A Trekkie's Unofficial Book Summaries Volume 5 by Geoff Canham - HTML preview

in that direction. Remington had also led the capture of the station from its previous Starfleet crew. Book helps Burnham escape from Starbase Vanguard too. Realizing that Devaloka would be next on the attack-list for the White Palm raiders, Sahil and Burnham get Jeremiah to start shoring up the station’s defense grid, but unfortunately Jeremiah had a deeply held dislike for Starfleet. When the attack comes, Jeremiah shuts down the station’s defense-grid and escapes in his own ship. He had also been feeding information to Remington. Then help comes from the couriers and many of the people Burnham has helped over the past year, and the White Palm raiders are driven off. Burnham talks Book into helping her take the fight to Remington, but when they get there, they find that Pa’Dan and the disgruntled staff of Starbase Vanguard had staged a revolt against Remington and had her, and her handful of real supporters, in the brig. Pa’Dan had hoped that Burnham might take command of the station, but she leaves Pa’Dan in control and returns to Devaloka. There she learns that a message had been received from Terralysium saying that Burnham’s mother wasn’t there. Sahil had dreams of Burnham taking over Devaloka, but after a year of futilely sending out messages trying to contact Discovery, Burnham decides to concentrate on building her life and she and Book set out to together in their own ships. Then Sahil calls Burnham to say that a message had been received from Discovery giving coordinates. Book bows to the inevitable and they set out to that location. [Timeline: year 3188]

The Dark Veil (Picard)

James Swallow

Captain Riker and the Titan are ferrying some Jazari diplomats back to their homeworld, where it is found that the reclusive Jazari have stripped their planet and built a huge generation ship that will transport their whole civilization, plants and animals to a new location. The Titan had had a Jazari crewman, Zade, for a few years, and he announces that he will be leaving too. Then it is discovered that the singularity at the heart of a Jazari ship that is being dismantled for parts has become unstable, tearing a hole in subspace, and is going to cause widespread disruption. One of the Jazari sends out a mayday, and the Titan tries to contain the singularity with a static warp shell. It is found that Titan doesn’t have sufficient power, but then a Romulan ship, the Othrys with Commander Joron Medaka as captain, arrives and together with the Titan they succeed in containing the worst effects. However, Titan, the Othrys and the Jazari generation ship receive some damage. The Jazari offer to house some of the people from Titan and Othrys while their ships are repaired, and Titan accepts the offer while Othrys declines. The generation ship is planning on passing through a region of plasma storms that the Romulans have mapped, and Medaka offers to assist them through the region. Consequently, all three ships travel together slowly while repairs are being carried out. Some of the Jazari (especially Qaylan) want the Federation and Romulans nowhere near their ship, while others (including Zade and Yasil) are grateful for the help being received, and even take members of both crews on a limited tour of the giant Jazari vessel. That enables Medaka’s second-in-command, Major Sansar Helek (who is a member of the Tal Shiar and also associated with the fanatical Zhat Vash) to surreptitiously scan the vessel and discover that there are artificial intelligent systems aboard (which are feared by the Romulans and especially by the Zhat Vash). She then has a captured Jazari tortured and killed and discovers that the Jazari are not harboring androids or similar artificial lifeforms but are androids themselves. She fabricates evidence against Medaka, has him confined to the brig, and she assumes command of the Othrys and attacks the Jazari ship and Titan. She gets

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assistance from two Tal Shiar ships as well. The Jazari’s code prevents them from taking offensive action against anyone, but using good strategy, deceit, some bright help from the Jazari, and a lot of luck, Titan is able to put both of the Tal Shiar ships out of action and beam a team aboard the Othrys and restore Medaka to command, and Helek is put in the brig. Riker’s son, Thad (Thaddeus), had already made contact with “Friend” who was the sort-of AI controlling the Jazari ship, and the Jazari reveal to Riker and a select few of Titan’s command crew the fact that they were androids sent out by the Makers in the Andromeda galaxy to study other civilizations. They had hopes of settling down with the Federation but, after the anti-synthetics sentiment arose following the attack on Mars, they decided to return home and report back (assuming the Makers were still there). Their trip back is carried out by creating a wormhole and Titan and the Othrys see the generation ship vanish into it. Then four other Romulan ships arrive, and Riker, Medaka and Helek are called before a tribunal. That results in Medaka being fully restored to his position, Riker being allowed to leave, and Helek stripped of her position and held in custody. Later, another crewman associated with the Zhat Vash gets a needle dagger to her, basically telling her to kill herself. Riker discovers that his hooded advocate at the tribunal was Ambassador Spock. Riker meets with Picard and tells him that he is considering retiring from being a captain now that Deanna is expecting a second child, a girl that they plan to name Kestra. [Timeline: year 2386, 7 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis and one year after the “Mars Incident”]

Rogue Elements (Picard)

John Jackson Miller

Cristobal Rios was still plagued by what inexplicably happened on the U.S.S. ibn Majid that led to him leaving Starfleet, but then (through an introduction by Raffi Musiker) he purchased a freighter that he named La Sirena from an Iotian gang on Verex III. Not having the full price for it, he covered the loan with a sword that he claimed was a collectors’ item. He finds there was one log entry from the previous owner, who was a deceased Klingon named Verengan and who was responsible for the junk scattered around the ship. One room full of junk turned out to be a holodeck, and when the program was cancelled the junk disappeared except for one puzzle in the shape of a golden-colored toy apple, and that intrigued Rios. After falling behind on his payments, he discovers that the Iconian gang, the Convincers, had placed a tracking device on the freighter, and four dreadnoughts surround him. The gang’s female leader, Boss Arkko, leaves Rios with an overseer in the person of Miss Ledger (Alys Legjo), who was a fairly high-up member of the Convincers who had fallen somewhat out of favor with the leadership. Between them they get to meet a collector on Argelius II running Cynosure Recovery Associates and named Kivas Fajo (who Rios learns, from a book written by Picard, has a criminal record), and his advisor named Professor Xandra Quimby who is really Vash (Q’s ex) in disguise. Rios and Ledger get a job from a Ferengi named Hain that involves transporting manure (to use a polite term) to a charity group, the Sylvus Project, who are retrofitting planets to settle the Romulan refugees. That gets Rios meeting Liselle, her great-uncle Duke Javen, and Liselle’s security guard Royce Claggett who was also ex-Starfleet and had a vendetta against Rios. They all turn against Rios when a dispute arises over payment, Hain becomes inexplicably ill and later dies, and Ledger steals most of the books from Javen’s collection as payment for their work. That has Liselle setting Seejee’s (real name Choda Garrol) Core Breaches pirates after him. A job for Rios, in which La Sirena gets an upgrade and is turned into a traveling showroom and auction house

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for some of Fajo’s treasures. That leads to Rios discovering that the toy apple/puzzle holds an actuality, a holographic depiction made by Parch showing General Chang reading a Shakespeare folio (that had been part of Javen’s collection) as Praxis explodes in the background. That generates some spectacular bidding from Sovak (Hain’s brother), Liselle, and ultimately Fajo who has the winning bid of ten thousand latinum bricks. Unfortunately, Arkko had also arrived by that time, and on hearing that the puzzle had been found on the freighter, which was still technically owned by the Convincers, she claims the money from the winning bid, which results in Arkko and the Convincers becoming partners with Fajo. Due to some subterfuge by Glake (a Nausicaan hired by Ledger and Rios as part of the crew) Rios ends up with the real actuality and Fajo with a defective copy of it. When Ledger informs Rios that the actuality is supposedly a treasure map, it leads La Sirena to a rocky planet called Outcast in Sherman’s Planet’s system, where they find Parch living in an underground habitat where she had hidden herself away. It turns out that Parch was actually Avaleth Therrey, Javen’s sister and Liselle’s grandmother. After Praxis exploded, she had been instrumental in bringing the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons together for a secret meeting at her home on Outcast, and she had recorded her final actuality there, as Colonel West (for the Federation), Nanclus (representing the Romulans) and Grokh (for the Klingons, and who had been Verengan’s father) met. When she discovered their treachery, she went into seclusion. She also had all the treasures she had been given as payment for her actualities and other artwork, although she no longer cared for them. Fajo did care for them, and the ships of Fajo and the Convincers arrive to claim the treasures, but Rios had previously been in contact with Admiral Marta Batanides and Starfleet arrives and takes command of the situation and takes Fajo (who had committed at least one more murder recently) into custody. Parch’s treasures are given to Liselle and Javen to continue their work in restoring planets to habitability, a work that Javen had started to try to right any wrong that Parch might have been involved in, although she had really been blameless. Avaleth joins Liselle and Javen in their work, Arkko is driven into exile and ends up running a speakeasy on Risa, and Ledger takes over what is left of the Convincers, returning Rios’s sword and letting him know that La Sirena is now his. [Timeline: year 2391]

Firewall (Picard)

David Mack

It is year 2386 and a lady approaches Seven in a bar on Fenris and tells Seven that she wants to join the Rangers. Seven starts telling her the story of when she had joined them in the year 2381. Seven has become tired of being rejected as a Federation citizen and a Starfleet candidate, and she goes off on her own. Arastoo Mardani, claiming to be an FSA (Federation Security Agency) agent, recruits her to observe and infiltrate the Fenris Rangers, which she does quicker than Mardani had anticipated. Janeway later identifies Mardani as an ex-FSA spymaster named Erol Tazgül who had gone rogue, and she tells Seven. Teamed up with Leon Harper, Seven comes to respect the work that the Rangers do, seeing them as the only law and order in the Qiris sector which had been abandoned by Starfleet when it started its rescue work in the Romulan Empire. Starfleet saw the Rangers as vigilantes. Seeing the devastation that the local warlord, General Kohgish, had inflicted on the planet Soroya IV, Seven comes up with a way to gain command of the weather-control network that Kohgish had been using to extort the planet’s inhabitants. Her plan is rejected by the Rangers’ leaders, but a group of them, including Seven, Harper and Ellory Kayd (Seven’s new lover) implement it anyway. It works but, when Kohgish retaliates, Soroya

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IV is in a worse state than it had been. It becomes known that Kohgish is attempting to purchase a decommissioned Talarian warship from a Talarian broker named Qulla, which is why he has been extorting money for the inhabitants of the region. Kayd comes up with a way to steal his money while Kohgish is adding to it by extorting the Altan treasury. The Ranger leadership go along with that plan, and it works. The financial records attached show that Kohgish was being largely financed via the FSA (although it was really through Mardani). However, the Rangers then need to ‘launder’ the record using a mercantile bank on Freecloud and then convert the virtual currency to over ten thousand bricks of latinum using the Bank of Ferenginar branch on Voll to conceal its origins. But Kohgish (guided by Mardani) guesses that the Rangers will attempt something, so he arranges for other incidents that draw Ranger resources away. That means that Harper and Seven have to carry out the transaction alone. The pickup of the latinum is successful, if not without incident, but while attempting the redeposit at Freecloud they get attacked by a Romulan bounty hunter, Centurian Veris, who had been hired by Mardani. Harper and Seven end up crashing on the planet Zirat. Veris sends four huntsman drones after them, and Seven is badly injured before she succeeds in destroying the drones, Harper dies of his injuries, and Veris escapes with the latinum and delivers it to Kohgish. Kayd tracks down Seven after discovering that the event she was supposed to be taking care of had been faked, and then Janeway, who had been contacted by Seven, arrives aboard the Dauntless and takes Seven, Kayd, and Harper’s body aboard, and also captures Veris and his ship (he had returned because of the bounty on Seven and Harper, dead or alive). However, Janeway refuses to accept that the Rangers are anything other than vigilantes, so Seven and Kayd escape on the Romulan’s ship (Nodokata), along with Harper’s body, and go to intercept the deal where Kohgish takes delivery of the Talarian warship and hands over the latinum. Seven also leaves Janeway a message about how to trace where she’s going by scanning for the sekenium that she had laced the latinum with at Harper’s suggestion. Seven and Kayd succeed in disabling the crew of Kohgish’s ship, take Kohgish captive, and recover the latinum before the Talarians arrive. When they do, and Kohgish doesn’t respond to them, Mardani/Tazgül arrives to see what is happening, and then the Dauntless arrives and takes Tazgül into custody. As Qulla and the other Talarians go to leave, the Rangers (who Seven had called in) arrive and take the Talarians into custody. Seven tells Janeway that she plans to remain with the Rangers and Janeway warns her that the Rangers will become more lawless as the years pass. Starfleet finally launches a rescue mission to Soroya IV, and Seven learns that Icheb has been accepted into the Academy. Back in 2381, Seven had found there was truth in Janeway’s warning, but since the lady was still interested in joining the Rangers, she says she’ll introduce her to them. She finally remembers to ask the lady’s name, and it is Bjayzl.

No Man’s Land (Picard)

Kirsten Beyer & Mike Johnson

[Originally an audio drama, the book is presented in the form of a script] Seven and Raffi are enjoying some down-time together at Raffi’s trailer until Seven gets a call from the Fenris Rangers and Seven talks Raffi into coming along. They are going to the aid of the planet Ebla where priceless artifacts from the Romulan Empire are kept, on the basis that the planet is believed generally to be uninhabitable. However, Rynin (bastard son of Romulan senator Pomarka) had discovered the secret and is headed there aboard a warbird that he has renamed the Wrath. He has called himself Emperor and has plans to establish his own Romulan

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Empire. By the time he arrives at the planet, two transport vessels have been loaded with some of the artifacts, and they are able to escape at warp. There are also two Fenris Ranger fighters, a ship captained by Pira, and the Tendu that is captained by Hyro with Meet is his pilot, along with Seven and Raffi. Then Pira’s ship is destroyed in the battle, but the Tendu succeeds in hiding in a blind spot under the Wrath. When a shuttle from the Wrath descends to the planet, Seven and Raffi beam down, and they are surprised to find Rynin’s main interest is in Professor Gillan, who was among those on the planet. Seven had met Gillan during the evacuation effort from Stalvi before the Romulan star went supernova. Gillan had become separated from his wife, Helena, when he was evacuated from Gorvan VI, and he gives Seven a collection of love letters that he had written to Helena, and he hoped Seven would find her and give her them, and reunite the two of them. He always hopes that any ship that arrives has come to take him to her. Seven, who had been intrigued by what she read in the letters, tries to make a suicidal run at Rynin to rescue the professor, but Raffi has Hyro beam Seven up. That causes a rift between them, although it heals later. Rynin’s interest in the professor was because Gillan was over two thousand years old and had been kept alive by an amulet called the Lemniscate (a fact that Raffi also discovers). Rynin want the Lemniscate to give himself immortality, but Gillan keeps saying that it is with Helena at home (home being wherever Helena was). When Rynin learns that Helena was last known to be on the planet Gorvan VI (where Gillan had been evacuated from), he takes the Wrath there. Seven, who had headed off on her own, beats him there. The planet’s orbit had been shifted by the supernova, and the planet was now a bit of a volcanic hell-hole. What had happened, was that Helena had died on the planet the day before Gillan was evacuated, and Gillan had buried her there, also breaking the Lemniscate in two and burying the parts with her (he’d become tired of immortality, as had the traveler who had originally given it to him). Seven confronts Rynin as Gillan is digging into the grave with his hands. Rynin ends up beating Seven in the fight, and he is about to ensure that she really is dead this time, when Raffi arrives on the scene and stuns him. Koliva, Rynin’s second in command aboard the Wrath, had also surrendered and Starfleet (specifically the U.S.S. Ginsburg) is called in to take control of the Romulan warbird. Rynin is put in the brig, and Gillan is being treated in sickbay. Back at Raffi’s place, Seven seems to be close to committing to Raffi, but Raffi suggests that they take their time. She also mentioned that she had had a call from Picard, who had got her back into Starfleet and that Seven was somehow getting her own ship. [Timeline: immediately following the conclusion of the TV series, Picard, series 1]

Star Trek – “The Mission” and Other Stories

Control (Ent – John Peel) : Chark was hungry, but no food source seemed to be around. Had there been any, he would have known because he could read and control their thoughts, which enabled him to entice them closer and then attack and devour them. But then he did sense something, although it puzzled him. Reading this creatures thoughts, he discovered that it called itself Lt. Savannah Preston, or Vanna for short, and for some mysterious reason it was interested in rocks. Then he learns that she is from something called Enterprise that visits other worlds, which Chark had never known existed. He multiplied by growing and dividing, and he imagined leaving copies of himself on these different worlds, and there would be plenty of food for all of them. So he decided not to eat Vanna, but to use her to get onboard Enterprise, so he transfigured himself to look like a unique rock that the Vanna would be interested in. That worked, and onboard he discovered that it was something or someone called Archer who was in charge of Enterprise, so

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he controlled Vanna to gain access to Archer’s cabin, where he was sleeping. Chark noticed that there was another simple creature there, but Chark’s interest was Archer. Consequently, he was not paying attention when Porthos decided to try out the new chew toy, but the dog ended up disappointed as he surveyed the mess that resulted.

