Star Trek: TNG: Losing the Peace

Fortune has smiled on Lieutenant Jasminder Choudhury, chief of security on theU.S.S Enterprise.™ She has survived. But her homeworld, Deneva, one of the planets targeted in the massive Borg invasion, has not. The entire surface has been wiped clean ofeverything, killing anyone who did not evacuate and rendering the planet uninhabitable. Choudhury is left to wonder whether her family was one of the displaced. Or are they all gone forever?

TheEnterpriseis just one more >>

Fortune has smiled on Lieutenant Jasminder Choudhury, chief of security on theU.S.S Enterprise.™ She has survived. But her homeworld, Deneva, one of the planets targeted in the massive Borg invasion, has not. The entire surface has been wiped clean ofeverything, killing anyone who did not evacuate and rendering the planet uninhabitable. Choudhury is left to wonder whether her family was one of the displaced. Or are they all gone forever?

TheEnterpriseis just one ship, and Jasminder Choudhury is just one officer, yet her story is being repeated over and over across the galaxy. Hundreds of thousands of displaced persons haunt the space ways, seeking comfort, looking for someplace safe, somewhere, anywhere to find solace. Captain Jean-Luc Picard is ordered to do everything he can to rescue and if need be to recover the lost souls from the Borg invasion.

For the first time in generations, citizens of the Federation know want, uncertainty, and fear. Bloodied yet unbowed, the Federation now stands on the edge of a precipice. The captain of theEnterprisefinds himself in the unenviable position of wondering whether it is true that those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace.

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The boy lay on the grassy hillside, the back of his head cradled in the roots of the old poplar tree, staring up into the infinite nighttime sky. Below him, the entire valley seemed asleep, with only a few scattered lights coming from the windows of its farmhouses and villages. The near perfect darkness made even the dimmest stars of the Milky Way shine like lighthouse beacons, guiding ship captains on their long journeys across the sea of space.

"Jean-Luc!"

The boy did not hear the voice coming from the direction of the house at first -- or rather, he chose not to hear it. He didn't want to have to give up this place, this memory frozen in time. He kept his eyes and his imagination fixed on the stars above.

"Jean-Luc!" a second, younger voice called from much closer by, accompanied by the rustling of grass and snap of twigs. The boy's thoughts now fell away from the sky and down to earth. Specifically, he wished for the ground underneath to open up and swallow him, hiding him from the pair looking for him.

But to no avail. "Here you are!" the boy crowed triumphantly, leaping from out of nowhere and landing his heavy work boots on either side of Jean-Luc's waist. "Dreaming again, are you,mon petit frère?" Robert grinned down at him, long dark hair flopping over his eyes. He had always been the bigger of the two brothers, and in the summer of his twelfth year, he had gained a full ten centimeters. "Don't you know what monsters lurk in the dark?"

Robert then let out a roar and fell atop his younger brother. The boy put his arms up to ward off the attack, catching the other in the chest and easily deflecting him. He then rolled in the same direction, seating himself on the bigger boy's stomach and pinning his shoulders to the ground with both hands -- though only momentarily, before their positions reversed again. Arms and legs flailed as they wrestled wildly, his brother laughing as he grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the ground. The boy was surprised to find himself aughing as well, finding the roughhouse play strangely liberating, and he laughed even louder.

"Enough fighting," came the first voice again from just overhead. "There will be no more fighting."

Robert jumped off his brother and went to stand beside his father. "What are you doing out here in the dark,mon garçon?" Maurice Picard asked in a deep, authoritative voice. Despite his bald pate and deeply lined face, prematurely aged by a lifetime tending to the vineyard, his sharp eyes and hawklike nose marked him as a man one did not lightly cross. "Dreaming again?"

"No, Papa," the boy fibbed. "I was just...I couldn't fall asleep, and I..." He hesitated, kno << less