FASTER THAN FASTER THAN LIGHT

 

Name: The Wounded Sky

Author: Diane Duane

Publication Date: 12/1983

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #13)

Page Number: 255

Historian’s Note:  After The Counter-Clock Incident and before 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              Lieutenant Larry Aledort                Lieutenant Kyle           Lieutenant Amekentra                    Lieutenant Athendë            Lieutenant Jerry Freeman         Lieutenant Heming            Lieutenant Janíce Kerasus               Lieutenant Mahásë               Lieutenant  Harb Tanzer      Dr. Joseph M'Benga        Nurse Christine Chapel          Nurse Lia Burke           Ensign Pavel Chekov      Ensign Anita Ross        Ensign Niwa Awath-mánë ri d'Hennish enu-ma'Qe           Crewman Dithra              Crewman Matlock        Crewman Mosley               Crewman Niliet,               Crewman Mayri Sagady,             Commodore Katha'sat        Commander K’t’lk            

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase 18, USS Arizona (Registration unknown), USS Armstrong (Registration unknown), USS Bannockburn (Registration unknown), USS Bismarck (Registration unknown), USS Bonhomme Richard NCC-1712, USS Challenger NCC-1715, USS Clarke (Registration unknown), USS Condor (Registration unknown), USS Constellation NCC-1728, USS Constitution NCC-1700, USS Dataphda (Registration unknown), USS Divine Wind (Registration unknown), USS Eilonwy (Registration unknown), USS Erinnye (Registration unknown), USS Ewet (Registration unknown), USS Ferris's Folly (Registration unknown), USS Henrietta Leavitt (Registration unknown), USS Hypsipyle (Registration unknown), USS Inaieu (Registration unknown), USS Indomitable (Registration unknown) USS Intrepid NCC-1730, USS Isshasshte (Registration unknown), USS John F. Kennedy (Registration unknown), USS Kamë (Registration unknown), USS Lewis (Registration unknown), USS Lookfar (Registration unknown), USS Malacandra (Registration unknown), USS Manhattan (Registration unknown), USS Marya Morevna (Registration unknown), USS M'hasien (Registration unknown), USS Milton Humason (Registration unknown), USS Mor'anh Merin'hen (Registration unknown), USS Na'i'in (Registration unknown), USS Potemkin NCC-1657, USS Queen Elizabeth III (Registration unknown),USS Queen Christina (Registration unknown), USS Ransom (Registration unknown), USS Raptor (Registration unknown), USS Resolute (Registration unknown), USS Rodger Young (Registration unknown), USS Sadat (Registration unknown), USS Sorithias (Registration unknown), USS Sulam (Registration unknown), USS Surak (Registration unknown), USS Tao Feng (Registration unknown), USS Thermopylae (Registration unknown), USS T'Laea (Registration unknown), USS Valkyr (Registration unknown), USS Yorktown NCC-1717, IKS Amak, IKS Enekti, IKS Kaza, IKS K'j'khrry, IKS Kytin, IKS Menekku, IKS Okuv, IKS Tukab

Planets: Altair IV, Mars, and Rukbah V

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins when Captain Kirk receives exciting news, the Enterprise has been selected to participate in an experiment in a new type of faster than light propulsion.  They arrive at Starbase 18.  While at the Starbase the meet the inventor of this new technology. Her name is Commander K’t’lk, a Starfleet reserve officer.  Her species is Hamalki, a giant spider-like species, whose center body is shiny and at times transparent.  Someone who fears spiders might have a hard time serving with her, however she could very well win them over with her charming personality.  She instantly makes friends with almost all the crew, particularly the Captain and Chief Engineer.   

K’t’lk explains her device, the inversion drive, operates on a similar level to the transporter, but it is its own pad. They will be able to use it to go to one end of the universe to another in a simple blink.  Scotty assists his new friend install her invention into the ship’s engines.   

Spock and Scotty helping to install the device

As the ship gets underway, they are suddenly attacked by a fleet of Klingon ships that have somehow snuck past the Neutral Zone.  While outnumbered seven to one, the Enterprise files for its life.   Sulu uses a known but rarely used maneuver where he flies the ship close to an unstable star and gets it to go nova.  The Enterprise escapes using the new inversion drive while the Klingon ships are destroyed in the nova.   

