The McCoy's are called to Earth to attend a meeting regarding a new world that had petitioned to join the Alliance of Planets. The planet, called Dai Minkoda, circles a G0-V type star similar to Earth's sun and to Chandra, Ebon Olcar's star. It is known as Aquilum and it is located in the Kinoan Omega cluster of stars just thirty-one light years from Earth and thirty-three light years from Ebon Olcar. Immediately after the meeting with the president, Quinn and Eyen and the Yakunun leave the Presidential compound and board their individual vehicles, when they are rendered unconscious by an undetected gas. The vehicles drive off and leave Camp Bush Marine Base, the military base where the Presidential Compound is located. Earlier, Kayla and Alice got bored and had left the meeting to go shopping. While at the mall, they were attacked by thugs in an attempt to kidnap them as well. The action failed and the five perpetrators were arrested. When the two women return to the Camp Bush Marine Base, Kayla notices two unmarked limousines leaving the gate as they arrive, but she does not think much of it. She and Alice are to meet their parents at their rooms at Camp Bush Marine Base Hotel but they are found to be absent. A call to the President reveals that they left nearly half an hour before, triggering Kayla's memory of the limos leaving the base. A call to the base Motor Pool yielded a location of one of the limos by satellite tracking. Alice and Kayla embark on a mission to recover her parents and the Yokunun from whoever had taken them. The mission leads them across the known quadrant of the galaxy and into the neighboring one and back. In the process, it is discovered that the Zabitaani Insurgency was again attempting to regain control of Zabitaan with the help of their Clanerian allies.