title: Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Fury Scorned
author:  Pamela Sargent 
description: With their sun about to go nova, the people of Epictetus III face utter annihilation. Although the <i>U.S.S. Enterprise</i><sup><font size="-2">TM</font></sup> has come to lead the rescue operation, there is no way to evacuate a population of over one hundred million, leaving Captain Picard to make an agonizing decision. Should he try to salvage the planet's children, its greatest leaders and thinkers, or its irreplaceable archeological treasures? No matter what he decides, millions must be sacrificed -- unless another solution can be found.
zlib_text: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  
  
  On any project, a good editor can make a writer look great. For his help on
  this one, we salute Keith DeCandido, a god among editors. You know, not the
  smiley kind of god, with a robe and a white beard, but the cool kind. With
  tentacles.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 1
  
  
  The U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-E, sped through space. Long, lean, and
  muscular, like a hunting hound, she dodged and leapt through hedgerows of dust
  clouds and incandescent gas. As fast and nimble as she was graceful, her
  nearly seven-hundred meter length turned like a fighter as she threaded her
  way through the clouds of the vast planetary nebula that surrounded the
  bloated red star Pantera.
  
  
  But this hound was the hunted, not the hunter, and though she could not see
  her pursuer through the clouds and sensor echoes, the volley of pulse-phaser
  bolts that cut narrowly above her saucer section offered ample evidence of its
  presence. Responding, the Enterprise veered hard to starboard and dove
  headlong into a str