A START

 

Name: Enterprise The First Adventure

Author: Vonda N. McIntyre

Publication Date: 9/1986

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek Giant)

Page Number: 371

Historian’s Note: This story takes place in between the episodes “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before”

Cast of Characters:  Captain Christopher Pike        Captain James T. Kirk       Lieutenant Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”     Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell    Lieutenant Commander Marietta Cheung         Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura            Lieutenant Hazarstennaj        Lieutenant John Kyle                 Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov              Ensign Green             Ensign Snnanagfashtalli       Ensign Sanghoon Cho       Crewman Janice Rand         Crewman Roswind            Admiral Kimitake Noguchi         Captain Hunter        Lieutenant Commander Agovanli         Dr. Eng        George Samuel Kirk, Jr.      Winona Kirk    Carol Marcus     Jocelyn McCoy       Amelinda Lukarian        Mister Cockspur    Greg        Maris       Marcellin   Newland Yanagimachi Rift        Stephen        Philomena Thetis     Tzesnashstennaj       The Director     Koronin      Cloud Touching           Scarlet             Sun-and-Shadows   

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Copernicus NCC-1701/12, USS Lydia Sutherland registration unknown, USS Aerfen registration unknown, Quundar, Dionysus, Starfleet Spacedock, the WorldShip

Planets: Earth

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins with Kirk waking up in a Starfleet hospital.  Although he was victorious on his last mission, he lost his ship, the USS Lydia Sutherland, and some of crew were lost and others injured.  Kirk recovered but his close friend and first officer, Gary Mitchell, has not.  As Kirk awakes, he finds that he has been promoted from commander to captain and his next assignment is to replace Captain Chrisopher Pike as the commanding officer of the USS Enterprise.  

On the Enterprise itself, Spock is saying farewell to Captain Pike as he accepts his promotion to commodore.  Pike informs Spock that it was under his recommendation he was made the new first officer.  Elsewhere Sulu completes his time at Starfleet Academy winning a fencing tournament and the final opponent’s friends tried to make him feel bad for denying her a record for most consecutive wins.  Sulu writes them off as losers.  Uhura returns to the Enterprise after having a nice shore leave. Elsewhere a Klingon woman, named Koronin, wins a Bird of Prey of her own in a game of chance.  She takes some time to make an impression on her new crew and then sets herself on a personal mission. 

Pike, getting promoted off the ship

    

The command ceremony is a big celebration.  The entire crew is in attendance, both Captains give an address, and there are also guests and family members in attendance.  Kirk’s family, such as his mother and brother are there.  Dr. Kirk is proud of his little brother and Lt. Sulu was glad to have someone to share a science joke with him.  Things start out good but soon go sour.  Pike doesn’t seem to be impressed with his successor.  What’s worse, Kirk finds a circus show boarding his ship.  These performers were invited by the Admiral, who didn’t even bother to tell Kirk about it until it was too late.  Kirk also learns he has no choice on who he will have as a first officer, as the decision was already made for him.  One job he did get to fill that of chief medical officer, except McCoy is missing.  He is later found a bit worse for wear.  By the time McCoy arrives, Kirk learns Sulu wants to leave.  Kirk is having a hard time bonding with any of his crew. 

Enterprise getting a new commander

As Kirk finds himself overwhelmed with paperwork, McCoy suggests that he find a good yeoman.  Thus, we get the origin of Janice Rand.  Kirk promotes her out of the ranks to his staff. This seems to work but Rand can be a bit overwhelmed at times. Uhura however helps her cope.  The Captain continues to find the circus people and their mutant winged horse annoying.  There is a Vulcan juggler with a human name, Stephen.  Spock is aware of him and holds him in contempt as he considers him a “pervert” who always tries to experience new emotions.  The Captain and First Officer bond over a game of chess and Spock is quite surprised when he loses.  

Spock shocked by defeat

As Captain Kirk gets to know the circus people they start to grow on him, especially the leader Amelinda Lukarian. (I am surprised this didn’t turn romantic.)  The Captain understands and appreciates their desire to be successful, and they agree to a performance for the crew.  Some of the crew even get to participate. 

The second performance is interrupted when they are forced to drop out of warp.  They have been pulled off course by this very large ship.  The ship is almost the size of a small moon.  Kirk leads a landing party on to the strange ship.  When they beam down it almost like being on a planet.  Kirk and Spock encounter the ship's inhabitants.  They seem primitive and they communicate through complex songs that Uhura attempts but fails to translate. The landing party must return to the ship because a Klingon ship has shown up.  It is Koronin's ship, the Quundar.

