The Sound of Distant Stars

Lieutenant Renna Vos leaned against the control panel, the dim glow of Orion Station’s dashboard casting an eerie light on her face. The hum of the engines filled the air, but it was a hollow sound—something in the station’s core was off.

“Still nothing, huh?” came a voice from behind her. It was Lieutenant Jon Calder, his voice tinged with frustration. He was staring at the screen that should have been giving them a signal, but instead, it displayed nothing but static.

Renna didn’t turn to face him, her eyes locked on the blank screen. “Nope. Whatever is out there, it’s silent.”

Jon let out a long breath. “This is ridiculous. We’ve been orbiting this damn planet for two weeks, and every scan comes back with nothing. No energy signature, no signs of life, not even background radiation. It’s like this place doesn’t even exist.”

Renna’s fingers danced over the controls, flicking through systems and screens. There were glitches everywhere. The communications array had been acting up for days, as though something was interfering with the station’s ability to scan the surrounding space. But no matter how much she tinkered, it was all the same. Silence.

“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Jon said, his voice softer now. “I mean, how can you keep staring out into that void, waiting for a sign of life when everything just… feels wrong?”

She was about to respond, but then the console beeped, sharp and sudden, cutting her off. Renna’s heart skipped a beat. The static on the screen shifted, and something—a shape—appeared.

“Wait… is that a ship?” Jon whispered, leaning in closer.

Renna’s fingers froze over the controls as the image cleared. It was a ship, but not one that was supposed to be there. Its hull was unlike anything in the Federation’s records—cracked and torn, as though it had been drifting through space for centuries. But there was something more chilling. The ship wasn’t just empty—it was silent. No life signs. No movement. Just the black void surrounding it.

“How is this possible?” Jon muttered. “There’s no record of any ship in this system.”

Renna swallowed hard, her mind racing. “This doesn’t feel right, Jon.”

Before either of them could react, the communication panel flickered to life with a sharp crackle. A voice emerged from the static—a voice that didn’t sound human at all.

“You should not have come.”

Renna and Jon exchanged a glance, both of them frozen in place. The voice was deep and resonant, with an unsettling mechanical undertone that made their skin crawl.

“Who is this?” Renna demanded, her pulse quickening. “Who are you?”

The voice didn’t answer immediately. There was a pause, a static hiss, then the words came, slow and deliberate.

“We are the remnants. The last echoes. We… are not alive in the way you understand. We were once, but no more. Now, we wait.”

Jon moved instinctively toward the communications array. “Wait for what?”

“For you,” the voice answered, the last word lingering in the air like a shadow.

The room seemed to grow colder. Renna could feel the shift in the atmosphere, as if the very space around them was bending, stretching thin. Her breath caught in her throat as the words settled in her mind.

“What do you want from us?” she whispered, the question barely escaping her lips.

“You already know,” the voice replied, with an eerie calmness. “We are here, in the empty spaces between stars. And you are now part of it.”

Suddenly, the image on the screen shifted again. The ship, once clear and ominous, now seemed to shimmer and distort, as though it were no longer a solid object but something alive—something that was bleeding into the very fabric of space.

Renna took a step back. “Jon, we need to shut this down. Now.”

But as she turned to do so, the voice came again, softer this time, a mere whisper on the edge of her mind.

“We have always been here, Lieutenant Vos. And we will always be waiting.”

The station’s lights flickered. And then, everything went dark.

Renna’s last thought before the darkness overtook her was the same chilling realization that haunted her mind: They were never meant to be found.