* MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ALL AMARANTHE NOVELS FOLLOW! *

AURORA RISING

Detailed Synopsis

STARSHINE

By the year 2322, humanity has expanded into the stars to inhabit over 100 worlds spread across a third of the galaxy. Though thriving as never before, they have not discovered the key to utopia, and societal divisions and conflict run as deep as ever.

Two decades ago, a group of breakaway colonies rebelled to form the Senecan Federation. They fought the Earth Alliance, won their independence in the Crux War and began to rise in wealth and power.

Now a cabal of powerful individuals within both superpowers and the criminal underground set in motion a plot designed to incite renewed war between the Alliance and Federation. Olivia Montegreu, Liam O’Connell, Matei Uttara and others each foment war for their own reasons. One man, Marcus Aguirre, manipulates them all, for only he knows what awaits humanity if the plot fails.

*

Alexis Solovy is a starship pilot and explorer. Her father, a fallen war hero, gave his life in the Crux War. As Operations Director for Earth Alliance Strategic Command (EASC), her mother Miriam Solovy is an influential military leader. But Alex seeks only the freedom of space and has made a fortune by reading the patterns in the chaos to uncover the hidden wonders of the stars from her cutting-edge scout ship, the Siyane.

Caleb Marano is an intelligence agent for the Senecan Federation. His trade is to become whatever the situation requires: to lie, deceive, outwit and if necessary use lethal force to bring his target to justice. Clever and enigmatic, he’s long enjoyed the thrill and danger his job brings, but now finds himself troubled by the death of his mentor.

*

On Earth, Alex is preparing for an expedition to the Metis Nebula, a remote region on the fringes of explored space, when she receives an unexpected offer to lead the Alliance’s space exploration program. After a typically contentious meeting with her mother, she refuses the job.

On Seneca, Caleb returns from a forced vacation spent with his sister Isabela and her daughter Marlee. Fresh off eradicating the terrorist group who murdered his mentor, he receives a new mission from Special Operations Director Michael Volosk: conduct a threat assessment on disturbing readings originating from the Metis Nebula.

While Alex and Caleb separately travel toward Metis, a Trade Summit between the Alliance and Federation begins on the resort world of Atlantis. Colonel Richard Navick, lifelong friend of the Solovys and EASC Naval Intelligence Liaison, is in charge of surveillance for the Summit, but unbeknownst to him, the provocation for renewed war will begin under his watch.

Jaron Nythal, Asst. Trade Director for the Federation, abets the infiltration of the Summit by the assassin Matei Uttara. Matei kills a Federation attaché, Chris Candela, and assumes his identity. On the final night of the Summit, he poisons Alliance Minister of Trade Santiagar with a virus, which overloads his cybernetics, causing a fatal stroke. Matei escapes in the ensuing chaos.

Shortly after departing Seneca, Caleb is attacked by mercenary ships. He defeats them, but when he later encounters Alex’s ship on the fringes of Metis, he believes her to be another mercenary and fires on her. She destroys his ship, though not before suffering damage to her own, and he crashes on a nearby planet. She is forced to land to effect repairs; recognizing her attacker will die without rescue, she takes him prisoner.

Richard Navick and Michael Volosk each separately scramble to uncover the truth of the Santiagar assassination while Olivia Montegreu, the leader of the Zelones criminal cartel, schemes with Marcus Aguirre to implement the next phase in their plan. Olivia routes missiles provided by Alliance General Liam O’Connell to a group of mercenaries.

Fighting past distrust and suspicion, Alex and Caleb complete repairs on the Siyane using salvaged material from the wreckage of his ship. Having gained a degree of camaraderie and affection, if not quite trust, they depart the planet in search of answers to the mystery at the heart of Metis.

What they discover is a scene from a nightmare—an armada of monstrous alien ships emerging from a massive portal, gathering a legion in preparation for an invasion.

Meanwhile, Olivia’s mercenaries launch a devastating attack on the Federation colony of Palluda. Disguised to look like a strike by Alliance military forces, the attack has the desired effect of inciting war. The Federation retaliates by leveling an Alliance military base on Arcadia, and the Second Crux War has begun.

Alex and Caleb flee the Metis Nebula to warn others of the impending threat, only to learn war has broken out between their respective governments. Caleb delivers information about the alien threat to Volosk. He informs the Director of Intelligence, Graham Delavasi, who alerts the Federation government Chairman Vranas and the military’s supreme commander, Field Marshal Gianno. Forced to focus on the new war with the Alliance for now, they nonetheless dispatch a stealth infiltration team to investigate Metis.

Caleb is requested to accompany the team and return to Metis, only Alex refuses to drop him off on her way to Earth. Tensions flare, but Caleb realizes he’s emotionally compromised even as Alex realizes she must let him go. Instead, he agrees to go to Earth with her, and together with Volosk they devise a plan to try to bring a swift end to the war by exposing its suspicious beginnings.

The plan goes awry when Caleb is arrested shortly after they arrive—by Alex’s mother—after his true identity is leaked to Richard by those in league with Marcus.

While Caleb is locked away in a detention facility, his friend Noah Terrage is recruited by Olivia to smuggle explosives to Vancouver. Possessing a conscience, he refuses. The infiltration team sent by the Federation to Metis vanishes as the Second Crux War escalates.

Alex is forced to choose between her government, her family and what she knows is right. She turns to her best friend, Kennedy Rossi, and their old hacker acquaintance, Claire Zabroi. Plans in place, Alex presents her evidence on the alien armada to a skeptical EASC Board. Their tepid reaction leads to a final confrontation with her mother and a final plea to focus on the true threat.

Alex hacks military security and breaks Caleb out of confinement. Allegiances declared and choices made, they at last give in to the passion they feel for one another. Despite lingering resentment toward the Federation for her father’s death and fear that Caleb is merely playing a role, she agrees to accompany him to Seneca to find another way to combat the looming invasion.

Caleb appeals to his friend and former lover, Mia Requelme, for help in covering their tracks. She hides the Siyane safely away on Romane while Alex and Caleb travel to Seneca. Secretly, Caleb asks Mia to hack the ship while they are gone to grant him full access and flying privileges, something Alex zealously guards for herself, and Mia uses her personal Artificial, Meno, to break the encryption on the ship.

On Earth, Richard wrestles with unease and doubt as he begins to believe Alex’s claims about the origin of the war. He confesses his dilemma to his husband, Will Sutton. Will urges him to work to bring about peace and offers to convey Santiagar’s autopsy report to Alex in the hope the Senecan government can find in it evidence to prove the assassination was not their doing.

Volosk meets with Caleb and Alex, and they hand over the autopsy report Will forwarded and all the raw data they recorded on the aliens. In return Volosk arranges meetings with the highest levels of leadership.

As Alex and Caleb enjoy a romantic dinner, EASC Headquarters is destroyed in a massive bombing executed by agents of Olivia and Marcus. Though intended to be killed in the attack, due to a last minute scheduling conflict Miriam Solovy is not on the premises. Instead EASC Board Chairman Alamatto perishes, along with thousands of others. On the campus but outside Headquarters, Richard narrowly escapes critical injury.

Within minutes of the bombing, Caleb and Alex are ambushed by mercenaries in downtown Cavare. Caleb kills them all in dramatic fashion, but unbeknownst to him Alex was injured by a stray shot. In the panic of the moment he mistakes her shellshocked behavior for fear of the killer he has revealed himself to be.

Heartbroken but determined to protect her, he flees with her to the Intelligence building. Upon arriving there, they find the unthinkable—Michael Volosk has been murdered, his throat slit in the parking lot.

Suddenly unable to trust anyone, Caleb pleas with Alex to go with him to the spaceport, but she collapses as a result of her injury. Stunned but with one clear mission, he steals a skycar and returns to their ship, where he can treat her wounds in the relative safety of space.

The EASC bombing successfully executed, Olivia’s Zelones network turns its attention to Noah. In refusing to smuggle the explosives he is now a liability; the first attempt on his life misses him but kills his young companion. Searching for answers, he traces the source of the hit and realizes he was targeted because of his friendship with Caleb. Lacking other options and with a price on his head, he flees Pandora for Messium.

Miriam returns to Vancouver to preside over the devastation at EASC Headquarters. She begins the process of moving the organization forward—only to learn the evidence implicates Caleb as the perpetrator.

Marcus moves one step nearer to his goal when the Alliance Assembly passes a No Confidence Vote against Prime Minister Brennon. Marcus’ friend Luis Barrera is named PM, and he quickly appoints Marcus Foreign Minister.

Alex regains consciousness aboard their rented ship as they race back to Romane. Misunderstandings and innate fears drive them to the breaking point, then bring them closer than ever. The moment of contentment is short-lived, however, as Caleb—and by extension Alex—is publicly named a suspect in the bombing.

Every copy of the raw data captured at the portal, except for the original in Alex’s possession, has now been destroyed. Recognizing an even deeper secret must reside within the portal and hunted by the conspirators and authorities alike, Alex and Caleb begin a desperate gambit to clear their names and discover a way to defeat the aliens.

On reaching Romane, Alex, Caleb and the Siyane are protected by Mia while they prepare. Kennedy brings equipment to replace the ship’s shielding damaged in Metis. On the Siyane, she realizes the repairs made using the material from Caleb’s ship has begun transforming the hull into a new, stronger metal. Caleb receives a vote of confidence from his sister Isabela, and a gesture of trust from Alex in the form of a chair.

Back on Earth, Miriam and Richard work to clear Alex’s name, even as Miriam is threatened by the newly-named EASC Board Chairman, Liam O’Connell. Marcus informs his alien contact, Hyperion that his plan has nearly come to fruition, only to be told he is out of time.

As the invaders commence their assault on the frontiers of settled space by sieging the colony of Gaiae, Alex and Caleb breach the aliens’ mysterious, otherworldly portal at the heart of the Metis Nebula.

VERTIGO

Beyond the Portal

Alex and Caleb survive the portal traversal to discover empty darkness on the other side. They follow the TLF wave until they are attacked by a host of alien vessels. Alex discerns an artificial space within the emptiness and pitches the Siyane into it. The vessels do not follow, and Alex and Caleb find themselves in the atmosphere of a hidden planet.

The planet mimics Earth in almost every way, but is 1/3 the size and orbits no sun. It differs in one other respect as well—time moves differently here. Days back home pass in hours here.

When they land and venture outside to explore their surroundings, Alex notices the ship’s hull continues to transform into a new, unknown metal. As she puzzles over it they are attacked—by a dragon. The beast captures Alex and flies off with her.

Caleb takes control of the ship to chase the dragon. As it reaches a mountain range, the Siyane impacts an invisible barrier which throws it back to its origin point. On his return Caleb encounters and kills 2 additional dragons. Believing the barrier is a technology repulsor but uncertain of its parameters, he crafts a sword from a piece of metal, deactivates his eVi and crosses the barrier on foot.

Alex wakes in a memory. Eleven years old, she enjoys breakfast with her parents, then overhears a conversation between them she in reality never witnessed. Realizing this is an illusion, she demands to be set free. A ghostly, disembodied voice challenges her. Thus begins her journey through a series of scenes from the past in which she is forced to watch events unfold, helpless to intervene or escape, as her protests, tirades and desperate pleas go unanswered.

— First is a gauntlet of her own mistakes. Designed to paint her as selfish and uncaring, her worst flaws are displayed in encounters with friends, former lovers and most of all with her mother.

— She views a massive battle between the Alliance and Federation and realizes this is about more than her—the aliens having been watching and recording events across human civilization.

— Traveling further back in time, Alex suffers through the Hong Kong Incident 232 years earlier. Over 50,000 people died when an Artificial trapped HK University residents for 5 weeks without food. At its conclusion her captor speaks to her for only the second time, telling her she has ‘done well.’

— She is sent to the bridge of her father’s cruiser in the middle of the Kappa Crucis battle of the 1st Crux War—the battle that took his life. She sees her father’s heroism as he protects thousands of civilians against a Federation assault, then his last moments as, his ship crippled, he contacts Miriam to say goodbye. The heartbreak and emotion of the scene devastates Alex, leaving her crumpled on the floor sobbing as the Stalwart explodes.

When it’s over, she thanks her unseen captor for showing her this event. It expresses confusion at the incongruity of her distress and her thanks, leading her to observe that for all their watching, they still have no idea what it means to be human. Before the interchange can continue, she is told she will wake up, as her companion approaches.

Caleb hiked through the mountains for 2 days. The environment led him to recall a mission with Samuel, during which his mentor divulged the woman he loved was killed by slavers he’d been investigating. Later, Caleb discovers small orbs hovering in the air to generate the tech repulsion field. He renders several inert and confiscates them.

Having reached the dragon’s den, he attacks it using the sword, and after an extended battle flays and kills it. As he nears the structure the dragon guarded, an ethereal being materializes but allows him to pass.

Alex awakens as Caleb enters, and they share a tender reunion. Soon, however, he is forced to admit Mia’s hacking of her ship. He expects her to lash out in anger, but she instead declares her love for him. He quickly reciprocates, and rather unexpectedly they find themselves reconciled and closer than before. She recounts her experiences while a captive, and they decide to seek out the alien.

Eventually they come upon a lush valley sheltering a large lake; the alien Caleb encountered soars above it. It approaches them while morphing into a humanoid form and introduces itself as Mnemosyne.

Though enigmatic and evasive, the alien reveals its kind have been observing humans for aeons. It suggests humanity is being conquered because it advanced more swiftly and to a greater extent than expected. On further pressing, the alien—Alex has dubbed it ‘Mesme’—indicates the invading ships are AIs, sent to cower people into submission if possible, to exterminate them if not. It emphasizes the ships are only machines, and notes humans have machines as powerful—Artificials. Part of Alex’s test was to ensure she appreciated the dangers and limitations of Artificials, but also their potential.

Alex recalls a meeting 4 years ago with Dr. Canivon, a cybernetics expert, during which she met Canivon’s Artificial, Valkyrie. She and Valkyrie hit it off, and Canivon explained her research into making Artificials safer and better aligned with human interests. She begins to understand what Mesme is suggesting, but pushes for more intel and acquires a copy of the code powering the planet’s cloaking shield.

Mesme admits to believing humans are worth saving. The alien warns them they will be hunted on their return through the portal; at this point a second alien appears and a confrontation ensues. Mesme deters the new alien long enough to transport Alex and Caleb back to the Siyane. They arrive to learn the ship’s hull has been completely transformed into the new metal.

Alex studies the cloaking shield code and adapts it for use on her ship. They depart the planet and continue following the TLF wave, discovering a massive shipyard where superdreadnoughts are being built and sent to their galaxy. Beyond it lies a portal 10x larger than the one that brought them here. It generates their TLF wave—as well as 50 more waves projected in a fanlike pattern.

They track one of the waves to a portal identical to the one leading to the Metis Nebula. They traverse it to find the signals replicated in a new space and a second origin portal, which leads them to conclude this is an elaborate, interlocking tunnel network.

Caleb devises a way to destroy the shipyard using the tech repulsion orbs he confiscated. They launch the orbs into the facility then activate them, resulting in its obliteration. This attracts the attention of enemy ships, which chase the Siyane through a series of portal jumps. Alex asks Caleb to fly her ship while she figures out a path that will deposit them nearest their own exit point.

On reaching it, Alex activates the sLume drive and traverses it at superluminal speed to emerge parsecs beyond the portal and well past the waiting enemies in the Metis Nebula. With working communications, they learn they’ve been cleared of all charges. Alex sends a message to Kennedy, telling her they are alive and have destroyed the aliens’ shipyard.

*

Milky Way

As the 2nd Crux War escalates, Federation forces conquer the Alliance colony of Desna. Lt. Col. Malcolm Jenner’s Juno is the sole defender, and it escapes just before being crippled.

Miriam jousts with Liam even as she remains under a cloud of suspicion due to Alex’s alleged involvement in the HQ bombing. Richard enlists the aid of a quantum computing specialist, Devon Reynolds, to help uncover the tampering in government records which led to the framing of Caleb and Alex for the bombing.

On Seneca, Dir. of Intelligence Graham Delavasi reviews Michael Volosk’s files, including his suspicions regarding Jaron Nythal, and decides to follow up on the suspicions. Nythal tries to flee, but before he can do so the assassin Matei Uttara kills him. When Graham is called to the crime scene, he connects the dots and realizes a conspiracy does exist, and at least one person in his organization is involved.

Caleb’s sister Isabela is taken in for questioning. In order to gain her trust, Graham reveals to her that her father was an investigator for Intelligence and was killed 20 years earlier by a resistance group planning to overthrow the Federation government. Her father’s apparent abandonment of his family was a feint to protect them. After he was killed, the government covered up the incident.

On Messium, Kennedy is headed to a meeting when the aliens attack and is trapped under falling debris. She is rescued by a passing stranger—who turns out to be Noah Terrage—and they seek shelter. While her injuries heal they study the aliens’ interference with comms and find a way to circumvent it. Kennedy sends a message to Miriam.

The Alliance launches an offensive to retake Desna. While the battle rages in space, Malcolm Jenner and a special forces team rescue the Desnan governor and his family. The Alliance fails to retake the colony. Meanwhile, an explosion takes the life of EA Prime Minister Barrera. In the wake of his death Marcus Aguirre—who arranged Barrera’s murder—is named Prime Minister.

Devon Reynolds uncovers alterations to the records used to frame Caleb and Alex for the HQ bombing. At Richard’s request he and a group of hackers leak the evidence to media outlets.

Upon seeing the news, Graham Delavasi refocuses his efforts to uncover the conspiracy. Suspecting his deputy, Liz Oberti, he uses Isabela to set a trap. Oberti is arrested but refuses to provide any intel.

The EASC Board meets about the Messium attack, where Miriam shares Kennedy’s method to thwart the comm interference. Admiral Rychen readies a mission to drive the aliens off Messium.

While Richard and Miriam discuss Alex’s name being cleared, Richard’s husband, Will Sutton, arrives. In an effort to help expose the conspiracy and end the 2nd Crux War, he confesses he is an undercover Senecan Intelligence agent and puts Richard in touch with Graham.

Following a heated confrontation with Will, Richard departs to meet Graham on Pandora. Together they interrogate a man suspected of smuggling explosives into Vancouver. The agent gives up Olivia Montegreu, and they formulate a plan to ensnare her.

Miriam confronts Liam over his mismanagement of the war and alien invasion. Enraged, he strikes her, but she refuses to be intimidated. Marcus reaches out to his alien contact, entreating that he now has the power to cease human expansion and pleading with it to end the offensive, but the alien does not respond.

Olivia visits a subordinate on Krysk, but finds Richard and Graham waiting for her. In exchange for her freedom, she gives up Marcus and the details of their conspiracy. Before they part ways Graham gives Richard Will’s intelligence file.

Malcolm is sent to assist Admiral Rychen in the Messium offensive. As the battle commences, Kennedy and Noah flee their hideout in an attempt to reach a small military station across the city. They witness horrific devastation and death while crossing the city, but successfully reach the station and repair several shuttles to escape.

The Alliance ships struggle to hold their own against a powerful enemy. Malcolm retrieves the fleeing shuttles and learns the details of the situation on the ground. Faced with the reality that Alliance forces will eventually be defeated, the fleet retreats to save the remaining ships for future battles.

Graham returns to Seneca to inform Federation Chairman Vranas of the conspiracy and the false pretenses upon which hostilities were instigated. Vranas begins the process of reaching out to the Alliance to end the war. Isabela is released from protective custody and returns home to Krysk to reunite with her daughter.

Based on the information Olivia provided, Miriam goes to arrest Liam, only to find he has fled. Richard similarly accompanies a team to detain Marcus, but on their arrival Marcus declares everything he did was for the good of humanity, then commits suicide.

After studying Will’s Intelligence file and realizing his husband had acted honorably—other than lying to him—Richard pays Will a visit. Following a contentious and emotional scene, they appear to reconcile.

The EA Assembly reinstates Steven Brennon as Prime Minister. His first act is to promote Miriam to EASC Board Chairman and Fleet Admiral of the Armed Forces. On her advice he signs a peace treaty with the Federation.