A Bird of Prey arrives

Since this is disputed space Kirk has no luck getting Koronin to withdraw her ship.  The only thing either ship can do is to keep an eye on the other.

A beam of energy shoots out at the Enterprise. It’s harmless and a vessel travels along that beam. The small craft is caring beings from the WorldShip who wish to visit the Enterprise. Kirk orders them beamed aboard.  After the visitors are beamed aboard, they start to cry out in pain.  Spock realizes that the ship's gravity is too high for them and jumps on the transporter pad and orders an immediate transportation to the shuttlecraft deck.  The shuttlecraft deck had already had its gravity altered to aid the circus people.  Spock mind melds with one of them but is overwhelmed and loses consciousness. His mind meld partner on the other hand learns how to speak and communicates with Kirk.  She identifies herself as Scarlett. 

Too much for Mr. Spock

From here things move quickly Spock is taken to sickbay to recover and Uhura tries to work with their guests to learn their song language.  Kirk orders gravity to be reduced throughout the ship, leading to a confrontation with Mr. Scott in engineering.  It looks like Scotty’s time as the Chief Engineer is coming to an end.  We learn that Scarlett’s people are very curious but also very naïve.  They think their WorldShip actually stays in one place and that the universe moves around them when they steer their ship. They also have a hard time understanding that the Klingons are not “nice” and their motives are not in the population of the WorldShip’s best interests.

Athene, the circus winged horse, almost hurts herself attempting to imitate the visitors' flying.  Lindy complains about this and Stephen suggests they use his personal space vessel to take the creature to the WorldShip.  Upon seeing Stephen’s craft leaving the Enterprise, Kirk contacts him and demands he return. Stephen refuses to do so, Scarlett doesn’t see the problem, but Kirk is determined to go after them.  He places Scott in charge of the Enterprise with standing orders to withdraw if the Klingons try to have a shootout.

Klingon Fleet arrives 

On the WorldShip, Athene flies for the first time in her life. Lindy tries to hit on Stephen with no luck Spock, believing himself to be one of the WorldShip people, escapes from sickbay, steals a shuttle, and heads to the WorldShip. Koronin arrives and tries to get the locals to obey her, they don’t understand anything she is saying.  This angers the Klingon, so she stabs part of the wall with her blade, causing a small explosion. Her crew captures Spock, just as Kirk and his organized landing party gets there.

Athene

A fleet assigned of Klingon ships show up looking for Koronin and her ship. Scotty receives threats from the Klingon fleet, but he doesn’t back down.  Kirk and his landing party found Lindy and Stephen but no Spock.  On the Quundar, Spock's tricks Koronin and she takes the Bird of Prey to the WorldShip’s center, believing it to be where the vessel's leaders are. There are no leaders but there are other Klingons looking for her.  Koronin hightails it out of there.

Kirk finally gets Scarlett to admit that her people built their vessel and that they could build more but there is no need.  Kirk, with Athene's help, rescues Spock, although they are injured in the process. Stephen mind melds with Spock in an attempt to cure his mind of Scarlett’s influence.  This works and it allows Spock to warn Kirk that if fighting breaks out, the WorldShip will release enough energy to destroy several hundred star systems. Koronin attempts to ram the WorldShip’s center to avoid capture and get revenge on the Klingon Empire but her attempt at mass murder is stopped when Kirk manages to use his shuttlecraft to deflect her ship.

Kirk returns to the Enterprise and Koronin is captured by the Klingons. Kirk receives a call from Admiral Noguchi and Gary Mitchell; Kirk doesn’t yet have the heart to tell Mitchell that he won’t be the first officer.  The Klingons present Kirk with a medal for saving the Empire. Lindy's troop performs for the crew, the WorldShip people, and the Klingons.  The Klingons didn’t like the show except for Cockspur's soliloquy, which they were the only ones.  Scarlett bids them good-bye as she prepares to “move the universe” so the WorldShip is not near the Klingon Empire or the Federation.  On top of those Koronin escapes.

Additional thoughts: First the title is very misleading. It’s not really the first adventure of the Enterprise but rather its first adventure under Captain Kirk.  The overall story was rather so-so.  It’s supposed to explore Kirk and his first adventure with this crew.  It is supposed to show him to getting to know them and appreciate their unique character traits with some bumps along the way. it does a little bit of that, but it gets distracted with the circus people.  The Klingons seem more like a distraction than a threat and the pace is slow.

