The alarm clicked once.
Not loud. Not urgent. Just a dry mechanical sound, like a switch thrown by someone who didn't care if anyone noticed.
Kael felt it through the floor before the lights changed. The vibration under his boots shifted—subtle, but wrong. The station's hum dipped, then returned at a lower pitch, like a throat clearing.
He stopped walking.
Juno took two more steps before she noticed. Her heel scraped, sharp against the deck. She turned, hand already drifting toward her weapon.
"You feel that?" she asked.
Kael nodded. The air pressed heavier against his skin, warm and stale. "Hub seven."
Mira was already pulling her tablet free, fingers moving fast, then slowing. She frowned at the screen, tilted it, tapped again.
"I lost telemetry," she said. "Just for a second."
Juno snorted. "Nothing loses telemetry for a second."
The corridor ahead narrowed, ceiling dipping lower where maintenance panels overlapped. The lights flickered once, twice, then steadied at half strength. The emergency strip along the floor glowed a dull amber.
Kael stepped forward. The deck stuck faintly under his boot, like adhesive that hadn't set right.
"Hold," Juno said.
Kael raised a hand. She stopped.
The smell reached them then—burnt insulation, sharp and bitter, layered with something metallic. Copper, maybe. Or blood. It was hard to tell.
Mira swallowed. "This area was cleared after the Iron Veil withdrawal."
Kael didn't answer. He crouched and pressed his palm to the floor. The metal was warm. Not from power flow. From friction.
"Open the hatch," he said.
Juno hesitated, then keyed the release. The maintenance hatch slid aside with a groan that echoed too long down the corridor beyond.
Darkness waited on the other side.
Not empty darkness. Dense. Like it had weight.
Juno stepped through first, weapon low, shoulders tight. Her boots made a soft, wet sound when they hit the deck inside.
She froze.
Kael followed, then Mira.
The corridor beyond was narrower than the schematics suggested. The walls bowed inward, not crushed—drawn. Deep grooves scored the plating, uneven and angled, like something had dragged itself along the surface and tested the resistance.
Juno crouched, ran two fingers along one groove. She pulled them back fast, shaking her hand once.
"Still warm," she said. "Whatever did this didn't leave long ago."
Mira leaned closer to the wall, eyes tracking the marks. "These aren't impact scars."
"No," Kael said. "They're grip points."
A sound came from deeper in the corridor.
Not loud. Not sudden.
A scrape. Slow. Deliberate.
Then nothing.
Juno shifted her stance, boots squeaking softly. "Evac status?"
Mira checked her tablet again, jaw tightening. "No active signals. Either they cleared out or—"
The scrape came again. Closer this time. Something heavy shifted its weight. The deck complained, a low groan that traveled up Kael's legs.
The emergency strip flickered.
Kael felt the Law reach ahead of him, probing the space like a cautious hand. It met resistance—not force, not pressure. Absence. A pocket where feedback should have been.
He pulled it back.
"Don't push," he said quietly.
Juno glanced at him. "You sure?"
"Yes."
The air moved.
Not a rush. A displacement. Like something large adjusting itself in the dark.
Mira's breathing went shallow. She didn't speak.
The emergency strip went out.
Darkness swallowed the corridor whole.
In the black, something breathed.
Slow. Measured. Wet.
Kael stepped forward.
Juno hissed, "Kael—"
He raised a hand without looking back. The floor stuck again under his boot. He could feel the texture through the sole now—tacky, uneven.
A shape shifted ahead. Not fully visible. Just a suggestion of mass, blocking the corridor.
The breathing changed. Faster. Curious.
Kael flexed his right hand. Heat pooled under the skin, familiar and unwelcome. He let it sit there, contained.
"Back," he said softly.
Juno didn't argue. She took one step, then another, careful not to scrape.
Mira followed, slower. Her shoulder brushed the wall. She flinched but didn't make a sound.
The shape moved.
A limb—too many joints—slid into the faint glow of a reactivating emergency strip. The surface wasn't armored. It was layered, fibrous, stretched tight over muscle that shifted beneath it.
The limb withdrew.
The breathing stopped.
Kael felt the silence settle, thick and deliberate.
"This isn't a breach," Mira whispered. "It's a nest."
The word hung there, wrong and heavy.
Kael didn't correct her.
A sound echoed from behind them—boots, hurried, then slowing.
"Commander," a voice said, too loud. "We lost contact with—"
Kael turned sharply. "Quiet."
The officer froze mid-step, mouth still open.
The shape surged.
Not forward. Up.
The ceiling screamed as metal tore free. Dust rained down, sharp and choking. Something dropped behind them with a wet, heavy impact.
Juno spun, weapon up, firing once. The shot cracked through the corridor, deafening. It hit something solid. The recoil jolted her shoulder.
The thing didn't fall.
It moved.
Fast.
Kael felt it pass him, close enough that the air shifted against his cheek. He turned, claws surfacing without permission this time, skin tightening, bones stretching.
The emergency strip flared back to life.
The creature filled the corridor behind them—long, low, its body pressed close to the floor and ceiling at once. Too many limbs. Too many points of contact. Its head tilted, wrong angles catching the light.
It opened its mouth.
The sound wasn't a roar.
It was a click.
Kael stepped between it and the others.
"Run," he said.
Juno hesitated. Mira didn't.
The creature lunged.
Kael met it head-on.