In the golden era of exploration, at a time when the Federation is advancing their borders and meeting many a new civilisation, one of Starfleet’s newest ships is commanded by Starfleet’s first Trill commander, Captain Keziah Nazir, the starship Achilles is one of Starfleet’s most advanced vessels and flies the flag for the United Federation of Planets. Since the noble sacrifice of Captain Rachel Garrett and the crew of the USS Enterprise-C at Narendra III, tensions with the Klingon Empire have been subsiding, allowing the focus of diplomatic initiatives to turn to the increasingly hostile Cardassian Union.

A diplomatic incident on the Cardassian border has seen patrols amped up on both sides of the trenches. With some of the finest Cardassian warships arriving to represent the Union, Starfleet dispatches a four-ship task group to fly the Federation flag, led by the USS Achilles NCC-28410, one of the fleet’s most advanced Ambassador-class starships. With diplomatic envoys having been summoned to a summit on Setlik III in a last-ditch effort to keep the peace, can the crew of the Achilles and their Cardassian counterparts prevent the peace-talks from collapsing when a diplomat is found dead?