Kaelen stared at the black void outside the Vigilant's shattered viewport. The stars, distant and indifferent, offered no comfort. The ship was dying. Its systems were barely functioning, the life support systems a ticking clock that could fail at any moment.
"Do you hear that?" Mira's voice broke the silence.
Kaelen turned toward her, his brow furrowed. "What?"
"The hum," Mira said, her eyes scanning the room. "It's not the ship... it's something else."
Kaelen's heart skipped a beat. He had been so focused on the ship's immediate failure that he hadn't noticed the faint vibrations in the walls, the subtle hum that pulsed in a rhythm he didn't recognize. He had thought it was a residual effect of the entity's defeat, but now—now it was different.
Mira walked toward the ship's console, her fingers brushing over the shattered control panels. A crackling sound emanated from the damaged speakers.
"This isn't just a failure of the Vigilant's systems," Mira said, her voice tense. "This is... something else. Someone's out there."
Kaelen's heart pounded as he stepped closer, scanning the broken consoles for answers. He hadn't felt it before, but now that she mentioned it, the air around him seemed to shimmer, like the ship was caught in some sort of energy field.
"Do you think it's another ship?" Kaelen asked, narrowing his eyes. It couldn't be. They were too far out in the uncharted sectors for anyone to stumble across them. But the idea gnawed at him. What if they weren't truly alone?
Mira didn't respond immediately, but Kaelen could see her fingers moving across the console, trying to reconnect some of the ship's damaged systems. A low beep echoed through the room.
"It's a signal," Mira said softly, her face pale. "An encoded transmission."
"From where?" Kaelen asked, leaning over her shoulder, a sense of dread filling his gut.
"I don't know," Mira replied. "But it's coming from somewhere outside the system. Outside our known reach."
The implications were terrifying. They were stranded, barely able to stay alive, and now someone—or something—was reaching out to them from the unknown.