The observatory dome groaned faintly as it rotated into position, metal ribs shivering in the cold wind sweeping down from the Andean peaks. Inside the small control room, the air smelled of old coffee, ozone, and dust a place lived in, isolated, yet vital for mankind.
Dr. Lila Reyes leaned forward in her chair, elbows pressed into the armrests, dark brown curls tied back in a loose knot. The glow of half a dozen monitors painted her face in shades of pale blue and orange. Behind her, the night sky stretched out in silence but on-screen, something stirred.
She narrowed her eyes. "Again?" she whispered.
There it was a single blip on a data stream that should have been quiet, should have been empty. Faint. Precise. Moving just off Neptune's orbital fringe. Too large to be debris. Too slow for a comet. Too consistent for anything natural.
She tapped the black, coffee stained console and pulled up previous records. "Three days ago... two weeks ago... no anomaly. This is new." Eyes darting between the luminous data on the screen.
The software chirped as a scan was completed. Mass estimates: unknown. Composition: partially metallic, partially non-terrestrial. Structure: rigid, artificial. Power source: low-grade emissions. No propulsion.
Her pulse quickened.
Lila, with shaky hands keyed in a command to reroute the telescope's full array. Her gloved fingers hovered over the input panel, trembling ever so slightly more.
She hadn't felt this alive in years.
Not since before the summit in Geneva. Not since before her funding was slashed and her colleagues were reassigned to Earth-monitoring satellites. "Resource priority," they'd said. "Eyes down, not up."
But Lila had insisted. Quietly, stubbornly, she stayed. Her father had taught her to chase the stars, even when the world fell apart around her.
"One day you'll find something out there, mi cielo," he once told her. "Something bigger than all this mess."
She pressed a finger to her lips and exhaled slowly. "Looks like you were right, Papá."
She initiated a long-range spectral analysis and locked the telescope's feed into a classified encrypted channel. Only one agency would be listening this high up, unless they outsourced more work to outside agencies. Again.
Her screen flickered, something made a whizzing sound and the screen turned black.
Lila looked at the black screen in utter befuddlement for a full second, before slumping in the chair and sighing, knowing she will have to go through weeks worth of paperwork to get to someone with access to the history and another week of paperwork to actually access the history.
"I'm so done with these machines."
In her frustration Lila threw her half empty mug of coffee at the machine, cracking the screen and spilling onto the keyboard.
She looked at the cracked screen and froze.
A message blinked at the bottom:
Signal intercepted. Forwarding to Orbital Defense Command.
Lila's shoulders tensed.
So much for keeping it quiet.
Elsewhere...
Location: Secure Uplink Relay – Greenland Subterranean Complex
Timestamp: UTC +0. 03:14
A low, rhythmic hum filled the underground control room — part machine, part breathing organism. Dozens of monitors glowed in unison, monitored by tired-eyed analysts in dark uniforms. One screen blinked angry red.
NEW CONTACT: DEEP SYSTEM OBJECT — CLASS UNKNOWN
Source: Reyes/Lunar Andes Observatory
Trajectory: Stationary orbit, heliocentric
Initial threat assessment: Pending
A man in a black coat leaned forward, eyes narrowing at the feed.
"No propulsion, no life signs, but it's broadcasting... something." He looked from the screen to that of his commanding officer in front.
"AI scrubbers are still decoding the signal," the analyst replied, looking down at the screen again. "It's old. Corroded. Could be millennia." His eyes widened. "It couldn't have been us; we literally left the planet not a century ago." His left hand cracked his fingers, a nervous tick he developed when he was still a grunt fighting the Amazonian Insurgency in Brazil 12 years ago.
He looked over the data once again before signaling his officer.
"Notify the Strategic Resource Council," he said. "And get me the Defense Secretary. Quietly."
"What should we tell them?"
"That Earth may not be alone after all."
Back at the Observatory...
The night had deepened. The telescope's motors hummed like a mechanical heart, still locked on target.
Lila sipped lukewarm tea and reread the preliminary scans. Alloy composition: unidentifiable. Internal structure: compartmentalized. Energy traces: consistent, weak, stable.
It wasn't a rock.
It wasn't a natural satellite.
It was a ship.
Or something like one.
The thought itself sent her mind reeling.
On the monitor, the object now had a visible profile — a sleek, elongated silhouette half-obscured by radiation blur. No lights. No movement. But its presence was undeniable.
Her fingers hovered above the mic button.
She could call the university, notify her peers, and report it to the press.
Instead, she stared at the blinking "forwarded to military command" status and closed her hand.
They'll take it from here, she thought. They always do.
Still, she reached for a notebook and began to sketch the vessel's outline. Whatever it was, she didn't want its first contact with humanity to be through a committee or a war room, or God forbid a full nuclear strike.
She wanted it recorded by someone who still believed in wonder.
Outside, the wind howled across the mountains, and far above, something drifted silently through the void — waiting.