Odie peeled off his suit. It was always a struggle to change out of it after cooking in the airlock for several minutes. The ship had turned to face the star they were orbiting, and the airlock had quickly reached ungodly temperatures.

The change in pressure also caused the inner layer of the suit to cling to one’s body like a vacuum sealed plastic bag. The combined feeling of sweat and the rubbery vinyl weave of the suit material was disgusting. The suits would be turned over to the EVA crew for a deep clean before being loaned out for someone else to use.

Nell sat on a bench, gently rolling back the sleeves of her suit to her shoulders and then extracting each arm in a few precise motions. Her tan skin glistened with sweat, but she seemed to be having a much better time than Odie. He couldn’t stand the feeling of sweat- it was more uncomfortable to him than almost anything else. Upon noticing her husband’s glum attitude, Nell shot him a playful smile.

“After you’ve done this a few dozen more times,” Odie said, “the novelty will wear off.”

Nell just shrugged and continued to peel her suit down to her hips. By the time she had her suit to her knees, Odie had fully removed his and changed his undershirt. He procured a small electric fan from his toolbox and proceeded to fan himself as he slumped into a seat across from Nell. 

“Could you give me a hand?” Nell asked. She leaned back on her bench and kicked her legs up. Odie placed the fan on the bench next to him and lumbered to his feet with a grunt.

“You got the rest off easy enough,” he said.

Nell pouted. “I just want you to do it for me.”

“Can’t let me sit for a second?”

“I don’t want you to get lazy.”

Odie gripped the pant legs of Nell’s suit and tugged. They easily slipped off.

Nell shot Odie another one of her devilish grins. “Right to it, huh?”

She slipped a bare foot underneath Odie’s shirt. He blushed, giggled nervously, and gently pushed her foot away.

Odie glanced over his shoulder. “You know there’s cameras, right?”

“Oh?” Nell slipped on her sandals and stood up, giving Odie a peck on the cheek before turning to leave.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” Odie said.

“Better take advantage,” she responded coyly.

“I need to finish my report.”

“How romantic.”

“Hon, this wasn’t a date.”

“Mhm. See you at home. I’ll make dinner.”

“I’ll be quick.”

Nell sent a kiss to Odie from the doorway before it slid open and she ducked through into the corridor. Odie quickly gathered his things and followed.

Hours spent sealed up in a stuffy data processing lab had worn Odie’s mental faculties down to a slurry. Nine hours had sluggishly passed since he and Nell returned from their space walk. Odie had toiled behind a desk which was shoved into a cramped room with no windows. A dim green-grey light washed the walls and server racks with a ghoulish hue that leeched away his energy. He plucked away at his keyboard which clicked like a piercing bell in his ear, slowly driving him to the edge of his sanity. He felt a noose tightening about his soul with each keystroke.

What had started as a simple repair report had been dragged out by a multitude of analyses requested by the engineering board, which amounted to basically nothing but a way for them to pat themselves on the back for not replacing old equipment.

The final table in his report sat depressingly empty at the bottom of its page. He began copying data cell by cell. Many laborious hours had crescendoed in the anticlimax of pasting numbers into boxes.

Upon the report’s completion, Odie hurriedly sent it off and within seconds he slid out of his chair and slumped into a ball under the desk. The few moments of consciousness before he slipped into numbing sleep were blissfully brief.

He awoke to pitch blackness. He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep. Minutes? Hours? It must have been long enough for the section to have been put into unoccupied mode. What had woken him? It had been sudden, some noise he had heard. Then, he heard it again. There was a hydronic hissing followed by an echoing metallic thud.

He sat up. BANG! His forehead bounced off the underside of the desk. Cursing, he scrambled to his feet and shuffled towards the door, guiding himself with a hand against the wall. 

A muted mechanical hum vibrated through the wall. Odie knew the sound well - there was a vessel docking.

As his hand touched the door, he heard footsteps approaching outside. A few muffled voices came into earshot. There was an air vent at the bottom of the door. Odie knelt and peered through the slats in the vent.

