It's a book I read probably sometime between 2003-2007 but it may have been published much earlier, I have a vague feeling it was from the 1990s. I'm in the UK.

Stuff that I remember (sorry it's so vague!):

• I think the cover was dark blue with stars on? It's quite a long book. It's sort of a mystery.
• It's set on a non-Earth colony world and FTL travel is fairly commonplace
• There's a female protagonist
• One of the other characters has (I think) a business which does space exploration
• On his desk he has model space ships, but one of them is an actual alien spaceship with small dead aliens inside
• There are stories about ghosts haunting something, I think it's underwater? or on a beach?
• The ghost turns out to be an Alien AI which was supposed to protect the little craft but has escaped somehow?
• They went on an exploration mission in the past which went badly and that's how they came back with the tiny ship
• The stars Alnitak and Alnilam are involved - I think that's where they picked it up
• The protagonist steals(?) a spaceship and goes back to where the others originally found the ship to solve the mystery.

I tried searching around for Alnitak and Alnilam but because they're just real star names I haven't had much luck.

Thanks!

It's a book I read probably sometime between 2003-2007 but it may have been published much earlier, I have a vague feeling it was from the 1990s. I'm in the UK.

Stuff that I remember (sorry it's so vague!):

• I think the cover was dark blue with stars on. It's quite a long book. It's sort of a mystery.
• It's set on a non-Earth colony world and FTL travel is fairly commonplace
• There's a female protagonist
• One of the other characters has (I think) a business which does space exploration
• On his desk he has model space ships, but one of them is an actual alien spaceship with small dead aliens inside
• There are stories about ghosts haunting something, I think it's underwater or on a beach.
• The ghost turns out to be an alien AI which was supposed to protect the little craft but has escaped somehow.
• They went on an exploration mission in the past which went badly and that's how they came back with the tiny ship
• The stars Alnitak and Alnilam are involved - I think that's where they picked it up
• The protagonist steals(?) a spaceship and goes back to where the others originally found the ship to solve the mystery.

I tried searching around for Alnitak and Alnilam but because they're just real star names I haven't had much luck.