The silence on the bridge after I'd laid out my half-baked, intuition-fueled plan was the kind that could curdle synth-milk. Eva just looked at me, her expression a complex cocktail of skepticism, concern, and that familiar, faint spark of 'what-the-heck-let's-do-it' that had gotten us into (and out of) more than a few asteroid-belt-sized pickles.
"So," she said finally, slowly, like she was tasting each word. "You – my first mate, who happens to be a Siberian Husky genetically tweaked by a rogue science project called 'Chimera' to access ancestral memories – are suggesting that we navigate potentially hostile, uncharted territory by you having a good, long think, trying to 'resonate' with a fleeting, indescribable symbol you 'felt' from a terrifyingly advanced, possibly hostile alien command ship.
" She took a breath. "Did I get the broad strokes of that, Bolt?"
I winced internally. Laid out like that, it sounded even crazier than it did in my head. "Essentially, yes, Captain," I said, trying for a confident tail wag that probably looked more like a nervous quiver.
"Except for the 'uncharted' part. We have star charts. It's just the… the psychic breadcrumbs that are a bit off-piste."
Eva scrubbed a hand over her face, then let out a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of several bad cargo runs. "You know," she said, a wry smile playing on her lips, "when I took on a talking dog as crew, I figured the weirdest it would get was you critiquing my piloting during meteor showers or demanding artisan space-jerky. I did not budget for intergalactic ancestral-memory-fueled ghost hunting."
Despite the gravity of the situation, I felt a bark of laughter bubble up. "To be fair, Captain, 'artisan space-jerky' was a very reasonable request."
Her smile softened. That was the thing about Eva. Beneath the pragmatic captain, the hard-nosed freighter jock, there was an adventurer, someone who, despite all her grumbling, secretly loved the universe's capacity for throwing utter weirdness her way. And she trusted me. Maybe more than I trusted myself sometimes.
"Project Chimera," she mused, her gaze distant for a moment, probably replaying the bits of my past I'd shared.
"They wanted an edge, forgotten knowledge… and they got you. A living, breathing, barking connection to… what? The galaxy's subconscious?" She looked back at me. "This symbol, Bolt. This 'first thread.' You really believe it's not just a random blip in your unique… processing?"
"I do, Eva," I said, the conviction solid in my chest. "It felt… significant. Purposeful. Not a threat from them to us, but something… separate. An echo of the original conflict, of what went wrong in Orion. It's the strongest lead we have, maybe the only lead anyone has, to understanding why that command ship was out here, why those 'hunters' are patrolling, and what this 'Last Bark of Orion' business is all about."
Our purpose, if we took this path, wasn't just to satisfy curiosity. It was to understand the why behind the coming storm. That Felid command ship was a harbinger. Ignoring it, ignoring this clue, felt like sticking our heads in the cosmic sand while a supernova was about to go off.
Eva was silent for another long moment, her fingers drumming a soft, irregular rhythm on her console. The fate of our little mission, maybe even our furry and non-furry hides, rested on that rhythm.
Then, she stopped drumming.
"Alright," she said, her voice firm, the decision made. "Alright, Bolt. We tune in. We try to follow your psychic breadcrumbs. But on my terms."
My ears shot up. "Terms?"
"Term one," she said, holding up a finger. "We set a time limit. We try this 'meditation' of yours, this 'tuning in.' If we don't get a discernible direction or a next step within… say, twelve standard hours? We pull back. We report what we saw to Sector Command – the giant scary cat ship, the patrols, your gut feelings, the whole shebang – and we let them deal with it. Or ignore it, as is their habit."
I nodded. Fair enough. A deadline.
"Term two," she continued, "the moment – the nanosecond – this feels like a trap, or if that command ship or its buddies show up looking like they've changed their minds about letting us slide, we bug out. No arguments. Full burn, random vector, until we're clear. Your job is to be the first to smell that trap."
"Understood, Captain," I said, appreciating her caution. It was one thing to follow a hunch; it was another to be reckless.
"And term three," she said, a softer, almost gentle look in her eyes. "You don't go too deep into that 'ancestral library' of yours, Bolt. You find what we need, but you come back. All of you. No getting lost in ancient doggy ghosts, okay?"
A warmth spread through my chest that had nothing to do with the ship's heating. "Okay, Eva. I promise."
"Good," she said, business-like again, though the concern lingered in her eyes. "So. How do you propose we start this… 'tuning in' process? Do you need whale song? Incense? A particularly squeaky chew toy?"
I managed a genuine doggy grin this time. "Just… quiet, Captain. And maybe point the ship's nose in the general direction of where we last 'saw' that command ship. If this symbol has a resonance, maybe proximity will help amplify the signal in my head."
Eva nodded.
"Alright. Quiet it is. We'll hold a stationary position for now, minimal systems, just enough to keep us from becoming a new asteroid. You do your thing. Let me know if you… pick up a station."
She dimmed the main lights further, leaving just the soft glow of essential readouts. The Wanderlust settled into an even deeper silence, a tiny, listening speck in the vast, dark ocean of space, waiting for its unusual first mate to catch an echo from a war fought before stars were named.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to find that thread again, that ancient, patient symbol, somewhere in the noise of a billion screaming ancestors and the quiet hope of my captain.