The Ninth Light

by redthread

Antonia Pizarro Carvajal, 23 · Vicuña, Elqui Valley, Coquimbo Region, Chile

Antonia Pizarro, a 23-year-old night-shift technician at a Chilean observatory in the Elqui Valley, finds her late father's notebooks pointing to a faint anomaly beyond Neptune — the ghost of a hypothetical ninth planet he chased until the day he died. Caught between caring for her younger brother, finishing her astronomy degree, and standing up to senior researchers who would rather steal her data than share credit, Antonia races a narrow observation window to prove what her father never could: that the sky still has secrets, and a girl from Vicuña has the right to name one.