The airlock hissed open, and Captain Isolde Rook stepped onto the derelict ship’s corpse-gray deck, her boots magnetizing to the metal with a dull thunk. Her enviro-suit—a sleek, gunmetal-black exoskeleton lined with crimson hazard stripes—hummed as it adjusted to the vacuum. The helmet’s HUD flickered: OXYGEN: 37 MINUTES. LIFE SIGNS: UNKNOWN. Behind her, the rookie, Kael, clutched his plasma cutter like a child gripping a toy.
"This isn’t a salvage run," Isolde said, her voice crackling through the comms. "That distress signal was a trap. Last time someone boarded the Eclipse, they came back in pieces."
Kael’s breath hitched. "Then why are we here?"
Isolde didn’t answer. The ship’s corridors were a graveyard of frozen corpses, their faces locked in silent screams. One body floated past, its chest cavity hollowed out—not by weapons, but by something biting. The HUD flashed again: BIOSIGNATURE DETECTED. 200 METERS AHEAD.
Then the lights died.
Bones of the Past
Now, in the darkness, Isolde’s suit lamps cut through the void. The biosignal led them to the bridge—where a single figure sat in the captain’s chair, its back turned. Kael raised his cutter. "Identify yourself!"
The chair rotated slowly. The figure wore Isolde’s face.
"Hello, sister," it said, its voice a perfect mimic. "You took your time."
Isolde’s blood turned to ice. The thing smiled, its skin peeling back to reveal writhing tendrils beneath. "We’ve been waiting. The Eclipse wasn’t lost. It was harvesting."
The walls shuddered. Something in the ship’s belly woke up—and it was hungry.
No Way Out
Isolde grabbed Kael and ran. Behind them, the corridor rippled, metal dissolving into a swarm of nanites. "The data core," she snarled. "It’s not a core—it’s a hive."
Kael’s voice cracked. "You knew?"
"I suspected." She jammed a grenade into an airlock panel. The explosion tore through the swarm, buying seconds. "My sister died on the Eclipse ten years ago. That thing wasn’t her. It was wearing her memories."
The ship groaned. The HUD blared: GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY DETECTED. The black hole’s pull was destabilizing the hull. Isolde lunged for the escape pod, but the swarm was faster—it seized Kael, tendrils burrowing into his suit. His scream echoed as his body unraveled.
Isolde slammed the pod’s hatch just as the Eclipse shattered behind her. The last thing she saw was the swarm reforming in the void—into a perfect replica of her own ship, the Hollow Crown, its hull pulsing with stolen life.
And then the pod’s comms crackled: "Captain Rook? We’ve picked up your signal. Prepare for docking."
Isolde closed her eyes. The trap had sprung.
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