The first thing Quiet Static learned was that silence was never truly silent.

There was always something beneath it.

The vibration of an aging reactor. The hiss of recycled air through corroded pipes. The distant groan of a station struggling to remain alive. Even in the darkest corners of the Minmatar Republic, where the lights failed and the walls sweated rust, something was always transmitting.

He grew up listening.

His mother used to tell him that machines remembered things.

She was right.

The old communications equipment in their home had belonged to someone who died long before Quiet was born. It was little more than a box of cracked circuitry and loose wires, but every night it produced the same faint sound.

Static.

Not loud enough to be frightening.

Just enough to remind him that something was there.

When he was eleven, the receiver spoke.

A man's voice came through the interference.

Three words.

“They found us.”

Then nothing.