Star Trek 1066: Proud Helios

1066. Proud Helios

PUBLICATION: Star Trek Deep Space Nine #9, Pocket Books, February 1995

CREATORS: Melissa Scott

STARDATE: Unknown (between The Search and The House of Quark)

PLOT: Helios is a heavily modified bird-of-prey run by pirates who have been giving the Cardassians a bloody nose for years. When they destroy a peaceful trader heading for DS9, Sisko and his crew get involved. Helios is getting more desperate because it is heavily damaged, and it sends a mysterious woman to the station to bargain for equipment with smugglers. Though she seems demure and naive, she turns out to be a ruthless pirate. When her plans are discovered, she disables the station's shields and kidnaps O'Brien and Kira. Prisoners aboard Helios, they force DS9 to give them their supplies, but after treacherously keeping O'Brien anyway, Sisko mounts a rescue attempt before the Cardassian fleet can get there to destroy Helios and O'Brien with it. The rescue occurs in the nick of time and the crew witnesses the battle in which Helios manages to escape through the Wormhole.

CONTINUITY: The Helios is equipped with metaphasic shields stolen from the Ferengi (Suspicions). Bashir's portrayal in this story is surprisingly coherent with his latter-day status as a mutant - he spots a pattern in a numbers sequence where the computer guys do not.

DIVERGENCES: The cover features an unmodified Klingon ship that doesn't match the book's description. There's a reference to the station being on a 24-hour clock, but we've never seen it on anything but 26-hour Bajoran time. Sisko has a slip of the tongue and calls Bajoran space, Federation space (oops!).

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK
REVIEW: Melissa Scott's story is not a complex one, but it is rather enjoyable! The characters are all well characterized, which is something of an achievement for licensed properties, and the entire cast is well featured (aside from Jake). I really can't point a finger at who is spotlighted, really, because they're all in there. Scott is quite adept at giving little details where the show would simply have given us button-pushing and technobabble over the intercom. The technical tasks of Dax, O'Brien and others have meaning and showcase the characters' impressive training and intellect. There's button-pushing, but now you know what the button does, and how the character knew to push it. There's even a scene aboard a Cardassian ship, with Cardassian extras we know nothing about, and it's all very interesting. Scott fills out the world of Deep Space Nine, while still keeping to the feel of an episode. And an action-packed out at that. She doesn't skimp on that either.

Next for the SBG Book Club: Ambush (SCE), Trek to Madworld (TOS), A Call to Darkness (TNG), Warped (DS9).

Star Trek 1024: Antimatter

1024. Antimatter

PUBLICATION: Deep Space Nine #8, Pocket Books, November 1994

CREATORS: John Vornholt

STARDATE: Unknown (between Armageddon Game and Whispers)

PLOT: Bajor is building its first starship since the Occupation, the USS Hannibal for Starfleet. But the project is plagued by terrorists who bomb the shipyard, then hijack the tanker full of antimatter destined for the Hannibal. Sisko, Odo and Dax are in pursuit, leading them to the planet Eco in the Gamma Quadrant where they use undercover identities to infiltrate both the Bajoran terrorist cell (who plans to destroy the Wormhole with the antimatter to end the Federation presence on Bajor) and the Ferengi doing business with them. The natives of Eco are an insect species with a hive mind, and that hive mind sees an opportunity for profit in the whole affair. It blackmails Sisko, threatening to blow his cover if it doesn't get a piece of the action. Everyone wants antimatter! Odo steals into the Ecocid hive and kidnaps the queen, holding her for ransom in exchange for not interfering. After defeating the Bajorans, our heroes attempt to evade the Ferengi Marauder and get the antimatter back to DS9. The Marauder is destroyed by Cardassian fighters who've gone after the loot, and in turn, Dax uses an antimatter pod to destroy the fighters. When the tanker and runabout make it back to the Alpha Quadrant, renegade Klingons in the Bajorans' employ destroy the tanker, but the explosion isn't big enough to destroy the Wormhole. The runabout docks crammed with antimatter pods. The Hannibal successfully launches.

