Androide Armageddon

About this issue

Androide Armageddon by Curtis Garland, issue 598 of the Spanish pulp series La Conquista del Espacio (Space Conquest), published by Editorial Bruguera in 1982. The story follows Lem Garko, a bored ST-00 patrol officer of the Space-Time Brigade, who travels through the cosmos in a single-seat spacecraft. His routine monitoring duty is interrupted when he receives a distress message in an unrecognizable alien language, concluding only with the word "socorro" (help) repeated three times. Using his ship's computer, Garko traces the signal's origin to specific spatial coordinates in galactic quadrant 309. Upon arriving at the location, he discovers the message emanates from a black hole. Unable to communicate with the Traffic Control Center due to interference and finding his ship's controls locked and inoperative, Garko realizes his vessel is being pulled inexorably toward the black hole. A science fiction adventure narrative combining space travel, mysterious alien contact, and cosmic peril.