Endeavour returned from Enigma with proof that humanity was not alone - and that someone had tried to erase another civilisation from history.
Now the discovery is expanding faster than anyone can control. New jump paths lead to dead systems, abandoned colonies, impossible ruins, and evidence that the destruction reached farther than anyone feared. On one world, the remains of a lost species point to a vanished empire. On another, a living civilisation struggles on, unaware of the catastrophe that shaped its past. And in the ruins of a distant system, Endeavour encounters something no one expected: a machine intelligence still carrying out the purpose of its long-dead creators.
As scientists, soldiers, and politicians race to understand what Enigma has opened, one question becomes impossible to avoid.
Was the ancient enemy truly destroyed?
Or has humanity just followed the first trail back to it?