I area I was really disappointed in this book was its lack of lining up with “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Sulu for example starts as a helmsman and not a science officer, Mark Piper not being the CMO, Spock being described in his traditional uniform rather than the gold.  Now those are little things, but they still matter. I think it would have been interesting to see McCoy start off as the Assistant Chief Medical Officer, maybe have Dr. Piper hint at his retirement.  It would have been nice to meet Lee Kelso before his untimely fate.  We are given an explanation for why Mitchell isn’t around, but he was such an interesting character why do that?  Instead, we are given Lieutenant Commander Marietta Cheung, the person who was chief navigator while Mitchell was out of action (at least we remember that wasn’t Ensign Chekov’s job yet). What does Commander Cheung do in the story? Absolutely nothing.  Generally, I don’t like the idea of Kirk “inheriting” his entire crew almost intact.   

People I wish we could have seen.

 So, Sulu just graduated from the Academy, and he is already a lieutenant?  Wow that was quick! I think we might be dealing with one of the Star Trek authors who doesn’t know what an ensign is.  This is why the author has Sulu already a lieutenant after graduating.  There is also a line where Kirk is flirting with Liddy where he wishes he was still a second lieutenant.   Starfleet does not have second lieutenants.  (They do have lieutenants, junior grade, but even that isn’t the officer starting point.) Their service is more related to a navy service than an army one.  The Enterprise is also not a constellation class, however that isn’t the author’s fault as I don’t think the franchise had confirmed that yet.

I will acknowledge that the circus people were interesting.  Amelinda Lukarian, Stephen, and Mr. Cockspur were a fun group of characters.  Also, I think Kirk was being a bit of a snob when he acted like he was too good to transport them into a Starbase.  If anything, he should have been grateful after getting such an important command to have his first mission be a simple task while he gets used to his new ship and crew. I am glad Kirk finally warmed up to them, as they fun professional entertainers who deserved their chance.

There are some things added to the characters that I didn’t care for.  What was the point of giving Captain Kirk Cherokeee ancestry?  This is never mentioned in the show.  It never comes up in the story as important.  There is also the issue of white Americans who claim Native American heritage, they often claimed to be descended from some great chief or princess.  Worse is what is done to Janice Rand. It’s revealed that she is only 16 years old.  The reason she got into Starfleet is because she is legally 18. What happened was her family’s ship was damaged, and they were forced to go light speed without warp.  This kicked on Einsteinian physics which they arrived somewhere seemingly instantly, but it was two years later.  Her birth records now say one thing, but her body says another.  This is both pointless and weird and it would make many interactions with Captain Kirk and Yeoman Rand in the first season creepy. 

The people of the world ship using music as their language reminded me of the Taygetans in the Star Trek novel The Tears of the Singers. The only difference is here they didn’t have a Mozart-level talented musician to help them figure it out.  They simply had to learn our language through Spock’s mind-meld. 

To end on a positive note, I did enjoy the first major disagreement between Spock and McCoy.  Although I find Spock’s behavior during it odd. The source of their disagreement is whether the people of the WorldShip are the same people who built the WorldShip.  Spock thinks they are and McCoy disagrees and Spock is almost offended that McCoy takes that position.  Kirk finds himself annoyed when talking with Scarlett who doesn’t seem to understand what a “leader” is.  An interesting take from a species that claims they can move the entire universe.

Should it be canon: I wouldn’t mind parts of this story being canon such as the adventure with the circus people and the WorldShip, but a lot of the conflicting details would have to be scrapped.

Cover Art: Well, there isn’t much here to talk about. There is a picture of Enterprise in the top right corner of the cover.  The rest is just red and silver lettering on a blue background.

Final Grade: Final Grade 2 of 5

 

MURDER WHERE THERE SHOULD BE NONE II: THIS TIME THERE IS A LOT MORE KILLING

 

Name: Demons

Author: JM Dillard

Publication Date: 7/1986

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #30)

Page Number: 251

Historian’s Note: Some time after the events of the book Mindshadow

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”       Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura            Dr. Joseph M'Benga             Lieutenant Ingrit Tomson                   Lieutenant Stryker             Lieutenant (junior grade) Mohamed al-Baslama                Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov              Ensign Anitra Lanter             Ensign Lisa Nguyen   Ensign Sanghoon Cho       Ambassador Sarek             Amanda Grayson              T'Ylle            T'Sai        Silek             Soltar        Starnn       

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Surak (Registration unknown)

Planets: Vulcan and Beekman's Planet

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins with a murder.  A Vulcan scientist, named T’Ylle, is on an assignment to Beekman’s Planet researching the end of an ancient civilization that appears to have torn itself apart in madness.  The madness isn’t in the past however as her own research team comes down with it resulting in them murdering each other including her.

