Three students on a school mission to Jupiter’s moon Io uncover a hidden capsule in the station wall, and it sends a message that suggests they may not be alone.
The station in orbit around Io rattled with a low, constant hum, as if the metal itself were listening. Outside the viewport, Jupiter hung in the black like a giant bruised eye, striped with storm bands and ringed by pale light. Inside, artificial gravity pulled gently at Eve’s feet, enough to remind her that she was far from Earth and even farther from anything ordinary.
Eve, Igor, and Ali had spent weeks imagining this moment. The Space School called them the NextGen Expedition, a small team of teenage science students chosen from different countries for a month aboard one of humanity’s most dangerous outposts. They were supposed to learn, observe, and not break anything. So far, they had managed the first two.
For two days, they had followed the station’s schedule from one briefing to the next: simulations in the training room, equipment checks, long lessons streamed from Earth, and a brief walk along the observation platform where Io’s surface glowed dully beneath them, scarred by volcanic heat. It was beautiful in a harsh, unsettling way. Everything here felt slightly temporary, as if the moon itself could shake the station loose at any moment.
On the third morning, they were sent to inventory the storage bay near the energy bars and spare filters. The room smelled faintly of recycled air and cold plastic. Igor was halfway through scanning the shelves when he stopped so abruptly that Eve nearly collided with him.
“Wait,” he said, squinting at the wall.
A thin flicker ran across the panel beside the supplies, too fast to be a reflection. Eve frowned and stepped closer. The metal felt warm under her fingertips. Then, with a soft crackle from the speakers overhead, a narrow seam appeared where there had been no seam before.
The wall shifted.
A hidden compartment opened behind it, revealing a small capsule resting in darkness. It was no bigger than a lunchbox, but its surface shone with a dull, unfamiliar metal that caught the light in strange colours. A symbol pulsed on the front panel, sharp and angular, nothing like the standard markings used on the station.
Ali lifted her communicator and ran the symbol through the translator. Her eyes widened a second later.
“I think it’s ancient Martian,” she whispered. “Or something close to it.”
Igor gave a short laugh that sounded nervous even to him. “On a station orbiting Io? That makes total sense.”
Eve did not laugh. The capsule had started to vibrate, so faintly she could feel it through the soles of her boots. Before any of them could decide whether to touch it, the lid sprang open with a sharp hiss.
Cold light spilled into the storage bay.
Eve stumbled back. Igor raised a hand as if he could stop whatever was inside by sheer force of will. Ali stared at the capsule, her translator still open, the screen reflecting a pale blue glow across her face.
Then the light thickened and rose into the air, unfolding into a hologram.
A three-dimensional map of the solar system hovered above the crate, planets spinning in silence. But the image was wrong. The orbits bent in places they should not have bent. Thin lines flashed between Io and Jupiter, and then beyond them, stretching out toward the darker edge of the display, where no marker had been drawn before.
“It’s not a map,” Ali said, her voice barely audible. “It’s pointing to something.”
The hologram flashed once, blindingly bright.
All three communicators activated at the same time.
Unknown signal.
Unknown source.
A line of text appeared on every screen, and the words made Eve’s skin go cold:
If you can see this, you are no longer alone.