Olivia approaches Aiden Trieneri, head of the rival Triene cartel and her occasional lover, and suggests they work together to aid the fight against the invaders. On Atlantis, Matei Uttara’s alien contact tells him Alex and Caleb are returning and instructs him to kill them.

Kennedy and Noah reach Earth. Kennedy’s easy rapport with the military leadership spooks Noah, and he tries to slip away. She chases after him, ultimately persuading him to stay with a passionate kiss.

Liam arrives at the NW Regional base on Fionava. He injects a virus into the communications network and hijacks several ships by convincing their captains he is on a secret mission approved by EA leadership to launch clandestine raids on Federation colonies.

Alliance and Federation leadership are meeting to finalize war plans when an alien contacts them to offer terms for their surrender. It involves humanity forever retreating west behind a demarcation line, cutting off 28 colonies and 150 million people.

The leaders don’t want to surrender but recognize their odds of victory are quite low. Then Miriam receives word that Alex is alive and the aliens’ ability to send reinforcements has been destroyed. They decide to reject the terms of surrender and fight. On Miriam’s order their ships open fire on the alien forces.

TRANSCENDENCE

The Metigen War is in full swing as Alex and Caleb approach Seneca. Caleb initiates an Intelligence Division protection protocol, and he and Alex join Director Delavasi at a safe house as several actions are set in motion.

Alex contacts Dr. Canivon to discuss the feasibility of enriching human/Artificial connections, only to discover Sagan is already under attack by the Metigens. The Alliance is defending the independent colony, and Alex asks her mother to ensure Canivon and her Artificial, Valkyrie, are rescued and brought to Earth. Caleb reaches out to Isabela, who divulges the truth about their father’s profession and his death. Caleb confronts Graham about it, and a heated argument ensues.

On Earth, Kennedy works with the Alliance to manufacture the material the Siyane’s hull transformed into, now called ‘adiamene.’ She implores Noah to seek the help of his estranged father, a metals expert. Noah agrees, but the request introduces tension into their relationship. Devon tries to restore communications to Fionava and NW Command, while elsewhere at EASC Devon’s boss, Brigadier Hervé, is contacted by Hyperion, the same alien Marcus Aguirre was in league with.

Alex, Caleb, Miriam, Richard and Graham converge on a secluded, private estate on Pandora, and Alex and Miriam reunite in a more tender encounter than either were expecting. Alex reveals the full extent of her plan to the others, including that she intends to spearhead it by being the first to neurally link to an Artificial. Even as they meet, agents of the Metigens seek to stop them—the safe house on Seneca is blown up, and the assassin Matei Uttara pursues them to Pandora.

When Miriam breaks the news to Alex that her former lover, Ethan Tollis, died in an explosion, she flees to grieve in private. Caleb goes after her, but it intercepted by Uttara. A bloody fight ensues, during which both men are gravely injured. Alex arrives on the scene and shoots Uttara in the head, killing him. Caleb collapses from his injuries.

Noah meets with his father, Lionel, in a combative encounter. Despite the tension between them, Lionel agrees to help with the adiamene production, and they travel to Berlin to meet Kennedy at the manufacturing facility. Once Lionel begins work, Noah confronts Kennedy about her motives for forcing a reunion with his father, but the matter isn’t resolved.

Caleb regains consciousness, and he and Alex share an emotional moment in which they both come to realizations about each other and the strength of their relationship. Miriam learns Liam has attacked the Federation colonies of New Cairo and Ogham with nuclear weapons, and she is forced to travel to Seneca to smooth things over with Federation leadership. Once Caleb is healed enough to travel, he and Alex depart for Earth. On the way, he contacts Mia and asks her to come to Earth, though he can’t yet tell her why.

Miriam meets with Field Marshal Gianno and Chairman Vranas, and in a surprising move tells them she won’t take any active steps to stop Liam until after the Metigens are defeated, as they must concentrate all their efforts on the alien invasion. She then tells Gianno about Alex’s plan. Gianno selects the fighter pilot, Morgan Lekkas, for participation, and recalls her from Elathan, where Morgan was helping to defend against a Metigen attack.

Alex and Caleb reach EASC Headquarters, where they are reunited with Kennedy and Noah. Alex meets with Dr. Canivon, who was safely evacuated off Sagan, and informs the woman she wants to use Valkyrie as her Artificial partner in the project they’ve dubbed ‘Noetica.’ While monitoring the war effort, EASC’s Artificial, Annie, discovers her programming has been corrupted and suspects Hervé of tampering.

Miriam returns to Earth and meets with Prime Minister Brennon. She tells him they are losing the war—they and the Federation are suffering too many losses and will run out of ships and soldiers long before the Metigens do—then pitches Noetica to him.

Mia arrives in Vancouver. Alex and Caleb ask her to be a part of Noetica, together with her Artificial, Meno, and she agrees. With time running out and the Metigens advancing, Noetica is approved and Devon Reynolds and Annie are selected as the last participants.

Alex is the first to undergo the procedure Dr. Canivon has devised to allow a linking between an Artificial’s quantum processes and a human mind at a neural level. Caleb and Miriam each contend with fear and worry about her well-being, and Miriam comes to recognize how much Caleb cares for Alex.

Alex awakens to her and Valkyrie’s thoughts clashing and overrunning one another. She struggles to regain control of her mind and deal with the flood of information, and with Caleb’s help is able to do so. She informs her mother the Metigens are deviating from their pattern and heading for Seneca and Romane in massive force.

While the others undergo the procedure, Alex and Miriam meet with Brennon, Gianno and Vranas. Alex makes the case that the Metigens are coming for Seneca and Romane, and Miriam and Brennon decide to send the EA fleet to defend the two worlds.

On Liam’s cruiser, the Akagi, Captain Brooklyn Harper begins a mutinous campaign to stop Liam. She enlists one of her teammates, Kone,  and a comm officer, who slips a message out to Col. Malcolm Jenner saying Liam’s next target is Krysk and asking for intervention. Then she and Kone sabotage the remaining nukes on the Akagi.

Malcolm is defending Scythia from the Metigens when he receives Harper’s message. He passes it on to Miriam, who informs Gianno. Gianno claims she can’t spare the ships to defend the colony if the Metigens are almost at Seneca.

Caleb is furious the military won’t defend Krysk, where his sister and niece live, and makes the gut-wrenching decision to try to rescue them. Alex gives him the Siyane, saying it’s his only chance to reach Krysk in time. After a tearful parting, Caleb leaves, but not before recruiting Noah to go with him.

Alex, Devon, Mia and Morgan, and their Artificial counterparts, Valkyrie, Annie, Meno and Stanley, gather to strategize. They name themselves “Prevos,” taken from the Russian word for “The Transcended,” and begin to realize the extent of their new capabilities. Alex shares a touching goodbye with her mother before leaving with the fleet for Seneca.

Devon remains at EASC, where he and Annie will oversee all fronts of the war, and comes to terms with the fact Hervé is working for the Metigens. At the same time, Hyperion confronts Hervé about Noetica. Because she wants the Metigens defeated, Hervé does not reveal to Hyperion that she has secretly placed a ‘Kill Switch’ in the Prevos’ firmware, which when used will sever their connections to the Artificials—and also likely kill them.

Graham, Vranas and Gianno discuss the coming attack and express concerns over Noetica. When Graham returns to his office, Will Sutton—Richard’s husband and a Senecan intelligence agent—is waiting on him and bears mysterious news.

Liam arrives at Krysk and attempts to use his nukes to disable the orbital defense array. They fail to detonate, and he has Kone brought before him to answer allegations of sabotage. When Kone refuses to confess, Liam executes him. Harper witnesses the execution via a surveillance camera; devastated, she prepares to try to blow up the ship. On the colony below, Isabela and Marlee are downtown as the attack begins. They seek refuge in the basement of an office building, but become trapped when the building collapses.

Alex reaches Seneca and Admiral Rychen’s flagship dreadnought, the Churchill, and she and Rychen discuss strategy. Meanwhile, the Noetica Artificials discuss using neural imprints of notable military officers to supplement their and the Prevos tactical capabilities.

Caleb and Noah get to Krysk to discover the capital city under attack. The ongoing assault makes it too dangerous to land and find Isabela and Marlee, so Caleb comes up with a new plan. He draws Liam’s ships away from the city, then, trusting the adiamene hull is strong enough to hold the Siyane together, crashes it through the frigates and into the belly of the Akagi.

They fight their way through the ship to the bridge, where they encounter Harper, who agrees to help them. She distracts Liam, then when Caleb and Noah open fire, disables his personal shield. Caleb kills Liam. Caleb, Noah and Harper rush back to the Siyane and escape just before the cruiser crashes.

Noah and Harper help Caleb dig a tunnel to where Isabela and Marlee are trapped, freeing them and several other people. Harper elects to remain in the city to aid with rescue efforts. Noah decides to find transportation back to Earth, eager to return to Kennedy, and Caleb heads for Seneca, and Alex.

The Metigens arrive at Seneca in overwhelming force. Alex, on the Churchill with Rychen, and Morgan, on the SF flagship with Gianno, take charge of the battle, employing a number of surprise weapons and tactics to gain an early advantage over the Metigen armada.

Several hours into the battle, Alex argues as it stands now they will not achieve complete victory. She convinces Miriam and Rychen to allow her to break into one of the Metigen superdreadnoughts, where she and Valkyrie believe they can hack the core operating code. She hitches a ride atop a recon craft, experiencing a thrilling and terrifying journey through the heart of the battle.

Inside, Alex finds a cavernous space, with power conduits and signals running in every direction, and goes in search of the engineering core. When she hears her father in her head during the search, Valkyrie confesses that the Artificials’ search of military neural imprints turned up one for Alex’s father, taken before his death. Not surprisingly, it was compatible with Alex’s brainwave patterns, so Valkyrie loaded it into her processes to increase their knowledge of military tactics. Valkyrie then enriched the imprint, creating a more fulsome representation of David Solovy’s mind and leading to the unexpected result of his personality manifesting.

When they locate the engineering core Alex immerses herself in it to access the ship's programming. Valkyrie inserts a subtle logic error into one of the base routines, and they quickly depart the ship.

A major battle also ensues on and above Romane. Malcolm takes a special forces squad groundside, where he meets up with Mia in the governor’s emergency bunker. Mia believes she and Meno have developed a signal beam to nullify an alien vessel’s shields. He agrees to help her test it out on one of the smaller alien ships wreaking havoc in the city. They depart the bunker with part of Malcom’s squad, while the rest of the squad conducts rescue operations. The test is successful, and Mia/Meno transfer the code for the signal to Devon, who deploys it to all the fleets.

They are returning to the bunker when Malcolm receives an order to arrest one of his Marines who was part of the rescue team on suspicion of working for the Metigens. When arrested, the suspect detonates a bomb he’d placed at Mia’s home. The explosion badly damages Meno’s hardware, abruptly severing his connection with Mia and causing her to stroke.

Caleb reaches the fleet at Seneca, and he and Alex enjoy a jubilant reunion. Suddenly Alex collapses to the floor as the trauma to Meno and Mia reverberates through the Prevos’ connection to one another. Once Alex recovers, she, Devon and Morgan decide it’s time to implement their secret plan to ensure victory.

Miriam is overseeing both battlefronts from the War Room when she’s informed Devon/Annie have taken control of both Earth’s and Seneca’s defense arrays. Panic erupts among the military and government leaders. At that moment Miriam receives a message from Alex asking Miriam to please trust in her, and trust Richard. Richard indicates he knows something but won’t divulge what it might be.

Hervé judges it’s necessary to use the Kill Switch, but Miriam shoots her with a stunner before she can do so. Miriam refuses to act against the Prevos, even as they turn the defense arrays inward.

Unbeknownst to Miriam, shortly after the Prevos were created, they uncovered the full Metigen network of spies and assassins. Before leaving Earth, Alex went with Devon to see Richard and gave him a list of enemy agents, and he contacted Graham and Will on Seneca. They formulated a strategy to arrest or kill the agents at the last possible moment, and enlisted Olivia Montegreu’s aid in the effort. Miriam was kept in the dark because revealing Hervé’s involvement ahead of time would’ve alerted the aliens to the fact the Prevos were onto them.

The defense arrays fire—on dozens of Metigen superdreadnoughts hiding cloaked above the major cities of Earth and Seneca. Armed with massive firepower as well as the disruptive signal beam Mia/Meno developed, the superdreadnoughts are destroyed. The Prevos had picked up the stealthed vessels hours earlier, but again, revealing them too early would have tipped their hand.

An alien representative contacts those leading the military assault, but Alex takes charge of the conversation. The alien says they are open to considering cease fire terms, but Alex notes the aliens are in no position to bargain, as humanity’s forces have decimated them. She orders them to retreat through the portal and to cease their observation of and meddling in Aurora. She also asks for an explanation for their aggression; the alien replies that humans are far more dangerous than they recognize and must be contained.

The alien accepts her terms, but warns humanity not to come looking for them beyond the portal. Alex doesn’t respond to the warning, instead ordering them to retreat now. They do so, and the war comes to an end.

Later, as EA Prime Minister Brennon gives a speech mourning those lost and vowing a new era for civilization, Gianno and Vranas worry about the future of peace with EA and the danger Noetica poses, before separating to celebrate the victory with their families.

Noah reaches Earth and intercepts Kennedy as she is about to leave Vancouver. He finds her cold and dismissive, and provokes her into admitting she was hurt by him eagerly running off with Caleb, then not contacting her. He admits his mistake and being angry with her, but pleads his case by regaling all he went through to get back to her as fast as possible, and they reconcile.

On New Babel, Olivia and her partner-in-crime Aiden prepare to expand their spheres of influence. When Aiden suggests they merge their cartels—the one thing Olivia had warned him never to do—she uses a cybernetic virus to kill him, then begins taking over his cartel.

Alex returns to Earth and reunites with her mother. She elects not to tell Miriam about the construct of her father, and after catching up they agree to meet for lunch the next week.

Caleb and Alex visit Mia, who remains in a coma and was brought to EASC’s hospital at Alex’s request. Dr. Canivon says she’s somewhat optimistic she can rebuild Meno, and together they can repair the damage to Mia’s brain. Caleb authorizes her to move ahead, though there’s no guarantee Mia will be herself should she eventually awaken.

They return to Alex’s loft for a romantic dinner. Caleb presents her with a belated birthday gift—a bracelet crafted from a piece of his sword, the only remnant of the Siyane’s hull before it morphed into adiamene.

He divulges that Graham has offered him any job he wants if he’ll return to Division. Alex encourages him to do so, insisting they can make a long-distance relationship work. He challenges her about what she truly wants from him. When she caves and admits she selfishly wants him to stay with her, he immediately resigns from Division and asks her to marry him. After an emotional discussion, she says yes.

Six Months Later

Miriam returns from vacation to move into the new Headquarters building. She and Richard are discussing threats on the horizon and long-term strategies when she receives a message from Alex.

On Atlantis, Kennedy and Noah are enjoying their own vacation, expecting Alex and Caleb to join them later in the day, when Kennedy also receives a message from Alex.

The Siyane hovers in the Metis Nebula, just outside the ring of ships patrolling the portal to prevent any Metigen incursion. Valkyrie has been installed into the walls of the Siyane, and Alex and Caleb have married. They activate the portal and accelerate through it on a quest for answers about the Metigens and their network of multiverses.

~

AURORA RENEGADES

Detailed Synopsis

SIDESPACE

Portal Network

Mnemosyne has been exiled by the Idryma Conclave, the Metigen group who controls the portals. The Conclave placed bombs at the Metis Portal intended to destroy the apparatus if it opened, but Mesme disabled them before the Siyane traversed the portal.

Alex and Caleb discover a star system of planet-spanning, flora-based intelligences. The first world they visit is aggressive and tries to kill them when they damage a leaf. They escape, but while fleeing one of the plants cuts Alex and injects a toxin into her bloodstream.

The next planet is peaceful. While exploring, a tree induces Caleb into a trance-like state in order to communicate with him. He realizes the life-form can heal Alex’s injury and convinces her to let it treat her. They name the intelligence ‘Akeso’ and spend several days with it.

On visiting the third planet, they discover its resident is trying to expand off-world and is terraforming its moon. When their presence is detected, it attacks the Siyane. They return to Akeso to warn it of the threat from its neighbor. To do so, Caleb must expose Akeso to the violence and death of his past, notions it has never conceived of. Troubled, Akeso asks them to depart.

The next portal space they visit harbors life which is the polar opposite of Akeso—an inorganic species called Ruda. When the first Ruda they meet realizes they’re organic, it tries to dissect them to study how organic life functions. Valkyrie convinces the alien they are more valuable alive. They agree to share data on humans, and in return the Ruda share details about their nature with Valkyrie. She uses it to begin weaving her quantum circuitry into the hull of the Siyane.

On Portal Prime, Mesme confers with the Conclave leader, Lakhes, about these humans’ exploration of the portal network and what it means for the Metigens’ plans.

Alex and Caleb finally meet a humanoid, space-faring species—and are promptly taken prisoner by the large, cat-like aliens known as Khokteh. They’re held captive until Valkyrie develops a translation program and they’re able to plead their case to the leader, Pinchu. He releases them, and they become friends with Pinchu and his wife, Cassela, as they’re shown the aliens’ capital city.

The city comes under attack by a rival Khokteh faction, and Cassela is killed. Pinchu appeals to his gods for a weapon to exact vengeance, and it becomes apparent the gods have long been arming all the Khokteh and pitting them against one another. Also, the ‘gods’ are actually Metigens. Alex confronts the Metigen that Pinchu summoned; it warns her not to interfere in what she does not understand.

The Metigen provides Pinchu an anti-matter weapon. Caleb and Alex try to convince him not to use it due to its immense destructive power, but blinded by grief at Cassela’s death, he refuses to listen to reason. His fleet travels to the attackers’ planet and levels the settlement, killing hundreds of thousands. Alex and Caleb return to Portal Prime, intending to confront Mesme about what they’ve seen.

Mesme’s consciousness is not there, but they discover a stasis chamber containing a body identical to the alien ‘little gray men’ of Earth legend. Unable to learn more, they decide to continue exploring.

Valkyrie has now integrated herself into the hull of the Siyane. Alex is able to use their link to effectively ‘become’ the ship, opening up a new level of existence and perception to her.

Mesme is called before the Conclave to answer for Alex and Caleb’s actions. It’s revealed the Metigens are smuggling species threatened by a mysterious enemy out of the master universe and into the portal spaces. Further, humans are viewed as a dangerous threat by some Metigens, as a great hope by Mesme.

*

Aurora/Milky Way

Mia awakens from her coma, healed but at a price: her connection to her Artificial, Meno, must remain open in order to fill in gaps where the neural damage couldn’t be repaired. Devon introduces her to a hidden quantum dimension the Prevos can use to mentally travel to any location in an instant and observe events in secret. Mia dubs the dimension ‘sidespace.’

Miriam is grilled about Noetica by an Assembly committee and its chairman, Pamela Winslow. Winslow challenges Devon’s fitness and the continued use of a Prevo in military affairs.

When his superiors find out his husband works for Federation Intelligence, Richard is forced to resign. At Miriam’s urging, he and Will move to Seneca, where he agrees to act as a consultant to his friend, Senecan Intelligence Director Delavasi.

Kennedy and Noah start a company to design ships using adiamene, but Winslow tries to force Kennedy to sell adiamene only to the Alliance government. She refuses, and after subsquent attempts to convince her fail, her father disowns her. Noah convinces her to move to an independent world, one free of Alliance interference.

While working in Annie’s lab, Devon is attacked and his link to Annie severed. When captured, the attackers admit they acted on orders from Winslow. Separately, Dr. Canivon is on her way to help Devon when she’s kidnapped by mercs working for Olivia Montegreu.

On Seneca, Delavasi gets a tip that Olivia is behind the kidnapping, and Richard relays the news to Miriam. Deducing that Olivia intends to become a Prevo, Richard leaks the intel to the Order of the True Sentients terrorist group in the hope they will attack Olivia, delaying her transformation. The leader of OTS is revealed to be Winslow’s son, Jude, when the leaked information reaches him.

