The Aethelgardian chimes on the Nyxwing's bridge escalated to a frantic, yet still strangely melodic, series of arpeggios.
On the holographic display, the crimson icon of the Felid destroyer grew alarmingly, its projected course an arrow aimed straight at their evasive Ptrajectory through the asteroid field.
"It's locking weapons!" Eva gritted out, her knuckles white on the empathically attuned controls.
The Nyxwing danced, its dark, shifting hull weaving between jagged planetoids with a grace that belied the imminent danger.
Inertial dampeners worked overtime, but Bolt, even in his powerful transformed state, felt the strain of the violent maneuvers.
He could feel the destroyer now, not just as a blip on a screen, but as a focused node of predatory intent.
The minds of its Felid crew, disciplined and aggressive, were a discordant shriek against the fragile peace he had cultivated in Aethelgard.
Their thoughts were on capture, or destruction. There was no room for negotiation.
"Its sensor sweeps are too good," Bolt rumbled, his husky head swiveling as he tried to anticipate the destroyer's next move through the chaotic psychic currents.
"They're cutting off our exit vectors."
"The Nyxwing can outmaneuver it in close quarters," Eva said, her voice tight with concentration as she threaded the ship through a particularly dense cluster of tumbling rocks, "but we can't outrun its primary weapons if it gets a clean shot."
Another series of chimes indicated multiple target locks. Missiles, or energy cannons, were about to fire.
Desperation clawed at Bolt. Coria's lessons… "Project not what you fear, but what you hope for."
But hope felt like a distant star right now. Then Lyren's words echoed: "Progenitor-derived weaponry… often have unforeseen sensitivities… especially to the pure frequencies of the Ahna'sara."
Krell's ships weren't Progenitor, but their advanced systems likely incorporated principles scavenged or reverse-engineered from such tech over millennia.
What if, instead of pure harmony, he projected something else? Something to disrupt, to confuse? It felt like a perversion of the Ahna'sara's song, a dangerous improvisation.
But Eva was counting on him.
"Eva," he said, his voice urgent. "When I give the signal, hard to port, into that dense particulate cloud. I'm going to try something."
"Try what?" she shot back, but there was no time to explain.
The destroyer fired. Lances of crimson energy seared the void where they had been fractions of a second before.
"Now, Bolt, or never!"
He closed his eyes, not in meditation, but in furious concentration.
He gathered the power of the Ahna'sara, but instead of shaping it into a soothing melody, he focused on the jarring dissonance he'd felt from the watcher, the chaotic noise of the discord engine in Coria's training chamber.
He amplified it, imbued it with a confusing, disruptive empathic static, and then, with a mental roar, he hurled it at the Felid destroyer.
It wasn't a shield.
It wasn't an attack. It was a focused wave of pure psychic disruption.
For an instant, nothing happened. Then, on the tactical display, the destroyer's previously smooth trajectory wavered. Its weapon locks flickered, then failed.
Bolt, through his empathic link, felt a wave of sudden confusion and irritation from the Felid crew, their disciplined thoughts momentarily scrambled, their systems spitting out garbled data.
"Signal, Bolt!" Eva yelled.
"NOW!"
Eva slammed the controls. The Nyxwing, responding to her empathic guidance, veered sharply, plunging into a vast, opaque cloud of ice crystals and charged dust that would blind conventional sensors.
The destroyer, its systems still trying to recalibrate from Bolt's psychic assault, fired again, but its shots went wide, slicing harmlessly through the void.
They tore through the particulate cloud, Eva navigating by instinct and the Nyxwing's subtle environmental sensors.
Bolt was slumped in his seat, trembling, the effort of wielding the Ahna'sara in such an aggressive, discordant manner leaving him feeling psychically bruised and nauseated. It had worked, but at a cost.
That wasn't what the Seed of Hope was for.
When they finally emerged from the cloud, a good distance away, the destroyer was visible only as a frustrated, receding crimson speck, still trying to get its bearings, its search pattern erratic.
"Did we… did we lose it?" Eva panted, her shoulders slumped with relief.
Bolt nodded weakly. "I think so. For now." He took a shuddering breath. "That… was not pleasant."
Eva reached over and squeezed his massive arm. "But it was brilliant, Bolt. Whatever you did, it threw them off completely."
She looked at him, concern replacing the adrenaline in her eyes. "Are you alright?"
"I will be," he rumbled. "Just… tired. And the Ahna'sara feels… scraped raw."
They took a few moments to assess. The Nyxwing was undamaged, its Aethelgardian construction remarkably resilient.
But the encounter had been too close.
"They might not have gotten a clear visual ID," Eva mused, "but that destroyer will report an anomalous contact with unusual defensive capabilities.
Krell's fleet will be on higher alert."
"We need a new route," Bolt agreed. "Deeper into the Nebula. More cover.
The Waystone…" He focused on the crystal Lyren had given him. It pulsed faintly, and in his mind, he saw a new, faint tendril of light, a more treacherous but less direct path towards the Heart of Orion, weaving through unstable regions of the nebula that larger fleets would avoid.
"It's a longer way around," Eva said, interpreting the new course data appearing on her display, "and the "Nyxwing's" readouts say those regions are… volatile. Gravitational distortions, radiation pockets."
"Safer than facing another destroyer head-on," Bolt stated.
As Eva laid in the new course, guiding the Nyxwing into the denser, more chaotic veils of the Orion Nebula, Bolt closed his eyes, trying to soothe the agitated thrumming of the Ahna'sara.
As he did, a different sensation brushed against his awareness, cutting through his exhaustion.
It wasn't the cold intellect of the watcher this time, nor the disciplined aggression of Krell's forces.
This was something else, something emanating from the very core of the nebula, from the direction of the Heart itself.
A profound, ancient sorrow.
A wave of immense, cosmic pain, so deep and pervasive it made his own aches insignificant.
It was the Heart of Orion, and it was suffering, as if it could already feel the approach of Krell's malevolent intent, crying out in a silent language only the Seed of Hope could truly understand.
Their mission had just become infinitely more personal.