Chapter 2: Eight Hundred and Twelve

The message was forty seconds long. Most of it was static, the hollow roar of deep space that every relay operator learned to tune out. But under the static, faint and steady, was a woman's voice.

Kepler Station, this is Meridian. We are adrift. Life support at nine percent. Requesting immediate assistance. Duty officer Devon Okafor, please respond. Devon, we know you are there. Please respond.

Dev played it nine times. Each time, the hair on his arms stood up at the same moment, when the voice said his name. Not his rank. Not his station number. Devon, the name only his mother still used.

"ARIA, run the origin."

"I have," she said. "The signal is coming from a point fourteen million kilometers outward, near the edge of the system. There is nothing charted there. No debris field, no beacon, no object large enough to reflect a signal."