The ship drifted silently through the void, a dark silhouette against the glow of a dying star. Captain Mira Kael stood at the viewport, watching as the surface of the star cracked like glass under pressure. Streams of molten plasma burst outward, arcing into space before collapsing into themselves. The scientists back at the Helion Institute called it a "stellar fracture," a rare phenomenon caused by an ancient artificial structure buried deep in the star’s core. Mira had a simpler word for it: impossible. Her crew whispered about omens, about curses carried by ships that strayed too close to dying suns. But Mira knew better. Something had been built inside that star, and someone had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep it hidden. “Power readings spiking again,” said Elian, her chief engineer, his voice tight with awe and fear. “It’s like the whole star’s being…rewritten.” The idea chilled her. Rewritten. Stars didn’t just change their nature—they burned, collapsed, or died. They weren’t things you could program like a machine. And yet, the data scrolling across the consoles told a different story. Patterns in the energy surges formed repeating sequences, not unlike language. Mira leaned closer to the glass. A fragment of the star’s corona tore away, revealing something metallic beneath the fire. Not a fragment of natural matter, but a lattice—a colossal structure, thousands of kilometers wide, glimmering faintly as though it had been waiting eons to be seen. “Magnify,” she ordered. The image sharpened. The lattice pulsed with rhythm, a heartbeat of light echoing across space. Each pulse coincided with the tremors shaking the star. It was alive—or at least, it was trying to communicate. Elian swore under his breath. “That’s no natural phenomenon. Someone put a machine in there. A machine big enough to wear a star like armor.” The words hung heavy in the air. Humanity had just learned how to terraform small moons; the notion of star-scale engineering was absurd. Whoever built this thing was not just advanced—they were ancient, powerful, and gone without a trace. The ship’s AI crackled to life, its voice sharper than usual. “Captain Kael, the structure is transmitting. Message encoded in prime intervals.” “Play it,” Mira said. The sound that followed was neither voice nor static but something between: a layered resonance, like the echoes of a cathedral bell. Slowly, patterns emerged, phrases Mira couldn’t quite understand but could feel in her bones. It wasn’t a warning. It was an invitation. The crew looked at her, waiting for a decision. One wrong choice could doom them all. But Mira’s gut told her that turning away now would mean walking past the greatest discovery in the history of the species. “Plot a course,” she said softly, eyes fixed on the pulsing light within the fractured star. “We’re going inside.” As the ship’s engines roared to life, Mira felt a shiver of anticipation. Whatever lay ahead, humanity was no longer alone in the universe—and the universe had just spoken first.