Seven months ago, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the USS Enterprise rescued a Federation cargo ship and a Romulan Warbird, both drained of power by an unknown source and mysteriously trapped together in the Neutral Zone. Five months ago, the captain of the USS Exeter launched a log buoy from her helpless ship, reporting it adrift and without energy for reasons she is unable to explain. Now, a power plant on Mars has gone down, leaving tens of millions in the dark. Reports of remote outposts losing power, ships stranded in space, and unexplained dead zones throughout the United Federation of Planets are beginning to cause a general panic.

But Starfleet sends Picard and the Enterprise to Romulan space with orders to enter as covertly as possible and rendezvous with a high-ranking Romulan named T Sart. An infamous war criminal and a cold-blooded killer, T Sart's expertise runs from biological warfare to high-tech weaponry. Now he claims he is planning to defect - but even though the rendezvous was arranged with Vulcan Ambassador Spock's authentication codes, no contact with the Ambassador himself can be established. Sabotaging the project of his one-time protege, T Sart arranges the destruction of a Romulan warbird - the distraction for his pickup - with disturbing ease. But T Sart insists he is trying to save the universe, not destroy it - and the Federation may have no choice but to take him at his word.