Two drone pods sat on the ice like fat beetles, one orange, one green, both drilling toward the same lucky vein. Inside the orange shack, Priya watched her bore-counter tick eleven meters ahead of Theo's. Then both screens flickered turquoise. Far below the crust, something deep in the ocean was glowing back at the drills.

Priya killed the drill and watched the light instead. It wasn't random. The glow blinked in patterns, long and short, the same loop over and over. She leaned close to the screen. "That's not a mineral," she whispered. "That's a message."

Priya copied the blink pattern and flashed it back down the bore hole using her drill's warning lamp. Long, short, long. For a moment, nothing. Then the ocean answered, repeating her exact pattern straight back at her.

Theo ran over from his shack, breathless. "It copied you. It's talking." They spent the next hour flashing patterns back and forth with the lamp. By the end, the ocean's glow was matching their rhythm and learning. First contact, made with two cheap drill lamps.