The Guardian (ST-TOS – Gary Russell): Hob and Takhen (his wife) escape their burning city as the androids that had originally been created to serve them, had now turned on their creators and had largely exterminated them. Hob and Takhen head for the caves where all this started, knowing that the androids will think it ‘illogical’ that they would go there. A two-day trek got them there, and they find the bodies of some others who had come there, but who had decided taking poison was better than having the androids find them. Takhen decides to join them, but Hob continues into the caves looking for a particular piece of equipment. However, he is unable to open the door to the room he needs, but as he collapses from exhaustion, the door is opened by an android who still treats him with respect as a Master. Hob locates and pushes the lever that will cause all the androids to be deactivated, but then he notices the android that had let him in was still active, so he thinks the machinery has failed. The android, Ruk, tells him that can’t be so, because he had been tasked with ensuring that it never fails. Hob realizes that they must be too far below ground for the signal to reach. Warning Ruk to never leave the caves, Hob tells him to continue maintaining the equipment because it might be useful to someone someday, then Hob, totally exhausted, closes his eyes for the last time.

The Disavowed (TNG – Christopher Cooper): Riker was Mediator at a reconciliation meeting between those of the Amorphan region and the Relkan Sect on the planet Piivedan, which it was hoped would lead to the planet joining the Federation. Dianna Troy and Data accompanied Riker, but the two sides seemed to be nowhere near agreeing on anything and the current speaker, Conciliator b’Yornsyn of the Relkans, didn’t seem to be helping matters, so Riker decided to intervene. b’Yornsyn did not like being interrupted and fixed Riker with a steely glare, but she did ultimately allow him to address the gathering. Unfortunately, as he started talking, he noticed the attendees casually pack up their gear and leave, as did Troy and Data. When he tried to speak to them, they seemed not to hear him and then he found that his hand passed through them. Alone in the conference room, he found that he could not trigger the door to open it, but a little later b’Yornsyn entered the room through what had been a concealed door, and she exited through the main door. Before the secret door could close, Riker slipped through to find out what b’Yornsyn had been up too. He finds himself in a corridor where he comes across some dead bodies that are crumbling with age, and he finds an old man who can see and hear him. The man is f’Savian who had supposedly died during the early stages of the planet’s quest for Federation membership and had been replaced as the Relkan conciliator by b’Yornsyn who held diametrically opposite views. Riker is then told of the quantum resonance machine that had supposedly been dismantled and was used to punish dissenters by altering their quantum signature so that they couldn’t be seen or interact with others, and the neurons of others in the room are changed to hide any memory of the person affected. When Troy and Data return to the Enterprise with no knowledge of Riker, Picard has them checked out and neural adjustments are discovered, so Picard leads a team back to the conference room to find Riker. b’Yornsyn is furious when she finds them there, but Troy senses the hidden door, and Data works out how to open it. Inside the secret area, Riker starts strengthening his mental connection with Troy, and Data discovers the controls of the quantum resonance machine. Despite b’Yornsyn’s

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protestations, Data adjusts some of the control crystals and Riker and f’Savian become visible. b’Yornsyn has Picard’s phaser aimed at her, and Troy runs to give Riker a big hug.

Paghabi (TNG – Chris Dows): Picard is disturbed when Guinan suddenly collapses and has to be taken to sickbay, and he is then more disturbed when red alert is sounded because a rift in space is discovered that is preventing communication and starting to affect the warp drive, and Troy collapses, ending up in sickbay. Some energy source is observed that looks as though it might be the cause of the rift, which is continuing to grow and could affect the whole region soon. Reluctantly, Picard orders Worf to fire on it and disable it. However, the rift continues growing and Guinan leaves sickbay and beams herself to where the disabled energy source is. Realizing she is in the void of space with no protection, Picard beams her back, but she arrives back glowing, and it is soon determined that there is something inside her. Crusher establishes that it is a creature feeding off her electro-chemical emissions, and with Guinan’s lifesigns fading, Picard allows Crusher to attempt to kill the creature with a pulse of ultrasound. At that point, Troy sits up and orders Crusher to stop. She had been in telepathic contact with Guinan, facilitated by the entity (paghabi), and assured everyone that Guinan would be okay. The El Laurians and paghabi had a mutual help agreement, and paghabi had been sealing off the rift, not creating it, and needed to recover to complete its work, but wouldn’t fatally harm Guinan. Her lifesigns stabilize, and Crusher helps by creating an energy source to match that required by paghabi. Picard orders Enterprise to be moved back closer to the rift (it had been moved away on impulse power after the warp engines were rendered unusable) and he plans to offer sincere apologies when pughabi is able to receive them.

“Pulaski 2.0” (TNG – Greg Cox): Lloua III was a quarantine planet for those suffering from the malefic dementia virus. Although frequently fatal, a colony of those carrying the infection was living there but their main doctor, Jale Yaslo, who was apparently on the verge of finding a cure for the disease, had been injured in an explosion in his lab and required an artificial heart. The only person who was available and capable of carrying out that operation was Dr. Pulaski, but she couldn’t just beam down because the virus can circumvent even a hazmat suit. However, at least some of the people are descendants of Sargon’s people and have the technology to beam her consciousness into an android body on the planet, and then to beam her back again after the operation is complete. Pulaski is far from thrilled by the idea, but she agrees. There is a six-hour time limit within which her body could survive on its own and before her consciousness starts to deteriorate. Problems arise during the operation, but it is successfully completed with just enough time for Pulaski to hurry back to the transporter platform. However, just outside the operating room, Pulaski encounters Yaslo’s lab assistant, Rugin, and when Rugin hears that Yaslo will live he triggers a timer on an explosive vest he is wearing, intent on ensuring that Yaslo dies. He apparently had caused the original explosion because he didn’t want the lifestyle of the colony to change. He was starting to lose his senses as the disease progressed in him. Pulaski tries to stop him, and her android body ends up absorbing most of the blast. Rugin dies and Pulaski’s android body is a bit of a mess but still gets back to the transporter. On the Enterprise, Picard is in sickbay with Dr. Selar and fretting as the deadline approaches and he has been unable to contact Pulaski for some time (her communicator had been destroyed in the blast) and he had become aware of this second explosion. He calls out for Pulaski to respond and is surprised and delighted when Pulaski’s body sits up and tells him not to shout. Data promises

 

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Pulaski that he will remind her of this episode if she ever says anything disparaging about androids again.

The Expert (TNG – Gary Russell): 14-year-old Max Thomssen was trying to comfort his 11-year-old sister, Tori. Their father had been called away because of some emergency, and their ship, the Lalo, had tried to go to warp but suddenly stopped. Then all the lights went off. After they realized that the ship was firing its phasers at something, they decided to go and find their dad (their parents had separated a few years ago). Max knew his way around the ship, in fact he knew the whole design of the Mediterranean class vessels and had identified a structural weakness on decks 8 and 9. So, finding his way to his father’s workstation should have been easy, but plasma fires kept making them take alternate routes. Escaping from one fire, he must have hit his head on something, and he revived later to find his sister gone. He assumed she had gone ahead to find her dad, and he now started to do the same. Then he saw a group of people, except that they were dressed in black and had tubes in them and mechanical-looking appendages. Then he realized that some of them had been crew members. A hand landed on his shoulder, and he knew it was his dad because of the wedding ring he still wore. But the voice that told him that his knowledge of the ship would be added to that of the Borg was not his dad’s usual voice. And as the tube emerged from his father’s hand and fixed itself to his own, he knew he would never get to check if his mother still wore her wedding ring.

Scramble (TNG – Greg Cox): Picard and Troi are acting out a Dixon Hill story in which Picard, naturally, is Dixon Hill and Troi is his client, Laurel Dupree, who wants to regain an incriminating letters that ‘Slugger’ Kagan has stolen and is blackmailing her with. Kagan’s crony, Mickey Giza, is holding a gun on Dix when, suddenly, Troi’s character morphs into a Wild West gunfighter that Troi calls Durango, and who shoots Giza’s gun out of his hand. That was the first indication that something was wrong with the holodeck’s software following an incident in which the ship had encountered a dark matter nebula. Picard wants to stop the program, but Troi talks him into being adventurous and seeing how things play out. It takes a few more unexpected twists, including everyone ending up on something like Agatha Christie’s Orient Express with characters from different eras and planets, until ‘Slugger’ Kagan (by that time looking like a Klingon in a pinstriped suit rather than a 1941 San Francisco hoodlum) ends up unconscious and Dix recovering the letters from his vest pocket. Picard had to admit that the experience was exhilarating, but he does order the holodeck to be checked out, and he doesn’t comment when Troi suggests that, next time, she should play Dix and Picard play Durango.

The Mission (DS9 – James Swallow): Luther Sloan is puzzled by the disappearance of a Section 31 operative that had been on DS9, but he has another ready to continue the work. Operative Sierra is posing as an Akaali migrant named Lonia Kefal who is looking for work as a maintenance technician, but his real task is to monitor Sisko’s activities and those of his close associates, along with embedding digital implants in the station’s main computer so that Section 31 can monitor it. He gets monitors set up outside Sisko’s and Dax’s quarters, but he gets interrupted by Odo as he attempts to set up one to monitor Kira. He gets out of that by saying he got lost because all the corridors look alike, and he decides to concentrate on hacking the computer. Later, when he checks the monitors outside Sisko’s and Dax’s quarters, he finds that they’ve both been expertly tampered with and were actually supplying fake information. That gets him checking the station’s computer and he finds remnants of a Romulan, a Klingon, and an

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Orion monitor program that had been purged from the system, the Orion one being the most recent. Despite Odo saying that the Orion’s ship had been recorded leaving the station, Operative Sierra determines that the Orion’s last recorded movement were going down to the ore-processing area, so he goes to check the place out himself. He does find traces of Orion biomatter that had been disrupted by an energy pulse. Then he seems to hear someone else in the area, but nobody answers his call asking who is there. Then he hears the door to the processing area close and lock behind him, and the mechanism start operating followed by an energy pulse. Garak joins Bashir at the Replimat, with Garak apologizing for being late, explaining that he had been cleaning house. [Timeline: Year 2374, before the events in the DS9 TV episode “Inquisition”]

‘Things Can Only Get Better’ (DS9 – Una McCormack): The recovery of the Breen ship had been costly to them and, as they headed into Cardassian space in a heavily armed civilian flyer, Kira was thinking about Odo who was dangerously ill in sickbay, Damar was trying to rest after losing his wife and son, and only Garak seemed unaffected. The conversation is rather terse between Garak and Kira as they flew the craft, and then Kira picks up a faint signal that she recognizes as a Cardassian distress call. Garak is able to clear up the signal, and it is from a Cardassian freighter carrying refugees from Kelvas IV, and they are under attack from two Jem’Hadar vessels. Kira wants to intervene, but Garak points out that it will blow their cover and ruin their mission. He also refuses to help her fly the ship while attempting such a rescue, although he won’t stop her. Kira agrees with his argument but searches fruitlessly for some way to help. Finally she admits they can’t help and changes course just about the time they hear the screams and then the signal goes silent. They make it into Cardassian space, but Garak doesn’t seem particularly happy about it. Damar emerges, asking what is happening and Garak says everything is under control as Kira turn off the comm channel that had only static on it now.

Frontier Medicine (DS9 – Michael Carroll): The Onotark Corporation made a custom of inviting the brightest of the Academy medical graduates to join them on a luxury cruise to the Ferenginar system to try and talk the graduates into joining their company, and the new graduate, Julian Bashir, and his friend, Stosk, are among those on this flight. Stosk had been spending his free time trying to find a more effective cure for Purggrat’s Toxaemia and had brought Bashir in on it too. This disease can lie dormant for a long time, with the parasite hiding, but it almost invariably proves fatal. Stosk’s reason for interest in the disease becomes apparent when the ship is boarded by people associated with the Orion Syndicate, who Stosk obviously knew, and among them was a human lady, Seph Magdiel, suffering from the later stages of the disease, the point where it becomes treatable. Bashir offers to help and, despite Magdiel’s henchman, Mister Irons, objecting, he is allowed to. Irons is even less happy when Bashir starts telling him what to do, but Magdiel orders him to comply. Bashir tells him to put his left armored glove on Magdiel’s arm, then he gets Stosk to bathe Magdiel in a one-second low-dose X-ray burst. The parasite in Magdiel tries to escape from the X-rays by moving towards the protected area inside the glove, and Bashir had Irons cut her arm off at that point with his laser-knife. Magdiel wasn’t thrilled at losing an arm, but she was delighted to be free of the parasite and said she would spare the lives of those aboard the ship in return. She also told Bashir not to waste his time with people like the Onotark Corporation because his talents were needed more in frontier medicine.

 

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By Special Request … (DS9 – John Peel): Miles O’Brien was relaxing in Vic’s Place on the holodeck after a hard day’s work, and he saw Vic go over to talk with Bashir. That led to Bashir calling O’Brien into the conversation on the question of how alive a hologram like Vic could be. That conversation swung back and forth until Bashir had a thought. Vic had told Bashir that he had a wish, and Bashir couldn’t believe that anything that was just programmed would have a desire to have more than it was programmed to have. Anyway, Bashir and O’Brien agree to help Vic fulfill his wish, although it wasn’t easy. Vic wanted to sing a duet, which would be easy to program except that the person was living, and that required getting the person’s permission, and Captain Sisko was roped in to help there. Finally, everything was in place, and all the senior staff had rearranged their schedules to attend, and even Quark and Morn had relocated from the bar to the lounge. The suspense built until Vic came out to introduce his special guest for the night, and Nyota Uhura began singing “Beyond Antares”. [That story was dedicated to the memory of Nichelle Nichols.]

The Victim (DS9 – John Peel) : Garak had been ordered to kill Vedek Shawah, but he was almost apologizing to her, saying that he was a tailor and a spy, not an assassin. Meanwhile, Shawah was not thrilled at the thought of dying but accepted that it appeared to be the will of the Prophets, and that Garak was their instrument in carrying out their will. Garak didn’t like that depiction of himself, saying that he was doing his own will, not that of the prophets, although Shawah had little problem pointing out that it wasn’t really his will to kill her. She also pointed out that this was probably more a test of Garak’s loyalty, and if he didn’t kill her, then a more reliable assassin would get the job, and Garak would also get killed since he’d be seen as a liability. Garak had placed his phaser on the table between them, but she had put it back in his hand. Now she put her hand over his and squeezed. The phaser went off.

