Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [0]
White Wolf and attempt to
recover the cargo” . . .
. . . Admiral McAteer said, his voice steely with resolve. “But even if recovery is no longer possible, I want to end the menace of this pirate once and for all.”
He had barely finished his sentence when half a dozen hands went up. Volunteers, Picard thought. No doubt they included the captains who had been thwarted by the White Wolf in the past. If he were one of them, he too would have wished to settle the score.
If the captains who had hunted the White Wolf were any judges, the man was impossible to find, much less apprehend. And if his colleagues wanted the assignment that badly, he would do his best not to stand in their way.
“I appreciate your eagerness,” McAteer told them. “I understand how important it is to you to bring the White Wolf to justice. But I think we need a new approach to the problem.”
A new approach? Picard repeated inwardly. He wondered what the admiral had in mind.
He was still wondering when McAteer turned to him and smiled like a fox noticing an unguarded henhouse. “Captain Picard,” he said, “I’m giving you this job.”
Michael Jan Friedman
Based upon STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION®
created by Gene Roddenberry
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
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Copyright © 2002 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
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Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Acknowledgments
This, the first in an ongoing series of Stargazer books, owes its existence to a number of people beyond its humble and shiftless author. John Ordover, Pocket Books editor, was the one who first encouraged me to take a stab at an ongoing series along the lines of the one pioneered by my friend Peter David. Scott Shannon, Pocket publisher, approved the darn thing for reasons I still can’t fathom. And Paula Block, who heads up Paramount’s licensed publishing program, didn’t scream too loudly about it when it crossed her desk.
I would like to recognize the efforts of all those who helped me work out the science behind the character Jiterica and the Lazarus star system, which plays a key role in this book. The guilty parties include Allyn, Michael, Todd Kogutt, Deborah and Baerbell from the PsiPhi bulletin board run by Dave Henderson, as well as physicist Dave Domelen.
I would also like to express gratitude to David Stern, my first Star Trek editor, for giving me the chance to introduce the Stargazer crew in the first place; Larry Forrester and Herb Wright, who gave the Stargazer its place in Star Trek continuity with the TNG episode “The Battle”; and all the other TV and novel writers who provided me with walls to bounce off as I boldly go where few thought it prudent to go before.
Chapter One
Captain’s personal log, supplemental.