Hugo Award-winning author Allen Steele has forged a permanent place in the pantheon of great science fiction authors with his landmark Coyote Trilogy. Now, he returns to that universe and offers a startling glimpse into the future of space exploration-and humanity itself…
June 1, 2288-Europe's first starship, the EASS Galileo, launches on its maiden voyage to venture into unexplored space. Its classified mission: to investigate an unidentified, possibly-alien object traveling outside our solar system, code-named Spindrift. Soon after taking off, the Galileo disappears...

February 1, 2344-A shuttle from the Galileo returns to Earth carrying three surviving expedition members. The Galileo has been destroyed, and the rest of the crew is lost-but the survivors have not aged. For they have, indeed, made contact with an extraterrestrial race-and become enmeshed in a conflict that brought them face to face with the most apocalyptic force in the galaxy…