The Last Signal

 

Part I: The Outpost

Outpost Sigma-17 lay on the far edge of known space, perched on the inhospitable world of Praxis-9. Its only purpose was to monitor deep-space signals, tracking potential threats or anomalies in the uncharted expanse beyond the solar system. It was an isolated, lonely station where a crew of three operated in silence, maintaining the equipment and waiting for the faintest hint of activity in the void.

Captain Fiona Reyes stared out at the empty horizon. Nothing but vast, rocky plains and dark clouds swirling with static storms filled the landscape. The thin atmosphere of Praxis-9 barely supported human life, so the crew spent most of their time inside the station, venturing out only when repairs were needed.

“Anything yet?” Fiona asked as she entered the control room.

Dr. Samir Volkov, their resident astrophysicist, shook his head. “Same as always. Background noise from the cosmos, solar radiation, and a few pulsar signals. Nothing abnormal.”

Fiona sighed, her breath fogging in the cold, recycled air of the station. They had been stationed on Praxis-9 for six months, and so far, their mission had been mind-numbingly uneventful. The crew rotated every year, and Fiona’s team was reaching the halfway mark with nothing but monotony to show for it.

“What about you, Ash?” she asked their engineer, Ashira Patel, who sat at a terminal, staring at the endless data streams.

“Nothing exciting. Just another day in the black,” Ash replied, her voice heavy with boredom.

Fiona had expected this, of course. Sigma-17 was part of the Outer Rim’s early warning system, and with humanity expanding deeper into space, most outposts like this were automated. But Praxis-9 was too far out, too volatile for an unmanned station, so they had to have people on-site to handle any major malfunctions.

Still, Fiona couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. The isolation, the quiet—it gnawed at her, a tension she couldn’t quite place. It was as if the silence of space was waiting for something. Something dark, something unknown.

Part II: The Signal

That night, as Fiona lay in her cramped quarters, she heard it.

A faint, rhythmic beeping, so soft she thought she might be dreaming. She sat up, straining to listen. There it was again—a steady pulse, different from the usual background noise that filled the station. She pulled herself out of bed and hurried to the control room.

Ash was already there, staring at the console in disbelief. “You’re hearing this, right?” she asked, her voice tight with confusion.

Fiona nodded. “What is it?”

Ash pulled up the data. “It’s coming from deep space. A repeating signal, but not on any known frequency. It’s not interference, either. It’s deliberate.”

Samir entered the room, still half-asleep. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve picked up a signal,” Fiona said, pointing to the terminal.

Samir blinked, his tired brain slowly processing the information. “A signal? From where?”

Ash tapped a few keys, her brow furrowed. “That’s the thing. It’s coming from outside our galaxy. Somewhere in the intergalactic void.”

Fiona’s heart raced. Signals from outside the galaxy were unheard of. The distances involved were staggering, far beyond the reach of any human technology. “Are you sure it’s not a glitch?”

Ash shook her head. “I’ve triple-checked. It’s real. And it’s been repeating at regular intervals for the last twenty minutes.”

Samir leaned over the console, scanning the data. “This can’t be possible. The energy required to send a signal across that kind of distance… it would have to be enormous.”

“Could it be a natural phenomenon?” Fiona asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

Samir shook his head. “No. The pattern is too precise. This is artificial. Someone—something—is sending this.”

The three of them stood in silence, the weight of the discovery sinking in. This was what they had been trained for, what the station was built to detect. But none of them had ever expected to actually find something like this.

Ash looked up from the terminal. “What do we do?”

Fiona took a deep breath. “We record everything. Send it back to Command. They’ll want to analyze this as soon as possible.”

Samir nodded. “I’ll start decoding the signal, see if I can make sense of it.”

Ash began transmitting the data back to Earth, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “This might take a while. We’re a long way out.”

Fiona stared at the screen, watching the signal repeat itself over and over. The steady pulse, unchanging, relentless. Who—or what—was out there? And why had they sent this signal now?

Part III: The Translation

The following days passed in a haze of frantic activity. Samir worked tirelessly to decipher the signal, while Ash monitored the equipment for any changes. Fiona spent most of her time sending reports back to Command, but their distance from Earth meant that responses took days to arrive.

Finally, after nearly a week of work, Samir came into the control room with a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

“I’ve got it,” he said.

Fiona and Ash turned to him, their hearts pounding. “What did you find?” Fiona asked.

Samir held up a tablet, the screen filled with lines of data. “The signal isn’t just a message. It’s a warning.”

“A warning?” Ash repeated, her brow furrowed.

Samir nodded. “It took some time, but I managed to translate the core of the signal. It’s an alien language, highly advanced, but there are patterns that we can recognize. Whoever sent this… they were trying to tell us something.”

