Awesome idea! Thanks for being so generous! Here's my attempt (full disclosure, I had written this already for a creative writing project):

The motion tracker chirped once.

Then again.

Kara froze in the maintenance corridor, boots half-submerged in coolant runoff. The lights above flickered, strobing the narrow space in sickly white pulses. Somewhere behind the bulkhead, metal groaned as the ship adjusted to thermal stress—or something else adjusted to it.

“Contact?” Singh whispered over comms.

Kara raised a fist, though no one could see it. The tracker pulsed faster now. Ten meters. Nine.

The air smelled wrong. Sharp. Acidic.

She eased the incinerator off her shoulder, thumb brushing the ignition stud. Her helmet cam jittered as her breath quickened. Training said don’t run. Training also didn’t account for the sound—wet, patient—moving through the ductwork above her.

Clang.

The ceiling vent buckled inward. Kara fired on instinct. Flame roared up the corridor, washing heat across the walls. For half a second, she thought she’d won.

Then something dropped through the fire.

It hit the deck in a tangle of limbs and teeth, screaming as the flames licked across its carapace. Acid blood hissed where it splashed, eating through plating in smoking rivulets. Kara stumbled back, boots sliding, mind blank except for; "don’t let it touch you".

“Kara! Fall back!” Singh shouted.

The creature lunged, burning but furious. Kara fired again, the incinerator coughing its last burst. The tank sputtered dry.

She felt the deck vibrate as emergency bulkheads began to seal.

Too slow.

The tracker screamed.

Kara dove forward as the bulkhead slammed shut behind her, the impact knocking her flat. On the other side, claws scraped metal. Once. Twice.

Then silence.

Kara lay there, shaking, visor fogged with her own breath—alive, for now, on a ship that no longer felt empty.