Beyond The Horizon

Chapter 6 — Signals In The Dark

Kael stared into the night of Exile Prime from a cliff on Exile Prime. While the wind whispered low secrets across the desolate plains, unidentified constellations blazed coldly in the sky above him. Though no longer complete, the planet's stillness was haunting. Pulsating was a signal. Two nights earlier, he had heard a low, rhythmic burst cutting through the communication interface's static. It wasn’t natural. It was organized. Structure. A code.

 Kael had worked through old Alliance encryption formats and spent hours decoding the pulses, but nothing matched. The Erevan's black box did not produce the signal. It also didn't match the emergency beacon on the base. This was completely different. The signal got stronger tonight. Kael followed the readings deeper into the shadows as he descended into a narrow ravine with a stun rifle in one hand and a portable receiver clutched in the other. The footsteps echoed. The air thickened with moisture. Strange fungi clung to the rocks and shone faintly, like embers that had burned out. He finally saw it. a small, overgrown, rusted, but functional relay tower. Lights blinked red and green on its surface. It was futuristic, alien technology. Alliance, not Erevan. Kael drew nearer. The signal got stronger, and then, all of a sudden, a voice sounded alive. “…Kael… if you’re hearing this, you’re not alone…”

 He felt his heart pound against his ribs. That voice was familiar to him. His mother’s.

 I'm short on time. They are observing. If you’ve come this far, you need to know everything you’ve been told was a lie. The Erevan crashed more than once. We were escorted here...” Static.

 With shaking hands, Kael froze. How could her voice be here, transmitting from a foreign relay tower on a supposedly lifeless planet?

 He ran diagnostics on the tower. The log files were old. Seven years. Pre-dated the Erevan’s crash by two months. This information was planted. Kael's thoughts raced. Had she known? Had she planned this? Why leave this message in the middle of nowhere, written in a language that only a small number of people could understand? Suddenly, something rustled in the shadows.

 Kael spun, rifle raised. His eyes scanned the dark terrain. Nothing. The only sound in the gorge is the howling wind. However, the sensation of being watched persisted. He copied the transmission onto his device and backed away from the relay tower. He kept looking over his shoulder as he went back up the ravine. Back at his makeshift base, he replayed the message a dozen times. The voice, though cracked and filled with interference, was unmistakably her. She had been alive before the Erevan went dark… and she’d known the truth.

 He pulled out his mother’s old journal, the one he had found inside the Erevan wreckage. There were coordinates scribbled in the margins, ones that hadn’t made sense before. They now matched the location of the relay tower. He was brought here by her. What else had she taken with her? Kael began triangulating the signal's origin source. The relay was repeating something, not broadcasting itself. He found himself further into Exile Prime's uncharted territory than his scanner maps could show by following the trajectory. Additionally, there was an additional signal that was hidden beneath the primary one. More corrupted and tightly encrypted. He spent hours isolating it. A shadowy, humanoid, but wrongly disguised figure flickered on the screen as he finally broke through. Before turning black, the video lasted only a few seconds. Not all signals bring comfort.

 Kael sat in silence. The mystery seemed to be bigger than him, the Erevan, and even his mother's secrets for the first time. Something was out there watching, waiting. It now knew that he was listening. He powered down the comms and stared at the stars.

 Tomorrow, he would go deeper.

 Tomorrow, he would follow the signal into the dark.