripping the cutter like a lifeline.
Renn's voice crackled in again. "Kael?"
"Yeah."
"You alive?"
"Barely."
"…You're insane."
Kael allowed himself a tired smile. "It's starting to feel that way."
He sank into the pilot's chair, the cutter still across his knees.
Outside the viewport, the stars burned quietly.
But for the first time, Kael felt like they were watching him back.