They never sent a warning.

We called them the Veyr because we needed a word to say over the radio. A name made them sound like something that could be understood.

No flag. No declaration. No demand that we could translate.

Their hulls rose through the swell with no visible seam between vessel and sea. Light moved inside the dark material like a thought passing behind an eye.

For one minute, every receiver on Northstar carried the same sound: a low, measured pulse. The communications officer counted it twice.

Nine beats. A pause. Nine again.

Then an answering light appeared in the deep, far below anything our ships could reach.

We had assumed the transmission was meant for us.