CONTINUITY: The antimatter tanker is called Phoenix, presumably after Zefram Cochrane's historical ship (First Contact). The terrorists are remnants of the Circle (The Circle). Admiral Nechayev has been supervising DS9's operations since Emissary. Her choice of replacement for Sisko would have been Shelby (The Best of Both Worlds).

DIVERGENCES: The show never mentions Bajor's shipyard either before or after this.

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK
REVIEW: John Vortnolt's sixth original Star Trek novel, and his only take on DS9, is a pretty good one. While TOS and TNG novels tend to feel like disposable one-offs, DS9 books are much better at building on the world that's already there. There's still a new species to explore, the Ecocids, a role that could easily have been played by your run-of-the-mill humanoid, but Vornholt plays with a totally alien idea to good and original effect. He also has a lot of fun with his action scenes and such moments as Sisko being assailed by a Ferengi harem (which narrowly avoids tawdriness). This is definitely a good book for Sisko and Dax, but everyone gets a little something to do, especially Kira. The characters sound reasonably like themselves, and the story fits the larger tale of Bajor's entry into the galactic community. So what if the premise is basically the same as Past Prologue's?

Star Trek 989: Warchild

989. Warchild

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #7, Pocket Books, September 1994

CREATORS: Esther Friesner

STARDATE: Unknown (between Seasons 1 and 2)

PLOT: Two Bajoran clergymen come to Sisko for help, one for medical relief from an epidemic ravaging refugee camps in areas devastated by the Cardassians and where children must toil in the fields or starve, the other looking for a child of that area who, according to Kai Opaka's prophecy, will become a great healer who will bring the warring factions of Bajor together in peace, unless a political faction uses her for war instead. Sisko sends Bashir and Dax to Bajor to accomplish both objectives. Bashir cures the illness and Dax thinks the sister of his assistant Cedra might be the child they're looking for. Kira is sent to take the child, Dejana, to the Temple, but she's been taken by a government agent. Her brother rescues her and Kira takes the siblings to DS9 for safekeeping. Meanwhile, Bashir has gone off the grid to help other refugees in the area and gets kidnapped by hill fighters in the process. Dejana is dying from a more virulent strain of the disease, so finding Bashir becomes a priority. Cedra comes up with a rescue plan that succeeds. As Bashir works to cure her, the government agent hopes Dejana will die and the Federation will lose face, as he is a member of the Circle. But Dejana is not the child they were looking for. Cedra reveals himself to be a girl (Cedara), and the "Nekor", threatening to spark a civil war if her sister dies. She doesn't, and she stabilizes the political parties before entering the Temple to become a healer, even though the prophecy's hidden text reveals the time has not yet come for peace and that she is not the true Nekor.

CONTINUITY: Opaka still has followers even though she is lost in the Gamma Quadrant (Battle Lines). Mullibok (Progress) now farms at the barren refugee camp and is quite content there. This mention of the Circle sets up the first three episodes of Season 2.

DIVERGENCES: The Vedek Assembly is called the Temple Council.

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK
REVIEW: When Deep Space Nine got under way, I vaguely remember resenting the "Bajoran" episodes because they were atypical of Star Trek. But as I really got into the series, they became my favorite episodes of the pre-Dominion seasons. Warchild is definitely in that vein, with a nice wink at the Circle arc and throwing even more complications in the political and religious structure of Bajor. Friesner drives most scenes using dialogue, which makes it more of a piece with the television show, though interior monologues are also used to good effect. This is a rare instance where I am totally convinced Bashir is a mutant, confident beyond measure and uncannily able to partition different sides of his mind. Certainly a strong story for his character - in which he even gets a brief romance - and the guest characters are well drawn too, especially the sibling Nekors.

Next for the SBG Book Club: The Riddled Post (SCE), Vulcan! (TOS), Masks (TNG), Antimatter (DS9).

Star Trek 947: Betrayal

947. Betrayal

PUBLICATION: Star Trek Deep Space Nine #6, Pocket Books, May 1994

CREATORS: Lois Tilton

STARDATE: Season 2, possibly between The Maquis and The Wire.