You Can’t Buy Fate (DS9 – Keith R.A. DeCandido): Ezri Dax and Lt. Nog are sent on a runabout through the wormhole to make first contact with the Orrelhod Confederacy. They rendezvous with an Orrelhod ship commanded by Shipmaster Rona but, as they approached the alien vessel, systems start failing on the runabout and the warp core blows. Nog awakens to find himself in sickbay on the Orrelhod vessel being treated by Physician Krande. Dax and an Orrelhod are also patients in this sickbay, and Krande says that Dax may be dying. Nog recalls a sensor reading he saw just before the explosion, that there were Raejin Waves (a rare form of radiation) that had caused the failure, and it had been two hundred years since he’d come across that radiation. That made him realize that he had the Dax symbiont inside him, because it had been Tobin Dax that encountered the radiation previously and Jadzia Dax had knowledge about adapting shields to protect against it. Krande had apparently mistaken the symbiont for one of Nog’s organs. Rona arrives to tell him that Kira and others from DS9 would be arriving shortly, and Nog gets Rona to warn Kira to stay at least fifty thousand kilometers away. Since transporters could only reach thirty-five thousand kilometers, and Nog and Dax were in need of Bashir’s medical expertise, Nog suggests that Kira beams two EVA suits into space, then the Orrelhod could beam him and Dax into the suits, then Kira could recover them. That works, but Bashir has to immediately move the symbiont back into Dax, or she would die. That robs Nog of the knowledge of the Raejin Waves, but he and Dax work together on how to adapt the shields. Then Bashir, Dax, and Nog take a shuttlecraft back to DS9 for further treatment while Kira handles the first contact mission. Nog had always had a crush on Ezri and getting to know her intimately while hosting

 

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the symbiont had made that blossom into love. Now he realized that Ezri also had his memories, but she seemed okay with that. [Timeline: Stardate 53018.4]

Summer Days Can Last Forever (Voy – Michael Collins): Matty (‘Rockets’) Redmond was bored silly, with nothing to do in Patterson’s Creek over summer. He’d been unable to attend summer camp because of the Mono, but things get a bit more interesting when he meets three strangers, a woman and two men, one oldish and one young. The older man is referred to as Doctor and he waves a sort of salt-shaker over him and says it will cure him of the glandular fever, or something like that. But they don’t stay around long and just vanish. Next day, Matty realizes his Mono has gone, but he also finds that it is August 12th, 1957, again, just as it had been the day before. He meets the three strangers again and starts to hear about a time-loop (curing his glandular fever had somehow let him recognize that the time-loop was happening), and he learns that the three strangers are from space, and the lady is the Captain Janeway of the spaceship, and the young man is Tom Paris in charge of flight control. They said that Matty and the whole area around them was now on some desolate planet a long way from Earth, and their ship had diverted there because Paris noticed an old type of radio signal. Matty speculates that it might have come from the nearby military base, Camp Percival, and Janeway speculates that the base might be key to what’s happening here. Next day (but same date), the three are back disguised as military, accompanied by Seven of Nine, and they all gain access to the camp and discover a disk-shaped drone-like vehicle that it is determined is the cause of the time-loop. But before they can do anything about it, the four space-people vanish again. It seems that the military had shot down the alien drone, which they thought was a Russian craft, and accidently triggered it’s time mechanism. When it had tried to leave, it took the whole local area with it, got thrown off course and landed on this planet. Next day they gain access to the base again and locate the drone more quickly. Tom has to stun some of the military personnel who try to intervene, but Seven has time to explain to Matty what he needed to do if they got whisked back to their ship before completing the reset of the drone. Matty does have to complete the procedure alone, and two of the stunned military men start firing warning shots to try and get him to stop. Suddenly he’s back home, bored silly on a summers day, August 13th, 1957, in Patterson’s Creek on Earth.

Star Trek – “A Year to the Day that I Saw Myself Die” and Other Stories

Chekov’s Challenge (ST-TOS – Walter Koenig and Chris McAuley) : Chekov was still feeling guilty about what he had done while under the influence of the Ceti Eel, and which led to the selfless action of Spock in giving his life to save the Enterprise. Then the ship comes under attack from an Orion pirate ship that had been hidden by the effects of a gaseous nebula. The ship is identified as the Corsair’s Revenge led by Garroth, and they inflict serious damage on the Enterprise in their initial attack and then send a boarding party. Kirk orders Chekov to organize the security team to repel the boarders. He is racked with doubt but hears Spock’s voice in his head, encouraging him, and the boarders are defeated. Kirk, with the aid of Sulu and Scotty (who succeeds in restoring power to the ship), implements Operation Solar Flare and the Orion ship is destroyed. When Chekov arrives back on the bridge, Kirk tells him that there will be a commendation in his log for his actions that day.

The Kellidian Kidnapping (Voy – Keith R.A. DeCandido): While Voyager was in another star system, Janeway, along with Tuvok and Neelix, had taken a shuttle to Breva to obtain some

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exotic spices that Neelix wanted for the galley. Unfortunately the Brevans that Neelix had contacted turned out to be Kellidan terrorists, and using an electromagnetic pulse to disable the three’s communicators, etc., along with temporarily blinding them, the terrorists kidnap Janeway. Neelix gets a minor injury from a bullet from a projectile weapon, and Tuvok is injured when he tracks down Janeway’s communicator and discovers that it is boobytrapped. The Brevan authorities do not negotiate with terrorists, so they won’t intervene, but they do give Tuvok a map showing known locations for the terrorists. When Neelix contacts Chomforta (his contact who turned out to be a terrorist leader) they learn that Janeway is being held somewhere that can’t be located. Tuvok guesses it’s a building made of the same material as the box that had shielded the pulse generator from sensors, and such a building is located where terrorist activity was known. Tuvok and Neelix locate the building, and Neelix talks Chomforta into opening the door so that they could see Janeway was safe, before they met the terrorists’ demands. When the door is opened, Tuvok immediately shoots and disables all seven terrorists in the building. He had reconfigured their shuttle sensors to find heat signatures, which weren’t blocked. Neelix decides he doesn’t need the spices, and they leave the terrorists for the Brevan authorities to take care of. [Timeline: Stardate 53317.1]

Lost and Founder (DS9 – David Mack): Odo had been roaming the galaxy for around two millennia since DS9 had been dismantled, and he missed his connection to the Founders, but probably more so he missed those from DS9, and he wondered why he continued. Then the vision of Benjamin Sisko appears, although Odo knowns he has formed the image himself. Sisko offers his advice, but it doesn’t really satisfy Odo. That is followed by visits from Worf, Jadzia Dax, Garak, Quark, Doctor Bashir, Ezri Dax, Jake Sisko, and Miles O’Brien. Finally Nerys appears and reminds him of their last conversation and his promise. She also encourages him to remember what’s really important. A trace of a smile comes to his face as he remembers love.

A Year to the Day that I Saw Myself Die (DS9 – Michael Collins): Exactly a year ago, Miles O’Brien had seen himself (at least another version of himself from this universe) die heroically, and he wondered if he could have done the same things. At Quark’s he notices some customers acting a bit suspiciously, and one with three eyes looks at him with the third eye on his forehead. Then O’Brien joins Bashir in one of Quark’s holosuite for a World War II adventure, but suddenly everything freezes. O’Brien has to manually let himself out of the holosuite and finds everything frozen on the station except for a strange light and monotonous sound emanating from a box that the suspicious customers that he’d seen had apparently opened. The only unfrozen person was the three-eyed man who introduces himself as Commander Ganeri Criss of Starfleet’s Temporal Integrity Commission. The box is accelerating entropy on the station, and Criss is not affected because he’s from a different timeframe and O’Brien is from a different universe. Then O’Brien, who used to play the cello, notices that the sound coming from the box is discordant, and he sees that the artifact is some form of stringed instrument. He instinctively knows how to play it, and the music starts to undo the effect. As he finishes the tune, the sound and sight of activity resumes. When Bashir finds him and asks where he went to, he just says there was an engineering emergency. Criss confiscated the artifact (which Quark had had but couldn’t show the paperwork for it). O’Brien realizes he had always been playing music, but with the station and its equipment.

 

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See & Seen (Voy – Peter Holmstrom): It was only a few days after Kes’s encounter with Tannis and the Ocampan community that had led to the development of Kes’s telekinetic powers. Kes, Janeway, and B’Elanna were in a shuttle that gets into trouble and crashes on a planet, and they should have been killed but found themselves on the ground with only minor injuries. Although there are trees and plants all around, Kes cannot sense anything and gets the feeling that something is hiding from them. Other strange things start happening and B’Elanna blames Kes for it, although she denies it. Then Kes gets to feel that the trees are calling to her, and she runs into the jungle, even against Janeway’s orders. There she learns that all of the life on the planet is one being called Anoallidin. It had noticed a coolant leak from the shuttle because it was hurting parts of the creature, and it had caused the crash. But it had saved their lives because it couldn’t comprehend life ending. Voyager rescues them two days later.

Sundering (ST-TOS – David Mack): The followers of Surak have defeated those that refuse to accept the benefits of logic over the violent Vulcan emotions, and tens of thousands of the irrational ones and their families have been rounded up and sentenced to exile from Vulcan. Stuvok, along with his wife L’Naal and their year-old son, Kevok, are waiting outside the fence to see Stuvok’s identical twin, Sokor, before he and his family are put aboard the transport that will take them to whatever new world they can find. Stuvok does manage to attract his twin’s attention, and Sokor and his wife, T’Vala, and their baby daughter, Taavik, go over to see them. Unfortunately, the farewell simply results in a continuation of the dispute that had torn them apart, with both wives joining in the dispute until guards come to escort Sokor and T’Vala to their ship. But then Sokor and T’Vala look back, as do their guards, and see that Kevok and Taavik have squeezed their little fingers through the fence’s mesh and interlinked their hands, and they were looking longingly at each other. The guards have difficulty separating the children, so Sokor comes over and gently urges his daughter to let go and accompany them. As Sokor and his family are led away, the two young cousins are still looking at one another, while Stuvok and L’Naal stood with their faces downcast. Sokor dared to hope that someday the outcasts would be welcomed back home as family.

Academy Acquisition (DS9 – Jake Black): Nog had been having a hard time during his first weeks at Starfleet Academy, with people constantly making fun of him. Then he meets Boothby who gets Nog to help him with the gardening. He points out that Nog, as the first Ferengi in Starfleet, isn’t the first to face such problems, and cites Worf as an example. When Nog asks what fool would pick an argument with Worf, Boothby agrees that only fools would bully Nog, and he says that Nog may be the first Ferengi in Starfleet, but he should make sure he’s not the last. He also says that Nog should use the aspects about him that others ridicule. The cadets had been set an exam that involves a simulated phaser-fight in a cave system, with the last cadet metaphorically standing, gaining top marks. Nog makes use of his very sensitive hearing to know where other cadets are, especially those trying to creep up on him, and he ends up being the winner of the mock battle. Nog knows it will take a while to gain the trust and friendship of a lot of the students, but he’s pleased to note that a couple of the students seem to be happy about his achievement.

Work Worth Doing (Discovery – Keith R.A. DeCandido): Ambassador Laira Rillak had learned a lot of her skills settling disputes on her father’s cargo vessel and, as ambassador, she had demonstrated those skills in obtaining an agreement in the border dispute between the Tholians

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and the Betazoids. But she is shocked when Federation President Ligg says she is not running again for the post, and that she believes that Rillak is the best person to replace her. Vice President Qiladar is also retiring, and of the two people that are currently expected to run for the post of President, Ligg sees Tira as too passive and Hrak-Nat as too bossy. In Rillak, she sees someone who will bring sides together. Rillak does run for the post and succeeds in obtaining it, but then she is facing doubts that she is up to the task. Ligg informs her that those doubts show that she is the ideal person for the task, and Rillak decides that it is work worth doing, whether she’s ready or not.

The Trouble with Jones (ST-TOS – Greg Cox) : Kirk was enjoying his shoreleave until he hears the voice of Cyano Jones greeting him. However, Kirk is amazed and puzzled when he finds that Jones is a well-respected and very helpful resident of the area, not at all the conniving conman that Kirk remembered. Then another person from Kirk’s past arrived and accused Jones of double-crossing him and running off with the spores he had. That comment sounded like the Jones that Kirk knew, and Kirk also identified the newcomer as Hastings from Omicron Ceti III where the spores had kept the people there docile. When Hastings recognizes Kirk, he stuns him and, on recovery, Kirk finds himself and Jones bound, and Kirk was without his communicator. He also learns that Hastings had taken a sample of the spores from Omicron Ceti III and was hoping to find a way to grow them outside of the system. Then Jones had found out about this and got Hastings interested in the financial opportunities, before Jones absconded with the spores. But then Jones had accidentally got infected by the spores himself and become his new docile and helpful self. When a neighbor calls round to see Jones, Hastings goes to get rid of him and Kirk takes the opportunity to abuse Jones about how lazy and useless he had become, which finally gets Jones angry. That frees him from the spores’ influence and, when Hastings returns, conman Jones talks about how valuable Kirk would be if they traded him to the Klingons, and he also mentions a box with valuable jewels that he has stashed in another room. When Hastings goes to find the box, it turn out to be boobytrapped with a mild hypnotic, turning Hastings docile. Jones had Hastings free him from his bonds and then makes his escape, but not before loosening Kirk’s bonds sufficiently to let him free him eventually, because Jones is grateful to him for freeing him from the obnoxious effects of the spores.

Jack of Diamonds (Picard – Una McCormack): Jack Crusher was running, chased by some people he’d cheated in a card game, but he wasn’t going to give up what he’d won. However, his mother (Beverley Crusher) was tracking him from the Eleos and said she’d beam him up, but Jack thought he could talk his way out of trouble, and he didn’t want her to give away the location of the Eleos. Finding himself in a dead-end alley didn’t encourage him, but Beverley beamed him up before a seven-fingered fist impacted his face. He showed her the thirty Cardassian disruptors he’d obtained, but it was the small case of Dibarian crystals that his mother was more interested in. “You asked, and I delivered”, he said. [Timeline: just prior to events in Star Trek: Picard, ‘The Next Generation’]

A Dish Served Cold (ST-TOS – Chris Dows): A series of very serious incidents affecting the deflector control, the dilithium chamber safeties, and the photon torpedo bay, had been plaguing the Enterprise, and it is assumed that there had to be a very knowledgeable saboteur onboard. Spock suggest that McCoy checks the crew’s psychological profiles. Then the autodestruct system is activated, and Kirk and Spock find that their authorization codes to stop it are not

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working. The evacuation pods have been tampered with too, so it is impossible to abandon ship. McCoy had noticed one psych profile that stood out and had then discovered that the new crewman’s partner, Sarah Reilly, had been among the 53 people that had died aboard the Lexington when M-5 had taken over the Enterprise. With less than ten minutes left on the countdown, they locate Lt. Horst Renner (a sensor specialist who had also formerly served on the Lexington) in his cabin, but initially he isn’t interested in helping stop the self-destruct. With under a minute to go, Kirk convinces him that Sarah would not want him killing the crew when it was a defective piece of equipment that had caused her death. When he accepts that, Renner cancels the self-destruct, and Kirk is determined to make sure Renner gets all the help he needs.

Forewarned and Three-Armed (ST-TOS – Rich Handley): Arex was back at his home planet, Edos, leading an Enterprise team to investigate what is believed to have been an assassination attempt on Minister Orip Ban Recoro. The shuttle that she had been on was apparently deliberately crashed by Sunderland, the Starfleet pilot, who had himself died in the crash although he didn’t seem injured. Two intruders are interrupted trying to remove Sunderland’s body, but they are captured. When McCoy scans the two (who claim to be under orders from Starfleet), he finds that they are Klingons, and Sunderland is found to be an android. When talk of tribbles disturbs one of the Klingons, they learn that the android Sunderland had been obtained from Harry Mudd, but it had short-circuited, and the crash had been accidental. The Klingons were actually after some of the plants on Edos that contained a deadly poison used for assassinations. With the situation resolved, Orip says Arex should spend some time with his family since he’s here, and Kirk gives him time off, although Arex rather wished he hadn’t.

