The Indomitable Bastards continue to run afoul of mysterious navy personnel and even more mysterious phenomena.
Stalked by Dauntless
After escaping from Grove, the crew’s dive was interdicted by a Gravitic Distortion and they were immediately attacked by WDF Dauntless - which chased them down to the moon of Myrr and attempted to kill them in the sky and on the ground. The attack would’ve been impossible without both detailed readings from the crew’s dive (which is reasonable), but also would require FTL Communications that exceed any currently-known method (in order to get the data to Roberts in time to interdict the crew).
Much later while on Demeter, the crew learned about the Demeter Convoy that was brazenly attacked by WDF Dauntless in an act that nearly started a war with Jericho.
When the crew left Demeter, ITC A Series of Unlikely Explanations was attacked and destroyed by WDF Fidelity, presumably because they thought the IBI crew was aboard.
Jack discovers that WDF Dauntless came to Foxglove mid-year wy601 and spent three days at a cluster of asteroids in Riker’s Belt. IBI investigates in August of wy602 and discovers an Arnite mine operated by Serendipity Systems, a front company for an unknown entity based on Trinity Station. They discover a device that uses sophisticated magnetic fields to cause Arnite to flow like a liquid and reform into precise ingots.
While defending Anderson Northwinds on Helena, the crew was assisted by Felicity Randall at the con of the stolen destroyer WDF San Anastasia. She sent an encoded packet to Cara, containing encrypted communications recovered from WDF Endeavor.
The Ancients
The crew is let in on “the second biggest secret in The Reach”: the planets of the colonies are once inhabited (and some even believe created) by an ancient civilization dubbed The Ancients.
After travelling through the Ancient Gate to Jericho and meeting with Malachai Wheeler, the crew believes that the operation in Riker’s Belt was supplying Arnite to Jericho to repair their Alien Gate.
The crew catch the scent of Izzy Cordova’s trail as he left Helena after his encounter with the Alien Gate.
Through exhaustive research, Aiden believes he’s found the genetic sequence that allows Tomoe and others to control arnite, amongst other things. His breakthrough came after cross-referencing the sequence with the self-replicating protein used to grow Calliope’s neural medium.