SpecOps recap

Joe Bishop commands the Flying Dutchman on a search for an Elder communications node that might connect Skippy with the Collective. After several failed searches, an escape from Thuranin destroyers cripples the ship and forces all seventy humans into hiding on Newark while Skippy rebuilds it. The crew discovers that an unknown Elder-level power displaced Newark millions of years ago, destroying its native civilization. A Kristang scavenger camp holds a communications node and another Elder AI, so a multinational raid secures both, but the AI is dead and the node is unusable. The rebuilt Dutchman then learns that a Thuranin surveyor is headed for Earth. Bishop's crew destroys the surveyor, its destroyer escort, and both support tankers, altering their recorder drones to blame the Jeraptha. Everyone returns to Earth, but Skippy stays to investigate the ancient destruction, and Bishop warns UNEF that closing Earth's wormhole does not end the danger.

The Flying Dutchman leaves Earth with Joe Bishop commanding a seventy-person multinational crew. Skippy closes the wormhole behind them, and the mission begins a search for an Elder communications node that could let him reach the Collective. Williams initially questions Bishop's command and Adams's authority as a trainer, but practical instruction and mission recognition make him more receptive to both. The first abandoned Kristang station contains nothing useful. Bishop then suggests predicting undiscovered Elder sites from patterns in the known locations, giving the ship several new prospects without immediately risking a heavily monitored destination. At the first predicted site, a landing party led by Chang becomes trapped on a moon when seven Kristang warships arrive to train and refuel. The Flying Dutchman hides while the humans conserve oxygen. When three ships remain too long for the stranded team to survive, Bishop devises an attack that preserves human secrecy. Skippy seizes the Kristang battlecruiser with a nanovirus, jumps it beside two destroyers, and detonates it. He then sends the crippled destroyers into the gas giant. With the three ships destroyed and no human weapons fire recorded, Desai and Chang can begin the landing party's recovery.

Chang's party returns safely, but the first predicted Elder sites provide no usable communications equipment. The Flower begins scouting ahead of the Flying Dutchman, and the human crew improves its independent navigation, piloting, and combat skills. Several more locations are empty, stripped, or destroyed. Skippy also modifies the Dutchman's jump signature to resemble a Thuranin carrier that vanished seventeen years earlier, giving the humans a possible cover identity. At a promising moon, five Thuranin destroyers trap the Dutchman inside damping fields. Skippy triggers a huge stellar flare and attempts a desperate jump. The flare destroys the pursuers, but the ship emerges catastrophically damaged. Skippy admits his calculation failed and that an unknown physical effect preserved the ship. Repairs require raw materials, months of work, and the complete evacuation of the crew. Newark is the only practical refuge, although six Kristang leaders and twenty-eight forced laborers are already searching the planet for an Elder wreck. Skippy compromises their satellites to hide the humans, and Kassner selects concealed caverns. Chang oversees the landing, Simms organizes the settlement, and all seventy people leave the failing ship. They establish a long-term camp under low oxygen and strong gravity while Skippy begins rebuilding the Dutchman elsewhere in the system.

Life in Newark's hidden caverns settles into training and scientific work while Skippy repairs the Flying Dutchman. Excavators discover tombs and remains belonging to an extinct native civilization. Orbital analysis shows that an unidentified power using Elder-level technology forced Newark away from its habitable orbit about 2.7 million years ago, rapidly freezing the planet. Skippy cannot identify the perpetrator, and the event may be connected to missing portions of his own history. The nearby Kristang scavengers become an urgent problem when their collection ship is expected much earlier than planned. More importantly, their recovered debris includes the communications node sought by the mission and another Elder AI linked to an ancient crash. Chang recommends Smythe to command a unified multinational assault force. Before a ground raid, Bishop and Skippy reduce the opposition through deception. A false Elder energy reading draws ten Kristang into their unreliable transport, which SpecOps destroys while Skippy alters the satellite record to show an accident. A later dropship sent to collect the supposed artifact is also destroyed. The base is left without air transport and believes rival Kristang stole the discovery. The humans recover an all-terrain vehicle from the wreck, giving Smythe's future raid a way to cover part of the difficult route.

Smythe leads a twenty-eight-person force, including Bishop and two civilian surgeons, toward the Kristang scavenger base. The team rehearses the assault repeatedly, but Newark's terrain disrupts the approach. Ice cripples their salvaged amphibious vehicle during a river crossing, forcing an evacuation with most equipment trapped underwater. Taylor and Williams use powered armor to recover the supplies needed for survival and the raid, after which the exhausted group continues on foot. Meanwhile, Skippy and Venkman find that another Elder site was destroyed around the same era as Newark's displacement, strengthening the evidence for an unknown Elder-level actor. Near the base, Skippy reveals to the forced laborers that their leaders plan to abandon or kill them. The resulting mutiny eliminates nearly the entire scavenger group. Skippy poses as a rival clan to lure out two armored survivors, SpecOps kills them, and a sniper stops the last armed laborer from setting off explosives. The humans take the Elder AI and communications node without casualties. Skippy cannot activate the AI, and Bishop delays testing the node until the Flying Dutchman can retrieve everyone. The team destroys other artifacts and fabricates evidence of a rival-clan raid. When the Kristang collection ship remains in the system, Skippy lures it into a maser shot sent through the communications microwormhole. The ship is destroyed, the link collapses, and dropships begin evacuating the humans.

The final humans leave Newark with their equipment and refuse, erasing their settlement. Aboard the rebuilt Flying Dutchman, Skippy confirms that the recovered Elder AI is dead and the communications node cannot contact the Collective. Both failed around the time Newark was displaced, so the crew retains them as evidence in a wider investigation. A new emergency then supersedes the original mission: the Fire Dragon clan has hired the Thuranin to send a surveyor to Earth. Bishop decides the expedition must disappear without revealing human involvement. Skippy obtains route data from a Fire Dragon relay, then hacks a support tanker during a dangerous spacesuit flyby. Desai saves Bishop from falling into a gas giant after he sacrifices his maneuvering equipment to get Skippy within range. Using the stolen rendezvous data, the Dutchman ambushes the surveyor, its destroyer escort, and one tanker as they emerge from jumps. A second tanker escapes, but the crew tracks and destroys it. Skippy finds every recorder drone and rewrites the logs to depict a Jeraptha attack. The Flying Dutchman returns to Earth with all seventy humans and closes the wormhole again. An old outbound wormhole trace remains unexplained, and Skippy's internet submind has failed. Bishop tells General Huang that Earth is not fully secure, while Skippy postpones contacting the Collective so the crew can investigate the linked Elder mysteries.

The Flying Dutchman returns all seventy people to Earth after eliminating the Thuranin-Kristang survey mission. The surveyor, its destroyer escort, and both support tankers are destroyed, and Skippy replaces their recorder data with evidence of a Jeraptha attack. He shuts the ancient wormhole after the Dutchman passes through, but an old outbound trace of unknown origin shows that Earth cannot be considered completely isolated. Bishop remains in command and reports to General Huang with Chang, Simms, Desai, Adams, Giraud, Williams, Smythe, and the rest of the military and scientific crew ready for debrief. Skippy also remains with the humans. The Elder AI recovered on Newark is dead, and its communications node cannot reach the Collective. Their failure dates to the same ancient period as Newark's forced orbital displacement and the destruction of another Elder site. Skippy and the crew therefore postpone contact with the Collective while they investigate the unidentified power and the gaps in Skippy's history. The rebuilt and substantially altered Dutchman is operational, but it still depends on Skippy for critical capabilities.