So intent was she upon her search that she hardly noticed the shuttlecraft that set down in a cloud of blowing sand not fifty meters away. While the sun beat down mercilessly, she searched until she found a shriveled root, which she popped into her mouth and chewed ravenously until it was gone. The gaunt woman, wearing a ragged shift and shoes made of discarded insulation material, knelt in the gully and ran her fingers through the grimy soil.

None expect this ship's graveyard to hold a deadly secret that will force the android Data to make a heart-wrenching decision about the path his life will take - and that will endanger not only the Enterprise, but Picard's future in Starfleet. To others, including the rapacious Androssi, it is a scavenger's paradise, ripe for salvage.

To some alien races, the former battleground is hallowed space. The Enterprise has been assigned to patrol the perimeter of the danger zone, while other vessels carry out the difficult and highly hazardous task of retrieving the bodies of the dead from the wrecked warships. The explosive destruction of so many varied warp drives has severely distorted the space-time continuum in this region, resulting in dangerous unleashed energies and bizarre gravitational anomalies. The site of one of the Dominion War's fiercest battles, the Rashanar Sector now contains a vast interstellar graveyard littered with the lifeless hulks of hundreds of devastated starships. But the story of what set them on a path away from the Starship Enterprise™ has never been told.

Beverly Crusher's new career at Starfleet Medical. Among the changes were William Riker's promotion to captain and his new command, Riker's marriage to Counselor Deanna Troi, and Dr. On the cusp of their epic battle with Shinzon, many of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's long-time crew were heading for new assignments and new challenges.

A Time to Be Born by John Vornholt