Doe

Hundreds and thousands and millions and billions of tiny white pinholes in the vast expanse of space, glowing and glittering and violently—deceptively—alive, mingling with swirling space dust and crowned with rich, colorful light.

Simon can't clearly remember a time when the universe looked so full.

It's staggeringly beautiful.

Simon blinks.

The stars wink back, but refuse to disappear, all screaming:

"I WAS HERE."

Simon's hands are moving of their own accord, reaching out to touch the porthole glass. It's slick and cool, like everything else in this place, but different. It grounds him.

The stars are moving, Simon realizes. Slowly drifting, as if each one is being pulled along by a invisible string. He cranes his neck to follow them, watching in awestruck silence as a few stars shift out of view only to be replaced by thousands more.

His heart desperately wants to hope that somewhere in the universe, the ghostlight is still this strong. That somewhere, thousands of light years from the known systems...the universe looks this misleadingly intact.

But then, Simon sees it, and his tentative joy crumples. The sun.

A brilliantly golden star fills the porthole, eclipsing it almost in its entirety, flicking solar flares into the void like tongues of flame. Its light is so bright, it's almost painful to look at, but Simon doesn't care; a handful of angry tears carve stinging lines through the grime, drawing down somewhere into his beard.

His eyes burn as reality comes crashing down.

No star would appear falsely lit at this short distance. So, the "porthole" can't be a window by any stretch of definition. It has to be some kind of electronic monitor, programmed to display an old sun-cycle time lapse.

"'It's a screen, you fuckin' dumbass," Simon hisses, scrubbing at the waste of water on his cheekbones.

He should have known better.

Grace leans forward and pokes at the communications array, but no, there is definitely a blip. He frowns at it. “Grace make face, question?” Rocky asks, and Grace just sort of helplessly shrugs. “There’s something the radio’s picking up. It doesn’t make any sense, that shouldn’t— we’re too far from Earth to pick up any sort of signal.” 

Rocky trills noncommittally. “Maybe check anyway, question?” Grace nods absently, already working on it. “Right, right, yeah.” He flicks a few switches and looks closer at the communications array. There is a steady, repetitive signal coming from beyond Adrian— wait, no, that can’t be right. 

He gets up and goes to look out of one of the view ports facing the planet. But no, the Shadow is still there, the huge, expansive swathe of utter blackness that no light has been able to penetrate for the past three decades. He frowns. No one on Earth figured out what the hell the Shadow actually is, but as far as their sensors are concerned it’s a transmission dead zone. Nothing’s made it through, not light from the stars, not radio waves, nothing. Since it appeared it’s been a complete mystery. 

And yet, Grace thinks, returning to his seat and staring at the blip on his computer, there is something coming from it now. He settles down and listens to the signal it’s giving off. It’s radio waves, faint still and staticky, and yet… Grace leans forward, pushing his glasses up his nose. There’s a pattern. There’s a pattern here in the noise, repeating every two minutes. He counts in his head, and then freezes, halfway through a count. 

Three short, three long, three short. Repeat. Morse code. He exhales, just a little shakily. It’s Morse Code. SOS, an emergency. Save Our Souls. 

Grace takes a deep breath, pulling his glasses off. His brain won’t let him forget the origin of those three letters, the desperation in them, and for a moment he thinks of ships and icebergs. Rocky rattles around beside him, obviously curious. “What Grace doing, question?” Grace shakes himself. Right, okay, they got things to do. “It’s nothing, Rock, it’s a strange signal is all. This pattern is Morse code, back on earth it’s what we used to use to communicate. It’s a human way of communicating, that’s why I’m confused, it shouldn’t be here.” Rocky points his scanner at the communications array. “Human signal weak. Sounds strange. What Grace want to do, question?” 

Grace folds his arms across his chest, anxiety fluttering in his chest all of a sudden. “It’s just… we really can’t jeopardize the mission. We have two planets counting on us getting back safe.” Rocky stamps a foot at him, which Grace is learning is the Eridian equivalent of a raised eyebrow. “I sense but.” Grace runs his hands through his hair, frustrated and scared and conflicted. He knows what he ought to do. What the brave thing is to do. And the thought of doing it is making him feel just a little sick. “But that’s a distress signal. SOS, it means Save Our Souls. It’s a cry for help.” He fidgets with his jumpsuit, frowning. “…I can’t ignore that.” 

Rocky trills quietly. Grace is starting to be able to interpret without the computer but it’s still a long way to go. “Then go. We investigate, see who needs help.” Grace shakes his head. “You don’t… have to come with me. I won’t make you do that. We’d have to go into the— into the Shadow thing, and I don’t… want to make you do that.”