They came to explore. They found something that wanted to replace them. In the third thrilling installment of the Adventures of the Starship Dauntless series, Captain Elara Mirelle faces her most terrifying challenge yet: an enemy that knows everything about her. When a mysterious signal-"Observation Phase Complete"-leads a five-ship Coalition fleet into uncharted space, they discover an ancient entity with a single purpose: observe, replicate, replace. Within hours, perfect copies of all five ships emerge, crewed by flawless duplicates that think like the originals, fight like the originals, and don't need the originals to survive.