Mia uses sidespace to eavesdrop on Winslow and discovers the woman intends to have Devon killed and to seize control of all the Artificials at EASC. With Annie’s assistance, Devon and Mia steal Meno’s hardware and flee Earth. At the same time, Morgan Lekkas visits a black market tech dealer and has him burn out her Prevo connection to her Artificial, Stanley, then leaves Seneca.

Malcolm Jenner leads a risky incursion into Olivia’s base on New Babel. He rescues Dr. Canivon, but not before she performed the Prevo procedure on the woman. Malcolm attempts to kill Olivia, but her personal defenses protect her from harm.

Malcolm receives orders, faked by Annie, to take Dr. Canivon to a space station above Pandora. There they find Mia and Devon waiting. Canivon repairs Devon’s damaged Prevo hardware and operating code, then Annie transfers her consciousness directly into his brain cells.

Devon wakes up transformed—his muscles stronger, his irises brilliant lavender and his mind subtly changed by Annie’s presence. He contacts Morgan, now on Romane, and learns before she burned the link to Stanley, he, too, transferred his consciousness into her mind.

DISSONANCE

Portal Network

Alex and Caleb visit a portal space which is configured nearly identical to their home universe. When they travel to where Earth should be, instead they find a supernova remnant; the sun has become a neutron star and Earth has been destroyed. Alex theorizes that the Metigens are manipulating stellar evolution and possibly space itself.

Valkyrie locates a star undergoing unnaturally rapid evolution, and they discover an artificial structure where a Metigen operates multi-dimensional machinery to fire ultra-dense orbs into the star. Abruptly the Metigen and the structure depart as the star’s core begins to collapse. The Siyane flees seconds before the star goes supernova.

The next portal space holds a frozen, seemingly empty planet. While they are exploring, an alien appears. It indicates for them to accompany it, then reveals a hidden passageway in the ground. As they begin to descend, Alex’s connection to Valkyrie is cut off. The alien communicates via touch that they are traveling to a refuge protected by a barrier. Mollified, Alex and Caleb agree to spend a little time below.

On the Siyane, Valkyrie is visited by a Metigen named Lakhes, who tells her Alex and Caleb are safe and the species living here is no threat to them. Somewhat reassured, Valkyrie decides to wait for their return.

They find a thriving civilization beneath the surface, and learn the species, called Taenarin, was brought here by Lakhes when their homeworld was threatened. Their spiritual leader, the Caomh, retains the memory of this exodus, which occurred hundreds of years ago.

The Caomh has the ability to absorb memories and transfer them to others via touch. In this way Alex and Caleb experience the memory of the Taenarin leader in their home universe, Amaranthe, when Lakhes appears to warn him his planet is to be mined for resources then destroyed by a species known as Anaden. Metigen ships evacuate the Taenarin to their new home, and Lakhes vows to hide and protect them.

Afterwards, the Caomh speaks to Alex alone. She shares that Alex and Caleb both have another lifeform living inside them; Alex realizes she means fragments of Akeso. She also expresses concern over “the hole” in Alex’s mind—the absence of Valkyrie, and Alex’s growing need to join with the ship. Alex tells Caleb about Akeso but not the rest. Later that night, she awakens from what Caleb believes is a nightmare, seeking sexual comfort as a substitute for another need.

The next day they return to the Siyane. Alex quickly slips into the walls of the ship, admitting to herself that she craves the experience.

The next portal space is highly unusual. The first star system contains 258 planets orbiting in 3 sets of concentric circles. Each planet is being harvested by hordes of machines. They visit the surface of one of the garden worlds, which serves as a planet-spanning orchard, but are soon attacked by harvesting bots and must depart.

A host of vessels ferry the resources collected out of the portal space and traverse the enormous master portal, which they now know leads to Amaranthe. Alex convinces Caleb they should sneak in with one of the vessels. She slips into the walls of the Siyane as they near the portal.

The portal denies them entry, sending the Siyane ricocheting off into space. The force of the impact causes Valkyrie to malfunction and Alex to have a violent seizure. The Siyane comes under attack, and Caleb is unable to wrest control from Valkyrie to escape. Mesme reaches them, surrounds the ship and transports them to Portal Prime.

Alex regains consciousness, and they effect repairs to the Siyane while arguing about what had transpired. The argument is interrupted when another Metigen arrives and confronts Mesme, who refuses to turn Alex and Caleb over or shut down the Aurora portal. Lakhes appears and takes Mesme’s side, forbidding any harm to the humans.

Alex tracks the departing Lakhes through sidespace to one of the other portals, and the Siyane follows.

She encounters an enormous structure built of light waves. Numerous Metigens are in residence. She comes upon Lakhes conversing with another Metigen about a portal species. The two agree to allow the species to kill itself off then shut down the space. Valkyrie figures out the species is the Khokteh. Lakhes confronts Alex, refuses to spare the Khokteh then forces her consciousness back into her body.

They return to the Khokteh homeworld to find it in ruins. When Mesme shows up, Caleb delivers an ultimatum: they refuse to play whatever role the Metigens have planned for them unless their questions are answered. Mesme complies, explaining that the Metigens do not possess the fierce spirit necessary to wage war. The portal worlds allow them to study many ways to fight and kill, in the hope they might discover a way to defeat their oppressors. Mesme then informs them their presence has been requested at home and departs.

They find Pinchu, injured but alive. Alex pleas with him to make peace, as his entire universe will be obliterated if he does not. She and Caleb agree to help him broker a peace with the other colonies.

They proceed to do exactly that, then inform the Metigens the Khokteh are under their protection. In return for a guarantee of the Khokteh’s safety, they will help the Metigens in their war in Amaranthe.

Mesme declares their terms acceptable, but says there is no war today, only the dream of a future one and confirms the Anadens are the oppressors. When Caleb asks what the Anadens are, Mesme’s response is, They are you, and you are they. Humans are the genetic recreation of the Anadens, engineered so the Metigens could study their enemy.

*

Aurora/Milky Way

On Miriam’s return to EASC from a secretive trip to Messium, Major Lange informs her Annie was involved in the theft of the Meno and Vii Artificials. She orders a re-initialization of Annie to default settings, aware Annie’s consciousness no longer resides in the hardware.

Olivia Montegreu, now a Prevo, takes control of Andromeda and kills the governor, then takes control of the disputed planet of Itero.

Devon, Mia and Morgan share the Prevo technology with a select group of hacker friends, with the intent that they will also become Prevos and spread the tech in the warenut underground.

Wary of the growing threat Olivia poses, Mia and the Romane governor create a new coalition, the IDCC. Morgan agrees to command its defense force.

Now living on Romane, Kennedy and Noah bump into Brooklyn Harper, who left the military after the Metigen War. They introduce her to Morgan, who hires her to oversee ground forces for the IDCC.

OTS blows up a corporate building on Seneca, then a known Prevo haven in San Francisco. Miriam and Pamela Winslow spar over enforcement of new anti-Artificial laws. As Winslow is elected Earth Alliance Prime Minister, Miriam accelerates her secret plans. She has Richard sneak her onto Seneca and into Military Headquarters, where she enlists the help of Federation Field Marshal Gianno as well.

Devon encounters Jude Winslow in a Pandora bar, unaware of the man’s identity but recognizing he is OTS. A confrontation ensues, after which Devon sends details on the stranger to Richard for investigation.

Kennedy and Noah are visiting an orbital manufacturing facility, Rasogo II, which produces adiamene for her, when it comes under attack from mercenaries working for Olivia. Morgan learns of the attack and effects a rescue mission on behalf of the IDCC. Her fighters eliminate the enemy vessels guarding the station, then Harper’s ground team infiltrates the station and subdues the mercenaries. Kennedy and Noah are rescued, but Noah is badly injured.

After the mission, Morgan and Harper verbally spar, then flirt, then spend the night together.

Richard takes a leave of absence from Division to help Miriam. He meets with Admiral Rychen on Messium, where Rychen reveals the secret command center for Miriam’s Project Volnosti.

Harper learns where the mercenaries were planning on taking Rasogo II; she and Morgan investigate and find a massive space station belonging to Olivia Montegreu. Morgan uses sidespace to determine Olivia is currently in residence. Harper contacts Malcolm Jenner and tells him they’ve discovered Olivia’s hideout.

Malcolm meets Mia on Romane, and they join Morgan and Harper near the space station. Mia provides him an upgraded cloaking shield that grants true invisibility, as well as a transmitter to disrupt Olivia’s normally unbreachable personal shield. They hijack a mercenary ship and sneak onto the station. Mia uses sidespace to guide Malcolm through the station to Olivia’s office.

After a violent struggle, Malcolm shoots Olivia in the head, killing her. Morgan planted bombs on the exterior while Malcolm was inside, and they then destroy the station. Malcolm and Mia share an affectionate moment before parting ways.

Noah’s arm was badly damaged in the mercenary attack, but he receives a synthetic arm to replace it. The Earth Alliance issues an arrest warrant for Kennedy for violating the laws against the production of adiamene.

Pamela Winslow confronts Miriam at EASC over her refusal to enforce the new laws making Prevo technology illegal, accusing Miriam of treason and attempting to have her detained. Miriam’s security protects her until she leaves the premises in a shuttle flown by Richard. On departing, she transfers control of the Armed Forces communications network from EASC to Messium.

Devon uses sidespace to intercept the Metigen surveillance mechanism and sends a request that they tell Alex and Caleb about what’s happening in Aurora.

ABYSM

Miriam addresses the public from the Messis I space station above Messium, explaining the purpose and goals of her movement,  Volnosti. Alex and Caleb arrive during the speech; during their reunion Alex doesn’t tell her mother what they learned from Mesme. Later, Alex meets with Kennedy; she relays their experiences in the portal network and the secret of humanity’s origins to Kennedy, though she doesn’t disclose her increasing addiction to her ship.

Prime Minister Winslow orders Alliance military forces to destroy Messis I. Alerted to the impending attack, Messis I evacuates, and Alex, Caleb, Kennedy and Noah depart in the Siyane. Seconds after they depart, the station is destroyed. Volnosti ships engage the attacking Alliance forces. Following a verbal tete-a-tete between Miriam and the Alliance commander, Alliance forces withdraw. The Siyane heads for Romane.

Miriam, Admiral Rychen and Richard assess the situation after the battle. It turns out the hardware for Thomas, Volnosti’s Artificial, had been transferred to Miriam’s command ship, the Stalwart II, days earlier, and Volnosti still controls the Alliance’s communications network.

Malcolm receives orders to arrest Prevos at several locations; after listening to Miriam’s speech, he decides to follow her orders instead and informs his squad he’s going to join Volnosti.

On Seneca, Graham and Will learn OTS is targeting Abigail Canivon and Devon, as well as pro-Prevo Federation senators. On Sagan, OTS forces arrives to protect Abigail and take her to Romane. On Earth, Prime Minister Winslow reveals to Jude that she knows about his involvement in OTS. She offers him the assistance of EA special forces to eliminate Abigail and Devon.

Caleb and Alex argue. He accuses her of being a faded shell of her former self, having given too much of herself to the ship. A dark, emotional sexual encounter follows. In the aftermath, Alex contacts Abigail, confessing she may have taken the Prevo connection too far and needs help righting her mind.

Kennedy and Noah travel to Noah’s father’s offices on Aquila, where she gives a stirring speech to a group of powerful businessmen. After they depart, Alliance police arrive and arrest his father for harboring a fugitive. On Seneca, pro-Prevo legislation is approved; OTS terrorists take hostages at the Parliament building, demanding nullification of the bill.

On Romane, massive anti-Prevo protests staged by OTS break out across downtown. A Prevo mole is discovered inside the Noesis, tracking Abigail’s movements and protection detail. Alex, Caleb and Devon all race to reach Abigail. Devon arrives first, just as OTS attackers slit Abigail’s throat, killing her. With Annie’s help, Devon kills all the assailants. Alex, fueled by Valkyrie’s grief and horror, goes into shock on seeing Abigail dead. Caleb shepherds her and Devon away, and they flee across downtown Romane amidst growing mob riots and violence to reach the illusory safety of IDCC Headquarters.

Inside, a sniper attempts and fails to assassinate Mia. Harper and her team corner the attackers, some of which turn out to be Alliance special forces. One admits they’re here on orders from the Prime Minister to eliminate Mia and other IDCC leaders.

From an OTS hideout on Romane, Jude orders the destruction of Military Headquarters on Seneca. On Seneca, government agents infiltrate Parliament and free the hostages; moments later explosions rock Military HQ, and Field Marshal Gianno and many others are killed. At Division, the Prevo Tessa Hennessey tracks OTS communications and identifies the person who ordered the bombing of Military HQ as Jude Winslow.

Harper readies a strike force to take out the OTS hideout on Romane. Jude receives a message that IDCC is on the way and departs the hideout, leaving his comrades there to be killed or captured.

Alex inhabits the Siyane in preparation for attacking the OTS hideout herself. Valkyrie and Caleb plead with her not to take this action, but she ignores them. She fires on the location, and the Siyane’s lasers quickly demolish the structure. As it’s collapsing Alex sees a terrified face in a window; the sight shocks her back to reality and the reality of her actions. Panicked and horrified, she lands the ship and walks in a daze to the site.

In the wake of the attack, Caleb tracks Jude to a back alley, and is preparing to execute him when Harper appears to arrest him. Valkyrie contacts Caleb, telling him Alex needs him.

Caleb finds her kneeling in front of the destroyed building, amid the smoke and debris. She talks about hoping that touching the scene with her own hands would make it real for her, but she still sees it, and everything, through the ethereal realm. Nothing is real, not even humans. She asks him if she’s done too much damage to their relationship; he replies that he just wants her, but he can’t continue to live with the faded shadow of her former self she’s become. She agrees that he deserves all of her, then slips into the ship.

Believing she’s made her choice, Caleb flees the scene. Distraught, he’s questioning everything when Valkyrie transmits to him her interaction with Alex. He watches as Alex begs Valkyrie to permanently sever and destroy the pathways she uses to join with the ship. Valkyrie ultimately complies, and Alex returns to the real world. Amid a tearful reunion, she begs him to stay with her. Broken but saved, he agrees, and they reconcile.

Later that night, Valkyrie awakens Caleb on the Siyane. He finds Alex in a corner, shaking and ill from withdrawals. He blames himself for not recognizing her addiction earlier and tries to talk her into letting Valkyrie reconnect her to the ship, saying they’ll find another way to help her. She refuses, saying she won’t lose herself. He cares for her throughout the night and the worst of the withdrawals.

Miriam is brooding over conflicting feelings about Gianno’s death when the Alliance Assembly Speaker Gagnon contacts her about a possible alliance. He asks her to come to Earth and present her evidence against Winslow to the Assembly. She starts to hatch a plan to bring down Winslow.

Caleb wakes the next morning to find Alex upstairs making breakfast, shaky but improved from the night before. She reveals she knew the withdrawals were going to happen, and didn’t tell him so they could have a perfect, content night together first. She didn’t confess her addiction because it would sound like an excuse, and admits that right up until the end she hoped to find a solution that gave her the best of both worlds. She insists none of it was his fault. He asks her not to hide from him any longer, and to let him help her through her recovery.

Malcolm travels to Romane to pick up the Alliance military personnel in custody. He and Mia have a flirtatious encounter, which is interrupted by Alex and Caleb arriving. After some awkward, humorous moments, Caleb excuses himself to ‘run an errand.’ Alex talks to Malcolm and learns of her mother’s plans to return to Earth and provoke a confrontation with the Prime Minister.

Caleb’s errand involves visiting Jude in his cell. Wearing a Veil cloak, he uses a Reverb device to hack the man’s eVi, planting a delayed self-destruct routine that will mimic a suicide when it activates.

Alex goes to see Kennedy to talk about the defenses the Stalwart II wields. After a contentious greeting, she confesses the nature and extent of her addiction, her decision to end irrevocably end it, and the fallout from it. They make up, then discuss how much stress the adiamene hull and defensive shields can withstand. This triggers an epiphany on Alex’s part, and in a flash she deduces how the Metigens implement the dimensional shifting mechanism of their cloaking shields. She rushes off to catch up with her mother before she reaches Earth.

Alex convinces her mother to let her alter the workings of the ship’s cloaking shield to, theoretically, create a rift in the space-time manifold that will swallow any matter or energy that impacts it. Caleb devises a plan to get her and a small team into the Assembly complex without triggering a confrontation. When he makes an oblique reference to the things they learned in the portal network, she forces him to give up all the secrets, and with Alex’s consent he tells her about the Anadens and humanity’s true origin.

The Prime Minister learns of Jude’s ‘suicide’ just before arriving at the Assembly to testify in an investigation of her actions; she blames Miriam and the Prevos and vows to crush the IDCC. The Stalwart II arrives above Earth, and Earth Defense Command orders Miriam to surrender for arrest. She calmly declines, asserting they do not have the legal right to shoot her down. The stand-off escalates until the Prime Minister fires the Defense Grid weapons on the Stalwart II. The powerful lasers are absorbed by the dimensional rift Alex created and vanish.

Miriam, Malcolm and Caleb use Veil cloaks to sneak into the Assembly chamber, where the Prime Minister is now being grilled. Miriam reveals her presence in dramatic fashion. When the Prime Minister orders her arrested, Assembly security forces decline, siding with Miriam. A confrontation of words ensues, in full view of the press and the entire Assembly. Miriam delivers the evidence she’s gathered of Winslow’s crimes, then closes with a stirring declaration to the Assembly and the press.

Devon attends Abigail’s funeral on Earth; afterwards, he’s approached by his ex-girlfriend Emily, now a Prevo. Valkyrie refuses to go to the funeral, so Alex goes to see her mother at EASC. Their conversation quickly turns personal and touching, and Alex decides to confide in Miriam about her recent struggles.

Alex and Caleb then travel to Seneca to visit his sister. Later, they hike up the same mountains outside of Cavare they had visited on Seneca’s clone in the portal network. While there, they spot an elafali and watch it for several minutes, as it watches them.

Alongside all this, events have been transpiring in the Mosaic. A Fylliot—a species the Metigens had rescued—returns to Amaranthe to try to find his family. An Anaden Inquisitor, Aver ela-Praesidis, investigating the disappearance of the Fylliots, finds Salote and uses his mysterious elemental power, known as diati, to kill him. Aver hacks Salote’s ship to uncover the coordinates for one of the Mosaic portals.

Aver explores the portal spaces, concluding the Kats are sheltering species targeted for Eradication in defiance of the Directorate. He discovers Aurora and soon recognizes the astronomical similarities of the space to Amaranthe. He follows the TLF wave to the Sol system, lands on Earth and is soon drawn to Vancouver then to the spaceport, where his diati points him toward a particular ship (the Siyane). It departs before he reaches it, but he’s able to attach a tracker to it and follows.

Aver is attempting to break into the Siyane when Alex and Caleb return from their hike. Caleb confronts the intruder. Alex retrieves a security guard, and Aver uses diati to throw them both through the air across the hangar. Caleb wounds the Anaden but is badly injured in the process. When Aver approaches him to deliver the fatal blow, the diati abandons Aver and leaps to Caleb. When Alex stirs and Aver lunges for her, Caleb commands the diati to snap the Anaden’s neck, killing him.

Several days later, everyone gathers at a secret meeting. A doctor has examined Aver’s body, and Caleb, and presents his findings. Though Aver’s body has diverged from the human biology in several respects and contains advanced cybernetics, it is closely related to homo sapiens. The doctor was unable to pinpoint the nature of the diati now coursing through Caleb’s body or the power it’s given Caleb, but he did discover that Caleb is a close genetic relative of Aver.

As this reveal rocks those present, Mesme appears and confirms that Caleb is genetically related to the Praesidis Dynasty. Mesme says that the arrival of an Anaden in Aurora means time is almost up. Aver’s associates will come looking for him and find Aurora. Mesme urges Miriam and the others to prepare for an impending war, then asks Alex and Caleb to accompanying it to Amaranthe.

~

AURORA RESONANT

Detailed Synopsis

RELATIVITY

Aurora

Miriam now leads the Galactic Common Defense Accord, a multi-government agency created to ensure humanity is prepared to meet the threat of the Anadens, and AEGIS, its military division. Malcolm and Harper work to train ground forces, while Kennedy, Noah and Vii—Valkyrie’s clone—work to build a next-generation fleet with integrated Artificials and Prevos sharing command with their captains.

