Aupes

After a global chemical war most of humanity has perished. Those who remain exist in isolated communities, not knowing if any other such communities survive. But the situation is getting worse: in one community its leaders know that if they don't leave they'll all be dead in a few years.
There is a planet eleven light years away that might support life. If they can build a ship to get there, and if it is sufficiently Earth-like, and if there isn't a hostile civilisation living there already, they might just have a chance of a future.
The decision is made to go. But the consequences of that decision are so much more dramatic than any of the travellers could ever have dreamt.
This is the first novel in the author's 'First Contact' science fiction series. All are very different but have that common theme; man's first contact with alien life.