Paradise recap

Renewed attacks and a proposed territorial exchange threaten the stranded humans on Paradise. Joe Bishop, Skippy, and the Flying Dutchman first secure intelligence showing that another immediate survey of Earth is unlikely, then turn covertly to Paradise. Major Perkins's surface team restores buried projectors, devastating the hostile fleet and transferring the remaining defenses to the local government. Because military success alone does not stop the planet's sale, Joe's crew stages the discovery of valuable Elder technology. The deception persuades the local government to retain and fortify Paradise even after the false device is safely destroyed. Perkins becomes a liaison, while Jesse, Dave, and Shauna remain for security and projector work. The Flying Dutchman returns to its captured relay station. Earth has a temporary reprieve from a new survey mission, but a separate hostile threat remains, and Joe keeps secret Skippy's admission that he once manipulated events to bring humanity to Paradise.

Previously: Joe Bishop became captain of the captured alien starship Flying Dutchman, working with the powerful artificial intelligence Skippy and a multinational UNEF crew. Their missions gave humanity a means to watch for threats beyond Earth, but Earth could neither reproduce the ship's capabilities nor compel Skippy to cooperate. Human troops and settlers remained stranded on Paradise, where alien powers controlled their security and their prospects of returning home. Evidence discovered at Newark also raised questions that Skippy could not reconcile with his understanding of his own history and purpose.

Paradise's human population is trapped between dwindling food supplies, repeated crop raids, and political plans made without its consent. The local government is secretly considering trading the planet back to its former rulers and has even examined permanent population control rather than evacuation. On Earth, UNEF subjects Joe and the returning Flying Dutchman crew to severe scrutiny. Skippy reveals that he moved the captured troop ship away from immediate national competition, and he forces UNEF to retain Joe as captain of the Flying Dutchman. A separate senior official receives final authority over the expedition. Simms recalls Joe from leave. The new mission is to learn whether another alien survey threatens Earth and, if possible, establish a continuing intelligence source. Friedlander assembles a practical science team, while Joe warns that learning the truth about Paradise may create a moral crisis if UNEF orders the crew not to intervene. The Flying Dutchman departs with that conflict unresolved.

The Flying Dutchman seeks the deployment data and credentials needed to seize an alien relay station. Joe and Skippy approach a heavy cruiser in a disguised dropship, extract the information, and plant an authenticated message while convincing the cruiser that the encounter was a secret equipment test. On Paradise, Jesse Coulter and Dave Czajka are questioned about Joe, then detained with Major Perkins and Shauna Jarrett. A large hostile force compels the local defenders to accept a ceasefire that excludes them from the planet and cuts the humans off from assistance. Using the planted message as cover, Smythe's teams dock at the relay station. A precisely placed shot through a micro-wormhole disrupts part of its power system, but the boarding action remains costly. Adams carries Skippy to the protected core, where he defeats the station intelligence. Four attackers die, two are critically wounded, and seven suffer lesser injuries. The crew controls the station but must still suppress its missiles and recorder drones and preserve a convincing explanation for its loss.

Skippy installs a submind to impersonate the captured relay's former crew. Its records show that another immediate survey of Earth is too expensive and difficult for the responsible client clan, giving Earth a temporary reprieve. They also reveal that Paradise is about to be transferred to the former occupiers, whose battle group already controls orbit. Joe's command identifies hidden planetary projectors that could challenge that force if a human team restores their physical connections. Joe, Adams, and Desai land covertly, and Skippy approaches Major Perkins under the fiction of a sympathetic local source. Perkins recruits Dave and two other soldiers, obtains forged transport and drilling equipment, and later adds a former military pilot with a stolen aircraft. The team activates only four projectors before an enemy exercise forces an early strike. Skippy manipulates patrol routes to bring targets into their narrow firing cones. The surprise attack destroys fourteen warships, including the command ship and both cruisers, but ten hostile ships remain. Two projectors are nearly spent, the others have limited coverage, and a major air battle begins while Perkins races to restore more sites.

