The day began as so many had before, with the gentle shuffle of small feet across the quarters' floor. Veyra stirred, the soft hum of the ship's systems filling the background, when a familiar weight pressed against her side. Aelira had climbed into the bed, her hair tangled and wild, her eyes still hazy with sleep but alight with curiosity.
"Mommy," she said, her small voice muffled against Veyra's arm. "Did you dream in colors again?"
Veyra smiled faintly. She's been asking that question every morning now, she thought, pulling the little girl closer. Aelira's fascination with dreams was growing, though Veyra could not help but wonder if the child's unique bond with the entities shaped that obsession.
"Yes, my little star," Veyra replied, brushing a strand of hair from Aelira's face. "This time, the colors were violet and silver. They danced like threads weaving a tapestry."
Aelira's eyes widened, and she giggled. "That means you were happy."
"Does it now?" Veyra teased softly, raising a brow.
"Mhm." Aelira nodded with great seriousness. "Violet is happy. I know."
Veyra kissed her forehead, letting herself linger in that warmth, but duty would not wait forever. She rose, smoothing down her uniform tunic while Aelira sat on the bed, humming to herself.
---
The walk to the bridge was filled with Aelira's chatter. The girl clutched a small plush she had grown attached to—an Andorian snow-creature toy gifted by the doctor during one of her visits. Every few steps, she would bounce it along the walls, giving it a voice of its own.
"Snowy says he wants to come to work too," Aelira announced.
"Snowy can come, as long as he sits quietly," Veyra said, a smile tugging at her lips despite herself. She was well aware of the stares from passing crewmates. A mother in uniform with a child at her side was not a common sight aboard a coalition vessel, though the crew had grown accustomed to Aelira's presence.
Still, Veyra's dual roles weighed heavily on her. On the bridge, she was Communications Officer Veyra Kael, linguist and xenobiologist, the one who parsed alien signals and deciphered strange dialects. At home, she was simply "Mommy," the center of Aelira's little universe. She often wondered how long she could keep those worlds balanced without one spilling messily into the other.
---
When they reached her station, Veyra guided Aelira to the side, where a small seat had been discreetly added for such days when childcare was scarce. Aelira swung her legs idly, clutching Snowy in one hand and tracing shapes on the console's edge with the other.
"Can I help today?" she asked brightly.
"Maybe," Veyra answered carefully, lowering herself into her chair. "But only if you listen very carefully and don't touch anything unless I say so."
Aelira nodded so solemnly that Veyra's chest tightened. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that she was only two years old. Her words were full sentences, her mind racing ahead of her peers, but she was still so very small.
Signals flickered across Veyra's console, the quiet rhythm of languages, beacons, and coded transmissions that were her daily bread. She slipped into her professional mindset, parsing details, while Aelira leaned forward, eyes following every gesture.
And yet, in that quiet, Veyra felt a tug of unease. Aelira's fascination was sharper today. Her little fingers twitched unconsciously in mimicry of her mother's motions, and her eyes seemed to trace symbols across the glowing screen as though she recognized more than she should.
She shouldn't be able to read these yet, Veyra thought, glancing sideways at her daughter. And yet she watches as though she understands. More than mimicry. More than play.
Still, Veyra said nothing. Instead, she reached over and gently squeezed Aelira's hand. "Snowy should be very proud of you," she whispered. "You're learning so fast."
Aelira giggled again, leaning against her mother's arm. For now, it was harmless.
But in the quiet space between tasks, Veyra could not quite shake the sense that something—perhaps soon—would force her two worlds to collide more sharply than ever before.
---
The bridge had fallen into a steady rhythm: reports passing between stations, the captain's calm directives, the quiet hum of engines carrying them through the void. Veyra was immersed in a particularly knotty translation—an automated beacon transmitting in a hybridized dialect she hadn't encountered before.
Beside her, Aelira had gone unusually quiet.
At first, Veyra allowed it, grateful for the brief reprieve. Silence from a toddler could mean blessed focus or impending disaster, and she prayed it was the former. But then the console beside her flickered. Symbols shifted—rearranged, almost deliberately—lines of code realigned in a way that was neither random nor accidental.
Veyra's breath caught.
