H O O D O O
THE ECHO SIGNAL
Somewhere past the rim, where old stars went to die and old ghosts went to whisper…
It stirred again. They say the void don’t echo. That when sound is swallowed by the black between the stars, it stays gone — like prayers cast into a dry well.
But something found its way back.
It started with a whisper in a broken band, soft as a funeral hum — Confederacy code, twisted and scarred by time. Ancient permissions. Dead handshakes. Keys that should’ve never turned again. And at the heart of that crooked little song?
John Locke’s name, repeated three times. Like a summoning.
The signal rode low, tucked in the belly of a derelict relay station that had once been a proud child of the Separatist machine. Now it was just bones and rust, orbiting a long-dead moon that didn't even show up on starcharts no more.
And yet there it was: pulsing once every six hours. Like a heartbeat. Like something that refused to die.
Thadeus sat beneath the hollow frame of a long-drowned freighter, lantern burning low beside him. Ash clung to his coat like judgment. His hands were calloused, stained with blood both old and righteous. And his eyes—golden, weary, bright as damnation—watched the stars like they were lying to him.
He'd spent too long listening to the dead. Too long carrying names that no longer answered to breath.
But he felt it. In the marrow. In the bones.
Locke was coming.
And the reckoning?
Well… that was long overdue.
It stirred again. They say the void don’t echo. That when sound is swallowed by the black between the stars, it stays gone — like prayers cast into a dry well.
But something found its way back.
It started with a whisper in a broken band, soft as a funeral hum — Confederacy code, twisted and scarred by time. Ancient permissions. Dead handshakes. Keys that should’ve never turned again. And at the heart of that crooked little song?
John Locke’s name, repeated three times. Like a summoning.
The signal rode low, tucked in the belly of a derelict relay station that had once been a proud child of the Separatist machine. Now it was just bones and rust, orbiting a long-dead moon that didn't even show up on starcharts no more.
And yet there it was: pulsing once every six hours. Like a heartbeat. Like something that refused to die.
Thadeus sat beneath the hollow frame of a long-drowned freighter, lantern burning low beside him. Ash clung to his coat like judgment. His hands were calloused, stained with blood both old and righteous. And his eyes—golden, weary, bright as damnation—watched the stars like they were lying to him.
He'd spent too long listening to the dead. Too long carrying names that no longer answered to breath.
But he felt it. In the marrow. In the bones.
Locke was coming.
And the reckoning?
Well… that was long overdue.
