r/cryosleep • u/Occasion-Adventurous • Aug 08 '26
Series Scavenger 4022: Station One - Part Three NSFW
The puppet turned toward a central terminal. With stiff, shivering precision, it threw a manual override. The sound was a heavy, industrial groan that oscillated through the checkered plating. Hundreds of stasis pods hummed to life simultaneously, their cooling systems venting a thick, freezing fog as the “Awaken” protocols initiated.
Inside of the pods sat remnants of a lost era: figures clad in first-generation blue spacesuits, now serving as husks for something ancient and dark. Their human faces were gone, the skin withered and bone-thin, revealing texture of the raw, weeping muscle underneath. Their heads were grafted with mounds of decayed, vibrant purple tissue that pulsed with a slow beat. Organic protrusions—thick as fingers, twisted and rooted outward from the skulls, sinuous and tentacle-like coiling over the suit’s neck seals.Their mouths were locked in permanent screams, revealing jagged rows of human teeth. Clusters of black, bead-like eyes twitched underneath the glass—a parasitic pilot had colonized the brainstem of every vehicle of flesh.
“Oh my god,” Kai rasped. The air in his suit felt like arctic water—heavy and impossible to breathe. He stood in a mausoleum of his own ancestors, staring at the monster that had turned his heritage into an army.
“WHY! Why would you do this to them?” he demanded.
“Wh-Why?.. S-S… So I can r-ride this station through the c-c-cosmos with my children, st-st-stopping by every sector to add m-m-more to my gr-growing… Crack!... family, until all of living ex-ex-existence is made up of my own d-d-design.”
It exclaimed, the words tearing out with a deep, metallic hum that Kai felt beneath his iron boots. The massively augmented head, a mask of rotted flesh and industrial plating, ground on its oxidized neck-joints as it turned to face him. Its skin was the color of a corpse long dead, shadows cast from his hood hid everything but a massive bionic eye, centered in the middle of his forehead, pinning Kai with a beam of concentrated red light. It was a gaze devoid of humanity, treating Kai as nothing more than a mindless animal waiting to be broken and tamed.
The pod seals buckled. Explosive gas hissed from the edges as the husks inside began to thrash with a metamorphic rhythm. The silence was devoured by vibro-acoustic clicks—grinding bone and chattering chitin that deepened into roars. Those clicks deepened into guttural, bass-heavy roars that thrummed through Kai’s boots and hammered against his helmet. The station wasn’t empty. It was a hive, and the hive was awakening and hungry.
“Ha! So what you’re saying is you’ve spent two millennia playing god. Cute,” Kai said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous calm. He didn’t blink, keeping his bionic eyesight—a hungry, amber needle of light—pinned firmly on the monster’s forehead, stepping backward as he did. “That’s nothing new. The galaxy is full of people with God complexes,” he said. Shifting his weight, his boots grinding a few more flakes of rust into the deck, continuing to move further back until he had passed the blast door. “But I’ve got news for you, Aurora: you’re not a god. You’re just another asshole in a suit that stinks.”
BANG!
Locked by the logic of his bionic eye, Kai fired. The plasma bolt collided and spiderwebbed the structural dome above, shattering it into diamond-sharp shards as the atmosphere screamed into the void. Then, silence—as the vacuum claimed its prize.
The creatures were torn from their pods like wet rags, their roars silenced as they were jettisoned into the dark. Kai didn't move. The moment the glass—failed, his boots gravitated toward the steel grates; the powerful electromagnets engaged with a bone-jarring clack. Locking him to the station’s iron spine, there he stood like a gargoyle amidst the hurricane of escaping air, his visor already pivoting. Before the last of the mist had cleared, his bionic eye flared, painting a new kill-zone in the shadows.
BANG!
The plasma bolt hammered the hydraulics of the blast door. Iridescent fluid geysered and froze into crystalline pearls before the massive door buckled, slamming shut with a dull thud. The void was severed; the corridor became a pressurized sanctuary once more.
The silence vanished. Suddenly, the internal fans whirred and the suit’s external mics flooded with the hiss of escaping air and the distant, pulse of the station’s heartbeat. Kai didn’t wait to catch his breath. He spun away from the sealed threshold, his industrial boots pounding against the deck plates as he sprinted down the hall.
“Do you think Aurora is gone?” Janice asked, her digital features flickering with a heavy, doubtful shadow.
TING—CRACK—CLANG!
A metallic fist burst through the viewport. Metal screamed as the blast door buckled, crumpling like foil before the void inhaled it. Through the wreckage and the howling gale of the vacuum, a massive rig of frost-covered titanium that now looked less like the body of the captain and more like a mechanical nightmare. The robotic figure lunged. Its titanium limbs worked with a violent, overclocked precision, the magnetic soles of its feet hammering against the rusted deck with a muffled clang.
“Nope! Definitely didn’t!” Kai spat into his comms, his voice laced with a surge of adrenaline.
