After completing pilot training, Cinque spends the next week ignoring people, shopping for spare parts, and tinkering with tech.
Conrad re-renames his yacht the Vagabond and takes Kat for a joyride. Once off-planet, they discuss the TransTechnic execs that went missing after VoidCorp’s takeover.
Gus sets up a company to deal with the government security contract she inadvertently secured. She then hires a bunch of random mechalus hackers to do the coding while she’s away.
Wayne spends quality bounty hunter time making contacts in various bars. Unfortunately, after he sobers up, he can’t recall any of their names.
Mayhem puts together a deal for 2 cargo units of rhodium. This allows him to finally stop dwelling on the excessive bill for repairing the Sparrow’s airlock, which he damaged trying to show Conrad how to dock at Mindara Station.
Yala assists Ambassador Veil assessing the situation with the Greater Minshore Crystals on Leen. She spends her remaining free time offering aid to help the less fortunate in Tribon.
Samantha stays on Lison. The crew set her up with a clerical position in the Concord embassy. Conrad puts her and his niece in touch.
Sonya informs Conrad that the dealer who caused trouble last time got arrested after someone tipped the goldies off to one of his meets. Just before the Sparrow leaves, she messages to say she’s gotten a job but doesn’t reply when questioned about it.
Lakota Sharpe contacts them. The renowned exobiologist, Angelika Minshore, has arrived and is partnering with her to study the Greater Minshore Crystals. To say she is ecstatic is an understatement.
Eventually, Veil gathers them for an update. She has an uneasy feeling that the enemy’s tech may be more advanced than previously thought. One of her techs has has some success reverse engineering the klick bio-tech from Mindara Station. She hands over a prototype interface gauntlet, along with full schematics. (Cinque later manages to duplicate the device, after sending several thousand Concord’s worth of hardware to Silicon Heaven.) They agree to ferry her aide, Tapo’al Ifuurl, to Bluefall so he can report to Deputy Ambassador Naar al-Haq on Sirensea.
Escorted by a pair of Concord scouts, the Sparrow leaves Oberon with the Illumination, which carries the contents of the Gallagher vault, as well as Hadley, Joseph’s cryo pod, and Gemini McCarthy. They starrise in Aegis on New Year’s Eve.
Gus learns of some unsettling repercussions from uncovering V0RL’s existence. Conrad buys himself a New Year’s present. Mayhem clears a profit. Hadley gives the crew a cut of the sale, per Joseph’s instructions.
At Alloy’s request, they take a small delivery to Walin. Wayne thinks he picks up something at the edge of sensor range but is unable to pinpoint it. A few hours after docking at StarStation Aurora, three unidentified ships suddenly appear nearby. Breaching two airlocks and the shuttle bay, each delivers a group of five unknown aliens in environment suits who immediately attack anyone in sight. The crew of the Sparrow deals with one group, Kurch leads the few veteran Inseer security personnel to the shuttle bay, and the trainee recruits plus the remaining security bots tackle the third group. The invaders are described as “things of nightmares”.
Although the defenders take heavy casualties, all three battle groups are defeated. Shortly before the last attacker goes down, the three ships detach from the station and simply vanish. SALAI confirms their disappearance looked like the sensor anomalies Wayne detected earlier. Mayhem becomes hysterical when he sees one of the fallen intruders, eventually calming enough to explain that they are monsters of legend who appeared from the skies and attacked the t’sa many centuries ago — the n’sss.