A Star Trek: The Next Generation novel combining science fiction adventure, romance, and political intrigue, centered on Deanna Troi, William Riker, and Worf aboard the USS Enterprise . Imzadi: to the people of the planet Betazed, including Counselor Deanna Troi of the USS Enterprise , it means “beloved” and denotes that which can never be truly broken. Yet to whom does Deanna’s heart truly belong? Commander William Riker was the first Deanna called Imzadi. Long before they served together on board the Enterprise, they shared a tempestuous love affair back on Betazed. And even now, many years later, Riker will embark on a desperate journey across time and space to save Deanna's life. But Riker is not the only Starfleet officer to capture Deanna’s heart. Lieutenant Commander Worf, the fierce Klingon warrior, is also drawn to Deanna's gentle and caring nature. Brought together by fate, he and Deanna share an unexpected passion that tests the bonds between Troi and Riker—even as a deadly Romulan conspiracy threatens them all! Peter David is a prolific writer whose career, and continued popularity, spans more than twenty-five years. He has worked in every conceivable media—television, film, books (fiction, nonfiction, and audio), short stories, and comic books—and acquired followings in all of them. Chapter One "Let's get the hell out of here." A gentle, eerie howling was in the air, which seemed to be permeated with the haunting and lonely cries of souls that had existed or might never exist or might be in some state of limbo in between. In the distance was the city. Its name was unknown and would forever remain so. The air was dark and filled with a sense that a storm might break at any moment. It was that way all the time. The storm never did break. It just threatened to do so. The very withholding of the actual event implied that, should that storm ever arrive, it might very well bring with it enough power to wash away all vestiges of that remarkable intangible called reality. None of that mattered to the man who was the leader. The man in the greenish yellow shirt, whose mind was elsewhere and elsewhen. Behind him stood his friends, his crew. They waited patiently. For a moment it appeared that he was wondering just how long they would be capable of waiting. What were the limits of their patience? The limits of their confidence in the man who was their captain? But it was clear that he was not going to test those limits. A man who had been driven to go out and explore new places, discover new frontiers...this man had finally found a place filled with potentially endless vistas of exploration. Anywhere, anywhen. And his response was not to embrace it. No, all he wanted to do was leave it behind, to get as far away from it as possible. "Let's get the hell out of here." The words hung there a moment, startling in their vehemence, in the longing and resignation and overall sense of Oh, God, I can't stand it anymore, get me away from here, away to a place where I don't have to think or feel, to a place where I can just be numb. The crew took several small steps closer to each other. To a degree it was out of reflex, to make sure that they would be well within range of the transporter effect. But there was something else as well this time. It was an unspoken desire to try to lend support by dint of the fact that they were there for him. There was nothing they could say or do. Indeed, they didn't even fully understand what was going through the captain's mind. They did not yet know the sacrifices their commanding officer had made. Did not know that, in the best tradition of romance, he had found a part of his soul existing in a woman and had been drawn to her. And then had lost that part of his soul, which he hadn't fully realized he was missing in the first place. Lost it beneath the screeching of tires, under a truck's wheels... Not just the wheel of a truck. A wheel of history, an unrelenting, unyielding cog that had ground up his love and his soul and spit them both out, bloodied and battered...and broken. Yes, that was the difference that the crew sensed this time in their captain. Many a time had he been battered...but as the old saying went, "Battered but unbowed." This time, though...he was bowed. They got the hell out of there. And Commodore Data watched them go. She was simply called Mary Mac. Her last name actually began with a sound approximating "Mac," but the rest was a major tongue twister. As a result, the other scientists addressed her as "Mary Mac." Mary Mac was extremely peculiar. For one thing, she was an Orion. This in itself was not particularly unusual. She was, however, fully clothed. This was unusual, as the vast majority of Orion women existed purely to be the sex toys of men in general and Orion men in particular. They were known as vicious and deadly fighters and radiated sex the way suns radiated heat...and indeed, some thought, a bit more intensely