Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers #38: Orphans

Star Trek SCE (ebooks) Novellas #38

by Kevin Killiany

A colony ship careens out of control through space on the border between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. A joint rescue mission made up of both Klingon and Starfleet engineers is sent to investigate. But the S.C.E. team from the U.S.S. da Vinci and their Klingon counterparts soon find themselves with a more difficult problem than they realized. The colony isn't just out of control -- it's dying.

The inhabitants of the colony ship are a pre-industrial society that has no inkling of their deadly fate. Can Federation and Klingon engineers work together to save the colony ship from total destruction?

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction

ebook

First published April 21, 2004

Reviews

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 2 out of 5]

When someone writes fantasy into SF, they're already keeping me at a distance, and every time a chapter turned to the point of view of the feudal aliens - with all the cod-fantasy place, animal and character names - my eyes tended to glaze over. It didn't help that these were out of step with the S.C.E. narrative, apparently happening LATE in the story regardless of placement, and Killiany sometimes giving us time stamps in the local vernacular did NOT help with the time jumps. He just seems more interested in his guest characters than he is most of the regular crew. There are moments: Patti eventually gets lots to do, the da Vinci's chief engineer gets some play (it's weird how she's such a non-entity usually), and there's a good scene where the crew figures out why the birth rate has gone down. But they all lose a lot of ground to the otter-like locals and the Klingon engineer who, I would say, is the real hero of the novel. I respect the attempt at doing something different, but even the Starfleet perspectives are odd and partial - from blinded characters or ones slipping in and out of consciousness - and you get the feeling this was meant to be a longer book and that the writer took out entire chapters. Even the resolution is "told" rather than shown. Very messy.

[Julenew · Rating 4 out of 5]

it is always amusing to watch a Star Trek crew placed in a situation where they can't use yheir tech-gadgets to help them solve their mission or get out of whatever jam or catastrophy they have managed to stumble into.

[Dallas Vinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book, but seemed to bounce around a lot. had trouble following the continuity at times. it was like there were huge sections of the story left edit, like a VERY poor editor just went through it with a Bat'leth.

[John Barclay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read with a bit of a slow start. I would have liked this to be a longer story, there were so many ideas that didn't get fully fleshed out. Still, an interesting idea, well presented.