Dark Transmission

The radio crackled, a thin whisper against the oppressive silence of space. Captain Elias Vance sat motionless in his seat, eyes locked on the blinking red light of the distress beacon. It pulsed like a heartbeat—steady, insistent—somewhere in the void ahead.

"Unidentified vessel, this is Captain Vance of the Orion's Wake. Do you read me?"

No response.

The beacon had been transmitting for nearly an hour, yet no ship appeared on the scanner. Just an empty patch of black, speckled with distant, indifferent stars. It made no sense.

"Captain, I don't like this," said Lieutenant Marek, his co-pilot. His voice was tight, edged with unease. "This isn't normal. A distress signal without a source?"

Vance exhaled. Marek was right, but the signal was unmistakably human—an old Federation code, one not used in decades. And there was something else, buried beneath the static. A voice. Fragmented, distorted, but pleading.

Help me.

The words sent a chill through him. He tapped the console, adjusting the frequency, trying to clean up the transmission.

"Keep trying to establish visual contact," he ordered.

Marek hesitated but nodded. The ship's thrusters fired, carrying them closer to the anomaly.

Then, the signal changed.

Not in frequency, not in strength—but in nature. The distress call dissolved into something deeper, something that felt alive. A sound that hummed through the ship’s metal bones, vibrating in Vance’s chest.

A presence.

The lights flickered.

The beacon was no longer a plea.

It was a lure.

Marek shouted something, but his voice was lost as the ship lurched violently, drawn forward by an unseen force. Alarms screamed, and the stars outside stretched, twisted. The Orion's Wake was no longer moving by its own power.

A shadow took form beyond the viewport, vast and unknowable.

And then, silence.

Vance opened his eyes, gasping. The cockpit was dark, the only illumination the dim emergency lights flickering along the walls. The air smelled metallic, sharp with ozone.

"Marek?" His voice felt distant, like he was speaking through water.

No answer.

Vance forced himself up, his limbs sluggish. The Orion’s Wake was intact, but it felt… wrong. The hum of the engines was gone. The gentle vibration of the ship’s systems was absent. It was like being inside a dead thing.

He reached for his comm. "Bridge to engineering. Any damage report?"

Static.

His pulse quickened. He turned toward Marek’s station, but the seat was empty.

"Marek?" He swallowed and glanced at the scanner. It was still running—but now, instead of empty space, the display showed something enormous directly in front of them.

A structure. No, a vessel.

It was massive, stretching far beyond the ship’s limited scanners. Its surface was dark, pulsing with faint bioluminescent patterns like veins under alien skin. The sight of it made his stomach turn. It wasn’t just abandoned. It was something else entirely.

Movement flickered across its surface. Shadows shifting, writhing. Watching.

Vance clenched his jaw. His instincts screamed at him to turn the ship around and fire the engines, but there was no response from the controls.

Something had them in its grip.

A metallic clang echoed through the hull.

Vance spun toward the sound. It had come from behind him, somewhere deeper in the ship.

The cockpit door stood ajar, its emergency lock disengaged. Had Marek left? Or had something else come in?

He hesitated for only a second before stepping forward.

The corridors were wrong.

Vance had walked these halls for years, knew every panel, every turn. But now, they felt unfamiliar—longer, narrower. The shadows seemed deeper, stretching impossibly far.

He reached the crew quarters, the door already half-open. Inside, the room was empty.

No sign of Marek.

Instead, the walls were covered in something… organic. Thin strands of dark, web-like growth spread across the surfaces, pulsating slightly, as if breathing. It reminded Vance of deep-sea creatures, the way they moved with unseen currents.

At the center of the room stood the source of the signal.

A beacon, old and corroded, half-embedded in the wall like a parasite. Its red light still pulsed, sending out its relentless call.

Help me.

Vance stepped closer, breath shallow. The voice sounded clearer now, more human.

But there was something wrong with it.

It repeated the words exactly the same way each time, the cadence identical. Not a distress call. A recording. A loop.

A trick.

He turned sharply at the sound of movement.

Something shifted in the doorway.

It was Marek.

But something was wrong. His stance was stiff, unnatural. His head tilted slightly as he looked at Vance, eyes too wide, too vacant.

"Marek?" Vance’s voice was cautious.

Marek’s lips moved, but the words that came out weren’t his own.

"Help me."

The same voice from the signal.

Vance took a step back. "Marek, what happened?"

Marek took a shuddering breath, and for a split second, something flickered across his face. A flash of fear. Awareness.

Then, his body convulsed.

A wet, tearing sound filled the room as something moved beneath his skin. Black veins spread from his neck, down his arms, twisting like tendrils. His mouth opened as if to scream, but only silence came.

Vance reacted on instinct, grabbing the nearest weapon—a maintenance rod from the wall—just as Marek lunged.

He barely dodged in time. Marek’s movements were jerky, unnatural, like a marionette with its strings tangled. His fingers twitched, elongated, as if they were becoming something else.

Vance swung. The impact sent Marek crashing against the wall, but he didn’t stay down. His body twitched, limbs moving in ways they shouldn’t.

Then, without warning, he stopped.

For a moment, silence.

And then—

His mouth moved again, but this time, it was Vance’s own voice that echoed back at him.

"Captain Vance of the Orion’s Wake. Do you read me?"

A perfect imitation.

Vance’s blood ran cold.

He turned and ran.

He sprinted back to the cockpit, heart hammering. The ship was still locked in place, the monstrous vessel looming ahead.

He had to get out.

Slamming his hands against the console, he overrode the failsafes, rerouting what little power was left into the emergency thrusters.

Something was inside Marek. Inside the Orion’s Wake.

And it wanted more.

The engines groaned to life. The ship shuddered, fighting against whatever held it. Warning sirens blared, but he ignored them, pushing the thrusters beyond safe limits.

The thing wearing Marek’s face appeared at the cockpit door.

It didn’t run this time. It only watched.

The ship lurched.

The pull from the alien vessel weakened for a split second—long enough.

Vance hit the emergency burn.

The Orion’s Wake tore free, the sudden acceleration slamming him into his seat. The monstrous ship vanished behind them, shrinking into the abyss.

The radio crackled.

"Help me."

Vance’s breath came fast, his hands still gripping the controls. The distress beacon still pulsed. Still sending its call.

The scanners showed nothing behind them. No pursuit. No sign of the alien vessel.

No sign of Marek.

Just empty space.

Vance swallowed hard, staring at the console.

The ship was quiet again.

But the distress beacon wasn’t.

It had stopped broadcasting.

Instead, a new signal pulsed from the ship’s systems.

Not a call for help.

A call to something else.

And it was already being answered.