Farthest Star

When an artifact is observed heading towards the Milky Way galaxy, the confederation of humans and alien races sends a Project Orion style nuclear powered probe to investigate it, populated by sending copies of scans of individuals by tachyon to be constructed on the probe; they labor to construct an even faster probe before they die from the stray radiation. Meanwhile on the object, a humanoid boy from one of the many resident species encounters some of the explorers transported to the surface, and together they must face attacks from another, unfamiliar species.