Working Miracles (ST-TOS – Jake Black): Scotty and Uhura are in a shuttle, Galileo II, heading back to the Enterprise after attending a conference on Earth about the upgrades that the Enterprise will soon be getting. They are just settling down for a meal when the shuttle suddenly stops, caught in a tractor beam. They get pulled back to a giant pirate vessel, where they encounter Nyren (an Orion), Scham (an Andorian) and Ju-aire (an Ursinoid) who order Scotty to fix their warp engines under threat of death. Scotty finds that the drive has been cobbled together from parts from various vessels, and a faulty connection is leaking small amounts of matter and antimatter that will soon lead to a catastrophic explosion. Uhura succeeds in sending out a message to the Enterprise, routing the message through their shuttle from the pirate ship’s comms. The pirates get an inkling of what she had been trying to do, leading to Uhura getting injured. But the Enterprise gets the message that includes coordinate, so they warp to the location and are able to beam all five occupants off thanks to Scotty lowering shields as he was supposedly working on the engines. The pirates end up in the brig, while Scotty and Uhura have the dinner together that got interrupted. [Timeline: three months before the end of their 5-year mission]

Confirmation Bias (Picard – Michael Dismuke): Seven was Captain Liam Shaw’s first officer aboard the Titan-A, but the way he treated her was getting to her, so she asked to speak to him privately, and he agreed to that. He then agreed that she could speak freely. She pointed out how he spoke condescendingly, at best, to her, and paid little attention to any advice she gave him, playing her down in front of the crew. She also pointed out what he had said in a report to Starfleet Command after Wolf 359, saying that no drone – past or present – should be trusted. In return, he said that he knew she wouldn’t have her position except for Janeway and Picard. By

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the end of the conversation his voice was noticeably raised, and he told that if she ever asked to be allowed to speak freely again, he would not allow it. By that time, Seven (or Commander Hansen as Shaw insisted on calling her) was wondering if she had a future in Starfleet, but she knew that she and Shaw were now professional rivals.

 

Section 31

Underbelly – The Return of Jax Nandi

T. R. Bryan

Lt. Jax Nandi had been working as an engineer on the Fermi when his wife, Lt. Tatiana Shushunova-Nandi (who had been security officer on the USS Fermi) is killed while defending Toriga IV against an attack by the pirates known as the Talesian Brotherhood. Jax contacts his old controller (Admiral Blaine) at Section 31, saying he wants to get his old team together to go after the Brotherhood and their leader, Kradik Krell. He also includes Petty Officer Tavis Winters (who had been part of the mission where Tatiana had been killed) on the team and brings in Captain Aziz because the Fermi is likely to be needed to extract the team if they survive the mission. Jax also asks for the Romulans (or at least the Tal Shiar) to be brought in on the mission, and they are told that they will meet up with a Romulan agent at Talese (the Brotherhood’s base in the Typhon Expanse). Jax, who operates under the name Scorpion, joins the rest of his team that consists of Neer (a Nausicaan), Zitag’dur (a Jem’Hadar) and Drid (a female Ferengi), and the team is known as the Poison Clan. The small ship they are given (or steal) is named Hellfire which is controlled by an AI named Lucy. They stage an escape from the Romulans as a ruse to account for their arrival in the Typhon Expanse, and after killing a pirate captain (Gargan) who had crossed Jax before, they get to meet with Krell because Gargan had been willing to do Krell’s dirty work. Jax is brought in on a mission by Krell to steal spare parts from a mining colony to ensure that the three atmospheric processors that provide a breathable atmosphere on Talese can be maintained, and that mission enhances Jax’s standing with Krell. The Romulan contact turns up in the form of a Breen and is named Zhak’San, and he becomes a vital part of Jax’s plan to take Krell into custody. Zhak’San informs Krell that Jax and his team are Federation agents and that gets them all called in by Krell. In the ensuing fight, Krell is taken captive, but Neer is killed by a smelly tusked pig-like alien guarding Krell and Zhak’San is badly injured as they are escaping from Krell’s compound. Before escaping the planet aboard Hellfire, they damage a lot of the pirates’ ships and disable the atmospheric processors. Emerging from the Typhon Expanse, they find themselves facing 25 pirate ships, but a Romulan scout ship comes to their assistance, and the Fermi arrives just as the team expects to be destroyed. With a couple of other Romulan ships decloaking and adding their firepower only two pirate ships escape back into the Expanse. Hellfire supposedly makes a run for the Federation border but is overtaken by the Fermi which destroys it. However, the surviving members of the Poison Clan, Zhak’San in a stasis chamber, Lucy the AI in a 3-inch cube box, and the tightly bound Krell get beamed onto a holodeck where they remain hidden from the crew and are soon taken aboard a Section 31 vessel. Jax and Winters later rejoin the Fermi, Jax having supposedly been on vacation and Winters at a counter-terrorism program. [Timeline: Year 2381, 6 years after the end of the Dominion War]

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Underbelly – Captain Aziz

T. R. Bryan

Aziz, at age 17, was helped by her mother, Wahida, to escape from her home in Afghanistan after her traditionalist father, Aarif, had arranged a marriage for her with an older man. While working as a cook in her aunt’s restaurant in Kabul she meets some crew from an Intergalaxy Transport cargo ship and gets a job as a cook on the freight-carrying ship, SS Appomattox. On her first mission, the Appomattox is attacked by pirates led by Kradik Krell. Aziz is among a group of the crew put on Captain Reince’s pirate ship, to be sold as slaves. When Reince (Krell’s second in command) tries to seduce or rape her, Aziz leads a rebellion, killing the pirate crew and taking Reince captive. Aziz goes from being cook to Captain of the pirate vessel, which she renames Malak, after her Klingon friend who had been on the Appomattox. They rendezvous with a Starfleet vessel and then head off to find the Appomattox, but the crew that had been left on that ship are found dead, although Malak is missing, presumed dead. After that, Admiral Kampala on Starbase 112 offers to sponsor her entry into Starfleet Academy, which she accepts and enters the Academy the following year, almost four years after leaving home. Due to her limited schooling, she struggles with the academic subjects, but makes her mark in self-defense, strategy, and military history courses, and her leadership ability is brought to the attention of high-ups in Starfleet on a number of occasions. Beating a Vulcan, V’lok, in a hand-to-hand fight didn’t hurt her reputation either. Consequently, when she graduates after her 4 years at the Academy, she gets a position on Starbase 86 as battalion leader with a rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade. Seven years after leaving the Academy, she is sent aboard the USS Cape Town to assist Romulans on a moon orbiting Torsett II after they come under attack by Dominion forces, it ends with her leading the survivors of her group (‘A’ Company) plus 400 Romulan and Reman troops in defeating a force of 2,000 Jem’Hadar. That leads to another promotion and a rapid rise through the ranks until she is appointed captain of the USS Fermi, just before her 30th birthday. The defeat of the Talesian Brotherhood results in Captain Aziz and the Fermi being called back to Earth, 15 years after she had left home, to meet the Romulan ambassador Reenya Mordan, when the Romulans reopen official contact with the Federation. Mordan had been Lt. Jax Nandi’s lover, and she tells Jax that the Romulan agent, Zhak’San, that he had worked with while taking down Krell’s pirate organization, had been their son. She also tells him that the pig-like alien that had been protecting Krell and had killed Neer after proving to be immune to phaser fire, was known as a Peccarian. The Romulans were at war with the Peccarians who come from a planet within the boundary of the Romulan Empire. The Fermi then gets sent on a not totally official “diplomatic” mission to the planet Xuter and two of the ships engineers are killed and one seriously injured by one of two Peccarian who were visiting Xuter’s imperator Maiekar Brax. Using unorthodox methods, Aziz takes the two Peccarian into custody and they are handed over to a Starfleet security ship. We also learn how Jax met Zitag’dur during a mission in which a sentient planet also turned a 20-year-old female Bajoran, Crewman Kaso, on his team into a cat-like creature. [Timeline: June 30, 2350, when Aziz was born]

 

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Underbelly – Changing of the Guard

T.R. Bryan

From information gleaned from the two Peccarians that had been captured at Xuter, the Federation learns that the Peccarians are planning on setting up a base on the colony world of Omicron IV within the Federation borders, and Captain Aziz and the Fermi are tasked with taking a troupe of Section 31 Marines there to prevent that happening. She is surprised to find that the Marines include some non-Federation races as well, including Klingons and some Bellatrix with whom Aziz is acquainted. A cloud of interference is spotted approaching Omicron IV, and it is later determined that it contains a very large ship and two smaller ones and will arrive in under two days. The Marines set up base on the planet and start to explore a canyon system and Aziz joins them. Commander Montgomery beams down to meet with the colonists to try to get them to evacuate to the Fermi, but the colonists refuse to leave. There was natural interference making communication difficult, but then an obviously artificial interference patterns blocks all communications on the planet and with the Fermi, and it becomes obvious that an advance group of Peccarians are already on the planet. A battle breaks out between them and the Marines (who are using 21st century guns, including Gatling guns, because the Peccarians are immune to phasers). When Commander Gintok refuses to leave the planet to check on the advance of the other Peccarian ships and report in to Starfleet, Lieutenant Nandi (Jax) renders Gintok unconscious, reveals himself as having the rank of captain, and takes over command of the Fermi. They discover that another interference cloud with a further three Peccarian ships is only just over an hour away, but the Brimstone with Jax’s Poison Clan team has been tracking them while cloaked. Between the Brimstone and the Fermi, they manage to disable the first three Peccarian ships to arrive, and Jax and the Fermi’s AI, Lucy, find a way to overcome the interference from the planet sufficiently to fly the Brimstone down to the planet. There they are in time to assist Aziz and the Marines in successfully defeating one Peccarian attack, but the battle is at a painful cost to the Marines. Then the jamming device is located and destroyed. There are still more Peccarians on the planet, and Jax succeeds in taking over one group (or drove) of them after killing their drovemaster in a fight and eating (or at least taking a bite out of) his heart. Romulan and Klingon ships later arrive, followed by more Starfleet vessels, to help defeat the other Peccarians, and Jax arranges for “his” drove to be resettled on the uninhabited planet, Volencia V. After that, Aziz is ordered back to Earth, and the Fermi gets a new captain, Matexa. On Earth, Aziz is reassigned to the Select Strategy Committee to help coordinate the ongoing battle with the Peccarians who make other advances into Federation territory. Finally, a special force of Starfleet, Romulan and Klingon members is formed to take the battle to the Peccarians, and the first of three special ships, the Joan of Arc, is completed with Aziz appointed as captain. Her first officer is Commander Pardon (a Romulan), her second officer is Commander M’Taric (a Klingon), V’lok (her old nemesis at the Academy) is science officer, and her old friend from the Academy, Commander Jessica Ivanova, is responsible for all ground forces. [Timeline: Stardate 71922.5, about 4 months after the events at Xuter]

 

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Peter Pan Records

 

These comics were marketed with audio versions, as teaching tools to help children learn to read, but some of the stories only appeared on the records but didn’t appear as a comic. However, I’m including them anyway.

Passage to Moauv (Alan Dean Foster)

The Enterprise finds itself transporting the pet Waul, named Ewass, that belongs to the Moauvian ambassador to the Federation, Oavid. Moauv is situated near the borders of Federation and Klingon space, so developing good relations with them is imperative. But the pet is noisy and then escapes and starts projecting its fear. Crew members start growling and hissing and McCoy’s sickbay starts filling up with injuries as crewmembers start attacking each other. Contacting the ambassador isn’t much help and potentially damages the diplomatic situation. Kirk and Spock corner the Waul and attempt to net it, but they start fighting each other instead. Luckily, they are seen by Lieutenant M’Ress, who is of Caitian ancestry, and she treats the Waul like a cute little kitty and soon has it purring sweetly. The situation on the Enterprise immediately calms down, and M’Ress is relieved of all other duties and given sole responsibility for looking after Ewass. They soon learn from the ambassador that the Waul is about to have kittens, so M’Ress will have a family to look after before they reach Moauv. The ambassador is also impressed that the multicultural crew had been able to solve the situation. [Timeline: Stardate 5440.0]

In Vino Veritas (Alan Dean Foster)

There is a conference involving the Federation, Klingons, and the Romulans, and Kirk and Spock are there among the Federation representatives. Coriolanus Quince livens things up by adding truth serum to the ceremonial wine, which causes a lot of embarrassing things to be said, and Quince to be arrested. However, they can't find anything to charge him with, so he ends up being released.

The Crier in Emptiness (Alan Dean Foster)

The Enterprise is on a rather boring mapping mission in the Moran Sector, when a somewhat musical sound is heard, but it doesn’t register as coming from outside the ship and there’s no indication of any person or thing producing it aboard the ship. After three days of the sound, Spock comes to the conclusion that it must be a creature of pure sound, but the sound is starting to get painfully loud. Lieutenant Connors is inspired to bring his triple-keyboard instrument, called an Edoan Elisiar, onto the bridge and try playing for the sound creature. Connors starts to get tired, and there’s no discernable change to the sound-creature’s actions, but under encouragement from Kirk he continues, and it becomes more like they are improvising with each other. Then the sound-creature disappears. Kirk speculates that it had just been looking for someone to “talk” with and had fulfilled its need. [Timeline: Stardate 5444.9]

To Starve a Fleaver (Alan Dean Foster)

Enterprise is carrying the diminutive Marpaplu ambassador when an outbreak of hysterical laughter, along with itching, occurs. The problem is flea-like creatures called meegees that the

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ambassador had unwittingly infected them with. All Marpapluans harbor meegees, and their tickling keeps them happy and peaceful, and he'd assumed that everyone had them. Scotty isn't amused, in fact he's angry about the disruption it is causing in engineering, and that kills off all of the meegees on him. Hearing that, Kirk orders the crew to think unhappy thoughts, which frees the crew too. The ambassador become distraught at what he had caused, so his meegees die off as well. Kirk remarks that Spock had apparently been the only one unaffected, but Uhura says that she'd seen him giggling, and that brings another outbreak of laughter to the bridge.

The Logistics of Stampede (Alan Dean Foster)

The Rybol II grain-growing colony has had to suffer damage from the stampedes of herds of the native dranzers, so they call in the Federation for help and the Enterprise gets the job. The stampede had already started when the Enterprise arrives, and Spock suggests using a musk spray to lure the danzers away from the settlers' fields and has them running in circles. A lot of the danzers end up dying of exhaustion, but enough are left to keep the native tall grass under control, and Spock tells the colonists that they will need the bodies of the dead danzers as fertilizer, and the Enterprise leaves them to the task.

Dinosaur Planet (author unknown)

The Enterprise is sent to survey the Oblik solar system, and the third planet is found to be extremely volcanic and initially assumed to be uninhabitable. But then signs of intelligent life show up on Spock’s instruments, and Kirk feels that the lifeforms must be in serious danger and be in need of rescuing, so he leads a team that also includes Spock, McCoy, Sulu, and two security personnel, Wodsworth and Tanka. On the planet, they come under attack by pterodactyls, so they shelter in a cave. That leads to one of the team falling after tripping on a rock, and he has to be assisted in walking by Kirk. Wodsworth and Tanka becomes paranoid, wanting to kill any creatures they encounter and wanting to claim the gems seen in the cave walls. Following what looks like a stream of liquid gold, leads the team to a massive cave where they encounter and come under attack from the two Tyrannosaurus Rexes. Spock notices that they have longer arms and larger heads than the extinct Earth version and suggests that these are the intelligent lifeforms he had registered. The dinosaurs then call off their attack and speak to the team telepathically, welcoming them. However, a member of the security team tries firing his phaser at them, but hits the cave wall, starting a reaction that begins to destabilize the walls. The two Tyrannosaurus Rexes rescue the team by letting them ride on their backs as they escape from the cave. Despite being shot at, etc., the dinosaurs apply for membership in the Federation.

The Robot Masters (author unknown)

Scotty is concerned about some robots he’d requisitioned that had not arrived, and it soon becomes clear that a lot of shipments of robots had been hijacked. The Enterprise lays a trap and captures a pirate ship working for the Romulans that had been carrying out some of the hijacking, and Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov, dress up to complete the delivery, as Scotty attempts to reprogram the leading robot so that it won’t attack the Federation. At the Romulan base, they learn from the Romulan leader, Pragmar, that this is the final shipment of robots, and it includes the robot commander, that becomes known as Mastero, which happens to be the one that Scotty is hoping he had sufficient time to reprogram correctly. Pragmar had recognized Kirk, and he orders Mastero to lead the others in capturing and killing the Federation spies. It looks as if that is going to happen, but then Mastero commands the robot troops to capture the Romulans.