Sarek has a reunion with his brother, a researcher named Silek.  They haven’t seen each other in decades as Silek has been on an archaeological mission that has taken him away from Vulcan.  They have returned and Sarek is sorry to learn that his brother has recently been made a widower.  Silek reports that his father-in-law and mentor has been acting strangely even beyond the actions of a grieving father.  Sarek gets to meet this Vulcan named Starnn.  Upon meeting Sarek, Starnn gives him a gift one of the relics taken from the expedition.  Sarek refuses as it should be in a museum, but the two other Vulcans insist that he take it as they have so many of them.  It is reasoned that as an ambassador, Sarek can show the object to foreign dignitaries.  With that Sarek accepts the gift.

Sarek and Amanda

Sarek brings his brother home for a reunion with Amanda.  Silek has never met Spock but is amazed to learn that he is in Starfleet.  Amanda and Silek get caught up with information about each other’s family.  

On the Enterprise Lt. Tomson informs her second-in-command of his promotion, while a new young ensign in the Science department, who already has her PhD, defeats Mr. Spock in a chess match.  McCoy is quite taken with the beautiful young woman.  Her name is Anitra Lanter, and she can be a bit of a troublemaker.  As Captain Kirk finds out when she places a microphone in his shower and broadcasts his shower singing across the whole ship.

After being embarrassed in the shower

While this comic relief is going on the story also takes a serious turn as the officer who was happy to receive his promotion is found to have been murdered and not just killed but tortured to death.  As the crew of the Enterprise is dealing with this, on Vulcan Silek is concerned about his brother.  Sarek’s behavior is changing and the younger Vulcan feels that what happened with his expedition is happening here.

Mr. Spock discovers that it was Ensign Lanter’s responsibility for the prank played on Kirk and forces her to confess.  Kirk gives her a non-judicial punishment where she must tune up the ship’s engines. This is a task that to the unexperienced would take a number of days and she had to do it on her own time.  The Captain is somewhat amused when she inquiries about going on shore leave after she is done.  The Ensign, however, is really good at tuning up the engines and even Scotty is impressed with the results and hopes to have help out again someday.  As a result, she manages not to miss a bit of shore leave, to Kirk’s annoyance. 

Lanter being a pain in Kirk's side

  Kirk was sensitive at first to the idea of shore leave on Vulcan but so far everything seems okay.  Both Spock and McCoy seem to spend a lot of time with Ensign Lanter.  Later, Spock decides to check in on his parents.  At his childhood home Spock finds his uncle’s dead body, and he has been brutally murdered.  He locates his mother only to discover she is in a state hysteria. she tells Spock that something has taken control of his father and that before he died Silek wrote a letter to warn her.  

Spock mother is taking back to the ship.  It turns out their enemy is the closest thing to a demon in real life—hence the title of the book.  They are energy creatures that exit their containment boxes—the artifacts—by physical contact with a host.  Once they enter the body, they take control of the person’s mind and have access to all their memories and knowledge.  On top of that these aliens augment their host bodies strength and can make the body bend and twist in unnatural ways adding to the visual horror.  These aliens also are extreme sadists who enjoy torturing their victims to death. This is the reason for the murders. 

To make matters worse there is not one alien intelligence controlling their hosts but multiple, and this allows them to spread from host to host like a virus.  The only thing an infected individual needs to do to spread these tiny entities is make eye contact with an unaffected person.  In time this becomes widespread on Vulcan leading to multiple murders in places unaccustomed to any.  An officer on the Enterprise named Striker infects many crew members including Scotty who go on to infect many more. 

Crew falling under mind control

It is at this point we learn the truth about our new Ensign.  Lanter is a human being with a mutation that gives her telepathic powers.  In other words, she has the power to read minds sometimes even if she doesn’t want to.  She had been assigned to the Enterprise by Starfleet Command so Mr. Spock could help her control her powers.  This is why Spock has been spending so much time with her also intelligence became aware of possibility of the alien threat and realized her abilities would be an asset to fighting this threat.

With most of the ship under control of these demon aliens, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Lanter lock themselves in auxiliary control.  They realize they must stop the Enterprise from traveling and infecting more planets and starships.  They plan to inflict some crippling damage to the ship that will take even the infected Scotty sometime to repair. Then they will escape by shuttle to head to Vulcan and use the research labs at the Science Academy to help find a way to destroy the “demons’ hold” on much of the population.  The whole plan starts to sour as Kirk is infected and appears to destroy the shuttle with the young Ensign on it to the horror of Dr. McCoy.  Infected Kirk gloats about the tortures he plans to put McCoy through.  It appears that Spock and McCoy are doomed but Lanter, who faked her death, gets them out of there.  All three escaped to Vulcan even though Spock really didn’t want to bring McCoy along.

