Something In The Abandoned Station

The shuttle’s docking clamps bit into the station’s collar with a dull, metallic thud, and the vibration ran up Mara Kestrel’s boots through the deck plating like a second heartbeat. Through the forward viewport, the abandoned station hung against black space - paneling scabbed with micrometeor scars, solar arrays folded tight as fists. No flicker of traffic beacons, no station-keeping glow. Just the slow drift of something that should have been dead.

Her console painted the corridor ahead in clean, confident lines: airlock bay, docking tunnel, transfer ring. “We’re on interface,” Juno said, voice clipped to keep it from sounding too hopeful. Juno had a way of making every announcement sound like a dare. “Pressure differential is stabilizing.”

Mara kept her eyes on the readouts and tried not to let her mind linger on the orbit numbers. The station’s mass had been consistent all the way down; its spin hadn’t changed. It should have been a silent husk. Instead, the shuttle’s own systems kept finding power signatures where there shouldn’t have been any, like a heartbeat caught under insulation.

“Station’s not broadcasting anything,” Mara said. She didn’t need to raise her voice; the cabin already felt too small, every sound swallowed by the suit of silence they’d brought up from Earth. “No comms. No transponder pings.”

“From orbit,” Rafi muttered behind her, strapped into the pilot’s harness. He was watching the docking collar too, as if staring hard enough could make the station blink. “So we dock and hope the inside isn’t… worse.”

Mara forced her fingers to settle on the checklist she didn’t love. The station didn’t feel hostile from the outside. It felt indifferent. That was worse. Indifference meant there was no one left to be afraid of - only whatever kept the machinery alive.

The airlock controls answered her when she touched them, a soft chime, then the steady progression of cycle states. The docking tunnel pressure equalized without complaint. The station’s inner hatch icon lit green on her panel, and she watched the status bar crawl forward through the familiar sequence: seals engaging, atmosphere venting, equalization holding.

“Airlock bay is nominal,” Juno said, and the word nominal sounded like an apology.

Mara leaned toward the mic. “Comms relay, open a channel. If there’s any internal network, we need to know it’s real.”

Static filled the cabin for half a second, then a thin line of carrier noise - so faint it could have been instrument bleed. Mara keyed the transmitter anyway. “Station unknown to us. This is Shuttle Kestrel, docking for inspection. Acknowledge.”

No response. Not even the courtesy of a repeating tone.

Rafi let out a breath that fogged his visor slightly. “No crew logs, no active schedules,” he said. “Sensors show systems running, but the station isn’t answering. It’s like it’s - ” He stopped himself, jaw tight. “Like it’s pretending.”

Mara didn’t argue. Pretending required intention. She didn’t want to assign intention to something she couldn’t see.

The docking corridor began to open in front of them as the internal hatch unlocked with a quiet, mechanical sigh. The shuttle’s pressure seals held; their own systems gave the familiar reassurance of numbers in range. Mara hated how much she trusted machines. Machines were honest in the ways that mattered, and that honesty was what made this station feel like a lie.

The airlock door slid aside. Cold air breathed out from the corridor beyond - cold enough that her suit’s environmental system spooled up instantly, compensating with a soft whirring hiss. The smell hit next: nothing like mildew or smoke, nothing human. It was dry, metallic, and faintly sweet, like old plastic warmed by electronics.

Juno stepped first, boots magneting down with a snap that sounded too loud in the hush. “Corridor lighting is dim,” she reported. “Not dead. It’s… waiting.”

Mara followed, gloved hand trailing the handrail. The metal felt unexpectedly smooth, as if it had been polished recently, not left to drift through years of radiation and vacuum. Her suit readouts ticked: temperature gradients where there should have been uniform chill, minor pressure fluctuations consistent with circulation.

Rafi came last, moving with the careful economy of someone who didn’t like surprises. “I’m picking up heat in the conduits,” he said. “Not just residual. There’s movement. There’s - ”

“There’s heat,” Mara corrected, sharper than she meant. She heard her own tone and softened it. “Show me.”

They moved into the docking corridor. The walls were scuffed with age, but the scuffs didn’t match the station’s outer wear. The corridor looked lived-in in a way the exterior didn’t. A strip of adhesive - torn, then reapplied - clung near a junction box. Someone had peeled it back and pressed it down again, aligning it with a neatness that didn’t belong to drift.

Mara kept her eyes forward and her mind working on the problem that wouldn’t stop....