To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

The team going to the planet, which they call Nidus, is a mix of the Wallfish crew and Akawe’s Marines, including first officer Koyich. Their mission is to find the Staff of Blue or determine that it is not on the planet within a week. While their shuttle travels to the planet, Kira drifts into sleep. An alarm signifying several Jelly ships approaching wakes her up. She is angry with herself for not realizing they would track the xeno. The Darmstadt and the Wallfish are too far away to reach the shuttle before the Jellies can attack. The shuttle lands safely on the planet, followed by four Jelly ships.

They disembark, and the soldiers move into position to secure the area. Koyich believes the Jelly ships will land rather than attack, so they can get the staff, Kira, and her xeno. As they enter the city, Kira feels recognition. Kira finds a fractal emblem on one of the buildings and realizes that this species, possibly the Vanished, made the Great Beacon. When Kira finds another fractal emblem, her xeno seems to be awakened.

With time before the Jelly attack getting short, Kira uses a drone, controlling it with her overlays. She realizes that the city itself, from above, is a fractal, and she identifies the building at the center of the pattern. As the Jelly ships land, Kira and the team receive a message that the Wallfish will be there shortly. They run through the city, and Kira experiences the xeno’s flashes of memory. They make it to the building, under heavy attack, but the entrance is blocked. Kira uses the xeno to gain entrance and, once inside, the xeno recognizes the room. She finds the Staff of Blue, but it has been broken into seven pieces. Just then, they receive an alert that 14 nightmare ships have entered the system.

Kira tells the team that the staff is not usable. A bomb falls outside and shatters the staff’s case. The soldiers guarding the door are injured, and Kira and Nielsen, who is wearing power armor, pull them to safety. Trig, wearing the other armor, tries to protect Kira but is shot through the visor. Then a human jumps out from among the Jellies, waving a white flag. It is Major Tschetter, the officer who stayed behind on Adra more than six months ago.

Trig is badly injured, and if they cannot get him into cryo soon, he will die. The Jellies have stopped firing, and Tschetter is communicating with one of them. She tells them that shooting Trig was a mistake and the Jellies can help him heal. A Jelly emits an ooze that slowly hardens around Trig, essentially putting him in cryo. Tschetter is dismayed to learn that the Staff of Blue is broken—the Jellies wanted to use it against the Corrupted, their term for the nightmares. Tschetter is with a faction of the Jellies who want to join with The League to fight the nightmares. They propose joining forces with the humans to beat the main group of Jellies, who want to destroy The League. Kira asks Tschetter why these Jellies attacked the Extenuating Circumstances and learns that they had originally hidden the xeno on Adra, and when she took it, they viewed it as thievery.

Kira removes her jumpsuit, which she normally wears to cover the xeno. Without it, she can receive the nearscent of the Jellies and communicate with them directly. Just then, an obelisk inside the building opens and a terrifying figure emerges. Kira’s xeno recognizes it as a Seeker, a servant of the Vanished.

The Jelly communicates their name for the Seeker, Mind Ripper, and tells Kira to run. They flee to the Jellies' ships, evading the nightmares and the Seeker. Once the Seeker attacks a being, it controls their mind. As they continue to fight the nightmares, Kira realizes that the different types of nightmare creatures do not seem to be related. By the time they reach the Jelly ships, the Seeker is following with a legion of nightmares and Jellies under its command. They cannot kill the Seeker, so they launch, their ships pursued by the nightmare ships. Kira is puzzled by the fact that the nightmares’ ships seem more technologically advanced than the Jellies, even as the creatures themselves seem more primitive. The ship’s alarms go off, a hole opens in the side of the ship, and the nightmares begin to come through.