Locked in Auxiliary Control

They land on Vulcan but not wanting to encounter anyone they decide to land in the desert and get head to the city on foot.  McCoy is injured and they stop at a Vulcan settlement run by Vulcans undergoing the practice of Kolinahr.  As a monastery they do not get many visitors, so they have been immune to the problem on most of Vulcan.  Spock alerts them to what is going on and asks them to take on no new students.  Spock and Lanter head out to try to solve the problem, and Spock orders McCoy to stay behind.  McCoy ignores the order and leaves and nearly gets killed again. 

Kolinahr Monastery

  

Back on the Enterprise, infected Kirk has been captured by Uhura and is then locked up alone.  This isolation cures Kirk of his infection.  Unfortunately, he soon loses Uhura to infected Sulu.  Kirk is able to lock up Tomson, and she gets better and the two of them capture the infected Sulu and Uhura.

On Vulcan, McCoy thinks he may have come up with a treatment that they could use on the infected.  Spock thinks his father would be a good guinea pig.  He goes to capture him but is severally injured in a battle with his infected father.  Lanter goes after Spock, but she gets infected as well.  The infected Sarek and Lanter capture McCoy, and they have him treat Spock’s injuries, all the while telling him of the tortures that they are going to put him and Spock though.  However, McCoy gets the jump on them when he knocks them both out with a phaser. 

It turns out the creatures thrive on spreading and feeding on the suffering of others, if an infected person is insolation for too long the entities will die.  The only exception to this is when they are in a type of suspended animation in their designer containers that we saw in the beginning of the story. McCoy mixes an anaesthetizing gas that will keep people out long enough for the evil creatures in them to die.  This works for both Sarek and Lanter.

The Enterprise enters orbit.  Kirk and some recovered crew members have gained control of the ship just as its engines were restored.  They take some fire from the Surak but manage to evade them.  Kirk gets in contact with Spock and McCoy and some explanations are given both ways.  Kirk volunteers the Enterprise to test McCoy’s gas, they transport containers of it up and put it to work. The Enterprise is normal in a few days. They then place it in the Vulcan atmosphere and peace is restored.  The remaining relicts that were untouched are placed under heavy guard.  

As the crew of the Enterprise and the population of Vulcan are recovering from what has happened, young Ensign Lanter decides Starfleet is not for her.  She has gotten what she needs to control her abilities from Mr. Spock and she feels that she is too much of a free spirit to stay in the rigid Starfleet hierarchy.  Lanter says her good-byes to Dr. McCoy and plants one more microphone in Kirk’s shower on the way out.  

Additional thoughts: This was a great Star Trek adventure. Star Trek doesn’t often do horror well just look at “Catspaw” and “Wolf in the Fold.”  This story is extremely exciting you don’t know what is going to happen next.  At any point any character can become infected, and you see no way out for the heroes.  I will add that the resolution of the story seemed to come easy.  That I think was necessary in terms of the story’s structure.  The demonic entities moved so fast that they would have overtaken the entire side of the galaxy in short time, therefore the resolution also must be able to move with great speed.   

I really enjoyed meeting Spock’s uncle Silek.  I was sad to see him die and I wish we could have seen more of him.  It was interesting in the beginning to see Sarek interacting with his brother as a peer as opposed to most of the time, he is presented as a sage giving advice.  In the book Silek is said to have a strong resemblance to Spock.  I can relate to that as I look more like my father’s youngest brother than I do him.  My favorite part is when we learn that Silek in choosing not to go into the family business of the diplomatic corps, his father stopped speaking with him and Sarek had to defy his father in order to maintain a relationship with his brother.  Since he has been on his science mission for over thirty years, he missed Spock’s birth and upbringing.  When he hears that Spock is a Starfleet officer, he lets Amanda know how impressed he is that his brother didn’t follow their father’s example and shun him.  Amanda doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he did.  Maybe Silek would still be impressed that Sarek at least got over it and returned normal relations.  We will never know.

In the book, “The Vulcan Academy Murders,” it mentioned that murder was unheard of in a thousand years on Vulcan. I titled that review “Murder Where There Should Be None.” This story puts that earlier one to shame for there wasn’t just a plan few murders but wholesale slaughter of thousands. Enough to try even cold Vulcan logic. 

I really didn’t like Lt. Tomson confrontation with Lt. Stryker.  Where she tells him that he killed her would-be-boyfriend Lt. Mohamed al-Baslama.  I really prefer Spock’s attitude when someone pointed out that his father killed his uncle he strongly responded with “My father has killed no one.” No one can be blamed for what these things did, and Tomson should be ashamed of herself. 

