From the successful new Star Trek franchise comes the story of its most popular character - the brilliant Vulcan science officer T'Pol. Pulled, once again, into one of Captain Jonathan Archer's headlong rushes for first contact, Sub-commander T'Pol believes her life -- and those of her colleagues -- is threatened. Instinctively she reacts, draws her phaser and kills. A simple act of self-defence. Or was it? As a Vulcan, an alien race under the strictest of self-imposed philosophical regimes, has T'Pol committed the ultimate act of self-betrayal? Has she forsaken the nonviolent teachings of Surak?