Series
Una Chin-Riley and Christopher Pike first met at Starfleet Academy, when Una was helping a family of Euxhana refugees. Twenty-five years later, the Enterprise is providing security for trade talks with the Chionians when a pro-Euxhana saboteur strikes, and the suspect has a history with Una that could expose the secret she has kept all these years.
After murder and sabotage hit Kathara Station, a secret research facility above the accretion disk of a black hole, the Enterprise is sent to investigate. Pike knows this black hole: years ago a mission there went badly wrong. As enemies close in, the station director turns out to have secrets of her own.
While searching for a missing survey ship near a pre-warp world, Pike, Una, Spock and Uhura end up stranded on the surface, where advanced technology simply stops working. The planet is home to groups of many species brought there by the Skagarans, and Pike finds an old friend among them.
On patrol along the Klingon border, the Enterprise picks up strange signals from a planet orbiting a flare star. The landing party finds the ruins of a dead civilization and traces of a Federation ship missing for more than ninety years, and Lieutenant Ortegas discovers a family connection to its lost crew.