Her daughter sat upright in her little chair, one hand reaching toward the console, the other still clutching Snowy. Her small finger hovered just above the controls. She hadn't touched them—not yet. But her eyes were locked on the display with startling intensity.
"Aelira," Veyra said softly, willing her voice to remain steady. "What are you doing, little star?"
"I'm helping," Aelira replied, her tone as matter-of-fact as any adult's. "It says it's lonely."
The words sliced through Veyra like a cold current. Her gaze snapped to the beacon's signal. The static patterns—was there a rhythm? A plea? Something layered that she herself had missed?
Before she could respond, Aelira's finger tapped the panel. Just once.
The console flared. Data streams realigned in rapid succession, the translation filters scrambling to keep pace. The beacon's message sharpened, fragmentary words spilling across the display. For one dizzying heartbeat, it was as though Aelira had unlocked a door Veyra had not even recognized was there.
But the cost came quickly. The translation routines buckled, cascading errors flooding the system. A warning chime blared, drawing the attention of half the bridge crew.
"Report!" the captain's voice cut sharply.
Veyra's hands flew over the console, trying to stabilize what had gone wrong. "Beacon interference with translation subroutines," she said, her voice taut. "Working to contain it."
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aelira shrink back, clutching Snowy to her chest. Wide, guilty eyes met hers, but no tears came. Only confusion.
"I was helping," Aelira whispered again, so low only Veyra could hear.
---
The chaos lasted less than two minutes, but it felt far longer. Veyra managed to isolate the error, restoring the system to its baseline. The message fragments remained tantalizing, unsolved, but the crisis had been contained.
Silence fell again, heavy with unspoken questions. Veyra could feel eyes on her—curious, wary, perhaps suspicious. A mother at her station with a child in tow, and suddenly the systems had gone haywire.
She drew a slow breath, forcing her hands to still. "Containment successful," she reported formally. "No further interference detected."
The captain nodded once, satisfied enough for the moment. But Veyra knew the whispers would follow, just as surely as Aelira's gaze still lingered on her, bewildered and earnest.
"Mommy," Aelira murmured, her voice small and trembling now. "I didn't mean to break it."
Veyra closed her eyes briefly, her heart aching. She reached down, squeezing her daughter's hand tightly. "I know, little star," she whispered. "I know you didn't."
But even as she comforted her child, she felt the weight of what had just happened settle upon her shoulders. Innocent though it was, it would not be brushed aside so easily.
For in that single touch, Aelira had done something no one else on that bridge had managed. She had spoken to a signal not yet fully understood. And she had answered it.
---
The incident had been smoothed over, at least outwardly. Veyra had logged it as a minor systems disruption, citing unexpected feedback from the beacon's unusual structure. The report was clean, plausible, and unremarkable. Yet in the private pages she kept tucked into her quarters, the truth was written in careful strokes: Aelira touched the console. She said the beacon was lonely.
Now, away from the bridge, Veyra sat with the captain in the small wardroom. A carafe of lukewarm tea stood between them, mostly untouched. Silence hung thick before the captain finally spoke.
"You contained it well," the captain said. Her voice was even, measured, but there was something in her eyes that betrayed deeper thought. "But the crew noticed. You know they'll talk."
"I know." Veyra folded her hands in her lap, forcing calm. "Most will see it as an accident. A child's curiosity. Nothing more."
"Most," the captain echoed.
Neither of them mentioned the doctor. They didn't need to. He would read between the lines of her report, understand what was omitted. Just as the captain understood, now, by Veyra's steady silence.
The weight of secrets pressed heavier than ever. It wasn't the danger that unnerved her—it was the slow erosion of plausible deniability. Every incident, every spark of brilliance or misstep from her daughter, made the circle of those who knew—or guessed—wider.
Veyra stared into her untouched cup. She thought of the higher authorities who had insisted the doctor remain in charge of oversight, though no names had been given. She thought of the way Aelira's gaze had fixed on the console, the words she had spoken with such innocence. "It says it's lonely."
The phrase clung to her like a burr. She had dedicated her life to studying alien biology, alien languages. Years spent unraveling syntax, grammar, the layered meanings hidden in form and function. And her daughter, barely two years old, had looked at a static beacon and discerned—what? Loneliness? Or something deeper?
