The Asteria rarely held open gatherings that involved the entire crew.
But the end of the cycle brought with it a long-standing tradition: the Conjunction Assembly — a brief, symbolic event where everyone who could be spared from duty gathered in the observation atrium to witness the twin stars of the Deythar system lock into their thirty-year alignment.
Anthony hadn't planned to attend this year. Too many eyes. Too many whispers.
But Renara had asked personally.
"Visibility matters," she had said. "Even for you."
So they came.
---
The atrium was vast, three decks tall, the upper galleries lined with transparent panels that framed the binary stars like an art piece. It was the closest thing to a planet-side sky they would see for months.
Anthony stood with Thalia at his side, Aelira nestled comfortably in her arms. The low, murmured conversations of over two hundred officers filled the air.
---
As the stars approached perfect alignment, the light in the atrium shifted — first gold, then pale silver-blue, washing every face in its glow.
And that was when it happened.
Aelira's small filaments unfurled. Not just a few strands — all of them.
They didn't just glow.
They sang.
---
The sound wasn't audible at first.
It was a vibration, like the deep harmonic of a warp core felt through the soles of the feet — except it came from nowhere, from everywhere, from her.
Then the sound blossomed into something real. A clear, bell-like tone that resonated through the entire atrium.
Conversations died instantly.
Every officer turned toward the infant in Thalia's arms.
---
Aelira's filaments rose and spread in a perfect, symmetrical halo, each thread lit with shifting patterns of blue and silver. The patterns didn't move at random. They flowed, deliberate, as though they carried language no one had the key to read.
The hum built. Subtle at first. Then layered.
Another voice joined.
And another.
Not from the ship. Not from the crew.
It was response.
Anthony's breath caught. He felt Thalia's hand clutch his arm as they both realized what was happening.
The entities were answering.
Publicly.
---
People froze, torn between awe and fear. The hum filled everything, expanding until it was no longer a sound but a feeling that threaded through bone and memory.
For an instant, every mind in the room brushed against something vast.
Not words. Not commands. Just… acknowledgment.
---
When the binary stars locked into perfect alignment, the harmonics swelled to a peak. The light from the windows flared, and for a few impossible seconds, everyone swore they saw a pattern in the light: a lattice of shimmering threads weaving out from the child's glow, stretching into the infinite.
Then it was gone.
---
The hum vanished as suddenly as it had come.
The only sound in the atrium was the slow hiss of ventilation and the faint shift of boots on metal decking.
Aelira yawned, curled her filaments close to her tiny head, and fell back asleep in Thalia's arms as if nothing had happened.
---
For several long seconds, no one moved. Then the room erupted — hushed at first, then rising.
"What was that?"
"Did you hear it?"
"It felt like something was… looking at me!"
---
Captain Renara stood on the upper gallery, gaze locked on the family below. Her four eyes blinked in perfect sequence as she raised a hand, silencing the deck.
"No one speaks of this outside the ship until I issue a report," she said evenly. "No recordings are to leave this deck without my authorization. Am I clear?"
A hundred voices responded as one: "Yes, Captain."
But the eyes, wide and unblinking, told another story.
---
Later, in their quarters, Anthony and Thalia sat in silence.
"I wasn't ready for that," Anthony admitted at last, his hand still trembling from where he had held Thalia's shoulder in the atrium.
"She wasn't either," Thalia said softly, looking down at Aelira. "She wasn't trying to do anything. They reached through her."
"And now the whole ship knows."
"Knows," Thalia said, "but doesn't understand."
Her filaments pulsed a pale blue, embarrassment tinged with something heavier.
Anthony leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, careful of the sleeping child.
"Then we teach them. Slowly."
---
By the next cycle, rumors swept the decks like wildfire.
Some whispered the child had sung with the stars. Others said they saw shapes in the light — as though something had come forward from deep space to stand in the room.
For the first time, no one doubted that the connection went far beyond a family bond.
But the truth — that all of it centered through Aelira — remained guarded between five souls and the silent presence that had answered her.