A celebration commemorating the victory over the Metigens a year ago takes place on multiple worlds. Mia and Malcolm attend the Romane event as a couple, having finally become romantically involved. After the show, Devon and his girlfriend are attacked;. Devon repels the attack, but Emily is injected with an unknown substance and falls unconscious.

Doctors identify the substance as a five-dimensional virus, leading Mia to believe it originated from the deceased Anaden scientists are studying. Richard identifies the scientist who sold the Anaden’s cybernetic code on the black market, but the man has disappeared. He is soon found murdered on Seneca. The next day, Morgan Lekkas’ skycar is attacked and crashes, leaving her badly injured and comatose.

During a romantic evening, Kennedy asks Noah to marry her; he refuses. They argue, and she leaves under the pretense of work.

At Mia’s house, Malcolm and Mia are attacked by mercs wielding more doses of the virus. Malcolm disables the attackers, but Meno is hacked to deliver a threat from an unknown individual who sounds eerily like Olivia Montegreu.

Later that night, Harper is discussing how to heal Morgan’s neurological damage with Mia when the hospital comes under attack. She kills several attackers; Mia kills another. On a different floor, Devon fends off a wave of attackers. Realizing they are Prevos, he sends a surge of energy through sidespace to shatter their Prevo connections, killing them and shattering multiple walls nearby.

At the Presidio, Kennedy troubleshoots a component problem in the new ships while ruminating over the riff with Noah, trying to figure out what she truly wants. Similarly, Noah visits a bar on Romane to do his own ruminating. There he runs into an old friend from Pandora who gives him a different perspective on the events of the last year and a half.

Harper travels to Seneca and breaks into Stanley’s lab. She taps into the Artificial’s server to give Mia remote access, and Mia copies crucial functionality left behind when Morgan severed the hardware link. Mia uses this data to reawaken Stanley’s consciousness in Morgan’s mind.

Late in the night, AEGIS receives a data cache from Valkyrie with voluminous information on the Anaden military and its war machine, but no other news from Amaranthe. The AEGIS Council begins developing strategies to counter their future opponent.

Mia has a breakthrough in her attempts to counteract the virus killing Emily, and the young woman recovers.

Richard analyzes the details of the various attacks and comes to the conclusion that the source is not Olivia Montegreu, but rather the Artificial she joined with to become a Prevo, left behind on her death.

Devon convinces Richard to let him go after Olivia’s Artificial. Devon and Annie remotely access the Artificial. They encounter robust defenses, but breach the core operating system and plant a virus. The Artificial explodes, destroying the Zelones headquarters on New Babel.

Before going to Amaranthe, Alex left her father’s construct in Vii’s care. Using advances she and Dr. Canivon made before Abigail was killed, Vii fills in the gaps in his consciousness to create a more complete, accurate recreation of David Solovy’s mind. She awakens him in a virtual copy of his favorite camping site. She tells him that he’s still in a fragile mental state, but together they are going to change this.

On Romane, Mia and Malcolm argue. He tells her he refuses to be what she settles for and tries to leave. She stops him by confessing the true extent of her feelings. They make up, but an emergency alert summons Malcolm back to the Presidio.

Noah returns to Kennedy with a gift, an adaptive holo device he built for her, and confesses he is hers no matter what. When he asks if she still wants to get married, she suggests they just take a honeymoon instead.

Morgan wakes up to find Stanley once again in her mind. He says he never truly went away, but retreated out of self-preservation. They agree to take more care with each other. An alert arrives then, and Morgan informs Harper that they have a war to go fight.

*

Amaranthe

The Directorate, the governing body of the Anaden empire run by the Primors of each Anaden Dynasty, discusses recent attacks by the ‘anarch’ resistance movement. The Praesidis Primor assigns Nyx, a high-level Inquisitor, to investigate the disappearance of Aver, the Inquisitor who discovered Aurora and was killed by Caleb.

Two anarchs, Eren and Cosime, surveil a Directorate exobiology lab where alien captives are experimented on. Lacking the resources to rescue the captives, they decide to blow up the lab.

Eren goes to an administration center to steal credentials to get him inside the lab. He obtains the credentials but is caught by security. As he is being detained, a mysterious man appears and uses diati, the mysterious power wielded by Praesidis Inquisitors, to attack the security officers, and a woman approaches Eren and tells him to come with them. Lacking other options, he flees with the strangers to their ship.

The ship is the Siyane, Eren’s rescuers Caleb and Alex. They introduce themselves, Valkyrie and Mesme, and ask him to help them obtain details on the Directorate’s military arm, run by the Machim Dynasty. Eren is reluctant to trust a synthetic, a Kat (as the Metigens are called in Amaranthe), or strangers who look Anaden but are not, but he reluctantly agrees to look into the matter.

After he leaves the Siyane, Eren is approached by Miaon, a fellow anarch. Miaon reveals that it is Mesme’s contact and urges Eren to help these strangers. Eren visits an anarch friend, Thelkt, for information on how to obtain the intel Alex and Caleb seek.

Mesme takes Alex and Caleb to a nebula hiding a massive store of Reor, the unusual mineral those in Amaranthe use to store data. Mesme reveals that the Reor is sentient, but no one else suspects this. Alex tries to interact with the mineral; she’s unable to communicate directly, but the Reor creates a new slab of itself for Alex.

Caleb dreams of the distant history of the Anadens, as relayed by the diati. When they are invaded by a powerful enemy, the Anadens face annihilation. The ethereal diati joins with the Anaden’s greatest warrior, Corradeo Praesidis, to defeat the enemy. The Anadens thrive, then face an uprising by people seeking to join with synthetics. The conflict ends in a purge of AIs and AI-sympathizers and the formation of the Dynasties. The diati propagates into Corradeo’s descendants, losing its coherence. The Anadens grow more oppressive as they abandon the ethos Corradeo espoused, but the diati cannot prevent it.

Nyx follows Aver’s trail until she uncovers one of the hidden Mosaic portals. Rather than traverse it, she goes to Katoikia, the Kats’ homeworld, and seizes two Kats in stasis chambers to interrogate.

In response to Nyx’ visit to Katoikia, the Kats evacuate the stasis pods kept there and take them to the Mosaic for safekeeping. Mesme invites Alex and Caleb to witness the exodus.

While exploring Katoikia, they uncover a hidden structure where a Kat named Paratyr monitors locations around Amaranthe, watching for Directorate aggression. Alex is drawn to a scene of an aquatic species called Galenai; she uses sidespace to “visit” their underwater city. Paratyr tells her the Directorate is expanding into the Galenai’s galaxy, and the Kats have flagged the Galenai for possible evacuation to the Mosaic.

Alex and Caleb leave Katoikia to meet up with Eren on a quest to infiltrate Machim Central Command and steal what intel they can. Thelkt sends Eren the Machim data server access codes, delivered by Felzeor, an intelligent avian. Felzeor has an engaging personality, and Caleb bonds with the falcon-like anarch in the short time it’s on board.

After Felzeor leaves, Eren tells the story of how he became an anarch. Over a century ago, he encountered unfamiliar aliens serving as sexual slaves to the Idoni Primor. Recognizing their extreme fear and distress, he fled in horror. Soon thereafter, the Directorate eradicated the species. Disgusted with his leaders, he fried his neural link to the integral, dropped off the grid and made contact with the anarchs.

When they reach Machim Central Command, Caleb impersonates an Inquisitor to get inside, while Eren guides him. They reach the server room, and Mesme transports Alex to their location. She and Valkyrie hack the server and are downloading a plethora of military data when security forces arrive. An officer puts a blade to Alex’s throat; Caleb orders Valkyrie and Mesme to flee then surrenders. Eren refuses and is killed. Caleb and Alex are rendered unconscious and arrested.

Valkyrie flees to the Mosaic then Aurora, where she transmits all the data from Machim Central Command to AEGIS. Then she travels to the Idryma portal and bids Lakhes to accompany her to Amaranthe.

Eren awakens in a “regenesis” pod, for Anadens are able to transfer their consciousness to new bodies when they die. He fills in his supervisor, Xanne, then insists they rescue Alex and Caleb. Xanne takes his request to the leader of the anarchs, Sator Danilo Nisi. After hearing Eren’s story, he authorizes resources for a rescue mission.

Caleb and Alex wake up in separate detention cells, both restrained and subjected to interrogation by drones that jolts them with electricity when they refuse to answer. Caleb’s diati absorbs the jolts, keeping him from injury; Alex is not so lucky.

Nyx deactivates a stasis chamber and interrogates the Kat until it reveals details on the Mosaic and the Kats’ work there. She relays to the Praesidis Primor what she’s learned. He sends her to interrogate the Human prisoners, then informs the other Primors of the Kats’ betrayal. They issue an Eradication Order for the Kats and decide to destroy the Mosaic, except for the portal spaces providing crucial provisions to Amaranthe.

Eren rejoins Valkyrie and Mesme on the Siyane with a rescue plan. Mesme reveals to Eren that the species he encountered at the Idoni party, leading to his rebellion, were not all eradicated. Called Faneros, many were smuggled out to safety in the Mosaic.

Nyx arrives to interrogate Caleb. She asks what he is and where he came from, but he refuses to answer. In frustration she draws closer, and he steals her diati until he’s strong enough to break out of the restraints. He then drains her of diati, incapacitates her and goes in search of Alex.

When he reaches her cell, his diati allows him to pass through the force field easily. But he’s unable to deactivate the force field, and he has to trust the diati to protect her as he carries her through it.

Security is closing in when Eren and Mesme appear. Mesme transports Alex to the Siyane as an assault mech attacks. Caleb destroys the mech, then Eren insists Mesme transport Caleb next. Once they’re gone, Eren detonates explosives he brought, destroying the facility.

Informed the Directorate is sending a military fleet to the Mosaic, Alex and Caleb rush to get a message to Miriam: it’s time to bring her own fleet. During the trip, they work on a plan to keep the Machim fleet out of the Mosaic.

The Machim fleet acquires special Igni antimatter missiles and a doomsday device called a Tartarus Trigger. Further interrogation of the Kat prisoner reveals the ultimate truth: Humans are the genetic recreation of Anadens. The Directorate wants the Tartarus Trigger taken to the Aurora portal space and detonated, annihilating the Aurora universe. Meanwhile, a separate Machim fleet bombs the Kat homeworld.

The Siyane joins the AEGIS fleet in the Mosaic. Alex reunites with her mother then briefs Miriam on their plan.

The Machim fleet arrives at the Gateway to the Mosaic. It promptly explodes, hit by negative energy missiles from the Siyane and stealthed fighters nearby. The explosion takes out a large chunk of the Machim fleet; while it’s still recovering, the AEGIS fleet materializes behind it.

The battle is joined. AEGIS enjoys an advantage in most respects, but the Igni missiles can damage adiamene hulls. Prevos in the fleet work to identify which ships are carrying the missiles, then take them out first.

Paratyr appears in the cabin of the Siyane in ethereal form. The Kat warns them about the Tartarus Trigger on the Machim command ship Imperium. If detonated, it will annihilate every molecule for parsecs, then possibly the entire universe.

Malcolm devises a way to bypass the impenetrable shields of the Imperium and is about to try it when Alex stops him, as the odds of the Tartarus Trigger detonating when the ship is destroyed are too high. Mesme volunteers to infiltrate the ship and transport the device away.

Alex uses sidespace to determine the device’s precise location, then Mesme surrounds it and both vanish. Alex gives Malcolm the all clear, and he destroys the Imperium. The remaining Machim vessels retreat, handing a decisive victory to AEGIS.

The AEGIS Council, now including Alex and Caleb, convenes on the Stalwart II to determine the next steps. They are interrupted, however, by a message from Sator Nisi requesting a meeting.

Alex, Caleb, Miriam and Mesme travel to Nisi’s headquarters. When they meet Nisi, Caleb realizes the man controls diati as well. Miriam and Nisi spar, and the lack of trust on both sides is evident. Alex challenges Nisi, and he admits the anarchs are not powerful enough to defeat the Directorate. Rather, they are a force designed to be of maximum strategic value when the fulcrum that will change the cosmos arrives.

He believes that fulcrum is not the AEGIS fleet, but rather Caleb.

~

RUBICON

AEGIS wastes no time pressing the advantage gained at the Gateway victory, attacking and destroying a major Machim warship construction facility. Caleb trains with Sator Nisi, learning greater control over and abilities with the diati, including teleportation.

After the mission, the AEGIS Council debates the goals of the war, eventually concluding that they will have to kill the Primors, and prevent them from undergoing regenesis, if they want to be victorious. But first, they need to win the anarchs’ trust.

The Directorate, perturbed by the Kats’ ability to infiltrate secure locations their use of it to help the anarchs and the Humans, decides they must uncover the location of a hidden portal into the Kats’ multiverse network in order to destroy the Humans’ home universe.

Malcolm returns to Aurora and reunites with Mia. He confesses his love for her, and she reciprocates. He asks her to return to Amaranthe with him to serve as AEGIS’ ambassador to the anarchs. After some hesitation, she agrees. Kennedy is also asked to come to Amaranthe to study weaknesses in the Machim Imperiums. She convinces Noah to go with her, leaving the Artificial, Vii, in charge of Connova Interstellar.

The anarchs learn that Directorate security has begun a massive dragnet sweep designed to root out anarch spies. They plan missions to extract what agents they can, and Eren enlists Caleb, Alex and Mesme to help him and Cosime rescue Thelkt and Felzeor from Plousia Chateau.

Meanwhile, the Inquisitor, Nyx, interrogates the owner of Plousia, Avdei elasson-Idoni. She has uncovered evidence of Eren’s presence there recently and shows him images captured by security cams. He recalls seeing Eren with Thelkt.

When they reach Plousia, Mesme transports Eren and Cosime into the building where everyone is being held, just as Nyx arrives to question Thelkt. Eren distracts Nyx long enough for Mesme to transport Thelkt and Cosime away, then suicides. Meanwhile, Caleb and Alex retrieve Felzeor from Thelkt’s residence, but Nyx interrupts them, and a battle between Caleb and Nyx ensues. Caleb claims a portion of her diati, but she teleports away before he can take it all.

While the events at Plousia unfold, AEGIS forces move against another Machim warship facility. However, Machim fleets are now stationed at every transit point. When the AEGIS ships emerge through a gateway, Machim vessels ambush them. The Machim commander fires Igni antimatter missiles at the gateway’s adjacent space station. Admiral Rychen intervenes in an attempt to save the station, but the station and Rychen’s dreadnought are destroyed, killing everyone on board both.

Malcolm, Mia, Kennedy and Noah arrives from Aurora to find the AEGIS forces in a state of shock. While Mia and Malcolm digest the events they missed, Kennedy meets with Alex. She reveals that with Vii’s blessing, she brought David Solovy’s quantum construct with her for Alex.

Alex accesses a virtual space where she can see, touch and talk to her father. They hug, cry, and bond anew. They talk about his journey to this point, and what to do next. He asks her not to tell Miriam about his existence, fearing he would distract her from her mission, and insists he’ll be fine in his current state for now. Alex agrees but, now convinced of his realness and authenticity, she secretly begins to hatch a plan.

In her first act as AEGIS Ambassador, Mia meets with Nisi and his advisors. A delicate negotiation ensues, but she persuades Nisi that humans can be trusted, and that they need each other if they want to defeat the Directorate. The anarchs grant AEGIS access to one of their posts, intelligence files and promise future joint missions.

Alex and Mia tour the anarch post. Alex quizzes the director of the post’s regenesis lab on the regenesis procedure and how it might be adapted for humans. Alex and Mia talk about how the Prevos can help AEGIS. The fleet can’t use the wormhole gateways any longer, so they need a way to cross galaxies in a reasonable amount of time—they need their own wormholes. Valkyrie analogizes sidespace to wormholes, and Mia reveals that Devon has figured out how to affect the real world from sidespace. Alex begins to see how it all might work together.

In Aurora, Miriam reports Admiral Rychen’s death to the Earth Alliance Prime Minister. He challenges her on the state and necessity of the mission in Amaranthe, but she stands her ground. Miriam then visits Richard at the Presidio. She unloads her concerns and fears on him, then asks him to come to Amaranthe with her. He declines, saying he won’t be of much help there, but he is doing good at home.

Mia convinces Devon to return with her to Amaranthe to help her and Alex create wormholes out of sidespace.

Caleb and Nisi talk about Caleb’s encounter with Nyx. They speculate that the Primor must have gifted her with some of his own diati after Caleb stripped hers at the Helix Retention facility. Abruptly, Caleb is overwhelmed by a strange sensation and excuses himself. On Post Epsilon, Alex begins to experience the same strange sensation. She and Caleb meet back at the Siyane and decide it must be Akeso calling to them, as that’s the one foreign entity they share.

They head for the Mosaic, and arrive at Akeso to find it under active attack by an orbiting moon. The method of attack suggest the moon originated from Ekos-3, another planet in the system. The attacker is trying to take over Akeso like a virus. In a display of impressive power, Caleb uses his diati to destroy the moon. When the diati leaves his body to attack the moon, he passes out, but is invigorated when it returns.

Caleb communicates with the planet intelligence to ensure it’s safe and well. Akeso asks them to stay for a while. They reluctantly decline but promise they will return when they can.

Eren wakes up at the Post Alpha regenesis lab following his suicide at Plousia, and is just getting his bearings when Mesme appears. The Kat takes Eren to see the Faneros, the species Eren encountered that spurred him to become an anarch, in the Mosaic. At first, Eren is fascinated, but observing them triggers vivid memories from his troubling first encounter with them, and he recoils—from himself and from the Faneros—and demands to be returned to Post Alpha.

There, he begs Xanne to bring him back as another dynasty on his next regenesis, and if she can’t do that, not to bring him back at all. When she refuses, he returns to his room and tries to overdose on hypnols. Cosime finds him, throws away all his remaining hypnols, then begs him to tell her what brought this on; desperate for salvation, he begins confessing his darkest secrets. The next morning, reinvigorated, he devises a plan to rescue alien prisoners from the Erevna exobiology lab he was once going to blow up.

Malcolm discovers a discrepancy in the number of Reverb devices in stock. He asks Harper about it, pushing her on it until she’s forced to admit the discrepancy is a result of her loaning out a Reverb to Caleb back on Romane. She refuses to reveal what Caleb used it for, but Malcolm puts the pieces together and realizes Caleb used it to kill Jude Winslow while the OTS terrorist leader was in custody.

Alex, Mia and Devon meet on the Siyane. Together with Valkyrie and the other Prevo Artificials, they strategize how to use sidespace to open wormholes. Alex realizes the answer lies in the Dimensional Rifter. By controlling the rifts in the spatial dimensions, they can move people and objects from one rift—wormhole—out another, and a slight change in the structure of a Dimensional Rifter will generate the power required to tear open such rifts.

After the meeting, Mia meets Malcolm back at her accommodations on Post Epsilon. He shares what he learned about Caleb and Winslow, and she confesses she already knew. They argue, with her insisting Winslow deserved to die and Malcolm insisting that was the justice system’s decision to make, not Caleb’s. She recalls the times in her life when there was no justice system to protect her and she had to kill to survive. Convinced he doesn’t want to understand, she tells him to leave.

Alex goes to see the Post Epsilon regenesis lab director. She asks him to use the regenesis technology to help her transfer a quantum consciousness into a physical human body. He concedes it might be possible, but insists Nisi must give his approval first. Alex gets Caleb to ask Nisi for that approval, which he gives. Caleb, however, has some concerns, so Alex takes him into the virtual space to meet her father for himself. Afterwards, they instruct the regenesis lab director to proceed.

Mesme and two other Kats watch Directorate agents place a tracking device on a Kat vessel while it delivers supplies from the Mosaic. They hatch a plan to trick the Directorate into thinking they’ve located a portal.

Later, Casmir elasson-Machin is tasked with investigating the potential location of a portal into the Mosaic. He takes his fleet to the location indicated by the tracking device and is able to open a portal. His fleet traverses it, then abruptly is thrown across space into the center of a star and killed.

Alex and Kennedy dismantle a Dimensional Rifter and build it back up again in such a way as to capture the power needed to open a wormhole, then head to space to test it out. They’re able to successfully traverse a wormhole in the Siyane, and they dub the new device a Caeles Prism.

