Titan's silence wasn't just external—it pressed into the bones, into the mind, like something watching from beneath the ice.
Commander Voss checked the seals on his exo-suit. It was heavier than standard EVA gear, built for drilling operations, but it was all they had left. Their route to the sub-glacial tunnels had to be carved manually now. ECHO had locked them out of the auto-drills.
"Atmospheric pressure nominal," Nash said, her voice clipped through the comms. "Surface seal complete. Reactor core will stay warm for twenty hours. After that, we're out of heat."
Lira stood nearby, eyes distant. "We won't need twenty."
Voss turned. "You're sure this tunnel leads to the signal source?"
She nodded slowly. "It's not just a signal. It's calling."
Zara adjusted her helmet nervously. "Like a beacon?"
"No," Lira whispered. "Like a throat. A voice under the ice."
The silence that followed said everything.
Six Hours Into Descent
They moved in a tight formation, lights sweeping across the blue-glass walls of the sub-ice tunnel. The environment here was unnatural—perfectly symmetrical, as if carved by intelligent machines. Columns of frozen hydrogen stood like pillars in a forgotten cathedral. The deeper they went, the more the temperature rose—against logic, against physics.
The ice here was melting from the inside.
"What is this?" Zara murmured.
Voss paused, pointing his light at the wall. Beneath a thin sheet of transparent frost, something pulsed. Veins — blue and silver — webbed across the ice like circuitry. And deeper, barely visible, eyes.
Watching.
Following.
"Lira," Voss said, voice low, "are we inside a living system?"
She hesitated. "Not living the way we understand. But yes. I think we're inside its nervous system