Hearts and Minds

An electrifying thriller from New York Times bestselling author Dayton Ward, set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe.

2031: United States Air Force fighter jets shoot down an unidentified spacecraft and take its crew into custody. Soon, it’s learned that the ship is one of several dispatched across space by an alien species, the Eizand, to search for a new home before their own world becomes uninhabitable. Fearing extraterrestrial invasion, government and military agencies which for more than eighty years have operated in secret swing into action, charged with protecting humanity no matter the cost...

2386: Continuing their exploration of the Odyssean Pass, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise discover what they at first believe is a previously uncharted world, with a civilization still recovering from the effects of global nuclear war. An astonishing priority message from Starfleet Command warns that there’s more to this planet than meets the eye, and Picard soon realizes that the mysteries of this world may well weave through centuries of undisclosed human history...

Dayton Ward is the New York Times bestselling author or coauthor of nearly forty novels and novellas, often working with his best friend, Kevin Dilmore. His short fiction has appeared in more than twenty anthologies, and he’s written for magazines such as NCO Journal, Kansas City Voices, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Star Trek, and Star Trek Communicator, as well as the websites Tor.com, StarTrek.com, and Syfy.com. A native of Tampa, Florida, he currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife and two daughters. Visit him on the web at DaytonWard.com.