First Contact

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The black of space stretched forever, a velvet void punctuated by distant pinpricks of ancient light. Around the gas giant Kha’ra, whose swirling violet storms churned like the breath of a dying star, a lone satellite hung motionless. Its solar panels, dulled by micrometeorite scars, caught the faint glimmer of distant suns, while a single, elongated antenna—thin as a spider’s leg—shivered in the thin wind of ionized particles, catching whispers that no human ear could hear.