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 Stargazeragainst 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.

The USS Stargazer, a long-range exploration ship commanded by Captain Ruhalter, is assigned to pick up descendents of the survivors of the USS Valiant, a ship that was lost at the far edge of the galaxy in the very first Star Trek Original Series episode. The evacuees claim that a deadly invasion force from outside the galaxy is nearing the United Federation of Planets. When they are ambushed by the invaders, Captain Ruhalter is killed, leaving a young Lieutenant, Jean-Luc Picard, in charge of the ship in the midst of a deadly confrontation. Picard must swiftly learn to be an effective Captain; while dealing both with a crew that has not yet come to trust his judgement and with hostile aliens more powerful than anything the Federation has encountered before.

A rift in the Mirror Universe threats the crew of the Stargazer in this Star Trek: The Next Generation novel. 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.

The mysterious "missing years" of Captain Picard's life—before he commanded the Enterprise—are revealed at last in this Star Trek: The Next Generation novel! Jean-Luc Picard. His name has gone down in legend as the captain of the U.S.S. Stargazer and two starships Enterprise. But the nine years of his life leading up to the inaugural mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise to Farpoint Station have remained a mystery—until now, as Picard's lost era is finally unearthed. Following the loss of the Stargazer and the brutal court-martial that resulted, Picard no longer sees a future for himself in Starfleet. Turning to his other love, archaeology, he embarks on a quest to rediscover a buried age of ancient galactic history...and awakens a living survivor of that era: a striking, mysterious woman frozen in time since before the rise of Earth's dinosaurs. But this powerful immortal has a secret of cataclysmic proportions, and her plans will take Picard—aided along the way by a brilliant but naive android, an insightful Betazoid, and an enigmatic El-Aurian—to the heights of passion, the depths of betrayal, and the farthest reaches of explored space.

Captain Jean Luc Picard accepts a courageous mission which he soon finds could be a deadly trap in this Star Trek: The Next Generation novel. 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 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. A Guinan who yearns for oblivion.

Discover Captain Jean Luc Picard's first command aboard the Stargazer in this Star Trek: The Next Generation novel. Ensign Andreas Nikolas, heartsick over the loss of his Mirror Universe lover, has resigned his post on Jean-Luc Picard's starship, the Stargazer, to seek a home on the freighter Iktoj'ni. 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. Picard desperately needs Santana's help in his struggle to save his galaxy. But will she justify his faith in her—or once again twist it to serve her own shadowy ends?

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!