The crew of the USS Cerritos have just received their personality guidance reports from the counselors of the planet Clarew, and Rutherford feels guilty he's not engineering at a higher capacity with his implants. He should be operating above 134 percent nominal at least. The Cerritos' next mission is a supply run to Tavela Minor, but they first need to stop by the Alecto system to get some supplies to, uh, supply them with. However, just before they warp, they see the Alecto system isn't only missing; it doesn't exist. Like at all.

Now they have a space mystery at hand: What could cause a whole star system to disappear?