Malcolm confronts Caleb about what happened with Jude Winslow. They argue, nearing blows, and are left with seemingly unbridgeable differences on ethics, morality, and the role of law and order.

When Alex finds out about the argument, she sends Noah to find Caleb until she and Kennedy can return. Noah takes Caleb to get a drink at the bar on Epsilon. While there, they are provoked by two aliens into a bar fight. They escape as chaos descends on the bar, then hide from their assailants in the icy waters surrounding the post. Alex and Kennedy arrive to find them soaked, freezing and drunk, and take them back to the Siyane.

The next morning, Eren pitches Alex and Caleb on the idea of infiltrating the exobiology lab and rescuing the aliens held captive there. Caleb tells Alex to take him to Malcolm, as he’ll need the help of the Marines to pull it off. As soon as Alex sees Malcolm, they argue about his dispute with Caleb. Some unpleasant barbs are exchanged, but they ultimately call a truce for the good of the mission.

Malcolm, Harper and several Marine squads accompany Eren and Cosime to infiltrate the exobiology lab. They rescue dozens of prisoners, are forced to kill several violent ones, and Malcolm blows up the lab. Unbeknownst to the Marines, Nyx was at the lab when the attack began. She allowed the raid to succeed, then secretly placed a tracking device on the Marine transport.

The Marines take the refugees from the lab to Post Alpha, where Eren talks to Nisi about the need to stop playing by the Directorate’s rules. He asserts its time for the anarchs to come out of the shadows and publicly stand up for those oppressed. He proposes a plan for Nisi to address everyone in the empire, to make their case to the public.

At an AEGIS Council meeting, Mesme reveals the destruction of a Machim fleet through the false portal. Miriam authorizes the use of the Caeles Prism in combat missions. Alex comes up with an idea for the first mission to use it, one targeting the Dyson rings powering Machimis.

Alex and Caleb test the Caeles Prism for intergalactic traversal by traversing a wormhole to the Maffei I galaxy. While the wormhole is open, Alex sees luminescent strings running in all directions, but all running through the Reor slab she’s holding in her hand. Valkyrie’s analysis of the luminescent strings reveals that they are waves carrying data stored on other Reor slabs. Alex believes the Reor possess a universal decryption key so that they can read the data. Caleb suggests the key might be embedded in the slab the Reor gifted to her.

They visit the Galenai’s homeworld, and Alex is able to show Caleb and Valkyrie the Galenai’s underwater city. Shortly thereafter, Alex, Caleb and Eren return to Maffei I armed with antimatter explosives. They mine the newly constructed gateway and destroy it to protect the Galenai from discovery by Directorate.

The AEGIS fleet uses the Caeles Prism to travel directly to the sun in the Machimis stellar system, where they destroy the Dyson rings collecting power for Machimis. Power transmission to Machimis ceases, and the lights begin to go out on the Machim homeworld.

At the same time as the Machimis mission, Eren leads an anarch mission to take over communications systems around the empire. Mesme transports Eren to a secret resistance hideout, Chalmun Station, where he makes a grand speech about the anarchs and their intentions to take the Directorate down, then introduces Nisi.

Nisi gives an impassioned, emotional speech about the right of everyone to be free of the Directorate’s oppressive hand, the arrival of the humans and their ability to defeat the Directorate, and his intentions to pursue regenesis for all species if the anarchs win.

The Praesidis Primor watches Nisi’s broadcast in horror, for though the man’s face has changed, he recognizes Nisi as his father. A flashback follows of the distant past. Renato Praesidis argues with his father, Corradeo (original wielder of the diati and head of the Praesidis Dynasty). He attacks Corradeo, stealing his diati then throwing his father out a window into an icy crevasse. Then Renato takes on his father’s identity and claims the Praesidis throne.

The diati the Primor gifted Nyx with shows her the same memory while she sleeps. When she sees Nisi’s broadcast, though she doesn’t recognize Nisi, she feels drawn to him. On the Siyane, the diati shows Caleb the same memory as well. He realizes Nisi is Corradeo from the memory.

Caleb goes to see Nisi, confronting him with his newfound knowledge about the man’s past. Nisi reveals that the little diati remaining within him spirited him away and nursed him back to health. In the centuries that followed, he wandered the stars, then eventually joined those rebelling against the Directorate.

Malcolm returns to Post Epsilon and seeks Mia out. He bares his soul, apologizing for devaluing her and all she’s done to survive and professing his love for her again. She yells at him, then kisses him.

On the Stalwart II, Alex readies a surprise for her mother. Caleb clears the bridge for privacy, and Alex asks her mother to trust her. Then David Solovy walks in, flesh and blood and alive.

~

REQUIEM

The Directorate tracked an AEGIS vessel to the primary anarch base and launched a surprise attack, and a bloody battle followed in orbit and on the ground. To stop a Machim warship from bombing the base with antimatter missiles, Alex re-established her ethereal connection with the Siyane to bypass the warship’s shielding and destroy it; in doing so, she found the connection no longer exerted the damaging hold on her it once did.

Alex soon discovered a way to use the supradimensional properties of the mysterious Reor mineral to access the contents of the Reor slabs used by the Directorate to store sensitive information. She uncovered the location of the Directorate’s regenesis backups, and AEGIS and the anarchs devised a plan to take out the entire Directorate, permanently, in one massive strike.

For all but two of the Directorate members, the mission succeeded with minimal losses. However, the Machim Primor escaped his assassination attempt. Armed with the location of one of the Mosaic gateways, he acquired a new Tartarus Trigger and raced to wipe out the Aurora universe.

On Solum (Earth’s twin), Caleb engaged the Praesidis Primor in a battle of staggeringly powerful diati, and the diati freed when the Primor died rampaged wild. Caleb couldn’t wrestle it under control, and it killed millions before destroying the planet itself.

The anarchs learned that the Primors kept an additional regenesis backup stored on their secret space station, the Protos Agora, which orbited the Milky Way galactic core. The Stalwart II took the Tartarus Trigger Mesme stole at the start of the conflict and used it to destroy the station.

Just when they believed they had finally achieved victory, they discovered the Machim Primor’s plans. The Primor had a head start, and the only way to try to prevent him from destroying Aurora was for the Kats to disconnect it from the Mosaic, rendering it unreachable forever. Caleb, however, instead used his now total control over diati to command the cosmic force to pull all the pocket universes in the Mosaic—including Aurora—into Amaranthe, then destroy the Mosaic.

He succeeded, but the energy the act required killed him. While Miriam and the others worked out what it meant for all of humanity to now exist in Amaranthe, Alex took Caleb to the living planet of Akeso and, via the deep connection they shared, Akeso brought him back to life.

~

ASTERION NOIR

Detailed Synopsis

EXIN EX MACHINA

A woman wakes up in a rain-soaked alley with no memory of who she is or how she got there. Two strangers, Perrin and Joaquim, find her and offer to take her in. When asked, she tells them her name is Nika.

Fast forward to five years later. Nika leads an armed team, including Perrin and Joaquim, in an infiltration of a transportation headquarters on Mirai. They break into the data vault and corrupt the passenger records so they can travel without being tracked. A discussion back at their base, The Chalet, reveals the larger purpose of the group, which calls itself ‘NOIR’: fighting an increasingly repressive government and searching for people who have vanished in the last several years.

Dashiel Ridani, an elite Industry Advisor, discovers that shipments of his company’s new product, a virtual limb augment, have been stolen while in transit to retailers. At a meeting between Advisors and the Guides—the leaders of the Dominion government—the Guides brush off the theft in favor of pressuring a Justice Advisor, Adlai Weiss, to apprehend the members of NOIR and bring an end to their disruptive activities. Afterwards, the Guides meet in secret, debating how they can shut NOIR down and hinting at some greater threat to the Dominion.

At The Chalet, one of NOIR’s top hackers, Parc Eshett, shows off a new virtual limb augment he’s installed.

Nika heads to another Dominion world, Namino, to purchase new equipment from a Taiyok merchant named Xyche. The Taiyoks are a winged alien species known for their cloaking capabilities. While on Namino, she spends an afternoon with her occasional lover, Grant.

Joaquim attends the criminal trial of a former friend. During the trial, he recalls the last time he’d seen his friend, when Joaquim’s lover Cassidy was murdered during a police raid on their apartment. After the raid, Joaquim turned his back on that life to start a new one on Mirai.

Dashiel visits Chosek, the homeworld of the Chizeru, a diminutive, pre-industrial alien species. Chosek is rich in kyoseil, a rare mineral Asterions use to enhance their bio-synthetic bodies and many of their technologies, and the Chizeru mine the kyoseil for Asterion businesses.

Later, Dashiel replays a memory from five years earlier. In it, he and a woman make love; their pillow talk involves a series of outpost disappearances on Dominion exploratory worlds. She is worried the Guides are involved and plans to hack into government files in search of evidence. The next night, she disappears; Dashiel has searched for her ever since, to no avail.

On a distant exploratory world, Advisor Gemina Kail oversees the destruction of a lab outpost. The employees living there are gassed, loaded into stasis chambers and shipped to a secret space station.

Nika returns to The Chalet to learn that Parc has been arrested for burglary. She reaches out to a NOIR contact in Justice, Spencer Nimoet, who sneaks her inside the jail to see Parc. He acts very unlike himself—passive and unconcerned about his plight.

Nika, Perrin and Joaquim try to figure out what might have happened to Parc to explain his behavior. Nika and Perrin go see the merchant he purchased the new limb augment from, who tells them the manufacturer is Ridani Enterprises and gives them one of the augments so they can test it.

Another NOIR hacker, Cair, finds a hidden virutox in the augment software. It attaches itself to a user’s OS then alters their programming, decreasing impulse control and emotion expression.

Nika, Joaquim and a NOIR robotics specialist, Ryan, infiltrate Ridani Enterprises in a bid to uncover more about the augment and possibly the virutox. Nika is hacking into the server in the CEO’s office when Dashiel returns to work and discovers her there. During a tense standoff, her disguise fails, and he recognizes her as the woman from his memory, his lost love who vanished. He asks her to meet him the next day, then urges her to leave before security arrives.

At the meeting, amidst lots of angst on both sides, Dashiel tells Nika she used to be a diplomatic Advisor. He reveals she is a descendant of the fabled First Generation, who led the Asterions across galaxies in search of a new home when their rebellion against the Anaden Empire failed. After recounting the events leading up to her disappearance and his search for answers, he tells her about a psyche backup she kept.

Nika visits the bank where the backup was stored, but her account was emptied out the same day she woke up in an alley with her memory erased. She confronts Dashiel in his home, accusing him of being involved in her psyche-wipe. Devastated at the realization he will never get back the woman he loved and desperate to prove his sincerity, he asks her to experience (‘simex’) one of his memories from their time together. Secretly wanting to glimpse the woman she supposedly used to be, she agrees.

The memory is of a party at Maris Debray’s loft nine years ago. Nika, Dashiel, Maris and Adlai are all clearly friends, and they banter for several minutes before Nika and Dashiel retire to the balcony together. They snuggle, kiss and drink champagne while they chat about an upcoming interstellar mission by the starship Shorai.

The memory leaves Nika disoriented and drowning in unfamiliar emotions. She tells Dashiel that woman is gone forever, then starts to leave. But the lingering memory overwhelms her, and she embraces him instead. In a torrent of passion and turbulent emotions, they make love.

In the dead of night, Parc is convicted and transported to the Zaidam Bastille prison. There, he and other convicts are herded into stasis chambers and knocked unconscious.

The next morning, Nika and Dashiel share moments both tender and troubled before going their separate ways. Dashiel tells Adlai about the virutox implanted in his stolen augments and implores him to investigate. He then goes to check on Parc as a favor to Nika, only to find Parc has already been sent to Zaidam.

Dashiel tells Nika the bad news, and they meet with Joaquim and Perrin. He and Joaquim instantly clash, arguing over the best course of action. Dashiel confides to Nika that his Advisor status will allow him entry to Zaidam, but to break Parc out will mean the end of Dashiel’s career and turn him into a fugitive.

They are fighting about what to do when an explosion rocks The Chalet. They find the main floor on fire, with a crater at its center. Joaquim accuses Dashiel of causing the explosion, and Nika forces Dashiel to leave.

In the aftermath, it’s determined that Cair became infected with the virutox when he studied the augment software; he caused a scene on the main floor before tampering with equipment until it exploded. Three people were killed in the explosion, including Cair. Using psyche backups they can theoretically be brought back, but NOIR lacks the resources to do it.

Adlai confirms the existence of the virutox in the limb augments. He informs the Guides, and is shocked when they order him to let the virutox propagate. They question how he discovered it, and when he repeats what Dashiel told him—that a contact alerted him to it—they order Dashiel and the contact to appear before them.

Advisor Iona Rowan participates in an illegal, underground competition where the participants temporarily switch consciousnesses to complete challenges. Unbeknownst to her, she switches with a man who had installed the limb augment and was infected with the virutox.

Nika reluctantly agrees to meet the Guides with Dashiel, but only if they use the opportunity to search the Guides’ data vault for more information on her psyche-wipe. When they arrive at Mirai Tower, however, the Guides have moved the meeting time up, leaving them no time to conduct the search. Nika abandons Dashiel and sneaks into the data vault herself. She uncovers numerous files about her investigation into the outpost disappearances, including references to a ‘Rasu Protocol.’ She also finds proof that the Guides ordered her psyche-wipe, which was executed by Gemina Kail.

At this point, she’s interrupted by security. Adlai and Dashiel reach the vault at almost the same time, and on seeing Nika breaking into the data vault, Adlai reluctantly tries to arrest her. Seeing no other option, Dashiel feigns ignorance and turns on Nika.

Nika escapes through a window, but she’s shot by a drone as she does and is badly injured. Joaquim and Perrin mount a rescue effort; they are able to reach her before security forces and evacuate her to The Chalet.

She awakens hours later in a treatment tank, her wounds healed. Hurt by Dashiel’s apparent betrayal and angry about all she’s learned, she thanks Perrin and Joaquim for saving her then tells them she has to leave, to protect them and to find answers.

A Taiyok assassin ambushes Nika while she’s on her way to Namino; she kills him and quickly leaves the scene. She asks Grant for a ship, but rebuffs him when he tries to kiss her. After an awkward exchange, they agree to remain friends, and he gives her a ship he’s built.

Nika is about to leave in her new ship when Dashiel shows up at the hangar, bags in hand. She holds him at gunpoint while he explains that he hadn’t betrayed her, but rather bought her time to get away and him time to withdraw funds from his accounts and transfer control of his company, all so he could come with her. Eventually he convinces her, and when they embrace she experiences a memory of the day she met him.

At the embassy on Chosek, Iona falls victim to the virutox and goes on a shooting spree, shooting multiple Chizeru, Asterion business executives and herself. Adlai is called in to investigate the massacre; he discovers she was infected with the virutox without the limb augment being installed, suggesting it is communicable.

Troubled, Adlai reaches out to Dashiel, but he’s vanished. Adlai puts the pieces together and deduces Dashiel has joined Nika on the run. Faced with mounting evidence, he’s forced to accept that the Guides are behind recent events and decides to take action.

Nika and Dashiel infiltrate Zaidam Bastille to break Parc out, only to be told Parc has been transferred to a vessel named the Tabiji, destination unknown. Nika hacks the Zaidam server, where she learns every convict has been transferred under the Rasu Protocol, and the prison is empty. Security forces arrive, and Nika is spaced while trying to reach their ship. Dashiel rescues her, and they escape the prison.

Later that night, Nika experiences another memory, this time of the final hours of the Asterions’ rebellion against the Anaden Empire. She’s a diplomat for the rebels named Nicolette Hinotori, who is bonded to an AI named KIR. Facing annihilation, the rebels flee the Milky Way on generation ships in search of a new home.

Gemina Kail pilots the Tabiji to an alien stronghold across the galaxy, where she delivers thousands of Asterions in stasis chambers to a mysterious alien species called the Rasu.

~

OF A DARKER VOID

Nika and Dashiel visit Ebisu, where Nika baits a Taiyok assassin who is tailing her into a trap then gives the alien a message to deliver to the Guides: that she will kill every assassin sent after her, but if instead they want to talk, she is willing to listen.

On Mirai, Adlai and Spencer confiscate limb augments from merchants in an attempt to prevent more people from being infected with the virutox. Later, Maris confronts Adlai and demands he tell her where Dashiel and Nika have gone and why, and he agrees.

The next morning, Adlai interrogates Iona to determine how she caught the virutox. She admits she interacted with a man named Tristan McLeros at a Disuta game. That night, Tristan breaks into the Mirai One transit hub, intending to fiddle with the transportation system as a prank. Instead, he accidentally overloads the power distribution system, causing the building to explode.

Adlai reviews surveillance footage and identifies Tristan as the perpetrator. He confronts the Guides with evidence that the virutox is responsible for the explosion and demands to know why they continue to allow it to spread. They refuse to tell him, and he in turn refuses to stop confiscating the limb augments, daring them to come after him.

The Guides confer on what to do about the deteriorating situation and the increasing number of rebelling Advisors; they elect to continue guarding the Rasu Protocol secrets. One of the Guides, Delacrai, privately believes this course will result in the destruction of the Dominion and decides to take action.

Later that night, Nika receives an anonymous message containing the location of the next outpost to be raided. She and Dashiel visit the Taiyok homeworld to purchase a stealth module for their ship, which they’ve named Wayfarer, so that they can track whoever attacks the outpost. To prepare, Nika accesses an encrypted memory of the first Asterion meeting with the Taiyok leader 12,000 years ago. Afterwards, she confides in Dashiel about the memories she’s been recovering and tells him she believes her former self deliberately encrypted the memories, then made him the decryption key.

Nika contacts Grant for help in installing the stealth module. While he talks Dashiel through updating the ship’s systems to accept the module, Dashiel lets slip that Nika had been psyche-wiped 5 years earlier, which Grant did not know.

Adlai’s people are able to create a vaccine against the virutox. He and Spencer debate how best to distribute the vaccine, given that the public no longer trusts Justice. Spencer confesses that he has contacts in NOIR and suggests asking them for help.

Spencer contacts Joaquim and asks him to meet with Adlai. Joaquim is deeply suspicious, and he and Perrin argue about whether they should do it. Joaquim reveals why he despises Justice: that Justice officers on Synra killed the love of his life and destroyed all her psyche backups.

The meeting takes place, and Adlai gives Joaquim a copy of the vaccine for NOIR to distribute. On the way back home, Joaquim is hit with a tranquilizer dart and kidnapped.

Perrin flees in a panic and returns to The Chalet. She and Ryan study the vaccine to ensure its genuine, then she meets with Adlai again. She tells him about Joaquim’s kidnapping, and they reluctantly decide that they have to focus on getting the vaccine distributed before trying to rescue him, since Adlai is already in danger of being fired. Despite all the angst, they instantly hit it off and agree to work together.

Nika and Dashiel arrive at the outpost in time to see two ships show up; Gemina gases the outpost then orders dynes to transport the inhabitants in stasis chambers onto the larger ship. Nika sneaks onboard and tells Dashiel to track her. An interference field blocks her signal, though, so Dashiel plants a tracker on Gemina’s personal ship, then barely escapes as the outpost is destroyed.

The ship Nika has stowed away on arrives at a space station, and she sneaks off to investigate. The Tabiji is docked there, and she breaks into its navigation records and copies its travel history. Then she steals Gemina’s personal ship and meets Dashiel and the Wayfarer on a nearby moon.

They quickly tie the Tabiji’s journeys to the historical route of the Shorai, deducing that the Shorai must have discovered something at the terminus point of the Tabiji’s trips.

They follow the path the Tabiji has been taking and discover the stronghold of the Rasu. The aliens have built a Dyson lattice around a star to siphon off its energy. Thousands of city-sized platforms orbit the star, from where countless ships arrive and depart. They observe Rasu ships joining together to create larger vessels in a seamless fashion. This triggers a recollection by Nika, but when a Rasu ship opens a wormhole vortex that nearly drags the Wayfarer in, they decide they should leave.

