Chapter 1
Lift Off
The skiff hums awake as the aurora bends overhead. Instruments chatter, the crew whispers, and the stars finally answer back.
Drift Corridor
They slip into a corridor of drifting ice, halos of light refracting around the hull. Silence presses in—until the first radio ping.
Contact
A silhouette eclipses the moon. The crew braces, the captain smiles. “At last,” she says. “Someone heard us.”
