The second original novel to be based on the brand new Star Trek series Enterprise, currently wowing audiences on both Sky and Channel 4, poses a tense and gritty dilemma for one member of the crew. The Starship Enterprise NX-01 is Earth's flagship - the first vessel to embark on a sytematic exploration of what lies beyond the fringes of known space. Led by Captain Jonathan Archer, eighty of Starfleet's best and brightest set forth to pave humanity's way to the stars. Tempered by a year of interstellar exploration, the crew has become a disciplined, cohesive, unit. And now, for the first time, they have lost one of their number. As they deal with the death, Archer, Reed and the rest of the crew find themselves caught squarely in the middle of another tense situation - a brutal war between two alien civilizations. But in the Alpha System nothing is what it seems.