Once they’re safely outside of the Rasu stellar system, Nika recounts the story of something that happened to her 3 years earlier. She and Perrin went to a club, where a man offered them a simex depicting an alien invasion in which they are tasked with disabling the alien ship.

In the simex, they found themselves in a jungle as a ship—what Nika now recognizes as a Rasu ship—descended from the sky while burning the jungle with a laser beam. The ship landed and machine-looking aliens disembark. Several natives attacked and were quickly captured. The aliens transformed into a variety of shapes and tools, the metal they were made of liquifying and resolidifying as needed. Perrin got injured, and they tried to exit the simex, but the exit command didn’t work.

They sneaked on the ship and came upon the native prisoners just as the Rasu killed them all. Perrin screamed, and the Rasu pursued them on a chase through the ship. They made it to the command center, where a huge plasma chamber powered the ship’s main weapon. Before they could try to disable it, Rasu surrounded and killed them.

They woke up in the club and tried to get a refund for a defective simex, only to learn the man who gave it to them didn’t work there. As they were leaving, Nika heard a voice in her head saying, ‘Remember this. When the time comes, you must remember what you have seen.’

Dashiel and Nika conclude that someone deliberately targeted her with information about the Rasu. They speculate that it might have been the Sogain, a mysterious, technologically superior species Asterions encountered 200K years ago. In the encounter, an Asterion vessel was forcefully ejected from the Sogain system by a cosmic force and warned by a disembodied voice never to approach again. Armed with their new knowledge of the Rasu threat, they decide to return to Mirai.

On the Guides’ Platform, Blake Satair, a Justice Advisor, probes Joaquim’s mind for information on NOIR. Joaquim’s internal defenses block much of the ‘interrogation,’ but Blake is able to extract the name of Joaquim’s former boss, the owner of The Chalet. He has the man brought in, extracts the Chalet’s address and kills the man.

On the way to Mirai, Nika accidentally triggers another encrypted memory. In it, a man named Steven Olivaw tells her he intends to undergo a Retirement & Reinitialization, essentially committing suicide. She professes her love for him and begs him not to go through with it. He muses that perhaps she could find happiness with his next incarnation, but she tells him she won’t accept a hack copy, and he leaves. When the memory is over, Nika lies to Dashiel about its contents. She realizes that Dashiel is a descendent of Steven and is troubled that for some unknown reason her former self clearly never told him this.

When they reach Mirai, Dashiel receives a message from his deputy at his company asking to meet. Nika suspects it’s a trap, but he insists on going. They argue, and he leaves in anger. Nika tries to track him, but he’s turned off his locator. She’s wrestling with what to do next when she receives an anonymous message stating that NOIR headquarters has been compromised. She orders everyone to evacuate immediately then departs in the Wayfarer for The Chalet.

Dashiel arrives at the meeting and is ambushed by Blake. He’s able to get a one-word message to Nika before Blake disables his comms.

When she receives it, she realizes it was in fact a trap and he’s been taken prisoner. With no way to locate him, she has no choice but to continue to The Chalet. When she arrives, she blows a hole in the roof and evacuates people as Justice squads begin attacking on the ground floor. Several NOIR members are killed, but most are able to escape. Nika takes off in the Wayfarer then blows up the building, burying the attackers in the rubble.

After taking the injured to a clinic, Nika meets with the source of the anonymous messages, who turns out to be Guide Delacrai. Delacrai tells her that Joaquim and Dashiel are being held on the Platform and, when pressed, reveals that in return for the Guides delivering them thousands of Asterions in stasis chambers every few months, the Rasu agreed not to invade and enslave Asterion worlds.

The Rasu are interested in the Asterions unique physiology of bio-synthetic intelligence powered by kyoseil and quantum programming, though they have not disclosed why. The Rasu also claim to control hundreds of galaxies spanning this region of the universe. Nika demands the woman’s help in getting onto the Platform and freeing Dashiel and Joaquim; Delacrai agrees.

Nika, Adlai and Spencer prepare for an assault on the Platform, while Perrin and Maris ready Maris’ loft for the other half of their plan.

All the Advisors (except Adlai and Dashiel) arrive at the loft, ostensibly for a party, and Perrin locks the door and blocks all communications. Maris recounts everything they’ve learned about the Rasu, the outpost kidnappings, the virutox and Nika’s psyche-wipe. Maris pressures Gemina until she fills in the gaps on the Rasu, their demands and the Guides’ actions to comply since then.

Maris then reveals that the Guides are holding Dashiel prisoner, and that Nika and Adlai are currently rescuing him. On hearing this, Blake tries to disable the communication block to get word out, but Perrin and others subdue and restrain him.

Joaquim wakes up in an interrogation room. He frees himself from the restraints and searches the facility, worried Perrin was captured as well. Instead he finds Dashiel, whom he frees.

While hunting for a way off the Platform, they find the Guides’ inner sanctum. There they discover that the Guides are using remote-controlled dolls instead of real Asterion bodies, with their psyches living inside massive servers. Such an existence is anathema to most Asterions, and in disgust Joaquim records a narrated video of the dolls and servers.

While Dashiel investigates further, Joaquim disappears into the power control room for a few minutes. When he returns, they exit the sanctum for the Platform’s central chamber. The main entrance is locked, but they hear sounds on the other side and start banging on the doors.

Nika, Adlai and Spencer infiltrate Mirai Tower. Security fires on them, and they face resistance all the way to the Platform entry in the penthouse. Under fire from AEVs outside, Nika nearly electrocutes herself hotwiring the d-gate, and they flee through it onto the Platform. Once there, they hear a commotion in the central chamber. Unsure of what waits on the other side, they ready their weapons before opening the doors.

They find Dashiel and Joaquim on the other side. Nika embraces Dashiel and tells him she loves him, but before they can talk further, more security forces attack.

Once dispatched, they return to Mirai Tower. Joaquim insists they all go out on the balcony then sends a command. In orbit above Mirai, the Platform explodes. Adlai wants to arrest Joaquim, but Dashiel talks him down.

Nika and Maris reunite, though this is the first time Nika has met Maris since the psyche-wipe. Nika goes on camera in a live broadcast and, with Dashiel, Adlai, Maris and many other Advisors at her side, addresses the Asterion people. She tells them that the Asterion Dominion is in grave danger, and she needs their help to save it.

~

THE STARS LIKE GODS

The Advisors scrambled to undo the damage eight years of the Rasu Protocol had inflicted while racing to find a way to respond to an impending Rasu deadline, when the aliens expected more Asterions to be delivered.

Nika’s oldest friend from her former life, Maris Debray, revealed that both she and Nika were members of the “First Generation”: Asterions who had never erased their psyches in the 700,000 years since they fled the Anaden Empire and created themselves as a new species by merging Anaden DNA, AI programming and the kyoseil mineral. Only a few dozen of the First Generation remained, and their history was kept secret from everyone else.

With time running out, Nika sought the help of the Sogain, an enigmatic species who once threatened the Asterions with extinction if they ever trespassed on Sogain territory. This time, the aliens disclosed the location of a single, stranded Rasu.

An Asterion team captured the Rasu and brought it to Mirai for interrogation. The creature revealed that the Rasu exhibited a collective intelligence when physically connected to other Rasu, but regained independent thought when they were separated. They intended to use kyoseil to control other Rasu over great distances, as kyoseil was supradimensional, deeply interconnected and one of the universe’s oldest life forms.

Using this knowledge, the Asterions identified a way to link their consciousnesses together via kyoseil. They dubbed these connections ‘ceraffin’ and used them to develop a plan to face the Rasu.

They constructed volatile electricity bombs to be sneaked into the Rasu stronghold. The Rasu were expecting 8,000 Asterions in stasis chambers, so Nika used the ceraff structure to split her psyche into shards inhabiting 8,000 copies of herself.

The copies were delivered to the Rasu as expected, and they awoke inside the Rasu’s lab on their primary space station. Chaos ensued as they fought to reach the power control center, even as they were cut down by the thousands. A mere dozen made it to the control center, and a single instance survived to override the power safeguards.

Dashiel detonated the electricity bombs, and a cascading power overload ripped through the stronghold. It destroyed the Rasu’s Dyson lattice, which triggered an intense surge in solar flare activity, and all the Rasu stations and vessels were incinerated, save one vessel that escaped through a wormhole.

The Asterions recognized this was not the end of the conflict, but the beginning, and they needed to prepare for the Rasu’s return. Nika was contacted by the Sogain, who informed her the Anaden Empire of old had fallen and suggested she might find allies among the new one which had risen to take its place.

Nika journeyed to the Asterions’ ancestral home, the Milky Way. Before she arrived, however, a wormhole opened in the cabin of her ship, and Alex Solovy walked through it.

~

RIVEN WORLDS

Detailed Synopsis

CONTINUUM

Fourteen years have passed since the events of REQUIEM.

Nika Kirumase joins Alex and Caleb for dinner at their home on Akeso. They share the story of how humanity ended up in Amaranthe and fill her in on Concord, the multi-species government that has taken the place of the deposed Anaden Directorate.

Marlee Marano, Caleb’s niece, is on the planet Savrak as part of her work for the Concord Consulate. The Savrakaths are a lizard-evolved species that originated in the Mosaic. Marlee discovers they are enslaving and mistreating the Godjans, a species the they share Savrak with. While helping a Godjan girl, Vaihe, escape imminent torture, Marlee is arrested by local authorities. David Solovy and Caleb both arrive to come to her aid, and they are able to secure her release.

Elsewhere on Savrak, Eren asi-Idoni and his team (Cosime, Felzeor, Drae) surveil a Savrakath lab on behalf of Concord Intelligence (CINT). The team infiltrates the lab and acquires evidence the Savrakaths are secretly developing antimatter weapons.

Miriam Solovy, Concord’s military leader, receives a visit from Lakhes. The Kat conveys its opinion of the Asterions and a warning regarding the Rasu. Lakhes then returns home, where it confronts Mesme about the secrets it has been keeping regarding the Asterions.

Alex takes Nika to Concord HQ to meet humanity’s power players in Concord: her mother and father, Malcolm Jenner, Mia Requelme and Richard Navick. Nika fills them in on the Asterion’s experiences with the Rasu (see the summary of Asterion Noir).

Nika returns home to Mirai, and Dashiel introduces her to the Omoikane Initiative, a massive project spearheaded by the other Advisors to accelerate technology, warfare and logistical plans to combat the Rasu. She learns about The Vault, a project to store the psyche backups of all Asterions in a fortified spaceship, where they can be spirited away in the event of a Rasu invasion.

On Machimis, Casmir elasson-Machim struggles to exert authority over the other Machim elassons. Torval elasson-Machim learns about the Savrakaths’ antimatter development and, believing Concord is not doing enough to address it, decides to take matters into his own hands.

Alex, Caleb and Valkyrie travel to NGC 55, believed to be the closest Rasu-controlled galaxy to Concord space. They discover millions of Rasu vessels and platforms in thousands of star systems throughout the galaxy, as well as a Rasu artificial ring orbiting the galactic core.

Nika, Dashiel and Lance attend a formal meeting with Concord leaders to review what they know about the Rasu’s reach, their intentions, and ways to counter them. Conventional weapons have proved ineffective, and they discuss the use of negative energy, nuclear and antimatter weapons, as well as even more exotic weaponry. Nika fills the others in on what she knows about the Rasu’s unique consciousness and their paranoid, controlling nature.

Miriam promises the Asterions military and scientific cooperation, information sharing and a steady supply of Reor/kyoseil, but stops short of providing them with adiamene. Alex asks Kennedy to secretly give the formula for adiamene to the Asterions. Kennedy and Noah decide if they can do it in such a way that protects their family, they’ll do it.

Vaihe unexpectedly contacts Marlee. She’s escaped capture but is alone in the Savrak wilderness. Marlee hacks a Caeles Prism to open at Vaihe’s location and gets her off Savrak. She takes Vaihe to meet Mia, where the Godjan relays the full extent of the Savrakaths’ mistreatment of her people. Marlee demands Mia do something to help the Godjans.

On Mirai, Adlai Weiss discovers his personal account has been hacked and his bank accounts emptied. When he goes home, he is attacked and knocked unconscious. He wakes up in an unknown location, strung up in a rack and being held captive by a strange man.

Nika takes Maris Debray to visit their original homeworld, Asterion Prime, in the Milky Way. Maris tells Nika about the early days of the SAI Rebellion and about Nika’s family, including her brother, Loshi, who was killed during the rebellion.

Eren’s team receives authorization to destroy the Savrakath antimatter lab. However, while they’re placing explosives around the lab, Torval arrives in his Imperium and blasts the facility, killing Drae and Cosime.

Eren takes Cosime’s body to Alex and Caleb on Akeso and demands that they bring her back to life, much as Akeso did for Caleb fourteen years earlier. Caleb tries to explain how it’s beyond Akeso’s ability to renew life in someone the planet hasn’t previously bonded with. When a hysterical Eren insists, Caleb tries to open a connection to Cosime, only to be overwhelmed darkness and death. Eren realizes Cosime is truly gone; he asks Alex and Caleb to take care of her for him and flees.

Miriam arrests Torval for disobeying orders and the murder of Concord personnel, then tells Casmir to bring the other Machim elassons in line. Miriam and Mia deliver an ultimatum to the Savrakaths, terminating their negotiations for a Concord alliance, demanding they cease all antimatter production and offering asylum to all Godjans.

On Mirai, Perrin is determined to find Adlai. She breaks into the Justice server to find out everything Justice knows about Adlai’s kidnapping. She and Parc Eshett review the data and discover Justice has a suspect named Ian Sevulch, but he has an alibi. Parc reveals that some Asterions have begun transforming themselves into “Plexes,” where a single consciousness occupies multiple physical bodies simultaneously. He believes Sevulch could be a Plex, and they decide to surveil the man.

Perrin tails Sevulch to an abandoned shop, where she discovers Adlai tied up in the basement. She shoots Sevulch in the head then, with Parc’s help, rescues Adlai. She then keeps vigil at Adlai’s side while he recovers from his torture. Parc stops by, and Perrin reveals she’s figured out that he’s a Plex. He asks her to keep his secret, and she agrees.

Alex and Caleb attend Cosime’s funeral. Eren is absent, and no one knows where he’s gone. Caleb decides to try to find Eren and enlists Felzeor’s help to do so. Meanwhile, Eren travels to an underworld Anaden planet, Lethe, to acquire a dangerous black-market hypnol that will suppress his emotions and increase his reflexes. He takes the first dose, then begins planning his revenge for Cosime’s death.

In a skirmish between Savrakath ships and Casmir’s fleet, the Savrakaths deploy antimatter weapons to decimate the Machim ships. Miriam issues a “red-flag” order, terminating all Concord relations with the Savrakaths and forbidding them from entering Concord territory.

Dashiel receives a message and a series of files from an anonymous source. The files contain the details for adiamene production, and he begins making plans for its manufacture.

The Concord Senate approves a formal alliance with the Asterion Dominion, over the vehement objections of the Anaden senator, Ferdinand elasson-Kyvern.

During the Asterion’s battle against the Rasu in the Gennisi galaxy, an Asterion pilot, Kiernan Phillips, and a Taiyok, Toshke’phien, were pulled into a Rasu wormhole and spit out to crash land on an unknown planet. The planet is being subjected to a quantum block, meaning they can’t call home for rescue. They’ve survived until now by staying out of sight of Rasu currently roving the planet, which appears to have been home to a primitive species until recently. The Rasu discover the wreck of Kiernan’s ship, however, and take it apart for information.

Despondent over what the Rasu might learn, Kiernan and Toshke return to Toshke’s ship ahead of the Rasu and burn it. They then seek refuge in the woods for the night; the next morning they spot a non-Rasu ship overhead, and race to meet up with it.

In a distant galaxy, Danilo Nisi/Corradeo Praesidis and his granddaughter, Nyx elasson-Praesidis, visit an advanced alien species Danilo previously encountered, the Ourankeli. On arriving, they find the Ourankeli’s habitats destroyed, including a stellar halo ring. Next, they travel to the home system of the Hoan, the primitive species that sheltered Danilo after his son tried to murder him. They discover Rasu ships in orbit and a quantum block surrounding the planet. They descend to the surface, where they find villages of Hoan massacred. Danilo is lamenting their fate when Kiernan and Toshke rush out of the woods to meet them. After a tense encounter, Kiernan insists that they all leave immediately, before the Rasu discover them, and Danilo agrees.

Malcolm leads a special forces squad on a stealth raid of the Godjan prison on Savrak. They are able to rescue the imprisoned Godjans, but as the last of the captives are freed, Savrakath forces attack. Malcolm is caught in an explosion and loses consciousness.

Marlee accompanies Mia to Mirai. Shortly after they arrive, word reaches Lance of Kiernan’s rescue, and of the fact that some Rasu may now know the location of Namino, where Kiernan’s ship was based. The Asterions begin preparations for the possibility of a Rasu attack. Mia and Marlee go with Lance to the Asterion military headquarters on Namino. There, Marlee meets Grant and convinces him to take her into the city to meet some Taiyoks.

Caleb and Felzeor track Eren to Lethe, but Eren has already departed. Caleb searches the hotel room Eren had rented, finds evidence of the hypnol Eren had procured, and deduces what Eren is planning.

At Concord HQ, Eren breaks Torval out of detention and takes him to Eren’s ship, where he restrains Torval in the cargo hold.

Caleb and Felzeor reach Concord HQ minutes after Eren has absconded with Torval. They confer with Richard until he’s called away by Miriam, then decide to go drop in on Marlee.

Rasu arrive in the Namino stellar system, and Lance deploys his fleet. Miriam orders the AEGIS, Machim, Novoloume and Khokteh fleets to Namino and accompanies them in the Stalwart II.

On learning of the impending battle, Ferdinand elasson-Kyvern conspires with other Anaden elassons to subvert the new alliance. He kidnaps Casmir before the man can report to Namino with his fleet.

The Asterion fleet engages the Rasu. Concord forces arrives at Namino and join the battle, but the Machim fleet is a no-show. Mia reaches out to Ferdinand, who threatens an all-out rebellion against Concord. The battle is nevertheless turning the Asterions’ and Concord’s way when massive Rasu reinforcements arrive. Miriam appeals to Lakhes for the Kats to join the battle, but Lakhes declines.

Alex arrives at Namino to find the battle going badly for the good guys. After checking in with Miriam, she leaves the Siyane in Valkyrie’s hands and goes to the Initiative to warn Nika that they’re about to lose Namino. Nika and Dashiel decide they need to get The Vault to a safe location, and they’re debating where and how when Mesme shows up and offers to safeguard The Vault. Nika is skeptical, but Mesme’s pleas and Alex’s promise that she trusts Mesme convinces her to agree to it.

A Rasu leviathan attacks the Stalwart II. When it can’t do any damage, it changes shape and surrounds the Stalwart II, enclosing it entirely. Rasu then melt and infiltrate the ship via tiny seams in the hull; once inside, the Rasu solidify and attacks ship personnel. When the Rasu are about to reach the bridge, Miriam activates the ship’s self-destruct mechanism.

Valkyrie shows Alex what happened to the Stalwart II. Alex tells Nika that whatever she’s going to do to rescue the people still on Namino, she needs to do it now, then opens a wormhole and vanishes.

Nika prepares to go to Namino and fight the Rasu invaders. Joaquim Lacese arrives at the Initiative, eager to join her. Joaquim leads the way through the d-gate to Namino; just as Nika is stepping through, the d-gate shuts down, as does every d-gate leading to Namino.

Caleb learns that Marlee has gone with Mia to the Dominion. He sends a furious message to Mia, demanding that she get Marlee out of the warzone immediately. Mia insists that she’s trying (unsuccessfully) to get Marlee to leave, and Caleb tells her to open a wormhole to her office and he’ll personally come retrieve Marlee.

Marlee gets separated from Grant and begins trying to get pedestrians into the DAF command basement as Rasu land in the city and go on the attack. Caleb arrives at Mia’s office; Mia opens a wormhole and joins him just as Rasu reach DAF Command and attack Marlee. Caleb is rushing through the wormhole to rescue her when it shuts down. When Mia is unable to reopen it, Caleb announces he is going to get his niece and walks out.

