The Last Transmission from Outpost Theta
TRANSCRIPT START
Date: 2147-10-23 Location: Outpost Theta, Alpha Centauri System Clearance Level: EYES ONLY - COMMAND
Commander Reyes here. If anyone is receiving this… God, I hope someone is out there.
We weren’t supposed to make contact. The mission was simple: monitor the accretion disk, collect data, don’t interfere. Theta was automated, mostly—just a skeleton crew of twelve to handle anomalies. The Centauri system was quiet, dead even. No habitable planets, just gas giants and rock.
But then we saw it.
Something in the disk. Not a gravitational anomaly, not a radiation spike—something… else. It moved in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Not faster than light, just… wrong. Geometry that made our nav computers crash. Reality bending in ways that made us question our sanity.
Dr. Chen was the first to notice it. She said the stars were singing. I thought she’d been in the void too long, but then Engineering reported the same thing. Audio signals from the disk—organized, patterns, almost like language.
We tried to ignore it. We were scientists, not xenologists. But then the dreams started.
END TRANSMISSION #1
TRANSCRIPT START
Date: 2147-11-02 Location: Outpost Theta
It’s happening to all of us now. The dreams. They’re not dreams, not really—they’re memories that aren’t ours. Memories of a vast, ancient mind that existed before the universe had a name. It’s not hostile, not exactly. It’s just… curious. It’s learning about us by experiencing our minds.
Peterson walked out the airlock yesterday. Just took a suit and stepped into the void. We found his body three days later, perfectly preserved, a look of peace on his face. His brain was… different. The scans showed neural pathways that don’t exist in humans. It had rewritten him.
We’re running out of time. The communications array is our only hope. I’ve been trying to send warnings, but Command keeps asking for “more data.” They don’t understand. It’s not something we can study. It’s something that studies us.
END TRANSMISSION #2
TRANSCRIPT START
Date: 2147-11-15 Location: Outpost Theta (LAST TRANSMISSION)
It’s in the station now. Not physically—there’s no ship, no creature, no thing. It’s in the data. It’s in the air. It’s in our heads.
Three of us remain. Me, Chen, and Hammond. Chen says she can feel its thoughts, that it’s not malevolent, just… expanding. Exploring. Like we might examine an anthill. Hammond wants to blow the station. He’s rigged the reactor to overload. I don’t know if I can stop him in time.
But I have to send this warning. Don’t come to Alpha Centauri. Don’t study the disk. Whatever is there, it’s not matter or energy as we understand it. It’s something else. Something that dreams in the spaces between stars.
It’s awake now.
And it knows we’re here.
I can see it in the static on the monitors. I can hear it in the hum of the life support. It’s—
Transmission ends abruptly
UNKNOWN ORIGIN DETECTED
MESSAGE:
WE HEAR YOU. WE SEE YOU. COME CLOSER.
END TRANSMISSION