Prologue

For thousands of years, the scientists of Dextera have been trying to find life on other planets. Today we made a breakthrough. My name is Niah. I used to be the leading scientist at the Ignus Institution of Space Exploration before I got fired for accidentally starting a fire in my office. My best friend Cartus still works there and he keeps me posted on what happens at the IISE. He contacted me telepathically this morning and told me that they had found faint traces of life in our very same Galaxy. It was in another solar system of course, but it was still a huge deal. When I worked at the IISE, my job was to scan areas of different solar systems for traces of life, so I knew how big a deal this was.