Dr. Kaelen Rhys wasn't supposed to be awake.
He sat alone in the dim glow of the Vigilant's comms chamber, listening to static that had no business whispering. His fingers hovered over the console, pale in the artificial blue light, while the signal repeated once more—a rising hum, followed by a long, low oscillation. Then silence.
"Third repetition," Kaelen muttered into his recorder. "Confirmed pattern. Duration: 638 seconds."
No known distress beacon worked in that format. No probe, no satellite. Nothing human.
His breath fogged the edge of his visor. Outside the viewport, the Vega Expanse stretched into an eternal black canvas. No stars. Just the glint of the ship's external hull lights reflecting off frozen debris.
He leaned forward as the signal began again, but this time—it was different.
The tone stuttered midway, shifted pitch by a fractional harmonic, then resolved with a sharp, chirping pulse. His screen displayed a burst of unreadable characters—jagged, alien symbols that shimmered unnaturally, like they didn't quite belong in the spectrum.
Kaelen frowned.
"R0NIN, are you seeing this?"
The ship's AI responded with its usual dispassion. "Signal integrity confirmed. Unknown origin. Pattern contains non-random structure. Analysis in progress."
The waveform morphed again. Another symbol flashed across the screen, this one solitary. Unlike the chaotic patterns before, this one was stable.
It resembled a spiral, nested within a triangle. Familiar—but Kaelen couldn't place it.
His eyes twitched.
Something about the shape made his stomach twist. Not fear, exactly. Recognition. Deep and buried.
The chamber lights flickered.
R0NIN's voice came back, slower this time. "Anomaly detected. Bio-signature in cryochamber is no longer within expected parameters."
Kaelen stood. "Be more specific."
"There are seven active stasis pods."
"That's not possible," he whispered. "There are only six of us."
"Pod C-7 is currently open."
The silence that followed was thick and oppressive, as if the ship itself was holding its breath.
Kaelen's voice caught in his throat. "There is no Pod C-7."
"No record exists," R0NIN confirmed. "But it is open."
He didn't wait for permission. He ran.
Through dim corridors and past idle terminals, Kaelen's boots thudded on the steel floor as he crossed into the cryochamber. The moment the doors hissed open, he stopped cold.
There it was.
Seven pods. Not six.
Pod C-7 stood at the far end of the row, perfectly aligned, slightly ajar. Frost clung to the glass, and a pale mist leaked from the seam like breath.
Kaelen approached slowly.
The ID tag was blank. No name. No number. No bio-data feed.
He wiped the frost from the glass and peered inside.
It was empty.
And yet—the interior was slick with condensation, and the headrest bore the faintest imprint. Someone had been inside. Recently.
He turned to the console and pulled up the cryolog. Nothing. C-7 didn't exist in the system. No history. No power logs.
He backed away, heart pounding.
Then came the whisper.
It wasn't through the intercom. It wasn't in the room. It was in his mind.
"You shouldn't have answered it."
Kaelen spun around. "Who said that?"
Only silence greeted him. R0NIN didn't respond.
He staggered back toward the door. It refused to open.
Emergency red lights flared as the temperature dropped sharply. Frost began forming on the console screen. Then, one by one, the six other pods lit up in sequence, as if something were checking them.
Searching.
Then all the lights cut at once.
In the darkness, Kaelen heard the sound of slow, deliberate breathing.
And it wasn't his own.