The Valiant

The untold story of Picard's first command! The first Stargazer adventure!
The Valiant is a Pocket TNG novel – and, retroactively, the first novel in the Star Trek: Stargazer series – written by Michael Jan Friedman. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in hardback in .
== Summary ==
;From the book jacket
:Three hundred years ago, the was destroyed during an ill-fated attempt to cross the legendary galactic barrier. Starfleet had always assumed that the Valiant had perished with all hands aboard, until a pair of unusual humanoids arrive at Starbase 209, claiming to be the descendants of a handful of Valiant survivors who found refuge on an M-Class planet beyond the Barrier.
:Even more shocking, the visitors warn that a hostile alien species, the Nuyyad, are preparing to invade the galaxy. Uncertain of how much of the strangers' story to believe, Starfleet orders the to investigate at once.
:Lieutenant Commander Jean-Luc Picard is second officer on the Stargazer. A young man who has yet to command a vessel of his own, he soon develops a special bond with one of the visitors, a strikingly beautiful woman who has inherited mysterious psychic abilities from her alleged Starfleet ancestors. But can Picard truly trust her?
=== Book One ===
The Valiant opens aboard the SS Valiant under the command of Captain Carlos Tarasco in the year 2069. A mysterious force has thrown the Valiant far from home and now the crew faces the grueling prospect of crossing the Galactic Barrier if they ever want to see Earth again.
The Valiants primitive shields can do little to protect them from the Barrier though. Despite the fact that only the optical scanners can detect the Barrier, the effects it has on the crew are catastrophic.
Before Tarasco orders the ship to turn around, six crew are dead, one in critical condition, and the Valiants systems have been badly damaged. In fact, the Valiant may not be able to repair her warp drive. Left to drift, the crew begins making their repairs. Relieved in part that Assistant Engineer Agnarsson is alive, the crew continues on their way.
It is only later that Agnarsson begins to manifest strange psychic powers. The Valiants CMO realizes that the Barrier only affected those with extrasensory perception (ESP). Thanks to his advanced abilities, Agnarsson was able to survive and the Barrier somehow enhanced those abilities. They also caused strange personality aberrations however and Agnarsson soon begins to suspect the crew of plotting against him.
Faced with the possibility of being killed by the psychotic engineer, Captain Tarasco prepares to kill his crewman. Ordering the launch of a recorder (later retrieved by the in ) Tarasco and his security officers then chase Agnarsson about the ship.
After Agnarsson kills several security personnel, Tarasco realizes the awful truth. He cannot stop Agnarsson on his own so he orders the evacuation of the Valiant and prepares to destroy his ship. The resulting explosion takes Agnarsson and Tarasco with it, leaving the survivors to drift on the opposite end of the Galactic Barrier with no chance of a rescue vessel.
== Background information ==
* Having established most of the Stargazer crew in the novel , The Valiant revisits some of those characters, and explains how Picard takes command of the vessel (as discussed in ). The success of this novel would lead to the creation of the Star Trek: Stargazer series, written by Friedman, to which the paperback reprint is retroactively inserted as the first novel in the series.
* The audiobook version was abridged by George Truett.
* An extract from this novel appeared in .
* The Science Fiction Book Club released a special edition of the hardback in .
* This novel was later collected, along with Reunion, in the Signature Edition omnibus, Pantheon.
=== Cover gallery ===
File:The Valiant paperback cover.jpg|Paperback cover
File:The Valiant audiobook cassette cover.jpg|Audiobook cover, US cassette edition
== Characters ==
=== SS Valiant ===
;: Captain of the Valiant
;: First officer of the Valiant; killed in the encounter with the barrier
;: Valiant operations officer 
;Hollandsworth: Lieutenant, Valiant science officer
;Mary Anne Sommers: Lieutenant, Valiant helm officer
;Womack: Valiant chief tactical officer 
;Jack Gorvoy: Valiant chief medical officer 
;Chantal Coquillette: Medic; forms part of the initial Magnian colony
;Rudolph: Medic
;Bill McMillan: Valiant chief engineer
;Geirod Agnarsson: Engineer's assistant; develops telepathy and telekinesis after encounter with the barrier, leading Tarasco to destroy the ship in order to stop him.
;Davidoff: Engineer
;Dan Pelletier: Valiant security chief 
;Siregar: Security officer 
;Marc Offenburger: Security officer 
;Peavey: Security officer 
;Marciulonis: Security officer 
;Santana: Security officer 
;Williamson: Valiant supply officer
;Daniels: Astrophysicist
;Zosky: Stellar physicist, signed onto the Valiant mission at the last minute; killed in the encounter with the barrier.
;O'Shaugnessy: Crewman
;Maciello: Crewman 
;Kolodny: Crewman 
;Rivers: Crewman 
;Yoshii: Crewman 
=== USS Stargazer ===
;: Captain of the Stargazer; killed in the Stargazers first encounter with the Nuyyad.
;Stephen Leach: Commander, first officer of the Stargazer
;Jean-Luc Picard: Lieutenant commander, second officer of the Stargazer; takes command after the Stargazers first encounter with the Nuyyad.
;: Chief medical officer of the Stargazer
;: Lieutenant, chief engineer of the Stargazer
;Pernell: Engineer
;Zaffino: Engineer
;: Lieutenant, Stargazer helm officer
;: Lieutenant, Stargazer navigator
;Charlie Kochman: Lieutenant, Stargazer secondary navigator
;Martin Paxton: Stargazer communications chief 
;Angela Cariello: Stargazer sciences chief 
;: Lieutenant, Stargazer security chief
;Ang: Lieutenant, Stargazer security officer
;: Lieutenant, Stargazer security officer
;Garner: Lieutenant, Stargazer security officer
;Iulus: Lieutenant, Stargazer security officer
;Pierzynski: Lieutenant, Stargazer security officer
;Pteffer: Stargazer security officer
;Fox: Stargazer security officer
;Sekowsky: Stargazer security officer
;Hans Werber: Chief weapons officer of the Stargazer
;: lieutenant, Stargazer weapons officer
;Chen: Stargazer weapons officer
;Ramirez: Stargazer weapons officer
;Vandermeer: Lieutenant, Stargazer transporter operator 
;Montenegro: Ensign
;Kotsakes: Ensign
;Barr
;James
;Harras
=== Starfleet Command ===
;Mehdi: Admiral, appoints Picard as commanding officer of the Stargazer after the resolution of the Nuyyad crisis
;Gardner-Vincent: Admiral
=== Starbase 209 ===
;Eliopoulos: Captain, ranking officer on the base
=== Nalogen Four ===
;Najak: Administrator of the colony
;Jomar: An engineer, recently arrived at the colony 
=== Magnian colony ===
;Shield Williamson
;Guard Daniels
;Serenity Santana
;Law: Director of the colony medical center 
;Armor Brentano: Engineer
;Hilton-Smith
=== Referenced only === 
;James T. Kirk
;Gary Mitchell
;Osborne: Captain of the USS Merced; Leach's former commander
;Goimard: 21st century architect
;Matthew Joseph: "Pug"'s brother
;Slattery: Carter Greyhorse's roommate at Starfleet Academy
;Turan Relanios: Betazoid scientist
== References ==
Andromeda Galaxy; galactic barrier ()
;Nalogen IV: M class planet near the galactic barrier; location of a Kelvan colony, established after their abortive attempt to hijack the ()
;Nuyyad: Hostile alien species, operating beyond the galactic barrier
== External link ==
* 
cs:The Valiant
Category:Novels
Category:Audiobooks