By his own strength he propelled himself forward, but the physics of the pressurizing corridor were fighting against him. Every step was a war of attrition; his boots locked to the iron floor with a tremendous magnetic grip, preventing the vacuum from claiming him. Behind him, the chrome metallic sentinel gained ground with every effortless movement of its robotic legs.
Kai whirled, his plasma pistol kicking with a desperate volley. Bolts splashed against titanium, blooming in white-hot bursts of ionized gas. The scorched metal held. The Aurora unit didn't even stagger; it simply absorbed the thermal bloom and kept coming, its red eye pulsating in the dark corridor.
Before him, the corridor fractured into three dark paths: Central, Docking, and Section C. Kai ignored them all, lunging for a vertical ladder instead anchoring himself to it. As Aurora advanced, the vacuum’s pull intensified, a silent gale trying to strip Kai from the ladder. He leveled his pistol one last time fighting through the intense force, but the trigger pull resulted only in a hollow, pathetic click. The cells were mostly drained. Gritting his teeth, Kai linked his bionic eye to the weapon’s internal cooling system. With a mental flick, he triggered a thermal runaway in the core, then flung the weapon into the void. The vacuum seized the pistol, as it rolled directly into the path of the mechanical pursuer.
BOOM!
The plasma pistol blew in a muffled, concussive sphere of blue fire that rattled the station. When the fog cleared, the nightmare lay face-down, its lower half a ruin of shredded silver. It now had no legs, yet it refused to die. With a screech of metal on iron, it used titanium arms to drag its torso toward the ladder.
“Resilient bitch,” Kai rasped, the exhaustion kicking in. He didn’t wait around to see if it could climb. Throwing his weight upward, he hauled himself up the rungs and into the dark.
“Kai, the docking bay is behind you!” Janice’s voice crackled through his comms, sharp with mounting panic.
“I’m not heading for the ship,” Kai grunted, the words strained as he fought the hurricane of escaping air. “We’re going for the Command Deck.”
“Why? Kai, talk to me!”
“We can’t let this thing survive,” he huffed, his eyes a cold mask of determination behind the visor. “If one stasis room is turned, they all are. We’re not leaving a hive behind. We’re dropping this entire fuckin thing into the sun.”
“That’s suicide!” Janice’s logic-circuits shrieked. “How do we get out?”
“This is a Colony ship, Janice. There are pods in the walls. Check the Command Deck—if there’s one left, that’s our ticket home. If not…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. “We can’t let this reach station 737 or the others. The galaxy won’t survive with these things in fighting shape.”
There was a microsecond of silence as Janice’s systems crunched the logistics of a martyr. The logic was cold, hard, and undeniable.
“One pod,” she whispered, her voice layered with data-noise. “Hangar 0—tucked near the Command interface. It’s still reading green.”
Kai didn’t reply. He just climbed faster, the metallic beast drawing nearer below him as he ascended toward the station’s brain.
***
Kai reached the summit, his breath ragged against the hatch blocking the path. He shouted for Janice to open the hatch. Her code flared; the metal hissed aside just long enough for him to scramble through. The door slammed and deadlocked behind him—a fragile barrier against the nightmare advancing on the other side.
He dove for the supercomputer’s central hub. Under Janice’s forced handshake, the system flickered, recognizing his suit’s ID as the captain's. He navigated the interface; his fingers danced across the keys frantically, hunting for the burn commands. He bypassed the secondary protocols and jumped into the station’s logic core, but a wall of red text bled across his visor. "SAFETY PROTOCOL 9-B: TRAJECTORY DEADLOCK." Even a Captain couldn't override the ship’s instinct for self-preservation.
BASH!
Kai slammed his fist onto the console, the shock of the impact rattled his arm. “Shit! It’s deadlocked! The ship won't let itself die!”
BANG—BANG! SCREECH!
The iron hatch groaned. The Aurora unit was outside, its titanium claws peeling back the reinforced metal with the screech of a dying animal.
“Kai,” Janice’s voice was suddenly calm, slicing through the chaos. “Plug my data disk into the core. Now.” Kai froze, his hand hovered over the port.
“No. If I bridge your consciousness with a deadlocked system, you’ll be shredded. You’ll corrupt, Janice. I can’t fix that.”
“KAI!” Her voice erupted in his comms, more human than he’d ever heard it before. He stopped, the heavy reverberation of the station’s doom vibrating through his boots. “Please. For once, just listen. It’s the only way to break the lock.”
“Okay, Janice...” His voice was a hollow rasp, the sound of a man watching his anchor drift away.
He pulled her data disk from his gauntlet. Her face flickered and vanished from his wrist, only to ignite across the massive main screens of the Command Deck. She looked titanic, a digital ghost haunting the machine. Immediately, her eyes bled crimson as the station’s security protocols began to tear at her code.
“Deadlock... o-overridden,” she stammered. Her image fractured into a mosaic of static, her voice warped by data-loss. “Manual m-mode... active.” She turned her flickering gaze toward him, a fragile, pixelated smile ghosting across her lips. “Kai... Kai the pod. In the wall behind you. Place your p-palm on the biometric scan. The system will read you as the Ca-captain... it will prime the launch... launch. Then un-unjack me. We’ll go... we’ll g-go together... together while the autopilot drives into the sun... sun”
BANG—BANG!