"Do you trust her?" the captain asked quietly, breaking the silence.
Veyra lifted her eyes sharply. "Of course I trust my daughter."
"That's not what I mean." The captain's voice softened. "Do you trust what she's… connected to?"
Veyra's throat tightened. She had no answer ready. Because the truth was, she didn't know. And worse—she feared she never would.
The captain did not press further. Instead, she leaned back, her gaze distant. "Keep her close. Keep her safe. But understand, Veyra—the day may come when this won't be contained within family and whispers. And when that day comes, we'll need to be ready."
Veyra nodded once, her heart aching. She wanted to argue, to insist that Aelira was just a child, that she deserved the space to grow without the shadow of politics, prophecy, or fear. But she had seen the way her daughter's finger hovered above the console, the clarity in her small voice when she said she was helping.
She had seen something that could not be unseen.
Later, when she walked the quieter corridors back to her quarters, she allowed herself a moment of private reflection. The ship felt vast and hollow at this hour, the hum of its life-systems steady and impersonal. She thought of her daughter asleep, curled around her stuffed toy. She thought of the future pressing ever closer.
Her fingers brushed the folded papers she carried, her hidden record. On one of them, she had written a single phrase:
Aelira sees things I cannot. Perhaps things no one else can.
She closed her eyes. For once, she wished she could see only as a mother, and not as a scientist, not as an officer. But the roles were inseparable now. And she wondered—not for the first time—if the very heart of her daughter's gift was also the heart of her peril.
---
Veyra had hoped the matter would fade quietly. Children make mistakes. Systems hiccup. A dozen innocent explanations could be applied, all more comfortable than the truth. But whispers, like currents, never stayed still.
By the second day, fragments of the story were circulating among the crew. In the mess hall, she caught the tail end of a conversation—two junior officers speaking in hushed tones.
"—she just touched it and it lit up—"
"—can't be right, it's restricted access—"
"—you know whose kid it was, though—"
They broke off when they saw her enter. Too quickly. Too guilty.
Veyra said nothing. She kept her chin high, her tray balanced in steady hands, but inside her stomach churned. If the crew already suspected more than was written in the reports, then it was only a matter of time before the rumors reached higher channels.
And they did.
Three days later, she was summoned to a closed-session meeting. The captain was there, composed but alert, her antennae angled with quiet tension. Doctor Prell sat beside her, arms folded, his expression unreadable. Across from them were two officers she rarely worked with—liaisons to the coalition council. Observers.
The senior liaison, a stern-browed Trill, began without pleasantries. "Lieutenant Veyra. Reports have reached us of an incident involving your daughter."
Veyra's jaw tightened. "She is two years old. Children are curious. They wander."
"Curious," the Trill echoed, unimpressed. "What's curious is that a two-year-old was able to activate an encrypted relay without clearance codes. That is not wandering. That is something else."
The silence stretched. Prell finally cleared his throat. "With respect, Counselor, I was present during the aftermath. There is no indication of malicious intent. Aelira is developing rapidly—yes—but she remains a child. We must exercise caution before assigning broader meaning."
The captain nodded once. "The matter is under review. I remind you that Doctor Prell retains oversight. His authority in this case is not in question."
The Trill's eyes flickered, but he said nothing further. The meeting ended shortly after, terse and unsatisfying. But Veyra knew what had just happened. It was not resolution. It was delay.
Later, in the privacy of her quarters, she vented the storm silently into her paper journal:
"They will not let this go. They already see her as a subject, not a child. Today it was liaisons. Tomorrow it will be admirals. And beyond them? Who else might be watching?"
Her hand hesitated over the page. She thought of Aelira's laughter, her tiny hands smudged with fruit, her insistence that the beacon had been "lonely."
"She is two years old. She is my daughter. How can they not see that?"
The weight of it pressed down like gravity. She closed the journal and hid it again in the small compartment behind her desk.
That night, she found Anthony already asleep. She slipped quietly into bed, curling against him, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing. She envied his ability to sleep so deeply, even when the world pressed in.
In the darkness, she whispered only to herself: "We can't keep this contained forever."
And for the first time since the incident, she admitted the possibility that maybe—just maybe—they weren't meant to.
