Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 – Story 2 “Snake
Pit”
Author: Connie Faddis
Publication Date: 1/1978
Publisher: Bantam Books
Page Number: 34
Historian’s Note: Sometime after The Second Season of the Animated Series
Cast of Characters: Captain James T. Kirk Commander
Spock Dr. Leonard H. McCoy
AKA “Bones” Lieutenant
Commander Irvin Domberwicky Nurse
Christine Chapel Ensign Pavel
Chekov Administrator Gehres many unnamed Hualans
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Vestalan
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise
has been sent to the planet Vestalan to deal with a diplomatic disaster. Vestalan is the home of a species of snake
called coatls, whose venom is used to make Derivative 249. D-249 is used to
treat pan-human neurotransmission disorders.
Thousands of lives are at stake.
Federation rules and morals demands that they don’t take any without the
permission of the local inhabitants, a primitive people called the
Hualans. The Hualans are organized into a
cult and that cult lately sees that the omens have turned on the Federation. They refuse the to allow the taking of the
snakes and Administrator Gehres has sent two representatives to talk to them.
The Hualans then turned the two representatives into sacrifices.
The reason the Enterprise was chosen for this mission was not due to the usual excuse of their being the only starship in the sector, rather because the Enterprise’s expert in anthropology, Lt. Cmdr. Domberwicky has direct successful experience with the Hualans. Nurse Chapel was chosen for the landing party as she had been to this planet before with Roger Colby. Vestalan itself is an interesting planet, hot enough it long ago melted its polar ice caps and what little land it has left is very tropic. In addition to that the planet is small like Earth’s moon with the gravity to match. So, they get to travel with great leaps in a single bound.
 |
| Chapel doesn't like things that remind her of Roger |
Domberwicky doesn’t return so
Kirk and Chapel go looking for him. They
get captured by the Hualans. While
captured some of the Hualans enter their cell and beat on Captain Kirk, when he
refuses to let the female Hualan molest him. When they beat on him enough, they
leave, and Kirk asks Chapel if these people ever had any nice traits. Later they come back and drag Captain Kirk out
of his cell bringing him somewhere and leaving Chapel behind.
Domberwicky finally returns and tells Chapel he has made a deal with the Hualans to release them. She can leave now as they have already returned Captain Kirk to the ship. She calls him a liar and he admitted it. He says Kirk has already been sent to the snake pit and is as good as dead. Chapel, remembering how upset Spock was when he thought Kirk was dead in “Amok Time” refuses to leave without him. She goes down to wear the snake pit is. Kirk is in there sounded by dangerous animals who want to leave him and pools of lava. He is wounded, mostly naked with sunburns, and barely conscious.
 |
| A traumatic experience for Mr. Spock |
Chapel,
remembering she was told the Hualans often get drunk at these ceremonies and
are prone to gambling. She tells
Domberwicky to see if they will allow her to rescue him with only her knife and
she bets she can do it without injury.
Domberwicky does this and the Hualans are eager and start taking bets
about this among themselves. The
conditions are Chapel will be allowed to try with only her knife as a tool and
she will have to be completely naked.
Chapel agrees to this and she strips down and attempts her rescue. Chapel leaps into the pit and with the low gravity is able to leap her way to the Captain. She defeats some of the snakes, and then lifts the Captain up in a fireman’s hold. With the Captain secure she carries him out of the snake pit. This impresses the Hualans so much that they see Chapel’s success as an omen that they want the Federation around. Chapel has saved Captain Kirk, completes the mission, and there will be plenty of Derivative 249 for everyone.
 |
| All is right in the world |
Additional thoughts: Well, that was fun little
story. I complained in my last review
about the supporting cast not getting its due and this story delivered. The whole story is told from Chapel’s point
of view. I liked in the beginning how we learned about Chapel’s unhappiness
with this assignment as it brought up memories of Roger. I also enjoyed how one of the reasons she is
determined to save Kirk is because of her affection for Spock.
The
fact that planet had such low gravity made it easier to imagine that Nurse
Chapel could lift Captain Kirk over her shoulder and carry him out. It created
quite the visual in my mind.
I
always think it’s weird when we are introduced to a lieutenant commander we
haven’t meet before. That is the rank
that both Dr. McCoy and Scotty hold. It was also the rank that Mr. Spock held
in the first season. Since Sulu is the
third officer of ship, I think most other officers should be beneath him in
rank with exception of some doctors.
I did
take a little bit of issue with the story claiming that Chapel was already a
doctor who just took the job of a nurse. The author apparently got this idea
from Majel Barrett, according to the footnote.
However, it is clearly stated later (yes, I am violating my rule of
talking about future Star Trek in a review) in The Motion Picture that
she recently became a MD. That was my
only issue and its minor.
Should it be canon: I don’t have any problem with
this story line being added to the canon of Star Trek. I think it would be a great addition.
Cover Art: As I said after the first story:
The cover has the Enterprise flying in front of what appears to be a wrecked space station. Both appear to be in orbit around a planet that you can see part of in the corner. There is this red haze that surrounds everything.
Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5
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