JOURNEY TO BABEL THE SEQUEL

 

Name: Death’s Angel

Author: Kathleen Sky

Publication Date: 4/1981

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 211

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 Commander Greg Collier                   Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura              Lieutenant Kyle                Lieutenant Angela Mendoza          Lieutenant Jeff Williams                    Dr. Joseph M'Benga               Dr. Ruth Rigel             Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Security Officer First Class Jamison       Security Officer First Class Matthews               Security Officer First Class Bobby Robinson              Medical Technician Second Class Miriam Raymond             Crewman Grace Temple          Colonel Elizabeth Schaeffer                 Colonel Alexis Schaeffer            Lieutenant Colonel Derek Gleason         Ambassador Sarek       Ambassador Agnatha of Jezero                Ambassador Damu of Chiroptera           Ambassador Edentata of Tandenborstel                       Ambassador Hotep of Djoser              Ambassador Karhu of Hanaja             Ambassador Naja of Dalzell              Ambassador Neko of Gyuunyuu         Ambassador Rovar of Hemiptera              Ambassador Sirenia of Cetacea               Ambassador Si-s-s-s(click) of Gavialian          Ambassador Spiracles          Ambassador Telson of Manteiga

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, XK Needle, Détente Station One

Planets: Delta Gamma IV

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins with a mission that went haywire.  The crew of the Enterprise were exploring an uninhabited planet for potential colonization. Delta Gamma IV had a planet species that shoots spores into the local indigenous slug-like creatures.  Thus, the creatures go into a dream sleep and telepathically move the spores. (I think that was how it worked.)  Unfortunately, if you were not one of that species the spores would mess you up real bad.  That is what happened to the landing party of the Enterprise.   Three crewmembers died and the everyone else was in a coma including the Captain and First Officer.  McCoy desperately seeks an answer on the planet, Scotty gives him a deadline before they will have to report to Starbase and try to solve things there.  One by one, however, the landing party wakes up.  Spock seems to recover the easiest although he is not interested in talking.  Kirk notes that he has a hard time telling if he is awake or still dreaming.  Time goes on and the surviving landing party passed all tests allowing them to return to active duty.

Spores of death

As things get back to normal the Enterprise is giving a new assignment.  The Romulan Star Empire wants to talk.  The Federation’s oldest enemy wants to negotiate and end hostilities.  The Enterprise is tasked with transporting ambassadors to the conference.  Leading the delegation is Spock’s father, Ambassador Sarek.  The Ambassadors to this conference show the diversity of the United Federation of Planets.  They are big and small, one looks like a vampire, one looks like a rock, one looks like a lobster, and another looks like a cat.  Everyone likes the lobster, and everyone hates the cat.  In the opening meeting the cat and the lobster nearly got in a fight.  This is not off to a great start.

Sarek is back

It gets even worse.  Soon an ambassador is dead followed by another.  Both murdered ambassadors in the anti-détente camp.  Some of the ambassadors believe they have seen an angel of death when their fellow ambassadors were killed.  At the request of one of the still living ambassadors, Kirk contacts the Special Security Division.  The SSD is an ultra-militarized section of the Federation.  They investigate all sorts of crime and threats to the Federation’s security.  To most of Starfleet they are “outsiders”, and they typically have cold relations.  The SSD officer arrives in a little one-person shuttle, and the first thing Kirk notices is she is very beautiful.  Her name is Colonel Elizabeth Schaeffer, and she is considered to be one of the finer SSD investigators. 

Ambassadors keep disappearing 

At this point the story shifts into mostly Col. Schaeffer’s point of view.  We learn she is married to another SSD colonel, but their marriage is on the rocks and set to expire. She is a little ahead on the career path than her husband.  They have the same rank, but she got it first.  He is also possessive and throughout the book he tries to contact her and asks her to shorten her investigation in order to be with him.  The first thing the Colonel does is she orders the ship to be put in quarantine and to pull out of warp until the killer is caught.  When Kirk objects she points out to him that she has an explosive on her ship and if necessary to prevent this killer from getting loose a the Starbase she will destroy the Enterprise and all aboard her.  Kirk decides it’s best to defer to her investigation.

Schaeffer’s decides to spend the night with one ambassador who like the murdered two against becoming friendly with the Romulans.  During the night the ambassador died of natural causes, so the Colonel was confident he wasn’t murdered.  In between being harassed by her husband, Schaeffer also finds herself being courted by Captain Kirk.  She finds Kirk very attractive and appealing, so interest is two ways. 

The Federation has many groups of people

Ambassador S-s-s-s (click) is very helpful and offers to help the Colonel with her investigation.  Together they host a tea party with other ambassadors.  Instead of tea they mostly drink booze. Since the cat was one of those killed, the other ambassadors don’t seem to care about finding the killer because they think the cat deserved it.  One goes so far to say whoever the killer was deserves a reward for his hard work getting rid of the nasty cat.  Schaeffer doesn’t get any closer to finding the killer, but she does get drunk.  Then while she is alone with her friendly ambassador, he shows off his shape-shifting powers leading the reader to thing for a moment that he is the killer.

However, we quickly learn that he can’t because another murder occurs while the party is going on.  Kirk is upset that Schaeffer was off drinking when someone was getting murdered, but he quickly gets over it.  This new murder seems to be the Mary Jane Kelly of this killer.  The Death Angel is getting more viscous having literally just ripped apart his latest victim. While this is going on Kirk, realizing Schaeffer’s marriage will soon end, proposes to her himself. She tells him she won’t think about it until after her marriage expires.  Kirk then tells her about Delta Gamma IV, and the weird dreams he has been having.  In his dream he was following another woman he had been hitting on, he decided to go back and tripped on rock and woke up.  Schaeffer’s investigation reveals that Kirk was following her, and the “rock” he tripped on was an ambassador who claims Kirk then disappeared. It appears Kirk can now astral project because of the spore contract. 