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The Mirror for Futility (author unknown)

Enterprise was completing a survey out near the intergalactic gulf when Sulu notices strange and intense power readings, and they go to investigate. What they find is two gigantic ships locked in battle with one another. A message from one ship announces that it represents the Dray people, and the other says it’s from the Nax Empire. Spock finds that both of those people are believed to have been extinct for 150 thousand years, and it soon becomes apparent that both ships are computer-controlled and still carrying out the final directives of their original crews. Kirk notices that their battle is edging towards Federation territory and tries to get them to change direction, but that only angers them, so the Enterprise beats a hasty retreat away from Federation space. Happily, the two ships are big and powerful but not that fast, and they lose interest in following, and resume their fight. Now that they are moving more into the void, the Enterprise leaves them to it. [Timeline: Stardate 5470.0]

The Time Stealer (author unknown)

Enterprise starts to experience time slowing down and the crew realize that it is being caused by a strange energy field that they are approaching. As they back away from it, time starts to become normal again, but then they find themselves under attack from another ship. Finding that there’s only two people onboard, Kirk has them beamed over, but one turns out to be a warrior wielding an axe, and the other is a sorcerer. As Kirk is losing the fight against the warrior, Spock applies a neck pinch to the sorcerer, and the warrior loses his strength and the fight. The warrior’s name was Konrac and the sorcerer was Klee, and they had thought that the Enterprise had been controlling Gola, the energy field, that had been affecting development on their planet. Phasers and photon torpedoes fail to affect Gola, but it is discovered that Gola is sentient, and Spock and Klee come up with a plan. Using the Enterprise’s technology, Klee projects the combined mental energy of his people at Gola. That also fails to stop it, but then Spock takes over and tries to channel Vulcan’s mental energy, and that overpowers Gola. Spock discovers it is actually a baby that had been trying to find its way back to its star parent. Spock locates what he believes is the appropriate star, and the Enterprise tows Gola back there, reuniting mother and child. Konrac had mentioned that their people came from a place called Earth, and Spock suggests that they are the descendants of the lost people of Atlantis. [Timeline: Stardate 6134.6]

The Man Who Trained Meteors (author unknown) The Enterprise is sent to check out what happened when Parynda City on Parynda IV is destroyed by a meteor storm. They learn that the city had received threats from a person called Tyranneous prior to the storm, and then the Enterprise gets threatened by him. Scotty establishes that the message came from a hollowed-out meteor within a meteor storm, so Kirk, Spock and Scotty take a shuttle to investigate. Sadly, Tyranneous is able to use his psychic powers to take control of the shuttlecraft, and he uses mind control to order Scotty to take the shuttle back and destroy the Enterprise. Spock is unaffected thanks to the use of his own mind techniques, and he is able to stop Tyranneous and use his mind to have the meteor swarm rendezvous with Enterprise. There, Kirk has them beamed aboard and orders that Scotty is to be stopped at all costs, which doesn't prove to be a difficult task as Scotty was fighting off the mind control that he'd been subjected to.

 

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The Human Factor (author unknown)

Once again, the Enterprise is tasked with transporting a short ambassador back to his home planet, and this time it's the ambassador for Garus, a new member of the Federation. When they get there, they find that the ambassador has stolen a shuttle and abducted Uhura. Kirk leads a team to meet with the planet's leader, Garmin, but he was in on the kidnapping and goes to have Kirk’s team taken captive. In making their escape, they discover a large room with a complex computer that is monitoring the planet, and they see Uhura being taken to serve "the Master". The Master is the computer that the Garusians consider a god, and they themselves aren't permitted to touch it, so they kidnap others to work on it, which is supposedly the ultimate honor. The solution that is reached is for the Federation to provide a satellite that would feed the computer "peaceful programming", which is the offerings it wants.

 

Gold Key comics

There was a monthly series of comics, the first few of which are summarized in Volume 3 of this series on pages 116 through 119 under the heading of Star Trek Gold Key Archives Volume One and Volume Two. The rest of the monthly series are summarized below, and they date from very early in the franchise’s history, before a lot of the Star Trek technology and the character traits were fully established – that includes the way Stardates work, so take them with a grain of salt.

Dark Traveler (author unknown)

The Enterprise is passing through an uninhabited system when it suddenly finds itself boarded by an alien who describes himself as a traveler but gets known as Nomad. His home planet had reached the stage where robots ran everything, and the people were free to entertain themselves in any way they liked, a sort of paradise, but Nomad had found that life unfulfilling and had left. After visiting multiple worlds, he wanted to return home, and the Enterprise had been the only ship available to transport him. Kirk is definitely not happy when Nomad takes over control of the ship, but Nomad does so anyway, adapting the ship’s structure and engines to get him home in a very short period of time. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy accompany Nomad to the surface, but find a hell rather than Paradise. Nomad’s brother, Niklon, was a “misshapen gnome” (in his own words) who had been assigned to oversee manufacture of the robots because the others wanted to keep him out of sight and not be reminded of potential frailties. Niklon had therefore built in programming to the robots that placed them all under his control. Nomad and his Starfleet companions get captured, but they escape and confront Niklon and his personal giant robot, which is also the control center for all the other robots. The destruction of the giant robot by Nomad and Spock stops Niklon’s control and he is taken into custody. The Enterprise crew leaves Nomad to work on rebuilding Paradise but avoiding the mistakes of the past. [Timeline: Stardate 1483.4]

The Enterprise Mutiny (author unknown)

Sensor readings had shown valuable ore deposits on the uninhabited world of Beta II, but an investigation of the surface is revealing nothing, so the landing party splits into two to cover more ground. Kirk and two crewmen form one team and Spock, and two other crewmen form the second. Then Scotty calls Spock to say that Starfleet is trying to contact Kirk, but Kirk isn’t

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responding to calls. Spock’s team search for him and find a massive Betasaur that had rendered Kirk unconscious and killed the two security guards. After killing the monster, they recover Kirk and beam back to the Enterprise. Although injured, Kirk insists on taking the call from Starfleet, and they are instructed to pick up the Omegan ambassador from Star Base 6 and deliver him as quickly and efficiently as possible to his home system. The inhabitants of the system are debating whether to join the Federation or the Klingons, and Starfleet wants Kirk to impress the ambassador. However, presumably because of the injury, Kirk becomes increasingly paranoid, then starts attacking crewmembers and finally escapes on a shuttle as Spock and McCoy try to relieve Kirk of command. The ambassador is far from impressed, but Spock says that Kirk had done exactly what he hoped. They trace the shuttle back to Beta II where they find that a Klingon team had faked the ore readings, then taken the real Kirk captive and substituted their own look-alike. A Starfleet team takes the Klingon team captive, but the fake Kirk escapes and the real Kirk goes after him, followed by Spock. Spock finds two identical Kirks fighting, and it is only when one of them tells Spock to kill the other that Spock knows who to stun, because the real Kirk wouldn’t say that. The ambassador is now impressed by the Federation. [Timeline: Stardate 1841.2]

The Museum at the End of Time (author unknown) The Enterprise is chasing a Klingon vessel in Federation space when they get caught in a cosmic vortex. They carry out a slingshot maneuver that gets them out of the vortex, but into an unknown region where they encounter the Museum of Missing Ships. The Curator explains that the building and the surrounding land had been blasted out and into this region beyond time and space (which he calls Limbo) when a comet had destroyed his homeworld, Krugar III. There is apparently no escape from the region, and it has become ‘home’ to the astronauts from many lost spaceships from many planets. Then the Klingons arrive and initially take Kirk, Spock, and McCoy captive, but they are freed by the Curator’s ‘bodyguard/pet’ named Hilliard, and they beam back to the Enterprise, then the Curator and most of the lost astronauts also get beamed up. They are then armed with phasers and, with Spock’s help, overcome the Klingons and force a truce. Spock has discovered that Limbo is dying, but that there is a way to escape using the combined power of the Klingon ship and the Enterprise. The Klingon commander agrees, and the combined power creates an opening to real space, but the Curator and the astronauts opt to remain and face their deaths, rather than become museum pieces. [Timeline: Stardate 2453.2]

Day of the Inquisitor (author unknown)

Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, and Public Relations Officer Claire are returning by shuttle from a diplomatic mission at Tarsus IV when the shuttle malfunctions as it is hit by a meteor swarm and knocked off course. They crashland on a forested planet, with the shuttle inoperable, and the radio is in need of repair, so they set out to try and find the medieval city run by inquisitors. They rescue a man, Corben, from the inquisitors and he tells them of a rebel group based just outside the city, but before they can try finding them, they see the inquisitors carrying in the radio equipment from the shuttle. While Kirk and McCoy go to meet up with the rebels, Spock, Sulu and Claire break into the Inquisitors’ castle but get captured. Spock is tortured to try and get him to explain what their “devil equipment” does. He resists telling them anything until they threaten Claire. However, that gives him the opportunity to use the inquisitors’ tools to work on repairs to the radio. He gets it working just as Kirk, McCoy and the rebels arrive to take control of the situation. The Enterprise had been ordered to abandon the search for the missing crew because of

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an emergency in the Sigma Quadrant, but Scotty had delayed leaving and was available to respond to Kirk’s call and beam them up. [Timeline: Stardate 4325.2]

The Cosmic Cavemen (author unknown)

The Enterprise discovers the planet Neesan which has intelligent humanoids who are still at the level of stone-age development. After mentioning the implications of the Prime Directive, Kirk, McCoy and Scotty immediately beam down without disguises or security personnel. They are almost instantly taken captive, discovering that the tribe’s leader is a very attractive woman named Lok, who is also telepathic and Scotty falls for her. Nevertheless, the three of them are sentenced to death for “defiling the sacred ground of Unruho” who they find is represented by statue of Spock. Their lives are saved by Spock beaming down to find out what had happened to the team, and the tribe (the Tol) taking him to be an appearance of Unruho. Scotty and Lok are together in the forest when they observe that a neighboring warlike tribe, the Kovar, are preparing to attack. Because of concern for the Prime Directive, the Starfleet team beam back to the Enterprise, only to realize that Lok had stolen Scotty’s phaser. So, Kirk and Scotty beam down to recover it, which they succeed in doing, but then find themselves in the middle of the fight between the Tol and the Kovar. Spock realizes that Lok must have picked up on a mental cry he put out early in his Starfleet career when he had been under attack by a massive purple creature, and that’s how his statue was there. Spock beams down again, although the leader of the Kovars doesn’t initially believe he’s a god and attacks him. Using the transporter, Spock vanishes from the point of attack and reappears close by, and he repeats that trick a couple more times until the Kovar make their leader accept that “Unruho” is real. That leads to the two tribes making a peace agreement and combine their tribes. Kirk and the others beam back to the Enterprise, content that they didn’t break the Prime Directive more than usual. [Timeline: Stardate 1923.3]

The Hijacked Planet (author unknown)

The planet Styra is in imminent danger from its erupting star, but a secret research project has developed a technique for storing information of objects and living beings while removing the energy and mass. The plan is to reduce the whole planet and all on it and contain it in a small spherical container, representing the planet, while the Enterprise takes it to its new home and restores it. Before that happens, the Enterprise (and specifically Spock) rescues a woman, named Allura, from a small spaceship not designed for deep space. She said she had been working for an unscrupulous second-rate entertainer named Anzar, and she had finally had enough and escaped. However, while transporting the reduced planet, the Enterprise comes under attack from another spacecraft and, with Allura’s help, the container with Styra is stolen. The hijacking had been carried out by Anzar (Allura’s brother) who demands 100 million credits for the safe return of the planet. Using the same reduction/restoration technique, the Enterprise crew are able to spring a trap on Anzar, and he gets sent for psychological evaluation and treatment. Allura had helped with the recovery of the hijacked planet, so she gets let off. [Timeline: Stardate 3248.6]

The Haunted Asteroid (author unknown)

The Enterprise takes Dr. Krisp to investigate the asteroid known as Mila XA. It had been fashioned as a mausoleum in memory of Princess Saeena who had died of poison on the night of her wedding to Emperor Muro III. Muro had utilized 20,000 robots to create the mausoleum, and hundreds of people had, over the centuries, tried to raid it for its treasures, but most had never

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been heard of again except for a couple who had gone insane and spoke of ghosts. Kirk leads a team that includes Spock, Sulu, Scotty, and (at her insistence) Krisp. They encounter what appears to be a massive ghost of Saeena, but it vanishes under phaser fire. Then Spock, Scotty and Sulu are captured, and they are soon followed by Kirk and Krisp. Kirk and Krisp escape and free the others, then find an elevator down into the depths of the asteroid. There they find a massive computer maintaining the planet and creating the illusions, and they also find the ancient Saeena still alive. She had been found to be nearly immortal, so her death was faked, and the asteroid had been converted as a place for her to live and avoid being a curiosity. Muro had joined her a few years later after faking his own death but had died centuries ago. The treasure seekers that had not been scared away by the illusions had been captured and ‘allowed’ to live out their lives there. That is supposed to be the fate of Kirk’s team, until Saeena finally dies, at which point the asteroid is programmed to explode. But the team does manage to escape, despite Krisp’s fears, and the asteroid is seen to destroy itself as the Enterprise warps away. [Timeline: Stardate 2492.5]

A World Gone Mad (author unknown)

Enterprise is tasked to return Crown Prince Raviki to his home plant that has been ruled by General Vlas since Raviki’s father’s death three years previous. Scotty ends up as the pesky kid’s attendant, which is far from his favorite task. Arriving at the planet, two attempts on Raviki’s life occur, and Vlas says that he needs Raviki to authorize him to implement martial law, and Raviki initially agrees. Spock tries to talk Raviki out of it, because he’s seen things that indicate some form of madness coming over people, rather than a thought-out rebellion, and an attempt on Ravili’s life by his own sister finally convinces him of the madness idea. That leads to Vlas himself staging a rebellion and rousing up the crowd against Raviki. Meanwhile, Spock and Kirk have determined that the cause of the madness was most likely due to gasses from Sanduy’s Comet that had made a very close pass of the planet recently, and McCoy and Scotty are sent to obtain samples of the gas and find an antidote. Despite McCoy getting infected, they do achieve that. On the planet, Raviki, Kirk and Spock are trapped in a burning building by the crowd, which is egged on by Vlas, but Raviki goes out unarmed to tell the crowd he is only there to do what is good for his world. At that point, Scotty arrives in a shuttle to spray the antidote over the crowd. Raviki would like to reward Scotty by making him a baron or a duke, but Scotty turns it down, quoting his duty to Starfleet. [Timeline: Stardate 3247.2]

The Mummies of Heitius VII (author unknown)

The Enterprise is sent to collect a 10,000-year-old mummy that that has been discovered at the archaeological dig led by Dr. Stephen Mohr on Heitius VII. They are to take it to a Federation alien life studies institute, and they are accompanied by famed archaeologist Dr. Moria Starr. She accompanies the mummy as it is taken to the Enterprise, while Spock, McCoy, and two security guards take a tour of the dig, accompanied by Mohr. On the Enterprise, Starr goes to read some ancient manuscripts found at the site while the mummy is kept under guard. But the mummy releases itself from its transparent sarcophagus, renders the two guards unconscious, gains access to the ship’s computer, programs it to take the them all at hyper-warp speed to a new destination, and returns itself to the sarcophagus. On the planet, three other mummies are discovered, and they awake and start trying to convert the humans to cyborgs. Spock finally works out how to disable these mummies, but they then discover that the Enterprise has left orbit. Starr had read that Heitius VII had been a dying planet that had sworn off technology because that had caused

