The message was short and clipped, flagged with routine protocol tags:
> Lieutenant Thalia, Please report to Observation Room 7-B at the end of your shift for follow-up on cross-department integration review. Expect classified briefing. —Commander Lawrence
It read like standard bureaucratic clutter — vague enough to avoid raising questions, specific enough to make it seem necessary.
Thalia raised a brow but didn't question it. She and Anthony had kept things light and professional since the public reveal of her pregnancy. The diplomatic waters were still too volatile for anything else.
So when she stepped through the sliding doors of Observation 7-B and found the lights dimmed to a warm twilight hue, soft ambient music filtering from hidden speakers, and a small table set with two mugs of steaming narian root tea, she froze.
Her neural filaments pulsed faint violet.
"You summoned me under false pretenses," she said dryly.
Anthony turned from the viewport, a guilty smile spreading across his face. "Technically accurate. But in my defense, I did promise follow-up."
She stepped closer, eyes narrowing playfully. "You dragged me here at the end of a double shift to deliver a line?"
"To deliver tea," he said, gesturing to the cups. "And this."
Beyond the viewport, a nebula shimmered in slow motion — pale lavender and silver clouds drifting in the black. It wasn't just any nebula. It was the Lirae Drift, the same one that had framed their first shared shift rotation months ago — and the conversation where she'd told him he'd essentially proposed by narian standards.
Thalia's neural filaments curled with soft amusement. "You remembered."
He moved closer. "You made it unforgettable."
They sat, side by side on the cushioned bench before the window. She sipped her tea in silence, letting the warm infusion steady the quiet ache behind her temples — a new but regular symptom, likely another piece of her body's ever-evolving condition.
For a while, they didn't speak. Just watched the stars.
Then Thalia reached for his hand.
It still doesn't feel real sometimes, she projected privately.
The baby?
All of it. You. Me. This... thing between us that's bigger than both of us.
He didn't respond aloud. Just turned his hand palm-up, threading his fingers between hers.
A few moments passed.
Then came the flicker.
Subtle at first. A tingle along the edge of their bond — like static rising from a surface that should've been smooth. Thalia blinked, her gaze shifting from the stars to his face.
"Did you feel that?" she asked quietly.
Anthony hesitated. "...Yeah."
They closed their eyes, instinctively deepening the neural link between them — not the full bonding state, but a focused alignment. The moment they did, they both stiffened.
There. A thread.
Taut. Faint. Alien.
Not just pressing inward — not just observing — but responding.
"I think..." Anthony whispered, "it's watching through us."
Thalia didn't speak. She was focused on the shape of it. Not like thoughts. More like presence. Vast. Remote. Like a mountain in the dark — not moving, not threatening, but undeniably aware.
And then came something new.
Direction.
Not a precise coordinate, but an impression — as if the neural thread anchoring them to that other mind pulled very slightly in a fixed orientation. Thalia's head turned unconsciously toward the far left quadrant of the nebula outside the window.
"There," she said.
Anthony nodded, his hand tightening slightly around hers. "Yeah."
They sat in silence, letting the connection ebb slightly. It faded like a ripple in low gravity — never fully gone, never fully understood.
"Distance?" he asked softly.
"Far," Thalia said. "But not as far as I thought."
They didn't speak of reporting it. They both knew this wasn't something they could walk into the science lab and drop onto a desk. Not yet.
"Do you think it knows we noticed?" Anthony asked finally.
She turned to him, her expression unreadable. "I think it's waiting to see what we do."
They finished their tea in silence, the Lirae Drift pulsing softly beyond the glass.
So much for a quiet night, Anthony projected with a trace of humor.
Thalia's neural filaments pulsed a soft violet.
Nothing about us has ever been quiet.
They sat together long after the tea had gone cold, watching the stars — and sensing, for the first time, that something out there was watching them back.