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

SPOCK RUNS INTO A SPACE KAREN

 

Name: Vulcan!

Author: Kathleen Sky

Publication Date: 9/1978

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 175

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              Lieutenant Kyle                Lieutenant Angela Mendoza          Lieutenant Jeff Williams                    Dr. Ruth Rigel             Nurse Christine Chapel          Nurse Angela Dickinson        Ensign Pavel Chekov      Ensign Theodore Lowrey            Ensign Donald Ackroyd            Ensign Octavio Hernandez          Ensign Alan Huff              Ensign Bill Johnson           Ensign Sikh            Ensign Rosaly Ybarra             Engineer Shigeda             Engineering Technician Hans Mueller       Crewman Fitzgerald          Crewman Jefferies          Crewman Martin      Dr. Katalya Tremain           Ambassador Sarek       Commodore David Stone                Captain Selik         Commander Maximinus Thrax       Licinius Thrax

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase 11, the Romulan Bird of Prey ChR Decius, USS Calypso unknown registry number

Planets: Arachnae

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story starts out with an unusual premise: the Romulan Neutral Zone, which we first learned of in “Balance of Terror”, is moving.   The book explains that when the treaty was being hammered out by diplomats they marked the territory of space that each power was to have and the Neutral Zone by using magnetic field strengths that no one expected to change for hundreds of years.  (By which time with any luck the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire would have long solved their differences.)  However some frequent ion storms have caused these magnetic fields to alter changing the once permeant boundary.  In the immediate term that means that the planet Ararchnae is going to be now part of Romulan space.  As to their knowledge there is no immediate concern as no intelligent life has been discovered.  However there are some on the Federation Council who feel that there might be and we shouldn’t allow those poor souls to fall into Romulan hands  They have sent over a famous biologist who McCoy says is “the best thing to happen to biology since Darwin” to help determine if there are any lifeforms worth protecting.  

Spock and McCoy preparing for Tremain

As soon as she beams aboard Tremain reveals herself to be a major racist space Karen.  She looks at Spock and refuses to participate in a mission with him.  After intervention of Captain Kirk and Commodore Stone, who is Kirk’s CO from “Court Martial” and also Tremain’s boyfriend, she is forced to go along with the mission.  When she is not around Vulcans, Tremain is actually a very pleasant and interesting person.  McCoy even finds himself falling in love with her in spite of her clear bigotry.   McCoy decides to research this under his duty to evaluate all incoming personnel as Chief Medical Officer.  He discovers her husband served on the USS Calypso, under the command of Captain Selik.  Selik was a Vulcan who had served in Starfleet for 40 years.  His ship encountered some parasitic lifeforms who started to “eat” their ship causing everything to break down.  With a rescue ship to far away and the risk of such a ship also getting infected the Captain decided to order the ship to self-destruct. 

McCoy tires to present his findings to the Captain and First Officer, but it turns out his research was a little short.  Spock had already found out about the husband, and unlike McCoy continued to research where he learned of Tremain’s parents also being on that ship.  This makes McCoy feel like a fool and Kirk is not happy.  Elsewhere the bigots of the Enterprise (I can’t believe I said that) all approach Tremain looking to make her their leader.  She tells them that they are all stupid and takes the time to explain to each one why they are so.  Tremain’s is a lot more charismatic than the traditional bigot. (I will talk more about that in my additional thoughts section.)  In sickbay, Chapel gives Tremain a piece of her mind and in doing so does more to embarrass Spock than anything Tremain could do.  It reminds me of the Mantis tries to defend Drax in Guardians 3.

In the final analysis Kirk and McCoy agree that although Tremain’s attitude and bigotry would prevent her from a regular posting on the Enterprise, given her expertise and the time sensitivity of their mission she will suffice long enough to get the mission done.  Kirk assigns both Spock and Tremain to joint command of the mission.  Tremain remains unhappy about it.

The landing party heads down to the planet and sets up camp as they get ready to observe the native Arachnians.  However, in a short period of time their camp is over run by a group of Arachnians.  Nearly everyone in the party is killed, two are severally wounded, and only Spock and Tremain escape unscathed.  They request an emergency beam out but the Romulans have entered this system and the Enterprise has its shields up and cannot help them.  

Kirk tires to reason with the Romulans but they are not listening.  The reasons for the Romulans’ refusal are that given their past encounters they don’t trust Kirk, and internal Romulan politics.  The Commander’s family is on the out due to his second in command and son refusing to marry a proconsul’s daughter.   They have been given a mission with a high rate of failure: go against Captain Kirk.  In the meantime Spock and Tremain try to help their fallen crewmates.

Romulans have had many injuries against the hands of Kirk

The two injured landing party members die, which sours Kirk on the Romulans and starts talking with them a little less diplomatically.  To make matters worse Spock is injured by an Arachnian.  Spock is now dying of Archnian venom like his lost crewmates.  In an act of desperation Spock forces a mind meld with the Archnian.  This turns out to be a mistake because the Archnians are just animals just like many already thought, and Spock’s mind meld with such a creature makes him think he is one of them.  Despite her bigotry, Tremain decides to risk her own sanity to help Spock.  She puts her hand to his face and began the mind meld on herself.  This kills two birds with one stone.  Tremain is able to guide Spock back to sanity, and we learn the truth of Tremain’s bias.  Although the loss of her husband and parents under a Vulcan’s command was traumatic.  However the true loss was the Vulcan Captain himself.  She was already set to break up with her husband as their marriage was all but officially over.  She had found herself falling in love with their commanding officer but she never told him.  This led her never to want to be around anyone who reminded her of him creating her bias of all Vulcans.  After this mind meld therapy with Spock she resolves to change her ways.     

