First Contact. With aliens so strange and predatory that humans could only react with revulsion and primal rage. And so, humanity fired first. Now, the ky'iin are raiding the solar system. The potential key to mankind's salvation? An unlikely pair of diplomats. One, a brilliant young linguist from Mars with a profound social disorder. Through her autism, she sees the beauty within the ky'iin. The other, a ky'iin negotiator who looks beyond humanity's violent actions to the potential within. Can they serve as the bridge to unite the two species and stop the Contact War? Or will war-mongering saboteurs destroy them before they can act?