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their problems. But the science minister and his associates had forcibly converted the king to a cyborg, hoping to force him to lead his people in a mass exodus to a new planet, but the people had revolted and entombed the king and members of the science ministry who were also cyborgs. The mummy aboard the Enterprise was the king and, despite Starr’s protests, Kirk and Scotty are able to short-circuit it and regain control of the Enterprise, just before it crosses into Romulan space where a ship was waiting to destroy them. All four mummies, accompanied by Starr, are delivered safely to the alien life studies institute, while the Enterprise heads to the nearest Federation port for repairs, and the crew for shore-leave. [Timeline: Stardate 3026.5]

Siege in Superspace (author unknown)

When a neutron star suddenly collapses into a black hole, the Enterprise gets sucked into and through it, and they find themselves in what Spock calls Superspace, a space beyond our universe. They are orbiting a planet with a breathable atmosphere, so Kirk, McCoy and Uhura beam down while Spock and Scotty work on repairing the Enterprise after its rough trip. Kirk’s team encounter a lady, Rhuna, being chased by a massive “vegetable man” that finally succumbs to the combined power of Kirk’s and McCoy’s phasers. Apparently, the inhabitants of the planet had built a super weapon to defend themselves but, when it gets activated by an alien attack, it ends up attacking those who built it, and the survivors move below ground to hide from it. Later, the weapon is destroyed but its mind module survives and uses the plant-life to create the “vegetable men” to be its armed force. Rhuna had been part of team that had been investigating if the surface was now inhabitable, but Rhuna ended up as the sole survivor after they were attacked. Her lover had been one of those fatally injured, and his parting gift was a bracelet made up of trinkets that he’d found. Rhuna and Kirk’s team have to shelter in the underground city, which had previously been safe from the vegetable men, but now comes under attack. It looks as if the vegetable men will wipe them out until Kirk notices the bracelet glowing brightly. Turns out that one of the trinkets was the mind module and, once that’s disabled, the vegetable men collapse. Spock had noticed that a nearby star was about to go nova, and the mind module comes in useful here. The energy it contains is sufficient to turn the nova into a black hole that sends Enterprise back to its own universe, as Rhuna and the other survivors start to rebuild their world. [Timeline: Stardate 3624.3]

Child’s Play (author unknown)

The Enterprise receives an emergency call from the planet Argylus. Getting no response to their reply, a team consisting of Kirk, Scotty, Sulu, and Nurse Chapel beam down and initially encounter and get taken captive by mechanical gladiators who take them to King Simon, who is a young boy. They discover that a disease had killed off all the adults and it is still active, so the people there never live beyond age 13, plus Kirk and his team are now infected and only have five days to live unless they can find a cure. McCoy and Spock check out the symptoms and identify the virus, but the cure requires a rare herb, Genitum Lars, and the closest source is the planet Ominnus that is two days travel away, so they set out immediately. On the planet, Nurse Chapel tries finding an alternative cure, but to no avail, and then King Simon’s palace is invaded by followers of Warlord Yago, and they are all taken captive again. Yago says that Simon only wanted the cure for himself and, if they don’t hand over the cure, Kirk’s team will be executed before the five days are up. With the five days nearly up and Sulu starting to collapse from the virus, Kirk’s team stages an escape, only to find that it had all been a game that Yago’s people had played to amuse themselves during their short lives. The Enterprise arrives back after a

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successful mission despite having to avoid a collision with an asteroid and fight off natives on Ominnus. The antidote is administered to Sulu first, then to the rest, and Kirk promises Simon that the Federation will supply sufficient antidote to cure all on the planet. [Timeline: Stardate 1723.4]

The Trial of Captain Kirk (author unknown)

The Enterprise is given a mission of tracking down a pirate mining operation in the Ferrous-asteroid belt, because the removal of so much mass can potentially affect the orbits of inhabited planets. They accidentally discover a spaceship disguised as an asteroid, but the only way they can stop it is by destroying it. Then Kirk gets called back to Earth and is accused of collaborating to protect the mining operation, the evidence being a deposit of seven million credits in his account and video evidence of him meeting with the self-confessed boss of the pirate miners, Liji Bragg. The court Chairman, Vice-Chairman Fado, and Vice Chairman Hajara announce that he will face court martial and is confined to Earth in the meantime. Against Kirk’s orders, Spock and McCoy take the Enterprise back to the Ferrous-asteroid belt to find evidence to vindicate Kirk. They encounter another camouflaged ship that, while escaping, fires a missile at the planet Kibo, which has an atmosphere deadly to humanoid life. They make use of cerebots to visit the planet and recover the missile, and it contains records of the pirate’s organization. Meanwhile, Kirk has a friendly doctor alter his appearance, and he then arranges to get information from Fado’s secretary by causing an elevator with the two of them in it to freefall down the face of a building but have its emergency system bring them safely to a stop at the bottom. The information he gains implicates Fado and says the video evidence was prepared by an amateur named Nuri Jakarz. Breaking into Jakarz’s building, Kirk discovers that Jakarz is actually a special effects artist. He is confronted by Jakarz but talks his way out only to be confronted by Hajara, the real person behind Kirk’s framing. Jakarz’s models end up wrecked, but Kirk is able to overpower Hajara, and the evidence collected by Kirk, Spock and McCoy all points the finger at Hajara, so Kirk is released. Fado’s secretary says she has set aside the whole day so that Kirk can make amends for the trick he played on her, and he doesn’t seem to be too put out by that. [Timeline: Stardate 1926.2]

Dwarf Planet (author unknown)

The Enterprise receives a call for help from a planet, so Kirk, Spock and Uhura fly down to investigate. They find a city that has been abandoned, then another that is miniaturized, as if it were made of dolls houses. Then they split up, with Kirk going in one direction and Spock and Uhura in another. Kirk sees what, to him, is a toy rocket, but soon he is under attack by a flotilla of them and he is brought down by a series of bolas fired by the rockets. He finds himself taken captive by miniature soldiers led by General Kwy and brought before the tiny people’s lady president. Kirk also discovered that Spock and Uhura had been taken captive. The president says that they started shrinking after an eruption from their star, and it is assumed that some special radiation has caused this continuing shrinkage. While Uhura is held hostage on the planet, the Enterprise goes to investigate the star’s rays, which results in Scotty rapidly shrinking. The actions of two miniature soldiers, that Kwy had smuggled aboard, result in Scotty having to battle a bacterium that to him is a giant monster. But an antidote ray is quickly discovered, Scotty is restored to normal size, and the Enterprise returns to inform the president of their discovery and promise Federation help in ensuring that everyone is restored to normal. The

 

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queen promises that General Kwy will be punished by being the very last person restored. [Timeline: Stardate 1924.8]

The Perfect Dream (author unknown)

The Enterprise comes across a rogue planet (a planet traveling alone, not part of a solar system) that has a ring that acts as the planet’s sun. A team consisting of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, Chapel, and security officer Manning beam down and find a seemingly perfect world. But then they are attacked by wild cats, although they are saved by the natives of the planet who were like the Samurai, which intrigues Sulu. Kirk soon realizes that he’s only seeing six different faces and is not seeing any children, but the community seems to be idyllically peaceful with plenty for all. Spock goes off exploring, suspecting that the wild cats were protecting something, and he comes across a building separate from the others, which turns out to be a cloning facility run by Yamoto who sees the community he has built as being perfect. Spock also realizes that the planet is actually a spaceship, but then he is stunned by Yamoto who plans to clone him for his community. Kirk sees the dark side of the planet when members of the community are rounded up for thinking outside of their expected field. Oshino, who had been showing Kirk and the others around, is puzzled by their reaction to the executions but then she starts questioning what had happened. That leads to the Samurai Collectors being sent for her and for Kirk and the others because they were a disruptive element. At this point, Kirk’s team breaks free and Oshino leads them to the Palace of Life that she had been having flashes of memory about. She is furious to find that her whole life had been someone’s fantasy, and she goes after Yamoto while Kirk’s team, including Spock beam up. As the Enterprise departs the region, the whole planet/spaceship explodes, which is presumed to have been caused when Oshino confronted Yamoto with the phaser she took from Sulu. [Timeline: Stardate 3019.12]

Ice Journey (author unknown)

Enterprise is sent to carry out a population survey on the Federation world known as Floe I which had become an ice world. The survey team of Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Krisp (joined later by Uhura) are greeted by Amara and Sunaro who are from different parties but govern the planet together and are eager to point out how perfect their society is. The Enterprise team is surprised at how well and how quickly the natives had adapted to the changing climate, developing an outer shell like a turtle, to protect themselves from the cold, and able to shed the shell when they go inside. Spock and Krisp get overheard pondering how many adapted and whether the population is greatly reduced. Amara and Sunaro didn’t want that kind of information being known, so they take them captive, and they get put in with the rebellious “blues”. These had always been the subservient race, and none of them showed signs of adapting, because they hadn’t been given access to the serum that assisted the ruling “reds”. The blues who protested were put in a cell where they were effectively tortured until they die, while those who didn’t protest were kept as slaves. Kirk and Uhura were held by Amara and Sunaro and forced to prepare a fake report about how perfect everything was. Spock and Krisp learn of what has been happening, and they stage a breakout from the cell and free Kirk and Uhura. As civil war breaks out between the reds and blues, the team beam back to the Enterprise. Spock points out that their war is pointless because the planet is continuing its movement away from its star, so in a few days there won’t be power to make the serum or survive on the planet. The Federation could have helped them, but the reds hadn’t found it in themselves to admit that anything was wrong. [Timeline: Stardate 2027.3]

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The Mimicking Menace (author unknown)

Enterprise is investigating a rogue asteroid, Tactis II, that has a breathable atmosphere and a seemingly inactive volcano. No lifeforms can be detected from orbit, but then sensors pick up apparent movement on the surface, so a team consisting of Kirk, Spock, Lt. Calder, and two security personnel take the shuttle Galileo down, although it loses all power on landing. On the surface they see a duplicate of the Galileo and, while they are out on the surface, the volcano starts erupting and sending lava towards them. The two security guards are not far from the duplicate Galileo at that point, so Kirk orders them to shelter in it and fly it back to the Enterprise, while the others return to the Galileo which has lost its power. Galileo is pushed some distance by the lava, and when they stop and check on the other shuttle, they see it flying into the volcano. The security guards report that it has gone dormant again and they are checking it out. A little while later, the two guards are seen walking back down the volcano, but they are actually duplicates. As they approach, Kirk and the others see lights in a form reminiscent of a giant protein, and then Kirk and Calder get duplicated (Spock was in Galileo trying to work out what was happening). Scotty and McCoy beam down to check up why they haven’t been hearing from the team and find themselves being fired on by the Kirk and Calder duplicates, but they are reluctant to fire back on their captain. But then Spock calls from Galileo’s hatch, saying to stun them, which they do, and the four duplicates “dissolve” into the lava. That allows the real Kirk and Calder to recover. Spock has a video camera robot beamed down, which lets them get a good view of the inside of the volcano’s crater before it too gets copied. It returns to the team, who start to feel weak again. Spock now knows what is going on and he instructs the Enterprise to fire a negative ion beam into the volcano. That drains the creature that lives off energy and had been draining energy from the away team and the Galileo and duplicating them. Between Spock, Scotty and McCoy, the duplicates are stunned, and suddenly power is restored to the Galileo, but they realize that the robot is a duplicate, so they destroy that. The creature in the volcano will recover, but the Enterprise team are gone before that can happen. [Timeline: Stardate 3421.7]

Death of a Star (author unknown)

Enterprise is observing the death-throes of the star known as Isis, but then lifesigns are observed on the planet Isis III, so they head there and, with only 24 hours before the supernova, Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and Chapel beam down. They find themselves effectively herded to a ziggurat-style building, in which they find an ancient woman who calls herself Isis, although Kirk thinks she’s a ‘warp four loony’. They also find that their communicators don’t work. The lifesigns they had picked up were strong enough to indicate a substantial population, and Isis says that they had been there recently but indicates that they are now underground. Spock and Kirk conclude that the rest of the population had moved their civilization underground, and the discovery of a passageway indicates that to be correct. However, it is a derelict city that they find below ground, along with some telepathic history tapes that indicate that the population had been extinct for 25 million years. Spock still has trouble believing that Isis is the incarnation of the star, as she says, and she attempts to free Spock from his limitations. But while doing that, she builds up to an explosion, and Kirk’s team find themselves thankfully back on the Enterprise, and Kirk orders maximum warp. But it doesn’t seem to be enough, until they find that the ship is in a protected pocket of space. Spock confirms that he had learned that Isis was the star, and the star had been intelligent. [Timeline: Stardate 3333.3]

 

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The Final Truth (author unknown)

Spock arrives at the planet Quodar with the Enterprise for a celebration on their entry into the Federation, and they are greeted by T’Oell, Secretary of Affairs. Meanwhile, Kirk, Chekov, Chapel, and Manning ferry Admiral Tailen Kahn from a starbase by shuttle. Unfortunately, a cosmic storm causes the shuttle to crash on the planet Tristas, which they are pleased to find is covered by a 30-mile-deep layer of moss that cushions their landing. However, they are taken prisoner by the Ministry of Science, headed by Tonar, and told that they will spend the rest of their lives gathering moss to feed “the life within”. Spock learns from T’Oell that Quodar used to have friendly relations with Tristas, but Tristas had turned insular some time ago and now they don’t let anyone near the planet. Spock wants to launch a rescue mission, but Queen Aramar (herself half-Vulcan) refuses. Undeterred, Spock steals a starscout and sets out himself. By the time he arrived, Kirk’s team had freed themselves and confronted Tonar. From him they learn that the ministry had discovered that their planet was hollow and contained energy that was life in its most fundamental form, and the security measures were to protect that knowledge from getting out. Admiral Kahn accidentally falls into some of the energy and is a changed person but seems okay. They all are now able to join the festivities on Quodar. [Timeline: Stardate 2001.7]

The Animal People (author unknown)

Enterprise responds to a distress call from the planet Hercula where the population is being attacked by wild animals, although the Enterprise team of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy soon discover that the “animals” (known as Yerbas) are humanoid. While they are unable to speak verbally, they do have a sign language. Emperor Lidoro wants them exterminated, as does Colonel Mynota, but Lidoro’s son, General Jivi, is strongly against it. As a child, he had been captured by a pack of Yerba, but had been set free by a young one. Spock sneaks out at night to investigate the Yerbas and gets kidnapped by them, which lets him meet their female leader, Germal, who can speak. When they come under attack from Mynota’s forces, Germal is knocked unconscious and, while Spock carries her, she and Spock are nearly shot under Mynota’s orders until Kirk and McCoy physically intervene. Germal is brought before Lidoro, and Jivi recognizes her as the one who had saved him. That ends up with the Starfleet team, Germal, and Jivi all being imprisoned, where Kirk uses his authority as a starship captain to join Germal and Jivi in matrimony. When Lidoro learns of this, he decides to read the Scroll of Truth to them, which basically says that the Herculese were aliens who arrived at this planet and effectively enslaved the native stone-age peoples (the Yerbas) and made it law to remove their voice box as babies, so that they couldn’t speak. Mynota threatens to take over control when he learns of what the Emperor has done, but then they notice that Jivi and Germal had disappeared. Jivi and Germal were making a joint broadcast to the peoples on both sides, saying they were married but had both eaten the milk of the Nua thorn. Consequently, they die together on the broadcast. That joint sacrifice brings peace between the Herculese and the Yerbas, and the Enterprise leaves them to form a happier world. [Timeline: Stardate 1926.11]

The Psychocrystals (author unknown)

The planet Alpha 23-C is found to have what Spock describes as complicated crystals. Kirk, Scotty, and McCoy beam down and separate to cover more ground. Scotty finds a large crystal and intends to cut a piece off, but the crystal fires a laser beam that knocks the pick out of his hand. Looking more closely at it, in each facet he sees images related to his life and fears, until he gives out a scream fearing the crystal was trying to kill him. Kirk comes to his rescue and