Mind melds can be helpful

Kirk decides despite the Romulans he will try to rescue them anyway.  He signals his intentions to the Romulans reminding them of the consequences if they are attacked.  The Romulans decide to let them try and monitored to make sure that was all they would do.  With his missing crewmembers returned Kirk tells the Romulans the planet is theirs and leaves but not before shouting off a few insults at their intelligence.  With Spock better he has a meeting with McCoy and Tremain to smooth everything over.  Tremain vows to resolve her issues with Vulcans but as far as romance goes she is not sure if she will be with Stone, McCoy, or anyone. 

Additional thoughts: The story begins with an interesting concept.  How would boundaries in space even work?  A two dimensional map about space is even worse than one about Earth.  How far up and around exist the boundary of the Neutral Zone between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire?  The idea that the treaty would create some natural markers that might seem long term but could later shift and change makes for a good story. 

So onto a small topic: Dr. McCoy’s rank.  In classic Star Trek McCoy was always a lieutenant commander.  I noted in my first Animated Series review about “More Tribbles, More Trouble” McCoy’s rank insignia was that of a commander.  I immediately wondered if McCoy had been promoted or if it was just an animation error.  There plenty of animation errors so it wasn’t absurd to think that, heck even the live action series had visual errors.  Mr. Spock wore the stripes of a full commander all through season 1, but he was also promoted to that rank off screen before the start of season 2.  In this book Tremain’s rank is given as a full commander and it is stated that she has the same rank of both Spock and McCoy.  So it looks like the country doctor got promoted.

Dr. McCoy, a full commander

McCoy finds Tremain very attractive and desirable, but he detests her attitude toward Spock and he knows so long as it exists she is not someone he can have a future with.  It’s a good show of solidarity between McCoy and Spock.  McCoy may like to tease Spock about being a Vulcan but he shuts up about it after Tremain demonstrates her intolerance.  He is not going to give her an inch so she can take a mile.  I do like how the author made Tremain a compelling character in spite of her bigotry.  It is very easy to get into the mindset that all bigots are KKK members, it does us a disservice because we may not feel the need to examine some of our own beliefs since bigots are just the “bad” people.  When McCoy is talking with Tremain alone he and the reader find her to be such a fascinating and charismatic person, until the subject of Vulcans comes up.  The whole thing reminds me of a biography I read about John F. Kennedy.  While he was in the Senate, Kennedy would befriend these Southern Senators who he would find that they would have shared mutual interests; he would have interesting discussions with them, and find them pleasant company.  Until the subject of African-Americans came up, and then Kennedy told his aides they transformed into different people. 

  Tremain tells McCoy he was wrong about the death of her husband causing her distain because the love was out of their marriage and the term was going to expire.  The very concept of a term marriage is interesting.  You don’t have to worry about a nasty divorce.  If it’s not working out then you simply don’t renew. 

I found the failed recruitment of Tremain by the bigots of the Enterprise an interesting read.  Tremain puts every one of them in their place from the Admiral’s baby to the I-am-jealous-of-Chapel-Nurse.  Is it just me or does Engineer Shigeda belong in the Terran Empire of the mirror universe?  

Now Starfleet is not exactly a military organization but it’s structured like one.  To me you would think a joint command is a bad idea.  I mean who is the person who you hold accountable.  It is like a ship having two captains. Then on top of that you make the joint commanders two people who hate each other.  Personally I thought Kirk would make Tremain the final word on the area of expertise and Spock should be in charge of the overall mission.  Clearly Kirk should think about it since the joint command ended with everyone under them getting killed.

Now it was clear that the Romulan Star Empire is based on the Roman Empire.  They have similar titles and their home worlds are Romulus and Remus. This book takes that a bit farther by giving the Romulans all Romanized names.  Where elsewhere in the franchise their names sound similar to Vulcans, but here they are Maximinus and Licinius Thrax.

I mentioned earlier that McCoy ceased his teasing of Spock the moment Tremain started her attack.  It was interesting to have Spock’s internal monologue compare the two.  Despite her intense bigotry or maybe because of it, Spock actually enjoys goading her more than McCoy.  Originally this book was a draft for a potential episode now clearly the book format allows for a more in depth story than a sixty-minutes-plus-commercials episode but I would have loved to see Spock vs. Tremain live action. 

One of the best parts of the book to me was in the way the Romulans talk about Kirk to themselves.  To them Kirk is horror who can’t be trusted and will pull victories out of the thin air through treachery.  The Commander even suspects the Proconsul may have set this up on purpose to get rid of him King David style. Considering what happened in both “The Deadly Years” and “The Enterprise Incident” I don’t blame the Romulans for not trusting Kirk at all.  One of the flaws I found it the book “The Price of the Phoenix” was the Romulans, especially our favorite lady commander, where a little too nice and friendly given their history together.  

Spock’s attempted mind meld with the Arachnian and the consequence reminded me of the short story “The Hunting” in the first New Voyages volume.  I don’t know if the author read that story but it was a nice consistency. 

The most amazing part of this story was its end.  In a more traditional Star Trek story we would have learned that Arachnians were true intelligent and just a different type of intelligence like the Horta from “The Devil in the Dark.”  This would force Kirk to find a way to win freedom for the planet for the Romulans at the last minute.  But no, they are just dumb animals and Kirk just lets them have the planet because it was worthless.  Too bad for everyone who got red-shirted for a planet that was useless to the Federation.     

Should it be canon: Yes, I think this a great story; it is a self-contained adventure like any traditional Star Trek episode, so it doesn’t step on the toes of any other established canon.  I cannot see any reasonable objection. 

Cover Art: The cover has McCoy, Tremain, and Spock on the bottom of the cover.  Tremain is to McCoy’s right (viewer’s left), Spock is on the other side.  Spock’s image is larger than the other two.  Above them is a native Arachnian.

Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5