Rising To The Challenge

Mara isolated the waveform. Beneath the words ran a thin metallic pulse, steady as a tapping finger. The frequency shifted while she watched, climbing beyond the relay’s registered band, then dropping into a channel reserved for emergency beacons.

Her pulse tightened.

“Captain, the relay’s transmitting on our private maintenance band.”

Ilyan’s expression hardened. “That band isn’t public.”

“I know.”

“Could be a spoof.”

“Then I want proof before we leave.” Mara pushed back from the console. “A source trace, station logs, anything we can bring aboard. If someone is using that relay to reach us, we need to know who.”

The captain stared through the glass at the broken station. Its central spindle turned slowly, shedding glittering flakes of insulation. One of its solar wings had folded around the hull like a snapped arm.

“You want to board it.”

“I want to locate the source.”

“That is not what you said.”

“It’s what I mean.”

Behind them, the hatch to engineering clanged open. Joren Vale emerged with a coil of cable over one shoulder, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with coolant sweat. “If this is about the haunted station,” he said, “I vote we keep haunting it from here.”

Mara turned. “How long to rig a tether skiff?”

Joren looked at the captain. “You’re not actually considering this.”

“We need a source trace,” Mara said.

“We need a ship.” He dropped the cable beside the auxiliary console. “The relay’s navigation core is failing. You can see the orbit wobble from here. It could tumble into our hull before we finish saying goodbye.”

The station lurched across the forward display. Its rotation stuttered, stopped, then reversed by a fraction before resuming. A cloud of panels and antenna fragments drifted from its underside.

Mara magnified the relay’s docking collar. “There’s a service lock still intact.”

“There’s a service lock still attached,” Joren said. “Different thing.”

The speaker crackled.

“Caldera Nine,” the woman’s voice whispered. “Mara Voss - ”

Every sound in the cockpit seemed to contract around her name.

Joren went still.

Captain Ilyan’s eyes shifted to Mara. “Did you transmit your identity?”

“No.”

The signal broke apart, then reassembled in a voice that was neither male nor female.

“ - Mara Voss, crew manifest confirmed. Do not enter.”

The cockpit lights flickered.

Mara felt the old instinct rise - the urge to step back from anything that knew too much. She pressed it down. Fear was information, not instruction.

“Now we have proof,” she said.

Ilyan caught her wrist before she could reach the suit locker. “We have bait.”

“Then we find out what’s on the hook.”

“That is not a plan.”

“It’s the only one that gets us answers before the beacon changes again.”

As if summoned by the words, the transmission shifted. The tapping pulse accelerated. On Mara’s screen, the source trace jumped from the relay’s central spindle to the outer antenna ring, then to a point beyond the station entirely.

The coordinates flashed for less than a second.

Mara captured them.

The location lay inside the relay’s own orbit, but no object appeared there on the ship’s sensors.

“See?” she said. “It’s moving.”

Joren swore softly. “That station’s blind.”

“So are we,” Ilyan said. “Mara, you have twelve minutes. Get the source trace, retrieve a physical record, and return. No heroics.”

“I wasn’t planning any.”

“That’s when you’re most dangerous.”

The captain released her wrist. Mara crossed to the locker as the Caldera Nine groaned around them. The hull vibration traveled through her gloves when she sealed the suit collar. Joren followed, muttering as he checked her tether reel, thruster pack, and helmet seal.

“You hear the part where it used your name?” he asked.

“I heard it.”

“And you’re still going?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Mara looked at the relay turning beyond the glass. “Because it knew our crew manifest.”

Joren’s jaw flexed. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one I have.”

The skiff launched hard enough to drive her into the seat. The Caldera Nine fell away behind them, its running lights dimmed to conserve power. Ahead, the derelict relay expanded from a crooked silhouette into a maze of trusses, torn plating, and frozen docking arms.

The station’s navigation lights blinked in the wrong sequence.

Red. Red. Green. Black.

Then all three flashed at once.

Joren’s voice came through the suit channel from the pilot’s cradle. “Its guidance system just tried to dock with us.”

“Can you keep clear?”

“For the moment.”

The relay rolled. A broken antenna swung across their path, slow but enormous. Joren fired the skiff’s side thrusters. Metal slid past the canopy close enough for Mara to see frost feathered along its edges.