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both of them dash to warn McCoy but find that he has been driven a bit mad by the images in a crystal that he’d found. A quick punch in the face from Kirk brings McCoy back to his usual senses, but they are then approached by a crystalline humanoid named Izor who accuses them of being kidnappers (the crystals were these people’s young) and takes them before their president. Kirk tries to plead their innocence, but they are sentenced to death, and Spock likewise when he beams down to find out what’s going on. Then the crystal people come under attack from a crystalline dragon, a Slourda, which gets driven off by means of spears. Spock asks why they didn’t use their laser beams and is told that the beams are driven by their thoughts, and the Slourda had grown immune to them. Kirk then comes up with a plan that involves the mind-reading crystal young reading Spock’s mind so that the young crystal can fire scientific thoughts at an attacking Slourda. The crystal people were musicians and poets and scorned science, and their adults could only read each other’s minds, not the humans. That plan works. The Starfleet team are pardoned, and the crystal people are given science books to help them keep the Slourda at bay. [Timeline: Stardate 1927.4]

A Bomb in Time (author unknown)

Enterprise visits Research Satellite 5, a research facility run by Dr. Steckler. Then Dr. Lax, in charge of the time-study lab, is found murdered but, before he dies, he mentions something about needing to find the bomb. Steckler realizes it must be the N-cycle bomb that Dr. Andres was working on, and then Andres is discovered to have disappeared. A taped message is also found, in which Dr. Njam demands one billion F.P. credits be deposited to his account, or the N-bomb will be used to destroy Earth at some point in the past. From the way the dials had been set by Lax in the time lab, they realize that Andres must have taken the bomb to southern California in either 1855 or 1955 on April 3. Scotty is sent to 1855 where he has an encounter with the Clancey Gang, but not Andres. Kirk goes to 1955 and finds himself acting as a Hollywood stunt man and ends up in a chariot race down an LA freeway chasing Andres. Lax and Andres were actually trying to stop the development of the N-bomb but had been betrayed by Njam. Kirk tells Andres that this episode with the bomb will probably change the Federation’s mind about its development. Spock catches up with Njam. [Timeline: Stardate 1025.9]

One of Our Captains is Missing (author unknown) Orders come through that Kirk is being temporarily relieved of command, a new captain, Zarlo, is arriving soon and Kirk will be taken to his next assignment by the same ship that delivers Zarlo. Kirk’s assignment is to go undercover on the planet Mobita to assist the Mobians in finding out what is happening with the Togotans. The Togotans had been a peaceful race, but they had been exploited by the Mobians and were now attacking the Mobians with weapons that would seem to be beyond their capability to produce. Starfleet believes that the Togotans are being supplied by the Klingons. Kirk is discovered and denounced as a spy, but he manages to sow doubts about the intentions of the Klingons in the mind of the Togotan’s chief, Mwipi. Kirk ends up battling the Klingon commander and gets the upper hand, but the Klingon calls his ship and orders them to destroy everything in that area of the forest, to remove evidence of their intervention. However, the Enterprise crew had nearly mutinied when they heard that Kirk was missing and, consequently, the Enterprise arrived to drive off the Klingon warship before it could carry out the commander’s order. Kirk brings the leaders of both sides together to work out a peace plan. Zarlo commends Kirk on the loyalty he had earned from his crew. [Timeline: Stardate 1929.13]

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Prophet of Peace (author unknown)

Enterprise retrieves a cryogenic coffin floating in space that contains the frozen body of Dr. Bleikoff, a famous scientist and peace advocate, who had been dying of a disease for which a cure is now available. Back on board, when Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty go to open the coffin there is a sudden electrical discharge, that Spock puts down to a buildup of static electricity over the centuries. But the revival goes well, and Kirk explains that Bleikoff will be taken to Earth for the official reception and interviews. Bleikoff asks for some time to anonymously explore his old home planet and, apart from Kirk’s immediate command team, the crew nearly mutiny when Kirk says he has to follow orders. Kirk does get a 5-day period approved where Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty can escort Bleikoff on a private tour of the planet. Bleikoff is rather impressed with the planet, but is put out by the globes that form the planet’s defense system or E.D.S. As Bleikoff addresses the issue, everyone except Kirk’s immediate team almost instantly agree with him, and the population seems intent on destroying the E.D.S. globes. Spock speculates that an alien civilization had discovered the body and substituted an electronic brain for his original one and made him capable of sending out radio hypnotic suggestions that make it seem that he had invented peace and love, and they should all follow him. A setup with an old X-ray security system has Bleikoff nearly panicking, and that seems to confirm Spock’s idea. Bleikoff is going to make a worldwide broadcast, and he has Kirk’s team put in protective custody (the electrical discharge from the coffin had made them immune to his hypnotic suggestions), but they escape, and Kirk confronts Bleikoff with a magnetic eraser disk that fries his computer brain and the world’s population is suddenly freed from his influence. [Timeline: Stardate 1806.9]

Furlough of Fury (author unknown)

Enterprise is damaged by an encounter with a cosmic storm, and it returns to Earth for repairs, which allows the crew to have shore leave. Scotty encounters “Red” Garvin who had been dismissed from the Enterprise after being found asleep while guarding the giant ruby known as the Great Eye of Ara, and the ruby had then been stolen and was still missing. Scotty disguises himself and overhears Garvin talking about his plans for boarding the Enterprise, but Scotty’s disguise wasn’t good enough and he’s captured and locked in a recycling facility. Kirk and McCoy meet up with McCoy’s daughter, Barbara, who is now a xenozoologist at Urey University. She takes delivery of a vrell, a massive creature that can read minds and transfer thoughts from one person to another, although not understanding the thoughts itself. Although considered dangerous, Barbara befriends it, and it ends up giving its life to save her when she nearly falls from a tower. Before it dies, it transfers a thought from Scotty to Kirk, which enables Kirk to confront Garvin on the Enterprise. He had been there to recover the ruby from an air duct in what had been his cabin, and then to hide a bomb there. Thanks to Scotty’s thought, Kirk is able to recover the ruby and locate the bomb before it went off. Garvin and his associates are taken into custody. [Timeline: Stardate 1925.9]

The Evictors (author unknown)

The Enterprise is at the planet Nraka for a celebration of its 10,000th year of recorded history but, during the festivities, a massive ship arrives in orbit and announces that they are the Sanoora and they have the appearance of Zotar, their race’s supposed founder. The people initially rejoice that their “god” has returned, but the message is that the Sanoora had left the planet 500,000 years

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previous because of a rogue star that would have soon threatened the planet, and they were now back to reclaim their old home. The Nrakans were told to evacuate and given a day to decide to go peacefully. Instead, their military leader, General Sja-Yo, launches an attack but the alien vessel has a shield that the Nrakan weapons cannot penetrate. Although Spock speculates that the Nrakan might be mutated descendants of the Sanoora who got left behind, the main thought is that the aliens are space pirates who had learned of the Nrakans’ legends and were exploiting them. Then the Enterprise itself comes under attack and Spock offers to adapt the Nrakan’s weapons so they can penetrate the alien ship’s shield. A concerted attack drives off the alien vessel. The Sanoora had earlier destroyed the remains of an ancient city as a demonstration of their power, and Spock joins in the study of the ruins. There he finds indications of a more ancient civilization, including a small statue of what looks like a Sanoora, so they are coming around to the idea that the Sanoora’s claims might have been valid. [Timeline: Stardate 1927.12]

World Against Time (author unknown)

Enterprise visits a newly discovered planet, Planet-137, and finds a city that had to have been populated by about 12-foot-tall humanoids, but all they find are some very large babies and children. One child (seemingly aged around 10) calls himself Wenomi, Emperor of the planet Oordon, and another, who calls himself Captain Bedo, threatens them with a crossbow-like weapon. A 10-foot-tall boy calls himself General Macador and says the aliens must die. Elya is a slightly older girl who has been looking after the others and is calmer and more logical. The away team of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty learn that an earthquake had exposed radioactive rocks in a sacred cave, and the radiation had spread and was de-aging them until they vanished. While McCoy beams back to the Enterprise to work on an antidote, Scotty and Spock go to try and block the radiation. Macador follows them, to stop them desecrating the Holy Cave of Nooaja. Unfortunately he was already very young, and he de-ages even quicker that close to the radiation source, and he vanishes before he can do any real harm. Spock and Scotty succeed, but they are young kids by the time they block the radiation source. Happily, McCoy arrives with the antidote and re-ages them. Elya refuses the full treatment for herself and the others, saying they need to re-age naturally as they learn to rebuild their world. [Timeline: Stardate 1929.06]

The World Beneath the Waves (author unknown) Kirk receives orders to meet up with a technical adviser who will have their new orders. The adviser turns out to be exobiologist Barbara McCoy, Dr. McCoy’s daughter, and their mission is to study the planet Bwuja. This planet used to be populated by surface dwellers, but it was observed that a glowing remnant from a supernova was heading their way, destroying all in its path, and the people developed artificial gills to help a large part of the population evacuate to the ocean depth until the danger was over. A mutation gave one child real gills, and over time that mutation spread through the population. The surface had been rendered uninhabitable by radioactivity, although that had now passed. But the priests blamed the sins of the “air breathers” for the destruction of their old civilization, so any child born without gills is sentenced to death. It also leads to the Enterprise team of Barbara, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy being sentenced to death by King Raan XIV and placed in an “air cell”. There, they find that the air breathing children had been similarly confined, rather than killed. There was a vertical tunnel to the surface, but a fierce mutant creature stopped most who tried escaping. Kirk and the others succeed in killing the creature and discover that some people had previously reached the surface, and their leader, Mighty Doro, was a young child. It turns out that the child was the son of King Raan who he

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thought had died. His wife, Queen Saya, realizing that the child was an air breather and thinking that Raan was actually killing them, had taken the baby to the surface. When the king learns that the surface dwellers occasionally had children who breathed via gills, he makes a pact to develop a joint society with the surface dwellers. [Timeline: Stardate 1926.03]

Prince Traitor (author unknown)

The Federation has been invited to attend an official reception on the planet Fayo, and Kirk, Spock, and Scotty are the ones to receive the honor. Although, seeing that things are not as peaceful on the planet as they’d been led to believe, they start to question the honor. They find that even Emperor Bavoda’s son, Prince Yano, questions his father’s actions against supporters of the rebel leader, Red Raven. Bavoda announces that Yano will leave with the Enterprise and join Starfleet, which was news to Yano. Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Yano beam up, except Spock doesn’t arrive. He had been captured by one of Red Raven’s supporters as ransom for Prince Yano. Yano beams himself down, and Spock is released, but then Kirk, Spock and Scotty beam down to find out what is going on. Turns out that Yano is Red Raven and wants to end Bavoda’s tyrannical reign (he’s known as Bavoda the Butcher to the rebels). They plan on going to see Bavoda, but they are ambushed by Colonel Lam who had realized that Yano was Red Raven and wants to “accidentally” kill him and the “skymen”. Spock beams back to the Enterprise to get some phasers, and that enables them to defeat Lam. When they see Bavoda, he is shocked by Lam’s actions and abdicates, crowning Yano and saying he’ll see how he actually handles things when in power. [Timeline: Stardate 1926.4]

Mr. Oracle (author unknown)

Spock notices a planet that seems to have a technologically advanced civilization on it, but whose sun is close to going nova, which will render the planet uninhabitable. Kirk, Spock, Scotty and McCoy beam down to the planet to investigate, but they get captured by a group of small stone-age-like humanoids and put in a primitive prison cell. Noting the number of steps in the flights of stone stairs they had come up, the numbers associated with an image carved in the rock face of the cell and the number of bars in their cell, Spock has them tap on particular cell bars. That opens up the back wall to reveal a ceremonial chamber occupied with non-caveman-like aliens. They meet one of the planet’s leaders, the Grand Riza, and learn that the cell was a test that Spock had passed, and he would become the new Wotam for when they relocate. The current Wotam was a giant computer containing all the knowledge of the planet, and it is what they request instructions from to do anything. They don’t learn anything themselves when they can just ask. Wotam had foreseen the nova and had spaceships prepared, but there was no room for the giant computer. It had told them how to build a unit that would use a special ray to enlarge someone’s brain in order to hold its total knowledge, and Spock agrees to go through with it. However, that knowledge makes him highly suspicious of Kirk’s motives, and has Kirk, McCoy and Scotty imprisoned again, but in a high-tech cell this time. Riza One (next in line to the Grand Riza) visits them, expressing his reservations about allowing Spock to become their leader. When Kirk gives Spock instructions as from a Starfleet Captain to a subordinate, it triggers something, and Spock comes to his senses. He also devises a technology-assisted mindmeld that would allow him to transfer Wotam’s total knowledge from him to three of the Rizas. The aliens were then able to evacuate their current planet and build a new home where they would learn to think for themselves. [Timeline: Stardate 2319.2]

 

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This Tree Bears Bitter Fruit (George Kashdan)

Enterprise encounters three objects resembling massive seed pods traveling together in space. They apparently each contain a creature of pure energy, which prove to be able to disrupt the Enterprise’s energy supply and, when they land on Beta Niobe III, to be very disruptive. Then these energy beings head back out into space, with Enterprise following. They arrive at a planet which has one tree reaching up into space, on which more of the pods are growing. They also meet up with Zhyopha who claims to be immortal and says that this was the first ever planet in the first ever universe, and that the energy creatures will take over the universe. Kirk challenges Zhyopha to allow him to face one of the energy creatures on a planet with no intelligent life. Zhyopha thinks Kirk has a death wish (as does McCoy) but he agrees to the challenge. Kirk initially has to fight off some native animal life, but then gets the energy being feasting on the creatures and plants, which only seems to make it hungrier. Kirk calls Zhyopha and requests that the remainder of the energy beings be sent down, and Zhyopha sees only problems for Kirk in that, so he agrees. The energy beings turn the planet into a barren desert, as Kirk keeps out of sight, and then the energy beings destroy each other. Zhyopha is put in the brig. [Timeline: Stardate 6732.4]

Murder on the Enterprise (Arnold Drake)

Kirk is delighted to be given the task of transporting an old friend of his, Prof. Patrick Moore from planet M317 (otherwise known as Moore’s Planet) to the Interstellar Geophysical Conference on Beta Aurigae III. He is accompanied by his assistant, William Terrens, and the Enterprise is also transporting Dr. Stoy Aaraka and Prof. Emilie Bowers, neither of whom could be labelled a fan of Dr. Moore. Kirk is rather surprised that Prof. Moore isn’t bringing a sample of the Tojufu tree that he was cultivating on the planet, but then Moore is found dead, and it is established that it was murder. Spock finds a corner of the title page from the paper that the professor had been expecting to present, clutched in Moore’s dead hand, revealing part of the paper’s title, but nothing else of the paper is found. To try flushing out the murderer, Kirk bluffs that he has a copy of the paper and will be presenting it at the conference. Apart from Spock being injured in a booby-trap set for Kirk, no other evidence emerges and Aaraka, Bowers, and Terrens are allowed down to Beta Aurigae III under guard. Spock ascertains that the title of the paper had been “Tojufu Trees, Discovery of an Unprecedented Communicating Plant Form”, meaning that the Tojufu had to be sentient. That implied that Terrens was the murderer, because he had been hoping to use them as a commercial product for their perfume. Terrens’ guilt seems to be confirmed when he escapes confinement. When Kirk is onstage to present Moore’s discovery, Terrens is concealed just offstage, ready with a phaser to make sure the presentation never happens, but a neck pinch from Spock thwarts those plans. [Timeline: Stardate 5716.4]

A Warp in Space (George Kashdan)

Enterprise is sent to try and find a fleet of experimental warp-15 craft that had gone missing on their test flight. That brings them close to Gamma Canaris N where Zephram Cochrane lived with Nancy Hedron who had merged with the gaseous creature known as the Companion. They seek his help as a warp-drive expert, and he does give Scotty a method to upgrade the Enterprise engines for warp 15, but the Companion leaves Hedron’s body and carries the Enterprise through a warp in space where they find the missing ships and other of the cloud creatures. Those creatures explain that it had been traveling at warp 15 that brought the experimental craft to them, but it had killed the crew. They will let Enterprise go, but say that the Companion must stay,