Schaeffer then checks with Spock who also was having dreams become astral projections form from his dreams.  Spock is ashamed to admit that in a dream state he cannot control his emotions and as result his dream self seeks out sex with a female crewmember and they have sex in her dreams.  However, Spock makes clear its consensual and his sex partner was more than willing, but he is still ashamed of his conduct.

Schaeffer’s husband uses his authority to remove the quarantine of the Enterprise and have Starfleet Command order her to resume mission.  He does this because he wants his wife to end the investigation so she can hang out with him.  Later Dr. McCoy goes on with one of his famous tirades against the détente with the Romulans.  He basically says that since the opposition has been targeted it should now be supported.  Schaeffer stands guard in McCoy’s quarters.  The Angel shows up and it turns out to be the astral projection of Dr. Joseph M'Benga.  In his subconscious with his desire for peace, he targeted all those who stood against it.  Schaeffer tries to stop him but is unable due to his power.  Kirk and Spock manage to break in and use their connection to the spores to stop the out-of-control doctor.

All is well that ends well.  The spores are finally out of everyone.  No one blames M’Benga and he will be getting treatment for his condition.  The husband Alexis Schaeffer is demoted to lieutenant colonel for his actions.  Colonel Elizabeth Schaeffer expands her reputation for solving the case. The remaining Ambassadors go on to their discussions with the Romulans.    

Additional thoughts: The dramatic ending saved some of this story for me, up into the last few chapters I was going to label this story a “2,” the exciting pace towards the end made a “3.” The whole book had a very “Journey to Babel” feel.  There is an important conference, the Enterprise is required to transport ambassadors there, the ambassadors represent the vast diversity of life in the United Federation of Planets, and some ambassadors are murdered making finding the killer a priority.  The author used the advantage of the print medium to expand on what the episode started.  Since there is no television budget nor limited graphics and make-up the reader is treated to some of the strangest species the Federation has to offer.  Unfortunately, that is also a drawback.  There are so many characters who have extremely odd shapes and names that it is difficult to keep track of them all.  I would have to re-read certain pages when I suddenly remembered that the character in the scene was not a humanoid but a slug, and just misinterpreted everything that happened.

The Federation

Another issue with this story is when Colonel Elizabeth Schaeffer shows up, she starts to dominate the story at the expense of the title characters.  This reminds me a bit of “Assignment: Earth” (an episode a lot of fans love but that I never cared for) where the main cast turns into supporting characters to showcase Gary Seven.  In her last book the author introduced us to Dr. Katalya Tremain.  The two characters have a lot in common.  They are both women in the top of their fields, and they are both in a marriage that has gone stale, but their marriage contract is going to expire (an interesting concept in of itself) so they are just going to let it lapse, except Tremain’s husband died before that could happen.  However, Tremain is different in two important ways.  The first is Tremain is actually interesting.  She was a genius that a bigotry against Vulcans and yet she didn’t come off like a typical bigot.  Schaeffer is just boring.  The only thing interesting about her was she threatened to blow up the ship.  The threat was hard to take seriously, I kept waiting for her to reveal it as a bluff.  That never happened and I thought that was dumb.  “Someone is a murderer here and I intended to find them.  The ship can’t go anywhere because the killer could get loose.  So, in order to stop that I might have to kill the over four hundred people on this ship.”  That would make her the bigger villain.  I have to ignore that in order to make the story work.  The second way the two characters are different is Tremain spends most of her time with Dr. McCoy or Mr. Spock.  Schaeffer spends most of her time with Ambassador S-s-s-s (click), another character who means nothing to me.  When I read a “Star Trek” novel I expect the “Star Trek” characters to be at forefront.     

Who's show is this?

I did find the Special Security Division interesting.  A Federation police organization that’s run like the Army, as opposed to the Navy like Starfleet.  The two organizations are somewhat rivals.  I would like to know more about them.  I also thought there should have been a note in text to check out the appendix at the end of the book.

So, Kirk is confident in Sarek’s abilities.  I don’t see why considering how badly Sarek screwed up last time. I did enjoy the scene with Schaeffer telling Sarek how dumb he is being.  I also enjoyed Kirk’s apparent fear of vampires almost leads him to discriminate against one of the ambassadors.  He needs to remember what he told Stiles in “Balance of Terror.” Kirk should keep his bigotry in his quarters.

Kirk needs the same

Was the woman Spock was visiting in his ghost state Nurse Chapel?  That would make sense, Spock insisted that the person was “very willing.”  I wonder if Chapel even suspected her “happy dreams” were real.  Why is Kirk so interested in Schaeffer?  I kept thinking it was the spores.  I don’t mind him flirting but why go head over heels?  It’s the Rayna problem all over again. I did appreciate that McCoy was not surprised at the revelation.

Why does Kirk like her so much again?

Just like the last book keep mentioning the Klingons only to never have them show up it interesting that this book does that with the Romulans.  So, the guess the conference for better relations didn’t work out after all.  The Romulans are going to keep being a problem.

Should it be canon: I don’t know. Mainly I don’t like what happened to M'Benga.  I really feel the book and any other extended universe items should stay clear of making major life altering things to occur in the lives of the regular cast. Granted they said M'Benga was not responsible for what happened, and he would be treated.

Cover Art: The cover art is nice.  You have the figure of death with a skull under a good. Between the skull and the hood are stars and planets. The figure is holding an hourglass with the Enterprise trapped inside.

Final Grade: Final Grade 3 of 5