Ensign Lanter has been referenced by others as being a clear example of a “Mary Sue.” I disagree with that. While she certainly starts out that way I think it’s an intentional red herring.  Sues usually have a couple of traits that she is missing.  For one, Sues’ abilities are typically unexplained, however we do get an explanation: her telepathic powers.  It’s easy to repair engines when you can pull the information straight out of Scotty’s brain.  Also, she doesn’t die.  That is something that a Mary Sue is bound to do.    

When Spock and his company find themselves with the practitioners of Kloniare it makes me wonder if this is where Spock gets the idea to attempt it himself in “The Motion Picture.”  When McCoy is attacked by the le-matya, Spock makes reference to the loss of I-Chaya in the episode “Yesteryear.”

tragic encounter for young Spock

Lastly, why can’t the young Ensign Lanter leave poor Captain Kirk alone.  Do we really want to hear his shower singing all over the ship.  Does she really like Rocketman that much?

Should it be canon: I have no problem with this story being part of the official Star Trek canon as it does not conflict with anything and it’s a great story

Cover Art: The cover has Ensign Latner in civilian dress holding one of the containers that held these Demon entities. One her right is Dr. McCoy and on her left if Mr. Spock.  The cover is a lie, however, as both Spock and McCoy are dressed in their Starfleet monster maroon movie uniforms.  The story actually takes place in the last year of the five-year mission. 

Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5

A BIG SHIP AND A BAD ADMIRAL

 

Name: Dreadnought!

Author: Diane Carey

Publication Date: 5/1986

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #29)

Page Number: 252

Historian’s Note: Sometime between The Counter-clock Incident and The Motion Picture

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”       Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura            Dr. Joseph M'Benga      Dr. Merete AndrusTaurus           Lieutenant Piper                     Lieutenant Sarda           Lieutenant (junior grade) Judd "Scanner" Sandage            Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov              Ensign Diana Flores               Ensign Rachel Lanz       Crewman Baldridge       Crewman Broxon            Crewman Carr         Crewman Hopton       Crewman Meyers         Crewman Novelwry          Cadet Telosirizharcrede     Dr. Samuel Boma         Vice Admiral Vaughan Rittenhouse                  Commodore Roy Nash        Captain Stephen Leedson             Captain Sukaru Tutakai      Captain Niditoricumtu Ro      Commander Josephson                   Commander Paul Burch         Commander Lu Sing Quaid       Commander Susan Yin               Lieutenant Illya Galina                 Lieutenant Page                   Lieutenant Brian Silayna                     Lieutenant Li Wang      Ensign Booth              

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Hornet NCC-1714, USS Pompeii NCC-424, USS Potemkin, USS Star Empire MKC-2331, USS Lincoln (unknown registration), Gray Matter, Stocking Cap, Wooden Shoe, Zipper Fly, and several unknown Klingon battle cruisers

Planets: Earth

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins the same way The Wrath of Khan does with the Kobayashi Maru.  Lt. Piper, (who has no other name like Madonna) a graduate student at Starfleet Academy’s command program is taking the test. Her performance ends like they all do, her ship is destroyed.  She set the second longest run-time in Academy history.  This performance gets her a placement on the USS Enterprise. 

Like Saavik years later, Piper takes the Kobayashi Maru test

Piper arrives on the Enterprise and upon her arrival she meets a few roommates that she will be having.  The rooms are co-ed and co-multiple species.  Among her new roommates is a Gorn who is first ever Starfleet cadet.  She also discovers her former love interest, a Vulcan named Lt. Sarda, whom she often teases, exposing her ignorance of Vulcan culture, to his clear annoyance.  

Gorn in the Academy

Before she can even get changed Lt. Piper is summoned to the bridge.  When she gets to the bridge, she is debriefed by Kirk and Spock about their mission.  A Starfleet prototype starship called the USS Star Empire of new class of starship called the Dreadnoughts, has been stolen by rouge Starfleet officers.  The rebels have sent a message, but it can only be accessed using Lt. Piper’s bio code.  Piper has no idea why this is.  

The Enterprise warps out to meet Star Empire and a rendezvous point.  When they get there, they find the Dreadnought being attacked by four Klingon Birds of Prey.  The Enterprise intervenes by destroying one Klingon ship and crippling another.  However, two remaining still outnumber the Constitution-class starship.  Then the damaged ship the Klingons thought they were fighting turns out to be a sensor projection and that the real Star Empire is hiding.  It enters the battle and dispatches the two Klingon ships.

Dreadnought class

When it comes time to talk the Piper bio-code is given so communications are open.  Piper recognizes the man on the other end as Lt.  Brian Silayna.  Lt. Silayna reads a message from Commander Paul Burch stating that they have seized the dreadnaught in the name of galactic civility and request an ambassadorial party of Kirk, Piper, and a Vulcan (it apparently doesn’t much which one). As not one to negotiate with terrorists Kirk cuts the transmission and orders Piper arrested for conspiracy.    

