An interesting enough beginning to this mini-series of books, though I wish there weren't so many pages of tedious technobabble (why bother with plot or characterisation when you can fill endless paragraphs with made-up bits of computer guts?). On the bright side, Wright's alien threat, the Petraw, are really fun. To be honest, I enjoyed them more than the Enterprise crew! There's so much conflict and back-biting and scheming going on within the Petraw ship that it livens up the story no end.