**Status.** Three illustrative creatures, not an adopted roster, balance or origin story. Their names describe functions, not species history. All attack on sight under local perception. Ordinary fire stays mostly automatic; the player moves, positions, interacts and uses manual specials. Journal pause freezes combat, oxygen and work without completing anything. The station may shift after death while selected completed work persists; every route here is therefore a local encounter shape, not fixed geography.

**Silhouette and warning.** Bellback is a low four-limbed body with a hollow bell chest and dragging forearms. After holding sight, it plants, faces the last seen position and draws in dust with a rising moan. A bright ripple fills its bounded forward cone before release.

**Replaceable origin.** It could be a remnant of an ancient ascension chamber or a human compression-treatment machine grown into a patient; neither explanation is required for the behaviour.

**Action and causality.** Completing the brace emits one pressure wave through the cone, shoving the astronaut, loose objects and unbraced creatures until solid structure stops them. It deals condition damage but interrupts work only by moving the astronaut off the control. Displacement, leaving the cone, hard cover or defeat prevents release; afterwards Bellback must brace again.

**Encounter.** Finish one hand-cycle on a cargo iris beyond a lane of pressers while Bellback enters diagonally. The player can circle a pillar during warning while automatic fire works; spend a shove to break the brace; or face Barrier Plate into the impact and feed Dynamo under normal wave rules.

An overpowering Cascade can erase Bellback and the crowd before the first pulse; no replacement enemy appears. A dense Counterwall may instead absorb repeated attacks and release a manual Arc burst.

**Optional discovery.** The pulse visibly pushes pressers too. Later, the player can cross Bellback’s sight line, leave the cone and let the blast compress a crowd for Arc. This supplements the useful dodge; killing Bellback remains valid.

**Return and cost.** A completed iris cycle persists; an unfinished one does not. After death, the iris may appear in a shifted context and its old breadcrumb promises no connection, while the learned tactic remains. The main cost is reading cone, cover and displacement in a crowd without implying every small object blocks it.

**Silhouette and warning.** Shutterback is a tall two-legged carrier with a folded plate fan wider than its body. With the astronaut visible and allies behind, heel clamps click and the fan opens. A floor shadow shows the coming shelter angle.

**Replaceable origin.** The fan could be an alien experiment screen or a mobile hospital radiation barrier repurposed by a corrupted patient; its origin remains evidence to discover, not combat knowledge granted up front.

**Action and causality.** Open plates block sight and ordinary projectiles through their angle; sheltered enemies are invalid automatic targets until exposed. Shutterback stays visible and damageable while slowly turning. A shove rotates it or breaks the clamps, sustained damage collapses the plates, and flanking exposes the crowd. Defeat ends the screen.

**Encounter.** Reach a breaker across a gallery. Shutterback advances with pressers behind it; a side gantry offers a longer angle. The player can flank so automatic fire sees the crowd, hold the direct lane with Barrier until enemies separate, or shove the fan sideways. Positioning changes valid targets; specials create openings.

A sufficiently strong impact chain can destroy the plates and then cascade through the packed group. That is a clean win, not a cue to spawn a counter-unit. Arc or other equipment exceptions are not assumed to ignore the screen unless their inspected rules say so.

**Return and cost.** The thrown breaker remains thrown after death, but the gallery and side gantry need not retain their connection after a station shift. The new context must show where its persistent effect now applies. The main cost is communicating occlusion and automatic-target eligibility without camera confusion.

**Simpler alternative.** If dynamic angular shelter is too costly, Shutterback plants one straight, visibly degradable plate across a doorway. The same flank, shove and break responses survive with less turning and targeting complexity.

**Silhouette and warning.** Glass Siphon is a narrow tripod with a translucent bladder and coiled hose-arm. In range, it braces, flashes its empty bladder and tracks through an audible wind-up. The tether line and radius appear before launch.

**Replaceable origin.** It could descend from an alien breath-transfer trial or a human resuscitation extractor turned harmful. The leading hospital/godhood draft makes both plausible without selecting either.

**Action and causality.** An unobstructed hose clamps to the suit and draws oxygen; the suit shows higher drain while the bladder fills. It is not instant death and changes no inventory quantity. Leaving the radius, breaking line with cover, displacing or defeating Siphon ends it. A miss retracts first. A faced Barrier intercepts the hose as an external strike but makes no oxygen.

**Encounter.** Close two service caps, each a checkpoint, while Siphon watches one and pressers approach from the other side. Bait the hose into a pillar and cross during retraction; reposition until automatic fire selects Siphon; or use shove/Barrier to stop the launch and buy a cap stage. Completing one cap and leaving shortens the return.

A Cascade that reaches the Siphon can delete it with the surrounding crowd. Counterwall can catch launches and turn impacts into stored charge, but remaining in tether range still spends oxygen, so defence is not automatic immunity.

**Return and cost.** Closed caps persist, though a death shift may relocate the remaining work and invalidate the old route. Recognising the bladder flash still changes later choices. The main cost is distinguishing altered oxygen drain from ordinary consumption, damage and capacity; if those signals compete, drop the creature rather than make it surprising.

Bellback changes where bodies end up, Shutterback changes what automatic fire can see, and Glass Siphon changes how long the player can remain in a marked space. All can be avoided, interrupted or defeated; none waits for one exact loadout or punishes a successful build. None implies a player death counter or a long escort; any rescue use must fit the owner’s short cooperative direction. Origins, frequency, numbers and central-story relationships remain open, and prose establishes no readability, fun, balance, accessibility or production cost.