They were steadfast, piercing dots of light against the endless black. Lieutenant Hargreaves often thought about that, especially during the long, silent hours manning the comms on the HMS Sovereign, one of the crown jewels in Her Majesty's Interstellar Fleet. He'd signed up for adventure, for the chance to see those stars up close. But out here, in the silence, he felt small. Insignificant against the vastness of space. That insignificance never seemed more profound than it did at that moment, with the comms dead silent and the ship cut off from the rest of humanity. "We're in the soup now, ain't we?" Sergeant O'Sullivan muttered from his station at the sensor array. "Nothing but static for hours." Hargreaves didn't reply, focused on the console as his fingers danced across the controls. Protocol demanded they maintain communication with command, but space was a big place. Sometimes, signals got lost. Sometimes, though, that silence meant something else. Something more ominous.