Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The metronome-like heartbeat of the comm system beat on with unerring steadiness in the dark interior of the outpost.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The outpost was small: a diminutive room barely large enough to accommodate one occupant and the necessary stacks of communications equipment. Currently in a blackout state, no lights shone within or without, except for the tiny, weak orange glow on the receiver's display that he held loosely in his right hand.

He was alone in that small place, on that small celestial satellite, hiding from the galaxy; it was listed on no star chart, its population never under the eye of census. His eyes were closed, breathing slow. With all senses but his hearing null within that stark darkness, he half-listened to the meditative drone emanating from the receiver.

Tick. Tick. ... Tick. ... ...

The beat veered from its steady play, and its deviance disturbed his uneasy peace. Although his eyes were closed, his brow furrowed in irritation.

... Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The reassuring metronome returned and with it, his tranquility. Relief swept through his tired body swiftly. His brow relaxed. He sank back into his numb isolation while the hypnotic, steady signal tick lulled him back to a blank mind.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. ... ...

... ... ... ... ... ...

The room faded into a deafening silence as the beat was interrupted once more. It roused him from his dreamlike state, and he opened his eyes weakly. Held in front of him, the dull glow of the display pierced through the otherwise complete darkness, and he averted his unadjusted pupils from the glare. He grunted to himself, annoyed. His thumb fumbled for the reset button on the receiver, and he pushed it.

An audible click was heard while the line broke and reconnected, but the steady beat did not return.

His arm reached the primary communications console, thumbing the channel selector, rotating it out of the health heartbeat channel and into one of the main communications. Finding it, he flipped the switch. A scream of static flooded out from the speaker and into his ears.

Stunned, he blinked rapidly, shaking off what remained of his stupor as the noise shook him awake. His eyes darted back and forth between the channel names on display in his hand and the console as he flipped back and forth between them. Sharp claws of fear sank into his chest.

Upon reflection much later, he would remark that it was at that moment that he knew that something had gone wrong, but the hubris of the rationality that he prided himself in refused to believe. Once more, he pushed the reset button: this time with more strength, ironclad conviction, and for a longer duration - as if his indomitable will could somehow repair whatever problem had occurred... and once more, the scream of scattered frequencies lit up his brain.

He began rationalizing to himself. Indeed a part within their makeshift communications system had malfunctioned, he thought. It could have been interference from a distant solar flare or a close burnt-out relay. These things were expected as they were trying to get by with as few resources as possible. He waited for the static to pass, anxious but holding himself at bay. He anxiously stared at the tiny ever-increasing timestamp on the display corner, counting the amount of time elapsed. If the maximum time limit was reached without the signal being restored, he would break radio silence and contact the base.

He waited in tense silence as the timestamp grew higher and higher until the maximum time was reached.

There was no change in the noise.

His hand now held the receiver with enough force to crush. He broke the radio silence, sending a long-wavelength broadcast across the moon to the main base just over the horizon. The act was risky: He would reach all base communications at the cost of announcing his position to the broader solar system. He gripped the comm tightly, waiting, wishing for the coded response telling him that procedures were standard. The heavy feeling of dread weighed heavier and heavier upon him with each passing second. A frightened voice in the back of his mind grew louder as the weight increased, telling him that his reply would never come, telling him that they had at last found him.

He hurriedly raised himself in the cramped space, grabbing his helmet and weapons from the table. He exited the pressurized entrance of the outpost into the black surface of the moon.

Outside, it was quiet. The sister moons stood high in the sky above him, tranquil in their seraphic grace. They reflected little light onto the dark side he stood on, yet they shone entirely in the form above him. The backdrop of stars beyond stood silent against the black sky, whispering no secrets and telling no tales of the galaxy-wide slaughter they abetted.

His eyes searched for the horizon to the north. The main base rested just over the line, nestled right behind the natural mountain range caught at the boundary of light and dark. Typically, the black-out they maintained was all but invisible from both surface and space. However, a faint red cloud glowed over the horizon, shining like an eruption of some massive volcano… or a city on fire.

He hit the ground running, leaving behind the all-terrain rover. It helped traverse the uneven terrain, but he could easily outmatch it in speed under the light gravitational pull. Sheer panic supplied the initial burst, and the fear kept his heart beating quickly. He knew what he saw as he had seen it time and time again. As he ran, a steady beat filled his ears again as his feet thumped against the ground and reverberated up through his legs.

He ran, and he ran.

The weak path on the empty plain ended, and he ripped through a small clearing at the base of the mountains. The incline and the pace he kept was horrendous, and a burn soon gnawed at his legs. Ahead of him, great clouds of debris floated upwards past the peaks of light into sight, dimly illuminating the dark sides of the mountains as light from the other side of the moon reflected off the suspended particulate matter. Nearly reaching his destination, he vaulted himself off the range's peaks with as giant a leap as he could muster, launching himself from the dark to the light side of the moon to see what had come to pass. He breached through the line into the light - that harsh bath of sunlight at first stinging his eyes – but the truth maimed him far worse, and he quailed.

They had found him.

Where there was once a command base and colony, now there was only twisted metal, debris and remains. The shock echoed through him. He slowed his stride to search the wreckage, frantically hailing anything that was in range. Nothing answered him but the background static of the radio.

Far in the distance, well beyond his reach, their black and red forms mingled amid menacing auras of blue and white. He helplessly watched them one by one merge with the emptiness of space... and then they were gone; their only legacy for him was the afterimage of their fleeing forms on the back of his eyes. Their work was complete; their will had been done, on this moon, as it had been in the heavens.

He wailed into the black sky with all his might until his voice grew hoarse and his chest pained him. He wept until his eyes ran dry, and he could no longer see. He hurled his curses to the farthest reaches of space, damming everything he knew. His rage came swiftly, and he beat the ground until his hands hurt and his muscles protested against their abuse. He grieved for a soulless colony on a forgotten moon, gasping for breath and trembling before an indifferent universe that answered no prayers; Everyone was already dead and gone. His pleas stumbled out for no ear to hear but his own.

He kneeled in the ash of his hell, empty and spent. It was over.

He closed his eyes and muttered a prayer for the last souls who had trusted him at the end. Who he prayed to, he didn't know. His words slipped from his lips and out into the cosmos, their resonance forever spreading, forever fading, into the void.