The Signal From Beyond

Lena Hale had been drifting in silence for 412 days.

Alone aboard the Celestis IX, her mission was clear: explore the uncharted regions beyond the outer rim and report any signs of intelligent life. But space had been quiet. Too quiet.

That changed on day 413.

She was sipping her rationed coffee — still bitter after all these months — when a soft chime rang out from the console. A blinking light. Just one. In the vastness of space, that one light felt louder than thunder.

Lena froze. Her heart skipped. The console flared again.

SIGNAL DETECTED

Source: Unknown

Distance: 8.6 light-years

Message: Help us.

Lena leaned forward. “Is this a joke?” she whispered. But she knew no one was around to play tricks.

The Celestis’ AI, ORA, responded in a calm tone. “No previous record of this signal. Origin appears organic. Not machine-generated. Repeating every 42 seconds.”

Another blink. Another whisper across the void.

Lena’s fingers trembled as she decoded the message. The signal wasn’t just a cry for help. It was layered — encoded with coordinates… and emotion.

She wasn’t sure how, but she could feel it.

Fear. Desperation. Hope.

The coordinates led to a region nicknamed The Mirror Expanse — a place where ships had vanished decades ago. A cosmic Bermuda Triangle. And yet… the signal kept calling.

That night, Lena sat in the viewing bay, staring into the stars. Her reflection floated in the glass, ghostlike and tired. She hadn’t seen another human face in over a year.

“What if it’s real?” she whispered. “What if someone’s out there?”

ORA, always neutral, replied, “Probability of intelligent source: 73%. Probability of mission compromise: 91%.”

“Helpful,” she muttered.

Day 414.

She altered course.

It took 18 days to reach the outer edge of the Mirror Expanse. The further she flew, the more distorted her readings became. Time lagged. Instruments blinked random characters. ORA began miscalculating gravity fields.

And yet — the signal grew clearer.

Lena dreamed at night. Strange dreams. A voice humming in an alien language, calling her name.

Day 432.

Arrival.

She came upon a dying planet orbiting a collapsed star — not fully dead, but stuck between existence and decay. The atmosphere shimmered like glass. And hovering just above its surface… a structure.

Massive. Ethereal. Alive.

The signal now pulsed like a heartbeat. Louder. Stronger. Urgent.

Lena’s ship locked orbit. She donned her exosuit, heart pounding. “ORA, stay on channel. If I don’t return in two hours—”

“Auto-recall initiated. Good luck, Commander Hale.”

She launched the shuttle.

The surface felt wrong. Gravity was inconsistent, and the sky shimmered like a broken mirror. The structure — part machine, part organic — breathed. Literally. Pulsing softly with each signal burst.

At its center was a spire. A communication tower of alien origin. She touched it — and her mind exploded.

Visions.

Cities crumbling. Starships aflame. A dying race, humanoid but evolved. Trapped in time after a failed experiment. Trying to call out — not for rescue, but for witnesses.

They wanted to be remembered.

But the message changed.

From Help us to They’re coming.

Lena stumbled back to the shuttle. Her head burned. Her eyes teared. Behind her, the sky darkened.

Something had seen her.

A fleet of shadows emerged from the clouds — ships, or creatures, or both. They had waited in the Mirror Expanse. Feeding on memory. On sound. On signal.

She hit the thrusters. “ORA! Lock onto beacon. Prepare for emergency jump.”

“Confirmed,” said the AI. “But… we are no longer alone.”

Lena turned.

Outside the main window, one of the shadow-things hovered. Its body was fluid, made of black mist and stars. It studied her, then slowly raised an arm — or what looked like one.

And it mimicked her signal. Help us.

She stared, shaken.

“What… are you?”

Day 433.

Lena made it out.

Barely.

The Celestis IX jumped into hyperspace, leaving behind the dead planet, the ghosts, and the warning.

The universe had not forgotten them. Nor had it forgiven. Those who had once lived there had made a mistake — one that cracked time and invited monsters.

Lena’s final log was sent to Earth’s Deep Signal Command before she shut everything down.

“The message was real. The danger is real. But so is the beauty of what we don’t understand. I saw something broken, something lonely, something still trying to speak. And I answered. Because that’s what makes us human.”