Another stretch of waiting followed, and this time it lasted longer.
At first, nothing changed in any obvious way. The space between the two stars stayed quiet, the same clean emptiness stretching out in front of them, but slowly, almost too slowly to notice at first, the edge of the system began to shift.
It didn't happen all at once. It started as a few new signals appearing at the far end of the sensor range, faint and scattered, easy to miss if someone wasn't paying attention.
Then more appeared.
Then more again.
The pattern widened, spreading outward across the edge of the display until it stopped looking like random movement and started to take shape.
What had first seemed like noise became something clearer, something heavier, until the tactical screen began to fill in a way that made the change impossible to ignore.
It spread like a stain across the far edge of Redglass space, growing thicker and denser as more contacts entered behind the first wave.