Fiona felt a chill run down her spine. “What does it say?”

Samir’s expression darkened. “It’s a warning about an event. Something catastrophic. The words don’t translate perfectly, but the closest approximation is ‘the collapse of the veil.’”

“What the hell does that mean?” Ash asked, her voice shaking.

“I’m not sure,” Samir admitted. “But the signal goes on to describe an entity—something powerful, something beyond our understanding. They call it ‘the Harbinger.’”

Fiona felt her stomach drop. “The Harbinger?”

Samir nodded. “The signal says that the Harbinger exists outside our reality. It’s been dormant, but something is waking it up. And once it crosses into our dimension, it will consume everything.”

Ash’s face went pale. “That’s insane. How could something like that exist?”

“I don’t know,” Samir said quietly. “But the signal’s creators—whoever they were—seemed to believe it. They sent this warning thousands of years ago, long before we ever existed. They wanted to warn whoever found it.”

Fiona stood in stunned silence, her mind racing. A signal from outside the galaxy, a warning about an ancient, unstoppable force… It was too much to process.

“What do we do?” Ash asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“We need to report this to Command,” Fiona said, her voice firm. “They need to know what we’ve found.”

Samir nodded. “I’ll compile the translation and send it with the data.”

As they worked, the weight of the warning settled over them like a shroud. They had uncovered something far bigger than themselves, something that could change the fate of the universe.

Part IV: The Disturbance

Days passed in tense silence. Fiona, Ash, and Samir waited for a response from Command, but no signal came. The isolation of Sigma-17 felt more oppressive than ever, the endless expanse of space pressing down on them with a suffocating weight.

Then, on the sixth day after they decoded the signal, something happened.

The ground shook.

Fiona was in the control room when it started—a low rumble, like a distant earthquake. She stood up, heart pounding, as the lights flickered and the consoles beeped in alarm.

“What the hell—?” Ash shouted, running into the room.

Samir followed, his face pale. “It’s coming from outside.”

Fiona grabbed her helmet and rushed to the station’s viewport. Outside, the sky was dark and turbulent, lightning crackling through the clouds. But it wasn’t a normal storm. The clouds were swirling, forming a massive vortex that stretched across the horizon.

“What is that?” Ash whispered, her voice filled with dread.

“It’s the Harbinger,” Samir said, his voice trembling. “The signal… it wasn’t just a warning. It was a trigger.”

Fiona’s blood ran cold. “What are you talking about?”

“The signal,” Samir said, his eyes wide with realization. “It was sent to warn us, yes. But it was also sent to wake up the Harbinger. By decoding it, by acknowledging it… we’ve unleashed it.”

Fiona’s heart pounded in her chest. “You’re saying we caused this?”

Samir nodded slowly. “The Harbinger exists outside our reality. The signal was a bridge, a way for it to cross over. And now, it’s here.”

A deafening roar echoed across the landscape, and the ground shook again, more violently this time. The vortex in the sky grew larger, darker, swirling with impossible energy.

“We have to get out of here!” Ash shouted, her voice frantic.

Fiona turned to the control panel, her fingers flying over the keys. “We need to send a distress signal. Command needs to know what’s happening.”

But as she tried to send the message, the console flickered and died. The station’s power was failing, systems shutting down one by one.

“We’re cut off,” Fiona muttered, her heart sinking.

Another roar filled the air, louder and closer. The vortex was descending, a massive, churning black hole of energy. And within it, Fiona could see… something. A shape, vast and incomprehensible, moving within the storm.

“The Harbinger,” Samir whispered, his voice filled with awe and terror.

Fiona grabbed Ash and Samir by the arms. “We need to get to the shuttle. Now!”

They ran through the station, the ground shaking beneath them, the walls groaning as the structure began to buckle. The roar of the storm followed them, growing louder, closer, as if the Harbinger itself was pursuing them.

They reached the shuttle bay, and Fiona slammed her hand against the control panel, opening the hatch. “Get in!”

Ash and Samir scrambled inside, and Fiona followed, sealing the hatch behind her. The shuttle’s engines roared to life, and they shot up into the sky, leaving the crumbling outpost behind.

But as they ascended, the vortex in the sky grew larger, its pull stronger. The shuttle’s systems beeped in alarm as the gravity field intensified.

“We’re not going to make it!” Ash shouted, gripping the controls.

Fiona’s eyes locked onto the vortex, where the shape within the storm had fully emerged. It was massive, a being of pure darkness, its form constantly shifting, growing, consuming everything in its path.

The Harbinger had crossed into their reality, and nothing could stop it now.

As the shuttle was dragged into the vortex, Fiona closed her eyes, a single thought echoing in her mind.

They had found the last signal.

And it had found them.