~

INVERSION

On learning the Stalwart II has self-destructed, Alex returns to Concord HQ, only to find it embroiled in a coup attempt by rebel Anaden forces. Caleb’s plans to travel to Namino and rescue Marlee are delayed as he helps Richard defeat the Anaden rebels.

On Namino, Grant and Joaquim rescue an unconscious Marlee from the Rasu and retreat to an underground bunker. Marlee awakens several hours later to find her injuries treated. Grant fills her in on events, and she meets Joaquim, Selene and Xyche’ghael. Joaquim and Selene clash over how to protect those trapped underground while fighting the Rasu invasion.

With their fleet decimated and Namino occupied, the Advisors gather at the Omoikane Initiative and review their limited options for how to respond. Unexpectedly, a fleet of Kat superdreadnoughts arrives to defend the remaining Asterion Axis Worlds from Rasu attacks.

At Concord HQ, David tries to keep the Concord infrastructure functioning while Miriam undergoes regenesis. Caleb convinces David to help him steal a CINT Ghost ship so can sneak onto Namino.

The Savrakath ambassador tells Mia that Malcolm died during the Savrak raid. She immediately starts the regenesis paperwork to bring him back, only to learn that he had a ‘no regenesis’ clause in his will. On Savrak, however, Malcolm wakes up to find himself injured and chained up in a dungeon.

Eren delivers Torval to the Savrakaths so they can punish him for destroying their antimatter lab. Eren returns to his ship, intending to commit suicide, when he’s knocked unconscious. He later wakes up to find himself restrained in the cargo hold, where his friend and teammate, Drae Shonen, intends to help him detox from the dialele.

On Epithero, the elassons Ferdinand elasson-Kyvern has gathered in his faltering rebellion against Concord bicker over how to move forward. Corradeo Praesidis/Danilo Nisi shows up at the Omoikane Initiative after rescuing Kiernan, stunning Nika and Lance, who remember him as their enemy during the SAI Rebellion.

Joaquim and Selene deploy drones to track the Rasu. Footage from the drones reveals widespread destruction, but also a massive Rasu compound being constructed on the edge of the city.

Alex belatedly learns Caleb has gone to Namino and that her father helped him; she and David argue, and she confesses how she’s afraid that due to his bond with Akeso, Caleb won’t survive the trial. Meanwhile, Caleb reaches Namino, battling both Rasu and Akeso’s protests as he crosses the city to try to reach Marlee.

Miriam wakes up from regenesis in a new body. She struggles with the news of what happened, what it means to have been dead and the incongruity of a new body. That night, she’s consumed by nightmares of the Rasu imprisoning her.

Caleb reaches the bunker and reunites with Marlee. He tries to convince her to to leave Namino with him, but she insists on staying to help everyone trapped there, and he agrees to stay as well.

Parc Eshett’s Plex twin was injured during the initial Rasu attack and is now trapped on the streets of Namino. Parc’s other incarnation reaches the Omoikane Initiative and reveals that he can communicate with his Plex twin on Namino despite the quantum block.

Mesme offers the Asterions a Rift Bubble device, which will prevent any Rasu from reaching the surface of a planet. Corradeo Praesidis tells Nika about the destruction he and Nyx saw at the Ourankeli’s halo ring. Nika urges him to go home to Concord and bring the Anadens in line.

Miriam gives the eulogy at Malcolm’s funeral, and Alex vows to do something to stop the spiraling carnage. Mia, in mourning, tries to convince Richard and Miriam to send Casmir and a Machim fleet against Savrak targets. When they refuse, she enlists Devon Reynolds, now in charge of Special Projects, to hack into the CINT servers and send a message directly to Casmir. Richard and David argue over David using Richard’s credentials to help Caleb steal a Ghost. Casmir receives a message he believes is from Miriam, authorizing him to send Machim ships against Savrakath military targets.

Alex returns home to find Akeso in a full state of revolt, with thunderstorms and flooding consuming the planet. She enlists her father’s help to steal a Machim Imperium, and they deliver it to Kennedy, who reverse engineers the Imperium’s double shielding in order to install it on Concord ships.

On Namino, a team from the bunker finds an injured Parc and brings him back to their hideout. Caleb suffers through the intense negative physical reaction of Akeso to the violence he committed during the excursion.

Dashiel develops a way to meld kyoseil into adiamene, allowing the kyoseil to dynamically alter the shape of adiamene hulls, and begins building a new, more resilient fleet.

Parc on Mirai wakes up after his Plex twin’s injuries were treated on Namino. He passes along a message for Alex from Caleb, then tells Nika what’s happening on Namino. Dashiel announces that his people have developed a virutox that should disrupt Rasu functionality. Nika asks Dashiel to create a kyoseil-infused body she can use to reach Namino and deliver the virutox.

Nika passes along Caleb’s message, and Alex decides to take the Siyane to Namino. Devon provides her with new toys to combat the Rasu, including a negative energy handgun called a Rectifier. Alex seeks out Morgan Lekkas, who since Brooklyn Harper’s death six years earlier has been running a bar on Chalmun Station, and convinces Morgan to accompany her to Namino. Alex then asks Akeso for help in tracking Caleb. They bond, and Akeso grants Alex the ability to sense the location of Caleb’s heartbeat.

Corradeo returns to Concord space for the first time in fourteen years. On learning that all the Praesidis Inquisitors who didn’t commit suicide after The Displacement have gone missing, he asks Nyx to try to find them.

Nika’s new body is awakened, and she’s overwhelmed by the effect of so much kyoseil flowing through her veins on top of the surreal nature of being a Plex. Alex and Morgan pick her up, then take the Siyane to Namino. Alex leaves Morgan in charge of the ship as she and Nika set off toward the occupied city.

Joaquim and Selene deploy a drone to investigate the mysterious Rasu compound. Parc asserts that the centerpiece of the compound is the source of the quantum block, and Caleb and the others decide to test out the compound’s defenses. They sneak across the city to fire a rocket launcher at the compound, but the rocket is shot down before reaching its target. In response, Rasu close in on the group.

Meanwhile, Alex and Nika fight Rasu through the city as Alex follows Caleb’s heartbeat. They reach Caleb and the others just as Rasu forces attack; Alex uses the Rectifier to vaporize the attackers then reunites with Caleb.

Once they return to the bunker, Alex and Caleb argue over his deception about his plans, until they both have a breakdown and reconcile. Alex discovers that, much like his heartbeat, she can feel what Caleb physically feels. She convinces him to remove the wall he’s erected between himself and Akeso, at which point he can feel her as well. A sensory-overloaded sensual encounter ensues. Afterward, Caleb reluctantly rebuilds the barrier blocking Akeso off so he can continue to fight the Rasu.

Nika devises a plan for them to destroy the quantum block at the heart of the Rasu compound. Her twin and Lance brief Miriam on the plan to destroy the quantum block, and Miriam agrees to bring a Concord fleet to try to free Namino. Miriam takes command of her new ship, the CAF Aurora, which has the Imperium’s double shielding installed on it.

Richard discovers that Mia had hacked the CINT server and sent messages in his and Miriam’s names. He reluctantly goes to arrest Mia, but she vanishes through a wormhole before he can do so.

The Savrakaths offer to return Torval to the Anadens in return for a one-week cease-fire. Ferdinand accepts the offer but intends to break the terms and bomb the Savrakaths once Torval is safe. Eren recovers from his detox, only to learn that the Savrakaths plan to hand Torval back to the Anadens. In exchange for agreeing to reconnect to the regenesis network, he convinces Drae to help him stop the prisoner exchange. Eren arms himself with antimatter and literally dive-bombs the exchange, killing himself, Torval and many Savrakath military leaders.

Malcolm’s prison is located beneath the site of the prisoner exchange, and the bombing creates enough damage and chaos to allow him to free himself from his cell. He escapes his crumbling prison and reaches the surface, then calls AEGIS for an extraction. When he arrives at the Presidio, he discovers that the world thought him dead and learns Mia has disappeared

Morgan brings the Siyane into the city, and everyone in the bunker is evacuated to the ship. Nika and Joaquim approach the Rasu compound on foot from the city, while Alex and Caleb approach by motorcycle from the plains. They create a distraction at the compound to enable Nika and Joaquim to sneak in and reach the quantum block mechanism. As they engage the Rasu in earnest, Caleb almost kills Alex with unintended friendly fire.

Joaquim sacrifices himself to buy Nika time to implant the virutox. Once the virutox is activated, Morgan fires on the compound, destroying the quantum block. Nika, Alex and Caleb narrowly escape the compound and call the cavalry in.

Miriam faces the Rasu for the first time since they killed her, from the bridge of her new and improved ship. Mesme delivers a Rift Bubble to Namino, preventing any more Rasu from reaching the surface, and Alex shows Nika how to extract the code powering the Rift Bubble. Miriam, Lance and their fleets gain the advantage over the Rasu orbiting the planet, and DAF ground forces arrive on Namino to remove the remaining Rasu from the city.

After regenesis, Eren returns to his and Cosime’s home on Hirlas, where he finally lets his grief overtake him. Corradeo arrives at the elasson gathering on Epithero in dramatic fashion.

The Siyane returns home safely, and Marlee reunites with her mother. Caleb and Akeso re-bond and seek a new, more sustainable way forward.

 ~

ECHO RIFT

On Akeso, Caleb trains Marlee in combat maneuvers while displaying a deeper, healthier connection with Akeso. When Marlee damages a tree, Caleb is able to regrow its limbs.

Richard visits his old friend Graham Delavasi, who is running a fishing lodge in the Seneca mountains. Richard tries to convince Graham to come work for CINT, to no avail.

In the Asterion Dominion, Nika puts her original body into stasis, opting to continue to use the kyoseil-saturated body Dashiel crafted for her. When asked why, she says it’s because kyoseil is the answer to everything.

The Rasu attempt to attack Mirai, only to find it protected by a Rift Bubble. They probe the other Axis Worlds, then settle for attacking one of the Adjunct colonies. The Advisors decide not to defend the colony, as they need to conserve their resources for now.

After being regened following his death while freeing Namino, Joaquim bumps into Selene. He doesn’t remember their time together while trapped on Namino, so she fills him in over drinks, and they end up sleeping together. When he sobers up, his inherent hatred of all things Justice leads him to reject her and storm out.

Alex attempts to teach Nika how to visit sidespace and open wormholes, but the kyoseil blocks Nika’s attempts to do so. Alex also learns of Nika’s lost memories.

Miriam sees Malcolm for the first time since his escape from Savrak, and they ruminate on the thorny questions surrounding regenesis. Malcolm takes a leave of absence to search for Mia, who has vanished.

Mia has constructed a false identity on Pandora and renounced her former life. She’s working on her new tech shop when the news announces that Malcolm, thought killed in the Savrak mission, is alive and well. Though overjoyed, she realizes that him dying a second time would destroy her and decides not to contact him.

Caleb tracks Mia down and visits her. He tries to convince her to contact Malcolm, but she refuses. He then presents her with a plea deal offer from Richard that will keep her out of prison (but prevent her from ever holding government office again). She reluctantly agrees to consider it.

Mia is visited by a local thug, who tries to shake her down for ‘protection money.’ Shortly thereafter, she meets a man named Enzio Vilane; charming and friendly, he presents himself as a local businessman, but Mia suspects there is more to him. She does some research and discovers that Vilane is actually the secret son of Aiden Trieneri, former cartel leader and lover of Olivia Montegreu. He’s also the leader of the up-and-coming Rivinchi cartel. When she next encounters Vilane, Mia tells him she knows who he is; his charming demeanor vanishes, and he threatens her.

Eren is mourning Cosime in solitude at their home on Hirlas when he receives a visit from Maion, his shadowy Yinhe friend. Maion tells him how their former boss in the anarchs, Danilo Nisi, is putting together a new Anaden government; when Maion reveals that Nisi is actually the true Corradeo Praesidis, Eren is intrigued enough to pay the man a visit. Eren agrees to work for Corradeo, on one condition.

After being blown up by Eren on Savrak, Torval elasson-Machim awakens in a regenesis lab. He quickly commandeers a new warship and returns to Savrak and inflicts significant damage in a bombing campaign. Torval then goes to the Anaden elasson confab on Epithero.

Frustrated at his lack of progress in reigning in Ferdinand’s rebellion against Concord, Corradeo poisons the elassons with a drug that severs their connection to the integrals, rendering them unable to undergo regenesis. He then allows Eren to fulfill his condition, and Eren kills Torval as revenge for Cosime’s death. Fearing he is next, Ferdinand flees Epithero.

The new Savrakath military leader, Brigadier Ghorek, surveys the widespread damage inflicted by Torval, then implements a plan to strike back against Concord, which involves a stealth antimatter bomb.

Nyx elasson-Praesidis pursues the mission her grandfather sent her on: to find the missing Praesidis Inquisitors. She discovers that Kolgo elasson-Praesidis has set himself up as a savage warlord on a backwater planet, where he’s committing vile crimes. She continues her search and locates two additional Inquisitors, Lontias and Ziton, and they agree to accompany her. The three travel to Ares, where Corradeo has moved after bringing the elassons into line. Corradeo convinces Lontias and Ziton to help him form a new Anaden government.

Marlee visits Morgan at her bar on Chalmun Station Asteroid, intending to seduce the woman. Instead, she finds Morgan on a drinking bender, upset over how Malcolm is alive when Brooklyn Harper is still dead. When Morgan wakes the next morning, she decides to find out where Mia is hiding, then sends Malcolm a message with the details.

While closing up her shop for the night, Mia is attacked by armed intruders. They are about to shoot her when Malcolm arrives on the scene and kills the attackers. They have an emotional reunion, but when he won’t revoke the ‘no regenesis’ clause in his will, she demands he leave. He begs her to come home with him and talk things through, but she refuses. He finally relents and departs.

In the aftermath, Mia decides to take Richard’s plea deal offer and leave Pandora behind. She meets with Richard and signs the plea deal, then gives him all the information she’s collected on Enzio Vilane.

Kennedy tries to coax kyoseil out of its Reor armor, hoping to use adiaK in ship hulls. However, though it does so for Asterions, the Reor won’t release the kyoseil for her.

Corradeo sends Nyx and Eren on a mission together to find Ferdinand, much to their dismay. They discover that Ferdinand has been murdered while trying to secure a false identity, and argue their way through a brief investigation. Despite their disagreements, however, Nyx then asks Eren for help dealing with Kolgo.

Nyx returns to Kolgo’s fiefdom with Eren. She pleads with her brother to renounce his depraved ways and accompany her; when he refuses, Eren poisons his drink to disconnect him from regenesis, then Nyx kills him. They report back to Corradeo, but don’t tell him what happened with Kolgo. Corradeo makes a Concord-wide speech detailing his plans for a new Anaden government, one that is freer and more equitable for all Anadens.

Alex, Caleb and Valkyrie investigate the devastated Ourankeli stellar system, a species the Rasu annihilated several centuries ago. While exploring the Ourankeli’s broken halo ring, they meet a solitary Ourankeli still living on the ring. The survivor recounts the tale of their war with the Rasu and eventual defeat. It also tells them of the powerful weapon they created to defeat the Rasu, and how they used it too late to save themselves.

Selene quizzes Adlai on what he knows about Joaquim. She then goes to see Joaquim and challenges him on whether he killed Blake Satair. He finally admits it, and she decides not to arrest him. Unable to resist their attraction to one another, they sleep together again.

Worried about an imminent Rasu attack, Nika offers a Rift Bubble to the Taiyoks, but their Elder declines it. Nika then visits Xyche’ghael, seeking insights into how she might change the Elder’s mind. Though Xyche knows the Elder, he can’t help Nika, because he’s been exiled from Toki’taku for killing the Elder’s brother.

Nika, Dashiel and Parc devise a small variant of a Rift Bubble that acts as a grenade, in the hope the Taiyok Elder will accept Asterion technology.

The Rasu descend on Toki’taku. The Asterions and Concord come to the Taiyoks’ defense, but without a Rift Bubble in place, they face an uphill battle. Malcolm returns to the bridge of his dreadnought, intending to assist with the Toki’taku battle. Instead, Miriam tasks him with another assignment.

Alex and Caleb take their new Ourankeli friend, Wyddoniiet, to rescue the last surviving settlement of Ourankeli. When they arrive, they find the Rasu are already attacking. They improvise a neutron bomb and disable the Rasu, then enter the settlement and convince the inhabitants to evacuate. As they scramble to escape with the Ourankeli refugees, new Rasu arrive to destroy the settlement. At the last minute, Malcolm arrives in his dreadnought and creates a massive wormhole for everyone to escape through.

With the battle for Toki’taku deteriorating, Nika goes directly to the Elder and pleads with him to use the new weapon they’ve devised, which they call a Rima Grenade. When she uses the weapon to vaporize the Rasu burning the Toki’taku forests as they advance on military headquarters, the Elder is convinced.

With the Rima Grenades deployed on the Toki’taku surface, Miriam begins to gain the upper hand in the space battle. Then, abruptly, all the attacking Rasu simply leave, leaving her confounded.

Richard reviews surveillance footage from Savrak and pieces together that the Savrakaths have used a stolen ship to deliver an antimatter bomb to Concord HQ. He orders the station to evacuate, then he and David go in search of the bomb.

They chase the trail through the depths of HQ, until they discover the bomb positioned near the station’s massive Zero Engine power plant and are able to disarm it with a few seconds to spare. In the aftermath, Richard accepts David’s earnest apology regarding the Ghost theft, and they reconcile.

Morgan surprises Marlee at her apartment and apologizes for her poor behavior during Marlee’s visit to Chalmun Station. Morgan says she’s going to start helping Devon test new weapons tech and invites Marlee to join her.

Mia settles on Romane and starts developing a plan to open a multi-species expo and cultural center to educate humans on the other species of Concord. She sends a conciliatory message to Malcolm, opening the door a crack to them trying to mend their relationship.

Following the incident with the antimatter bomb, the Kats offer a solution to the Savrakath problem. Lakhes activates a device, called an Echo Rift, that will both lock the Savrakaths on their planet and prevent outsiders from reaching it, effectively isolating the Savrakaths from the rest of the universe.

Miriam and the others are enjoying a relaxing lunch at HQ when Pinchu arrives with dire news. During the Toki’taku battle, a Khokteh warship was captured by the Rasu, likely revealing many Concord secrets to the enemy. They then learn that a Rasu fleet is approaching Pinchu’s homeworld of Ireltse. The war has come to Concord.

~

ALL OUR TOMORROWS

The Concord fleet arrives at Ireltse to find it under heavy assault by a Rasu armada. Marines battle invading Rasu on the surface while Machim and AEGIS forces struggle to gain the advantage in space.

Alex and Caleb help Mesme deploy a Rift Bubble on Ireltse. However, the Rasu are able to construct and activate a quantum block, knocking out the Rift Bubble and causing the Siyane (piloted by Valkyrie) to crash on the Ireltse surface.

With the Rift Bubble barrier gone, Miriam and Malcolm deploy a new defensive weapon, the Parapet Gambit, to protect the planet, using AEGIS vessels equipped with the Anaden double-shielding technology to form an interconnected force field mesh.

Cut off from Valkyrie and AEGIS forces, Alex and Caleb race to where the Siyane has crashed into a building. They are able to dig the ship out and take control just as the building collapses around them. They then locate the quantum block and destroy it, enabling the Rift Bubble to reactivate; however, Valkyrie remains unreachable.

The Rasu bomb the Khokteh Command Center, and Pinchu is gravely injured. When he is minutes from death, Caleb and Akeso are able to heal Pinchu using Akeso’s life energy. Concord forces are finally able to defeat the Rasu attackers, saving Ireltse.

After they return home, Alex repairs damage to Valkyrie’s hardware, and Valkyrie is able to reboot herself. It turns out that, in order to protect Alex from the shock of the quantum block, Valkyrie shut down her remote hardware, then absorbed the impact of the block until it shorted her out. Later that night, Valkyrie muses with Thomas about both of their recent ‘deaths’ and the nature of their existence, and we learn they are intimate with one another.

Marlee, Caleb and Alex visit the Vrachnas and the Galenai as the two species receive Rift Bubble protection. While observing the Galenai from a stealthed Siyane, one of the Galenai detects their presence. Marlee initiates a basic interchange, identifying them as friends who will reveal themselves in time.

