The Wardline Array is not a single place, but a chain of covert stations and relay buoys stretched like a spiderweb along the frontier.

Some are old military listening posts, officially decommissioned. Others are "lost" survey platforms, quiet habitat wheels with their transponders spoofed. All of them feed data, comms traffic, ship movements, anomalous readings, into encrypted Ward networks.

Wards born on Wardline stations grow up with maps instead of picture books, ship silhouettes instead of lullabies, and the constant awareness that somewhere out there, something big and hostile might already be on its way.