FOREWORD

This story predates Star Trek: Liberty itself by some years. I should have submitted it to Pocket Books almost a decade ago, but instead found reason after reason—none of which make a great deal of sense to me now—not to do so. Marco Palmieri, editor of the Deep Space Nine stuff for Pocket, read the first couple of chapters, and told me through our intermediary, Trek writer Allyn Gibson, that my story just didn’t fit “his vision for the line.” That’ll teach me not to sit on a story for almost ten years, won’t it?

Ah, what might have been…

While a pair of Liberty characters make appearances here—Luciano Mantovanni, of course, along with “the smartest woman in the Federation,” Sera MacLeod—they’re not quite the people they later become. Thus, there are some inconsistencies between Lucifer in Starlight, which was written much earlier than even the first STL pieces, and Liberty itself. For example, it would appear that MacLeod and Mantovanni have never met before 2370, according to LiS. Regular readers know, of course, that they’re friends a year or two earlier, according to a pair of stories I co-wrote with primary author Christina Moore, “Vice and Virtue” and “Concerning Advancement.” Shall I make the necessary adjustments to bring LiS into accord with STL? Perhaps, eventually… but I thought giving y’all a look at the original narrative would be a nice gesture.

This story has a number of flaws, too—things I’d never do now. Again, instead of polishing further, I thought everyone might appreciate seeing something of my development as a writer. Be gentle.

Still, I think it’s a worthy effort—in its way, one of the best pieces I’ve ever written, actually—and since I’ve learned that it’s not going anywhere other than in a desk drawer if I don’t post it, well… here you go.

Enjoy.

[Note to the reader: This novel is set in the weeks between the Star Trek: The Next Generation seventh season episodes “Preemptive Strike” and “All Good Things.”]

DEDICATIONS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PROLOGUE