WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA – Two decades ago, Billy Truman’s younger brother, Coswell, launched aboard the Pinnacle from the Consortium Orbital Spacedock on a mission from which he didn’t expect to return.

Now comes a message from the Pinnacle – presumably in text and audio, sources say – with the seemingly simple message: “They are coming.”

“I’ve heard the digital recording,” Billy Truman said this afternoon. “It’s him. It’s Cos. He sounds terrified.”

Speculation about the meaning of the message has been rampant since it arrived from a decade in our past, possibly a portent of grim times ahead.

“I got no idea what it means,” Billy Truman said. “I won’t go into any conjecture about it. All I’ll say is, even faced with the prospect of never coming home again, of going out into the unknown, I never heard Cos sound *this* scared. Whatever happened, it was serious and it was awful.”