He looked out the reinforced viewport. The "Ghost-Light" was a phenomenon the miners on the nearby moon of Caelus feared most. It was a shimmering, violet aurora that didn't just dance in the atmosphere—it ate through electromagnetic shielding. It was appearing now, threading through the stars like a silk ribbon. The Broken Bridge

Elias didn't use a computer; the AI on the station had been "blinded" by the solar winds weeks ago. He used a manual cipher wheel, a relic of the Old World. As he aligned the brass rings, the gibberish began to bleed into meaning. : Ghost-Light. BaenBx : Broken Bridge. ZJtX : Zero Hour. The message wasn't a greeting. It was a countdown. The Ghost-Light

Elias didn't grab his logs or his personal mementos. He grabbed the manual cipher wheel. If the transmission had come through, it meant someone was on the other side of the violet veil, waiting for the signal to be returned.