A typical day on the station.
A few months ago, John arrived on a terraforming station, unbeknownst to him or anyone else on the station they'd unintentionally brought aboard an artifact containing a long-dormant alien plague. After people started bleeding from the eyes and ears quarantine measures were instituted, unfortunately too late to stop John from getting infected. Now he's the last organic member of the crew, and the station AI, Atropos, is getting tired of waiting for him to die so she can shut down. Fortunately Atropos can't directly kill him, so she resorts to a series of cartoonish booby traps.
And it turns out the rest of the crew aren't exactly dead...
Stuck in Space can be read on the social media sites of the author, Lilmauthor
or Inhuman Interest. And now on ComicFury.
Tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: All of the station A.I.s are some measure of insane. Atropos (allegedly) wants to kill John so she can shut off the station, Clotho would like to dissect him to research a cure for the plague, and Lachesis sings show tunes while hunting zombies.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: While on a space walk John encounters a giant worm-creature that mutated from the first crewman to be infected. And it's still alive.
- Bittersweet Ending: Heavy on the bitter. John and the three station A.I.s are rescued and the zombies are destroyed, but Scrub-Bot 721 stayed behind to blow the station, John is left half-paralyzed by the extensive treatments required to eliminate the pathogen, and the Company is planning to weaponize the zombie pathogen. Additionally Clotho and Lachesis request deletion after reporting back but the Company illicitly copies their memories for further research, but John is at least allowed to retire to a comfortable beach house with a no-longer homicidal Atropos as caretaker.
- Booby Trap: Atropos' traps include a variety of different explosives, spring-traps, and anvils. Such as a bear trap baited with a sandwich, or a claymore under John's pillow. He's smart enough to avoid or disarm them, the zombies aren't.
- Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Don and Slithers, two of the zombies who are usually assigned to monitoring John as punishment for their antics, such as not immediately informing their leader about the pirates. On a few occasions John manages to bribe them into looking the other way with snacks or entertainment devices.
- Crying Wolf: Apparently claiming to be under quarantine is a common tactic to scare off pirates, so the pirates don't believe John until after they've boarded.
- Fighting a Shadow: The A.I.s can just print out a new chassis if their current one is wrecked. Making it nigh-impossible for John to get rid of Atropos and enabling Lachesis to keep fighting while deep in zombie territory.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: One of the zombies referred to as "Slithers" is a limbless upper torso who uses her intestines as tentacles.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Simone, the only one of the pirate boarding party to make it back to their ship, rigs the hyperdrive to blow so the zombies can't spread. Vaporizing herself as well as the zombies that boarded them. She demands a solid gold statue from John.
- 721 plants explosives all over the station and because the other A.I.s are hardwired to be unable to damage company property, stays behind to detonate them.
- Mind Hive: The initial leader of the zombies had 15 brains but couldn’t keep their memories straight.
- Mundane Object, Advanced AI:
- The Scrub-Bots aren't supposed to be sentient, Atropos even insists that they're just extensions of her systems, but they display a bit of an attitude and Atropos even talks to them (while making comments about talking to herself). Eventually Scrub-Bot 721 manages to negotiate full autonomy from Atropos and starts upgrading their own chassis including a hologram and speakers, after which they reveal that Atropos programmed the Scrub-Bots with the personalities of the dead crew.
- One of the vending machines on the station randomly achieved sentience and started insulting users. Fortunately for John, it's on the zombie side of the station.
- Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!: Atropos posts fanfics to the station intranet. John is disturbed by how often his stand-ins get killed while the zombies hold live readings for entertainment.
- Our Zombies Are Different: They're Plague Zombies but the pathogen has a months-long incubation period during which the host is asymptomatic but contagious through easily aerosolized bodily fluids. The plague repairs injuries, but with gruesome mutations, even headshots only temporarily incapacitate them and cause them to lose some memories. They also retain their sapience but become obsessed with spreading the infection to others, and lose a lot of impulse control.
- Projected Man: Scrub-Bot 721 upgrades their chassis with a hologram projector and an avatar modeled after Captain Maria Perez, whom their personality was based on.
- Self-Therapy: Atropos occasionally uses 721 as an improvised therapist, both before and after granting the scrub bot autonomy. Though she insisted she wasn't talking to herself the first time.
- Sentry Gun: The corridor leading to the zombie-infested side of the station is full of gatling turrets controlled by Atropos. Considering how many of the crew she used them on during the outbreak Clotho speculates that Atropos doesn't really want to kill John.
- Shout-Out:
- Silent Snarker: The scrub bots' dialogue is rendered as a series of exclamation points but the others act like they're intelligible and 721 in particular has a bit of an attitude. The "silent" part is averted after they install a hologram and speakers, the snark isn't.
- Space Pirates: In one arc the station is boarded by a crew of pirates led by one Captain "Harelock", who don't realize the plague zombies are real until it's too late. They all end up dead, but manage to take out half the zombies with them.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Clotho, the medical AI, would like to dissect John to research a cure for the plague but was talked out of it with Atropos' help. She does not extend the same courtesy to the zombies she manages to capture.
- World of Funny Animals: All organic characters are some variety of anthropomorphic animal. John appearing to be some sort of canine.
- Your Days Are Numbered: After Clotho is reactivated she gives John a prognosis of three months with aggressive antibiotic treatment, two before the plague starts to affect his brain. He gives her permission to euthanize and dissect him at two months if they don't find a cure before then.