Fans of Peter David's best selling New Frontier saga have been eagerly awaiting a new adventure featuring Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, Captain Elizabeth Shelby, and the crews of the Starships Excalibur and Trident. Now at last Calhoun and Shelby return in an exciting page-turner the explores the past of both captains - while simultaneously confronting them with a perilous dilemma in the present. A crewman has been murdered aboard the USS Trident, and all evidence points to Ensign Janos of the Excalibur. Calhoun is reluctant to accept that Janos, a powerful non-humanoid whom the captain has known and trusted for years, could be a killer an immediately launches an investigation into the crime. But this troubling murder mystery soon escalates into a full-fledged diplomatic crisis that threatens to pit Calhoun and Shelby against the entire United Federation of Planets and the starship Enterprise. Meanwhile, the turmoil involving Ensign Janos forces Calhoun to recall his own tempestuous past, his rocky relationship with a young Elizabeth Shelby, and a long-ago exploit that may have everything to do with the deadly emergency that now confronts them all.