Search Worlds Without End

Scattered throughout the galaxy are Gateways capable of transporting matter and energy across unfathomable distances. Left behind by a long-vanished civilization, these mysterious portals offer a means of exploration -- or conquest -- many times faster than warp travel. The technology responsible for the Gateways has been lost for at least ten millennia, but that doesn't mean it can't be found again....

Having defeated the hostile computer program guarding an abandoned Kalandan outpost, Kirk and his crew are exploring the artificial planetoid in hopes of discovering the secret of an ancient apparatus that has hurled the Starship Enterprise over nearly a thousand light-years. Unfortunately, the reactivated Gateway has attracted the attention -- and avarice -- of various alien explorers, including a mysterious race who claim to be none other than the enigmatic Kalandans themselves!

Dangerous remnants of an extinct interstellar civilization, the Gateways connect the Alpha Quadrant with the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Hidden away in various corners of the universe, the ancient portals could be the future of space travel, but they may also provide a open doorway for an invasion from beyond!

Twenty years ago, in the space near Belle Terre, a caravan of alien vessels disappeared into a gigantic Gateway. Now the descendants of those aliens have returned, armed with incredible new weapons and abilities. Captain Nick Keller of the U.S.S. Challenger, already struggling to maintain peace in the troubled sector, must now cope with a fleet of hostile aliens driven by their own fanatical agenda!

More than 200,000 years ago, the ancient Iconians created a network of interdimensional Gateways providing instantaneous transportation across unimaginable distances. Once known as the "Demons of Air and Darkness," the Iconians mysteriously vanished many millennia ago, never to return -- or so it was believed.

Summoned to an emergency briefing at Starfleet Headquarters, Captain Jean-Luc Picard is stunned to discover that the legendary Iconians have returned at last, and are offering to sell the secrets of their advanced technology to the Federation. To prove their sincerity, they have reactivated their long-abandoned Gateways, but the results have been strife and chaos throughout the entire Alpha Quadrant. Now Picard and his crew must contend with feuding Klingons and Romulans as the captain seeks to discover the sinister truth behind the Iconians' unexpected rebirth!

Once they moved from world to world in a single step, through innumerable doors that spanned the galaxy. They were masters of space, and to those who feared them, they were demons of air and darkness. But long ago they left their empire and their miraculous technology behind. Now someone has found the key to it, and all those doors have been sprung open.

>A world near Deep Space 9, threatened with destruction from the distant Delta Quadrant, becomes the focus of a massive rescue effort as Colonel Kira Nerys, her crew, and some unexpected allies fight to avert disaster on a planetary scale. Meanwhile, as Lieutenant Nog and Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane search for a way to shut down the spatial portals forever, Quark becomes involved in a dangerous game that could determine, once and for all, who will control the Gateways.

Throughout the galaxy, an ancient network of interstellar portals has been reactivated, instantly linking distant planets and civilizations. Back home in the Alpha Quadrant, Starfleet can devote all its considerable resources to coping with the Gateways crisis, but in the Delta Quadrant, there is only the Starship Voyager....

Just as Voyager enters an unusually hazardous region of space, the ship and its crew are confronted with a flood of lost and disoriented starships from all over the galaxy. Accidentally transported incredible distances by the unpredictable Gateways, the diverse alien castaways regard each other and Voyager with hostility and suspicion. Captain Kathryn Janeway suddenly finds herself struggling to hold together an extremely fractious fleet of dislocated alien vessels even as the newly awakened Gateways hold open the prospect of finally bringing her own ship home!

Missing for two hundred millennia, the legendary Iconians have returned, bringing with them the secret of interdimensional teleportation across vast interstellar distances. Awakened once more, their ancient Gateways are rewriting the map of the galaxy, and nowhere more than in the New Frontier....

A century ago, the imperial Thallonians separated two feuding alien races, depositing each of them on a new world safely distant from that of their ancestral enemies. Now, however, the Gateways have made it possible for the long dormant blood feud to begin anew. Captain Mackenzie Calhoun of the U.S.S. Excalibur and his partner, Captain Elizabeth Shelby of the U.S.S. Trident, find themselves fighting a losing battle to keep the horrific violence from escalating, even as they gradually realize the catastrophic danger posed by the Gateways themselves!

Contents:

• 1 - One Giant Leap - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novelette by Susan Wright
• 43 - Exodus - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novelette by Diane Carey
• 83 - Horn and Ivory - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novella by Keith R. A. DeCandido
• 141 - In the Queue - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novelette by Christie Golden
• 181 - Death After Life - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novelette by Peter David
• 219 - The Other Side - [Star Trek: Gateways] - novella by Robert Greenberger
• 319 - The Pocket Books Star Trek Timeline - essay by The Timeline Gang