Star Trek: Grand Designs

Star Trek SCE (ebooks) Novellas #39

by Dayton Ward

Tensions between two planets in the Rhaax system have abated to the point where the sides have agreed to disarmament. The S.C.E. crew on the U.S.S. da Vinci is sent along with a Federation diplomat to act as weapons inspectors to make sure that the terms of the cease-fire and disarmament are followed.
But soon the S.C.E. learns that neither side has any intention of truly disarming -- and then Tev, P8 Blue, and Soloman are captured by one side. Captain Gold must find a way to rescue his crew, and keep the peace, before both planets explode!

Genres: Star Trek, Fiction

87 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

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

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been BEGGING for this and finally got it - a Captain Gold-focused story! And it very much is. This is the kind of political story usually afforded the television series, exactly because the captains are the leads. In S.C.E., the engineers are normally the leads and we therefore get a lot of technical problems and solutions. While there's some of that here - Soloman's computer skills and Gomez's knowledge of chemistry are integral - it's not the focus. Instead, we have Gold being very grumpy to be saddled with the (recurring) a-hole ambassador, to find his crew almost take part in a bar brawl, and at being kept out of the loop for so long. These writers know Harry Morgan was essentially "cast" as Captain Gold, and he's never felt more like the old M*A*S*H colonel. Like starring captains, he gets to make speeches and decisions. I like! In the same vein, Tav has a couple of strong social scenes, including one where it would seem Tellarite argumentation is a plus and not a minus. I will note that we haven't had a story THIS short in a while, leaving enough space for some scenes that happen behind the scenes to play out, at least in flashback.

[Joe Pranaitis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author's Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore bring us another adventure with the crew of the Federation starship U.S.S. da VInci as they are assigned to ferry an ambassador to a system on the edge of Romulan space. There they are to see if the primary planet there is ready to be accepted into the Federation, now this is post-Dominion War so the federation needs as many allies as they can get. Captain Gold even brings up to the ambassador that what he had done along the course of the novella was something akin to what happened with the Ba'Ku (Star Trek: Insurrection). This is a great short trek and I highly recommend it to every classic star trek fan. 

[John Barclay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun idea, well done but not very complex. Nice to see a return to the corps just solving problems and getting on with things. Also nice to see a bit of the buccaneer style from Cptn Gold.