---
The storm of whispers and official meetings lingered in Veyra's mind long after the doors closed. She had spent the day moving through her duties like a phantom, her voice steady and professional, her reports precise. Yet beneath the veneer, tension coiled tight, pulling at her every thought.
But Aelira—Aelira had no such burden.
When her shift finally ended, Veyra found her daughter in the small observation lounge near their quarters, where the wide viewport spilled starlight across the room. Aelira sat cross-legged on the floor with a plush toy tucked under one arm. She was talking in her half-formed sentences, voice soft and certain, as though she were confiding in someone invisible.
Veyra's first instinct was to tense, to wonder if "they" were listening, if the entities had slipped through again. But then she caught the rhythm of her daughter's words and realized Aelira was simply pretending.
"See?" the child said, holding up the toy to the stars. "Not scary. Just far away. Far, far, far."
The plush dipped, as if nodding, and she giggled.
The sound unspooled the knots in Veyra's chest.
She knelt quietly behind her daughter, resting a hand on her small shoulder. Aelira tilted her head back, violet filaments of her Narian heritage shimmering faintly as they caught the glow of the viewport.
"Did you have a good day, my little star?" Veyra asked.
"Yes!" Aelira announced with absolute certainty. "I showed Mister Lumo the shiny dots. He didn't know, but I told him."
"Mister Lumo?"
Aelira brandished the toy—an oddly shaped creature that had been a gift from Anthony. Its stitched eyes were lopsided, its arms slightly too long. Veyra smiled despite herself. "Ah. A good student, then?"
"He listens," Aelira said with gravity far beyond her age. Then she wrinkled her nose. "Better than some people."
Veyra bit back a laugh, brushing her fingers gently along her daughter's hair.
They sat together for a long while, just watching the stars. Veyra tried to imagine seeing them through her daughter's eyes—not as navigational markers or coordinates, not as objects of study, but as companions. Alive. Awake.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, love?"
"Why do people look sad when I talk?"
The question hit harder than Veyra expected. She took a breath, steadying herself. "Do you mean today?"
Aelira nodded, solemn.
Veyra weighed her words with care. "Sometimes grown-ups don't understand what children mean. It doesn't make what you say bad. It just means they don't know how to listen the right way."
"Oh." Aelira considered this, chewing on the thought with surprising seriousness. "But you understand."
"I try."
Her daughter leaned into her, small head pressing against Veyra's chest. "You listen better than anyone."
The simple declaration was a balm she hadn't realized she needed. She wrapped her arms around Aelira, holding her close, resting her cheek atop the fine strands of her daughter's hair.
For a moment, the galaxy could fall silent. The politics, the suspicion, the weight of what Aelira represented—it all faded. There was only this: the warmth of her daughter, the steady rhythm of her breathing, the undeniable truth that she was a child first and foremost.
Veyra whispered in Narian then, a phrase that had no precise translation. Aelira echoed it back, though clumsily, her accent skewed by human tones. They laughed together, and it was the sound of two worlds braided into one.
Aelira pulled back after a while, her eyes bright. "When I grow big, will you still listen?"
"Always," Veyra promised.
"Even if I say silly things?"
"Especially then."
Satisfied, Aelira turned her attention back to the stars. Her toy was lifted again, its ragged stitched head aimed outward. "Look, Mister Lumo," she said seriously. "That's where my friend lives. But they don't know about time, so we have to be patient."
Veyra's heart clenched. The words were so innocent, so casual, but they carried weight. That lingering connection, that otherness, had not gone. It lingered even now, woven into her daughter's world like thread in a tapestry.
She almost corrected her—almost insisted that Mister Lumo couldn't understand, that friends didn't live in faraway unknowns. But she didn't.
Instead, she whispered, "That's very kind of you to be patient."
Aelira nodded as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Minutes passed, quiet and soft. Eventually, the child's head drooped against her mother's shoulder. Sleep tugged at her small frame, breaths evening out.
Veyra scooped her gently into her arms, rising with care. The stars glowed behind them, distant yet eternal. As she carried her daughter toward their quarters, she murmured words only the girl could hear:
"You are more than they will ever understand. But to me, you will always be my little star."
Aelira stirred faintly, half-asleep, and mumbled, "Always."
And with that, Veyra smiled—a smile born not of duty, not of fear, but of love.