Jev Bjorn is a sixteen-year-old teenager growing up on Earth's first colony world Alessi, which for the past five years has been ruthlessly controlled by a reptilian alien race known as the T'kri. Kiyel Lhevic is a telepathic felinoid crew member of the Caitaran scout ship Lekur, shot down by the T'kri while attempting to ascertain why a probe--which had been launched to this previously uninhabited world a decade earlier--suddenly ceased functioning. They were of two different species, from two different worlds, brought together by chance, and yet their meeting would herald the beginnings of an alliance that could finally see the T'kri defeated and driven from Alessi for good. But old prejudices may ultimately prove the more deadly enemy as Jev and Kiyel quickly find themselves pitted against not only a conquering alien race, but also the fear and hatred from both their people.