The Alloy, the second book in the Alloy series, spotlights Jessica Neuer, the ill-fated mission's Ecologist, who has to abandon the crew's mothership in a lifeboat and lands on the exoplanet's surface with her AI-capable drone, Iris. Travelling the alien wilderness, she begins to realise the nature of the planet's wondrous and hostile life. Meanwhile, the awakened crew are contacted by the planet's intelligent native species.