The Wallfish crew boards Ctein’s ship, and Kira advances through the ship with the Soft Blade, which she has now mastered. The Wallfish hits Ctein’s ship with a nuclear shaped charge, but it does not succeed in killing Ctein, and Wranaui laser defenses preclude further hits. They succeed and travel with the Knot to Ctein’s fleet, which is preparing for a final push against humanity.Īs a human attack distracts Ctein, the Knot escorts the Wallfish within firing range, telling Ctein's fleet that its computers contain vital intelligence. Kira and the Wallfish crew escape during a Corrupted attack and leave to warn the Knot and preserve the chance of an alliance. The Wallfish travels to Sol to inform Earth of the Knot’s offer, but the military detains Kira and the Wallfish crew and sends a fleet to ambush the Knot at their rendezvous point under orders from Earth's leader.

The Knot has a plan to use a human warship to kill the current Wranaui leader, Ctein, a tyrant who has genetically modified the Wranaui to be unable to directly kill it. It has learned the truth of the Soft Blade’s awakening and seeks to form an alliance with humanity against the Corrupted. They are attacked by Wranaui and Corrupted who had tracked them there, but they are saved by the Knot of Minds, a rebellious faction within the Wranaui. The Wallfish and a military cruiser journey to the Vanished planet containing the Staff of Blue, but they find it irreparably broken.

The Soft Blade shows her memories of a Vanished relic, the Staff of Blue, which would allow her to eradicate the Corrupted and protect humanity from the Wranaui. They succeed in boarding a disabled attacking ship, but she is only able to broadcast the location of the Soft Blade, drawing large numbers of both Wranaui and Corrupted to the system. She is rescued by the Wallfish, a smuggler ship, and convinces its crew to help her access a Wranaui ship, as she intends to use the Soft Blade to broadcast a diplomatic message from the ship’s transmitters. Kira flees to 61 Cygni on a shuttle and discovers that the Wranaui have started a war with humanity, as they believe that humanity intentionally activated the Soft Blade and created the Maw. It eventually finds a planet and begins converting the planet's mass into interstellar ships containing Corrupted warriors. Kira escapes and inadvertently causes an explosion that joins a damaged piece of the Soft Blade to both Carr and one of the Wranaui, creating a malevolent, corrupted being calling itself the Maw, which floats through space seeking to grow and spread despite its madness and pain. Carr is interrupted by an attack from the Wranaui, aliens who worship the Vanished and had hidden the Soft Blade in the reliquary. She is taken into military quarantine, where a doctor, Carr, experiments on the Soft Blade, burning it and Kira with laser blasts despite her pleas for him to stop. The Soft Blade covers her body and binds itself to her will, but it is unaccustomed to serving humans.Īt her research base, the Soft Blade believes she is in danger and launches tendrils that impale everyone around her, including her fiance. Inside, she awakens the Soft Blade, an ancient nanotechnology created by advanced, extinct beings known as the Vanished. Her last assignment is to investigate a crashed drone, which leads her to discover an alien reliquary. Kira Navárez is a xenobiologist in the year 2257 who plans to settle down with her fiance on a new colony in the Sigma Draconis system.

To.sleep in a sea of stars