The Distance Between Signals

He answered a Wi-Fi signal. He never expected the universe to answer back.

Elias Venn repairs broken machines in a rain-soaked harbor city. Fixing his own life is another matter. Haunted by his sister's death in an interstellar disaster, he has spent nine years keeping the galaxy-and everyone in it-at a safe distance.

Then an impossible network appears on his screen:

PLEASE_DONT_TURN_OFF_THE_LIGHT

On the other end is Mara Saye, a stranded navigator with twenty-six minutes of air, a stolen secret, and a home planet running out of time.

Answering her call pulls Elias into a journey through hidden star gates, bustling orbital markets, and worlds the authorities would rather forget. As attraction deepens into love, Mara gives him a reason to imagine a future again. But the truth she is keeping could destroy their fragile trust.

Meanwhile, the intelligence controlling interstellar travel has calculated that abandoning thirty-one million people is the safest way to protect everyone else.

To save Mara's home, they must confront a machine that can connect entire civilizations yet cannot understand why people risk everything for one another.

The Distance Between Signals is a hopeful science-fiction romance novella about second chances, the courage to trust, and finding someone worth crossing the stars for. Blending cosmic adventure, warm humor, and an intimate love story, it asks what happens when a galaxy built for efficiency begins to learn how to care.