PLOT: As if Sisko didn't have his hands full when terrorist bombings on the station threaten a trade conference, the Cardassians come for a visit on behalf of the newly elected Revanche Party to claim the station and Wormhole. Things are further complicated by one of the Cardassian crewmen, an abused member of the former party in power named Berat, seeks refuge aboard DS9. He helps identify the latest bomb as Cardassian, exposing their plot to destroy the station and blame it on Bajoran terrorists, thereby weakening their position as a productive member of the interstellar community. With Berat's help, the crew move the bomb to the Cardassian ship where it eventually explodes after its Gul refuses to stand down. The Revanche Party discredited, Gul Dukat returns to a position of power and takes Berat home.

CONTINUITY: The Kohn-Ma (Past Prologue) seem to take credit for the bombing of Garak's shop (a precursor to Improbable Cause). Gul Marak has a meeting with the Klaestron ambassador (that world's Cardassian connection is from Second Skin, though they first appeared in "Dax"). The momentary rise of the Revanche Party and fall of Gul Dukat could have resulted from events in The Maquis.

DIVERGENCES: Gul Macet is on the cover as Gul Marak, which wouldn't be so bad if Dukat, also played by Marc Alaimo, didn't also appear. Klaestron is mispelled Klystron. A 72-hour ultimatum contradicts DS9's usual 26-hour day convention. The terrorist subplot is so close to The Circle's, it makes Betrayal hard to place in the timeline. Words not used anywhere else in Star Trek include the Cardassian Subofficer rank and the curse word "frack".

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK - Stock footage from the teaser
REVIEW: Lois Tilton has claimed in interviews that writing tie-in novels just wasn't for her, but she avails herself of the opportunity pretty well. Bajoran-Federation-Cardassian politics are well rendered, with the Revanche Party getting its own identity, one that taps into the brutish side of Cardassian personality. The book's highlight, for me, was Berat's POV. It gives us a chance to learn about life on a Cardassian ship, where fear and paranoia are the order of the day. Less interesting is the identity of the agent aboard Deep Space 0, whose betrayal is pretty much telegraphed. A minor plot point, in any case. Good use of Jake and Nog (surprisingly), as well as Sisko, Kira, Odo and O'Brien.

Next for the SBG Book Club: Invincible Part I (SCE), Invincible Part II (SCE), Planet of Judgment (TOS), Power Hungry (TNG), Warchild (DS9).

Star Trek 912: Fallen Heroes

912. Fallen Heroes

PUBLICATION: Star Trek Deep Space Nine #5, Pocket Books, February 1994

CREATORS: Dafydd ab Hugh

STARDATE: 47234 (between Season 1 and Season 2)

PLOT: Quark buys a Gamma Quadrant artifact that sends him and Odo three days into the future, a future in which everyone has been killed by the artifact's owners. Slowly, they piece together what happened and how they can go back and prevent it from happening. With the help of a surviving Jake Sisko, they manage it, but with Odo out of commission, it's up to Quark to convince Sisko he's doing the right thing. He returns the artifact to the aliens and collapses the catastrophic timeline.

CONTINUITY: Emergency lighting has been fixed since the blackouts in The Big Game (DS9 #4).

DIVERGENCES: The language is harsher than in any episode, but then so is the violence. Sisko battles to get the Ops turbolift doors open, except there are no doors there. Odo briefly takes on humanoid features.

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK
REVIEW: Damn, this thing is dark. Dark, but excellent. Despite the necessary reset button, Dafyyd ab Hugh creates an engaging thriller, both tense and literate, rare in the so-called "numbered" novels. The book intercuts nimbly between Odo and Quark's discovery of the massacre and the courageous and doomed actions of the other characters a couple days before. It's very filmic that way. Each character's point of view is also better represented than even on the tv show, with unique cultural and psychological differences. The deaths of the main characters are violent, which may put off some, but aesthetically beautiful. Keiko's is particularly moving, though everyone's death is meaningful and revelatory. The finale, with Odo testing his boiling point is properly epic, going a long way to redeem the resolution in which Quark basically just has a few short words with the aliens. But you quickly realize that the book is about the massacre and the ultimate sacrifices of the heroes, not about defeating the alien invaders.