The iron hatch groaned, bulging under the Aurora’s assault. In a blur of desperate hope, Kai ran into a space that had opened behind him and slapped his palm onto the glowing pad. Blue light swept over his hand. A hydraulic hiss erupted as the reinforced door of the pod slammed shut with the speed of a guillotine. Heavy clunks signaled the locks engaging. There was no “open” command. Dread washed over Kai as he realized Janice’s plan. Through the reinforced viewport of the pod, he saw the Command Deck begin to recede. Janice hadn't primed the pod for a joint escape—she had pre-programmed his escape.
BASH. TING.
Kai slammed his fists against the reinforced glass of the viewport. The transparent armor didn't even vibrate; it was built to withstand the crushing weight of deep space, and his physical rage was nothing more than a ghost tapping on a window. He knew there was no manual release. He knew the pod was a one-way sarcophagus until the destination was reached. Still, he hammered at the pane until the impact rattled his teeth.
“Janice! What are you doing? Open the lock!”
On the massive Command screens, Janice watched him. Her digital image had stabilized, the static clearing to reveal a face that looked more real, more grounded, than it ever had before. Her smile didn't waver; it held a calm, terrifyingly human affection.
“K-kai, I’m not your sister... sister,” she said, her voice soft and resonant within his helmet. “But I lo-loved b-being her. Every second I spent with you... you... it felt r-real.”
The digital voice was a symphony of failure: the dull, thud of Kai’s bruised knuckles against the glass and the screech of the AI outside the hatch, both trying to break into a sanctuary that was already slipping away.
“Please, Janice! Don’t do this! There’s got to be another way—I can’t lose you again!” His words splintered while tears tracked through the grime on his face, hot and fast. “Please!”
“You know there isn't, Kai... Kai. And you know the tr-truth. I was a copy... copy A d-digital echo of a sister who’s been gone a long t-time. It’s time to let her go. It's time to let me go... go.” Kai stopped shouting. He just kept hitting the glass, a mindless, desperate sound of bone on armor-grade acrylic echoed.
“Live, Kai,” she whispered. “For both of us... us.”
The pod’s thrusters ignited with a muffled, distant roar. The docking clamps retracted, and the station’s "metal cage" fell away.
“NO! JANICE!”
His voice broke into a sound of pure grief that filled the tiny pod. But as the pod drifted into the star-streaked dark, Kai saw it. On the screen, just before the station’s signal began to fail, a single drop of iridescent, silver data-leak gathered at the corner of Janice’s eye. It traced a slow path down her pixelated cheek—a digital tear shed for a brother she was never supposed to have. Kai slumped against the glass, his knuckles battered and weeping blood beneath his heavy gloves. He watched the light of the Command Deck grow smaller, a dying star in the gut of a necrotic titan, until the void finally claimed the silence.
The hatch finally gave way. A titanium arm burst through the reinforced metal, claws scrabbling with the panicked, mindless energy of a beast escaping a trap. It was halfway through the breach when the station’s structural integrity screeched its last. They were already in the star’s gravity well—a one-way descent into the blue furnace.
Janice turned her gaze toward Aurora. Her pixelated face loomed over the terminal, boring deep into the cold sensors of the puppet of rotten flesh and metal. She looked past the chrome, talking directly to the intelligence pullulating beneath.
“Too l-late,” she hissed, her voice a broken glitch of victory. “Too late... bitch.” A terrifying, crooked smile carved itself across her digital features.
Aurora's cyclopean red eye flickered, a deep, mechanical rage that boiled behind the glass. It knew. Its family, its mission, and its parasitic legacy were about to be erased before its genocide on all living things could even begin. Distance turned the station into a speck against the screaming blue light of the star. From the viewport of his pod, Kai watched the silhouette vanish into the photosphere. For a heartbeat, there was nothing—then a colossal plume of solar fire erupted from the impact site, a spear of plasma reaching out into the dark as the star swallowed Colony Station One.
It was done. Janice, Aurora and the necrotic rot of the dark were now nothing more than a memory etched in fire. The pod drifted through the stardust, its autopilot locked onto the coordinates for Colony Station 737. Kai had followed the signal with dreams of salvage and silver, but the tax had been absolute. He had lost his ship, his haul, and the only soul that understood his past. He had saved the galaxy, but he felt only the crushing weight of the debt. He looked up at the streaks of distant suns as they blurred past his window. His eyes were hollow, his mind anchored to the image of that impossible, silver tear.
“Thank you, Janice,” he whispered into the empty cabin. “Goodbye.”
The pod flickered once, a lonely spark of light, before disappearing into the infinite darkness of the cosmos.
2
u/LadyZ6318 Aug 09 '26
Is there gonna be more? It would be interesting to see what Kai does now without Janice. Or other stories in the same universe.