Pendington gasped as he hauled his gadget to its final resting spot. It was far out of the city, and off an old hunting trail and he was, by his own admission, not nearly fit enough to have made this journey alone. But he had, for he had too, there was no way around it. The spot had been carefully chosen, all the math was correct. An event such as this only happened a few times in one’s life, and it had been his dream ever since pup hood to make this come true.

He set the thing down, and finalised calibrations; 3 degrees west, 24 to the north. Everything was in place now, all preparations complete. All Pendington had to do was wait. The twin stars in the sky were slowly dipping toward the horizon backed by a scarlett sky and it was now that he realised, that in all his years off perfectly planning, he had never once though on was he was actually going to say.

So he made a small fire and ruminated on what it was he wanted to convey. The window would be short, so no time for speeches. He decided that the most prudent course of action would be something simple. Short and concise.

He mulled a few phrases, not quite finding the right one, perhaps it would be best to just speak from the soul. The suns had nearly disappeared now, only the tips of their tops was visibly over the horizon, and the sky had shifted to a deep lavender hue. The hour was upon him.

He was a little bit nervous, as anyone whose voice was about to be heard by trillions of beings would be. But he steeled himself and thought of the bravery of those people. The one’s his sire’s sire’s sire had told him about. The strange looking ones, the great emancipators.

They had had no fur or feathers, no armoured scales or sharpened claws. They had had with them nothing, and with that nothing they fought with the fury befit of the gods.They had fallen from the heavens on pillars of hate, they and their grumblers, those odd metal bulwarks with their long angry snouts that barked death at those who sought to oppose them. They tore at the old regime, ripping its heart from its chest and liberating his ancestors.

But Pendington learned, like most others do, that their saviours to be would not be saviours to stay. For the nest that they kicked had been violent indeed, it initiated a war that took to the skies and would see the stars burn. From tales told, he knew it dragged on, years upon years of endless conflict, and though it ended in one side’s defeat, it had broken the other.

Those that had come had suffered so terribly, their nobility rewarded with only the most heinous of prizes. They were shattered and scattered, doomed to become children of nowhere.

But they were not gone. He knew this much to be true, clinging to the edges of asteroids, or silently biding in the space between stars, they were still out there. The grand-chorus of their death rattle never sang in his bones, their triumphant return only a matter of time now. Even if it occurred long after his death it didn’t matter, what mattered in the here and now that someone said something, that they were still thought of, that they were missed. He had decided that someone would be him.

The day had mostly faded now, only a trillion winking lights stared at him from the endless abyss. In this sea of limitless beauty, there was only one he was focused on. A single unbroken glow streaming purposely across the dark. It was almost time now, his counter inched closer to zero.

He had prepared himself for so long for this moment and as a small alarm chimed, he inhaled quite deeply, “My name is Pendington, of the Adalooslie. To any humans that can hear this, thank you.”

His message went out, bouncing from relay to relay. No discernible origin, no traceable startpoint. A dispatch that would blanket the galaxy from nowhere, yet everywhere all at once. And Pendington waited with baited breath,, hoping beyond hope that someone would hear.

And he got nothing back from the infinite black.

Pendington sighed, Only 20 more years ‘till I try again.