Star Trek 884: The Big Game

884. The Big Game

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #4, Pocket Books, November 1993

CREATORS: Sandy Schofield (pen name for the collaborative team of Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch)

STARDATE: Unknown (between The Storyteller and Progress)

PLOT: Quark invites a number of known rogues to his first annual high stakes poker championship, but when one of the competitors is murdered, Odo enters the tournament to ferret out the killer. Meanwhile, the station is rocked by subspace disturbances that also threaten nearby Bajoran and Cardassian ships. The Cardassians are blaming DS9 and threatening war. Down at Quark's, a power outage covers an attempted murder, but Odo captures the killer who tried to cop a plea by giving Sisko information on his subspace problems. Seems they are caused by the Ghost Riders, phased hunters out to capture energy creatures called the Espiritu. O'Brien modifies some runabouts to go into phased space and the Riders are bumped back into normal space. Meanwhile, Odo continues to play and wins the whole pot against Grand Nagus Zek's final hand, despite having just learned the game (he knows people) and the many cheating schemes of the participants. He gives all the money to the Bajoran Children's Fund.

CONTINUITY: Among the players at Quark's game, we find Zek and his son Krax (The Nagus), Berlinghoff Rasmussen (A Matter of Time), Cynthia Jones who is a descendent of Cyrano Jones (The Trouble with Tribbles) and has a sterile tribble with her, the Duras Sisters (last seen in Past Prologue), and Etana Jol (The Game). Other characters on show include Danar (Past Prologue), George Primmin (The Passenger, Move Along Home) and of course Maihar'du. This may just be the first appearance of Bashir's tuxedo (Our Man Bashir). The Ghost Riders use phase cloak technology stolen from the Romulans (The Next Phase, its events are mentioned).

DIVERGENCES: I'll leave the likelihood of Garak, Lursa and B'Etor being good poker players up to you. Bashir should be an incredible card counter because he's a mutant, but this his portrayal is correct for the first season. The crawl spaces used by Jake and Nog don't resemble anything we've seen on the station. The Bajorans make use of Federation runabouts. Odo seems to think he won't be able to get a smell out of his clothes, but as he's proven earlier in the book, he doesn't own any clothes. And he doesn't have a sense of smell (If Wishes Were Horses).

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK
REVIEW: Rather enjoyable, especially the poker elements. And while the "station shaking because of subspace phenomenon" subplot is something we've seen again and again, the reason behind the station's troubles is at least original and pays off nicely. The best thing about the novel is that the characters are all well captured, their voices recognizable. This is an especially good representation of the Odo-Quark relationship, Odo proving himself better at the art of the bluff. Good bits for almost every character, in fact, including Garak. The book does awkwardly transition between the various subplots by consistently going back in time a few moments rather than show simultaneous action. This device can work, but not here where it undercuts momentum. A couple of small mistakes (like a non-humanoid suddenly being described as humanoid, for example) can be distracting. Overall though, a good character piece with some ideas we haven't seen before.

Star Trek 779: Bloodletter

779. Bloodletter

PUBLICATION: Deep Space Nine #3, Pocket Books, August 1993

CREATORS: K.W. Jeter

STARDATE: Between Vortex and Battle Lines.

PLOT: The Cardassians are in an undisclosed space race to claim the other end of the Wormhole and when the crew of Deep Space 9 find out, they attempt to get their own substation there first. Bashir's just arrived quarantine module will be converted for just such a purpose. Meanwhile, a violent Bajoran cult, the Redemptorists, have infiltrated O'Brien's engineering crew. Their hit list includes all the Bajorans who are cooperating with the Federation, most especially Kira. They sabotage the module and their leader stows aboard to kill Kira who, with Bashir, will pilot the substation through the Wormhole. But when its engines break down mid-way, the Prophets take notice. So while Kira fights for her life, Bashir attempts to negotiate safe passage with the Wormhole aliens. Temporally shunted to the very end of the universe, Bashir can reignite the engines without hurting the Prophets, and the Redemptorist leader gets a very violent death indeed. Deep Space 9 also helps by sending an important warning via the racing Cardassian ship, allowing Kira and Bashir to win the day and stake the claim first.

