Star Trek: Home Fires

Star Trek SCE (ebooks) Novellas #25

by Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore

In the wake of the catastrophic events of Wildfire, Domenica Corsi and Fabian Stevens take a much-needed vacation, visiting Corsi's family on Fahleena III. Corsi is not happy about the trip, as she and her father, the head of a cargo-running company, haven't spoken in over six years.
An engine failure during a routine cargo run leads Corsi to confront her father, who reveals the deadly secret of the death of Corsi's uncle in a shocking tale from the Cardassian War that will change how Corsi views her family -- and her relationship with Stevens -- forever!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks

71 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Dayton is a software developer, having become a slave to Corporate America after spending eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. When asked, he’ll tell you that he left home and joined the military soon after high school because he’d grown tired of people telling him what to do all the time.

Ask him sometime how well that worked out.

In addition to the numerous credits he shares with friend and co-writer Kevin Dilmore, he is the author of the Star Trek novels In the Name of Honor and Open Secrets, the science fiction novels The Last World War and The Genesis Protocol, and short stories which have appeared in the first three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthologies, the Yard Dog Press anthology Houston, We’ve Got Bubbas, Kansas City Voices Magazine and the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with wife Michi and daughters Addison and Erin, Dayton is a Florida native and still maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Reviews

[Crystal Bensley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool Corsi centered story!

[Nicky2910 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star Trek: S. C. E.: #25 Home Fires by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore This is the first of the Wildfire-aftermath stories. It features Corsi, who along with Stevens, returns home and learns why her father has always been so biased against her joining Starfleet - because during the Cardassian war, Starfleet asked to install sensor equipment on his ship to spy on the Cardassians... What should have been a run of the mill-trade run turned into a standoff with Cardassians, and his brother, Corsi's uncle, had to pay for it.
 
This story deals with guilt, regret and prejudice (and of course, stupid mistakes which lead to tragedy). In the small-universe-syndrom one of the Starfleet operatives Aldo Corsi had to deal back then, was William Ross.
 
Corsi is doubting herself, because, while she was incapacitated, lots of her staff died on the daVinci, and Duffy had to make the ultimate sacrifice; and of course, Stevens just grieves for his best friend. Frankly, I'd have liked to see the focus more on Stevens instead of on Corsi, because I'd rather have seen a best friend deal with his very personal grief than stuck up, duty-bound Corsi deal with her professional regrets. I'm not saying that Corsi's grief doesn't come across as very real (and the background story about her father and uncle did touch me), but given the often stated relationship between Duffy and Stevens as best friends I think that not exploring that angle a wasted opportunity. There should have been more, even clichéd tears, whatever, but not just Stevens as a sidenote to shed some light on Corsi... especially not in this "aftermath"-situation.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wildfire was, in some ways, S.C.E.'s The Best of Both Worlds, and so it seems rather natural for the book series to give us its take on Family. Several of the next books will feature various crew members essentially waiting for the ship to be fixed, but in the case of Home Fires, it really IS Family. An officer feels estranged from their family, joining Starfleet was a contentious affair, and by the end, everyone has it out and there's a fair bit of blubbering. Neither Corsi is the type, so there's a big cathartic release there, but the final scene with her and Fabian had me going too. The reader has to grieve for Duffy too. Which is weird to say given all we got on television was his bullying Barclay. So it's kind of too bad we don't get MORE of Corsi and Stevens. Most of the book - and I do mean MOST - is given over to a story happening more than 20 years earlier, to people who either just met or don't know at all. Barring Ross, of course, a character I've never liked, and perhaps the authors share that opinion too. It's an interesting link forward, certainly, and helps ground the story in more than just Domenica Corsi's stakes, but we're still asked to care about things that are incredibly ancillary to the S.C.E. crew. Good Cardassian action, but I kept waiting for the narrative to cut back to the present day and it kept not happening. But those Corsi-Stevens scenes? Chef's kiss. When Fabian calls in a favor, and it's to sort YOUR shit out... let's just say I'm glad his departure was a fake out.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the terrible tragedy in the last couple of books, the security officer of the Da Vinci goes home to recover. Unfortunately, her father really does not like her choice of joining Starfleet. This is a decent story that adds a lot of background to a previously semi - 2 dimensional character. The flashback story is illuminating. A good read.

[De · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to follow up on an emotional roller coaster like Wildfire, but I applaud the effort. While I felt the ending was wrapped up a bit too neatly, the flashback to the beginnings of the Cardassian War was well conceived.

[Stephen Robertson · Rating 2 out of 5]

ok

[John Barclay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feels like a filler book. It's interesting to hear Corsi's back story a bit, but this is a short story and not a novel. The fallout from the disaster begins.