After escaping the haunted shell of the Hindenburg, Tes, Holly, and Aurora find themselves in the middle of a scorched plains on a different planet three-thousand years in the future. With the aid of Sola, one of the underground survivors in Omega Centauri, they hope to make it back home while avoiding the grasp of the galvaknights: sound- and heat-detecting robots ready to tear them limb from limb.

The Ruins of Alpha Centauri is the second short story in the Tes Simms Anthology, after The Ghost of the Hindenburg.