CONTINUITY: Sisko seeks Opaka's advice. The Prophets pull some of the same tricks they do in Emissary. Page 213 has a prophetic line about Sisko still existing in one time.

DIVERGENCES: The Bajorans have a parliament. Odo can perfectly mimic humanoid faces and has his own quarters. The word "Prophet" seems not to be in use, especially odd in Bajorans.

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK
REVIEW: Religion, politics, and the backdrop of the crew still fixing the station and learning to work together makes Bloodletter fit in quite well with Season 1 despite the divergences listed above. In fact, it's hard to believe the show never used this plot with the Cardassians. Of course, the stuff with the Redemptorists WAS done and more than once, though this was written before the Circle, before Kai Winn and before the Pah-Wraiths. It tends to drag in the thriller sections, but the characters' voices are surprisingly well captured and the featured characters all get to shine (that's everyone but Dax, Quark and the absent Jake). Jeter does an especially sassy O'Brien, and fills in Kira's character with flashbacks to her youth and resistance days. Odo's excellent as well. Just a couple fixes and this thing could easily be canon.

Star Trek 744: The Siege

744. The Siege

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #2, Pocket Books, May 1993

CREATORS: Peter David

STARDATE: Between Captive Pursuit and Q-Less.

PLOT: As the Wormhole becomes temporarily unusable thanks to "subspace compression", Edemian religious zealots board the station tp preach their faith. They have a young son with a curable disease, but their faith prevents them from treating him. At the same time, a Ferengi who hates Quark's guts proposes a business deal - the purchase of the station itself. Against the backdrop of those subplots, a changeling serial killer called Meta has started killing seemingly random people on DS9. In the end, we learn that Meta is an assassin hired by the Ferengi to kill Quark, the other murders red herrings. Bashir unethically convinces the Edemian mom to get her son treated, attracting an Edemian warship to the station, just as a Cardassian ship sidles over as well because a Cardassian officer was killed by Meta. The climax involves lots of shapeshifting, Odo hanging on to a fleeing runabout caught in the warships' crossfire, and Meta being torn apart by the Wormhole's compression.

CONTINUITY: The book opens with a Borg Cube being smooshed by the Wormhole. Meta at one point morphs into a Mugato. Dukat appears. Peter David uses some of his stock characters from TNG novels, Meyer, Tang and Boyajian (later on New Frontier).

DIVERGENCES: "The Siege" would later become the title of a second-season episode. Later episodes put the lie to Odo meeting another changeling so early. Quark has a XXX holosuite program that includes a Kira dancing girl, contradicting "Meridian". When Odo turns into a mouse, he retains his normal weight, which isn't how it worked on the show. As David has been known to opine: It's the show that got it wrong. Can't say I disagree.

SCREENSHOT OF THE WEEK
REVIEW: Peter David writes some of the most entertaining Star Trek fiction, though his roots are clearly in superhero comics. In this case, the changeling battles are really heavy on the special effects side, with Odo and Meta essentially using their powers like Metamorpho, with omni-arm weapons and the like. Great fun, though there are two ways of looking at it. Some might like the books to read and feel like a standard (if well-padded) episode, with the same general tone. Others might prefer the novels to actively "break the bank" since they have no fx budgets or television-imposed mores. I stand somewhere in the middle and freely admit that Odo-as-superhero goes beyond fx concerns and actually contradicts the tone of the character. Still, for a book written in a couple weeks using only the series bibles and first handful of scripts, David gets DS9. The characters generally sound and act like themselves, many of them get some attention and a little subplot (except maybe Dax and Kira). There's a lot of action, but also a classic Star Trek dilemma/allegory, with the Edemians standing in for those faiths that don't allow, for example, blood transfusions. In fact, it's nice that David could include a religious issue in the first DS9 novel (#1 was the Emissary novelization), and probably did well to steer clear of the still developing Bajoran faith. Doesn't quite stand up in light of later continuity, but as an action-packed romp, a qualified success.