It is December 29, 1999 as the New Year is within three days. On the Carrier, Jenny Sparks worryingly checks herself in her bathroom and gives herself a toast for the long century she has experienced.
Somewhere 6.8 billion miles from Earth, the Voyager I satellite is suddenly destroyed by fast, unknown objects.
Meanwhile in the Garden of Ancestral Memory, Jeroen Thornedike tells his predecessor that something old is coming to Earth, which the thing recognized the planet before.
Above Earth, the space shuttle Endeavour is attacked and destroyed by the same objects that attacked the Voyager, which reveal to be giant space parasites.
