The inevitable accumulation of time had dulled the once-sharp pain of her grief. Her memories of the deaths on Adra still hurt, and always would, but they seemed thin and faded, drained of the vividness that had caused her so much anguish.

Everyone glanced at her as she entered Control, and then they returned their attention to the holo projected over the central table. Filling the holo was a model of the system they’d just entered.

Kira leaned against the edge of the table as she studied the image. Seven planets nested around the small, dim star: one gas giant and six terrestrial. The rocky planets were crammed in close to the star. The farthest one out orbited at only .043 AU. Then there was a gap and a sparse asteroid field, and the gas giant at .061 AU. Closer to the star—Bughunt—a second, thinner band of debris occupied the space between the second and third planets.

A chill of recognition crawled down Kira’s spine. She knew this place. She’d seen it before, in her dreams, and more; her other flesh, the Soft Blade, had walked among those planets many times in the far distant past.

With recognition, she also felt vindication. She hadn’t imagined or misinterpreted where they needed to go, and the Soft Blade hadn’t deluded her. She’d been right about the location of the Staff of Blue … assuming it was still in the system after all these years.

The Darmstadt and the Wallfish were both marked in the holo with bright icons, but Kira also saw a third icon, near the Markov Limit, which—because of the low mass of the star and the compact orbits of the planets—was about two days’ thrust at 1 g from Bughunt (assuming one intended to slow to a stop; otherwise it would only take a day and a half).

“What’s that?” she said, pointing at the icon.

Falconi said, “The Darmstadt dropped a relay beacon as soon as it popped out of FTL. That way, if something happens to us, we might still be able to get a signal out.”

Made sense, although it would take a long time to get a signal back to the League. The faster an FTL signal, the weaker it was. One strong enough to make it all the way to 61 Cygni in a coherent form would be even slower than a spaceship like the Wallfish. She’d have to check the numbers, but it could be years before the signal arrived.

Falconi gestured at the holo. “We’re picking up evidence of structures throughout the system.”

Even under the Soft Blade, Kira felt goosebumps erupt across her body. Finding the xeno and now this? It was what she had dreamed about when she was a kid; of making discoveries as big and important as the Great Beacon on Talos VII. The circumstances weren’t what she would have wished for, but even so—if humanity survived the war with the Jellies and the nightmares, the things they could learn!