Piper doesn’t stay locked up for long, using an old engineering trick she breaks out of confinement and walks into her Vulcan ex-boyfriend. Sarda is upset that by the way Starfleet is using his weapons designs, so he joins her.  He also informs her that the dreadnought is now out of range so they can’t just transport over.  Instead of a shuttlecraft they steal a 2-seat Arco-class light attack "sled" that Starfleet must have invented yesterday because I have never heard of it before.  They manage to take off before anyone realizes that they are gone.   

They don’t get to the Star Empire, however because the destroyer Pompeii drops out of warp, uses a tractor beam to haul their sled inside its hangar bay.  The two runaways meet Vice-Admiral Rittenhouse, who informs them that Commander Burch was his personal aide until he betrayed him.  The Admiral is convinced that the Commander is insane. The Enterprise arrives and interestingly Kirk doesn’t tell the Admiral that the two officers he has are there via an escape.  After the conversation with Kirk ends, Rittenhouse discusses the recent galactic political situation and hints at his desire to unite the various galactic governments under a common flag of peace.

Pompeii

Piper, becoming suspicious of Rittenhouse, uses the destroyer's computer to access Starfleet and Federation organizational charts. She and Sarda find a disturbing pattern: men that had served with Rittenhouse over the years had been placed in high levels of the civilian and military leadership, including the captains of the three other starships that are on their way. Believing Rittenhouse may be planning a military coup, Piper tries to contact the Enterprise, only to be caught and thrown in the brig, again. 

Piper explains to Sandra that Rittenhouse has dreams of galactic conquest that would never work not because it’s physically impossible but because it would violate her libertarian world view. She knows this is true because she wrote a paper on it back in college.

Piper and Sandra escape again, showing us, the brigs are kind of useless.  While escaping they recruit some help from friends they have on board, Lt. Sandage and Dr. AndrusTaurus.  Together they come across a meeting between Rittenhouse and his various captains and spy on it.  It turns out all the Enterprise officers despise one of the Admiral’s top assistants, a civilian scientist named Dr. Boma.  Kirk, refusing to go along with the Admiral’s plan to kill everyone on the Star Empire finds himself, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty all arrested.

Piper and her companions decide to rescue the senior Enterprise officers only to find that the four had already escaped themselves.  It turns out Kirk and the rest were moving to try to save Piper and her friends.  They all work to sabotage the destroyer.  Kirk’s group escapes to the Enterprise while Piper and her team continue their sabotage.  

Piper threatens to self-destruct the Arco attack sled they arrived on and take out the destroyer with it. Rittenhouse, to save himself, allows them to escape. The four of them escape in two attack sleds, skimming along the destroyer's hull to avoid being shot by the Pompeii's phaser batteries. Piper destroys one phaser bank, then the two sleds fly away from the destroyer and towards the Star Empire.

Turns out that the Star Empire has only a skeleton crew of bureaucrats who have no idea how to run a starship.  So, despite the fact that they are on a starship that should easily destroy their opponents, they really are sitting ducks.  It is Piper who is the one who gets them to stop using the computer incorrectly so they can survive.

 Enterprise enters the battle, but it does not go well and must surrender.  However, it turns out that surrender is just a ruse to allow the enemy to lower their shields and the Enterprise can then cause heavy damage to two enemy ships with a surprise phaser attack.  Due to injuries aboard Star Empire, Piper is forced to take command as the only officer with any tactical experience. She puts her ship in between their opponents and the Enterprise and threatens to destroy their four adversaries with the dreadnought’s superior fire power. Three ships retreat but the Pompeii calls her bluff and flies straight at the Star Empire. Rittenhouse is right and Piper can’t bring herself to fire upon them.  Kirk can, however, and the Enterprise destroys the Pompeii.  

With the Rittenhouse conspiracy exposed the Federation is saved from a mad military coup.  Piper is given the Medal of Valor and a promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.  She closes with joke shared with Captain Kirk.

Additional thoughts: This was a fun action-packed adventure. An interesting plot with a good epic space naval battle.  I thought it was interesting that they started this adventure with a Kobayashi Maru test it was a good connection to what was established in The Wrath of Khan.   It appears that this test is set up for graduate students in Command school.  Piper like Saavik before her is already a commissioned officer in Starfleet.  In fact, Piper is already a full lieutenant where Saavik will be a lieutenant (junior grade) when her time comes.  