“- cleared it an hour ago. Nobody has come or gone since,” a woman’s voice said. 

“Good. Just make sure nobody is in the corridors leading back to the bridge before we leave,” a man responded.

Two pairs of black security uniform boots marched past Odie’s peephole. The room beyond was seeped in shadow, lit only by the harsh emergency lights which followed the egress path to the exit door.

Odie waited a moment, listening for more footsteps. When none came, he gently turned the doorknob and cracked the door. Through the opening, he could see the observation window which faced the antechamber connected to the airlock and docking port. 

Seems like you’re not supposed to be here… he thought, don’t do anything that will get you in trouble. 

Just then, the lights on the other side of the window flashed red, rhythmically pulsing on and off. There was a hissing sound as air evacuated the antechamber and an alarm began to sound. It was a depressurization warning. Odie found it odd, as usually the only reason the chamber would be depressurized was for the airlock to be opened.

Or if the docking vessel isn’t pressurized, he thought. Maybe there was an accident on one of the miners, and they are trying to keep it quiet?

It was the only explanation Odie could think of that made any sense. For a moment, he debated whether he should investigate further. He quickly decided it was worth looking into.

Gently pushing open the door, Odie kept low to the floor as he crept closer to the observation window. He took up position in an unlit corner of the room where he could easily duck behind a console to hide if needed.

Peaking over the main control board in front of the window, he had a direct line of sight to the sealed door which would open to the docked port.

As the hissing of the vacuum chamber dulled, a metallic groan echoed through the hull. The ship rumbled like a slumbering giant sighing in its sleep. Then there was silence. The antechamber lights stopped flashing and switched to a solid red, indicating complete depressurization.

The port gate silently slid up, revealing a round opening three feet in diameter. What Odie expected to see in this opening was the white-handled port hatch of a mining vessel. But that was not what he saw.

A chill ran up his back and his neck hairs stood on end. He began to shake as his stomach turned, warning him to leave before he could see anything else.

He steeled himself, pushing down the urge to hide. If what was happening was what he thought was happening, he knew that he needed to watch.

When the gate had opened, Odie had seen a pitch black material in place of the white port hatch. Then, there was motion as the material twisted open like an elastic shutter - like skin pulling away from a wound.

Something stirred within the hole. It was a mix of strange shapes which Odie could not make out at first. All he could think of was a bowl of fleshy spaghetti. After a few seconds Odie realized that what he had been looking at was a mix of limbs folded over each other. He saw a kneecap, a forearm, a shin, an elbow, and eventually picked out a pinkish foot folded up under a thigh. The flesh was pale - paler than any he had ever seen.

Then, the figure began to unfold. At first Odie thought it may have been several people squished together, as the arrangement of limbs did not seem to fit the human anatomy. But as the limbs unfurled, he saw that they were all attached to one being.

Slowly, two legs and two arms extended through the port opening into the docking bay. With limbs outstretched, the body looked like it had been wedged tightly into place behind them. As more of the vessel beyond the opening was revealed, Odie realized it could not have been more than a few feet wide in any direction.

Despite the tightness of the opening, the being moved effortlessly through the port hole in a slow, fluid motion. As knees and elbows extended past the lip of the port, the legs bent downward and arms upward, as if the shoulders had been twisted completely around in their sockets. Then the body was pulled through the opening.

As the full figure emerged into the space, Odie reminded himself that the docking port had been depressurized. It was abundantly clear that Odie’s assumption upon originally seeing the port opening was correct - this was not human.

The figure had been strangely contorted to fit through the opening, and now untwisted itself like a marionette lifted up by its strings from the floor. Its anatomy appeared externally human, even more so as it untwisted itself. As it rose, its human face was revealed - high cheekbones, thin jawline, and a sharp chin.

Such perfect imitation, Odie thought, I would have no reason to question its authenticity if I had not just seen it twisted up like a knot on the floor.

As Odie had been watching from his hiding place, one word cycled through his head over and over. Now it found its way to his lips, and he silently mouthed it to himself - Andromech.