“Service lock ahead,” she said.

“Your definition of ahead is optimistic.”

The skiff spun as the relay’s gravity tug caught them. Warning symbols crawled across Mara’s visor. She reached for the manual controls and fired the tether harpoon.

It struck the docking collar with a bright flash.

The line snapped tight.

Joren grunted. “That was not the gentle approach.”

“Did it hold?”

“It held us.”

The station’s rotation dragged the skiff around its axis. Mara watched the docking lock cycle on her display. Green lights appeared, vanished, and appeared again.

“Open it.”

“It says the pressure is stable.”

“And?”

“And the pressure sensor is older than I am.”

“Joren.”

“Fine.”

The lock door split apart. A cloud of frozen dust burst into space, sparkling in the skiff’s lamps. The pressure alarm stayed silent.

Mara shoved off from the seat and caught the handrail by the hatch. Joren grabbed her shoulder.

“Three minutes,” he said. “Then I pull you out.”

“Make it five.”

“Three.”

She entered the relay.

The air inside was thin enough to make her suit complain. Her lamp cut across a corridor lined with dead consoles. Cables hung from the ceiling in black loops, brushing her helmet as she pushed through. Every surface carried a skin of frost. Somewhere deep in the station, a relay clicked at uneven intervals.

The sound matched the pulse in the distress signal.

Mara followed it.

The corridor tilted beneath her boots as the station’s failing navigation system corrected its spin. She caught a bulkhead and waited while the deck rolled through her body. A loose panel broke free ahead and drifted toward her. She slapped it aside, but it struck the wall and triggered a shower of sparks.

The station spoke.

“ - do not enter - ”

Mara froze.

The voice came through her suit receiver, not the ship channel. It was close, almost inside her helmet.

“Identify yourself,” she said.

The answer arrived as a burst of static.

Then: “Crew of Caldera Nine, you are not the first.”

A hatch ahead slammed shut.

Mara lunged for it and jammed her gloved fingers into the manual release. The mechanism resisted. Behind her, the corridor lights came alive one by one, leading back toward the docking lock.

Joren’s voice sharpened. “Mara, I’m seeing power spikes. Get back here.”

“I’m at the signal source.”

“Then take a picture and leave.”

She forced the hatch open. Beyond it, the relay’s control chamber rotated slowly, its walls crowded with dead screens. At the center floated a black data core inside a cage of magnetic braces. The core pulsed with a faint blue light.

Mara clipped her tether to the chamber rail and crossed toward it.

Her scanner swept the core. The display filled with corrupted data, then cleared.

CALDERA NINE - CREW MANIFEST ACCEPTED.

She stared at the words.

“Joren,” she said. “I found the recorder.”

“Bring it.”

The magnetic braces released.

The core dropped toward her.

Mara caught it against her chest. Its cold penetrated the suit layers at once, sharp enough to make her gasp. The chamber lights flared white. A line of text appeared across every screen.

LIVE TRANSMISSION AVAILABLE.

The speaker clicked.

“Mara Voss,” said a voice she knew.

Her breath stopped.

It was Captain Ilyan’s voice.

But the captain was aboard the Caldera Nine, forty meters away, shouting through her suit channel.

“Mara,” he said, “get out. Now.”

On the chamber screens, the same voice continued.

“Your crew is carrying something the relay was built to contain. Do not return to your ship. Do not trust - ”

The message distorted. The captain’s voice stretched into a metallic howl.

Then the screens steadied.

“ - the person who sent you here.”

Mara looked toward the hatch.

Joren’s voice came through, frantic now. “Mara, the service lock just sealed. I can’t override it.”

The chamber doors slammed shut behind her.

A deep vibration rolled through the station. Magnetic braces snapped into place around the data core in her arms, locking it against her suit. Red light flooded the room.

“Emergency quarantine engaged,” the relay announced.

Mara pulled at the core. It would not move.

On the nearest screen, new text appeared.

CREW IDENTIFICATION COMPLETE.

Then, beneath it:

WELCOME BACK, MARA VOSS.

End of chapter one. 14 more chapters and about 28,399 words in the full book.