The Mirror Frequency

The static peels back like skin. The voice is clean now, professional, warm in the way command channels are trained to be warm. Vostok-9, this is Relief Bravo, we have your position, ETA four hours, hold tight Mara. They use your call sign. They use your mother's name. They mention the chipped enamel mug you drink from every morning, the one no manifest ever recorded.

You press your palm flat against the console to stop it from shaking. Outside, the wind has gone strangely still, as though the dark itself is leaning closer to listen. The voice waits. It breathes when you breathe.

Mara, it says, gentler now. Light the flares. We're almost there.