The Enterprise under attack from the Klingons

  

They end up going in the exact opposite direction of where they intended.  They are in orbit around a white dwarf star that is located so many light-years away it would take them decades to return to Federation space under normal warp.  Spock is eager to study the new star as not doing so would be a great loss to science, Kirk is more concerned with its instability with the ship being so close.   Most of the crew start to feel odd after the jump.  Spock asks to be relieved of duty because of how it has effective him.  Kirk doesn’t allow it.  After talking with K’t’lk, who has experienced none of the uneasiness that others had suffered, she thinks she can get them back to their original destination  

They jump again and the inversion drive succeeds in getting them where they had intended to be the first time.  However, this trip takes longer.  Captain Kirk feels his mind leave his body and for a while he is someone else entirely, then his mind leaves that person and enters another.  Kirk discovers for a moment that he is Ensign Chekov.  Finally, he gets back to his own body.  It turns out that this experience is unique to him but everyone, except K’t’lk, has had the same experience Kirk had.  How each crewmember dealt with it varied according to the individual.

These jumps are making us feel weird. 

The crew discovers the more they use the inversion drive the worse these out of body experiences get but that is not the worst part.  The worst part is they may be causing the destruction of all reality.  During their last jump another supernova occurred.  While Spock and others are observing that area of space it appears that entropy and the normal flow of time has ceased. The use of the drive has torn a hole with another universe where entropy does not exist.  That reality is spilling over into this one.  

They are forced to use the inversion drive again and this time the crew is displaced to Mars but it’s Mars of a different time period than they were used to.  Here they were themselves, but they were all younger and heathier.  They also were able to read each other’s minds telepathically.  As the ship pulls into normal space again, they have all returned to their positions on the Enterprise.  They are quickly under attack from Klingons again.  They are able to evade their attackers, but they have a bigger problem because the universe is about to get swallowed up.  K’t’lk has an idea that can fix everything.  They have no choice but to leave it up to her.  Spock and others had earlier determined there is intelligence in the other reality.  If K’t’lk can communicate with it, she might be able to put it all back together using her inversion drive.  Spock thinks this has less than 50% chance of success, but Kirk doesn’t see any other option.  They activate the inversion drive and K’t’lk succeeds, but at the cost of her own life.  However, she has laid an egg, and her species can pass memories to their offspring so it’s not that much of a sacrifice.  The Enterprise is welcomed back by the fleet and this adventure is over.

Enterprise is greeted by the fleet!

Additional thoughts: The story presents an interesting concept.  Who wouldn’t want to be able to go faster than warp?  Warp is fast, it allows ships like the Enterprise to move about the galaxy.  However, it has its limits.  The ship’s adventures are all intra-galactic, the inversion drive would allow them to “pop” into any part of the universe they would want to.  It would be the death of distance.  

It makes sense that if the Federation were to develop something like the inversion drive, then the Klingons would have an interest in either destroying or stealing it.  My only problem is the Klingon threat shows up but has little to do with the story.  They are dealt with so easily that they are almost a footnote.  Yet the way they were destroyed was quite destructive, causing a supernova, but the crew acted like that was no big deal, just basic strategy.

I like the author taking advantage of the medium of books and allowing her imagination to come up with a character who looks like a giant spider.  Despite such, to human eyes, a ghastly appearance, K’t’lk is one of the sweetest and kindest characters you will ever meet.  True, her invention almost destroys all of reality, but she sacrifices herself to save it, sort of. 

Who would have predicted these side-effects from a device that was made for traveling the stars: having the crew be mentally displaced from their bodies and scattered about the universe for a time and almost destroying all known reality.   So, let’s talk about the threat.  I have a problem with threats to destroy the whole galaxy, universe, or multi-verse etc.  When you make the story’s conflict that big you know how it is going to end, clearly in the ongoing saga reality itself will not be destroyed. I am not saying you can’t tell good stories with those high stakes, but in order to do so you have to know those are the stakes for most of the story.  A good example of this is “The Doomsday Machine” right of the bat we are exposed to a threat that ended and entire solar system and crippled on the Enterprise’s sister ships.  So, the viewer goes in knowing that this thing the characters are facing is incredible dangerous and the Enterprise, by itself, can’t stop it. When the threat shows up right at the end, it leaves a lot to be desired.  It seems like the writer is just throwing words in to make everything seem more dangerous than it is.  This becomes especially clear when the crew quickly solves the problem to the universal level threat. This threat is big because I say it is.  Yawn. 

Should it be canon: I don’t see why not, nothing in this book contradicts what happened in the series.

Cover Art: The cover has a dark background.  On the bottom of the cover is Kirk and Spock, with Kirk on the viewers right. Behing them is K’t’lk in all her glory.  It is an okay cover.

Final Grade: Final Grade 3 of 5