The book is set in the world of the CBS All Access series and introduces some key characters.
The book is availablefor purchasenow.
The knowledge that nothing that he did now with his days mattered in the slightest.
James Dimmock/CBS
One more outcast, cast adrift.
Prospero, on his island.
An old conjurer, his magic spent, nursing old grievances.
Pocket Books
Here, now; this was the moment when everything changed.
It was nothing that anyone noticed at the time.
A quiet chime on the comm, and La Forges voice coming through.
Captain, were picking up some very strange readings here .
And he had saidIncredible, now he thought of it!
Yes, thought Picard, years later,yes, more than you could have ever known.
Choose your course wisely now .
Let me get back to you on that one.
Another chime, this one signifying an incoming message from Starfleet Command.
And all that was to follow had followed.
He had not, now that he thought about it, seen theEnterprisesince.
Clouds flecked across the hillside.
The vines hung heavy.
The old clock ticked in the hall.
Time yawned ahead: empty time.
Picard, in limbo, pondered the past, and continued to fail to find answers there.
Such were his mornings, his afternoons, his evenings.
No, he thought.
None of it had ever done any damn good.
Starfleet CommandSan Francisco, Earth
It was a fine morning for the start of the end of everything.
The kind of morning in spring that makes the world seem full of possibility.
Waved through at once by a young ensign who purpled at the sight of the great man.
Ushered with some ceremony up to the commander-in-chiefs meeting room.
Earl Grey tea ready when he took his seat, steam rising in wisps from the cup.
A room that spoke of power, of duty, honor, and responsibility.
Seated already: two colleagues, about to change everything, forever.
What we are about to tell you, Jean-Luc, said the C-in-C, is almost unbelievable.
Inwardly, he felt himself tighten, shift onto alert.
He gave his C-in-C a more careful look.
Admiral Victor Bordson, several years his junior, was, in Picards estimation, a careful man.
Picard did not mean this pejoratively; quite the contrary.
Picard had often tried to place himnot German, not Austrian, not Swiss, not Belgian .
He had only just stopped himself from slamming his palm onto the table and exclaiming, Of course!)
Typically, in Picards observation, such officers were dogged, implacable, and more than a little haunted.
A careful man; a man of cares.
Gently, Picard said, Whats going on, Victor?
Everything, said Bordson, is about to change.
He turned to his second.
Captain Kirsten Clancy, sitting at his right hand, nodded.
Leaning forward, she whispered, The Romulan star is about to go supernova.
Picard took a moment to consider some of the implications of this statement.
An instinctive action that he had never quite suppressed, to protect where he felt most vulnerable.
Where he had been most harmed.
Quite, said Bordson.
