Long before he took command of the Starship Enterprise, Captain Jean-Luc Picard led another proud vessel through the uncharted regions of the galaxy: the U.S.S. Stargazer. Thrust unexpectedly into the center seat, the twenty-eight-year-old Picard must live up to the challenges of starship command -- and a crew that hasn't yet learned to trust him. 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. Given an untested crew and an impossible mission, Picard must beat the odds and apprehend the White Wolf -- but the pirate keeps a shocking secret that leaves Picard to make a deadly decision.

"CONTINUING THE ADVENTURES OF THE 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. Meanwhile, on Gnala, Picard must help his friend undergo the ritual -- and find out who is trying to sabotage their chances of completing it before they're all killed! "

"Identical twins Gerda and Idun Asmund lost their human parents early in life and were raised as warriors on the Klingon homeworld. They were taught to face every danger shoulder to shoulder -- regarding each other as the only certainty in a dangerous and uncertain universe. 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? Gerda needs to find out -- before Picard and his crew pay for their generosity with their lives. "

In 1893 a time-traveling Jean-Luc Picard encountered a long-lived alien named Guinan, who was posing as a human to learn Earth's customs. During this "first encounter," Picard saved Guinan's life, a favor she would never forget. Five centuries later, Captain Picard, now commander of the Starship EnterpriseTM, 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. A Guinan who yearns for oblivion.