The Valiant

U.S.S. STARGAZER...

Thirty years before the days of Star Trek: The Next Generation®, Captain Jean-Luc Picard was thrust unexpectedly into command of another proud vessel: the U.S.S. Stargazer. Surrounded by a crew he doesn't entirely know or trust, the young Picard must answer the challenges of leadership....

While Picard and his senior staff accompany Chief Engineer Simenon to his homeworld of Gnala to undergo a ritual, his second officer, Victoria Wu, is left in command of the Stargazer. Responding to a distress call from a nearby star system, Wu finds herself in the middle of a mystery involving a damaged ship and a peculiar interstellar phenomenon -- one that threatens to destroy the Stargazer if she can't learn its secret.

The pirate known as the White Wolf has been wreaking havoc across several sectors, and the inexperienced Picard has been given the assignment to stop him. Surprised at getting such a challenge, Picard soon learns that he is expected to fail in his duty and have his captaincy disgraced before it can even begin.

The Asmunds continued to depend on each other as helm officer and navigator on the Starship Stargazer, peril and adversity forging a bond between them as strong as tritanium.

But that bond is tested when a transporter mishap deposits a mysterious visitor on the Stargazer -- a beautiful woman from another universe who resembles Gerda and Idun as closely as they resemble each other.

As Captain Jean-Luc Picard pits the Stargazer against a savage alien species in a gallant attempt to send their visitor home, Gerda comes to suspect the woman of treachery. But she has to wonder -- is she following her Klingon instincts or succumbing to simple jealousy?

All he wants of his new life is a chance to forget his troubles. And that's what he gets -- until the Iktoj'ni is taken over by a monstrous alien with unbelievable powers and a disdain for all forms of life.

Without saying why, the alien sends the freighter hurtling toward a part of space inhabited by the Ubarrak, the Federation's deadliest and most xenophobic enemy. And Nikolas, who fears that the incident will start a war, can't convince his captor to turn back.

Picard's only hope of stopping the alien menance is Serenity Santana -- a woman who once abused his trust in the name of her people's survival. Now she's back, asking for the captain's trust a second time.

Five centuries later, Captain Picard, now commander of the Starship Enterprise , brought Guinan aboard as the ship's "bartender." The hope was that her wisdom and inner peace would provide a moral grounding for Picard's crew as they experienced the dangers of space.

Because he hadn't yet made his trip through time, Picard had no knowledge of his nineteenth-century meeting with Guinan.

But he did remember a different first encounter with the mysterious El-Aurian -- a tumultuous adventure in which Picard and Guinan would risk their lives in a maze of interplanetary intrigue, with the future of the known universe at stake.

This is the story of that fateful meeting, and of a Guinan very different from the woman we think we know -- a person wracked by pain and longing, shaken to the roots of her soul.

Twenty-eight-year-old Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the U.S.S. Stargazer -- a Constellation-class starship -- is ordered to help form a desperate line of defense against the aggressor. But it seems nothing can stop the aliens' headlong plunge into the heart of the Federation.

Or rather, nothing in front of them can. Trailing one of the alien attack formations is a tiny Starfleet shuttle with a half dozen crewmembers aboard. One of them is Picard's first officer and best friend, Gilaad Ben Zoma.

Another is Arlen McAteer, the ambitious admiral who has made it his business to relieve Picard of his command.

Celebrate the twentieth anniversary of this landmark series by joining these now-legendary characters for all-new adventures: fourteen stories that span the time from before their earliest voyages through their missions onboard the Enterprise-E -- untold tales of intrigue, action, insight, and exploration, as told by:

Christopher L. Bennett - Greg Cox - Keith R.A. DeCandido

Bob Ingersoll & Thomas F. Zahler - David A. McIntee - Scott Pearson

Michael Schuster & Steve Mollmann - Susan Shwartz

Amy Sisson - James Swallow - Geoff Trowbridge

Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore - Richard C. White

Star Trek The Next Generation®

Peter David's bestselling novels of Star Trek: New Frontier have been a genuine publishing phenomenon. Now the series hits a new landmark with the first original hardcover to chronicle the adventures of Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the valiant crew of the U.S.S. Excalibur. But the latest chapter begins with the future of Calhoun and his mission very much in doubt....

The Excalibur has been destroyed, the victim of insidious sabotage. Last seen on board only moments before it was blown to bits, Captain Mackenzie Calhoun was assumed lost with his ship. Now First Officer Elizabeth Shelby has been granted a command of her own, the U.S.S. Exeter, where she will discover exactly what kind of a captain she is meant to become.

But what about Calhoun? Unbeknownst to Starfleet, the resourceful Xenexian officer escaped the cataclysmic demise of the Excalibur, only to end up marooned on the primitive outback world of Yakaba. There he eventually befriends Shula, a woman with the strange and inexplicable ability to summon rain for her parched and struggling frontier community.

Shula's powers, however, have made her the target of jealous and avaricious enemies. They will stop at nothing to seize control of her special gifts -- or destroy them forever. Trapped on a hostile world, unable to contact Starfleet or even let Shelby and the others know he is still alive, Calhoun is drawn into a life-or-death struggle against relentless foes.