On Cryo-Deck Gamma, a frozen zero-gravity station compartment has become an emergency shelter full of dead occupants, false sensor readings, and dormant Slab tissue. Lieutenant Davies leads eleven pressure-suited soldiers, including a combat engineer, toward Pressure Lock Gamma-North to secure the transit corridor and restore the hardline relay.

The Slab does not attack like an animal. It absorbs heat, reanimates from cold tissue, fuses into coolant conduits and handhold routes, repairs thermite wounds, and turns occupied corridors into habitat. The worst part is not just the bodies left behind — it is the casualty beacons still transmitting from deck levels where the soldiers are not.

This is "The Wrong Deck" by Sascha Schmidt.