So, the Gorn are in Starfleet now.  One day a Gorn Captain is engaged in fisticuffs with Captain Kirk and now we are welcoming them into Starfleet.  Won’t the Metrons be so impressed with us?  They might want to get to know us better in a few centuries and not a few millennia. 

I thought it was interesting that this story centered on Starfleet officers stealing a starship when the last time the audience saw are heroes, they themselves did exactly that.  You have to wonder if Kirk and Scotty picked up any ideas on how to steal the Enterprise in The Search for Spock from the theft of the Star Empire.

So apparently Serek isn’t the only Vulcan with an eye for human ladies.  Piper’s ex-boyfriend is the Vulcan Lt. Sarda.  It’s clear why their relationship never worked.  The way Piper misunderstands and tries to tease him about his culture it’s a surprise that Sarda even puts up with Piper.

Bird of Prey

It was nice to see Klingon Birds of Prey in action.  Considering the only time, we saw the Enterprise face off against one she was severely damaged and had a crew of five.  Although Commander Kruge said that the Enterprise outguns his ship ten to one, and that under normal circumstances his little ship would be crushed, it was hard to see the Enterprise’s last battle be against something it should overwhelm but never got the opportunity to.  This time we got to see the Enterprise handle multiple Birds of Prey and destroying/damaging some. 

Bird of Prey

The Star Empire’s capabilities raise the question why starships aren’t built like this all the time anyway.  To be fair it is not made for exploration it was made for conquest.  It clearly wasn’t unbeatable as Rittenhouse had a plan to take it down with a fleet of starships.  However, it is to be noted that he would need a fleet to do that with.

I think my favorite part of this book is the return of Boma.  In my review of the episode “The Galileo Seven” I could not stand the three Starfleet lieutenants who harassed Spock.  Boma wasn’t alone in his insubordination, but he gave a lot.  Not only that but he had questionable ethics: how many lives do you risk recovering a dead body.  I am glad Mr. Scott reported him to the Captain, and he deserved to be drummed out of the service.   

bad officers

I wasn’t particularly keen on the author’s clear libertarian views, which she presents as clear historical facts, and Sarda backs up a lot of her statements.  Even agreeing that there is no real thing such as “the public good.” It was also weird when Piper argued with a crewmate who happened to victim or Orion pirates, and as such was supporting Admiral Rittenhouse.  Piper tries to argue that Rittenhouse’s method won’t work and “Klingons and Orions have a right to be what they are.”  Really, Piper.  One would think their rights to be “as they are” would end where someone else’s rights began.  If Klingons like to kill and conquer and Orions like to kill and lout, wouldn’t the right of other intelligent beings to not be the victims of such behavior be more important and worth defending.  There are other reasons to be against Rittenhouse’s plan, attacking every other galactic power all at once with the aim of total conquest seems rather suicidal no matter how many dreadnoughts you may have.

During the battle the Enterprise pretends to surrender and then attacks.  The problem is that is a war crime.  It’s called perfidy.   Is a deceptive tactic where one side pretends to act in good faith in laying down of arms and singling surrender, but does so with the deliberate intention of attacking when the other side is prepared to receive said surrender.  Now I understand the laws are different in 23^rd century but I don’t think that would have changed.

This story often gets accused of the “Mary Sue” stereotype. With Piper being the “Mary Sue.” I don’t feel that’s the case.  Piper isn’t uniquely talented or the best at anything.  She often screws up.  At times she is a real jerk, especially to her ex-boyfriend.  Although her jerkiness seems to come from more ignorance than malice.  These are traits Sues typically don’t have. Although the book does commit the sin of having the traditional Star Trek characters being reduced to guest stars in a story in their series.

Another little thing I noticed is everyone calls Vice Admiral Rittenhouse “Vice Admiral.”  This is weird because colloquially Vice Admirals are just called, “Admiral.”   

This also book also seems to be the start of “Bad Admiral” or as it is known “Badmiral” troupe.  This becomes a thing in Star Trek with these Admirals who have become corrupt and are up to no good.  In the classic series there were a lot of incompetent Federation commissioners, but no admirals.  You could point out Admiral Iota in “The Web of the Romulans” but he wasn’t bad or evil just a little misguided. Vice Admiral Vaughan Rittenhouse is our Badmiral #1.  

Should it be canon: I was originally going to say no, due to the sheer power of the Star Empire.  It doesn’t quite add up with the rest of Starfleet ship building history.  However, with its dismantling and discontinuation I suppose this story could fit.

Cover Art: The cover has Captain Kirk at the bottom towards the viewer’s left. Next to him on the viewer’s right is Lieutenants Piper and Sarda.  Above the characters is the Star Empire in all its glory.

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5