Just to prove nothing ever goes as planned, Jared had a surprise for Joe when he arrived to retire him. Trapped in hyperspace, Joe escapes with the help of a new friend; the runaway and original Navigator Cassandra. In return for her help, Joe agrees to help her with a problem she is having with a community of gifted people. After saving the remaining people on the Citadel, Joe visits the Council to enlist their aid with Cassandra's people and to offer his suggestions for the recreation of the Citadel. What will the Council decide when they learn that some of Cassandra's people are targeting the Council as the agency that has been trying to capture them. What will the real agency do if the Council helps? To make matters more complicated, one of the explorations teams finds a planet with old human ruins forty light years from Earth. Which begs the question, is Earth the only 'enemy' here?