This week, we meet the Kreel, who have spent over a century being the Klingons’ punching bags. But when the Kreel find an abandoned stash of powerful weapons on a backwater planet, the tables turn, and shockingly, the Klingons start to feel like maybe peace, love, and understanding aren’t such bad ideas after all. Meanwhile, Wesley Crusher has a burdensome boy-genius reputation to live up to, and he intends to maintain it by singlehandedly attempting to cure a friend’s terminal illness. How much does Riker’s beard annoy Picard? Did Worf just decide to leave all pretense of professionalism at home today? Do some people deserve to be bullied? And perhaps the most important question of all: does this book have The Knack, or The Rot?