A Borrowed Cry Echoes Through Space

20260417

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

It was certainly a distress signal. The frequency, the words, even the urgent cadence, they were unmistakeable. But… it wasn’t quite right. It didn’t match any of the entries in the galactic signals database, yet was similar to all of them.
And it was coming from a ‘dead zone’.
All in all, everyone agreed it was a good thing that the little shipping frigate had decided not to follow intergalactic law and respond to the distress signal, instead diverting their route close enough to the nearest occupied region of space to relay what they’d detected.
Few things called for a Hazardous Exploration And Rescue Team these days, but they were still in operation, ready to leap into action as soon as ‘weird shit’ like this was discovered.
It was, apart from the uncanny distress signal, an entirely uninteresting debris field. Out in the middle of nowhere (even by intergalactic travel standards) with nothing of note in any of the scan or sample results.
Just that unending, unvarying call for help. Triangulation suggested it was coming from the centre of the field. Long-range scans weren’t finding anything. No power signals, no stray transmissions, not even a significant metal concentration.
Rocks. Empty space. And the signal.
Captain Lestari pursed his lips. Consulted with the rest of the team. Then decided to open a communications channel.
“This is the HEART vessel Yodello. We are responding to your distress signal. What is your situation?”
Seconds after the transmission (probably at the exact moment the signal reached whatever-it-was they were investigating), silence fell. Every eye was on the scanners, except for Dewi’s, whose focus was on the piloting system. Ready to get them the hell out at a moment’s notice.
A new signal. Choppy. Sounding eerily akin to Lestari’s voice, but maintaining the previous urgent cadence. “Yodello, this is… HEART. Situation situation situation… We need your help, we…” and it was right back into the looping distress signal.
“Seems it only has one trick.”
“To what end, though?” Second Officer Susanti leant back in her chair, eyes narrowed. “Sure, there’s been plenty of ships gone missing in this area which could have diverted into this field, but we’d be picking up traces. There’d be scraps. Electronics. Scanners got nothing. Unless this thing doesn’t leave remains…”
“That might be the case.” Engineer Santoso tapped a readout. “There’s a spot in the centre which nothing is bouncing back from. Completely swallowed. And it’s about where triangulation predicts the signal is being transmitted.”
“What do we think, then?” Lestari looked around at the team.
“I say we ram it.”
“For fuck’s sake, Sus!” Dewi exploded. “Just because ramming worked that one time with the puffball thing-”
“It might have worked more times, if you ever let me try it again!”
“Captain?” Santoso’s voice cut across their argument with the ease of practice. “Signal’s changed.”
Lestari leant over to listen.
“Yodello, we…” A series of garbled syllables, like someone was trying to find the average between unrelated languages. “We Heart we contain. Contain contain help help help cannot free help.”
Santoso raked her fingers through her crewcut hair, a nervous tic. “Hypothetically, if there was something that kept engulfing any ships which came near it, and they were, say, trapped inside with no way out, I imagine they’d be broadcasting distress signals non-stop. So if, hypothetically, whatever engulfed them was intelligent, those transmissions are something it could learn from. Right? But it wouldn’t have much chance to learn how to hold a conversation.”
“You once again come up with a very tidy and disturbingly plausible batshit scenario.” Lestari tapped in commands to try and tease apart the garbled sections. See if there were recognisable words buried somewhere in there. “So, some kind of ambush predator?”
“See?? Ramming it would’ve been a terrible idea!”
“Psh…”
“Focus, you two!” Lestari grumbled. “Move within short-range scanner distance. Carefully.”
“Aye-aye, captain.” Dewi’s hands hadn’t shifted from the controls, ever vigilant, and he deftly nudged them a little closer-
“HELP HELP HELP OUT THERE HELP OUT THERE HELP OUT THERE-”
“What the??”
While the previous transmissions had been urgent, this one sounded like screaming.
“Huh.” Susanti’s eyebrow raised. “I think it doesn’t want us getting closer.”
“That’d be odd behaviour for an ambush predator.”
“Very.”
Santoso ventured “Maybe it doesn’t like engulfing things?”
“Well. Now this’s getting interesting. Dewi, take us back to our previous distance.”
“Aye-aye…”
Sure enough, the transmission calmed down and returned to its seemingly usual loop.
Lestari sent a new communication. “How can we help you?”
Silence again. Was it thinking?
“Help help free help out there cannot free…”
And back into the usual.
“Hear me out…”
“So long as it doesn’t involve ramming.”
“Hell no.” Susanti scoffed, flapping a hand. “What I’m thinking is, we think that thing can learn from transmissions, right? Feed it an early learner program. See if we can teach it more words, and ideally how to string a proper sentence together. Then maybe we can get somewhere.”
Dewi fretted “Or we’ll have taught it to be more dangerous!”
“You got a better plan?”
That particular sulky grumble meant “No, but I wish I did.”
“How long would it take us to request an early learner program from out here?”
“We got some on local file. I was watching them with my grandkids.”
“Susanti, we’ve had words about using the ship as your personal movie-”
“Psssh there’s a ton of empty storage on the drive and these seats are well comfy. Besides, it’s worked out for us.”
“Ugh! Fine.” Lestari made a mental note to deal with this infraction later. Assuming they hadn’t all been engulfed by a sapient black hole, or whatever this was. “Commence trying to teach the eldritch mystery proper communication. And hopefully about the values of kindness and friendship.”
“Aye-aye, captain.”

Prompt was “Cry for help”.