The government tried to claim their research ship for the military. But the crew risked everything to hijack the Starfarer and continue their search through deep space for alien civilizations… even with a nuclear missile embedded in their hull. Their perseverance seems to have paid off when they received a strange transmission near the planet Tau Ceti III. Meanwhile, trouble with Arachne – the bioelectronic entity that controls all of Starfarer’s computer functions – seems to have been the result of sabotage.

Even as the alien contact team struggles to decipher the first cryptic extraterrestrial message, the transmission cuts off abruptly. Now the crew must choose: declare the mission a failure and return to Earth, or follow the aliens into unknown territory with the saboteur still hidden aboard – and risk being stranded forever.