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In the twenty-first century: Years before the formal first contact that would be recorded in Earth's history, a Vulcan space vessel crash-lands in the South Pacific, forcing humanity to decide whether to offer the hand of friendship, or the fist of war. Complicating matters is a second visitation: a group of people from two hundred years in the future, who serve on a starship called Enterprise.

In the twenty-third century: A new novel called Strangers from the Sky reveals the truth about this heretofore unknown first contact. Reading the novel leads to nightmares that torment Admiral James T. Kirk -- dreams of his dead comrades, Gary Mitchell, Lee Kelso, and Elizabeth Dehner, from his earliest days aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise; visions of a forgotten past in which he somehow changed the course of history and destroyed the Federation before it began.

In the aftermath of the visit of the mysterious probe to Earth in 2286, Starfleet is wondering what this strange visitor really was about, and who sent it. At the same time, a major political upheaval on Romulus has deposed a ruling party that has ruled for decades, and the new leadership is interested in more diplomatic relations with the Federation. With the probe headed towards Romulan space, it is a chance for the two powers to work together to understand who sent the probe, and why.

Eventually, the crew of the USS Enterprise, working with Romulan counterparts, tracks down the probe, and learns more about its background and history. Spock successfully mind melds with the probe, learning that it did not seek to be destructive to other races, instead they were so different from its creators that they were ignored as "mites" in "metal bubbles", and teaches the probe to be more aware of what it is doing to humanoid life in the galaxy as it travels, leaving the probe to continue to explore the galaxy, and the detente seeing Romulans with some of the first peaceful interaction they have ever had with the Federation.

Originally this novel was to be called Music of the Spheres. However, there was a great deal of controversy before its publication; it was given to two different rewriters (J.M. Dillard, Gene DeWeese) without the author's consent, and what was finally published contained only 7% of Bonanno's original book -- but she was not permitted to have her name removed from it. The story of how the book was changed can be read here (Word doc).