The surviving hostile force probes the exposed projector network while both sides commit hundreds of aircraft to the planetary battle. Skippy quietly improves the defenders' sensor and stealth performance without revealing the Flying Dutchman. Derek Bonsu serves as weapons officer for a local pilot, helping destroy four enemy aircraft before their fighter is crippled. They eject in the wilderness, where Derek keeps the gravely injured pilot alive. Perkins's team restores a fifth projector and helps destroy two more enemy ships. It then chooses to rescue Derek and the pilot, knowingly surrendering its anonymity. After delivering the pilot to a hospital, Perkins transfers the remaining projector locations and activation method to the local government. In space, the local commodore sacrifices an evacuated destroyer as bait and defeats the pursuing force. A ceasefire follows, but the local government still plans to trade Paradise away. Military victory has only improved its bargaining position. Joe therefore proposes planting apparently valuable Elder technology so the government will prefer to retain the planet. Expedition leadership approves the idea, and the Flying Dutchman leaves Paradise without yet possessing a suitable artifact.

Skippy admits to Joe that he once manipulated events to bring humans to Paradise, including creating conditions that encouraged their use in alien mining. He also explains that the extermination discovered at Newark has released blocked memories and left him determined to find those responsible. Joe agrees to conceal the disclosure from expedition command. To save Paradise politically, the crew seeks an Elder power device. A direct attack on a hardened research station is rejected, so the captured relay sends a forged order that causes a device to be delivered to the lightly defended facility on Jumbo. Smythe commands a space-diving assault in which Joe participates. The team captures the device and escapes the facility's destruction with no human deaths. Skippy then finds that prior research has damaged the device beyond repair. Joe replaces the failed plan with a controlled imitation powered through a concealed micro-wormhole. The crew also arranges an apparent exchange between two inert communications nodes. Smythe's team plants the false artifacts near a projector site, giving the deception a chance to achieve the political result the real device could not.

Local engineers discover the false power device and the apparent communications-node link and conclude that Paradise contains exceptionally valuable Elder technology. The deputy administrator uses the discoveries and her own explanation of the projector warning to argue for a permanent, heavily defended presence. Over the next forty-nine days, defensive forces arrive, negotiations to trade the planet are suspended, and the remaining hostile task force withdraws. The discovery of a genuine but inactive node reinforces the government's interest. Skippy eventually forces the false device to fail after every researcher has evacuated. Its destruction ends the artificial node link but does not reverse the political decision. The local government confirms that it will retain Paradise and discuss UNEF allegiance. Major Perkins is offered a liaison role, while Jesse, Dave, and Shauna receive offers of security and projector-support work. Joe and the Flying Dutchman crew depart for their captured relay station. There they confirm that another survey of Earth is currently beyond the responsible clan's resources. Paradise has a durable future under local protection, but Earth still faces danger from the hostile lizard species, and Skippy's history and Newark investigation remain unresolved.

The local government suspends the transfer of Paradise and commits major forces and long-term research to the planet after the staged Elder discoveries. Skippy destroys the false power device only after the research team evacuates, and the loss does not weaken the government's decision. A genuine inactive communications node further sustains interest in the planet. Major Perkins hands over the remaining projector locations and accepts a liaison post. Jesse Coulter, Dave Czajka, and Shauna Jarrett are offered security and projector-training work, giving the stranded population a future on Paradise despite continuing food and social strains. The injured local pilot remains in protective hibernation after Derek Bonsu helps save her. Joe, Skippy, and the Flying Dutchman crew leave for the captured relay station, which still must be destroyed before its next crew change. Intelligence makes another near-term survey of Earth unaffordable to the responsible client clan, but Earth is not fully secure from the hostile lizard species. Joe also conceals Skippy's role in engineering humanity's original presence on Paradise and continues supporting his investigation into the destruction at Newark.