Maximum Warp Book One (Book #62)

by Dave Galanter and Greg Brodeur

More-or-less allies with the Romulan's, Picard and the crew of the Enterprise are surprised when, passing through the Romulan neutral zone, they are caught in an area of space rending the ship as good as dead. Nearby, a Romulan ship suffers the same fate. Captain Picard persuades the Romulan ship that they can help each other, and taking a shuttle, Picard goes to the Romulan ship. Using each others magnetic pulls, the two ships manage to push each other far enough out of the dead zone to break free.
Elsewhere on Caltiska 1V, a Centurian, and undercover Tal Shiar operative, T'sart finishes wiping out the entire planet of its occupants. Killing any witness, T'sart disappears, carrying on his search for Ambassador Spock, who he needs to aid him defect to the Federation.
Caught in yet another dead zone, the Enterprise is called to aid at the Valles Marineris outpost, which is about to suffer a nuclear meltdown. Taking a shuttle, Picard and Data manage to beam off the crew, but the shuttle suffers fatal damage. The Enterprise, still crippled from previous encounter with the dead zone, beam the survivors off two at a time, but not soon enough to save Data and Picard who crash land on the planet's surface. The Enterprise soon beam them up though.
Picard is then ordered to return to the Romulan neutral zone to meet Ambassador Spock, but when they arrive, they are greeted by not only Spock, but the very much wanted murderer, T'sart. Picard instantly throws him in the brig, but when T'sart explains that he is the only one that can help them solve the destructive dead zone problems, Picard reluctantly has to use him.
And then the Klingon's find out he is on board the Enterprise and intervene. Picard succeeds in persuading Klingon captain that T'sart is needed alive, but not before Kalor infects T'sart with a fatal virus.
T'sart tells Picard to go to the Caltiska system, in Klingon space, but to get there, they have to go through Romulan space, which hid several cloaked Romulan warbirds. Riker and Deanna take a shuttle and head for a romulan subspace relay station to pick up a quantity of Barantium which would disguise the Enterprise's route through Romulan space. En route, Riker and Deanna happen across a suspicious cloaked cargo ship, carrying a solitary Romulan who seemed quite innocent. Riker doesn't trust him and disables his ship before carrying on to the outpost.
When a group of Klingon ships approach the Enterprise, they escort it to their space. But on the way, they get caught in another dead zone along with a planet. Unable to help, they have to endure the destruction of not only the ships caught, but the planet too, including every living soul upon it.
When Riker arrives at the outpost, his shuttle is damaged, allowing a Romulan warbird to see it. Trusting to good luck, Riker And Deanna beam across to the ship that they left stranded.
But on the Enterprise, crippled once more by enemy fire, a party of Klingon's board and take over the ship.

See book two for the conclusion of this story.

Notable Imzadi moment:

Page 151 to 152

"How much farther?" Deanna Troi glanced at the navigation console, searching for her own answer.
Will Riker turned toward her, checking a few readouts as he swivelled in his chair. "You're not going to be like a kid on a long trip, are you?"
She smiled back at him.
"Hard to tell," he said. "We've had to change course three times now."
"At least T'sart was honest about the scanning code," Deanna said. "We can see cloaked warbirds soon enough to avoid them."
Riker's brow furrowed, and Deanna felt a few different emotions radiate toward her. He was concerned, and also somewhat frustrated. "Who knows what he's being honest about? I'm still not trusting him. You try reading him at all?"
"Mm-hmm. I'm still feeling a bit arrogant from the encounter."
Riker smiled and nudged the arm of her chair. "Not used to reading that emotion?"
Absentmindedly altering one of the monitors above her, Deanna smiled playfully. "Only when I'm with you."
From his station aft, Data cleared his throat.
"Something, Commander?" Riker asked.
"May I be blunt, sir?"
Deanna felt Riker's amusement as he answered. "You can give it a try, Data."
"I can never tell if you two are arguing or flirting."
She and Riker exchanged a long glance where silence dominated until Riker finally said, "You'll have to work that one out on your own."

Thank you Carol for putting this together =)