Two men at odds, both haunted by their pasts. One a starship Captain, one a single parent. Will First Contact save them? Or destroy them?
On Earth Exploration Ship Redemption, Dr. Jonathon Martine walks a fine line. Only he can compute the Jump Equations that will take the ship home at the end of its 10-year mission. But the crew would like to space him, and the Captain threatens to throw him in the Brig. Martine's wife has died, and his daughter Leesa is the one joy left in his life. Together, they're outcasts with nowhere to go. When Leesa is six years old, the scientists aboard Redemption discover the first habitable planet outside the Solar System. The Captain refuses to deviate from the mission-plan, but the crew won't take no for an answer, and Martine becomes a pawn caught between them. Somehow, Earth Command finds out and orders Redemption to the planet. The crew establishes a base of operations, but strange forces arise which threaten first to tear Leesa away from her father, then to destroy the ship. And Martine is forced to decide between his daughter and the people that hate them both.