Kestrel is a colony a year old, meant to become a new farming settlement on the far side of K-74 and the Cestus region, past the safe lanes toward the Gorn border. Ten days ago it sent a routine report, and since then there has been no response.

For reasons unknown, Wildfire has made the stars along the frontier restless, and in that noise nobody noticed the silence of the colonies that went dark until a supply run failed to return. A temporary division is formed. The USS Melbourne receives her designated colony pod, and the USS Felixstowe, a small utility ship with a young crew, is sent in alone.

What awaits the division at Kestrel? Is it intact, or is something lurking in the dark?