Ventily Minor’s offer to assist ignites hope for the distressed survivors of Ewin’s planetary collapse. Arriving with only the clothes on their backs, the offer of food and medical care staves off the worst threats facing them. The calm, ordered planet presents new hope as their old lives have been ripped away and everyone has to grapple with an uncertain future not a single one of them had anticipated.
Rigso sees it as an opportunity to offload the passengers and to get back to their normal ship operations, provided the financial fallout can be rehabilitated. But with the most pressing problems solved, new questions emerge, especially about the nature of the pathogen that has infected the survivors, even as the worst of the illness associated with it has now subsided.
Meanwhile, Hylana seeks the equipment and expertise of the Ventily Minor medical community to build her understanding of the pathogen that can destroy planets. That chilling characteristic has drawn a great deal of interest across the whole system, but it’s also created a tense wariness of the potential threat posed by a simple bacteria no one had expected could turn so deadly.