Revealed at last, the full story of Jim Kirk's lost friend, the man who helped him become the captain we know... Stardate 1312.4. -- A young Captain Kirk, early in his legendary career, faces the crisis of his life when he must kill his best friend in order to save the Enterprise. Later, alone in his quarters, be cannot help recalling how he first met Gary Mitchell: At Starfleet Academy, Gary is reckless and fun-loving while Kirk is driven, ambitious, but awkward around other people -- especially women. Their friendship begins with a fistfight. Then their routine training mission on the U.S.S. Republic is diverted to a planet where centuries of bloody interplanetary conflict are about to end in a ceremony of reconciliation. Assigned to help with security on the planet's surface, Kirk and Gary quickly find themselves in the middle of a life-and-death struggle against terrorists determined to disrupt the ceremony. With the future of two planets at stake, Kirk and Gary must find a way to work together before a mission of life and peace becomes one of death and despair. Michael Jan Friedman is the author of nearly sixty books of fiction and nonfiction, more than half of which bear the name Star Trek or some variation thereof. Ten of his titles have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. He has also written for network and cable television, radio, and comic books, the Star Trek: Voyager® episode “Resistance” prominent among his credits. On those rare occasions when he visits the real world, Friedman lives on Long Island with his wife and two sons. Chapter One Jim Kirk emerged from the entrance to the immense lithium-cracking station, the sight of Lee Kelso's corpse still mercilessly fresh in his mind, and took a look at the jumbled, gray landscape ahead of him. Craggy peaks rose haphazardly like the uncut gems in some gargantuan crown, piercing the bloated underbelly of the blue-gray clouds. The wind howled as if in pain, carrying the dust and tang of a dozen different metal ores. Gary was out there somewhere, the captain told himself. Dehner, too. And they were his responsibility. His. After all, it had been Kirk's decision a couple of days ago to try to penetrate the shimmering barrier at the edge of the galaxy -- an attempt that had ended bluntly in failure. Worse, it had snuffed out the lives of nine crewmen, all but disabled the Enterprise's engines, and turned two of his staff officers into living fireworks. One was Gary Mitchell -- a close friend since his Academy days who had saved Kirk's life more than once. The other was Elizabeth Dehner, a willowy young psychiatrist studying crew reactions under emergency conditions. Little did Dehner know how big an emergency she would be privy to -- the emergence of a being who could shut down every system on the ship as easily as he could shut down his own vital signs...the birth of a power so huge, so terrifying, it could choke the life from a populated world as easily as it had choked the breath from Kelso. And now Dehner was out there among the rocks at Gary's mercy, his living, breathing pawn...or perhaps his chosen consort. Either way, the woman was in unspeakable danger. Tucking his phaser rifle securely into the crook of his elbow, the captain left the protection of the station and set out across the sandy open area surrounding it. The wind whipped around him, driving dirt and loose debris into his face. Kirk barely noticed. His mind was too focused on the monumental task ahead of him. I could have avoided this, he thought ruefully. I should have seen it coming. But it began so innocently.... After their violent reaction to the energy barrier, both Gary and Dehner had been examined by Chief Medical Officer Mark Piper, who determined that the victims had one thing in common -- a talent for extrasensory perception. Dehner's esper rating had been an impressive 089, while Gary's had been even higher at 091. A small difference, statistically speaking -- but a difference nonetheless, judging by the results. While Dehner's vital signs showed no change after what she went through, the change in Gary was hard to ignore. His eyes, for instance, went from brown to a startling, luminous silver. His voice took on an expansive, echoing quality from time to time. And he began reading at speeds even Spock could barely believe. None of that constituted a reason to fear the man. After all, the captain had always trusted his friend implicitly, no matter what the stakes. But there was something in Gary's attitude...an arrogance, a disdain for those around him...that put Kirk on his guard. That, and the unsettling computer logs of the Valiant, the last ship that tried to cross the barrier at the galaxy's edge. Reports of queries about extrasensory perception, for instance. And, later, of a self-destruct order apparently given by the Valiant's captain...who had to have been confronted with a truly staggering menace to even consider such a co