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which Kirk knows she would rather not. So, he gives Scotty ten minutes to upgrade the engines, and they exit at warp 15, happily being better equipped to allow the crew to survive. The Companion is returned to Cochrane and reenters the dying body of Hedron, reviving her. Kirk plans to get Starfleet to suspend their warp-15 experiments. [Timeline: Stardate 5803.6]

Planet of No Life (Arnold Drake)

Enterprise takes aboard Lt. Jinz, the son of a member of Starfleet High Command, and they expect him to be looking for special treatment. Instead, he admits to only being there because his father wanted him to, and he says he will leave as soon as his tour of duty ends. Enterprise is studying a planet that should not be able support advanced life for 700,000 years but shows signs of well-advanced life. Then they receive a message from the planet. The occupants are the Sanoora (see ‘The Evictors’ on page 76) who had settled there. The initial communication is from Inoduko, who seems eager for revenge on Kirk for interfering with their takeover of the planet Nraka. However, the Leader of the Council invites Kirk and one other to visit the planet, and they send up an antiradiation treatment to prepare them. Kirk takes Jinz with him, and they get a warm welcome from the Leader (who heads up the Builders), but Bir (the Minority Leader, and head of the Returners) is out to make an example of Kirk and stages a rebellion. McCoy has studied the antiradiation treatment and come up with an improved version and a treatment that will treat the soil so plants can grow. The Enterprise takes over the planet-wide communication system and tells the people of the advances and stages a demonstration of its effectiveness. The population turns against Bir, and Jinz (who had seemed to be siding with Bir) sacrifices his life to save Kirk when Bir goes to fire on him. The head of the Builders is restored to power and appreciates Kirk’s and the crew’s efforts on the planet’s behalf. Kirk prepares for the ceremony to honor Jinz’s sacrifice. [Timeline: Stardate 1928.7]

Destination Annihilation! (George Kashdan)

The Arimans occupy the planet Arima and the Mazdans are on the adjacent planet Mazda, and both races had been at war with one another until the Federation imposed peace on them. But now the prophecies of both races foretell of the appearance of their respective gods, and the Enterprise is sent to ensure that peace is maintained. En route, they rescue Prof. Whipple from the planet Quaraxus when another of his experiments goes wrong, and he’s still aboard and eyeing Scotty’s scientific tricorder when they arrive at the twin planets, Arima and Mazda. Kirk, McCoy and Spock beam down to meet the Ariman leaders, and Whipple tries converting the tricorder into a transporter and accidentally beams himself down onto the raised throne on Mazda. The Mazdans assume it is their god, Grolgar, and take it as a sign to attack the Arimans. Realizing his mistake, Whipple goes to beam himself back to the Enterprise but succeeds in making an appearance on the raised throne on Arima. With the Arimans now thinking their god, Vengwal, wants them to attack the Mazdans, Kirk has himself, McCoy, Spock, and Whipple beamed back to Enterprise. Trying to correct the consequences of his actions, Whipple steals a shuttle and tries to form a magnetic shield between the opposing fleets but instead causes the Mazdan ships to stick to the Ariman ships, and vice versa. Kirk tries to have Whipple beamed back, but the magnetic field causes Whipple to appear in space as a massive image, and his voice to be heard as radio messages on all the ships. His desperate mutterings are interpreted by both sides as instructions to create peace, and the Arimans and Mazdans set up a peace conference. An arrest warrant arrives for Whipple from the planet Quaraxus, but news of his involvement in solving a millennia-old conflict results in a pardon for him. [Timeline: Stardate 2604.4]

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And a Child Shall Lead Them (George Kashdan)

Enterprise is searching for black marketeers of tri-faxichologenic acid (TFA) when they come across an uncharted asteroid with a breathable atmosphere, so they check it out. They find the black marketeers (led by Pete Flamm) there, and they have enslaved the native caveman-like inhabitants by getting them addicted to the drug kurali, and they are using them to mine the TFA that is plentiful on the asteroid. At first it seemed an easy task to arrest Flamm and his cohorts, but then Kirk’s team comes under attack by a boy, named Klwama who is strong, agile, and immune to phaser shots. Kirk realizes that he will have to negotiate with Klwama, and they beam back to the Enterprise with him, where Kirk explains the situation from his side. When he finds that the TFA, that he had allowed Flamm’s men to mine, was vital to all life on the asteroid, Klwama agrees to help Kirk restore order. Flamm gets the drop on Kirk’s team, but Klwama literally drops onto Flamm and forces his surrender. They leave Klwama as leader of the natives, and they promise Federation help. Flamm and his men are taken into custody. [Timeline: Stardate 2811.5]

What Fools These Mortals Be … (George Kashdan) Enterprise goes to the rescue of the USS Pathfinder, but after driving off the attacking Klingon vessels, Enterprise finds itself caught in orbit around a previously unknown planet, and everyone except the command crew becomes extremely relaxed to the point of being lackadaisical. After establishing that there are lifeforms and a breathable atmosphere on the planet, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down, leaving Scotty in command. Turns out that there is a humanoid race living there, but the old Greek Gods had also set up home on the planet and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are forced to go through a reenactment of the voyage of Ulysses. However, phasers and knowledge of the hazards Ulysses encountered lets them get through the trials at a record pace. However, Zeus then starts using his powers to have fun at their expense. Having Scotty reconfigure the Enterprise technology a bit showed Zeus that he wasn’t going to get his way. Consequently, the gods decided to leave and find another planet to play with. The humanoids who had evolved on the first planet were now free to develop their own society, and the Federation would help them. [Timeline: Stardate 2901.1]

Sport of Knaves (George Kashdan)

A distress call is received from the wildlife refuge planet of Salvum and, arriving there, they observe a ship leaving the planet, but a tear that the ship causes in the planet’s protective shield is of more immediate concern than chasing the ship. Scotty and his team fix the tear, and Kirk discovers that three male Gharian Wedding Birds had been taken. It was nearing mating season, and at that time, and in the absence of the female birds, the males become very large and very vicious. Scotty suggests that the non-Federation world of Grotus might have stolen them for something like the barbaric “sport” of cockfighting. Kirk, Spock, and Scotty, all in disguise, land on Grotus using an old ship borrowed from the researchers on Salvum. However, their actions draw suspicion, and Scotty and Kirk are soon taken into custody. Scotty gets put in an arena with one of the stolen Wedding Birds, and Kirk is in the custody of the planets ‘big boss’, Zarcus-5, and forced to watch. Fortunately, Spock had remained free and, seeing what is happening, has the Enterprise beam down a female Wedding Bird into the arena. That causes the male, who was ready to tear Scotty to shreds, to reduce its size to normal and become docile as its attention became fixed on the female. That distraction enables Kirk to capture Zarcus-5. Recovering the

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other birds, they are all beamed back to the Enterprise, with the birds being returned to Salvum and Zarcus-5 facing Federation justice. [Timeline: Stardate 3004.8]

A World Against Itself! (Arnold Drake)

Bira 3 was a planet divided in two by a band of radioactive material, so two sentient races had developed, separated from each other. On one half was the Gardas, who were physically tall with very impressive telekinesis abilities that had meant they had found no need for technology. On the other half was the small-bodied Stoyaks who considered themselves brilliant scientists and had invented flying craft that could cross the radioactive band and had attacked the Gardas. For 200 years the battle had been a somewhat stalemate until both sides, supposedly, requested Federation help in reaching a settlement. Kirk has Spock and Scotty beam down to work with the Stoyaks and Garda respectively, except only the Gardas (led by Netuya) turn up to meet them. Then Stoyak craft arrive and start attacking. Spock, Scotty, and Netuya are taken captive by the Stoyaks and Spock and Scotty are subjected to a treatment that will supposedly raise both of their brains to the Stoyak level. It does make Scotty a science whiz, but Spock’s brain gets pushed beyond the limit, and he becomes an emotional person out for revenge. Spock and Netuya break out and rejoin the other Gardas, and Spock and Scotty become the leaders and sort-of gods of their respective sides, leading the fight against the others. Kirk goes to find out why he hadn’t heard from either, and he intervenes to prevent a battle. Realizing something had happened to the two, but unable to change them back, he proposes that Spock and Scotty have a hand-to-hand unarmed fight to settle the dispute, but the Great Uxorda (the Stoyaks’ leader) insists it be a fight to the death. Both Spock and Scotty take a bit of a beating, but that brings both to their senses, and they stop fighting. Seeing both of their ‘gods’ becoming friends makes the people of both sides insist that their leaders create a peaceful settlement. [Timeline: Stardate 7235.3]

No Time Like The Past (George Kashdan)

The planet Ooregon IV has the Enterprise track down their deposed dictator, Trengur, and they follow him to the planet of the Guardian of Forever. The Guardian gets Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to the right spot, which turns out to be 218 BC as Hannibal was crossing the Alps. However, they realize that Hannibal’s troops were headed back towards the Roman troops who ambushed them in the original timeline. When Kirk tries to deter Hannibal, Trengur (who is now a Hannibal’s aid-de-camp) denounces them to Hannibal. Hannibal’s troops rout the Romans, and happily Kirk and the others still had their phasers, so they escaped back through Guardian’s portal to see if things had changed. They find that the Enterprise is part of Earthfleet, because the Nazi-like planet Earth is a pariah to the other spacefaring planets. Kirk’s actions come under suspicion of Scotty, but the story is put out that Kirk had contracted Bubonic Plague, and Scotty has the three of them beamed back down before they infect the crew. They go through the portal, arriving about ten minutes before they had before, and this time they know where Trengur is. Consequently, they abduct him and drag him back through the portal. The timeline is now restored, and they return him to Ooregon IV. [Timeline: Stardate 3275.2]

Spore of the Devil (Arnold Drake)

The Enterprise arrives at the planet Jodarr for the coronation of Emperor Ledoy who had defeated the previous warring kings and united the planet. It is a medieval culture, and the landing party of Kirk, Spock, and Scotty are invited to a gladiatorial combat, but they leave after seeing one of the defeated kings, an old man, killed in a fight against the Gordoon (a flying

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dragon-like creature). Ledoy’s guard, Major Rolano, is assigned to escort them to their quarters, and they encounter Sylva, who loves Rolano but who Ledoy was now claiming as his bride. Rolano is then arrested and sentenced to death for touching the future queen. Kirk tries to plead for Rolano’s life, but Ledoy says he is being guided by the Great Vrunon, a wizard. Kirk suggests they go and ask Vrunon directly, and Ledoy agrees. Vrunon (appearing as an image of a head in a crystal block) confirms Ledoy’s pronouncement. Spock gets some readings suggesting Vrunon is an alien, and the three of them go back to see Vrunon that night. While Kirk talks to the image of the head, Spock and Scotty locate a trap door to a laboratory where Vrunon really is. He was actually an energy being who preferred to use a lizard-like body but had adopted a humanoid head for addressing Ledoy. He had been sent to the planet to bring peace, but his ship had been nearly destroyed by a meteorite just before arrival and he had landed in an escape pod with only some of the instructions he had originally been supplied with. He had also been getting violent headaches recently, which Spock finds is from some radio source, which is presumed to be coming from his crashed ship. Kirk is set to face the Gordoon to win Rolano’s life while, after fighting off a giant bear, Spock locates the ship’s remains and the source of Vrunon’s headaches. That had been a signal that he had overstayed his visit. Spock arrives in time to shoot the Gordoon with his phaser, and Vrunon now tells Ledoy that he should pardon Rolano, and he also says that he is leaving to return to his home planet in his recovered ship. Ledoy frees Sylva so that she can marry Rolano. [Timeline: Stardate 1929.51]

The Brain-Damaged Planet (George Kashdan)

The Enterprise finds a large asteroid with a breathable atmosphere and a humanoid civilization, but when a team including Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Freyer (a geologist) beam down, they find themselves in a town that shows areas of destruction. When Freyer samples a small bit of soil on his tongue, the natives that are with them are concerned. Sometime afterwards, the local population starts attacking them and each other, but they escape into a cave. Then Freyer draws a phaser on them, but they subdue him and beam up. McCoy finds that Freyer’s brain is infected with a virus, and when he tries to cultivate the virus, it grows massive. Spock’s analysis of the asteroid shows that it has a brain (about the size of four starships) inside it, and it is also affected by the virus. It is when the asteroid’s brain is particularly suffering from the virus that the natives become violent and destructive. This had been going on for the past 107.6 centuries. Despite Spock’s reservations in relation to the Prime Directive, Kirk, McCoy, and (at his own request) Freyer beam down to try and cure the brain, but they come under attack from giant antibodies that see the trio as an infection. McCoy is afraid that they won’t find where the viruses are before the antibodies get them, but Freyer senses the viruses and leads Kirk and McCoy to them. The treatment that McCoy had developed works and kills the viruses but, sadly, not before the viruses had killed Freyer. [Timeline: Stardate 3315.9]

To Err is Vulcan (Arnold Drake)

The Enterprise visits Njura to celebrate its ten years of peace, after its four colony worlds had rebelled and forced a peace and disarmament. Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down and are greeted by President Kring, and then they are taken on a tour of some of the planet’s facilities by Dr. M.H. Rdal, a very stylish lady. At the generator plant, Spock sees readings that indicate that two of the generators are about to go critical, and when Rdal doesn’t believe him, he shuts those two down. When he goes to show Rdal what the problem was, everything appears normal, and it seems as though he had switched two readings in his mind. The next stop is the weather station,

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and Spock announces that a hurricane is about to hit the city, but again it seems that he has misread the chart. Kirk orders Spock back to the Enterprise, and Rdal is too upset to continue the tour. Next day is the peace anniversary parade, and there is a flyby of aircraft that at one time would have been military craft but now are crop dusters. As a parade of large farm equipment goes by, they suddenly start melting, revealing tanks and similar military vehicles underneath. Kirk had actually sent Spock back to the Enterprise so he could use its sensors to work out what was happening. They knew that Kring was part of a plot to reconquer the colony worlds, but now that his scheme has been revealed by Spock planting thermal charges that melted the thin outer disguise of the vehicles, Kring plays the role of peacekeeper, condemning the plot. They had thought Spock might see through their scheme and had faked the readings to discredit him. Instead it gave him the freedom to unmask the plot and then sabotage the generator plant and the weather station, so the plotters wouldn’t have the capability of launching the attack. Kirk suspects everyone will be keeping a closer eye on what Kring is up to in future. [Timeline: Stardate 9126.1]

The Empire Man (John Warner)

Terrellian II is a planet that had been settled by the previously nomadic Terralyns, but now they have been coming under attack from a single, but formidable, individual in a powerful spacecraft, so the Enterprise is sent to assist. While visiting Minister Scorvik, a planetary leader, Kirk and McCoy see what Scorvik calls “The Ghost”, who appears as an attractive female floating in the air, and she apparently was warning them of an impending attack by the mystery spaceship and its occupant. After Spock tries to capture the ship with a tractor beam, it crashes on the planet. When a team from the Enterprise investigate the crash site, they come under attack from Zar-tan, the pilot and sole occupant of the crashed ship, who claims that the planet is his. It takes the combined efforts of two phasers on full power to stun him through his protective suit that seemed to be part of him. He was put in a maximum-security cell, but escapes. Happily, The Ghost had managed to beam herself up, and she merges with Spock in order to speak with Zar-tan. Millennia before, the planet had been occupied by a native race, but a deadly radiation cloud was approaching from space that would kill all animal life, but not plants. Unable to evacuate the planet in time, Zar-tan had been created as a cyborg with one cell from each of the planet’s occupants and sent into space, while the mental patterns of the population were transferred into plants. Unfortunately, Zar-tan had lost part of his programming, apart from the bit about returning after ample time for the radiation to dissipate. The plants that held the consciousnesses of the original inhabitants had had no way to communicate except through the image of The Ghost. The Ghost/Spock deactivates the cyborg Zar-tan because his only remaining role was to provide the “seed” cells to regenerate the bodies for the original inhabitants, Thelemites, of the planet previously known as Thelema. The Thelemites turn out to be very willing to share the planet with the Terralyns. [Timeline: Stardate 2314.6]