Maks and Lena are sent into orbit to fix a satellite that has gone silent. Instead, they fly straight into a strange glowing cloud that seems to swallow signals, machines, and maybe their ship too.
Maks pressed his forehead to the giant glass of Ganymede Orbital Station and stared at Earth turning slowly below them, blue, white, and impossible against the dark.
Beside him, Lena tightened the last bolt on the repair laser clipped to the Mayster robot’s arm. Her dark fringe had fallen into her eyes again, but she didn’t bother brushing it away.
"Think we’ll find anything interesting today?" she asked.
Maks snorted and pulled on his spacesuit, the School of Young Technicians badge flashing on his sleeve. "We’re chasing disappearing satellite signals. That already counts as interesting."
Before Lena could answer, Captain Sophie’s voice crackled through the station speakers.
"Maks! Lena! Airlock, now. We’ve lost contact with another satellite."
Their faces changed at the same time. For a week, satellites across orbit had been vanishing from the monitors one by one, always over the same far-off sector. One moment they were there. The next, nothing but static.
A few minutes later, the repair pod drifted free of the station. Maks strapped himself in at the control panel while Lena checked the Mayster’s tools one last time. The capsule shivered, then settled into its course.
"Course locked on ECHO-7," the computer said. "Estimated arrival: three minutes."
Maks watched the gauges. Lena kept her eyes on the window, where specks of debris glimmered and distant satellites blinked like scattered sparks.
Then she stiffened.
"Maks. Look."
Ahead of them, something grey began to spread through space. It shimmered faintly, as if someone had poured smoke through a broken mirror. The closer they flew, the thicker it became, curling around the stars.
A warning flashed red across the screen.
Non-standard signal interference detected.
The pod lurched so hard that Maks grabbed the armrests. The Mayster gave a sharp metallic whine. On the monitor, ECHO-7 was already fading into the strange cloud, its signal breaking apart in jagged blue lines.
Then a voice hissed through the speakers.
Not a voice exactly. More like a whisper made of static and clicks, as if something was trying very hard to speak.
"Maks," Lena breathed, reaching for his hand. "Do you hear that?"
He opened his mouth to answer, but the lights inside the pod flickered once, twice, and the grey cloud burst into a ring of shimmering sparks around them. Every screen went wild at once.
A new message flashed across the main monitor, letter by letter, as though something outside had just noticed them.
BEGIN TRANSMISSION...