The Silence
Episode 92 of The
Scene: Deep Space
The wreck drifted in the dark like a broken crescent moon — metal torn open, ribs exposed, fragments trailing behind it like frozen ash. No lights. No movement. No signs of life.
Except for the signal.
A faint, looping broadcast repeating every 11 seconds:
“We are not alone. We were never alone.”
It had been transmitting for three centuries.
And tonight, a salvage crew finally reached it.
The Approach
The Kestrel slowed as it neared the derelict arc, floodlights sweeping across the shattered hull. Captain Rhea stood at the viewport, arms folded, jaw tight.
“Looks like it took a hit from the inside,” she murmured.
Her second, Jalen, checked the readings. “No power. No atmosphere. No thermal signatures.”
Rhea nodded. “Then who’s still broadcasting?”
The silence outside felt heavy — not empty, but expectant.
Boarding the Arc
They entered through a ruptured hangar bay, mag‑boots clamping onto the warped metal. The interior was worse — corridors twisted, bulkheads peeled open, wires hanging like veins.
No bodies. No blood. No signs of struggle.
Just silence.
A silence that swallowed their footsteps, their breathing, even the hum of their suits.
“Sound dampening?” Jalen whispered.
Rhea shook her head. “No. This is something else.”
The Search
They moved deeper into the arc, following the faint beacon signal. Every room was empty. Every console dead. Every door frozen mid‑cycle, as if the station had simply… stopped.
In the central atrium, they found a mural — cracked, scorched, but still visible.
A starfield. A spiral. A shape emerging from the dark.
Rhea stared at it.
“That’s not human,” she said quietly.
Jalen swallowed. “Maybe that’s what they saw.”
The Origin of the Broadcast
The signal led them to a chamber near the arc’s core — a communications hub torn open like a tin can. In the center stood a single functioning transmitter, jury‑rigged with cables and power cells scavenged from other systems.
It pulsed every 11 seconds.
“We are not alone. We were never alone.”
Rhea approached it slowly.
“This wasn’t automated,” she said. “Someone built this after the station died.”
Jalen checked the logs. “No signatures. No ID. No final message.”
Rhea frowned. “Then what were they replying to?”
The Discovery
Behind the transmitter was a viewport — cracked but intact enough to see the void outside.
Rhea stepped closer.
Something drifted there.
Not debris. Not metal. Not anything she recognised.
A shape. Long. Curved. Organic. Moving without moving.
It pulsed once.
The silence deepened.
Jalen whispered, “Captain… is it looking at us?”
Rhea didn’t answer. Because she felt it.
A pressure. A presence. A thought that wasn’t hers.
The arc hadn’t been destroyed by an attack.
It had been opened.
The Realisation
The transmitter pulsed again.
“We are not alone. We were never alone.”
Rhea exhaled. “It wasn’t a warning,” she said softly.
Jalen turned to her. “What was it?”
She stared at the drifting shape outside the viewport. “A reply.”
The silence pressed in around them — vast, ancient, patient.
Waiting.
The Ending
Back aboard the Kestrel, the crew prepared to leave, but the silence followed them — into their instruments, into their comms, into their dreams.
The broadcast continued. Not from the arc. From the void.
“We are not alone. We were never alone.”
And somewhere in the darkness, the shape drifted closer.
You’re never alone with a clone.