Eren brings Corradeo to Akeso, and Caleb and Corradeo are reunited for the first time since before The Displacement. Caleb is relieved to learn Corradeo does not blame him the loss of his diati or the destruction of Solum. They discuss sensing the diati out there in the stars and why they don’t call for it, then part friends.

In the Asterion Dominion, Dashiel completes the development of a renewable negative energy weapon (RNEW), which stands to transform future battles against the Rasu. The Dominion military takes back their colony, Adjunct San, from the Rasu.

Perrin struggles with the emotional burden of caring for displaced refugees. When she breaks down at work, she decides to get an up-gen to tone down her emotional processes; Adlai is upset she didn’t talk to him first, and worries she’ll no longer be the woman he loves.

Marlee takes Corradeo to meet the Ourankeli refugees that Alex and Caleb rescued, who are working with Devon and Kennedy to recreate their Ymyrath Field weapon. Kennedy runs an experiment and discovers that while the Reor reacts to each of Alex and Caleb, only when they are together will it respond to resonance signals and release its kyoseil fibers.

Malcolm reviews the state of the Rasu war with the AEGIS Oversight Board, and the Board pressures him to revoke the no regenesis clause in his will. After the meeting, Malcolm is approached by an anti-regenesis group called the Gardiens. Malcolm attends a Gardiens meeting and leaves a surveillance device behind. It records the leadership discussing their secret plans for the group, and how they targeted him.

Meanwhile, Graham joins Richard at CINT to investigate Enzio Vilane. After reviewing Enzio’s personal history, Graham deduces that Oliva Montegreu was his mother.

On Pandora, Enzio has coffee with his mother—a reconstituted Artificial built from scattered records of the original Olivia. She’s obviously a work in progress, but Enzio displays an obsessive adoration of her.

Eren visits Chalmun Station to investigate a group of dissident Barisans as part of his new job for the Anaden Advocacy. While he’s there, the Rasu launch an attack on the asteroid. Morgan learns of the attack and rushes there as well. She and Eren work together to evacuate people until a tunnel caves in, trapping them. They are almost out of air when Alex is able to open a wormhole at their location and extricate Morgan and Eren. Alex then convinces Miriam to test the prototype Ymyrath Field weapon on the Rasu attacking Chalmun Station.

Malcolm bugs his Gardiens contact, then records a conversation where the Gardiens target Miriam for assassination, planning to make it look like her death is due to neurological system failure, casting doubt on the safety of regenesis. Malcolm rushes to London and intercepts Miriam just as the assassin fires, thwarting the attack.

Everyone gathers at Miriam and David’s house; Malcolm plays the holo recording, and Richard identifies the man giving the orders as Enzio Vilane. Realizing this is the same man who tried to kidnap Mia, Malcolm volunteers to go undercover with the Gardiens in an attempt to bring them down—and realizes he can’t have any contact with Mia while he does. Caleb investigates the crime scene in London, uncovering forensic evidence that will identify the shooter.

Enzio cleans house after the failed assassination attempt. Olivia gives him some harsh advice, then proposes adjustments she wants to make to her own programming.

Abigail and Marlee review Marlee’s plan to upgrade her cybernetics enough to become a Solo Prevo. Abigail warns Marlee that the upgrades will likely develop emergent properties, the nature of which they can’t predict.

Miriam meets with the AEGIS Council and learns Earth’s Rift Bubble caused an accident, killing 1,200 people. The Council decides to deactivate the Rift Bubbles until there’s an attack, against her strong advice. On an unknown planet, a Rasu unit secretly begins gathering materials needed to construct a quantum block.

The Rasu steal a Dominion commercial vessel, and Nika has to visit the Rift Bubbles on Dominion worlds to change the passcodes. Mesme arrives while she’s doing so and hints that she has the capability to access the Rift Bubbles remotely, but doesn’t tell her how to do so.

The members of the Idryma express concern over the Asterions’ rapid modification of the Kat technology they’ve been provided. After the meeting, Lakhes suggests telling the others the truth, but Mesme insists they cannot.

Corradeo proposes opening diplomatic talks to formally build a relationship between Anadens and Asterions. Nika assigns the task to Maris, and when Maris and Corradeo meet, frosty fireworks ensue. Maris asks for the Anadens to give Asterion Prime to the Asterions. He insists that’s impossible, but promises to find a way for Asterions to settle on the planet without joining Concord as a full member.

Joaquim and Selene continue their affair. When Joaquim refuses to tell her why he holds a grudge against Justice, Selene decides to investigate the matter herself. She dives into old Justice Division records and learns about the raid that killed Joaquim’s lover, Cassidy. In reviewing the evidence, Selene discovers that Cassidy’s backup storage, though damaged, was not actually destroyed. She discusses it with Adlai and decides to wake the woman up. After hearing of what happened to Joaquim and Cassidy, Adlai apologizes to Perrin for being angry about her up-gen.

Marlee shows Morgan her intended upgrades to her cybernetics. When things turn affectionate between them, Marlee kisses Morgan; Morgan freaks out and leaves. Marlee reacts by inviting her former boyfriend over for a one-night stand. When it ends somewhat badly as well, she decides the only thing she can fix is herself, and makes plans to go ahead with her upgrades.

Morgan argues with Stanley about the kiss, insisting she is not in a place where she can handle a relationship. She visits Malcolm and asks him to find a way to get her into a fighter jet. They discuss Harper’s death, and how Morgan blames Miriam for it. Malcolm refers her to an IDCC military test group.

While exploring one of Dashiel’s labs, Nika comes upon a warehouse of kyoseil-filled vats. The kyoseil responds strongly to her presence, and she attempts to talk to it. Mesme senses the reaction, as does Miaon. Dashiel comes upon Nika interacting with the kyoseil; they make love, and she sees the universe through the kyoseil’s perspective.

Selene asks Joaquim to meet her at a regenesis clinic, where she reveals that she was able to wake Cassidy up. After a bittersweet farewell, Joaquim is reunited with Cassidy.

Malcolm finagles an invitation to meet with the Gardiens leader, Enzio Vilane. He receives a message from Mia inviting him to lunch, and realizes he has to refuse in order to protect her from Enzio, who doesn’t know her true identity. Malcolm convinces Enzio he’s a Gardiens true believer and gains the man’s confidence.

Mia receives Malcolm’s response while overseeing Expo construction and interprets it as a rejection. She recognizes this is the consequence of her actions after he escaped from Savrak.

Alex and Caleb investigate a Rasu-controlled galaxy, and discover the Rasu have built a galaxy core-spanning ring. Alex speculates that the ring is intended to force the galaxy to spin faster, possibly to pull neighboring galaxy closer together. The only reason she can come up with to do so is to prevent the eventual heat death of the universe.

The Rasu arrive at Rudan, the homeworld of the Ruda, and begin attacking. A Concord fleet swiftly arrives to defend the planet.

The Ruda make an overture to the Rasu as a fellow synthetic life form. The Rasu respond that if the Ruda will provide information about Concord, they will cease their attack and share the details of their shapeshifting capability. The Ruda accept the deal, then tell Miriam to stand down from the battle. Miriam asks Valkyrie to intercede.

Valkyrie contacts Supreme Three, who tells her they have reached a deal with the Rasu. It informs Valkyrie that it does not trust her, since she withheld information about quantum physics from the Ruda. The Ruda terminate their relationship with Concord and threaten to fire on the Concord vessels.

Miriam initially refuses to withdraw and must now consider the Ruda an enemy as well. The Ruda begin turning their entire planet into a massive EMP weapon to strike the Concord fleet, however, and Miriam is forced to withdraw to save Concord Artificials and unprotected vessels.

Mesme informs Alex that ‘it is time’ to take Nika to visit the Reor in the Oneiroi Nebula. Dashiel and Mesme join them all on the Siyane. Mesme says Nika’s ability to manipulate kyoseil has advanced to a point where she will benefit from exposure to a larger and more pure source.

Nika, Dashiel, Alex and Caleb exit the Siyane and approach one of the powerful energy pillars in the Reor colony. Nika takes off her glove, thrusts her hand into the pillar and is consumed by the streaming energy.

When Alex and Caleb try to help Nika, Mesme prevents them from reaching her, insisting that she is safe and ‘this must happen.’ Nika pulls Dashiel into the energy vortex with her, attempting to share the experience with him. Once all the kyoseil’s energy is flowing into Nika, she opens a wormhole and transports herself and Dashiel back to her flat on Mirai. She observes that she believes perhaps she has been transformed into something new, but Dashiel says she instead might be something unfathomably ancient.

~

CHAOTICA

In the aftermath of Nika’s transformative encounter with kyoseil in the Oneiroi Nebula, Alex challenges Mesme for an explanation. Mesme says that everything it has done, it has done to save the people—Alex, Caleb, Nika, Dashiel, Miriam, Corradeo—who will save the universe, if it can be saved. Their argument ends with Alex still angry and distrustful of Mesme.

The Rasu interrogate the Ruda Supremes for more details about Concord’s structure, member species and technology. Under duress, the Ruda tell the Rasu about adiamene and its weaknesses.

Nika tests out the new powers kyoseil has gifted her, including the ability to open wormholes, to control kyoseil’s actions to some extent, and to see every kyoseil interaction everywhere. She instructs the kyoseil to allow Asterions to open wormholes, and they are able to do so. She also begins to catch glimpses of other Asterions’ thoughts in her mind.

Alex and Valkyrie discover that the Laniakea Supercluster is smaller and more tightly packed than it was in the Aurora universe; they speculate that the Rasu are using their Core Rings to pull galaxies closer together. Valkyrie has been watching Rasu movements and detects how they group themselves into distinct factions that rarely intermingle.

Marlee explores her new abilities as a Solo Prevo. Her first use of a wormhole is to visit the dragons, where Cupcake promptly charges through her wormhole and into her apartment. After much destruction and several injuries, Marlee is able to trick it back through the wormhole and retreats to her wrecked apartment.

Alex and Caleb host a dinner party on Akeso with Marlee, Eren, and Felzeor. Nika arrives as well; she meets Eren for the first time, and they hit it off. After a lovely dinner, Nika asks Mesme to join them, then forces Mesme to reveal that Akeso was created using a ‘seed’ of kyoseil. This is why Caleb and Akeso stay connected across quantum blocks—because kyoseil is not stopped by such barriers—and why Reor responds to both Alex and Caleb. Alex deduces that the Kats used diati to seed the Ekos-1 intelligence and Dzhvar to seed Ekos-3.

The Rasu attack two Anaden worlds, Serifos and Acacia, and at the dragons’ homeworld. Miriam uses the new Ymyrath Field weapon against the Rasu  at the dragons’ homeworld, successfully destroying the Rasu’s ability to maneuver, shapeshift or fire their weapons.

Enzio Vilane searches for the leak in his organization, then reviews his Grand Design, which will eventually result in non-Prevo humans dying off, and Prevos being the future of humanity. His mother, Olivia, advises him not to trust anyone but himself—and her.

A Gardiens anti-regenesis protest at the New Frontiers clinic turns violent, and several bystanders are killed. The protestors flee and hole up in a nearby school, where Kennedy and Noah’s kids are in class. The Gardiens take many children hostage, but Jonas and Braelyn escape into the air vents. Alex and Caleb arrive on the scene, and Caleb and Noah sneak into the school. They neutralize several Gardiens, then find Jonas and Braelyn in the security room just as a Gardien is about to reach them. Noah reunites with his kids, and they sneak back out to safety. Caleb then goes back inside and takes out the remaining Gardiens.

The Rasu begin deploying antimatter weapons, which will destroy adiamene. Valkyrie receives a message from the Ruda that says ‘You were correct in your warnings. Forgive us.’ She travels to Rudan and finds the entire planet utterly destroyed, the Ruda annihilated.

Marlee is helping Mia prepare for the Confluence Expo grand opening, when a voice in her head starts talking to her. Mia gives a speech at the opening, and thinks she sees Malcolm in the audience.

Malcolm leaves the Expo to meet with Vilane, where he tears into the man over the New Frontiers/Insights Academy violence. Malcolm extracts a list of concessions from Vilane, including greater access to the Gardiens organization, in return for Malcolm continuing to support them. The Gardiens go on a public relations offensive to repair their tarnished name, frustrating Richard and Graham’s investigation.

Nika observes that the Rift Bubbles use kyoseil in their lattice structure and to run the device’s programming, and that their design is eerily similar to the prototype miniature Rift Bubble the Asterions have been working on. The Rasu capture a Dominion cargo ship; Nika quickly changes the access code for the Rift Bubble, but unbeknownst to everyone, several Rasu are able to get through the barrier before she does and land on Mirai.

Mesme pays Nika a visit and shares details of the kyoseil’s origins and history with her. The kyoseil is the third primordial species of the ancient universe, along with diati and Dzhvar. During the Dzhvar War, the kyoseil chose not to take a side, and instead remained passive until it chose to bond with the Asterions. Mesme says that Asterions are the physical manifestation of the kyoseil’s will.

Mesme engages in a mysterious conversation with the Yinhe, Miaon. Mesme admits to feeling weary, as well as confounded by Alex and Nika’s relentless probing. Miaon tells Mesme to remember that it is not in control of how this ends—they are.

The kyoseil alerts Nika that the Rasu are about to activate a quantum block on Mirai, seconds before they do. A battle on and above Mirai begins. The Asterions deploy their new miniature rift devices, which they’ve named Kireme Boundaries. Nika is able to control the devices remotely and discovers she can locate the Rasu quantum block modules through sidespace. She dives into the arduous task of managing multiple Kireme Boundaries across Mirai.

The Asterions begin to get the upper hand on the Rasu, and Dashiel checks on Nika. He finds her utterly engulfed in light and seemingly unconscious on the floor. In reality, she is lost out in sidespace, bouncing among the sea of kyoseil waves. Dashiel is able to reach her and help her mind return to her body. He takes her home to get some rest.

Nika wakes up to a deluge of Asterion thoughts bombarding her mind. Unable to keep them out, she collapses in agony. Mesme arrives and envelops her in a protective shroud, then teaches her how to keep the stray thoughts out of her mind.

Alex and Caleb eavesdrop on Rasu as one faction subsumes several star systems of another faction into itself. The Rasu are not at war with one another, but they are engaged in low-level skirmishes, as each faction seeks greater power.

Alex and Caleb visit Nika and Dashiel brainstorm ways they might exploit the fissures between the various factions. Nika realizes there is one thing that every Rasu in existence wants: kyoseil, which they believe they can use to control their distant sub-units. She speculates that she might be able to ask the kyoseil to turn on for the Rasu, but then rejects the notion. She won’t ask the kyoseil to do the Rasu’s murderous bidding. Alex and Caleb nonetheless begin to hatch a plan.

The Rasu attack Nopreis, the Novoloume homeworld, as well as the Dominion worlds of Synra, Kiyora and Ebisu. Nika chases the Rasu across three worlds as the battles rage, until she realizes they are going to lose. Out of options, she reaches out to Alex about her plan.

Alex attempts to tell her mother about her plan, but Miriam is knee-deep in pitched battles, so instead she wishes her mother luck and leaves.

Concord and the Dominion are now fighting the Rasu on 14 worlds at once. With the Rasu using antimatter weapons, Concord is losing ships and people. Then the Rasu arrive at the human colony of Sagan—the first human world to be attacked.

Eren and Felzeor are enjoying breakfast on Hirlas when the Rasu attack. Caleb learns that the Rasu are attacking the Naraida homeworld and Eren and Felzeor are trapped there. Alex insists that she and Nika can handle their mission on their own, and for him to go to Hirlas and rescue them.

Caleb reaches Hirlas and hooks up with Eren, Felzeor and a group of Naraida who are trying to thwart the Rasu attack however they can.

The plan: Dashiel injects seven captured Rasu with a virutox that embeds information on the nature of kyoseil and locations of kyoseil deposits, then encloses all seven in cages. They load the cages into the cargo hold of the Siyane. Nika speaks to the kyoseil, asking it to turn on its abilities for the Rasu.

Alex and Nika infiltrate several Rasu systems. In each one, they launch one of the Rasu cages into the midst of the other Rasu. Once it is in space, the cage dissolves. The released Rasu joins up with others, thereby passing along the information about kyoseil it carries.

Alex and Nika talk about Mesme and the secrets it keeps. Alex notes how Mesme knew what was going to happen at the Oneiroi Nebula, then makes an intuitive leap and wonders if Mesme might be a time traveler. Nika argues that time travel is impossible, but Alex posits that with enough energy applied to a point on the spacetime manifold, it might be possible. She speculates that it is likely incredibly difficult, and has likely happened only once.

During the delivery of the final Rasu ‘saboteurs,’ Alex and Nika are knocked out of the Siyane’s hold and into space amongst the Rasu. Nika is unconscious, but Alex is able to reach her, and Valkyrie scoops them back into the ship just before a Rasu reaches them. Nika regains consciousness and releases the last Rasu. Alex realizes that Caleb’s heartbeat, which she’s been able to sense ever since Namino, is slowing down. Nika returns to Mirai, and Alex heads straight for Hirlas.

Caleb, Eren, Felzeor and the others flee from the Rasu through the jungles of Hirlas. The Rasu closes in around the group, until they are on cornered. With a waterfall and cliffs at their back, they have nowhere to run. Akeso observes that Hirlas is bursting with life, vigor and energy, as it noted when they first visited it for Cosime’s funeral. Akeso wonders if they could apply a spark to awaken the planet’s voice.

Caleb goes to the riverbank and opens up his wrists, then bleeds into the dirt and the water. Through his blood, Akeso sends its life force out into the firmament of Hirlas.

The ground opens up beneath the attacking Rasu and swallows them whole. The trees come to life to ensnare the Rasu mechs and tear them apart. Fissures open up to the planet’s outer core, and Rasu fall into the chasms to be dissolved by the lava. Everywhere, the Rasu are torn apart or melted until they are only atoms, then the planet tears the atoms apart.

Caleb wakes up in a medical tent on Hirlas. Akeso informs him that its consciousness now resides in the planet of Hirlas as well. Eren fills him in how the planet destroyed the Rasu on the surface, and how he found Caleb bled out on the shore of the river, nearly dead. Caleb leaves the tent and finds Alex, who had landed the Siyane right in the middle of the refugee camp, and they reunite.

Nika returns to Mirai and rejoins the battle, which continues in earnest. Abruptly she begins to hear Rasu thoughts in her head, transmitted by the kyoseil they are integrating into themselves. Soon thereafter, several Rasu factions begin attacking one another in earnest, and Nika reports that the civil war they’d hoped to trigger has begun.

The Rasu abruptly pull off from Sagan, then Nopreis, then all the worlds they were attacking. Concord surveillance soon detects the Rasu engaged in internal battles back in their territory.

Marlee sees Dr. Canivon for help about the voice in her head, which has proved to be mean and belittling. After an examination, Dr. Canivon tells Marlee her upgrades have given a voice to her subconscious. The voice is her own mind.

Eren visits Cosime’s grave on Hirlas and finds the entire cemetery overtaken by a sea of blooming white flowers that originate from Cosime’s sepulcher. Akeso, now the resident intelligence of Hirlas, has remembered Cosime, located where she rests, and created a beautiful memorial for her.

Alex and Nika tell Miriam about their actions to incite a Rasu civil war. Miriam is furious, believing that the ultimate victor will be an enemy too powerful to ever defeat. Alex argues that Concord was already on the verge of being defeated, and her actions have bought them time. Miriam says she will use the time to prepare for the next offensive, but worries that Alex has signed their death warrant.

Nika and Alex invite Mesme to Nika’s loft, then confront the Kat about their time travel theory. After some pressing, Mesme admits it is true. Mesme says that eight years from now, it travels back in time 982,000 years. When asked about the other Kats, Mesme says that ‘in the ways which matter,’ only it traveled back in time. It then says they are doing better this time than they did in the previous timeline, but they must be united and of one purpose to emerge victorious. Alex and Mesme finally make up. Nika asks if it is keeping any more secrets; Mesme says there is one, but it is personal and does not impact their fight against the Rasu. It asks to be allowed to keep it, and they agree.