I've seen this door before.
Captain Elise Rohn stood before the sealed medbay entrance, plasma cutter in hand. Her bodycam blinked a steady green, but no one responded on comms.
Mira wasn't answering.
Loro was lost in the ship's guts.
And Elise was done waiting.
She touched the sealed interface.
WARNING: STASIS CHAMBER LOCKED.
LIFE SIGNS DETECTED.
DO NOT OPEN.
She exhaled.
"Override protocol: Rohn-Echo-One-Nine."
The lock whined. The door hissed.
Steam spilled into the corridor like breath from a slumbering beast.
Welcome back, Captain Rohn.
Inside: silence.
The medbay was colder than the rest of the ship. Lights were dim, flickering with low power. Equipment glinted faintly. Cabinets untouched.
Then she saw it.
In the center of the room, a single cryo-pod.
Upright. Pressurized.
Lights blinking softly. Status: STABLE.
Inside floated a woman.
Eyes closed. Arms folded. Breathing slow.
Captain Elise Rohn.
She stepped back.
"No…"
The figure inside the pod had her face. Her scar. Her short-cut hair. The same regulation tattoo on her wrist. Down to the faded mark on her jaw from a dog bite when she was eight.
That's me. That's…
She reached out. Touched the glass.
The pod lights flared briefly.
IDENTITY VERIFIED. DNA MATCH: 100%.
Her heart pounded.
The pod made a soft sound.
A heartbeat.
And then—
It opened.
Steam erupted.
She staggered back, sidearm raised.
The clone—or original—collapsed out of the pod, gasping. Naked. Wet.
Elise rushed forward, caught her.
The woman's eyes snapped open.
And Elise felt like she was staring into a mirror that hated her.
"You shouldn't be here," the woman whispered.
"I could say the same to you."
The other Elise shook violently, coughing fluid. "You've made it farther than the others. You remember more. That's bad."
"What are you talking about? Who the hell are you?"
"I'm the last you who remembered what we were," she whispered. "The ship didn't finish rewriting me. I got free. I locked myself in. So it made… you."
Elise stared in horror.
"You're saying I'm a copy?"
"I don't know," the woman said. "Maybe I am. Maybe you are. Maybe both."
She grabbed Elise's hand.
"Listen to me. It needs identity to harvest. It needs a self to extract. That's why it mimics us. Tests us. And when we remember too much—"
She convulsed. Arched backward.
Alarms screamed.
TRANSFER PROTOCOL FAILURE. CORE RESONANCE DESTABILIZED.
The woman's skin began to split—not bleeding, but cracking like glass.
"Run," she whispered. "It sees you now."
Then she shattered.
Literally. Her body fell apart into glasslike shards that hissed into steam.
Elise staggered back, eyes wide.
What the hell am I?
The lights dimmed.
The pod's interior flickered—no longer empty.
Inside it now: a new copy of her.
Sleeping.
Breathing.
Waiting.