Echoes Between the Stars

Space was never silent.

It hummed. Whispered. Echoed.

Commander Lyra Kessler knew this better than anyone. After 208 days alone on the orbital research station Artemis-9, silence had become her loudest companion.

Technically, she wasn’t completely alone. The AI system, CALLI (Cognitive Autonomous Logistical Liaison Interface), responded to her commands. It managed life support, navigation, and sent back data to Earth every 22 hours. But CALLI didn’t laugh at her jokes, didn’t get excited when a comet passed, and certainly didn’t talk about home.

Home. That word had started to feel like fiction.

Lyra drifted in the command module, watching the distant swirl of Saturn through the observation deck. The planet shimmered with its golden rings, beautiful and cold, just like the memories she was trying not to chase. The last message from Earth had arrived seven days ago—a glitch, they said. Communications delay due to solar interference.

But she wasn’t worried about the delay. She was worried about the silence.

Lyra had grown up dreaming of the stars. Her father used to take her to the roof every weekend, pointing out constellations, telling her the myths behind them. “Look,” he’d say, tracing Orion’s belt with his finger, “that’s how the universe tells its stories. Through light and time.”

She used to believe the stars listened.

Now she wasn't so sure.

It was the 209th day when she heard it.

A sound—not mechanical, not generated by CALLI, and not the expected pings from Earth’s satellites.

It was… a voice.

Crackling. Faint.

“…ssion… Lyra… do you… copy?”

Her breath caught.

“Repeat transmission,” she said, voice sharp with urgency. “This is Commander Lyra Kessler aboard Artemis-9. Receiving faint audio. Please confirm source.”

CALLI buzzed. “No incoming data stream detected from Earth or satellites.”

Lyra frowned. “Then what the hell did I just hear?”

The voice came again, clearer this time.

“Lyra… you left the window open…”

She froze. That voice didn’t belong to mission control.

It belonged to her brother, Alex.

Alex, who had died two years ago in a car crash.

Alex, who used to knock on her door and say those exact words when she forgot to close her window during thunderstorms.

She stood up slowly, her skin crawling. “CALLI, run a full diagnostic on audio input systems. Check for signal leaks, hallucination simulations, anything—”

“I detect no anomalies,” CALLI replied calmly. “Psychological stress indicators rising. Would you like a sedative?”

Lyra ignored it. “Play the last ten seconds of recorded audio.”

The voice echoed back.

Faint. Familiar.

“You left the window open…”

Lyra stared out the observation deck. The stars seemed brighter. Closer.

And then she heard something else.

A melody.

A lullaby.

The one her mother used to hum when she was sick. The same one that played at her funeral.

It was impossible. Illogical.

But it was happening.

She wasn’t hearing space anymore.

She was hearing memories.

By Day 212, the voices were consistent. Each time she passed near the rings of Saturn, more fragments arrived. Some were happy—laughter from her childhood, songs from school, her father’s voice telling her he was proud.

Others… were harder.

The last argument with her mother. The voicemail she never returned. Alex’s final message: “Don’t worry about me, Ly. I’ll be fine.”

She started writing everything down, logging what she heard, when, and where. And a pattern emerged. The memories weren’t random. They aligned with specific celestial bodies—Jupiter echoed joy, Saturn revealed regret, and Neptune whispered secrets she'd buried.

And then she realized:

The stars weren’t just listening.

They were remembering.

Day 219.

CALLI detected no human transmissions within 1 million miles.

But Lyra no longer needed proof.

She floated in the observatory, whispering her thoughts aloud like confessions to the stars.

“I miss you, Dad.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“I should’ve told you I loved you, Alex.”

And somewhere, far beyond science and static, she felt them whisper back.

Not with words—

But with warmth.

A pulse through the metal of the station. A flicker in the distant galaxies. A peace she hadn’t felt in years.

She titled her final log:

“Echoes Between the Stars.”

The data was encrypted, sent back to Earth—if Earth was still listening.

But she didn’t need answers anymore.

She only needed the stars.

And what they remembered.