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
