The Last Broadcast from the Aethelstan

The words hung in the air, heavy and raw. Aris held Jax’s gaze, seeing the vulnerability beneath the anger. “I do see you, Jax,” he said quietly. “I see your brilliance, your passion. But you can’t let your emotions compromise your judgment. Not now. There’s too much at stake.”

Jax looked away, swiping at their eyes with the back of their hand. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Lyra’s voice broke the tense silence. “I think I may have found something.”

They both turned to look at her. She was staring at her screen, her brow furrowed in concentration. “While you two were… discussing things… I ran a deeper analysis on the core code. There’s something here. A pattern, almost hidden in the background noise.”

She typed rapidly, her fingers a blur. Lines of code scrolled across the display, seemingly random. Then, suddenly, they resolved into words.

*They are not what they seem. Find the one who sleeps but does not dream.*

A chill ran down Aris’s spine. “What the hell does that mean?”

Jax leaned closer, their eyes wide. “It’s a message. Someone left us a message.”

Lyra nodded slowly. “It was embedded deep in the system, tied to the sabotage algorithm. Whoever did this wanted us to find it.”

Aris stared at the words, his mind racing. They are not what they seem. Find the one who sleeps but does not dream. It sounded like a riddle, a warning. But of what? Or who?

The silence in the comms hub was no longer just an absence of sound. It was a presence, heavy and ominous, filled with the weight of the unknown. They were hurtling through space, cut off from Earth, surrounded by ten thousand sleeping colonists. And somewhere among them, hidden in plain sight, was a saboteur. A traitor. A threat.

Aris took a deep breath, steeling himself. “We need to wake them up. The one who sleeps but does not dream. We need to find out who they are, and what they know.”

He looked at Jax and Lyra, seeing the same determination in their eyes, the same resolve. They were in this together, for better or worse. The message was a clue, a starting point. But it was also a warning. Trust no one. Question everything.

The silence pressed in around them, no longer empty, but full of secrets. Full of danger. The only sound was the beating of their hearts, and the soft, relentless hum of the ship, carrying them forward into the unknown.

The words hung in the air, stark and undeniable. *They are not what they seem. Find the one who sleeps but does not dream.* A riddle wrapped in a threat. The three stood frozen.

Jax broke the silence. “Sleeps but does not dream… that has to mean one of the cryo-pods. Someone who’s awake, or partially awake, but still in stasis.”

Aris nodded, expression grim. “A sleeper agent. We have to wake them. It’s the only way to know for sure.”

Jax’s eyes widened. “Wake them? We have no idea who they are, or what they’re capable of.”

“What choice do we have?” Aris countered, voice sharp with tension. “We’re blind, Jax. We need answers, and this is the only lead we have.”

Jax bristled. “So we just wake up a potential saboteur and hope for the best? That’s your plan?”

“It’s the only plan we’ve got!” Aris snapped. “Unless you have a better idea?”

Jax took a step back, stung. “You always do this. You always dismiss me, brush aside my concerns. Just like you did before.”

Aris felt a pang of guilt. “This isn’t about before, Jax. This is about now. About the lives of everyone on this ship.”

“Is it?” Jax shot back. “Or is it about you being in control, like always? You never trusted me, Aris. Not really.”

The last words were barely a whisper. Aris stepped towards them, voice softening. “Jax… I do trust you. I trust your skills, your instincts. What happened between us… I never meant to hurt you.”

Jax looked away. “I know. I just… I wanted you to see me.”

“I do see you,” Aris said. “I see your brilliance, your passion. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like I didn’t.”

Lyra spoke, her voice a quiet intrusion. “I think I may have found something. A clue, in the crew manifest.”

They both turned. Lyra’s fingers flew across her console. “There’s an anomaly in the cryo-pod readings. One pod… it’s drawing more power. Just a fraction, but consistent.”

Jax leaned in. “Enough for partial awareness?”

Lyra nodded. “It’s possible. The occupant is listed as Elara Vance, a botanist. But there’s no record of her before the Aethelstan’s mission.”

A sleeper agent. Aris felt cold certainty. “That’s our saboteur.”

Jax took a deep breath, focused. “So we wake her up. See what she knows.”

“It’s a risk,” Aris acknowledged. “But one we have to take.” He looked at Jax, then Lyra. “We do this together. No secrets.”

Jax nodded. “Together. Always.”

Lyra smiled faintly. “Let’s bring her out of the dark.”

They moved towards the cryo-bay. The silence pressed in, full of watching eyes. Aris remembered the first sound he’d heard that day – the absence of it. Now, preparing to wake the sleeper, the silence felt more ominous than ever.

Who could they trust? The silence waited for an answer.