Former captain Jani Kilian is a genetically altered human-idomeni hybrid who acts as a bridge of communication between two fiercely incompatible races. With intergalactic civil war looming large -- with renegades in the Service secretly plotting extermination -- Jani Kilian is being pulled once more into perilous space. Because a horrific act of terror is about to ignite a long-feared conflict between human and alien... and the key to the survival or destruction of human civilization is waiting for her somewhere on the edge of the universe.