Excalibur. Restoration - Peter David

"He died heroically. All of us...should be so fortunate as to have that opportunity." So spoke Captain Mackenzie Calhoun - five minutes before the Starship Excalibur blew up, at the end of New Frontier #8, Dark Allies. Through New Frontier #9 and #10, Calhoun's devastated crew endeavour to cope without him and to get on with their own shattered lives. Yet, unknown to them - or to Starfleet - Calhoun escaped the cataclysmic demise of his ship, only to find himself trapped on the primitive outback world of Yakaba. There he befriends Shula, a woman with the strange and inexplicable ability to summon rain for her parched and struggling community. Shula's powers, however, have made her a target for jealous and greedy enemies who will stop at nothing to seize control of her special gifts - or destroy them for ever. Marooned on a hostile world, Calhoun is drawn into a life-or-death struggle against implacable foes.
In his absence, his former First Officer Shelby finds that her first command, the USS Exeter, is more of a challenge than she expected; and the rest of his scattered crew have problems of their own...